Chapter X

Severus Snape scowled. Firing his blood donor had been a bad idea. His blood lust had been steadily rising, and he would have to find someone else. He could always hire another prostitute, but during these last few years, he had grown to hate the idea. Stealing blood from any passerby was also an option, but not one he would consider, at least not for the time being.

He did not need the complication of his bloodlust at this time. Minerva had been pressuring him to reveal his existence and take over her position. He could not really see it, how the parents would entrust their kids to a school having a vampire as Headmaster. He had tried pointing out the impossibility of the plan to Minerva, but she insisted. She had even played the "Dumbledore would have wanted this" card. He ought to have corrected her misunderstanding that he could still feel anything, but unfortunately he would have been lying, at least as far as it concerned his feeling of guilt.

...

It was a rare quiet afternoon. Draco for once did not have to be at the office, while Astoria's Committee meeting had been cancelled. They were together in the study, Draco sitting in his favourite armchair and Astoria on the carpet between his legs, sucking his cock. His left hand was on her hair, encouraging her efforts, and he used his right hand to play with her left nipple. They were both so engrossed in their play that they missed the flames in the fireplace turning green and someone's following entrance. The floo network was warded, and there were only two persons who would had been allowed through: Draco and George Weasley. In this case it was the latter. He had looked for Draco in his office and had gotten worried when he wasn't there. He had often popped in unannounced during the last year, at first at the insistence of Astoria that she wanted him to feel at home. This was the first time, though, that he caught them in such a private moment. He turned crimson and quickly looked for floo powder in order to leave immediately, but was unable to locate it. He thought he would have to make his presence known, but the sight of them caught his attention.

The sight of them was riveting. His own cock filled inside his trousers. At that moment, Draco looked towards the fireplace and saw him. George saw him startle, but he did not otherwise react. Instead, he returned his attention to Astoria and quickened the pace in which he fucked her mouth. George watched, aroused and feeling guilty for it. At last he managed to locate the floo powder and left as silently as he had arrived.

Back in the study Draco smiled in satisfaction as he watched George's reaction and subsequent departure. Very soon, things would be manipulated as they should be. Meanwhile, he had a wife to take care of. With this thought, he pinched the nipple he had been teasing for some time now hard. She groaned but could not really squeal with his cock deep in her mouth.

...

Lily paced the room. Her latest potion was not working at all. Having graduated from Hogwarts only a couple of weeks previously, she was already working part time during the summer for a known potions firm. She had no idea why all of a sudden she could not complete this potion. She had made it more than a dozen times with her mentor during the past year, and it had always worked. She needed to deliver the potion to her boss as soon as possible. She would have to contact Severus Snape and ask for his assistance. She could not return to Hogwarts, at least not without a good excuse, or she would endanger his secret, but thankfully he had given her a means to contact him by owl.

She received a reply sooner than she expected. She frowned at the instructions included. She would have to go to the Forbidden Forest after sunset and wait with her eyes covered by a blindfold. The things she would do for a potion. Then it occurred to her that she was the youngest potions maker in Great Britain and, given the amount of money she was making, she surrendered to the idea that she would have to visit the Forbidden Forest.

...

Severus was not particularly worried that his bloodlust would affect him during the girl's visit. He would never harm a child or an innocent. He wondered at the difficult situation she must have found herself in to be forced to contact him so soon after she had graduated. He did not regret getting to know her when she was a first year, and he did not dislike the fact that he had turned her into an excellent student. He even felt proud that he had managed to turn her wild streak into something productive and that she had not turned out as unruly as her parents before her.

He located her easily in the Forbidden forest, but wasn't amused when he found out that she was peeking under the blindfold. He had quickly cast a blinding spell on her and told her that it served her well for disobeying his instructions. As he took her in his arms to take her to his lair, he realized she had curves, womanly curves. It did not matter. She was still an innocent.

He brought her to his home, the first human to have entered it since his Sire helped him built it. He removed the spell and waited.

"Good evening, Miss Potter. How can I be of help?" he asked mockingly.

Lily looked at him, angered at having been blinded but recognizing that he had every right.

"Hallo, you can't really blame me for trying to sidestep your instructions. The Forbidden Forest is a terrifying place to be. And I need help with the clarity potion. I suddenly cannot make it," she said.

His eyes lighted, and he listened to the beat of her blood pulsing through her body. There was only one reason the specific recipe for the potion would not work for her anymore.

"Who did you sleep with?" he asked and she paled at his enmity.

"Scorpius," she replied not even thinking of not replying.

"Damn you," he cursed her.

He did not really care who she had slept with. He cared very much though that she had slept with someone. She was no longer an innocent, and he was a very hungry vampire.

"I demand payment for my reply," he spat out.

"Okay," she replied carefully, suddenly weary of the beast before her.

"Give me your wrist," he ordered.

"You want my blood?" she asked, shocked and unsure.

"Yes!" he said, not adding that he would much prefer her blood and her body. He could no longer see the child that she had been before him, but saw instead the young delicious woman that could satisfy his needs.

He was not a monster though. He could restrain himself.

"Alright," she mumbled and gave him her wrist, closing her eyes.

He bit, and she shouted at the sharp pain. A moment later the pain became a numbed throb.

He gulped the red liquid like a starved man. He was careful to maintain control and indeed succeeded. When he was finished, he had Lily sit in a chair and explained to her all about virgins and potions. He even offered her an alternate recipe that would work for her now. When he blindfolded her to take her back to the surface, he advised her to drink a glass of orange juice.

Early the next morning Lily delivered the finished potion, cashed her payment and decided that a little bit of her blood was worth it, even as she shuddered at the image of the beast drinking from her wrist.

..............

"George flooed in the study yesterday. He saw us. He liked what he saw. How do you feel about it?" Draco asked his wife during breakfast and smirked at her reaction. It was not every day that his prim and proper wife sputtered her orange juice all over the expensive table cloth.

She recouped quickly.

"Since we are talking about indelicate subjects, how about you tell me now after twenty years of marriage what excites you with regards to our friend George?" she asked.

"Should I show you?"

"Do you want to?"

"Yes. It is time you knew everything," Draco said.

"Why now?"

"Because at long last the war is forgotten. It was never about the flesh, Astoria. It was about survivor's guilt and pain and sadness," Draco explained.

"I know," she whispered as they headed for the Pensieve, an old Malfoy heirloom, carefully hidden in a secret armoire.

...

Albus Severus closed the book before him. "Why did we choose to study healing?" he asked Scorpius.

"You didn't. I did and you just followed," Scorpius replied.

The same question had been asked a dozen times during the last year. How could Scorpius tell his best friend that it was so that he would prevent seeing in others the sadness he had seen in the Potters when Ginevra had lost her baby.

He always laughed at the question and had managed to avoid answering.

...

Astoria had been shocked. She had not recognized George in the angry young man who hated Draco with a passion and who wanted to make him pay for the sins of others. She had almost not recognized Draco in the bitter, arrogant young man who was so guilt ridden that he was ready to allow George anything to alleviate these suffocating feelings. Their couplings had been violent, and George had always been the aggressor. These were the first memories.

Then she had watched in the next few memories how there had been a fleeting caress here and there, a hint of care from George that he would not harm Draco. Then in later memories, there was an occasional hug and more talk between them, the first hints of a friendship.

Afterwards, three years after the end of the war, a first kiss, a thank you for helping me get over the past few years. Afterwards their relationship had been more friendship and less carnal, but she had watched as once or twice per year they would get physical, usually in connection with some difficulty or sad event.

Now that she had seen, she felt even stronger connected to her husband's best friend.

...

"It's time, Severus," Minerva said. The vampire looked far better than he had the previous week, and Minerva wondered at the change. Little did she know that it was due to the infusion of human blood.

Severus Snape would have liked to deny her request this time too. But the truth was that Minerva was dying and there was no appropriate successor.

"I will relent in informing the Minister of Magic of my continued existence for the time being," he offered.

"No, I want to hand you the reins now. It is too late to wait for them to get used to the idea of you being alive. If it is a fait accompli, they shall have a hard time overthrowing you. Otherwise they might never accept my request," Minerva explained, proving that she had listened to the points made by him during his previous visits.

"Very well," he replied.

Now all he had to do was find someone to donate blood frequently, so that he would not endanger his students. As he had the thought, he could not help but recall the sweetness of Lily Potter's blood.

...

Harry met with Kingsley in the same bar they had been meeting in for several years now.

He was already half inebriated. He had started drinking earlier, upon receipt of the court's decision to award Ginny the divorce she craved so much. It had taken more than a year, but she had her freedom now. She had already left the house, taking with her a good part of their savings.

"All I've ever wanted was a family," Harry told the other man.

"You have three kids," Kingsley offered.

"They are all grown up, living their own lives, and I return every night to an empty house," Harry mumbled.

Kingsley commiserated with him for a while but was then called to an urgent meeting, leaving Harry to continue his drinking alone.

...

Being a potions maker was boring. Without having any formal apprenticeship, she was only permitted to make specific potions without being supervised by a Master. She had earned some money this summer, but not as much as she would have liked. She could always ask her father for money, but she wanted to be independent. When her boss offered her a big bonus if she managed to make a volatile potion, under proper supervision of course, she decided that she could not miss the opportunity.

So she contacted Severus Snape once again. He sent her the same instructions, and this time she followed them to the letter.

She did not notice that he held her for a moment longer when he brought them to his home.

"How can I help you, Miss Potter?" he inquired sardonically, much in the same way he had the previous time.

Lily, however, noticed a difference in the way he looked at her, almost with anticipation.

She outlined the requirements for the potion.

"If you would be willing to make the same exchange as the last time," he said, and his fangs gleamed as he smirked.

Lily shuddered but thrust her arm to him.

"Such rashness," he commented, and she shivered as he ran a finger down the length of her arm. Just a moment later sharp fangs connected with her skin. This time she managed to hold back the scream. The sensation was somewhat different this time, the pain more numbed. It must have something to do with the feel of his tongue on her wrist, she mused as she waited for him to finish drinking from her.

Afterwards he helped her with the potion, and when it was bottled and stamped as valid, he invited her to stay for a bit and listen to a proposal he had to make.

"Do you plan to spend the rest of your life as a mediocre potions maker, or would you rather be a Potions Mistress?" he asked.

Lily looked at him sadly. She would have loved the second choice, but she had found out that she could not stomach working for any of the Masters who had asked her to after her successful making of Wolfsbane. She explained this and he smirked.

"How about becoming my apprentice?" he asked.

"You are not involved in any formal institution at this moment. Actually, as far as I know, I'm the only one who knows that you are alive," she commented pragmatically.

"You and Minerva, but this shall change soon. I'll be Hogwarts' headmaster starting next semester. And this is your one chance to become my apprentice," he said.

"What do you require in exchange?" she asked.

"It is a good thing you were a Slytherin and do not expect me to offer this opportunity to you for free," he stated. Then he added, "The same thing that you have willingly given me twice. Your blood."

The first time, she had thought that it had been worth the gain. She had even chosen this a second time. And yet she had had a couple of nightmares during the previous weeks, in which the same beast who had tasted her blood devoured her whole. She wondered if she could have it done to her on a frequent basis. Then, she contemplated that she had already spent seven years under the tutelage of this same beast, and yet he had never hurt her.

"I accept," she said simply.

...

Astoria moaned in her sleep. Ever since she had seen Draco's memories of his couplings with George, she had been having fantasies related to them. She dreamed of the restrained violence in George's handling and how it would be if it was directed towards her. Next to her Draco laid his wand back on his nightstand. A quick Legilimency in his wife's mind proved that everything went according to plan.

...

Albus Severus and Scorpius looked at the young girl lying in the hospital bed of the Childrens' Magical Maladies Unit. She had been left outside St. Mungo's with a note attached.

The contents of the note read, "I'm sorry. I can't help her. The potions do not work anymore. Please, do something for my baby." A small vial had been left with the child, containing a potion that was so much more advanced than current research that the Healers had been stunned. The young girl's only hope lay in finding the Potions Master who had brewed this so that he could make the required adjustments. Because even though the potion was so advanced it was still only a temporary relief and not a full cure.

That day watching the little girl, Scorpius decided that he would specialize in the healing of young children.

...

Notes: A thousand thanks to WriterMerrin!