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Angst

The Heir by Sarablade [Reviews - 13]

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Thanks for the great reviews up to now. It's the Muse's only fuel, but how she craves it. Pathetic, really.
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The clock chimed nine.

He raised his eyes from his book by the library fire, his head still pounding from the aftermath of the night of fighting and Draco's antics and his own abysmal waking up, and listened to the hasty footsteps coming his way from the nursery floor, the creaks of the old planks. A timid knock… a minute of silence. Then another one, stronger, and another. He snorted viciously.

Let her wait.

He was still seething from the way she'd let him hang today, when he'd staggered up after barely five hours of uneasy rest at seven in the afternoon, his clock especially set so he could watch her come back, as he'd been doing everyday.

Almost a full hour he'd stood hidden behind his own curtains, looking into the deepening London night, waiting for the harlot to come home…- come in, it wasn't her home yet, he corrected himself viciously- by seven thirty as she'd been bid to. As she'd done, for the two weeks she'd been there, making haste towards the door, Emery on her hip and her face both red from the exertion and exhausted by a day of… of what?
He'd never stooped yet to following her, or to ask… Never bothered her with his presence, that she knew of at least. At least… That he knew she knew of …

She'd never given any sign she'd seen or felt him, during his long hours of surveillance by his peeping hole, the one-way mirror-cum-internal window between the nursery and the staircase leading to his private rooms.

He'd been hungrily watching them as she fed and bathed and tickled and hugged and dressed the baby, his head unconsciously straining closer to the glass when she breastfed, or when she began murmuring, her mouth to the small pink ear, just before the ungrateful brat went to sleep, both of them curled on the rug before the fire, both of them looking unbearably soft and snug and far away from him, her shorn hair growing again in small curls around her face. Never mind she got up again when the baby was asleep, her face tired but grim and determined, Scourgified the mess from the boy's meal after she'd eaten the leftovers, and turned back in earnest to the books and parchment she'd secured from Merlin knew where. She'd never approached him until now, never asked to be allowed in the library, where he'd all but camped for the first week, waiting for her to come in so he could tell her off.

But she'd Muffliatoed the nursery and the attending steps just minutes after he'd adjusted the house wards to admit her and Emery, and only from the incensed ramblings of his elf was there any indication another life form was present at his home.

From his staircase watches, too. From them he knew which books they preferred to read, and the delight of her smile when the small fingers scratched a favorite picture and the clumsy little lips tried to repeat the words of the stories… He knew how she petted and cooed him for every small thing he did, even as she was changing his soiled diapers, (usually by hand, not magically, as if the chipmunk could know the difference). He knew in his fraught heart the adoring looks the two shared for whole minutes, the tug-o'-war games with the pacifier ending in stupid giggles. He knew now, for the first time in his life, the intricacies of itsy-bitsy-spider, and the caresses and the tickles which worked to console the little spoilt beast when he was bawling. His gut twisted as he thought of her opening her shirt and comforting the little bastard with her... her milk. Always worked, that one.

He knew, oh how he knew his own feeling of abandonment, when she'd button up and leave the boy asleep on the floor, or when, each day, she'd take the chit to the cellar downstairs for a whole hour, and Snape'd be at a loss, trying to imagine what they were doing, but never stooping to enter that door, never stooping to ask or demand or beg for entrance in his own house, never stooping to let them know he knew where they were. Never that low… yet.

He'd never stooped to calling her to him, and having her make good on her… other undertakings, either, even when the terrible longing was keeping him awake until morning. That or another kind of nightmare, really. What was the difference?

Never answered the ingratiating little messages she'd sent through the elf every day...
The woman (as Polly called her) is saying she presenting her regards, and say she wishing to know whether she can be of any service. Ha. As if.

Let her wait.

And now she was knocking on his door. The familiar anger took hold of him again. He shouldn't have waited by the bloody window. He should just have set the wards back, and let her beg for entry when she finally deigned to show herself, adding insult to injury when she'd Apparated with the baby against his specific interdiction. Probably trying to make up for her tardiness, probably been busy f... whoever she spent her days with, since she wasn't getting any in his house. His mistake, again. But he'd correct it.

Let her wait.

He'd have called her to him anyway in a little while, when his head stopped pounding, when he felt up to facing her with the right mix of disdain and cruelty, calling her to task about the hour and the Apparating... and a few other things he'd been thinking about too much lately.

Let her wait.

But no. The impudent bleeding female actually pushed the door open, her mane of hair and wild eyes making her look like an old-time illustration of a witch, the kind they burned alive. Not before having had their fun, though…

"Sir, please, Sir… I'm sorry."

The breakfast he'd ordered from the elf when he reluctantly came to lay still untouched on the side table, except for the coffee pot and the Firewhisky flask, both empty. He flew the whole tray into the fire, and a few dishes scattered on the floor at her feet. She froze. "Did I send for you, Whore? Or did you just feel the need to tell me you'd been kind enough to come back… a full hour after your curfew?" In one smooth, menacing swoop he was up and pulling her by her hair away from the door, facing her, wedging her between the fireplace and the wall.

He held her there for what seemed like a long time, as his brain belatedly recorded his own move, and the angry tinge of red marring his vision. His hand, tangled in her curls, was pulling her head askew as his fearsome face pushed almost flush against hers.

She blinked. "Please, Sir, I need…"

"You need?" Was there no end to the gall of her? Two whole weeks in his house, eating his food, burning his coal, enjoying his shelter, and the first time she deigned to acknowledge his existence was to tell him she needed something? Reflexively his hand fisted in her hair as the Firewhisky fumes, the anger and the headache combined in one violent flash of pain and dizziness burning through his head, and he stumbled on the fallen teapot as he tried to steady himself, clumsily. They staggered together in an awkward embrace, hitting her head on the fireplace's marble top, and by the time they were stabilized he was practically spread out over her, pushing her against the wall, his hand still caught in her hair.

He felt her breath catch, saw despair and fear invade the rich mocha of her eyes. At the same time he noticed how yellow the whites were, how injected with blood. Her breath was foul, and her skin mottled with red and white patches. His cheek burned where it had touched hers.

He tightened yet again his grip on her hair, but the hold was solid now, stabilizing, meant to let him scrutinize her in an almost medical manner.

"Talk, Witch." He was in full control now, the confusion of whisky fumes, lack of sleep and idle fury washed away by adrenaline and the well-known feeling he was alone on the bridge again. "Look at me."

Her eyes were frightened yet, but a very subtle shift in them showed... trust. Trust and a kind of… of prayer? To him?

Is she completely lunatic? he thought. How can she…

"It's the baby, Sir. Oh please… The baby's very sick. He's been throwing up all evening, and he has convulsions now. The fever… I can't seem to take it down. Here, Sir, here!"

The last words she had shouted into the corridor, rushing after him as his long strides propelled him towards the nursery at dizzying speed. He turned on his heels and saw the pitifully small bundle of sick she'd deposited outside the library door when she'd risked the entrance. He took the child in his arms just as the small body was wracked with convulsions again, eyes rolling and all his six teeth chattering madly. Then it was over, and Emery just crumpled like a small badly stuffed rag doll, panting shallowly, all his body emptying in one disgusting whoosh. The man looked at the baby's mottled complexion, vacant eyes and at the sunken fontanel membranae on the delicate skull, opened the diaper to judge its content, passed a circumspect finger in the vomit spread upon the cute, daisy-embroidered bib. The stench was terrible. He carefully swiped his finger clean, both sides of his mouth pursed in concentration.

He rushed into the library again, feverishly throwing cushions around. A muttered curse, then, "Accio wand!" It came flying from the corridor, and Snape laid the small body on the sofa, bringing immediate ruin to the richly upholstered cushion, and began chanting and muttering spells. He turned to her, took in the suppliant eyes and the rest of her. "You too," he said between clenched teeth. Lie here."

"No, no, I'm fine, it's just the stress… the worry for..."

"Just the stress? You've let yourself get poisoned, you stupid hag, and you've let the boy catch it, too. Who in Hell admitted you as an Unspeakable? Beyond my understanding. Unable to guard your own … the simplest protection measures. Lie down, I say. Anyway you're falling. Polly!" He screamed, as he roughly pushed Hermione's stumbling form onto the sofa, near the baby.

Stomach pumping. Stasis. Stomach pumping. Scourgify. Open airways obstruction. Scourgify. Analysis. Accio potions. Accio quill. Airways. Write a list. Stasis. Stomach pumping. Scourgify. Divesto. Clothes in the fire. Shoes, too. Underwear. Secure fireplace from the room, protect from noxious fumes. Bubblehead, won't do to catch it if it's airborne. Gloves. Personal Scourgify, double strength. Ouch. Full-body protection. Noise? Baby. Spasm. Not breathing. Hold. Stasis. Convulsion. Jellify chest muscles. Move. Massage. Breathe!! Airways. Catch the !… Never mind. Scourgify. Pump. General diagnosis. For her, too. Not good. Detailed blood diagnosis. So. Digestive tract diagnosis. Worse. Stasis. Kidney check. Very small kidney check. F…, the boy was not going to make it unless… Kidney bypass. Kidney Heal. Scourgify. Stasis. Healer. Healer won't help. Can't trust. On my own. Scourgify. Airways. Window open, warming charm on the room. Calming spell for the convulsions. Hers too. Chest spasm on the woman. Open airways. Massage. Pump stomach. Scourgify… Blood. "Polly!"

The quill was writing away as he mentally dictated it a list of potions and salves, divided between two sheets of parchment. He added a few instruments, too, on the second sheet, all the time moving from one of the forms on the sofa to the other, checking the respiration, emptying their organism as much as he could from the poisonous elements, desperately trying to recognize the nature of the poison they'd ingested from the symptoms, seeing some signs and not wanting to believe in them.

Polly came in, her ears flapping in disarray, and immediately put a paw to her snout against the smell. "Take this," he ordered as he floated the parchments to her. "One. First sheet, you find them in my lab and bring them all here at once, with four buckets of warm water and blankets. Two. You go back to my lab and light all three fires, prepare the workbench for major brewing. Three. Second sheet, you Floo to Madam Pomfrey and tell her to make all haste, package and send all that's written there, no questions asked. Don't wait for her. Four. You come back immediately. Five. Take the containers that'll be on this table to Healer Chang at St. Mungo, or at her home. Tell her to take them personally to the lab and have them tested for organic and mineral poisons. Radioactivity, too. Forthwith. Maximum HAZMAT (1) protection measures. She's not to leave until she's got the answers, tell her to get somebody to take her watch if need be. Six. When she's in the lab you go back to Hogwarts and come back with whatever Pomfrey has prepared, and then you make the rounds again, one to six, in that order, to refresh and verify compliance. You tell Chang and Pomfrey if they only think of coming here I'll personally hex them into oblivion. If they ask questions tell them you don't know, only that it's critically important. Ministry scale. And not to talk about it. Hurry!"

"But, Master…"

"Hurry! And try to be in the room with us as little as you can." The elf flew away.


He went back to his grueling task, working against the clock to stabilize his patients' situation. The skin had begun to peel off around their mouths and eyes, and bloody discharge oozed… He racked his brain for the possible composition of the poison even as he feverously labored, always refusing to believe what his mind told him. After the elf had returned with the potions he had in his personal lab, he began carefully administering extracts and rubbing salves, all the time monitoring the life and wizarding signals, all the time trying to reconstruct the possible causes of such and such symptom and its evolution, all the time fighting the ghost of his own past. Sins of the fathers... but the boy wasn't even his son, yet.

She was floating in and out of consciousness, sizzling with fever and pain. At some point she raised her head and signaled for him to come closer. "I'm going under," she said. "But I'll be OK. Concentrate on the boy. If need be, call Molly to take care of him."

"You're even sicker than I thought. If you really believe your barging into my life and your disastrous negligence, where my son is concerned, will lead me to accept the Weasley woman as an impromptu ersatz live-in mother-in-law, I'll have to add hallucinations to the effects of the poison, when I publish my findings. Open your mouth."

He poured another potion into her, silently praying to whoever had never heard his prayers until today not to find himself, once again, faced with a surviving infant near its dead mother. Not this time.

It was a harrowing night and worse day, lightened only by the arrivals of the different packages from Pomfrey, by elf or owl, and by Chang's tests results, which confirmed his guess as to the poison's composition, and gave a very bleak prognostic as to the survival chances of the victims, based on the analysis of the first blood samples he'd taken. At least he knew what he was fighting against.

The poison analysis had only confirmed what he'd surmised at some point during the night. After all, he'd invented it, some time ago, or some very near version of it. But he did wonder at the choice of it, and at the swiftness and the sheer audacity of the aggressors. He'd reckoned he'd have at least a week before the attack, until Narcissa got her first payment.

And how stupid should you be, to give a poison, even if slightly modified, to its inventor? Wasn't it obvious he'd have the antidote? Or was it a kind of message? Sins of the fathers... Maybe not stupid. Maybe just arrogant...Oh Merlin no.

Actually, he reflected grimly, he hadn't had enough antidotes, nor the instruments to administer them. Without the supply from Poppy at least one of them would be dead by now, probably the girl. She'd absorbed the quasi-totality of it, and, probably guessing at some point what had happened, had begun Healing the boy, thereby depleting her own defenses even though she needed them acutely. They were both unconscious now, but stable, and he'd bet his own stasis charms contributed to keep them asleep. He looked around at the shambles of his library, grimaced, and Levitated them and the supplies he'd need to the nursery.

On the second day the blood samples showed a net amelioration, and he smiled grimly at yet another proof of his mastery, as attested by Chang's gushing accompanying letter. Really good at cleaning part of the huge world of mess I've created...

By the third evening the baby was detoxicated, if still very weak, and the nursery air safe to breathe. Snape took the time to run an Internet check in medical and biological sites concerning some poison-related points of interest, for which Wizarding science had no answer, and, prompted by Emery's incessant and very clear if inarticulate claims, the safety of letting him nurse.

Hermione was still fighting the poison, her Azkaban-wasted body, further weakened by her early efforts to Heal the boy, barely reacting even to the new batches of antidote and strengthening potion he'd just taken up from his lab. In her rare bouts of consciousness she'd been looking for the boy, and smiling weakly when she saw him quietly breathing in his cot, pale but evidently out of harm's way.

"Thank you, Sir," she whispered at one point from one of the two daybeds he'd conjured in the nursery. "I'm sorry."

"Silence." He busied himself with the potions and the bottles on the shelf he'd set up, his back to her. He knew that under the blankets she was only covered by an oversize button-down yellowing night shirt of his grandfather's, the kind going down to the knees. Then he gave her enough Sleeping Draught for a solid forty-eight hours, slipped a few drops into the kid's bottle, checked the wards, took off his boots and settled in the other sofa for the night, his wand at the ready.

A small imperious voice woke him up long before sunrise. "Up. Up. Ams. Mama. Mama. AHM." The boy was not so weak anymore, apparently, his small wobbling legs trying to hitch up his cot as his arms stuck out of it in Hermione's direction, all his face scrunched up in comical eager concentration.

From her half-coma Hermione stirred. She'd begun lactating again, and milk was staining her nightshirt... "Baby. I'm coming," she closed her eyes again, but with a deep frown between them, vaguely making getting-up motions and only getting her shirt and blanket to ride up her thighs.

From his own sofa Snape put her back to deep sleep with a spell, automatically covering her again. Then he woollenly levitated the milk-bottle back to the boy, barely opening his eyes. "Drink that and go back to sleep. Sharrup." He'd have to see about adjusting the Sleeping Draught potency for babies, some part of his brain chimed. Apparently he'd erred on the side of caution.

"NO." The bottle rattled on the floor. The boy could throw. "Mama. Mama. Am. Up."

"Suit yourself," sniggered the man, turning on the other side and pressing his face into the daybed's cushions. "I'm going back to sleep."

"NO." The cot rattled as it was intensely shaken. "Mama. Mama. Am. Up."

"I'll hex you," warned the man. Muffliato crossed his mind, together with an unclear memory of this very cot, and of screaming in total silence for dear life and somebody to take him up, and the entourage quietly going about their own things, smirking at his powerlessness. He tried to send the bottle again to the cot, with the same results.

In less than five minutes the fight was over. Snape levitated a still unconscious Hermione to her cot in the dressing-room, to Emery's vocal dismay, and padded in his socks to the baby.
"Shh," said the half-asleep man, "She'll make you sick again, and you'll prevent her from healing with your ruckus."
¬
The small face scrunched in a way he knew well from his hours behind the mirror. The brat was preparing for bawling.

"No," he hissed. Not that. "Wait." What did she do in such instances, when she was too tired to play? Took one of her breasts out. Not an option.

"You want a story?" He Accioed the favorite book.

"Ry," the boy said with official emphasis. He extended his small helpless arms again, raising his face to him expectantly. "Up."
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HAZMAT- hazardous materials- somehow I think the WWorld would also have that kind of procedures. This world is old-fashioned and doesn't bother with technology they don't need such as non-flying cars, but the good things (internet, e.g.) must perforce make their place in the WW. They even have a train, which did not exist until the nineteenth century. Did medieval students come all the way by Thestral carriages?

Please review up there on the top of the page... Please

2- If there was a doubt- if you're not a wizard, you don't leave a child asleep near a flame, chimney, or whatever can cause sparks. (Goes without saying and I hate preaching, but... just in case).


The Heir by Sarablade [Reviews - 13]

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