That boy - Part 4 of 5 - fantasy fest '08 - REVISED
Title: That Boy - Part 4 of 5, probably Author: Tetsubinatu Rating: M because of the F-word Wordcount (this part): about 900 Pairing(s)/character(s): Snape/Lupin Challenge: Fantasy Fest 2008 Summary: Long-fic Challenge 25 -- Post-war, plausible survival scenario, established relationship (either new or long-standing). Somehow R finds out that Sirius left a child, and wants to adopt it. I like my S snarky, but not cruel. Any rating. Happy endings are best! :) Disclaimer: Not mine. Just for fun. Warnings: written in haste
As soon as he awoke, Severus embarked upon the first part of his plan: disproving the boy’s supposed parentage. The matter should be easy enough to settle, with only the slightest touch of illegality. Severus knew for a fact that there was a trunk full of Black’s possessions in the attic hidden under Remus’ mother’s things. Remus should never have been so careless as to assume that Severus would leave those boxes untouched just because they were out of sight and their existence had never been mentioned. Naturally Severus had checked the boxes thoroughly within the first week in which they had been stacked in the attic. Inside Black’s trunk was a tarnished silver-backed hairbrush set marked with the Heir’s Coat of Arms for the Black family and holding quite a quantity of dark wavy hair.
By mid-morning Severus had created the simplest of all geneticist’s tools, the Consanguinuity Potion. One drop of the child’s blood in it should clarify his relationship to Black once and for all. If the clear blue potion turned pearl grey then there was a relationship near enough to qualify as ‘of the same blood’ - first cousin, nephew or the like. A darker smoky grey meant a closer relationship, such as sibling, parent or son. Black would mean that the blood matched the original sample perfectly.
There were more complex potions which would provide more detailed data, but this was the easiest to create without specialised ingredients and the quickest by far. Now all he needed was a drop of the child’s blood.
* * *
Cuttle lived on the third floor of a rickety old building tucked behind a used furniture shop on the corner of Knockturn Alley and Fair Alley. Severus arrived wearing a nondescript glamour which would give anyone trying to sneak a peek underneath it a nasty shock and his lips twisted in amusement when a beggar lurking in the shadows near the entrance to the building suddenly swore and limped away with painful pustules on the soles of his feet. His amusement warmed him all the way up the rickety stairs.
He told Cuttle he wanted to get a message to MacIvoy in Azkaban, and when the details of that transaction were settled Severus added a casual request for a recommendation of a reliable purveyor of blood for potions. He allowed Cuttle to narrow the specifications to a virgin child under the age of ten with grey eyes before the man suggested his nephew, and further haggling for the price ensued.
Severus had the vial by lunchtime, having personally supervised its filling. The brat was quieter under the eye of his uncle, but even filthier than he had been at Fortescue’s, when he had at least appeared to have clean hands. Severus had set his teeth and sterilised the child’s inner elbow before drawing blood. How fastidious he had grown, he mused. The Cuttle residence was princely by comparison with the Dark Lord’s prisoners’ accommodation, and the child’s filth was just dirt.
In accordance with the needs of his assumed persona he had, of course, cast spells to check the child’s age, health and purity, and he was relieved to see that none of the results was unacceptable. The child’s age and purity were as described, and the health scan showed him to be slightly undernourished, but without serious disease or illness. He hadn’t lingered over the scan, but the data suggested that the child had been well cared for in infancy, so the malnourishment probably commenced after the death of the grandmother.
As he carried the vial down the garden path to his potions lab at the bottom of the garden Severus allowed for a moment the possibility to cross his mind that the child really was Black’s. He would know within a matter of minutes. And if that were the case then there was a very real possibility that he could lose Lupin. The Gryffindor had a Hufflepuff's sense of loyalty about some things, and a child of Black's would certainly be one of them. His chest constricted. But no, he shouldn’t run ahead of the evidence. In only a few minutes he would know, and then...
Methodically he placed the vial upon his workbench and labelled it with the date drawn and subject’s name and birthdate as supplied by Cuttle. A drop in an eyedropper and the rest of the vial was preserved and stored for future use.
Taking a vial of Consanguinuity Potion from its stand, Severus unstoppered it and dropped one drop of blood in.
Re-seal.
Swirl.
Grey burst from the potion like a dementor dropping from a clear blue sky. Darker, darker it grew, until the darkness tainted the whole vial.. Severus didn’t need his chart to know that the final shade meant that the child was close kin to Sirius Black: father, brother or son. And of those choices, the only one physically possible was ‘son’.
Regulus Cuttle was Sirius Black’s son.
Severus didn’t know how desperately he had believed that it wasn’t true until he held the proof of it in his hands.
Damn Sirius Black for managing to find a fuck in Azkaban, of all unlikely places, and damn Maisie Cuttle for failing to abort the result as soon as possible, and damn Regulus Cuttle for existing and damn Remus bloody Lupin for giving a flying fuck!
A cloud of starlings rose from the nearby apple tree as a heavy iron cauldron came hurtling through the lab window with a resounding crash and a spray of sparkling glass fragments.