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Chapter Text

The shop smelled of damp wool and dying dreams.
Severus Snape stood stiffly beneath the flickering gas lamp of an ancient Muggle tailor's shop, tugging the sleeve of a secondhand coat around his thin wrist. It didn’t fit. Nothing did anymore ,not his too-long school robes, not the house he had lived in with his mother, and certainly not the world.
The bell above the door jingled. He tensed.
He didn’t look up.
“Ah! What exquisite melancholy!” came a voice like champagne poured over daggers. “You, my boy—your presence is like a poem written in shadows.”
Severus turned his head sharply. The man who entered was well-dressed in a pinstripe suit that would’ve looked laughable on anyone else, but this stranger wore it with an outrageous sort of dignity. His slicked black hair curled like ink under his top hat, and his mustache curled with just as much drama.
Onyx eyes met onyx eyes.
The man froze, then stepped forward as if drawn by gravity itself.
“You must be a cousin!” he declared.
“What?” Severus rasped. His voice cracked from disuse. He hadn’t spoken much since his mother’s funeral. He hadn’t cried either—not really. Not when the Marauders had turned him upside down in front of the school, not when Lily had turned her back. Crying had felt too human.
“My name is Gomez Addams,” the man said with a bow so theatrical it bordered on absurd. “And you—clearly—are one of us.”
Severus stared, disbelief flickering into annoyance, then settling into a tired sort of disgust.
“Get away from me.”
Gomez, to his credit, did not flinch.
“You wear sorrow like a fine suit,” Gomez said quietly, removing his hat. “It fits you well, but not forever. Tell me—what is your name, shadow-eyed boy?”
Severus swallowed.
“Snape. Severus Snape.”
Gomez tilted his head, as if tasting the syllables on his tongue. “Severus... Latin. Grave. Wounds that will not heal. Beautiful.”
Severus hated how his throat tightened at that.
“I don’t want company.”
“Neither did I,” Gomez said, almost sadly. “Until Morticia offered me her hand in a graveyard. You remind me of her, you know. The eyes, the pain, the passion beneath the ashes.”
Severus turned away, hoping the man would disappear.
“I lost my mother last week,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “She was all I had. I don’t want your pity.”
Gomez stepped forward, slowly, like approaching a feral cat.
“Not pity, Severus. Kinship. We, Addamses, collect the broken and the strange—not to fix them, but to honor them. Come meet my wife. My children. Our house has room for sorrow... and vengeance. And love, should you ever want it.”
Severus didn’t speak. He simply looked down at the coat in his hands.
It still didn’t fit.
But maybe—just maybe—this madness might.

They walked through the fog together, the boy a reluctant shadow beside the man who practically glided over the cobblestones. Gomez talked the entire time, of course, telling strange and hilarious stories about his daughter’s scorpion collection and the time Morticia turned a realtor to stone with a glare.
Severus stayed silent. He hadn’t agreed to anything, not really. He was only going along to see what kind of lunatic thought it normal to dress like a walking funeral procession and recite poetry to strangers.
Still—
When they reached the car, Severus stopped dead.
“That is not a car.”
“Ah, you approve!” Gomez beamed. The vehicle was a hearse. A beautiful, ominous one with a gleaming black chassis and silver spikes curling from the hubcaps like thorns. “Meet Caliban. Isn’t she glorious?”
Severus said nothing.
The drive out of London was long. Trees grew twisted and heavy the farther they traveled. Fog pressed against the windows like curious ghosts. When the gates to the Addams estate finally rose out of the mist, Severus felt a chill run down his spine.
The house loomed, dark and baroque, with gables like wings and ivy clawing up its face. Lights flickered in the high windows. Somewhere inside, something howled.
He stared.
“Welcome home,” Gomez said softly.

Morticia Addams was a vision in obsidian silk.
She descended the grand staircase like a shadow come to life, graceful and lethal. Severus had never seen a woman so terrifyingly beautiful. Her eyes, dark as ink and twice as deep, fixed on him like he was a curious spellbook.
“My dear,” she said, voice low and elegant, “you brought me a raven hatchling.”
“He reminds me of you,” Gomez replied, eyes full of the sort of love Severus had never seen between two people.
Morticia stepped toward Severus and knelt so they were eye level.
“You are welcome here, child. If you wish to stay, you will not be questioned. You will be fed, clothed, and left to your sorrows until you wish otherwise.”
He could only nod.
Wednesday appeared behind her mother like a phantom. She was small, pale, and curious.
“You look like a corpse,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s good. We like corpses.”
Pugsley waved a sword from the banister. “Do you like explosions?”
Severus blinked.
“I think he likes books,” Morticia said, rising. “Come. Let us show you the library. Then you may choose a room—perhaps the east wing. The bats are quieter there.”
Gomez clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Yes! A room with damp stone and mood lighting. You’ll love it.”
Severus said nothing. But his heart, long numb, gave a small twitch.
It wasn’t home.
But it wasn’t Spinner’s End either.
And that was enough.
For now.

Chapter Text

The grandfather clock in the Addams foyer chimed midnight with a hollow, metallic note that reverberated through Severus’s bones. He stood at the bottom of the sweeping staircase, coat clutched in white-knuckled fingers. The house was alive, he could feel it in the walls, in the flicker of gas sconces that guttered as though breathing. Somewhere deeper, something like distant cello strings hummed an elegy.
Gomez and Morticia had left him in the vestibule, promising hot chocolate "as black as moonless skies" if he wished, or complete solitude if he preferred that instead. They were good at leaving space for grief. Too good. The sheer graciousness of it made Severus’s throat tighten until words stuck there like rusty nails.
He shouldn’t be here.
The thought pressed against his ribs, each heartbeat a bruising reminder. He still had a father, blood, if nothing else, and a dilapidated terrace on Spinner’s End that smelled of cheap gin and broken promises. If he stayed, if he accepted kindness from these strangers, was he abandoning what little remained of his mother?
A floorboard creaked. Wednesday emerged from a stretch of shadows at the end of the corridor, twin braids swinging like a metronome. She regarded him with a solemnity that felt far older than the girl herself.
"You smell like sadness," she said in her mild, clinical way, "and something metallic. Pain, I think."
Severus stiffened. "That’s… none of your business."
"Everything that bleeds is my business," she replied. "Are you running away?"
He swallowed, looking toward the great double doors, iron‑bound and towering. Outside, a predawn mist gathered like silent spectators. "I need to go home," he muttered.
"Home is a concept," Wednesday said. "Like gravity. Neither cares how badly you want to escape." She tilted her head. "But if you must, you must. Be aware: running from ghosts rarely outruns them."
Severus tried for a sneer but only managed a tremor. "I’m not running. Just… leaving." His voice cracked under the weight of the lie.
Wednesday offered no argument. She merely stepped aside, clearing his path. "If the walls there are cruel, remember ours are patient," she said. "They listen. They echo. They keep secrets."
Her words clung to him like cobwebs as he slipped through the foyer, past a silent suit of armor that saluted with rusty enthusiasm, and tugged open the heavy door. Cold air bit his cheeks, and he welcomed the sting, proof that he was still awake, that this gothic refuge hadn’t been a fever dream.
He didn’t look back.

Outside the gates, the world turned mundane again: cracked pavement, skeletal lamp posts, the distant thunder of lorries on a motorway. He walked for nearly an hour, boots scuffing grit, until the Addams mansion vanished behind hunched trees. Only then did he dare believe he was alone.
Apparition required focus. His mother had taught him in secret, her voice soft, patient, coaxing discipline out of his raw talent: Visualize the anchor point. Feel the magic draw tight as a pulled thread. Twist. Tonight, the air itself seemed reluctant, thick with residue of that otherworldly household, but he composed himself, pictured the shabby brick façade of Spinner’s End, and turned on the spot.
The world contracted, squeezed, and spat him out onto a rain‑slick pavement. The familiar stench of the mill canal rose to greet him, oily water, soot, and rotting weeds. For a heartbeat he almost gagged. Then habit settled over him like an old, tattered cloak.
The terrace row loomed in murky dawn light. Curtains fluttered in broken windows; paint peeled from doors like scabbed skin. Number Seven crouched at the center, gaunt and listless. His feet carried him to the stoop before his brain registered the choice, and there he hesitated.
Tobias Snape’s temper was unpredictable even on good nights, and tonight would not be good. Severus had vanished for hours, no note, no supper cooked, no whisky fetched. He imagined his father pacing, bottle in hand, fury fermenting.
His fingers drifted to the small vial in his pocket, Dittany tincture, brewed in the dormitory weeks ago after James Potter’s Levicorpus stunt had left bruises biting his ankles. He told himself he kept it for tasks like this, but the glass felt pitifully light, comfortless.
Lightning flickered behind bruised clouds. He steeled himself, pressed palm to door, and eased it open.
The house swallowed him with a groan. Wallpaper curled from damp plaster like flayed skin; muddied footprints tracked across warped floorboards. Somewhere a radio crackled static. The smell of stale smoke coiled, thick enough to chew.
He stepped carefully, hoping Tobias had drunk himself unconscious. Hope died quickly.
"Where've you been, boy?" The question came from the parlor, each syllable slurred yet sharpened by anger.
Severus’s spine locked. He forced his legs forward and peered around the doorframe. Tobias sprawled in a fraying armchair, bottle of cheap whisky tilted against his thigh. Blood‑shot eyes fixed on Severus with bleary accusation.
"Out," Severus answered, voice threaded with caution.
Tobias’s lip curled. "Out. Swannin’ about while I sit here starvin’. Your mother's barely cold, and you think you can shirk responsibilities already?"
Grief flared, hot and treacherous. "She wouldn’t want me here coddling you," Severus whispered.
"What's that?" Tobias lurched upright. "Mouthin’ off now, are we?"
He advanced, movements slow but heavy, like a storm front. Severus retreated until his back kissed mildewed wallpaper. His mind reached for a wand he’d left hidden beneath a floorboard upstairs. Too far.
The first blow landed across his cheek, open‑handed yet brutal. Stars burst behind his eyes. He didn’t cry out; he’d learned silence cost less.
"Useless whelp," Tobias snarled, swinging again. "Your freakishness killed her. Took everythin’ good outta this house."
Fists hammered shoulders, ribs, temple. Pain blossomed, bright petals under skin. Severus folded inward, arms shielding head, each breath a jagged shard.
Part of him floated, detached, cataloguing sensations: copper tang on tongue, ringing in ears, the way his shoes squeaked on wet floorboards. Part of him thought, distantly, Wednesday was right, I smell like pain now.
It ended when Tobias stumbled, catching his knee on the hearth. The bottle hit stone and shattered, splashing whisky across the coals. Flames hissed and flared, throwing grotesque shadows. Tobias cursed, slapped at sparks that caught his trouser leg, and in that chaos Severus crawled backward, lungs burning.
He pushed to his feet and fled up the narrow staircase. Each step jarred bruises blooming along his spine. Half‑way up, he heard Tobias roar, "Don’t you dare lock that door, I'll break it down!"
Severus reached his room, slammed the door, and threw the flimsy latch. It would buy seconds at best.
The room was a shrine to faded boyhood, cracked cauldron, battered copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, herb jars lined like sentries. He ripped up a floorboard, seized his wand, and pressed trembling fingers to its familiar warmth.
Downstairs, Tobias thundered against the staircase. "You think your stick’ll save you? Freak magic can't mend what you ruined!"
A sob broke free before Severus could strangle it. He swallowed another, forced his voice steady for the spell: Colloportus. The door sealed with a click.
Silence fell—the taut, suffocating kind before explosions. Severus leaned against peeling wallpaper, every heartbeat a throb. Blood pooled warm at his temple. He wiped it, stared at the smear on his fingers, then at the duvet his mother had mended last winter. Grief rose, thick and awful, choking.
Outside, dawn seeped grey light through threadbare curtains. The sun would rise soon, uncaring.
"Mom," he whispered, voice raw. "I can’t do this without you." The confession tasted like acid.
For a moment, he imagined her answer, soft, firm: Then leave, Sevvie. Find a place that treats you as precious as I did.
A memory flickered: Morticia’s gentle bow of welcome, Wednesday’s blunt assessment, Gomez’s hand steady on his shoulder. Our house has room for sorrow... and vengeance... and love, should you ever want it.
A sob tore loose, guttural. He sank to the floor, wand clutched to bruised chest, and let the tears come, silent, relentless, the kind that left salt tracks and shook his narrow frame.
Tobias pounded the door once, twice, cursed, then staggered away, muttering. Floorboards creaked, and the parlor bottle clinked anew. The house exhaled stale despair.
Severus wiped his face, breath hitching. He drew the tiny Dittany vial, dabbed trembling drops onto cuts. Flesh knit with faint warmth, temporal, insufficient, but something.
He couldn’t stay.
The thought crystallized, hard as obsidian. Spinner’s End was a mausoleum now, holding nothing but ghosts and violence. Leaving wouldn’t betray his mother—it would honor her wish for his safety.
He rose, swaying. A small trunk sat beneath the bed; he dragged it out, miniature earthquakes of pain rippling through bruises. Into it he packed textbooks, quills, potion ingredients scavenged from classroom stores, and the framed photograph of his mother, Eileen Prince, hair dark as his, eyes softer. Her smile forever caught between pride and apology.
He shrank the trunk with a flick—Reducio—and pocketed it alongside the Dittany. Then he cracked the window, letting in dawn’s chill and canal stench. The latch groaned. Good-byes felt heavier when said aloud, so he bit them back, raised wand, and disapparated with a muffled pop.

The Addams estate materialized around him like a negative photograph, the sky violet, mist silver, gardens full of night‑blooming hemlock. He landed on his knees on the gravel path, exhaustion buckling him.
Crows startled from a skeletal yew, cawing disapproval before settling again. The house watched, windows glowing faintly amber, as though expecting him all along.
Footsteps crunched. He looked up to see Wednesday standing in dewy grass, still in her black shift, hands folded.
"You came back," she observed.
Severus couldn’t muster sarcasm. "Couldn’t stay away, apparently."
She crouched, peering at bruises darkening his jaw. Without comment she produced a handkerchief, embroidered with tiny skulls, neat and macabre—and dabbed drying blood from his brow. "Fathers can be disappointing," she said. "I chopped mine once. With a guillotine kit Uncle Fester bought me. He still loved me after."
Severus huffed a weak laugh that turned into a wince. "Mine prefers fists."
Wednesday tilted her head, studying him like a specimen. "We prefer blades. Cleaner lines." She stood, extended a hand. "Come inside. Mother’s brewed belladonna cocoa. It won’t heal you, but you’ll care less about the pain."
He took her hand. Her grip was cool, steady, unnervingly strong. She hauled him upright.
Morning light spilled across the gravel, painting their elongated shadows: the girl in perpetual twilight and the boy stitched from darkness. As they walked toward the mansion, Severus realized the ache in his chest had eased, not vanished, but shifted, as though shared between two hearts instead of crushing just one.
Gomez waited on the veranda, fencing sword dangling from one hand, worry creasing his expressive brows. Morticia stood beside him, her eyes fathomless and knowing. Neither offered pity. Instead, they opened the great doors.
He stepped over the threshold and felt the house inhale, welcoming him.
Maybe this was madness.
Maybe it was salvation.
Either way, it was his.

Chapter Text

The Addams drawing room was the embodiment of cultivated gloom: black velvet curtains billowed despite closed windows, a harpsichord played itself in some distant parlor, and portraits of relatives long deceased followed Severus with eyes that gleamed in the candlelight. The room smelled of smoldering cedar and night-blooming jasmine—heady, disorienting, yet oddly comforting.
Gomez guided Severus to an armchair upholstered in something that felt like a cross between velvet and raven feathers. The cushions sighed beneath his weight, releasing a faint puff of perfumed dust. Morticia followed with an ornate silver tray. Upon it rested two obsidian teacups, each emitting curls of steam that shimmered an iridescent violet.
“Belladonna cocoa,” she announced, her voice as smooth and dark as the liquid itself. “An Addams restorative. It soothes bruises of the body and embalms bruises of the heart—at least until the next catastrophe.”
Severus accepted the cup with both hands. The porcelain was warm, not scorching, just enough to thaw the ache in his knuckles. He caught his own reflection in the glossy surface: sunken cheeks, split lip, the faint shadow of a handprint darkening his pale skin. He looked like a specter who had only just discovered he was dead.
With great caution he sipped. The taste was an assault and a lullaby, bitter chocolate layered with florals, a hint of smoke, and the whispering bite of something unmistakably poisonous. Heat spread through his chest, easing the tightness that had lodged there for weeks. His eyelids fluttered.
“Careful,” Morticia warned, lowering herself onto a chaise longue the color of midnight. “Too much at once and you’ll see your own funeral procession. A rather useful vision if you’re planning one.”
Gomez clapped his gloved hands together, delighted. “Now, my boy, tell me: are you partial to fencing, demolitions, or perhaps romantic poetry? I find the three complement each other splendidly. Nothing sharpens a mind like a blade, a bang, and a well‑timed sonnet.”
Severus blinked, still processing the flavors on his tongue. “I… brew potions,” he offered, voice gravelly.
“Ah! An alchemist of sorrows.” Gomez’s eyes glittered. “We must compare notes. Chemical volatility is a family pastime. Why, just last week I endeavored to turn lead filings into fireworks. The result obliterated Fester’s left eyebrow, he was thrilled.”
Before Severus could respond, the door exploded inward, figuratively, not literally this time—and Pugsley bounded into the room, trailed by a faint smell of gunpowder.
He wore a leather apron several sizes too large and carried a cylindrical object stitched together with twine. Soot smudged his cheeks; a grin split them wider. “New kid! Want to help me test Cordite Carl?”
“Cordite… Carl?” Severus echoed.
“The bomb,” Wednesday supplied, appearing like a well‑dressed shade in the doorway. She held a notebook labeled Explosive Yields – Summer Term.
“It’s technically a mortar shell,” Pugsley corrected, “but he needed a name. I’m setting him off near the compost heap. The worms deserve excitement.”
Severus glanced at Morticia, half‑expecting disapproval. She merely inclined her head with maternal pride. “Remember to chant a farewell, darling. Explosives crave acknowledgment.”
Pugsley saluted. “Yes, Mother.” Then to Severus: “Helmets are downstairs next to the iron maiden. I saved one with spikes for you.”
Gomez leaned in. “Never pass up the invitation to blow something up, Severus. It’s therapeutic.”
Severus took another sip of cocoa to stall. Part of him, the side honed by Slughorn’s lectures and years of controlled potion brews, recoiled at such reckless combustion. Another part, the part that had screamed in his head while the Marauders dangled him upside down, burned to release tension in any way possible.
“Perhaps later,” he said, and found himself almost disappointed.
Pugsley shrugged amiably. “I’ll keep it warm.” He hefted Cordite Carl and bounced out, casual as someone fetching biscuits.
Wednesday lingered. “He fears you’ll say yes someday,” she said. “He enjoys delayed gratification.”
Severus met her solemn gaze. “Does he always name his munitions?”
“Only the ones he loves,” Wednesday replied, then vanished down the hall.
The room settled into a companionable hush. The harpsichord in the distance shifted from a minor dirge into a waltz that sounded like it might trip and fall at any moment. Severus sipped again and felt the liquid dull the ache in his ribs.
Gomez twirled his fencing sword absent‑mindedly. “You know, when I lost my beloved pet squid, Caligula, I thought I’d never recover. Morticia comforted me by reading The Complete Manual of Medieval Torture aloud until dawn.” He sighed wistfully. “Love is a many‑spleen’d thing.”
Morticia smiled, sharp and adoring. “Gomez’s tears, brief though they were, could have polished obsidian.”
Severus lowered his cup. “I don’t cry,” he muttered. The memory of sobbing in his childhood bedroom still burned.
“Not yet,” Morticia murmured with gentle certainty. “Grief is patient. It waits until you have put down your wand and unscrewed your armor. Then it settles on your chest like a faithful raven.”
Severus swallowed, suddenly more aware of the bruises beneath his shirt. He shifted, wincing.
Gomez noticed. “Let’s distract ourselves! Tell me, Severus, what is your favorite kind of suffering to observe in literature?”
“…Excuse me?”
“Existential dread? Tragic irony? Personally, I adore beautifully rendered betrayal. When a character realizes the knife in his back is monogrammed with his beloved’s initials—ah, poetry.”
Severus found himself giving a hoarse laugh, half‑despite, half‑because of everything. “I suppose I prefer stories where the villain wins. At least there’s honesty in it.”
Gomez slapped the arm of his chaise. “Splendid choice! Heroes are tedious. Villains know how to monologue.”
Morticia extended a lace‑gloved hand toward Severus. “Would you allow me to examine those injuries? I keep a salve that hums a lullaby while it heals.”
Severus tensed. His father’s blows had taught him to shrink from touch. Yet the house felt tender, the cocoa warm, the Addamses careful in their intensity. After a moment he inhaled and nodded.
Morticia rose, gliding across the carpet. She brushed aside the collar of his shirt with the lightness of a falling ash. Her fingers were cool, smelling faintly of patchouli and grave soil. She dabbed a silver‑green ointment on a split near his hairline. It tingled, then cooled.
“There,” she murmured. “A kiss of nightshade and moonbat milk. Heal, and remember the hurt only when it serves you.”
Severus’s vision blurred with sudden, fierce gratitude. No one since his mother had bothered with such care.
Gomez cleared his throat theatrically, sensing the heavy moment. “While Morticia performs miracles, allow me to regale you with the tale of my duel against the Earl of Sharpshire. He called my mustache ‘overwrought’, can you imagine?”
Severus managed a small, horrified shake of his head.
“A matter of honor!” Gomez declared. “We met at dawn on Bloodymary Heath. Pistols at twenty paces. I, of course, wore my lucky cravat, the one woven from widow silk. The Earl brought seconds; I brought a mariachi band to play requiems.”
Morticia dabbed more salve along Severus’s cheekbone, smiling fondly while her husband spun the wild tale. “He is embellishing,” she murmured. “There were only three violinists.”
Gomez’s eyes sparkled. “Regardless, I wounded him in the ego, deadliest shot there is.”
The harpsichord paused as if to applaud, then resumed with renewed vigor.
Suddenly, a distant boom rattled the windows. Severus jolted; cocoa sloshed.
Pugsley’s delighted whoop echoed through the corridors: “Cordite Carl lives!”
Gomez grinned. “Ah, music to the soul. Shall we toast?”
He produced from nowhere a cut‑glass decanter filled with a liquid that shimmered dark red, perhaps wine, perhaps something else entirely. He poured two finger‑widths into Morticia’s glass and offered one to Severus.
Severus eyed it warily. “What is it?”
“A 1789 Merlot, aged in barrels lined with cursed silver,” Gomez said. “It tastes of heartbreak and revolution.”
Morticia added, “And a hint of blackcurrant.”
Severus weighed caution against curiosity, then accepted. He sipped. The wine unfurled across his palate like velvet dipped in thunder,fruity, yes, but with a bite that spoke of ghosts singing in cellar walls.
He coughed softly. “It’s… strong.”
“Strength builds resilience,” Gomez said, swirling his own glass. “Tell me, where did you learn to brew potions?”
“School,” Severus replied. “And… at home. Before it became impossible.”
Morticia’s hand stilled on his cheek. “Impossible is a flexible word here,” she said. “You will find our home elastic.”
Gomez leaned forward, elbows on knees. “What’s your favorite brew? Something explosive? Something subtle?”
Severus considered. “The Draught of Living Death,” he said finally. “It’s elegant. One misstep, and you shift from sleep to nothingness. Precision matters.”
Gomez’s grin widened. “Exquisite! Grandmama taught Wednesday, she attempted it last year, used hemlock instead of asphodel by accident. The results were… educational.”
Morticia tucked a lock of Severus’s hair behind his ear, not affectionately, exactly, but ritualistically, as though tending a relic. “Perhaps you could teach her. She respects tutelage from those with bruises.”
The notion stirred a spark of purpose. Severus hadn’t taught anyone anything, but knowledge felt less heavy when shared.
Another boom shook dust from a chandelier. This one closer. Gomez checked the ceiling. “Fester must be assisting now. Splendid. The last time they collaborated, we discovered a new crater species.”
Severus peered into his dwindling cocoa. “Does anything here stay intact?”
Morticia’s laugh was soft, like a blade sliding from its sheath. “We remain intact,” she said. “Everything else is negotiable.”
The fire crackled in the hearth, sending up greenish sparks, enchanted, no doubt. The warmth seeped into Severus’s bones, weaving with the belladonna high until he felt buoyant, almost untethered.
“Would you care to see the laboratory?” Gomez asked suddenly. “We converted the old plague ward into a potions workshop. Ventilation is questionable but spirits roam freely.”
Severus’s pulse ticked up. A lab. Ingredients. A place to work, to lose himself in controlled reactions instead of uncontrolled memories. “Yes,” he said before nerves could intervene.
Gomez sprang to his feet, sword twirling. “Marvelous! We’ll outfit you with everything, cauldrons forged from meteorite, stir rods etched with runes of ruin. Chemistry is best when it courts disaster.”
Morticia closed her salve tin with a gentle click. “Go on, my raven. I’ll tidy the bruises you’ve left behind when you return.”
He rose, a bit unsteady, but the world did not tilt dangerously. His injuries hummed instead of screamed.
Wednesday reappeared, notebook in hand. “Want to catalog the remaining debris?” she asked Pugsley, who bounded into the room carrying what looked like a smoking top hat.
“After we feed Carl’s ashes to the Venus flytraps,” Pugsley said.
Wednesday nodded as if he’d suggested brushing teeth.
Gomez shepherded Severus toward a side corridor lit by sconces shaped like grasping hands. The hallway curved, descending in a gentle spiral. Paintings along the walls showed Addams ancestors in various states of misfortune—one dangling from a gallows, another serenely reading while engulfed in flames.
Gomez spoke in low tones. “One piece of advice: our family loves deeply, fiercely. We’ll smother you with freedom. If ever you need solitude, simply say three words: Sic gorgiamus allos. The walls will grant you silence.”
Severus mouthed the Latin: “We gladly feast on those who would subdue us.”
“Precisely.” Gomez winked. “But we also listen when someone needs to roar. You may roar here, Severus. No one will call it weakness.”
The corridor opened into an underground chamber the size of the Hogwarts Great Hall. Tables cluttered with alembics, retorts, and copper stills glinted under wrought‑iron chandeliers. Shelves bowed with jars labeled in spidery script: Mandragora Mors, Tears of Ophidian, Hemlock Heartwood. A long stone bench bore scorch marks and what looked unsettlingly like claw prints.
Severus inhaled a lungful of drying herbs and hot metal. The air thrummed with possibility.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Gomez spread his arms. “I do my best thinking here.”

Severus felt a laugh bubbling up, real and startling. He pressed a hand to his mouth. It escaped anyway, soft but true.
Gomez’s grin softened. “Music to my ears.”
They walked the perimeter as Gomez pointed out curiosities: a cage where moonbeam was distilled into liquid, a mirror that showed the drinker’s last nightmare, scales calibrated in whispers instead of ounces. Severus’s fingers itched to get started.
Near the far wall, a marble-topped workstation stood empty except for a pristine set of crystal vials and a single note card: For S.S.—May your concoctions be deadly delightful. Underneath, Morticia’s elegant hand had inked a tiny black heart.
Severus’s throat tightened. He traced the letters lightly.
“I… I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll stay,” Gomez suggested, almost gently. “At least until you invent something that vaporizes sadness.”
Severus exhaled shakily. The cocoa’s warmth lingered, mingling with the earthy scent of ingredients. The world felt less like a cage and more like a cauldron, dangerous, yes, but brimming with transmutation.
He turned to Gomez. “I’ll stay.”
Thunder rumbled overhead, whether storm or explosion, it hardly mattered. Gomez clasped his hands. “Then, mi pequeño murciélago, let the experiments begin!”
He handed Severus a pair of protective goggles tinted obsidian black. They fit snugly, framing his onyx eyes with deeper darkness.
Somewhere above, Pugsley’s laughter rang out and Wednesday’s notebook pages fluttered like raven wings. Severus lifted a copper ladle, dipped it into a waiting cauldron of viscous midnight, and felt the future shift.
For the first time since his mother’s death, he wanted to see tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Hours evaporated in the subterranean laboratory, measured only by the slow rotation of a cracked hour‑glass that bled powdered moonstone instead of sand. Gomez’s boundless enthusiasm never flagged, he fenced imaginary rivals between stirring beakers, recited Andalusian love poetry to a kettle that refused to boil, and cackled whenever a concoction belched violet smoke. Severus matched him while the belladonna cocoa buoyed him, but grief and potion fumes wove a heavy lullaby. When the clockwork bat perched above the doorway chirped three mournful notes—Addams midnight—his knees wobbled.
He placed a flask of shimmering dusk‑grey tonic on the bench and slumped into a tall leather chair that looked suspiciously upholstered in shadow. The cushions molded around him with a hiss of captured air. Gomez noticed the drooping eyelids and murmured, “Descansa, pequeño murciélago. Nightmares are not permitted here; we cage them in crystal.”
Severus meant to protest, one more test, one more stir, but the lights blurred into starbursts. A hushed darkness closed over him, and he slid into sleep clutching a copper ladle like a scepter
He surfaced briefly when strong arms, scented of sandalwood, gunpowder, and old leather, scooped him from the chair. A baritone voice hummed a lullaby in rolling Spanish syllables. The manor itself seemed to rearrange: doors sighed open, carpets unrolled like tongues, chandeliers dimmed in deference. Somewhere Morticia whispered, “Mind his ribs, querido.”
Sheets cool as autumn mist enveloped him. A calloused thumb brushed his temple. Darkness folded around him once more
Severus woke to silence so complete it felt manufactured. Pale sunlight, filtered through brocade drapes, projected shifting patterns across the ceiling. For one disorienting heartbeat he braced for the sour stench of Spinner’s End. Instead, ivy‑forged bedposts framed a canopy of wrought‑iron vines, and crimson sheets cocooned his aching limbs.
He sat up too quickly. The room spun, wine‑dark curtains, a wardrobe banded in tarnished silver, a nightstand crowded with oddities: a black‑wax candle burnt down to a claw, a silver bell shaped like a raven mid‑screech, and a single blood‑red rose pinned to a card reading Rest well, fledgling.
So. Not a dream.
Bruises muttered rather than screamed under Morticia’s salve, but soreness tugged at every movement. He swung his feet onto a rug so plush his toes disappeared. Above the wardrobe something fluttered, bats, murmuring like sleepy children. One politely dropped a beetle, clack‑clicking as it skittered under the vanity.
A sharp, deliberate rap‑rap‑rap tapped at the doorframe. Before he could answer, the latch nudged open and—
A severed hand skittered inside.
Severus’s heart shot into his throat. He scrambled backward across the mattress, wand hand instinctively clutching empty air. The hand, pale, manicured, stitched at the wrist, waved jauntily and vaulted onto the bed.
“Merlin’s beard!” Severus yelped. He seized a pillow and hurled it. The hand bounced aside, somersaulted over the duvet, and landing upright, fingers fanned in affront.
His pulse thundered. Memory caught up: Thing, the Addams’ devoted manservant. But knowledge did nothing to calm visceral horror; disembodied limbs, no matter how polite, defied every natural law he trusted. Trembling, he aimed an imaginary wand. “Back—back off!”
Thing froze, index finger pressed to palm in a gesture of apology. With exaggerated care it retrieved the tossed pillow, smoothed the case, and patted a placating rhythm.
Severus exhaled shakily. “You’re… Thing.”
The hand bobbed.
“Right. I just, give me a moment.”
Thing seemed to understand panic’s half‑life. It retreated to the floor, retrieved a silver tray balanced precariously on its knuckles, and hoisted it onto the bedside table. Only when the china settled did Severus notice breakfast: a pewter mug of steaming indigo tea, toast charred to onyx, and a ramekin of thick green cream.
Still jittery, he edged forward. Thing produced a napkin, flapped it like a dove, and draped it across his lap. Mundane courtesies from a maimed appendage pushed his mind toward hysterical laughter.
“I’m not hallucinating,” he muttered. “That’s a hand buttering my toast.” Thing, hearing, dabbed mint cream onto the blackened slice and offered it triumphantly.
Hands shaking for different reasons now, Severus accepted. The toast shattered pleasantly; the mint cooled raw throat tissue. The tea tasted of lavender, chicory, and something pleasantly numbing. His hammering pulse slowed.
Between cautious bites he stole looks at Thing, who fussed with his rumpled hair, re‑straightened a crooked candle, and scribbled a note with fountain pen gripped between thumb and forefinger: Library at ten. Dress warmly. Family awaits.
It signed with a flourish, blew an invisible kiss, and exited, pinky wagging farewell.
When the door clicked shut, Severus released a shuddering laugh, the sound cracked like glass but felt cathartic. “All right,” he told the empty air. “I can handle a hand. I have survived worse.”
The wardrobe creaked open at his touch, revealing ranks of black garments: silk dress shirts, wool trousers, a velvet waistcoat embroidered with silver serpents, and a frock coat whose lining shimmered like raven wings. A tag stitched inside each collar bore his initials S.S.—tiny, meticulous. Someone had tailored them overnight.
Emotion, sharp, bright, pricked his chest. He selected charcoal slacks, a high‑collared shirt, and the serpent‑waistcoat. The fabric whispered across bruises; the cut fit as though measured to bone. At the mirror he studied the reflection: hollow‑eyed but composed, an echo of the man he might become rather than the boy battered by yesterday.
He smoothed his fringe. “Let’s meet the lunatics.”
Navigating the mansion felt like walking inside a gothic clock: corridors elongated or shrank according to some moody mechanism. Gargoyles nodded as he passed; sconces exhaled flame in greeting. Eventually he emerged onto a mezzanine overlooking the grand hall.
Wednesday stood by the railing, braids perfect, black dress immaculate. She watched him descend without expression, though her dark eyes lingered on fresh fabric and improved posture.
“You startled Thing,” she observed.
“I was startled,” he retorted, voice still strained.
She tilted her head. “Most people faint. You improvised projectile weaponry. Acceptable.” A pause. “Father says you’re sixteen. Which institution tolerates you?”
“Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” he answered, then grimaced. Wizarding secrecy had flown out the window the moment a disembodied hand buttered his breakfast.
Wednesday’s lip twitched, the Addams version of excitement. “Ah. The castle with homicidal staircases. Mother’s cousin Bastet taught hex choreography there a century ago and so did grandmama.” She flicked open a notebook. “Term begins in fourteen days. You will require supplies.”
Before he could muster a response, Gomez’s exuberant call boomed up the stairwell. “Breakfast assembly!”
The dining hall resembled a medieval banqueting chamber commandeered by crows: antler chandelier overhead, long oak table stretching toward a high‑back coffin chair where Morticia knitted something ominous and lacy. Pugsley heaped pancakes dripping crimson syrup; Uncle Fester touched sausages, sparking them to sizzle.
Gomez bounded to Severus, enveloping him in half‑hug, half‑inspection. “Look at that tailoring! You cut a magnificent figure, could use a little more weight, hijo. Ready to feast?”
“I think I can manage,” Severus murmured, still scanning for rogue appendages.
Thing, apparently omnipresent, zipped along the table, refilling goblets with bubbling pomegranate tonic. Severus stiffened, but the hand only offered him a polite finger‑wag greeting before darting away. He let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d held.
Gomez lifted his glass. “A toast: to young Severus, who braved the morning’s hand‑shakes with valor!” Groans, affectionate rose from the family. Severus flushed but clinked glasses.
Between bites of tart‑sweet pancakes dusted with sugar skulls, Wednesday interrogated. “What house?”
“Slytherin.”
“….acceptable”

Chapter Text

Severus didn’t remember agreeing to Apparate the entire Addams family to Diagon Alley. One moment he was chewing toast that tasted like burnt paper and mint, the next Gomez clapped him on the back and declared, “We trust your dark sorcery, hijo. Take us somewhere deliciously dangerous!”
Which, apparently, meant trusting him to Side-Along Apparate all of them. At once.
He tried to argue. He tried to explain that Apparition was not designed for field trips. But Wednesday had already slipped her arm through his, Morticia had laced her fingers through his free hand with a cool, perfumed calm, and Pugsley wrapped around his waist like a limpet. Uncle Fester hummed the funeral march in a key designed to summon migraines. Thing clung to Gomez’s coat like a barnacle.
“Three… two… uno!” Gomez shouted, grinning like a man on a roller coaster made of swords.
Severus spun into darkness.
They landed in a heap outside the Leaky Cauldron’s back courtyard, right beside the cracked bricks that formed the gateway to Diagon Alley. Severus immediately keeled over and vomited into a rusted cauldron, which—thankfully—was already halfway full of something blue and gelatinous. The concoction hissed when his stomach acid joined it.
“Excellent landing!” Gomez cried, dusting off his lapels.
Morticia, with liquid grace, held back Severus’s hair. “You have exquisite control,” she murmured. “Most wizards would have splinched us. Or themselves. Or both.”
“I see stars,” Pugsley mumbled, wobbling upright.
Wednesday rolled her shoulders like a cat waking from a nap. “Again.”
“No,” Severus choked, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Thing offered a lace-trimmed handkerchief. He accepted it with shaking fingers, glaring daggers at the lot of them. “You’re mad. All of you.”
“We consider that a compliment,” Morticia said, serene as ever.
The Leaky Cauldron’s back door creaked open. Tom, the barman, took one look at the group and visibly decided to go blind in both eyes. He shut the door again.
Severus, still panting, stood and barked, “We’re going straight in, no detours, no explosions, do not lick anything strange, and don’t touch the goblins.”
The Addamses regarded the bustling street beyond the wall like children at the gates of a haunted theme park.
“Oh, darling,” Morticia whispered. “I think I adore this place already.”
Diagon Alley pulsed with life.
Witches bustled between shops in a flurry of robes and owls. Children squealed over jars of jumping frogs. A hag muttered to herself near the apothecary, shaking a bag that twitched ominously. Above them, a bat-winged delivery creature screeched as it dropped a parcel.
The Addams family drew stares like funeral processions in June.
Morticia moved like a queen carved from obsidian and moonlight. Fester wore a wool coat several sizes too large and clutched a glowing jar. Pugsley kept trying to stick his fingers into open cages. Wednesday observed everything with the blank curiosity of a natural predator. Gomez, arms wide, shouted greetings in Spanish to people who flinched and stepped aside.
Thing perched on Severus’s shoulder like a macabre parrot, waving cheerfully at passing witches.
Severus walked stiffly, face pale, jaw clenched. He ignored the gaping onlookers and muttered, “This was a mistake.”
“Rubbish!” Gomez said, pulling a bejeweled pocketwatch from his vest. “We’ve got precisely ninety minutes before the bloodletting class Morticia scheduled for Pugsley, so shop fast!”
Severus snarled. “I don’t need handouts. I have galleons.”
Morticia gave him a sidelong glance. “And yet none in your pockets.”
“I’m not a—”
“Charity case?” she finished gently. “Of course not. We simply invest in our young. Like heirloom roses.”
“You are not adopting me.”
“We already have,” Wednesday said flatly. “It’s legally binding. Pugsley wrote it in blood.”
“I thought that was raspberry jam,” Pugsley muttered.
Madam Malkin’s was quiet inside, smelling of starch and new fabric. Severus relaxed slightly until Madam Malkin spotted Morticia and clapped a hand to her chest.
“Oh, Madam Addams. I—I wasn’t expecting—what an honor—”
Morticia glided to the front desk. “We require robes for our ward. Preferably something in raven-black with a hint of spite.”
“Y-yes, of course. Is he… Hogwarts-bound?”
“He is,” Morticia said, and gave Severus a look that somehow softened without losing its edge. “Slytherin.”
The fitting passed in a blur. Severus endured it with arms raised and dignity barely intact as pins flew and fabric swirled. The Addamses gave frequent, dramatic input:
“Make sure it billows!”
“Can we line it with thorns?”
“A cape, perhaps. For dramatic exits.”
Madam Malkin whispered, “You poor dear,” as she adjusted Severus’s collar. “Are you safe with them?”
Severus blinked. Then, to his own surprise, smirked. “They’re safer with me.”
He left the shop in a cloak that swirled like stormclouds and trailed like ambition
Ollivander’s shop was a burst of quiet madness: boxes stacked floor to ceiling, the air thick with the scent of woodsmoke and ozone. Ollivander himself blinked slowly as the Addams family filed in.
“Ah,” he said. “Visitors from… abroad?”
“From beyond,” Gomez said cheerfully.
Wednesday stalked the walls like a wolf sniffing for prey. She touched a wand and it sparked magenta.
“Yew, basilisk tendon,” Ollivander murmured. “It bites.”
“Do you have wand decorations,” she asked,
Ollivander pulled out a dusty box and hand it to her with trembling fingers“you can have it all no-one even know I have that or care to ask” she turned to Severus. “What’s yours?”
“Blackthorn. Dragon heartstring.”
“Appropriate.”
In Flourish and Blotts, chaos reigned.
Wednesday and Severus silently dueled over the last copy of Daggered Draughts & Poisoned Potions: Volume III. They each snatched at it, Wednesday faster, Severus sneakier. She slipped a vial of itching powder into his sleeve. He countered by summoning a dozen flying quills to distract her.
She won, narrowly.
Severus found a tucked note in the book she passed him instead: “Tread carefully. Some knowledge bites.” It was written in ink that smelled faintly of ash and roses.
He did not smile.
Not exactly.
The apothecary was dim and cramped, crowded with pickled things in jars and hanging bundles of roots. Morticia moved among the ingredients like a sommelier in a cursed vineyard.
“Ghost orchid… moonseed… dried venomous puscap. Mmm. Perfect.” She turned to the clerk. “Do you have ethereal birch bark powder?”
“We do. Er—potion, or cosmetic?”
“Both,” she said. “My ward’s hair has a tragic luster. I intend to fix it.”
Severus choked on air. “You’re making me shampoo?!”
“A potion. For hair. To undo the damage of stress, neglect, and questionable soap.”
Severus turned crimson.
The clerk boxed the ingredients quickly.
Outside the quill shop, arms full of parchment and potion books, Severus stopped dead in his tracks.
“This—this is too much. I told you, I don’t need this!”
The Addams turned as one. Morticia stepped forward, expression unreadable.
“You are sixteen,” she said softly. “You wear bruises like armor. And you expect us to ignore that?”
“I expect you not to treat me like some pathetic stray!”
“No,” Gomez said, gently but firmly. “We treat you like family. Which is worse.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“We know,” Morticia said. “And we won’t take that from you. But care and independence are not mutually exclusive.”
Severus looked away. His arms trembled from the weight of his shopping, and not all of it was physical.
Thing climbed to his shoulder again and patted his jaw.
He didn’t shake it off.
The return trip via Apparition was smoother.
Severus anchored himself in Wednesday’s cool, steady grip. Morticia whispered something in Spanish that the wind seemed to carry. Gomez whooped.
They landed in the Addams’ courtyard with a sound like snapping twigs and silver laughter.
No vomit.
Severus straightened, adjusted his collar, and realized: he wasn’t shaking.
“See?” Morticia said, brushing off his shoulder. “Control is always easier with witnesses.”
Severus gave her a look. “You’re a menace.”
“A mother,” she corrected.
He paused.
Then said, very softly, “…I’ve had worse.”
Morticia smiled like the moon rising. “We know.”

Chapter Text

The manor breathed differently when the others were away.
Severus noticed it at once, the hush that followed the cacophony of Gomez’s booming laughter, Pugsley’s chemical misadventures, and Fester’s electrified humming. Even Wednesday’s calm menace left a particular gravity behind. Now the hallways echoed with silence and slow clock ticks, as though the house itself were exhaling.
They had left that morning in a cloud of velvet cloaks and moonlight parasols, heading off to Cousin Francene’s moonflower harvest celebration, some nocturnal ceremony involving root music and phosphorescent soil. Morticia had demurred from attending, citing a need for stillness.
Severus hadn’t planned on staying behind. But when Gomez tried to rope him into a conga line rehearsal, he muttered something about stomach cramps and made a tactical retreat into the tapestry corridor. Morticia didn’t press him.
Now it was just the two of them.
He found her in the conservatory.
The conservatory wasn’t glass and sunbeams like Professor Sprout’s greenhouse. It was a cathedral of shadows, choked with thorned vines, dusky orchids, and black lilies that swayed despite the still air. Moonlight filtered in through stained glass shaped like screaming birds. An iron gazebo stood at the center, its frame tangled in night-blooming vines that shimmered faintly when disturbed.
Morticia stood beneath it, snipping dead heads from a sprawling tangle of wolfsbane.
She didn’t turn. “Good evening, Severus.”
He hesitated at the threshold. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You didn’t.” She clipped another blossom. “The wolfsbane needed company. And I suspected you might as well.”
He crossed the conservatory slowly, mindful of the carnivorous blossoms. One licked the air as he passed.
“You didn’t go to the harvest party,” he said.
“I find family reunions exhausting,” she said. “Too much laughter. Not enough malice.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “So you stayed home to trim poisonous plants?”
She smiled. “Therapy.”
He circled one of the garden’s twisted iron benches. “This place is… peaceful.”
“It’s a trick,” she murmured. “Everything here can kill you. Peace is just what it looks like when danger is content.”
He sat. “Sounds familiar.”
For a while they said nothing. Morticia snipped in slow, meditative arcs. The moon shifted, casting pale light on Severus’s face and catching the silver embroidery on his coat.
At last, she asked, “How long has it been since you breathed without flinching?”
He blinked. “What?”
“Your shoulders never drop. Even when you sleep, you brace yourself. As though the next blow is always coming.”
“I suppose…” He looked away. “I suppose that’s how life trained me.”
“Then life was a poor teacher.” She plucked a dead blossom and tucked it behind her ear.
He stared at her, so calm, so perfectly composed in her long black gown, her hands stained faintly green from handling belladonna. “You speak like a poet.”
“And you speak like someone who used to love language, until it betrayed you.”
That landed sharper than he expected. His throat worked. “You’re… very perceptive.”
“I’m a mother.” Her tone was mild, not intrusive. “I’ve raised a daughter who sleeps with venomous insects and a son who once tried to sell his blood for necromancy credits. I notice things.”
Severus made a sound, possibly a laugh. Possibly a gasp.
Morticia set aside her shears and came to sit beside him on the bench.
“Tell me,” she said. “What happened to your voice?”
He frowned. “What?”
“You speak in armor. Like every sentence has to be defensible.”
“Oh.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “That.”
“I think,” he said carefully, “that when you grow up around people who use your words against you, you stop giving them ammunition.”
“Wise. And lonely.”
“Yes.” His hands curled slightly. “My mother… she meant well. But there was little she could do. My father—”
Morticia’s stillness shifted slightly. “Say no more. I’ve heard enough echoes of that tone to recognize its source.”
He nodded once. “I had one friend. Lily.” The name dropped like a pebble into still water. “She was brilliant. Bright. Good. But… things broke between us.”
Morticia didn’t interrupt.
“They hated her. My house. And she, well, she hated them back. I thought I could protect both sides, somehow. Instead, I lost both.”
“I’m sorry,” Morticia said quietly.
“She said I was changing. Becoming like them.”
“And were you?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “And I hated myself for it.”
She was silent a moment. Then: “Regret is a useful venom. But only if you learn how to distill it.”
He glanced at her. “How do you know all this?”
“Because once, I too thought I could speak two languages, light and shadow. And eventually I had to choose which one didn’t lie to me.”
Severus stared at his hands. “And you chose darkness?”
“I chose what loved me back.”
Later, they moved to the parlor. Morticia brewed a strange, silvery tea that smelled of mint, wormwood, and ghost orchids. Severus took a tentative sip and felt his bones unclench.
“I feel…” he blinked. “Like I’m floating.”
“It calms the fight response,” she said. “And doesn’t interact with most memory-altering spells.”
He snorted softly. “That’s a sentence I’ve never heard over tea.”
“You haven’t lived in this house very long.”
He exhaled, staring into his cup. “I keep expecting someone to yell. Or hit. Or demand more of me than I have.”
Morticia tilted her head. “No one will do that here. Not unless you need them to.”
He frowned. “Why would I need someone to yell at me?”
“Some traumas don’t recognize peace until it wears familiar armor.”
He blinked slowly. “That… makes a disturbing amount of sense.”
“I know,” she said with a small smile. “When I met Gomez, I didn’t trust joy. I thought it was bait. He had to prove it wasn’t. Over and over. Not with gifts. But by staying. By laughing when I couldn’t. By never flinching.”
“And he never left?”
“Not once.”
Severus stared into the fire. “That sounds impossible.”
“Only because you were taught love must be earned by suffering.”
Later still, Morticia returned with a small black vial.
“For your hair,” she said. “I know you hate that it clings like seaweed. But the problem isn’t oil, it’s trauma.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Your scalp over-produces sebum because it interprets your environment as hostile. It’s very clever. Like the rest of you. But mistaken.”
He looked suspiciously at the potion. “This isn’t going to turn me into a toad, is it?”
“Only metaphorically.”
He unscrewed the cap. The scent was unlike anything he expected: cedar, rain, iron-rich earth. Something grounding.
“I made it with moonseed, white willow bark, and ghost orchid extract,” she said. “And just a single drop of lotus oil. From the Nile. Ancient. Rare.”
He hesitated. “You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to. That’s different.”
He stood, looked toward the stairs. “I should—”
“You may use the east bath. It has a mirror that doesn’t lie. But doesn’t gloat either.”
He paused. “Thank you.”
She inclined her head. “Not charity. Alchemy.”

The bath was massive, marble, and lined with obsidian tiles. The mirror, true to Morticia’s word, reflected him honestly, but gently. He stripped off his robe and studied the bruises still fading from his ribs. They were yellower now. Less angry.
He poured the potion into his hands and massaged it into his scalp.
The scent swirled around him like an incantation.
When he rinsed it out, the water ran clear. His hair didn’t feel greasy—it felt like hair. Soft. Slightly wavy. Still dark as ink, but different. Not defeated. Not weighed down.
He stared at the mirror.
And, for the first time in years, he didn’t flinch.
He returned to the conservatory before bed, unsure why.
Morticia was still there, reclining on the twisted chaise like a painting half-forgotten in a haunted gallery.
She looked up. “Did it work?”
He nodded.
“Do you feel more like yourself?”
“I don’t know who that is,” he said honestly. “But I feel… less like who they told me I was.”
“That’s enough for tonight.”
He sat beside her again.
Neither spoke.
Outside, a flower uncurled its petals in the dark, glowing faintly like the ghost of a star.

Chapter Text

The study at Addams Manor was a mausoleum dedicated to dead languages and living poisons. Brass‑bound tomes slumbered on ebony shelves; vials of powdered mooncalf bone glittered in recessed alcoves. At the room’s heart, a hearth glowed with coals the color of eclipse light. Severus settled cross‑legged in the window seat, back braced against cold stained glass, a copy of Vitriolic Elixirs and the Art of Quiet Combustion propped on his knees.
Rain combed the ivy outside. The soft percussion soothed him in a way lectures never managed. He traced a paragraph about distilling powdered basilisk fang beneath a vacuum seal, lips moving silently. Every so often he reached for the quill tucked behind his ear and annotated the margin: “Consider substituting antimony, risk of collapse?” or “Yields exothermic resonance, reinforce cauldron.”
He liked the stillness. He liked, though he would never admit it, the sense that the house itself approved of his study: sconces dimming so firelight wouldn’t glare on parchment, the grandfather clock in the corner easing its tick to a hush. A place built of misfit shadows but willing to cradle him anyway.
The door creaked.
Uncle Fester ambled in wearing a patched velvet smoking jacket the color of wilted roses. He cradled his perpetual glass jar of glowing something, today the murk pulsed dreamy violet, as though a storm had been bottled mid‑thunderclap.
Severus glanced up, expecting the usual cackle or pithy remark about using spleens as bookmarks. Instead Fester stopped two steps inside and simply looked at him, head tilted, bulbous eyes squinting with unusual focus.
Severus shifted under the gaze, fingers tightening on the spine of the book. “Need something?”
Fester didn’t answer at once. He set his jar on a side table, wiped his palms on the lining of his jacket, and advanced with uncharacteristic caution. “Hold still, kid.”
“I’m reading.”
“This’ll only pinch your dignity for a second.” Fester leaned forward until Severus could smell faint ozone and singed wool. A gloved finger traced the bridge of Severus’s nose, hovered, really, never quite touching. “Crooked,” Fester murmured, as though inspecting cracked china. “Healed wrong. How’d it happen?”
Severus felt heat crawl up his throat. Of course the Addams house noticed everything, every tremor, every bruise. Yet somehow he’d believed the break in his nose might pass unremarked: a minor defect compared to the deeper fractures of his life.
“Broke years ago,” he muttered, trying to turn back to the page. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Matters to me,” Fester said softly. Odd, hearing softness from that voice usually pitched for manic glee.
A memory surged, uninvited, inevitable. Nine years old, toes slipping on sticky kitchen linoleum, the lamp with the frayed cord casting anemic light. Father’s silhouette, broad and swaying, a bottle of cheap gin sloshing amber onto the floor. Mother’s thin cry, “Tobias, please—he’s only—” The fist descending like a piston, and the crack of cartilage snapping. The smell of alcohol mixing with blood.
The book blurred. Severus blinked hard, but the page would not steady. Fester’s finger drifted away yet left a phantom touch, as if the bone itself ached in memory.
“Hey,” Fester said, voice pitched to secret corridors. “Didn’t mean to dig up ghosts.”
“There’s nothing buried,” Severus lied, throat raw. “Some battles leave souvenirs.”
Fester hummed. “Souvenirs should be chosen, not forced.” He straightened, rubbed his bald head, and let out a breath that darkened the air like smoke. “Stay here.” He padded from the study at surprising speed.
Severus stared after him, half hoping he’d imagined the exchange. He swallowed, tried to wedge his attention back into basilisk fang yields. The words refused to sit still. Shadows pooled under every line break, shaped like belts, like bottles, like fists.
A gentle place, Morticia had called the study on his first night. Gentle not because it is soft, but because it never strikes first. He reminded himself of that: walls that would not echo curses, furniture that did not intimidate. Yet the old reflex, shoulders hunched, breath shallow, crept in.
Minutes later the door whispered open again. Morticia glided through, black silks whispering, her hair a midnight river. Fester followed, and behind him loomed Lurch, carrying a polished mahogany case the length of a broomstick.
Severus set the book aside with forced calm. “I’m busy.”
“And we are intruding,” Morticia agreed, coming to his side. She knelt—yes, knelt in front of the window seat so their eyes met level. “May we?”
He hated how the kindness unraveled his shields faster than cruelty ever could. “What exactly do you want?”
“To mend what was set crooked,” she said, fingers feather‑light at his chin. “If you consent.”
Fester waggled his eyebrows. “Got the field kit! Picked it up from an old warlock dentist who owed me a favor. Best bone‑knitter this side of Carpathia.”
Lurch opened the case with ceremony. Inside, nestled in midnight velvet, lay an angular device of silver and charmed obsidian, sinuous like a wand, ending in twin prongs that glimmered faintly blue. Next to it: vials of pearl‑iridescent potion, gauze that seemed woven of moonbeams, and a slim codex bound in scaleless dragon hide.
Severus stared. “That looks more like an exorcism wand than a healer’s tool.”
“Progressive medicine,” Fester said. “Works on fractures less than fifty years old.”
“Fester exaggerated,” Morticia murmured. “It is gentle. I would never allow harm.”
She brushed a stray lock from his face. He stiffened but did not pull away. Her fingertips were cool, smelling faintly of ghost‑orchid oil.
“It doesn’t hurt unless you resist,” she continued. “Bone remembers the shape it should be.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then we close the case,” she said simply, “and share a pot of wolfsbane tea. I will still think you are perfect.”
He opened his mouth, closed it. The Addamses did not batter his defenses, they waited. Somehow that felt more perilous.
Fester cleared his throat, twirling the bone‑knitter. “Side benefit, you’ll sleep easier. A badly set break can pinch sinuses, cause headaches, nightmares. Believe me, I know.” He tapped his own bulbous nose. “This beauty’s wonky ‘cause I liked the kink. Style choice.”
Lurch rumbled an assent, something between a stone grinding and a cello note. It might have been, You’ll be all right.
Severus inhaled through that crooked conduit, felt the slight whistle it made, something he’d stopped noticing years ago. How many times had he been mocked at school for that whistle? How many times had he hidden behind his hair?
“I don’t care about looks,” he said, and knew it sounded unconvincing.
Morticia’s eyes softened. “Care is not vanity.”
The grandfather clock ticked louder, or perhaps his heart did. Severus exhaled. “Fine. Do it.”
Fester lit up. Morticia pressed her palm over his heart, a steadying incantation without words. “Focus on something you love,” she advised.
Potions, he thought. The perfect moment a brew clears. Lily’s laugh in the sunlight. The memory startled him, still bright beneath the rubble.
Fester uncorked a vial, dabbed shimmering potion along Severus’s nose; it tingled cold, then blissfully numb. Lurch passed the bone‑knitter. Fester aligned the dual prongs on either side of the bridge. “Count to three,” he whispered.
A pulse of cool blue threaded through cartilage, the sensation of something rearranging, like puzzle pieces sliding home. Pressure, a faint crackle, but no pain. Severus’s eyes watered anyway.
“One,” Fester said. “Done.”
Morticia watched intently, fingertips still at his pulse. “Breathe,” she reminded.
He did. Air flowed through straight passages; no whistle, no catch. Odd, how light it felt.
Fester withdrew the device, set it gently in the velvet. “Textbook remodel,” he crowed. “You could headline Dark Arts Vogue.”
Morticia conjured a small mirror from the ether. Severus hesitated before taking it. The reflection showed the same gaunt face, same dark eyes—but the nose, once offset like a lightning scar across a statue, now ran in a clean line, subtle curve at the tip—a promise of what genetics meant before violence intervened.
“It’s… strange,” he murmured, touching the bridge. “Feels like someone else’s.”
“It’s yours,” Morticia said. “Untwisted.”
Fester gave a satisfied nod, then plucked his jar of violet lightning from the table. “Celebrate with static fireworks in the hall? No? Suit yourself.” He winked and slipped out, humming off‑key.
Lurch lingered. He bent, enormous, to eye level and grumbled a low syllable that vibrated the carpet. Severus thought he caught, Handsome. Then the butler strode after Fester, door sighing shut behind him.
Silence returned, but it was different, expansive, expectant.
Morticia settled beside Severus on the window seat, folding her hands in her lap. “How do you feel?”
He breathed again, testing. “Like the air weighs less.” He gave a brittle laugh. “Ridiculous.”
“Truth often sounds that way when we first taste it.”
He set the mirror down. Rain still traced rivulets on the glass behind them, but his reflection blurred now by water looked almost peaceful.
“You didn’t have to do this,” he said. “I was… accustomed.”
“Accustomed is not the same as healed.”
“I’m not healed,” he whispered, surprise pricking his eyes.
Morticia’s voice softened further. “Then consider this one bone listening first. Others will follow.”
He rubbed his now‑straight nose, uncertain how to hold his face. The memory of his father’s blow flickered, still there, but less sharp, as though someone had sanded the edges. He wondered, distantly, if forgiving a bone might one day help forgive himself.
“I was terrified you’d think it sentimental.”
“Sentiment,” she said, “is the marrow of survival.”
The rain eased to mist. Somewhere deeper in the manor, a grandfather clock sighed midnight. Candles guttered, then revived, drawing brandy‑colored halos around them.
Morticia glanced at the book abandoned on the cushion. “Vitriolic Elixirs?”
He nodded. “Chapter on vacuum distillation.”
“I could never master that,” she confessed. “Gomez tried once. The kitchen ceiling still hints of lavender smoke.”
Severus allowed the corner of his mouth to curl. “I could show you safer tricks.”
Her eyes glinted. “And I could show you dangerous ones.”
He realized then that terror had retreated, leaving space for curiosity.
Morticia rose, offering a hand. “Come. Let us honor your unmended scars with learning, not hiding.”
He hesitated only a moment before taking her hand. The bone‑knitter cooled in its case; the study’s shadows tilted, approving.
As they walked toward the alchemical workbench, Severus caught their reflections in the high mirror: a slender boy in black, nose straight like a quill poised to write a new sentence, beside a woman woven of night and orchid light. Something in that image felt undeniably, painfully, right.
‘Maybe gomez was right, I could be a cousin or something’
Perhaps tomorrow the past would return roaring. Perhaps nightmares would break him open again. But tonight a fracture had closed, and the house, aware, hummed contentment through its beams.
Somewhere down the corridor Fester’s jar crackled violet lightning, and Lurch’s basso laugh rolled like distant thunder, approval in the language of giants.
Severus opened his book, Morticia donned obsidian‑tipped gloves, and the study filled with the quiet symphony of two minds bending poison toward possibility.

Chapter Text

Severus had meant to pack alone.
That had been the plan, a final quiet morning in the guest suite, a checklist inked with obsessive precision, each item stowed in the battered school trunk he’d lugged back and forth to Hogwarts these past five years. He’d risen before dawn, while the house still dreamed, intending to finish before anyone stirred.
The manor had other ideas.
A soft knock, three beats like a hidden heart, sounded just as he folded his last set of quills into their oil‑cloth roll. Before Severus could answer, the door swung wide of its own accord and Lurch filled the frame, a silhouette tall enough to eclipse the corridor chandeliers.
“uhhhhrrr,” he rumbled, voice deep as organ pipes. In his hands rested a lacquered wooden case the size of a loaf of bread, etched with curling thorns and tiny silver snakes.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Severus said automatically, then winced at his own defensiveness.
Lurch crossed the room in three seismic strides. The case, when placed on the bedspread, made hardly a whisper. With surprising delicacy he unclasped the lid. Inside lay a set of razor‑sharp silver stirring rods, each nested in midnight velvet, their handles inlaid with obsidian scales.
Lurch explained, pronouncing the word apoth‑uh‑kerree like a chime struck in slow motion. “For when strength must be silent.”
Severus traced one handle, perfectly balanced, cool against his fingertips. “They’re exquisite.” And far too precious. “I can’t—”
Lurch’s heavy brow creased, a cavernous frown. “Gift,” he said simply. “To remind you, precision matters.”
The sincerity disarmed Severus. He swallowed the refusal and instead inclined his head. “Thank you.”
Lurch’s expression softened into something that might have been pride. He bowed—an earthquake curtsying, then lumbered out.
Alone again, Severus tucked the rods atop his cauldron wrap. They fit as though the trunk had been waiting for them.
He’d scarcely refastened the buckle when a scent of sage and brimstone drifted through the keyhole. Grandmama burst in, wild‑eyed and cackling, skirts trailing dried mandrake leaves.
“Potion boy!” she rasped. “Can’t let you go without sustenance.” She upended a burlap pouch onto the mattress. Out tumbled charms, roots, and vials that pulsed faintly chartreuse.
Severus recognized powdered aconite, ground ashwinder egg, and, Merlin help him, a stoppered flask of what looked suspiciously like phoenix tears. “Grandmama, these are illegal to export from certain Ministries.”
“Pah!” She scooped the lot into a moth‑eaten velvet bag and thrust it into his hands. “Rules rot the teeth. Besides, I brewed half of this under a blood moon, so the statute of limitations expired at dawn.”
That logic made less sense than Divination. Severus nevertheless slid the pouch between folded socks. Grandmama winked conspiratorially, slapped a knot of foxglove to his lapel for luck, and shuffled out, muttering about pickled salamander tongues.
The next visitor arrived via vent shaft.
A tinny explosion rattled the fireplace grate, and Pugsley crawled through a plume of soot, goggles askew, clutching a lumpy parcel swaddled in oilcloth. “Prototype!” he announced, thrusting it forward.
Severus recoiled. “Is it ticking?”
“Not anymore,” Pugsley said cheerfully. “I dampened the fulmination chamber. Now it detonates on verbal cue, pick any word you hate.”
“I have a long list,” Severus muttered. Still, curiosity prickled. He unwrapped the package to reveal what resembled a silver snitch studded with tiny runic vents. A braided leather cord formed a pull‑ring.
Pugsley’s grin split wide. “Test it on the Slytherin practice pitch. Makes a crater perfect for burying secrets.”
Severus pictured Filch discovering a smoking hole the size of a hippogriff. He smirked despite himself. “I’ll use it wisely.”
“You’ll use it loudly,” Pugsley corrected, scrambled back into the fireplace, and disappeared in a cough of sparks.
Severus had barely dusted off his sleeves when the chandelier bulbs flickered red. That meant Wednesday.
She appeared in the doorway like a living silhouette, black dress unruffled, braids sharp as guillotine cables. In her hands lay a slender leather volume embossed with neither title nor author.
“I wrote you a field manual,” she said, voice monotone but eyes gleaming. “For defense against grievances.”
He accepted the book. Inside, neat ink diagrams illustrated vicious hexes annotated with philosophical footnotes (“Maleficens Hypocrisis—paralyzes only those who lie while apologizing”). In the margin of one page she’d penned: Do not waste curses on cowards; knives are cheaper.
Severus closed the cover, heart oddly warm. “It’s… thorough.”
“Add notes as you innovate,” she said. “Footnotes are the bones of legacy.”
He met her gaze. “Thank you.”
Wednesday inclined her head the barest degree, Addams for an embrace, then vanished like a shadow into deeper shadow.
When the grandfather clock tolled ten, Uncle Fester bounded in, crackling with static. “Heard you’re collecting keepsakes!” From his coat he produced a squat iron lantern, six‑paned and dented, faint violet light pulsing within.
“It’s bottled St. Elmo’s fire,” he whispered, eyes round. “Release the latch, whoosh, instant lightning. Good for dramatic entrances, or reanimating small rodents.”
Severus weighed the lantern. “How volatile?”
“Only lethal if you sneeze while it sparks,” Fester said brightly. “Also doubles as a night‑light.”
“That’s… comforting.” He nestled it beside his potions kit, making a mental note to isolate it from Pugsley’s bomb.
Fester patted his shoulder, discharging a shock that made Severus’s hair stand on end, sleek now, courtesy of Morticia’s potion, but momentarily frizzed like a startled cat. Fester howled with delight and cartwheeled out.
The trunk was filling like a mythic hoard,, artifacts tucked among textbooks and robes. Severus stared at the jumble, torn between gratitude and unease. They were burying him in affection he hadn’t earned.
A gentle rap sounded. Gomez slid in, dapper in a pinstripe waistcoat, rapier sheathed at his hip. Under one arm he carried a polished mahogany box bound with a crimson ribbon.
“My dear bat!” he exclaimed. “A voyager needs style.” He popped the lid. Nested inside lay a pocket watch, not gold, but silver and mother‑of‑pearl, its hands shaped like raven feathers. The face bore no numbers, only phases of the moon; the second hand ticked backwards.
“It’s synced to Addams Manor,” Gomez explained. “So wherever you roam, you’ll always know when it’s midnight here. In case you wish to call, or duel remotely.”
Severus stroked the cool mineral surface. “I… don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll return,” Gomez said, sudden earnestness softening his grin. “And bring stories.”
Severus clasped the watch. “I will.”
Gomez squeezed his shoulder, firm, not smothering, and strode off humming a flamenco refrain.
By midday the room smelled of sandalwood, foxglove, and ozone. Severus tried again to close the trunk; it protested, lid hovering like a reluctant coffin. He exhaled through his newly straight nose, still marveling at the clear airflow, and began rearranging.
A knock softer than moth wings answered the hush. Morticia drifted into view, bearing an ebony garment bag and a slender glass phial suspended on a silver chain.
“May I?” she asked.
He nodded, stepping aside.
She laid the garment bag across the sheets and unzipped it. Within lay a cloak, blacker than ink, lighter than smoke, lining the iridescent green of a beetle’s wing. When she lifted it, the fabric seemed to drink light, edges fluttering though no breeze stirred.
“Night‑silk,” she said. “Spun by underlake spiders during eclipses. It billows even when the world is still, for theatrical entrances… or exits.”
“It must have cost—”
“Merely patience.” She fastened the clasp about his shoulders. The cloak hugged his frame, then fell, weightless, in perfect folds. He caught his reflection in the wardrobe mirror—tall, enigmatic, unmistakably himself, yet… refined.
Morticia’s expression softened, pride and melancholy braided in her eyes. “I prefer you without armor,” she confessed, fingering the cloak’s collar. “But should you need it, let it be worthy.”
She then offered the phial, clear, stoppered with obsidian, half‑filled with argent liquid that shimmered like restless memories.
“Dream‑distillate,” she said. “A single drop before sleep calls forth the last dream that made you strong. Useful when nightmares lie.”
Severus cradled the chain. “You think of everything.”
“Only of you.” She brushed a strand of hair behind his ear. “Will you wear it?”
He slipped the chain over his head. The phial settled against his sternum, cool and reassuring. “Yes.”
Silence stretched, comfortable. Rain had ceased; early afternoon light spilled through stained glass, painting them in shifting rubies and emeralds.
“I keep expecting the floor to tilt,” he confessed, surprising himself. “As though all this might vanish.”
Morticia’s lips curved. “Reality is fickle, but memory is soil. Plant us in your mind; we will grow there.”
He wanted to answer but words snagged on emotion. Instead he clasped her hand and squeezed once, hard.
She understood. She always did.
The manor assembled to see him off.
In the foyer, the family gathered around his trunk now charmed feather‑light by Grandmama’s muttered cantrip. Lurch held the coat‑rack like a standard. Wednesday stood sentinel, pocketing a throwing knife. Pugsley fiddled with his bomb’s cord; Fester’s lantern fizzed purple at his hip. Gomez twirled his rapier; Grandmama gnawed celery that smelled suspiciously like wolfsbane.
Morticia linked her arm through Severus’s.
“Feeling smothered?” she teased in whisper.
“Weighted,” he answered honestly, “but not crushed.”
“Good. Travel with gravity; it anchors the soul.”
They stepped through the front doors into crisp dusk. The carriage awaited—four spectral horses in silver tack. An Addams chauffeur tipped his hat, ashen face barely visible beneath shadow.
Severus stowed his trunk, then turned. Words threatened to lodge again. Gomez saved him.
“A toast to triumph!” the patriarch roared, raising a crystal goblet Uncle Fester produced from nowhere. “May our bat conquer castles and bring back taller tales!”
They clinked whatever they held, goblet, lantern, vial, bomb. Severus found himself snickering, a sound still new but less alien.
Wednesday stepped forward last. She studied him, then unclipped a black ribbon from her braid and tied it around the phial at his throat in a neat bow. “For reinforcement,” she said. “Bows are traps that promise release.”
He inclined his head in solemn gratitude.
Finally Morticia placed her cool palms on either side of his face, no longer crooked, kissed his brow, and whispered Latin Severus recognized as an ancient blessing for travelling wizards:
Umbrae custodiant, lumen redeat.
(“Let shadows guard you, let light return.”)
He stepped into the carriage. The door shut with a certain finality, yet the window remained open long enough for him to look back.
They waved, each in their manner: Gomez’s broad flourish, Wednesday’s single nod, Pugsley’s explosive grin, Fester’s spark‑spitting lantern, Grandmama’s skeletal salute, Lurch’s stony thumbs‑up, Morticia’s silent, endless gaze.
The driver cracked a whip of flickering moon‑thread. The horses surged. Gravel became fog, and manor spires dwindled into the hush of evening.
Inside, Severus settled onto the velvet seat. His trunk vibrated softly with its volatile contents, like a heart so full it must keep moving or burst.
He opened the obsidian watch: the moon‑hand pointed straight up, midnight at Addams Manor, though dusk lay outside. Beneath the ticking he imagined faint echoes: Gomez’s laughter, Morticia’s lullaby, Wednesday’s pen scratching future footnotes.
For the first time since childhood, the journey to Hogwarts did not feel like exile, but departure.
He leaned back, cloak pooling like captured night, and allowed himself a small, private smile, sharp as a silver stirring rod, bright as bottled lightning, blooming quietly in the dark.

Chapter Text

The pocket watch in Severus’s gloved palm ticked backward toward midnight, its raven‑feather hands murmuring Addams time even as morning sunlight pooled across King’s Cross station. He stood among the swirling Muggle crowds, cloak of night‑silk draped over pin‑striped shoulders, and felt as though he occupied a secret layer of reality, one stitched by spiders between the ordinary and the impossible.
A month ago he would have slunk, shoulders hunched, hair hanging in greasy curtains. Today his newly mended nose cut a clean line; ghost‑orchid shampoo had coaxed his hair into soft, ink‑black waves that caught the light like velvet. The serpent‑green lining of his cloak whispered with each measured step. Every seam, every polished boot button, every silver cuff link etched with tiny thorns announced not Spinner’s End, but An Addams.
He passed through the barrier at eleven minutes to eleven. The scarlet locomotive shrieked a greeting; steam rolled over the platform like rising fog in a graveyard. First‑years gaped, parents shouted last‑minute cautions, owls objected in frantic chorus. Severus breathed frost‑tinged air through unpinched sinuses, tasting coal dust and possibilities.

He saw them almost at once, because he had learned to feel their presence the way some animals sense earthquakes. The Marauders—Potter, Black, Lupin, Pettigrew—lounged near a luggage trolley stacked with broomsticks and Quidditch gear. They wore the careless arrogance of boys certain the world would applaud their every cruelty.
James Potter’s hand toyed with his wand, hazel eyes scanning the crowd for a familiar target. Sirius Black lounged against the trunk, hair artfully disheveled, smirk half‑formed. Remus Lupin’s arms were folded in uneasy complicity, gaze flicking to the clock as though measuring how long before the inevitable ambush. Pettigrew bounced on his toes, excitement vermin‑bright.
Severus felt the old instinct, blade of dread sliding between ribs. He touched the phial of dream‑distillate beneath his shirt, felt the smooth ribbon Wednesday tied, and exhaled a steadying breath. Let shadows guard you, Morticia had murmured. Fine.
He angled his body, cloak billowing with theatrical precision. The movement drew momentary attention: Sirius’s gaze slid over him, paused, then widened fractionally. Potter followed the line of sight. Severus felt the weight of their appraisal and turned his head as though to examine the platform clock. Steam drifted, half‑veiling his profile.
“Merlin,” Sirius muttered, just audible over the clamor. “Did you see—?”
“See what?” James asked.
“That bloke in black. Looks like a fallen angel escaped the painting gallery.”
James laughed. “Since when are you poetic?”
Remus’s brow furrowed. “He does look familiar…”
Peter squeaked, “Maybe Beauxbatons? They breed pretty weird over there.”
Sirius elbowed him. “No, French boys glow like powdered sugar. This one’s… otherworldly.”
Severus kept moving. Heart quickened, but the thrill was not humiliation, it was power. They watched him, mistaking him for someone beautiful??? unreachable. They did not see the boy they once dangled upside‑down, nor smell the fear they’d distilled from him like cheap spirits.
He ascended the train steps, cloak swirling, and disappeared through the carriage door before their curiosity solidified to certainty.

The corridor hummed with jostling students. Voices ricocheted, Save me a seat!  Did you pack my bezoar?  Chocolate Frogs later! He slipped past in a hush of silk, making for the quieter rear compartments. The watch ticked: five minutes to Addams midnight. Somewhere, Morticia was pruning lethal orchids. He imagined the manor’s chandeliers slitting their eyes against morning brightness, waiting for dusk.
A door near the end stood ajar. Empty. He slid inside, closed it with a click, and drew the curtain on the glass. Steam blurred the window; beyond, the platform writhed with motion and memory.
He lowered the trunk, flicked his wand—Abscindo—locks popped, lid yawning. Silver stirring rods nestled in velvet greeted him. Beneath, Grandmama’s pouch of contraband ingredients exuded herbal mischief; Pugsley’s bomb gleamed malevolently within a cushioning charm; Fester’s lantern pulsed soft violet; Wednesday’s manual rested like a silent oath; Gomez’s watch ticked its own doom perfect time.
Severus traced the obsidian watchface, then fastened it to his waistcoat. A soft satisfaction curled in his chest: he had become a walking reliquary of Addams blessings, each artifact a thread binding him to somewhere he was wanted.
The whistle shrieked. Carriages shuddered. Outside, students hugged parents and stumbled after prefects. Severus glimpsed Lily Evans’s copper hair in the crowd, bright as foxfire. She laughed with Mary Macdonald, unaware of him watching. A pang echoed, familiar, faded.
The train lurched forward. Through the glass Severus saw James scramble on board, Sirius behind him, Lupin pulling Peter with mild exasperation. Their heads turned down the corridor opposite his door, still hunting. He felt neither fear nor triumph, only a detached amusement, wolves sniffing after the moon, unaware the moon moved on.

When the platform slipped from view, Severus unlatched Fester’s lantern. Violet fire flickered, casting dancing lightning across compartment walls. He opened Grandmama’s pouch, inhaled the scent of aconite and ash. Ingredients for days ahead, projects to claim his solitude.
He withdrew a journal, untitled, black morocco. On the first blank page he wrote:
9 September, Hogwarts Express.
Experiment: Identity as Potion.
Base: Self, distilled by circumstance. Additives: Moon‑silk, silver rods, bone‑knit, dream‑oil, and the memory of a house that chose me.
Ink bled graceful curlicues, he no longer cramped his handwriting into nervous scratches.
The door suddenly rattled. He flicked his wand, extinguished the lantern. Footsteps paused outside. Muffled voices, Potter’s and Black’s again.
“Sure he hasn’t boarded yet?” Sirius whispered.
“He’s like fungus,” James said. “Thrives in dark corners. We’ll smell him.”
“Did you smell perfume on that tall bloke?” Sirius mused.
“Can’t hex someone for smelling good.”
“Watch me,” Sirius snorted. They shuffled away.
Severus let breath slip from his lips. His reflection in the window looked amused. The cloak embraced him, almost affectionate. He reopened the lantern to a low glow.

The hours unspooled.
A trolley came by with pumpkin pasties and Cauldron Cakes. Severus purchased two squares of dark chocolate. Sugar crystals melted on his tongue, mixing with a faint metallic thrill of expectation.
Twice more he heard the Marauders canvassing. Once they opened the door opposite, finding only two Ravenclaw girls. Sirius apologized with exaggerated flourish; James winked. They never tried Severus’s door, the Addams cloak, charmed to absorb light, rendered the compartment’s number plaque unreadable from the corridor.
Afternoon sun slanted, golden through the glass. Fields swept by, patched green and gold beneath scudding clouds. Severus unpacked one silver rod, testing its balance: perfect. He pictured stirring a Ravenclaw lab cauldron until reflection of its sheen forced Professor Slughorn to blink.
Another knock. This time softer, hesitant. He slid the door only partway. Lily stood there, arms folded around a book, Intermediate Charms, Volume II, her freckles bright against anxious cheeks.
“Oh,” she said, startled. “I—sorry. I thought this was empty.”
He hesitated in silence. Her green eyes searched his face, then widened with dawning recognition. “I’ve never seen you before, are you new??” she whispered, incredulous.
A dozen replies crowded his throat. He offered none. Instead he inclined his head, a polite stranger’s nod, and drew the curtain gently shut. For now, memory could wait.
Her footsteps receded. The train roared.

Twilight bled violet at the horizon when the Express screeched into Hogsmeade. Students spilled like shouts onto the platform. Severus lingered until carriages filled. He exited, cloak coiling serpentine behind.
“Firs’ years! This way!” Hagrid boomed somewhere ahead.
Snow‑kissed wind whipped his hair across his cheek, soft, untangled, fragrant of cedar. He glimpsed Potter and Black swaggering toward a thestral‑drawn carriage, still joking. James’s gaze drifted past him without a flicker.
For Severus, the invisibility was a new sort of magic, an inheritance not from Hogwarts but from the Addamses, who thrived on edges.
He claimed the last space in a carriage occupied only by shadows and, when the doors clapped shut, allowed himself a thin smile.
This year, he thought, as the castle towers pierced the dark like black candles, the script changes.
The watch on his waistcoat clicked to Addams midnight. Behind its glass, the raven‑feather hand paused, then resumed its backward sweep, rhythm steady as a heartbeat carried from a home that loved him.
He sat straighter, cloak rippling, and faced the castle with the poise of a nocturne newly composed, notes sharper, quieter, impossible to forget.

Chapter Text

The Great Hall shimmered like a cathedral built of thunderclouds and candle‑wax. Points of star‑light flickered overhead in the enchanted vault; outside, September’s first storm drummed impatient fingers on the castle’s ancient slate. By the time the last thestral‑drawn carriage emptied its passengers, a hush had settled among the long tables, part anticipation, part relief that another summer of uncertainty had survived the crossing to this odd sanctuary of stone, spells, and secrets.
Severus Snape, no, Severus Addams now, at least in spirit, slipped into his seat halfway down the Slytherin bench, cloak of night‑silk folding like docile shadow. A sea of green‑trimmed uniforms surrounded him: familiar faces sharpened by the cruelties of sixteen years, and fresher first‑years whose wide eyes reflected the candlelight like startled deer. None of them seemed to recognize the boy whose hair fell in soft, raven waves or whose profile arced in newly mended symmetry.
Opposite, at the Gryffindor table, the Marauders sprawled in casual disarray: James Potter’s glasses half‑fogged from rain, Sirius Black’s hair dripping Butterscotch‑colored candle‑glow, Remus Lupin wiping water spots from a battered copy of Hogwarts: A History and pretending disinterest, Peter Pettigrew already shoving treacle tart into his cheeks like a hoarding mouse. They scanned the hall from time to time, clearly expecting a stringy, hook‑nosed shadow to slink in and complete their annual sport.
Instead they found Severus and saw…someone else.
Sirius’s gaze snagged on him first. There was a flicker of curiosity, then an appreciative lift of eyebrow. His lips parted in what might have been the opening syllable of wolf‑whistle, but James thumped him in the ribs to demand attention just as Professor McGonagall ushered a quivering column of first‑years toward the Sorting Stool. Sirius’s smirk bent into a wince and the moment passed like a moth winging through torchlight.

The Sorting unfolded in its usual theater of nerves. Hufflepuffs cheered loudest for their newcomers, Ravenclaws applauded with measured grace, Gryffindors erupted in whoops, and Slytherins hissed approval like contented vipers. Amid the ritual Severus sat silent, idly twirling Gomez’s obsidian pocket‑watch beneath the table. Midnight Addams time ticked backward; somewhere Morticia was likely evening‑watering her wolfsbane collection while Lurch tuned the harpsichord to a minor key. The thought armored him against the draft scuttling under the vast doors.
“Who are you?” regulus asked staring down at him. Startling severus “wha-”, “you look vaguely familiar but I have never seen you”
‘I don’t look that that different, do I?’ severus thought, he finally met regulus gaze and said “who else could it be reggie”.....he looked at severus in shock “sev-but you-I??”
“What happened to you, you look…pretty?”
Severus look at him confused “why pretty?, why not oh you look new, handsome or something" regulus chuckled “this look suit you tho, you look nice” severus can feel his shoulders visibly relax at that “thanks” he mumbled
At last Albus Dumbledore rose, robes the color of fading rainbows, half‑moon spectacles flashing in torch‑glare. His arms lifted in benediction over the sea of students.
“To those who step for the first time beneath this roof, and to those who return to grace it again, welcome,” he intoned, voice warm as spiced chocolate. A customary cheer rippled across the hall. “Our noble founders built these halls to kindle curiosity, courage, wisdom, and—” He paused, blue eyes twinkling over Slytherin— “a healthy competitive spirit. May we honor them by sharpening our minds without dulling our hearts.”
Severus noted the subtle emphasis, a diplomatic nod to last year’s dueling incidents. Across the aisle, Sirius slung an arm over James’s shoulders and made a halo above both their heads; James rolled his eyes, but grin sparred with an angelic expression. Potter’s gaze slid back toward the Slytherin benches again, measuring, still clearly hunting for a familiar victim.
Dumbledore’s speech meandered over new Filch‑enforced corridor restrictions (to curb “experimental pyrotechnics forged in broom‑cupboards”), the announcement of a forthcoming Tri‑School Debate society, and heartfelt implorations to remember that every portrait was listening. He closed with the annual admonition that the Forbidden Forest was, as ever, forbidden, his tone suggesting the capitals as clearly as if they were carved in stone.
Applause.
With a clap of aged hands, Dumbledore let the feast erupt. Platters blossomed full; tureens frothed; goblets tingled with pumpkin fizz. Laughter clanged off the rafters.
Severus filled his plate absent‑mindedly: slivers of roast pheasant tucked beside buttery leeks. A hush of conversation drifted over from Avery, tall, blond, ambition heavy on his shoulders, who leaned conspiratorially toward Mulciber and Rosier, griping about the Tri‑School Debate interfering with his dueling club schedule.
No one here recognized Severus either, he realized. They glanced his way, some idly admiring the fluid drape of his cloak, but most slid their eyes past him as if writing him into the décor. Students he’d shared dorms with for five years, and none looked twice.
A curious relief and loneliness coiled together. He tapped the pocket‑watch three times, counting Addams seconds, reminding himself that invisibility could be weapon or refuge.

Across the hall, the Marauders’ scanning grew more obvious once plates had been half‑emptied. Severus watched from beneath lowered lashes as Sirius murmured to James behind a sleeve, nodding toward the Slytherin table. James followed the gesture and frowned. Even from twenty feet away Severus read his lips: “Not him.”
Peter craned his neck. Remus’s brows knit.
Their confusion tasted like honey on Severus’s tongue.
Then Sirius examined Severus again, eyes trailing the night‑silk cloak, the raven‑soft hair, the unblemished nose. A slow smile curled. Severus felt heat prickle uncomfortably beneath his collar as the Black heir’s gaze lingered perhaps a beat too long for simple curiosity. He looked away, cutting a fig with unnecessary precision.

When golden platters clinked from heavy to empty, prefects barked orders and the tide of students funneled toward exits. The Slytherins descended the serpentine stair to their dungeon domain amid hisses, jests, and the occasional peal of acid laughter. The air smelled of damp stone, candle smoke, and faint brine from the lake curling against outer walls.
Severus followed in their wake, careful to lag a pace behind. Torchlight painted shifting copper across his cloak; water sounds beneath the floor echoed like heartbeats. A hidden panel of jade‑veined granite slid aside when the prefect whispered the password—“Imperium”—and the wall yawned open to reveal the familiar high‑vaulted common room.
Green orbs glowed beneath iron cages overhead, illuminating tufted sofas shaped like serpents curling in mid‑strike, study alcoves panelled in deep walnut, shelves of weathered tomes, and a long stone hearth where emerald flames danced. Along the far wall, stained‑glass windows gazed out into murky lakewater, silver fish darting like living knives.
Severus stepped across the threshold. Conversation faltered, curiosity cascading in ripples. Fifth‑year Alecto Carrow, perched on the arm of a chaise, tilted her head like a kestrel; sixth‑year Graham Montague straightened; first‑years squeaked and latched onto each other. The night‑silk cloak, the refined features, the untarnished posture, these things rang alien to those who remembered an oil‑slick boy with hunched shoulders and broken sneer.
Avery abandoned his clique near the hearth and strode over with confident languor. He ran a slim hand through his immaculate blond hair, tossed his prefect badge for show, and leaned one elbow on the back of Severus’s armchair, an artful invasion of personal space.
“Don’t believe we’ve met,” Avery purred. “Our house captain Lucius graduates a few years and already the House recruits promising replacements.”
Severus raised an eyebrow. In a low murmur, silk over steel, he replied: “Perhaps we have, and you simply lacked the eyes to notice.”
Avery blinked, momentarily off balance. “Name, then?”
Severus allowed the briefest, Addams‑sharp smile. “Addams.”
No first name? Let rumor ferment.
Avery’s dark gaze skimmed the cloak, the watch chain at Severus’s waistcoat. “Exquisite tailoring,” he said, voice dropping half an octave, this for the surrounding audience as much as for Severus. “I’d wager London?”
“Beyond.” A deliberate flicker of mystery.
Avery chuckled, leaning closer. The room watched, some amused, some assessing the new hierarchy. “Would you care for a tour of our more…select amenities?” he offered, doping the words with innuendo.
Severus felt a ghost of revulsion; old memories of Avery wasn’t kind, always looking down on him and constantly talking about his appearance and clothes. Yet the Addams in him savored the power reversal. He leaned back, cloak pooling, and regarded Avery like a specimen. “Perhaps,” he said, “when you can pronounce amaranthos without spitting on the floor.”
Avery’s eyes narrowed. Before he could retort, Mulciber called out, “Ease up, Avery, let the stranger settle. Plenty of year left for courting.”
Laughter rippled, half‑taunt, half‑support. Avery bowed with forced good humor and retreated with flushed cheeks. Severus watched him go, movement fluid, shoulders tense.
Conversation resumed around them, but glances ricocheted; speculation seeded itself like spores. A first‑year stumbled forward with parchment asking “Sir, are you Durmstrang?—you look continental.” Severus demurred with chilly courtesy, leaving myth to bloom.
He climbed the curving stair toward the sixth‑year boys’ dormitory. Behind him whispers swelled:
“—whoever he is, he’s—”
“—can’t be new, I swear I know that voice—”
“—bet Slughorn invites him to supper by Friday—”
Within the dorm, the four‑poster he’d claimed years prior loomed draped in silver‑green hangings. Trunks lined one wall, Rosier’s lacquered chest, Avery’s monogrammed steamer, Severus’s own battered case now charmed to appear equally polished. He stowed the night‑silk cloak across the footboard, smoothed his waistcoat, and sat a moment in the hush. The lake outside pressed black water against the windows like a sleeping leviathan.

Elsewhere in the castle the Marauders prowled. Their search had only intensified after the feast.
“Bet he’s moping in the Potions classroom,” James said, striding down the second‑floor corridor.
“Too public,” Remus countered, not unkindly. “Snape would brood somewhere with fewer witnesses.”
“Shrieking Shack?” Peter piped.
“Maybe Madam Pince finally stuffed him between encyclopedias,” Sirius quipped, but the joke lacked venom. His mind kept circling back to the figure at the Slytherin table, shadow‑fine features illuminated by candle glow, hair soft as spilled ink. A curious tug within his chest unnerved him. He shook it off, blaming hunger, though supper had been plentiful.
They detoured past the library (empty), the astronomy stairwell (climbing echoes only), and the antechamber near the Trophy Room where once they’d hexed Snape’s textbooks to croak. No trace.
“It’s like he vanished,” James muttered, frustration furrowing his brow.
“Maybe he didn’t come back,” Remus offered, though hope mingled with skepticism. “Could have run away.”
“Without giving us the satisfaction?” James scoffed.
Sirius felt the tug again and pictured—unbidden—the stranger’s profile, the curve of refined nose, the subtle smirk. “Maybe,” he mused aloud, “he came back…but hidden.”
“What do you mean?” Peter asked, fidgeting with his prefect‑shiny quill.
Sirius shrugged. “Just a thought.” He let the matter drop, but curiosity fermented.

Back in Slytherin, the common room thinned as curfew neared. Lamps dimmed to witch‑light. Severus sat cross‑legged on his bed, after saying night to regulus, silver rod balanced across his knees, jotting potion formulae beneath the glow of Fester’s lantern, its jar capped to a soft pulse of violet. Occasion drifted in: Avery arguing with Rosier below, Carrow practicing wand flips, Mulciber bragging he’d soon corner the new bloke for Dark Arts study group.
Severus wrote a single note: Avery’s approach: polite poison; anticipate. Then he smiled ruefully. The Addams family would applaud the theater.
He closed the manual Wednesday gifted him, smoothing the black leather. On the inside cover he inked: Property of S. S.—infinity in bones. A nod to Wednesday’s philosophy that footnotes outlive authors.
Turning down the lantern, he loosened the ribbon at his throat, rolling the dream‑distillate phial between fingers. Perhaps tonight he would not need its solace, the day itself had supplied power enough to snuff old nightmares.
Yet he paused, remembering Lily’s startled whisper at the train compartment door, how recognition hadn’t shown, maybe died behind her eyes. That wound remained, no glamour could mend it. But like his once‑broken nose, perhaps time would realign the fracture.
He uncorked the phial, tapped a single drop onto his tongue. Silver sweetness, cool as moonwater, spread across his palate. The lantern’s violet pulse merged with shadow; the bed’s hangings breathed around him like velvet lungs.
Images bloomed: the Addams foyer alive with lightning jars, Morticia’s kiss on his brow, Gomez’s rapier flourish, Wednesday tying a bow on his phial, Pugsley’s cackling bomb test, Lurch’s basso approval, Grandmama’s herbs crackling, they stood in a semicircle, silhouettes lit by stormfire. Home, the dream whispered.
Severus exhaled into darkness. The lake’s hush outside pressed steady and deep, a lullaby older than the Founders. Within that pressure, the person he once was, grease‑haired scowl, shoulders knotted, slipped like shed skin.
Morning would bring classes, scrutiny, possibly revelation. But now remained safe: him, a cauldron of evolving self, cloaked in Addams midnight.
Below, the common room fire sighed to embers. Avery’s voice drifted faint: “—whoever he is, I need to know by yule.” A response came muffled.
Severus smiled into his pillow. Let them wonder. Let the Marauders hunt phantoms. Let Avery court illusions. He had potions to perfect, serpents to reorganize, dreams to chart.
And he wore the best mask of all, one forged in acceptance rather than fear, one that did not conceal so much as reveal the quiet power of transformation.
In the dream that followed, moonflowers opened over black water and Morticia’s voice floated soft as night‑bloom scent: Umbrae custodiant, lumen redeat.
Shadows guard, light returns.
Tonight, both belonged to him.

Chapter Text

The greenhouse doors groaned open as the morning mist curled like ghost-fingers around the base of the castle. Herbology was held early, before the sun rose fully over the Scottish hills, and Severus relished the quiet hour before most students had shaken the sleep from their bones.
He stepped into Greenhouse Three with practiced grace, his gloves already on, his hair tied at the nape of his neck with a velvet ribbon Wednesday had personally pack. Professor Sprout was bent over a tray of seedlings, her usual wide-brimmed hat bobbing slightly as she hummed to herself. Rows of sinister plants lined the walls, some twitching slightly as the class filed in.
Charity Burbage was among the few students who nodded at him as she passed. She squinted at Severus with something approaching familiarity, but ultimately offered a smile and a polite, "Morning."
He inclined his head in return. “Good morning.”
Most of the Slytherins were still trying to place him. Only a few dared to sit close. Charity, seemingly curious or simply brave, took the station beside him. She rolled up her sleeves. "Devil's Snare today," she said with a nervous glance at the plant trembling in its enclosure.
"It responds poorly to fear," Severus murmured. "It tastes adrenaline."
Charity blinked. "Tastes it?"
"In a manner of speaking." He didn’t elaborate, instead leaning forward and whispering in an odd, lilting cadence that made the twitching tendrils still.
He reached into the enclosure with slow, deliberate precision, stroking the spine of a tendril with the back of a gloved finger. The Devil’s Snare gave a low shudder, then stilled. He whispered again, this time in soft Latin, and the plant recoiled politely into a coil.
Charity stared. "You tamed it."
"I calmed it," Severus corrected. "Taming implies conquest. This is simply understanding."
Across the bench, two Hufflepuffs gawked. Professor Sprout came by, saw the completely docile Devil’s Snare, and clapped her hands.
"Mr. — oh dear, I didn’t catch your surname," she said.
Severus didn’t blink. "Just Addams."
She blinked, then smiled. "Well, just Addams, that was exquisite work. 10 points to slytherin."
More heads turned. A Ravenclaw whispered, “Who is that?”
Charity eyed him with awe. "You're not new, are you?"
"Only newly observed," he said with a wry twist of his lips.
The Devil's Snare glowed faintly under his care. Its leaves, dark and glistening, curled inward like a cat purring in the sun.

Later, in Potions, the room was abuzz with heat, copper tang, and Slughorn's customary theatrics. Tables steamed with brews in various states of catastrophe, and Sirius Black sat slouched with a pestle in one hand, aimlessly grinding valerian root.
He wasn’t listening to James arguing about a Quidditch bet or remus about his book. His eyes were fixed on the tall boy in the front row, back impossibly straight, long lashes shadowing eyes as he studied a cauldron.
That boy again. The one from the Slytherin table. The one with the beautiful nose and that faint, ever-present smirk. It was maddening. He looked like he belonged in a painting.
Sirius couldn’t stop looking.
When the stranger leaned over to adjust the flame beneath his cauldron, Sirius caught a glimpse of inked script on his wrist, runes or poetry? The velvet cuff of his robe slid back just long enough for the shimmer of it to show.
James caught Sirius staring. "You're doing that thing again."
"What thing."
"Ogling."
"I'm observing."
"With your mouth open?"
Sirius snapped it shut. "He's… not from here."
Remus looked over. "He’s a Slytherin."
"But who?" Peter muttered.
"No idea. Looks like… someone who should be speaking French and seducing warlocks in a tower," Sirius said distractedly.
The conversation snapped when Slughorn waddled to the front, beaming, robes flaring behind him like a proud walrus.
"Right then! We’ll be brewing Calming Draught today. Useful for exams and Gryffindor nerves!" He chuckled at his own joke. "Now, I believe we have everyone—"
He scanned the room. Then paused.
"Oh! My word. I didn’t see– where is severus?!" His eyes settled on the new boy obviously not new and realize. "Severus, raise your hand… My boy?"
Severus calmly raised his hand.
Gasps.
Potter dropped his stirring rod. Peter yelped. Even Remus looked thunderstruck.
Sirius blinked. He looked from the boy to Slughorn, then back.
"It’s really you boy?" Slughorn said, bewildered and delighted. "As in… Severus Snape?"
Severus inclined his head, the light catching on his cheekbone just so. "Formerly."
Whispers exploded. Hushed and sharp, like blades striking porcelain.
"That’s Snape?"
"No way."
"What happened to him?"
"Did he get hexed? Glamoured?"
"No,” said Charity, who had slipped in late, breathless. “That’s really him. I saw him in Herbology. It’s him. He’s just… different."
James turned white. Sirius didn’t speak.
His chest buzzed, blood roaring in his ears.
That was Snape? But, but he looked like he’d been dipped in poetry and dressed by a vampire lord.
Slughorn chuckled nervously. "My boy, you’ve had quite the break. Come, come, we must talk after class!"
Severus nodded, the faintest edge of amusement in his eyes.
When he returned to his potion, the room remained stunned.
Even as the scent of lavender root thickened and copper ladles clinked against cauldrons, the mood had changed.
Severus Snape had not just returned.
He had arrived.

After class, the Marauders huddled in a silent knot. For once, Sirius didn’t have a quip.
James spoke first. "That… that was Snivellus."
Remus slowly said, "I don’t understand."
"Did someone body-swap him? Did he make a pact with a banshee?"
"It’s still him,it’s still snivellus" Sirius said quietly.
Peter looked like he’d seen a ghost. "He looked at me. I felt judged."
Sirius sat down on the edge of a desk and buried his head in his hands.
"I think I might have been crushing on snivellus."
James fell off his stool…he nearly fainted
Remus groaned. "Oh, no." covering his face
Peter squeaked, "We bullied him."
James lay faintly looking sick. "We hexed him into the lake!"
Sirius moaned, "We mocked his hair. His nose."
Remus deadpanned, "Which now looks better than yours."
Sirius threw a quill at him. “Not the time moony”
The whispers only grew louder.
In the span of one morning, Severus Snape went from ghost of a boy to legend.
And he hadn’t even cast a single spell.

Chapter Text

Horace Slughorn’s office smelled of crystallised pineapple and ambition.
The hour after Potions, Severus was ushered in by a star‑struck third‑year carrying a silver tray. Slughorn bounced on his toes behind an enormous mahogany desk, batting aside drifts of correspondence.
“Severus, my boy, sit, sit! Tea? Sherbet lemon? Pineapple chunk?”
Severus declined with a polite tilt of his head. The night‑silk cloak had been traded for a slim black teaching‑style frock‑coat; silver serpents traced the cufflinks at his wrists.
Slughorn poured himself a tot of mead, eyes shining.
“Now then,” he began, leaning forward until his walrus moustache quivered, “I must ask, you look absolutely, well, forgive me spectacular. Who was your stylist? Professional alchemists? A famous healer? If there’s a name attached, I’d love to know for… societal purposes.”
The implication was clear: Horace wanted to claim acquaintance with whoever had wrought this transformation.
Severus clasped his hands. “Family, Professor.”
“Ah! Old pure‑blood line, is it? I don’t recall the crest.”
“An old line,” Severus said, thinking of black roses and graveyard gates, “but exceedingly private."
Slughorn’s eyes sparkled. “Private, yes, yes, quite right. Still, you know how I like to bring promising young witches and wizards together. The Slug Club, you recall.”
“I recall.” He had, after all, been studiously uninvited for five consecutive years.
Slughorn dabbed his brow. “I’d be honoured if you’d join us for supper Friday. A small gathering, seared knarl filet, candied nettles. Nothing lavish.”
Severus considered. The Club offered access to resources, favours, but also scrutiny.
“At your convenience, Professor,” he answered. “I accept.”
Slughorn beamed. “Splendid! Splendid!” He waved a hand. “Oh, and if your… family wishes a private tour of our laboratories, why, we’ll roll out the carpets!”
Severus imagined Morticia serenely pruning man‑eating orchids while Fester tested lightning on silver cauldrons. “I’ll convey the offer,” he said, deadpan.
That afternoon, in the deserted Charms corridor, the Marauders convened war council.
James paced. “We need to confirm it’s snivellus. Maybe Polyjuice? A glamour? Something shifty.”
Peter gnawed his quill. “Could be Dark Arts, irresistible‑attraction charm, maybe?”
Remus, mouth tight, thumbed through Advanced Defensive Spells. “Polyjuice wears off hourly. Glamours distort under Revealing‑Powder. He looked… genuine.”
Sirius leaned against the windowsill, arms folded, eyes distant.
James stopped. “Padfoot, you’re awfully quiet.”
Sirius cleared his throat. “I, uh… I think he’s… he’s just changed. People do.”
Peter squeaked, “Changed? He’s an entirely different species!”
Remus eyed Sirius. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Sirius lied. Images of Severus brushing back sable hair replayed like fever dreams. “Better than the lot of you plotting how to unmask someone who—maybe—finally scrubbed the slime off.”
James frowned. “Mate, you were ready to hex his eyeballs last term.”
“That was before…” Sirius faltered, cheeks pink. “Before this.”
Remus sighed. “All right. Step one: verify no enchantment. Step two: determine why we care.”
James jabbed the air. “Because it’s snivellus!”
“Formerly,” murmured Sirius, and nobody missed the wistfulness.
In the library’s narrow stacks, Lily Evans cornered Severus between Potent Plants and Spellbound Seeds.
“Severus—”
He froze, hand poised over a tome, spine straightening.
She scanned his face, nose straight, skin pale but healthy. “What happened? You look… Well, you look amazing.”
Silence pooled.
“Say something,” Lily pressed, desperate kindness in her voice. I know you didn’t mean to call me that ‘word’ but I was your bestfriend once. I'm worried.”
Severus met her eyes, green as truth,he loved them once but now…..he doesn’t know, he glanced past her at shafts of dust‑lit sun.
“I am well,” he said.
“That’s all?, severus you should tell me what happened, I didn’t see you at home, you-”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.” The words tasted colder than he felt, but they were true. He stepped sideways, cloak brushing shelves, and left Lily staring, lips parted with hurt and shock.

Night folded over the castle like an ink‑soaked shroud. In the Slytherin dorm, Severus unlatched his trunk. Grandmama’s pouch rustled; silver rods gleamed. He withdrew parchment for his nightly inventory, and paused, regulus peeked over and let out a scream “severus, I_ sp-spi” pointing.
A tarantula the size of a teacup perched atop his inkwell, spinnerets tethered to a bundled scroll sealed with obsidian wax. Its abdomen bore a crimson letter “A.”
“Hello…..spider?,” Severus murmured. The spider waved two forelegs, “why are you so calm when a spider the size of my hands is infront of you?!”
“It’s from home”
He snapped the seal. Inside, Wednesday’s precise hand: “the spider’s name is thingette and then there is boa basil” he was confused but continue reading
Remember: venom is merely honesty in liquid form. How is the Slug? Should I send salt?
—W
A post‑script in Morticia’s flowing stroke:
Do hydrate the Devil’s Snare. It wilts under Scottish lightning.
As he read, a soft hiss sounded. An emerald boa slid from beneath his bed, a second scroll tied around its middle. Severus chuckled.
“Boa Basil, I presume.” He stroked its scales. The snake blinked languidly.
“Severus…..who are you living with, I genuinely want to know?”
“Addams”
Gomez’s flamboyant scrawl declared:
My bat! Dazzle them. Duel the dullards. Pugsley asks if the bomb sings at altitude—please advise.
Fester added a crude sketch of lightning striking a cauldron; Lurch’s single word,Proud, stood like a granite pillar.
Severus fed the boa a conjured mouse and sent both messengers back through the courtyard vent with replies: ink scented of absinthe and promise.
Regulus got up off his bed, staggering out of his dorm “as long as they treat you well”
Friday evening arrived: Slug Club supper in the velvet‑draped sitting room. Crystal decanters, silver domes. Slughorn seated Severus beside Gwenog Jones and across from a nervous sixth‑year prefect. Conversation bubbled, careers, Quidditch forecasts, Ministry gossip.
Slughorn eventually leaned close: “So, Severus, tell us, any special potions projects?”
“A shampoo,” Severus said, deadpan. “Restorative. Non‑greasy finish.”
The table tittered, unsure if he joked. Severus merely sipped his pumpkin fizz.
Meanwhile, in Gryffindor Tower, the Marauders brewed Revealing‑Powder in their dormitory kettle.
“We sprinkle this on him,” James explained, “and any glamour shows yellow streaks.”
Peter wrung his hands. “What if sirius’s under a love‑hex?”
Sirius threw a pillow. “I’m not hexed, atleast I think so”
Remus inspected the mixture. “If we’re wrong, it’ll stain his clothes. Or skin.”
Sirius stiffened. “Absolutely not. Look, we can prank snivellus all we like, but I’m not humiliating—er—him—without proof.”
James gaped. “You’re defending Sn—”
“I’m defending decency,” Sirius snapped, flushing. “Find another way.”
Remus closed the kettle. “Maybe we just… talk to him?”
James shuddered. “Talk with him? ew”
Sirius muttered, “I might.”

Later that night, Severus returned from Slug Club to find Lily waiting outside the common‑room wall.
“Severus,” she began. “If we can’t be friends, at least tell me where you live, please. I care.”
He studied her open worry, felt old ache tug. But within him the Addams silence unfurled,cool, protective.
“I am safe,” he said gently. “You needn’t fear for me.” He stepped through the wall as it parted, leaving her alone with the echo of her concern.
Inside, Avery lounged near the hearth. “Back from Slug soirée, mystery prince?”
Severus brushed past. “Your curiosity flatters me.”
He climbed to bed amid a susurrus of rumors: that he was a royal from the Continent, a cursed model, a metamorphmagus and he was a lost prince they found.
In the dark, he penned a final line in his journal:
Transformation is not disguise; it is revelation.
Outside, boa scales rustled against stone as it slithered home, and somewhere in the rafters tiny spider legs tapped out Morse to unseen comrades, messages stitched in silken code.
Tomorrow promised storms of inquiry, but Severus drifted to sleep beneath the steady pulse of violet lightning, unbothered by the world’s bewilderment, secure in the web of shadows and light that loved him as he was, and as he would become.

Chapter Text

The crisp October wind howled around the castle like a hungry wraith as the Marauders assembled in their clandestine headquarters, a disused Transfiguration storeroom tucked behind a false panel. James Potter unrolled an ink-stained parchment over a crate. Sirius Black lounged nearby, pretending nonchalance yet glancing at the door every few seconds, while Remus Lupin sorted vials of Revealing-Powder beside him. Peter Pettigrew hung in the corner, eyes wide, clutching a quill like a lifeline.
James slapped the parchment. “Operation Unmask-Phase Two.”
Remus raised a brow. “Phase One never launched. You vetoed the powder after Sirius got sentimental.”
“I am not sentimental,” Sirius muttered, cheeks flushing. “I just, look, we need proof before we douse him in glittering goo.”
James exhaled. “Fine. Phase Two is observation and extraction. We follow him, document habits, catch a slip, anything that proves he’s under a charm or Glamour.”
“And if he’s not?” Remus asked.
James frowned. Something in his chest fluttered, an unwelcome warmth that had grown since Potions class: Severus’s poised handwriting, the thoughtful crease between his brows when measuring ingredients. James shoved the feeling aside.
“If he’s not, we… congratulate him and move on.”
Sirius snorted. “You can’t even say it.”
“Shut up.” James rolled the scroll tighter than necessary.
Peter piped, “We could ask him to the Halloween feast? Then see if he melts at midnight.”
Four sets of eyes turned on him. Peter reddened. “Just… a suggestion.”
Remus sighed. “Let’s start small: follow him Saturday.”
That same evening, in the Headmaster’s office, Albus Dumbledore lifted an envelope sealed with a crimson rose fossilised in black wax. The air around it smelled of night-blooming jasmine and gunpowder.
Dear Professor,
Our beloved ward, Severus, requires the occasional breath of graveyard air and screaming violin. Kindly permit him to spend weekends with family; we promise to return him fed, intact, and with only mild trauma.
Eternal gratitude, Gomez Addams
Below the signature, Morticia’s elegant postscript swirled like ink in water:
We keep excellent tutors in poisons and etiquette. Hogwarts shall not suffer for his absence.
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled. “Most intriguing guardians.” He conjured parchment.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Addams,
Weekends are indeed restorative. Consider your request granted, provided Severus maintains scholastic excellence (to which he is clearly devoted). I look forward to meeting you at Christmas.
Warmest regards, Albus P. W. B. Dumbledore
He attached the reply to a midnight-grey school owl.
Saturday dawned, bleak and bright. A thin frost silvered the Quidditch pitch. Severus stood at the center circle, Pugsley’s silver bomb cupped in his palm.
The device thrummed softly, runic vents breathing cold air. He murmured a diagnostic charm. its core glowed steady.
“Key word: verminibus,” he whispered. The bomb chirped, acknowledging.
From the stadium seats, hidden under James’s Invisibility Cloak, the Marauders watched.
“What’s he holding?” Peter hissed.
“Something dangerous,” Remus answered, pulse quickening.
Sirius inhaled. Even through frost-bitten air, he smelled cedar and ghost-orchid. “He’s stunning.”
James elbowed him. “Focus.”
Severus set the bomb on the grass, backed ten paces, drew his wand. “Ver—” He paused, considering, then flicked his wrist. The device levitated thirty feet. He spoke the keyword with crisp authority: “Verminibus.”
A shrill note sliced the air. The bomb blossomed in violet flame, exploded silently into a swirling vortex of purple sparks. They coalesced, forming a perfect crater at midfield. No debris, only a glassy dip five feet deep.
Severus nodded once, success, and tapped the crater’s rim with a containment charm.
Under the Cloak, James’s jaw dropped. “Did he just vaporise a chunk of pitch?”
Remus murmured, “Controlled evaporation. Incredible.” His admiration laced with budding fascination.
Peter swallowed. “Beautiful.”
Sirius exhaled shakily, heat flaring. “I’m doomed.”
Severus pocketed the now-inert husk of the device and turned, cloak swirling. For one terrible heartbeat his eyes seemed to pierce straight through the Cloak. The Marauders froze.
Then he strode off toward the dungeons.
“Follow!” James whispered, but his voice quavered.
Midday, the Gryffindor common room bustled. James slumped in an armchair, parchment full of scribbled notes: No glamours detected. Precision with explosives. Cool under pressure. Slight smile when crater formed (pride?). His quill wavered.
Lily approached. “Everything all right?”
James blushed. “Fine.”
She eyed his messy scrawl. “Still spying on Severus? You look feverish.”
“I—it’s—” He gripped the quill until his knuckles whitened. “He’s up to something.”
Lily frowned. “I normally don’t agree with you but you may be right….or he’s simply grown up and you haven’t”
James opened his mouth to protest, but the words stalled. Lily huffed away, leaving him staring at the ink blot where his sentence died.
In Slytherin, Severus spread fresh parchment. The Addams weekend permission slip glowed faintly from his pocket. He drafted reply letters in emerald ink.
To Gomez: Field test successful. Crater ideal for secret duels. Will escort you to see at yule.
To Wednesday: Rumours rising faster than bread in a cursed oven. Delightful.
To Pugsley: Explosion produced radius 2.47 m. Sonic threshold is minimal. Needs audible scream for full terror effect.
He sealed each with a snake-shaped clip, feeding parchment into the boa’s courier harness. The emerald serpent slithered off through a vent.
Avery slid into the chair opposite, leaning close. “Severus, darling, a group of us is visiting Hogsmeade. Care to join?”
“I’ve plans.” Severus packed his satchel.
Avery pouted. “You’re quite the enigma now severus. Be careful, mystery attracts hunters.”
“I’m fluent in traps,” Severus said, rising.
Evening draped the castle in bruise-coloured clouds. The Marauders regrouped at the Astronomy Tower, parchments rustling in the wind.
James pushed hair from his eyes. “We saw the crater, but no sign of dark residue.”
Remus leaned on the parapet. “Everything about him is calculated, but not malicious.”
Peter clutched his notes, cheeks burning. “Maybe the change is… good? I mean, he’s kind of wonderful now.”
James’s chest squeezed. He pictured Severus guiding Devil’s Snare with gentle Latin and thought yes, wonderful, then shook his head violently.
“He’s hiding something,” he insisted.
Remus eyed him. “Or you’re hiding from what you feel.”
Sirius kicked the stone floor. “We’re all in the same sinking boat, Moony.” He braced his hands on the cold outer wall, whispering, “I can’t fancy SNIVELLUS.”
“Too late,” Remus said quietly.
Peter’s voice trembled: “What if he hates us… forever?”
A long silence. Wind shrieked past the turrets.
Remus spoke at last, gentle but firm. “Then perhaps we deserve it.”
Down in the dungeons, Severus prepared for bed. He set Fester’s lantern to low crackle, its violet lightning casting soft shadows.
He opened his journal.
Observation: Marauders invisible at midfield—Breathing rustle gave them away. They followed. Unthreatening, more curious than cruel.
Hypothesis: Old dynamics fraying; new variables (appearance, confidence) disrupting narrative. Continue controlled revelations.
He paused, quill hovering. Thoughts strayed to James’s widening eyes in Potions, to Sirius’s gaze trailing him across the Hall. A wry smile touched his lips.
Addendum: Emotional contagion detected. Monitor for usefulness.
He capped the inkwell. Dream-distillate glimmered at his throat, unopened tonight. He needed no potion to dream; the day itself brimmed with possibilities.
Outside, the crater on the Quidditch pitch gleamed under moonlight like a silver invitation. Winter winds carried rumours through draughty corridors, of strange beauty, of bombs blooming like flowers, and of four Gryffindors stumbling toward feelings they could neither map nor manage.
In the shadows, Severus Snape, reborn in silk and steel ,closed his eyes and let the castle spin its dizzy stories. He would be ready.

Chapter Text

The Marauders were ready. Or so they believed.
James had the idea. Sirius added flair. Peter plotted escape routes. Remus hesitated, but followed. Their plan was simple: tail the mysterious Slytherin who had captured Sirius’s attention and unravel the charm or potion or glamor he surely used to captivate. It had to be Severus Snape, they’d compared notes, narrowed the timing, and Remus uneasily admitted that some of the mannerisms, the way he held his wand or cut up ingredients in class, matched Snape’s old habits. But the boy didn’t look like Snape. Not anymore. Not with that effortless posture, soft hair, and the sharp-cut elegance of a noble heir.
So, they followed.
They trailed him through the Floo system to Diagon Alley on a crisp Saturday morning, crouching behind shelves of owl treats and cauldrons while trying to blend in.
“He’s not even being careful,” James muttered, peering through the window of Twilfitt and Tatting’s as the boy leaned against a lamppost, pale and still as a ghost.
“He’s waiting,” Sirius whispered. His voice held something reverent, annoyed with itself. “For who?”
The mystery boy, Severus, stood with his gloved hands clasped behind his back, wearing an obsidian coat stitched with silver buttons and a serpent brooch pinned near the collar. His boots gleamed. His hair, now feather-soft and haloed by morning light, fell neatly around his face. He did not smile, but his body held the calm of anticipation.
They waited, too. Then they came.
The Addamses.
One by one, they stepped from the shadowed entrance of the Leaky Cauldron, the world tilting slightly with their arrival. First came Morticia, gliding as if the cobblestones bowed for her passage. Her gown was woven from onyx and mist, her hair a silken river, her gaze fierce and tender all at once. Gomez followed in a black pinstripe suit, sword-cane tapping the pavement, his grin wide and wild. Behind him trailed Wednesday, expression unreadable, twin braids tight and precise. Pugsley skipped beside her, cradling a metal contraption that hissed faintly. Then came Uncle Fester, moon-pale and humming, and Grandmama with her belt of potion vials and bone charms. Lurch brought up the rear like a living gravestone.
They were a dark constellation orbiting one of their own.
The boy, Severus, Sirius’s mind confirmed with a jolt, straightened. No smile cracked his face, but his shoulders eased. He inclined his head. Gomez clapped a hand to his shoulder and whispered something that made him nod slowly.
“Merlin’s knickers,” James murmured. “They look like him.”
“Same eyes,” Peter whispered.
“Same hair. Same energy,” Remus added, stunned.
But it wasn’t just appearances. It was the precision of movement, the way each Addams turned in perfect sync, how they greeted him like royalty, not a guest. Even Fester bowed theatrically before conjuring a puff of purple smoke and handing Severus a wrapped bundle. He took it without flinching.
They were, family.
Sirius’s throat was dry. “He’s... one of them.”
“But how?” Peter asked, voice cracking.
“He looks like, like if snivellus was born to shadows and silk instead of dust and grease,” James admitted.
They watched from their alleyway vantage, cloaked in denial and dawning realization.
Severus turned slightly, and for one terrifying moment, Sirius thought he looked directly at them. But then Morticia laid a hand on his arm, guiding him away. As they entered the apothecary, the bell gave a haunted little chime.
Sirius’s heart hammered. “We were wrong.”
Remus exhaled, slow and thoughtful. “Or we were very right. And he’s just not who we thought he was.”
James narrowed his eyes. “I still say it’s a disguise. No one just transforms like that.”
But even as he said it, he sounded less certain.
Sirius couldn’t stop staring at the door Severus had vanished behind.
“He did.”
They didn't notice her at first.
The Marauders remained glued to their hiding place, half-stunned by the surreal sight of Severus Snape, except he wasn't Snape anymore. He stood amongst the Addams family like a prince among crypt-royalty, unflinching, composed, and far removed from the bitter, scraggly boy they'd once bullied in Hogwarts' stone corridors.
It was Sirius who noticed her.
Wednesday Addams.
She appeared without sound. One moment she wasn’t there, and the next, she stood before them, perfectly still. Perfectly chilling. Her face was as emotionless as carved porcelain, her braids pristine.
James let out a startled yelp. Peter tripped over his own cloak.
“You’ve been watching my brother,” she said evenly. Not a question. A statement.
The Marauders scrambled upright, hands halfway to wands.
“We—uh—we weren’t—” James stammered.
“You were,” she corrected. Her tone was not angry. It was far worse: calm, precise, deliberate. “He does not like you. Therefore, I do not like you.”
Sirius, usually the most confident of the four, found himself unable to hold her gaze. Those eyes were voids. Full of judgment. Ancient.
Remus tried reasoning. “We didn’t mean harm—”
“Intentions are irrelevant. You planned something. You’ve been following him. It is unacceptable.”
Wednesday took a single step forward. The shadows seemed to lurch with her.
“We didn’t know,” Peter squeaked. “We just wanted to figure out who he—”
“You did know. You chose to test him anyway.” She reached into her pocket. The Marauders tensed.
She withdrew a black licorice spider and began peeling its legs off one by one. “My family has ways of dealing with unwanted pests.”
The spider squirmed. The boys paled.
“You may leave,” she said at last. “But know this. If you try to hurt him again, emotionally, magically, physically, socially, I will know. And you will suffer in ways so strange the Ministry wouldn’t know which department to report it to.”
She gave them a slight, unblinking smile.
Then she turned and walked away, her steps silent. When they looked again, she was gone.
Severus stood just outside the shadowed entryway of Nocturne Alley, where sunlight hesitated to fall. He didn’t flinch at the way the cobblestones seemed to whisper, or how the air grew damp and cold.
Morticia touched his elbow, guiding him gently.
“We’ll only be a moment, mon cher. It’s time you met one of our more eccentric—but devoted—cousins.”
“Another one?” Severus asked, eyes scanning the alley.
“She has a gift,” Morticia said. “Like you. Pain turns into power in her hands.”
He didn’t quite know how to respond to that.
The shop they entered bore no name, only a wrought-iron door shaped like interlocked skeletal fingers. Inside, the air was thick with incense and moss. Glass spheres floated along the ceiling like jellyfish. Shelves of black crystal and taxidermy lined the walls.
A girl, perhaps nineteen, draped in indigo robes with her hair in a crown of braided silver, looked up from a table covered in potion ingredients and ancient runes.
“Conscious,” Morticia said, lips curving. “This is Severus.”
The girl’s smile bloomed instantly, wide and wicked. “So you’re the one.”
Severus tensed. “The one what?”
“The one who finally made Wednesday write to me twice in a week.” She approached slowly, hands out, not to grab, but to assess. “You’re perfect.”
He blinked. “What?”
Conscious tilted her head, eyes glimmering. “Your aura’s ragged, wounded, defensive, with just a hint of delicious fury. I love it.”
He edged back half a step.
Morticia raised an elegant brow. “Conscious, gently. He’s not a test subject.”
“I know. He’s a kindred spirit.” Conscious turned to him again, this time more softly. “I meant what I said. You belong here. With us. You’re Addams by choice, and it shows.”
Severus swallowed, unsure what to say.
“Come,” she said, linking arms with him. “Let me show you my newest elixirs. I’m designing one to enhance emotional memory through scent. You’d be perfect to test it, if you consent, of course.”
He gave her a wary glance.
“I don’t test without consent,” she added. “Only on myself and volunteers. Family rules.”
They spent the next hour browsing her wares, bones etched with fire runes, preserved flowers from extinct gardens, and a feather that whispered secrets when set on fire. Conscious never asked intrusive questions, but she saw him. She didn’t recoil from his darkness. She welcomed it.
At one point, she touched his hand and murmured, “That face of yours is a masterpiece. I hope you never let anyone convince you otherwise.”
He didn’t speak, but his chest felt tight with something unspoken.
When they left the shop, Severus glanced back. Conscious waved from behind the crystal-stained windows.
“She’s odd,” he said.
“She’s family,” Morticia replied.
He nodded. That was, perhaps, the same thing.
Back at the Leaky Cauldron, the Marauders were still rooted in place, pale and silent.
“She threatened us,” James said blankly.
“No,” Remus corrected. “She warned us. There’s a difference. And if we’re smart, we’ll listen.”
Sirius couldn’t stop watching the alleyway.
Severus returned into view, arm looped loosely with Morticia’s, followed by Gomez and Wednesday. His face was impassive. But something in his bearing had changed.
He belonged. And they had never made him feel that way.
“We were wrong,” Sirius whispered.
None of them disagreed.

Chapter Text

The Addamses, always resplendent in their own brand of gothic elegance, were dressed to the nines that evening. Velvet and lace, bone-white pearls, obsidian brooches, embroidered coats, and boots polished to a mirror-black sheen, it was an orchestra of style performed in a minor key. Gomez wore a midnight-blue tailcoat that shimmered like oil under moonlight; Morticia’s gown dragged like mist, kissed by ghostly light. Even Thing had polished its nails.
Severus, dressed in a high-collared tunic with onyx clasps and tailored trousers that gleamed like charred parchment, stood stiffly between Wednesday and Pugsley as the family prepared to Apparate. He tried to appear indifferent, but he was more nervous than he cared to admit.
“The Bloodmoon Dance is a family rite,” Morticia explained as she adjusted a black orchid boutonnière at his collar. “We gather when the moon reaches her hungriest, to honor kin, past and present, and to celebrate strange hearts.”
“And to introduce you, querido,” Gomez added, placing a proud hand on Severus’s shoulder. “Properly, this time.”
One moment, Severus was in the parlor. The next, the world tilted, and he landed with a stagger onto flagstones slick with moonlight and time.
They stood at the threshold of a ruined cathedral deep in a grove of thorn-trees. Silver vines crawled up broken columns; candlelight flickered behind rose-tinted windows long since shattered. Inside, a thousand candles glowed like suspended stars. Addamses were already mingling: hundreds of them, dressed in all shades of night, laughter echoing like chimes in fog.
“Welcome to the dance,” Morticia murmured.
They stepped inside, and Severus felt it immediately, an atmosphere unlike any other. The air was thick with incense and memory, perfume and petrichor. Someone played a harpsichord with claws instead of fingers. The floor, inlaid with glass and bone, reflected only shadows.
Cousin Itt was the first to greet them, chattering rapidly in his distinctive tongue. He bowed to Severus and presented a monocle on a silver chain, which he attached to his own hair before gesturing dramatically at the cathedral.
“Cousin Itt says you have the right cheekbones,” Wednesday translated, deadpan.
Then came Donald Addams, dressed in moth-eaten robes and carrying a silver-tipped cane made from a unicorn’s rib. He offered Severus a petrified beetle. “For luck,” he said.
Dexter Addams appeared next, wheeling in Lefty Addams, whose ghostly wheelchair hovered slightly off the ground. Lefty was translucent except for his cigar and suspenders.
“Don’t let anyone boss you,” Lefty rasped, “unless they have tentacles.”
Dexter, by contrast, was a mortician with a sense of humor. “You’re almost too pretty to be one of us,” he quipped, eyeing Severus’s regal outfit. “Almost.”
More names passed in a haze, Petronilla, disguised as a crow; Onyx, who never spoke aloud but communicated in charred runes; Laertes, who only walked on ceilings. Each offered some strange token or cryptic welcome. Severus accepted them all with the composure of someone long used to things far stranger than affection.
They danced. The music was at once mournful and triumphant, and the steps moved like secrets. Gomez spun Morticia until her gown left afterimages; Pugsley and Wednesday performed a waltz punctuated by mock duels.
Severus stood quietly by a column, watching.
Until someone approached.
Arness Addams was perhaps his age, or near it, dark curls wild and eyes like ink spilled across porcelain. He wore a coat of nightshade velvet and held a notebook the way others might hold a chalice.
“You stand like someone expecting catastrophe,” Arness said, without introduction.
“I’m rarely disappointed,” Severus replied dryly.
Arness smiled. “Poetry warned me you’d be like this.”
Before Severus could respond, Arness flipped open his notebook and, in a voice soft and steady, recited:
“A spine like a tower, cracked but not broken.
A gaze that sharpens silver.
A mouth taught silence for survival,
But it holds a storm.
You wear midnight like a memory.
Who stitched sorrow into your cuffs?”
It was so unexpected, so beautifully odd, that Severus let out a short, surprised snort of laughter. Not mocking, genuine, startled amusement.
Everything stopped.
The music. The dance. The Addamses turned slowly to look at him.
Severus froze, the faintest hint of crimson creeping up his pale cheeks.
Then—
“Oho!” Gomez shouted, slapping his thigh. “He snickered!”
Grandmama whooped. Morticia’s lips curved faintly.
“A smile,” Wednesday murmured. “Or its closest to one, brother.”
Thing clapped its fingers.
“Mark the calendar!” Fester bellowed. “The bat laughed!”
Pugsley gave a triumphant nod. “Told you he would, eventually.”
Severus groaned and covered his mouth.
Arness, undeterred, gave a gallant bow. “I live to provoke reactions. You’re very muse-worthy.”
Morticia drifted over, her arm slipping around Severus’s shoulders. “Don’t be embarrassed, darling. You’re part of this madness now.”
“Congratulations,” said Dexter, toasting him with a glass full of smoke. “They’ve accepted you entirely.”
Gomez stepped in beside them. “Well, Severus, you’ve now committed the ultimate Addams crime, showing joy.”
Severus could only shake his head in disbelief, faintly smiling despite himself.
Later that evening, beneath the blood-hued moon and surrounded by a family that celebrated shadows, Severus looked up at the sky, warm from laughter and tea made of thistle and wine. Arness passed him another poem.
He didn’t read it aloud. But he kept it.
And in the moonlight, he didn’t feel like a boy out of place.
He felt like an Addams

Chapter Text

The day was damp, a sluggish mist clinging to the crooked rooftops of Knockturn Alley, muffling the sounds of footfalls and whispered bargains. Shadows pooled in corners, thick and watchful, as if they too were eavesdropping. The shops, crammed and crooked, leaned against one another like gossiping ghouls, windows smeared with grime and secrets.
Severus blended into the gloom like a natural extension of it. He moved with the ease of someone who had memorized every crack in the cobblestones, every door that looked shut but wasn’t. Dressed in sharp obsidian layers with a high collar and storm-silver buttons, he was Addams to the bone now, cool, unhurried, and unreadable. The list of rare, often-illegal potion ingredients in his hand was neatly folded, corners crisp. His backpack, charmed to expand, hung loose over one shoulder.
Inside it, Thing perched atop bundled vials and parchment, twitching occasionally like an eager familiar.
He stepped into Moribund & Fennel’s, a dusty apothecary that smelled of powdered beetle shells and centuries-old blood. Shelves bristled with phials labeled in cramped Latin, and the bell above the door let out a hiss instead of a chime. The hunched shopkeeper gave him a once-over, paused, then nodded. No questions. Addams money spoke in heavier coin than most.
Severus unfurled his list. “Half a dram of black basilisk bile. Fresh, if possible. No more than a fortnight bottled.”
Behind the counter, the shopkeeper blinked, impressed. “Not many your age asking for that, lad.”
“I’m not most people.”
From the backpack, Thing popped out. The shopkeeper startled violently, knocking over a row of shrink-wrapped spleens.
“Bloody—!”
Thing made a genteel waving motion, then helped right the fallen jars. Severus remained impassive, crossing his arms while the clerk muttered oaths and fumbled under the counter.
Meanwhile, in Diagon Alley, just a few shops over, Fleamont Potter chuckled as he handed his son a stack of polished quills. “Go on, James, treat your friends. They deserve it for putting up with your hair all term.”
James snorted. “My hair is glorious.”
“Indestructible,” added Sirius, grinning.
“It is rather messy,” said Remus, already pocketing a quill. Peter smiled faintly, his hands fiddling with the hem of his robes.
Then James stiffened, his head tilting subtly toward the alley’s edge. “Wait. is that him?”
Sirius narrowed his eyes. “Who?”
James look at his father who was still looking at a list, and pointed
Sirius looked. Then blinked. Then stared. The figure had just turned down Knockturn Alley, swathed in flowing black, hair gleaming like obsidian silk, steps precise.
“That’s sni-uhh-snape?” Sirius hissed.
“Now you guys are hallucinating about him” Remus muttered. “Snape slouched. That boy stalks.”
“I’m going after him,” James declared, already veering off. “Let’s…catch up with our ‘friend.’” He flashed a grin at his father, who was distracted bartering over a rare inkpot.
The Marauders trailed after James in a huddle, unsure what they were even trying to prove. Curiosity? Suspicion? Something else?
By the time they reached Knockturn Alley proper, Severus had already exited Moribund & Fennel’s and crossed into Skulk & Bone, a darker shop where unlicensed brews were whispered into being.
Sirius ducked behind a jutting beam, squinting as Severus passed a heavy pouch of coin to a greying woman with eyes like smoked glass. She handed him something in a velvet wrap.
“He’s buying—”
“Definitely not ink,” Remus said grimly.
Then, with a flick of his hand, Severus slung the backpack down. The flap unzipped itself.
Thing leapt out.
The Marauders froze.
Peter covered his audible scream
“What…is…that?” James whispered.
“It’s a hand,” Sirius gazed in disbelief. “It’s…alive.”
They watched, dumbstruck, as Thing scuttled up Severus’s arm, perched neatly on his shoulder, then leapt down to help sort tiny stoppered vials into pouches. The shopkeeper said nothing. Not a single person in Knockturn Alley seemed surprised.
“He’s not human,” Peter whispered.
“Correction,” Sirius murmured, breathless. “He’s not snivllus….. Not anymore.”
James bristled. “It’s gotta be a glamour. A mask. A charm—”
Then Severus turned. He’d felt the burn of being watched, eyes like pinpricks in his back. He pivoted in one fluid motion, face pale and sharp as ivory. He met their gaze from across the cobbles.
Time stilled.
Those eyes, black, unfathomable, cold and knowing, rested on each of them. Not in surprise. Not even anger. Just...disdain.
The sneer that curled his mouth was elegant, deliberate. A declaration: You don’t matter.
Then he turned and walked off.
Thing waved at them as it reentered the backpack.
The Marauders stood frozen for several beats.
James was the first to move, breaking the silence with a growled, “That smug—!”
But Sirius...was still staring. Eyes wide, expression unreadable.
“Did you see him?” he breathed. “The way he moved?”
“You sound like a helpless romantic,” Remus muttered.
“I think I am,” Sirius said without irony. “And I hate it.”
“No you don’t,” Peter whispered, half-hiding behind a lamp post.
James turned on all of them. “He’s snivellus. We hate snivellus. He’s a greasy little—”
“He isn’t greasy,” Sirius cut in with a look of: as a matter of fact. “Not anymore.”
There was a pause everyone looking at sirius like he’s serious.
Sirius blinked. “He had cheekbones sharp enough to cut through glass. And those eyes…”
Remus sighed. “This is uncharted territory.”
“You’ve all lost it,” James snapped. “We’re not falling in love with snivellus. That’s gotta be illegal. We’ll be arrested.”
Peter looked like he might faint. “What if that hand gets us in our sleep?”
“We need a plan,” Sirius muttered, still dazed. “To confirm it’s him.”
“No more plans,” Remus said. “The last one ended with you talking about his cheekbones for three days straight.”
“I talk about other things too,” Sirius muttered. “Like his walk.”
James groaned into his palms. ”you’ve lost yourself padfoot”
Back inside the alley, Severus tucked away the final parcel and slipped into a side path. He waited until he could no longer hear their whispers, their startled gasps, their confusion.
Only then did he exhale slowly.
Thing tapped his shoulder once in inquiry.
“Yes,” Severus murmured, voice like steel velvet. “That was them.”
Thing curled his fingers into a tight fist, Addams for we’ll take care of it.
“No need,” Severus said, turning back toward the street. “They won’t try anything. Not here.”
Thing patted his collarbone, affectionate and brief.
They were halfway down the next row of shuttered doors when a massive black owl dropped from the sky and landed silently on a wrought-iron sign.
It carried a scroll bearing a wax seal, the Addams family crest.
Severus plucked it free and broke the seal with his nail.
The letter was in Morticia’s script:
Dearest Severus,
We’ve heard rumor of your grace in the underworld markets. Do remember to avoid Ghastle’s, he waters his warts.
Wednesday requests a sample of black beetle resin for a school project. Pugsley sends his love (and a new blueprint).
Return when you wish. The blood moon is rising again.
With affection, always—
Morticia
Thing mimed a kiss in the air, clearly pleased.
Severus tucked the note into his coat pocket and continued walking, expression unreadable.
But if one looked closely, very closely, there was the faintest, briefest, most fleeting twitch at the corner of his mouth.
A ghost of a smile.

Chapter Text

The ancient walls of Hogwarts held many secrets, but they also held grudges. Severus knew that better than most. The moment he Apparated into the shadowed alcove just outside the main hall, one of the less-guarded thresholds of the school, his stomach still coiled with unease.
Thing, nestled in the satchel on his back, gave a reassuring tap on his shoulder.
“I’m fine,” Severus murmured, though he wasn’t entirely sure if it was to Thing or himself.
His boots echoed down the corridor as he made his way toward the Slytherin common room, his cloak brushing the floor like an exhale of ink. It was late, past curfew, but not a soul stirred. He thought he might have avoided them—them, the ever-lurking Marauders, but of course, fate had other ideas.
The moment he passed the mouth of the eastern corridor near the tapestry of Emeric the Evil, they emerged.
All four.
James Potter stepped forward first, his jaw set, wand drawn. Sirius followed closely behind, arms crossed, expression unreadable. Remus and Peter flanked them at either side, hesitant but present. They were trying to box him in.
“snivellus,” James said, low and tense. “We need to talk.”
“I doubt that,” Severus replied coolly, pausing in place. The glow from the torchlight cast deep shadows under his eyes. “You’ve never spoken to me. Only at me.”
“Oh, he talks now?” Sirius muttered, but his voice was less amused and more wary. His eyes flicked down Severus’s sharp silhouette, the way his cloak flowed, the almost ethereal pale glow of his skin. The wand he drew shimmered faintly, polished obsidian, elegant and alien. Its hilt was wrapped with inlaid silver skulls, a tight braid of Devil’s Snare curling around the base, pulsing faintly like it breathed. Sirius almost shivered.
“Thought we’d pay a little visit,” James went on, his cocky edge faltering beneath confusion. “You’ve been... out of sorts lately. New friends? New look? Thought we’d get reacquainted.”
Severus cocked an eyebrow, slowly raising his wand, not threateningly, but pointedly. “I don’t have time to be dissected for your entertainment, Potter, so you and the dog can leave me alone”

“No one’s dissecting you,” Remus said softly, hands open, tone diplomatic. “We just… noticed you’ve changed.”
“Changed,” Severus echoed, his tone dry. “That’s rich coming from the same four who haven’t matured since literally the first day”
“Where have you been?” Peter asked abruptly, voice squeaky with nerves.
“I went shopping,” Severus said flatly. “Not illegal. Not your business rat”
“Oh, come on,” James snapped. “Dark Alley. Sketchy shops. Creepy hand thing—”
“That ‘creepy hand thing’ is more refined than you’ll ever be,” Severus snapped.
Sirius stared, lips parting slightly. His gaze kept sliding to Severus’s wand, the sleek tailored coat, the shine of his boots. This wasn’t the Severus they knew. This wasn’t the greasy-haired boy they cornered in the courtyard. This one stood tall. This one sneered like a prince.
And worse, Sirius’s stomach flipped,he was beautiful.
Peter shifted nervously. “You put a glamour on yourself, didn’t you? To make yourself look better.”
Severus laughed. “You think magic made me this way?” He stepped forward, just a pace. “You don’t recognize me because I’m no longer trapped in the box you buried me in.”
The tension was snapping like brittle glass. Wands were twitching. James looked ready to fire a curse. Remus’s hand hovered over his wand. Even Sirius had one drawn, though he hadn’t raised it.
Then: footsteps.
Sharp and high-heeled, echoing down the corridor like punctuation. Lily Evans came into view, red hair blazing like a torch, robes neat, expression unreadable.
“Sirius? James?” she said, then her voice dropped as she noticed the scene. “Really? What are you doing?”
James turned slightly, his body still angled toward Severus. “Evans, stay out of this.”
Lily’s gaze flicked to Severus, and then slid away, as though she didn’t recognize him or refused to.
“Whatever this is,” she said, chin raised, “you can drop it. You’ve made your point.”
“No,” James growled, eyes still on Severus. “We haven’t.”
Lily narrowed her eyes. “If you leave him, I will…I’ll date you”
Everyone turned to her.

“What?” Sirius asked.
“You heard me,” Lily repeated slowly, “you’ve been hounding me for years, Potter. Fine. You want me? You can have me.”
The corridor went dead silent.
Severus’s eyebrows arched, ever so slightly, almost amused
“If you leave him alone,” Lily said, nodding toward Severus without looking him in the eye, “I’ll say yes. I’ll date you. Publicly. Just leave him alone.”
Gasps echoed. Even Thing in Severus’s bag gave a surprised flick, enjoying the dram he’s hearing
James turned to Lily, completely thrown. “Wait—what?”
“You heard me.”
“But…” he glanced at Severus. And then back at her. “You’re serious?”
Lily folded her arms. “What’s it going to be?”
The Marauders’ attention shifted off Severus like a thunderclap. James looked dazed, blinking like he’d been hit with a jelly-legs jinx.
“Evans,” he said slowly, “I don’t… I’m not sure I…”
Sirius, oddly quiet, was still staring at Severus. He hadn’t said a word since Lily appeared. His knuckles were white on his wand.
“I don’t want that,” James said suddenly, voice cracking. “Not like this.”
Lily looked stunned. “Excuse me?”
James rubbed his face. “I thought I wanted you. I did. But—this? Bargaining someone’s safety for it?” He gestured helplessly. “I don’t want that kind of win.”
Remus was gaping at him. Peter looked faint, feeling his head if he was sick
Sirius finally spoke. “She’s offering herself for him.”
The words dropped like bricks. They all turned to look at Severus again.
He hadn’t moved. His wand was still at his side, silver skulls glittering in the torchlight. But his face… something unreadable hovered there. Not triumph. Not pity.
Indifference.
“I don’t need your protection,” Severus said to Lily, voice low and sharp. “I’m not yours to trade.”
Lily flinched.
Sirius stepped forward, only slightly, but there was a question in his eyes now. “You’re not who we know.”
“No,” Severus replied. “I’m better.”
He turned without another word, cloak swirling behind him like ink in water.
As he walked away, the Marauders stood in stunned silence. Lily blinked, her mouth parting as if to call after him, but no sound came.
James stared after Severus like he was trying to reconcile two incompatible equations.
Remus was the first to break the silence. “That didn’t go how I thought it would.”
“No,” Peter agreed, swallowing.
Sirius stood motionless, wand still loose in his hand, eyes locked on the place Severus had vanished.
“I think,” he whispered, “...not gonna lie, I don’t know what to think.”

Chapter Text

Lily Evans had never meant to hurt him—again.
She told herself that lie as she stared at the empty stone wall where Severus had disappeared not an hour before, his boots silent on the flagstones, his wand drawn and expression unreadable. The last thing she saw in his eyes wasn’t hate, or even sadness.
It was indifference.
It chilled her far more than fury ever could.
Her plan, if she could call it that, was desperate, messy, and selfish. But it had seemed like the right move at the time. Bargain with James. Offer him what he’d always wanted in exchange for mercy. Mercy for Severus. For the boy she had once called her best friend.
The boy she had once loved.
But he wasn’t that boy anymore, was he?
She’d thought maybe, if James had Severus’s suffering out of the way, then there would be nothing else in the way for the two of them. That Severus might fade gently into the background, and she could look at James without guilt crawling like worms beneath her skin.
Instead, it blew up in her face.
James hadn't even looked at her when she made the offer. None of them had. Not Sirius, not Remus, not Peter. Their eyes had stayed locked on Severus like they were bewitched. Lily had seen it—felt it—that strange shift in the air. As if Severus wasn't prey anymore.
He was the danger.
And James, James had looked at her not with triumph, but with confusion. Like she’d handed him something he once thought he wanted but now found empty in his hands.
The worst part?
She understood.
Lily had spent the afternoon pacing the girls’ dormitory, unable to sit still. The laughter of the other Gryffindor girls had become noise behind cotton, and when someone asked if she was okay, she just smiled and nodded. Lied again.
It was after sundown when she slipped out.
She needed answers. Needed something to fix the way her stomach twisted whenever she thought about his face, the way it had changed. The softness to his cheeks, the sharpness of his nose, the sleek black clothes, the way his hair curled gently at his shoulders like he was born to wear velvet and shadow.
He didn’t look like a Snape anymore.
He looked like someone powerful.
Someone untouchable.
And that frightened her.
When she arrived at the Headmaster’s office, after whispering the current password “lemon drops” with trembling lips, she wasn’t alone in wanting to speak with Albus Dumbledore.
She saw him first: tall, straight-backed, with his head tilted at a slight, deliberate angle. His eyes, always so intense, seemed to burn rather than glare. A silver-clasped backpack slung over one shoulder. And beside him on the armrest of the chair—
A hand.
A severed hand.
She barely stifled a scream.
It waved at her. Casually.
“Thing,” Severus said flatly. “Stop scaring people.”
The hand curled its fingers into a little apology.
Lily's mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Dumbledore, seated behind his large ornate desk, steepled his fingers. His half-moon spectacles glinted with candlelight. “Ah, Miss Evans. We were just finishing up.”
Severus didn’t turn to look at her. “I want to transfer.”
Lily blinked. “Transfer? But—you can’t—”
“I can,” Severus replied coldly. “And I will.”
Dumbledore cleared his throat. “Mr. Snape, if I may still call you that, surely there is no need to be so hasty. Hogwarts is your home.”
Severus’s mouth twisted. “Hogwarts has never been my home.”
Dumbledore smiled, that soft infuriating smile that always looked as though he knew more than everyone else. “But we’ve worked so hard to protect you, Severus.”
“You did nothing,” Severus replied sharply.
Lily flinched at his tone, but he wasn’t wrong. Dumbledore didn’t interrupt.
“I was hexed daily. Humiliated. Almost killed in fifth year because your favorite boys was bored. And you—” his voice trembled but never broke, “—you told me to be grateful it wasn’t worse.”
Dumbledore's eyes glimmered with something unreadable. “I had hoped you would move beyond vengeance.”
“This isn’t vengeance,” Severus said coolly. “This is freedom.”
Lily wanted to say something, anything, but words failed her. Severus turned finally to meet her gaze.
“You tried to buy me,” he said.
She flinched.
“You traded me like I was a sickle dropped on the floor. Something to pick up only when it’s convenient.”
Lily’s throat tightened. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know exactly what you meant.” His expression didn’t change. “But I don’t owe you understanding anymore.”
He turned back to Dumbledore. “I’ve written to my guardians. They support this. I’m only here as a courtesy.”
“Surely—” Dumbledore began.
“I’d suggest you say yes,” Severus interrupted. “Before someone less diplomatic than me comes to collect me personally.”
As if on cue, a parchment slipped in through the window, coiling like a serpent before landing in Dumbledore’s lap.
He unfolded it. His face paled.
A wax seal in black and silver adorned the bottom, embossed with a stylized A and the mark of a raven cradling a skull.
“The Addams Family,” Severus said, calm and quiet. “You may have heard of them, you may have not. They don’t take kindly to people keeping what belongs to them.”
“You are not property,” Dumbledore said with a frown.
Severus’s eyes glittered. “No. I’m family.”
Thing gave a satisfied clap.
Lily watched him go. Watched the door swing shut with a finality that made her heart feel like glass cracking in her chest.
What had she done?
What had she lost?
Later that night, in the Gryffindor common room, the boys were unusually quiet.
Sirius sat in front of the fire, his head resting on the couch back, eyes closed. James lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling, lips parted in a breath he never exhaled. Remus was scribbling something furiously into a notebook, but his eyes darted toward the stairs now and then. Peter had gone to bed early.
None of them noticed Lily come in.
None of them spoke to her.
Because they were all thinking of him.
The boy with the silver skulls on his wand, the curls like black silk, the hands that cradled Devil’s Snare like it was a child, the voice that sounded like dark poetry come to life.
The boy who had changed.
No, been changed.
And none of them knew how to follow him into the world he now belonged to.
Meanwhile, in the Addams manor…
The parlor was dim, lit only by violet fire and the soft clink of Morticia’s knitting needles. She glanced over her stitchwork as Severus set down the latest letter from the headmaster.
“So?” she asked, raising one delicate brow.
He sighed. “He’s reluctant.”
“They usually are when power shifts,” Gomez commented, swinging a rapier idly.
“But I told him the family insists. He got a letter from you, I presume?”
“I let Cousin Belial write it,” Morticia replied serenely. “He has such a flair for implied threat.”
Wednesday perched nearby, braiding something that might have been a venomous snake. “Will he sign it?”
Severus nodded. “Eventually. He’s worried about his reputation. And about me leaving before my ‘great destiny’ is fulfilled.”
“Destiny is for those without spine,” Morticia said with a smile. “You have yours. You forged it.”
A strange warmth curled in Severus’s chest. It didn’t feel like gloating. It felt like peace.
He reached for a letter on the desk, one from Grandmama, filled with potion notes and an enclosed vial of dragon bile. Another from Pugsley, apologizing for the explosion on the Quidditch field and promising to make him a better one. Wednesday’s had arrived earlier, tied to the leg of a bat, and simply said: Kill them with silence. If that fails, aim for the spleen.
And Thing… Thing had drawn him a picture of them both riding a chimera into battle.
He looked at the pile of letters and then the black flame in the hearth.
Let Hogwarts try to keep him.
The Addams already had.

Chapter Text

The news spread through the Hogwarts grapevine like a cursed firework: Severus Snape was transferring schools.
Of course, most students didn’t even know who Severus was anymore. The name conjured memories of a greasy-haired, perpetually scowling boy who barely spoke unless hexed first. No one connected that image to the darkly elegant student who was here moths ago, gliding through the halls with a back straightened by dignity and shadows alike.
But the Marauders knew.
They stood frozen outside the Great Hall after McGonagall’s morning announcement, each processing the words with a different kind of disbelief.
“What do you mean transfer?” James finally choked, voice hoarse.
“He can’t just leave,” Sirius muttered. “That’s—he belongs—”
“Where?” Remus interrupted, tone tight. “Here? Where he was tormented daily and hexed for sport?”
Peter fidgeted. “We didn’t mean it like—like that.”
But they had. And now he was leaving.
The Entrance Hall was unusually silent.
Whispers clung to the cold stones like ghosts. Teachers stood awkwardly near the marble staircase. Students peered from corners, drawn by a potent cocktail of curiosity and dread.
And then, they arrived.
The Addams family did not enter Hogwarts. They descended.
Morticia led the way like a queen of midnight, her gown flowing like liquid ink. Her presence drew the eye and refused to let go. Gomez strolled beside her in a pinstripe suit, golden pocket watch gleaming, his grin somewhere between manic and magnificent.
Behind them came Wednesday and Pugsley, Wednesday cradling a tarantula in a lace-lined carrier and Pugsley with a black suitcase that suspiciously ticked. Uncle Fester practically buzzed with electrical charge, and Grandmama had a satchel full of vials emitting ominous smoke.
Lurch brought up the rear, carrying Severus’s trunk as if it weighed nothing.
Severus stood beside them, cloaked in midnight blue, hair tied back with a silver clasp shaped like a raven’s skull. He was unreadable, back straight, expression calm. He had never looked more like them.
“Are those… his parents?” one Gryffindor whispered.
“They look like ancient gods,” someone else muttered.
“They look like death,” a Slytherin girl said with something like envy.
The Marauders stood to the side, silent.
James’s mouth was dry. Sirius’s fingers clenched the inside of his robe. Remus stared, lips slightly parted. Even Peter had paled. The resemblance between Severus and the Addamses was now undeniable, same dark eyes, same gravity, same unshakable self-possession.
Dumbledore appeared from the stairwell, robes in autumn tones, twinkle dimmed.
“I must say,” he said to Morticia and Gomez, hands folded, “a transfer midyear is highly unusual.”
“Not for us,” Morticia said coolly. “We do not wait on convention when protection is at stake.”
“Protection?” Dumbledore’s smile wavered. “Severus is perfectly safe here.”
A scoff rippled through the Addams clan.
“He’s been harassed, hexed, and humiliated for years,” Gomez said, voice suddenly steel under charm. “You knew, and you let it rot.”
“I offered guidance—”
“You offered absolution to his tormentors,” Morticia cut in, her voice like ice over broken glass. “And then dared to call it peace.”
Dumbledore’s eyes flicked to Severus. “You’re certain this is what you want?”
Severus met his gaze with iron calm. “I’ve never been more certain of anything.”
McGonagall stood beside the front doors. Her eyes were stormy, but she gave a curt nod as Severus approached. “Best of luck, Mr. Snape.”
“Thank you, Professor,” he said, quietly.
He didn’t look back. Not at the stone walls that had echoed with his fear. Not at the corridors where he'd been nothing but prey.
He walked out the front doors of Hogwarts with the Addams family flanking him like a royal escort.
The silence behind him was thunderous.
Later, in the Gryffindor common room, the silence finally shattered.
“He didn’t even look at us,” James said numbly.
“He shouldn’t have to,” Remus snapped.
“Would you shut up moony, acting like you’re a saint yourself you’re not”, james snapped back at him
Peter sat by the fire, muttering something about spider letters and decapitated dolls.
Sirius sat alone in a corner, face unreadable.
“He’s really gone,” he said. “And… he looked good. He looked happy.”
None of them answered. Because for the first time, Severus Snape had walked away, and they were the ones left behind.

Chapter Text

The French sky brooded in slate and lavender, drizzling mist like powdered pearl across the winding stones of Rue Obscura—the magical market nestled just past the glamoured barriers of Montmorency. It was narrower than Diagon Alley, older, cloaked in ivy and low fog. Lanterns shaped like wrought-iron roses lit each crooked shopfront, flickering with faerie flame.
Severus wore his new traveling cloak: midnight velvet lined in dusk-blue silk, with silver buttons shaped like spider skulls. Morticia had stitched the hem by hand, whispering protection charms in lilting Latin. He walked a step behind her, flanked by Wednesday and Pugsley. Uncle Fester darted ahead, eyes glowing faintly as he pressed his face to enchanted windows, declaring, “Oh, this one sells talking thorns! They whisper gossip from the roots up!”
They’d been in France less than an hour.
“I still don’t see why you’re all here,” Severus muttered, adjusting the leather strap of his satchel. “I could have managed this alone.”
“Tut,” Gomez said, striding beside him. “This is an educational experience, mijo! Besides, how else will we dramatically surprise your professors when you show up with imported poisons and your own family cauldron?”
Wednesday spoke flatly. “We were overdue for a bloodletting getaway.”
Morticia arched a graceful brow. “And I want to meet the Headmistress. One must inspect the palace before placing the raven in the tower.”
Severus had stopped protesting somewhere between the ferry ride and the underground basilisk tram.
They entered an apothecary marked Les Os et les Ombres. The bell above the door chimed in a minor key. Shelves lined with bottled fog, glittering beetle casings, and labeled bones surrounded them. Severus stepped forward, expression slipping from guarded to reverent.
“Your list,” Morticia said, placing it gently in his hand. “Take your time.”
He did. Threading between aisles of dried orchids, fire-slick roots, and preserved fairy livers, he moved like someone who belonged there. The Addamses dispersed quietly, examining hexed honey and whispering candle wax. The shopkeeper, a withered crone named Mme. Ruelle, watched him with interest as he asked intelligent questions in halting French and collected ingredients with surgical precision.
Morticia was admiring a bottle labeled Souvenir de l’Abîme when a chill pulled at her spine.
Wednesday noticed first. “Company,” she said, tone ice-flat.
Outside the fog-dimmed glass, four figures loomed.
James Potter.
Sirius Black.
Remus Lupin.
Peter Pettigrew.
Their Gryffindor robes were poorly concealed under traveling cloaks, expressions caught somewhere between guilt and fear. They stared through the window not at the Addamses, but at Severus.
Morticia’s gaze narrowed. “Interesting.”
Severus turned, potion vial still in hand, and spotted them.
He blinked. The Marauders did not move. The air snapped taut.
He stepped toward the door. His posture was regal now, defensive and alert, cloak trailing behind like a shadow given form. He opened the door and walked into the mist, crossing his arms as he stared at them with cool disdain.
“Shouldn’t you be at school?”
Sirius looked like he’d seen a ghost. James opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. Remus stepped forward.
“We... saw you,” he said awkwardly. “We were out shopping with James’s dad, and then we saw you walk in. We thought we should... talk.”
Severus’s eyes narrowed. “Talk.”
“Yeah,” James said, voice surprisingly soft. “We didn’t know you were transferring. And, look, this is going to sound stupid, but we didn’t recognize you back on the train. We thought you were someone else.”
“You thought I was attractive,” Severus said flatly, watching Sirius flinch. “You were ogling me like a piece of rare meat. Is that what this is? Curiosity? Infatuation with the unknown?, not knowing it was snivellus”
“No—well—yes, but—” Sirius flushed scarlet. “We didn’t know it was you. We just—”
Peter stayed behind the others, mumbling, “I said we shouldn’t follow him…”
Remus took a breath and tried again. “What we did, back at Hogwarts, for six years, it wasn’t just stupid. It was cruel. We know that. We were awful to you.”
Severus laughed. The sound was sharp, joyless. “You were awful to me? That’s quite the understatement, wolf.”
Remus flinched as he took a step forward.
“You tried to kill me. You used me as a joke. You ripped my clothes, hexed my books, shoved me into walls. You hung me upside down in front of a crowd just because you could.”
James winced. “We were kids—”
“I was a kid!” Severus snapped. “I was fifteen, less than 6 moths ago, when Sirius sent me toward the Whomping Willow. Did you think it would be funny if I died?”
Sirius looked stricken. “I didn’t know—”
“You never knew. None of you knew what I went home to. What I escaped to Hogwarts from. But you made sure that the one place I was supposed to be safe was a fucking nightmare. Every single term.”
The fog swirled as magic surged beneath Severus’s skin. Thing, hidden in his bag, stirred but didn’t emerge. This was Severus’s battle.
“I walked your halls with bruises on my ribs, curses on my back, and silence in my throat. And still, still, you hounded me.”
His voice broke. “And now, because I don’t look the same, because someone loved me enough to let me heal, you think you’re entitled to an apology scene? A redemption arc?”
Sirius took a hesitant step forward. “We’re not asking for forgiveness. We’re just—trying.”
“Trying what? To sleep at night? To absolve yourselves with a half-assed apology in the middle of a fogged street?”
His eyes shimmered with unshed tears, fury burning at the edges. “You don’t deserve closure. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
None of them spoke.
Severus shook his head and stepped back. “Go home. Run along to your precious Gryffindor Tower and your golden lives. I’m done being your scapegoat. Your punching bag. Your ghost because I’m sure you don’t deserve any of it.”
With a cold sweep of his cloak, he turned and reentered the apothecary. The bell chimed behind him like a death toll.
Morticia was waiting.
He said nothing as he placed the last of the vials into the basket, knuckles white. Thing climbed out of his bag and gently wrapped around his wrist.
Morticia approached him slowly, silently, and laid a hand on his back.
“They don’t define you, Severus.”
“I know,” he said hollowly. “But it doesn’t stop the hurt.”
“No. It never does.” She met his eyes. “But pain, when wielded properly, makes the finest weapon. Or the finest shield.”
Severus gave a humorless smirk. “How very Addams.”
“We’re very proud of you.”
He nodded.
Later, as they left the shop, Wednesday paused near the door. She tilted her head toward the alley, where the Marauders had stood. Her expression was blank, eyes as dark as obsidian wells.
“If they follow you again,” she said calmly, “I will pluck out their regret and bottle it for potion use.”
Severus let out a surprised snort. “Make sure to label it properly.”
She nodded. “Tears of Gryffindors. I imagine it pairs well with mugwort and bitterness.”
They returned to the street, Severus walking a little straighter, a little prouder.
And behind him, the fog closed around the Marauders—silent and cold.

Chapter Text

The crisp morning air slipped through the open windows of the Addams estate, carrying with it the earthy scent of fallen leaves and damp soil. Severus sat cross-legged on a divan in the drawing room, a thick French grammar book open on his lap. His brow furrowed in concentration as he repeated softly, “Je suis… je suis… I am…”
From across the room, Morticia floated in like moonlight, her obsidian dress trailing behind her. “Très bien, mon cher. But soften your ‘s’ a little—it hisses.”
Severus adjusted his pronunciation and glanced up at her, his voice uncertain. “Je suis un garçon… étrange?”
She smiled like something sharp. “Un garçon délicieux, actually.”
From behind the wingback chair, Wednesday piped in without looking up from the taxidermy manual she was dissecting. “You’re not strange, Severus. You’re ours.”
His fingers tightened around the edges of the book.
It had been four weeks since he’d left Hogwarts and turned his back on the place that had nearly crushed his spirit. Four weeks since the Marauders tried to apologize and he had finally, truly, spoken the words he’d buried for years. Four weeks since he made the decision to transfer to Beauxbatons and Dumbledore had reluctantly signed the parchment, only after Gomez and Morticia stood before him like living specters of defiance.
Now, home was this estate. Home was a severed hand that tapped out encouragement on his shoulder when he was discouraged. Home was Wednesday testing his reflexes with surprise knife throws. Home was Morticia cradling his cheeks in her gloved hands and calling him beautiful when he doubted his reflection.
And he was going to France.
“Try this next,” Wednesday said, sliding a small slip of parchment toward him. Her penmanship was unnervingly perfect. “Translate it out loud.”
Severus squinted at the scrawl.
“They buried their hearts under the floorboards, but it was still not enough to silence them.”
He blinked. “You get your language examples from Poe?”
“I get my language examples from life.”
He rolled his eyes but spoke the translation slowly, voice uncertain but growing steadier. By the time he finished, Morticia clapped her hands softly.
“You’ll have no trouble at Beauxbatons. They value artistry. Precision. Quiet menace.”
“I’m not sure I’m elegant enough for it,” Severus admitted quietly.
“You are an Addams now,” Morticia said. “That’s more than enough.”
Meanwhile, far away in the gothic grandeur of Hogwarts, the Gryffindor common room sat unusually silent for a Sunday morning.
Sirius Black had not cracked a single joke.
James Potter hadn’t run a hand through his hair in hours.
Remus Lupin stared at his textbook, eyes unmoving. Peter Pettigrew sat nearby, glancing nervously between the others.
The image of Severus standing in the alley, backlit by shadows and sneering like a god of vengeance, hadn’t left any of their minds. Nor had his voice, cutting, furious, controlled.
“For six years, you made my life hell. For your jokes. For your pride. For your own egos. You don't get to rewrite history just because I look different now.” sirius thought of what he heard
The fact that he had looked ethereal in his anger didn’t help.
Sirius flopped back on the couch, arms splayed, mouth agape. “We were awful.”
Remus exhaled heavily. “We are.”
Peter stayed silent, but his pale face said enough.
Only James still tried to deny it.
“I mean, sure, we were… mean,” he muttered, “but he was no angel either.”
Remus’s gaze turned sharp. “And that justifies stringing him up in front of the school? Making his life miserable every single day?”
James grew irritated, “so?, moony it’s not like you try to stop us, you didn’t say anything ”
“So?” remus started “atleast I didn’t do anything to harm him physically unlike you”
James snickered at that, “not like you tried to stop us with your prefect position, which could in fact stop us but no, you stay in background like a coward because that’s what you are”.....the room went silent at that
Peter and Sirius look between the two of them not knowing what to say
There was a shuffle at the common room entrance. Lily Evans stepped in, her bright hair pulled up and her expression carefully composed. She glanced at the boys, hesitating only a second before making her way toward James.
“Hey,” she said softly.
Sirius looked at her with unexpected relief. Remus didn’t speak at all.
“Hi,” James said, not really meeting her eyes.
“I didn’t see Severus,” Lily began, a little too casually. “He was… different. I mean, still Severus, obviously. Just dressed up. A little moody, as usual. Not sure what’s with all the drama, just because he look like a pureblood he think he can look down on a muggleborn like me, he’s so—”
“Shut the hell up evans,” Remus said quietly.
Lily blinked. “What?” surprised that it was remus
Sirius sat up straight, his gray eyes unreadable. “Moony, Don’t.”
James looked up, really looked at her for the first time since she walked in. Something dawned in his expression. He didn’t say anything, but the way he was looking at her had changed, he used to like her soo much he look stupid but now……now
Lily frowned. “I was just saying—”
“You’re trying to pretend like he’d done something wrong, or wronged you,” Remus cut in, his tone still calm but distant. “Like Severus was just being overdramatic. He wasn’t.”
Lily’s lips parted slightly, as if to protest, but no words came out. She glanced at James again, hopeful.
He just looked away. “Just leave lily, alot just happened”
She looked at james in shock, not expecting him to tell her off, “well…..mnhumpf” she turn on her heel and stormed out
Back at the Addams estate, Thing skittered across Severus’s shoulders and patted his cheek before dropping dramatically onto the table. Morticia swept into the room with a tray of dark tea and sugared violets.
“Time for a break,” she announced. “No language is worth a headache.”
Severus leaned back and watched as Pugsley entered, dragging what looked like a mechanical bat on a leash.
“Testing a flying sulfur bomb later,” Pugsley said cheerfully. “Want to help?”
Severus cracked a half-smile. “Tempting.”
“You’re adjusting beautifully,” Morticia murmured to him after Pugsley clomped away. “But it’s all right if the change feels overwhelming. You’re not alone.”
“I know,” Severus said. “It just… feels strange. I spent years trying to survive Hogwarts, and now it’s gone. It’s not fear I’m feeling anymore, it’s quiet. And I don’t know how to exist in quiet yet.”
Wednesday reached over and took his hand. “You’ll learn.”
The next day, a sleek owl dropped a blue-gilded envelope into Severus’s lap. The Beauxbatons crest shimmered on the parchment. His transfer was official. They would expect him in one week.
He stared at it for a long time before carefully folding it into his robes.
That evening, he sat beside Morticia under the rose-draped trellis. The night was thick with perfume and moonlight.
“You’ve never said it aloud,” she said gently.
“What?”
“That you’re frightened.”
Severus swallowed. “Because it doesn’t matter.”
“It does to us.”
He looked down at his hands. “What if I can’t be the person you all think I am?”
“You already are.”
And something inside him, a knot twisted too tightly, unraveled.
Back at Hogwarts, Sirius dreamed of Severus. Not how he used to be, but how he was now. Dark-eyed and unreadable. Stunning and sharp. He woke with his hand over his chest and hated himself for it.
James stared at the wall for a long time and didn’t deny what he saw anymore.
Remus closed his journal halfway through writing Severus’s name and couldn’t finish the sentence.
And Lily, for the first time, felt a coldness she couldn’t name settling between her and the boys she thought she knew.
Regulus stomped through their dorm, frightening all of them, “SIRIUS ORION BLACK, you have some nerve, you all have some nerve” they look at regulus in confusion
“W-what, how did you get in here?” sirius asked in confusion which earn him a glare from regulus so deadly his muscles refuse to move “y-you, it because of you, all of you” he tackle sirius off the bed, onto the ground
James tried prying him off, but end up getting punched in the nose knocking off his glasses “ow ow ow, my nose”
Remus didn’t dare go near, almost smirking, regulus caught it tho “oh you think somethings funny scarface” he got up off a limp sirius, rushing toward him “w-w-wai reg I-ahh!”
Meanwhile, in the Addams estate’s grand hallway, Wednesday pinned a note to an owl’s leg. It was addressed to Beauxbatons.
Inside was a simple message: Take care of him. Or we’ll be back.
And a pressed petal of black rose.

Chapter Text

Severus stood in front of the full-length mirror in the foyer, holding his posture unnaturally straight as he smoothed down the dark collar of his temporary robes. His expression was calm, carefully schooled, but the familiar weight of unease coiled in his belly. His wand, handcrafted, stained black and inlaid with curling vines of Devil’s Snare by Wednesday, was tucked safely in his belt. In one hand he clutched the thick, battered taxidermy book she'd given him that morning with a simple, “This is more your speed.”
He hadn’t disagreed.
Morticia had been preparing to accompany him for the uniform fitting when Gomez set off his miniature dynamite a few rooms over. The explosion rattled the stained glass and Morticia’s eyebrows rose in delight. "Oh, I simply must bear witness," she said dreamily, pressing a kiss to Severus’s head before sweeping off toward the billowing smoke.
That left Grandmama.
“C’mon, boy,” she rasped, already halfway out the door in her crumbling shawl and cracked leather boots. “We’ll get you lookin’ like a proper Beauxbatons sorcerer, or at least like someone who knows how to hex the tailor if they get too handsy.”
“…That’s reassuring,” Severus muttered, but followed.
The tailoring shop was tucked deep in a crooked alley that split off from a sleepy French street flanked by gas lamps and aging gargoyles. The bell above the shop door gave a choked wheeze as they entered, and the smell of enchanted fabric, dust, and lavender rot filled the air.
Severus paused just inside, flipping a page in his book and tilting it slightly away from the light to better study a section on preserving squirrel carcasses for display.
“Lovely teeth on that one,” Grandmama commented as she leaned over his shoulder. “You should’ve seen the were-rat I preserved for Cousin Dexter. Had three heads and a limp. Charming little beast.”
Severus didn’t answer, but a corner of his mouth tugged upward.
A petite tailor with suspiciously long fingers stepped into the front. “Ah, monsieur Snape, mrs addams inform me of your arrival,” he said in a thick French accent, bowing with unnecessary flourish. “And madame—?”
“Call me Grandmama,” she grinned, baring three teeth and possibly a dried mandrake root stuck in the gap. “I’m here to make sure you don’t trim too much off the sides.”
“Of course. Follow me.”
Severus stood on a raised platform inside a circle of enchanted mirrors that followed his every angle. They reflected back not the sickly, haunted child from Spinner’s End, but a sharper, more balanced figure, still thin, yes, still pale, but with posture no longer cowed by fear. His hair had grown in full and soft, curling gently under his chin thanks to Morticia’s concoction. His cheeks had definition now. His nose, still sharp, carried itself proudly, like a blade meant for slicing truth out of a lie.
The tailor muttered spells as a bolt of ice-blue silk floated over and snipped itself into panels. Silver thread danced through the air, following runic measurements. The Beauxbatons robes were cut narrower in the shoulder than Hogwarts uniforms, with a long outer coat that reminded Severus vaguely of ceremonial armor.
“I look ridiculous,” he mumbled.
“You look deadly,” Grandmama corrected. “Which is even better. Imagine what kind of poison you could hide in those sleeves.”
“…You think?”
“Oh, definitely. That length hides a lot of venom.”
Severus smirked to himself as he resumed reading. He had nearly reached the chapter on wiring glass eyes into a badger’s skull when the tailor asked him to raise his arms. As he obeyed, a flash of mottled skin peeked out beneath the cuff, an old bruise, long faded but not quite forgotten.
The tailor flinched. Grandmama noticed.
Later, as Severus buttoned the fitted outer coat and tucked the book beneath his arm, she placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. “You keep collecting books like that, the next time someone tries to hurt you, you’ll be able to trap their soul in a skinned mole. Don’t let the ghosts of before cloud the man you’re becoming.”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t pull away either.
Outside, the fog had rolled in, thick and blue-tinted. Grandmama waved her hand to summon the carriage, driven by a horned creature that may have once been a goat and now wore reading glasses. As they climbed in, Severus tucked the book away, staring out the window.
“Do you regret it?” Grandmama asked, settling into the seat across from him.
“Regret what?”
“Leaving Hogwarts. England. Everything familiar. Even the people you hated. You spent years there. That sort of rot tends to sink into the bone.”
Severus was silent for a long time.
Finally: “No. I regret not leaving sooner.”
Grandmama nodded slowly. “Good. Because if you ever try to go back to a place that broke you, I’ll turn your ribs into a xylophone.”
Severus let out a snort. “Understood.”
They rode in companionable silence after that.
When they returned to the Addams estate, the smoke from Gomez’s train set still lingered in the air like incense. Morticia stood at the top of the stairs, elegant as ever, and clapped her hands as she saw them. “Darling! Did you look delicious?”
“He looked like a funeral procession in silk,” Grandmama grinned.
“Perfect,” Morticia said, sweeping over to inspect the new uniform. She ran her hand over the tailored sleeve, her black nails catching the light. “You will break hearts in this. Or set them on fire. Whichever suits you.”
“Or both,” Wednesday added, materializing from behind a tapestry, eyes sharp with approval. “He looks like someone who could commit morally justified homicide in style.”
“Wednesday,” Severus muttered, but there was no bite in it.
She handed him a stitched leather satchel. “For your scalpels. And maybe the hearts of your enemies.”
“Noted.”
That evening, as Gomez conducted a post-mortem on his poor, obliterated train town, murmuring mournfully over each scorched lamppost, Severus sat on the back porch with his taxidermy book in one hand and a sketchpad in the other. The wind was warm. Bats rustled in the distant trees. The stars looked older here.
He traced a rough outline of a fox skull, copying from one of the diagrams, but in the corner of the page he found himself sketching the folds of his new uniform coat, the subtle pattern Morticia had embroidered into the hem, runes for protection and silence.
A long time ago, he would have tried to hide a coat like that. Now, he thought it suited him.
Meanwhile at Hogwarts…
James Potter stared down at the scrap of parchment in his hands. It was blank. He didn’t remember when he started scribbling Severus Snape’s name across the corners of his notes, but there it was again, half-formed, just beside a sketch of that beautiful, unfamiliar Slytherin boy with curling hair and unreadable eyes.
Sirius sat across from him, dead silent for once. His hand was pressed against his mouth, and his face had been flushed all evening. Remus leaned back against the window ledge, arms crossed, gaze sharp but not cruel.
“Do you think he knows?” Peter finally asked. “That we—what we’re feeling?”
James didn't answer. He kept his eyes on the parchment and forced himself not to write the name again. “I hope not”
Back at the Addams estate, Severus climbed into bed, placing Wednesday’s book on the nightstand beside a withered sprig of wolfsbane and a fossilized hummingbird skull. He slipped beneath the velvet blanket, one hand resting lightly on the taxidermy guide.
For the first time in years, he fell asleep thinking not of what he feared, but of what he could become.

Chapter Text

The blue-tiled halls of Beauxbatons shimmered with magical light as Severus Snape stood just beyond the grand marble entrance, clutching a folded parchment of acceptance in one hand and Wednesday’s taxidermy book in the other. His posture was rigid, his black robes sharp against the pastel-toned castle walls that seemed more suited to a fairytale than a place of study. France smelled different, lavender, citrus, clean. It made his stomach churn.
And perhaps not just from nerves.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not really. He should’ve been at Hogwarts, buried beneath the scorn of his housemates, tormented by the Marauders, ignored or pitied by Lily. That was the plan, wasn’t it? To suffer quietly. To endure.
But now, here he was, standing beneath crystal chandeliers and carved columns while overhead, delicate harpies sang lullabies in golden cages.
He felt like an intruder.
He glanced at the folded parchment again. It held his instructions in graceful blue ink: “Present yourself to the office of Madame Maxime by 10:00 a.m. for orientation and room assignment.”
Severus checked the nearest grandfather clock: 9:43 a.m.
Perfect. Lost and early.
He huffed and tucked the taxidermy book under his arm, preparing to choose a corridor at random when a voice—bright and musical—called out behind him.
“Salut! Tu es perdu?”
Severus turned, already frowning. “What?”
The boy grinned, switching to accented English with a smoothness that made it obvious he’d spoken both languages for years. “Are you lost?”
He was tall, a little taller than Severus, with golden hair that curled at the ends like sun-warmed ivy. His eyes were sea-glass green and glowed with a kind of eternal optimism that made Severus’s teeth itch. His uniform was perfectly pressed, navy with cream accents, and his shoes were so polished Severus could see the reflection of his own scowl in them.
“No,” Severus muttered.
The boy raised an eyebrow, still smiling. “You’re holding the orientation letter upside down.”
Severus looked down. Damn it.
“…Fine. I’m looking for the Headmistress’s office.”
“I’m heading there myself,” the boy said cheerfully, motioning for Severus to follow. “New students all report to her first. You must be the one they mentioned coming from Hogwarts.”
“I’m not interested in gossip.”
“Oh, don’t worry! Not gossip. Just excitement. We don’t get many transfers. Especially not from somewhere like there. Come on. I’m Luciel Soleil, by the way.”
Severus blinked. Soleil. Of course. His name meant sunshine.
“Severus…Addams,” he said curtly.
Luciel beamed like they were already friends. “A pleasure, Severus.”
They walked in relative silence, the only sound the tapping of their shoes and the hum of magical portraits whispering greetings. Severus noticed that Lucien didn’t speak again unless spoken to. Odd, for someone so… effervescent.
“I’m not used to… places like this,” Severus said, more to the air than to Lucien.
Luciel glanced at him. “Too pretty?”
“Too bright. Too… polite.”
The blonde laughed, not unkindly. “Don’t worry. It’s not all fluff and grace. The second-year duels get pretty intense.”
They turned down a hall lined with floating aquariums. Inside, tiny bioluminescent jellyfish pulsed gently, casting slow-moving shadows on the tiled floor.
“Why did you transfer?” Lucien asked carefully.
Severus hesitated, but then said, “Needed a change.”
Luciel nodded like he understood everything in those three words. “You’ll like it here. It’s different. A bit surreal at first. But good. Safer.”
Safer. The word settled in Severus’s chest like a drop of ink in water. He hadn’t felt safe since before he was nine years old.
They reached a tall double door carved with roses and serpents. Lucien knocked, and it opened immediately.
Inside, the office was a blend of elegance and mystery. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves curved around a grand mahogany desk where a tall witch with dark skin and streaks of silver in her hair stood waiting. Her eyes twinkled behind delicate spectacles.
“Severus Snape,” she greeted, her French accent coating his name in a strange warmth. “Welcome to Beauxbatons. I am Madame Maxime.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Luciel saluted playfully. “Here as requested, Madame.”
“Merci, Luciel. You may wait outside.”
He bowed dramatically and backed out, winking once at Severus.
As the doors shut, Maxime gestured for Severus to sit.
“I’ve reviewed your transcript and the letter from your former headmaster.” Her lips thinned. “It was… enlightening.”
Severus said nothing. Dumbledore’s letter had likely been filled with half-truths and veiled guilt.
“We at Beauxbatons believe in nurturing talent and strength,” she said, standing to retrieve a small velvet box and a bronze key. “Not stifling it.”
She handed him the key. “Your dorm is in the southern tower, second floor. Room twelve. It is shared with another sixth-year—Luciel Soleil.”
Of course.
Severus took the key and the box. Inside was a small enamel pin in the shape of a silver flame.
“All sixth-years wear this on their robes. Your uniform has been ordered and should arrive by this evening. Until then, feel free to explore.”
He nodded and stood.
“Oh,” she added. “Do be careful with the south tower’s stained-glass phoenix. It dislikes loud footsteps.”
He didn’t ask.
Luciel was waiting for him in the hallway, sitting cross-legged on the floor reading a comic with glowing pages.
“Welcome back, roomie.”
Severus groaned internally. “You knew?”, “yeahh”
They walked to the dorm in silence, Severus clinging to his taxidermy book while Lucien kept stealing glances at it.
“What’s that about?” he finally asked.
“Preserving dead things.”
Luciel made a noise that sounded like impressed horror. “Neat.”
The southern tower was quieter, more shadowed. Vines crept along the walls outside the tall arched windows, and a faint breeze always seemed to drift through even with no visible source.
Room twelve was a pale blue chamber with two beds—canopy style—with soft lace curtains and matching trunks at the foot. A shared wardrobe sat to one side, and between the beds, a wide desk cluttered with inkwells, scrolls, and a jar of green candy frogs.
Luciel’s side was already filled with color. Pinned sketches, floating candles in miniature, and a moving photo of a large family who looked just as sunny as him.
Severus’s side was bare.
He placed his taxidermy book on the nightstand and sat on the bed. It was… soft.
Luciel sat cross-legged on his own and tilted his head. “You okay?”
Severus nodded. “Just… not used to this.”
“To sharing a room?”
“To having a room.”
Luciel sobered immediately. “Well… now you do.”
Severus looked out the window, where clouds curled lazily over distant mountains. For the first time in years, he felt a strange calm. No taunts. No curses. No pitying stares. No Dumbledore looming over him with twinkling disappointment.
And across the room, Luciel Soleil—sunshine incarnate—was showing him how to braid enchanted ribbons into his curtain for privacy.
It was going to be… different.
And maybe, just maybe, that wasn’t a bad thing.
Back at Hogwarts…
James sat hunched in the Gryffindor common room, chin in hand, staring into the fire.
Remus was across from him, absently stroking a fraying corner of a book. Sirius lay sprawled on the couch, staring at the ceiling. Peter was perched by the window, chewing his lip.
No one spoke. Not really. Because Severus Snape’s voice still echoed in their skulls like a hex that wouldn’t wear off.
Every accusation. Every bitter truth. Every moment they thought they were funny or clever, laid bare for the cruelty it truly was.
“I didn’t think it was that bad,” James muttered finally.
“You didn’t see him,” Remus said. “We did awful things.”
“He hated us,” Sirius whispered, almost to himself. “He really, really hated us.”
“Still does,” Peter added softly.
And yet… he was beautiful. That fact hadn’t changed. If anything, it made things worse.
They remembered his soft hair. His sharp nose. His unbothered expression. The graceful way he walked. He’d turned the corner from the boy they bullied into someone they didn’t recognize. Someone they wanted.
And none of them deserved him.
Up in the girls’ dorm, Lily Evans clutched her pillow and bit the inside of her cheek. She’d tried to warn them. Had tried to be the middle ground.
But now she’d been cut out of both sides. James no longer looked at her. Remus barely spoke. Sirius was silent, moody, unapproachable. Peter flinched when she entered the room.
And Severus, he was gone.
Transferred.
Because she failed him.
Because they all did.
Back in France, Severus addams lay on his new bed, the scent of lavender drifting from the pillows. He opened his taxidermy book again, but this time, didn’t immediately dive into the diagrams.
He looked toward the other bed where Lucien had drifted to sleep, his mouth slightly open, one hand still glowing faintly from some unfinished enchantment.
Severus didn’t know what this year would bring. But at the very least, it wouldn’t be Hogwarts.
And that was already a blessing.

Chapter Text

Severus didn’t know how he’d made it through the week without collapsing, hexing someone, or simply vanishing into his own potions lab forever. His bed had never looked so welcoming, his boots never so heavy, and his uniform robes had somehow managed to feel both too tight and too loose. His back ached from carrying so many books, his mind was stretched thinner than a cauldron's bubbling membrane, and yet...
He had enjoyed himself. Thoroughly.
That was the most frightening part.
Beauxbatons had proven itself utterly unlike Hogwarts from the very first class. Where Hogwarts buried students in traditions and rivalries, Beauxbatons threw open glittering windows and demanded, politely, of course, that students look beyond their little corners of the world. There were international history classes that spoke of magic used by the Yoruba, the Navajo, the Khmer. Magical psychology lessons that addressed the damage long-term exposure to cursed objects could do to the mind. His professor had even cited a paper from a Turkish curse-healer, peer-reviewed.
And the potions labs. By the spirits, the potions labs.
Spacious, clean, thoughtfully designed. The first-year syllabus at Beauxbatons was equivalent to what he’d taught himself in secret by fifth year at Hogwarts. Slughorn’s smarmy preference for rich idiots like Potter had stunted half the classroom. Here, there were no Slughorns, only Professors Rousseau and Dinel, both deeply impressed with Severus’s precision and intuitive ingredient handling. Rousseau had even leaned over once to murmur, “Très impressionnant,” as Severus transfigured a poorly ground shrivelfig into a paste more potent than fresh pulp.
Luciel had nearly bounced out of his seat when Rousseau asked Severus if he’d consider joining the Advanced Potioneering Symposium on Tuesdays.
“You didn’t even hesitate,” Luciel had whispered later in the corridor. “You just—raised your hand. Like a scholar. Like you knew.”
“I did know,” Severus replied, brushing a fleck of dried peppermint oil off his sleeve. “Hesitation is for people who are unsure. Or Gryffindors.”
Luciel had giggled at that for a full minute.
Now, Friday evening had arrived like a sigh of relief. Severus lay stretched across his bed in their shared dormitory, a thin book of Magical Taxidermy open across his chest, his reading gift from Wednesday. She’d marked her favorite diagrams in the margins with little skull stickers.
“Seveeerussss,” Luciel whined from his side of the room. He had his shoes off, one sock flung somewhere under his bed, and was upside down over the back of an armchair. “We should go out. Let’s go into town.”
“No.”
“C’mon. There’s a little Muggle cinema that plays old horror movies in French. You’d love it. It’s all vampires and coffins and buckets of red corn syrup.”
“I said no.”
Luciel rolled upright and flopped dramatically onto Severus’s bed, almost crushing the book.
Severus grunted. “Do you mind?”
“Yes, I do mind. You’ve been locked in classes all week and in this dorm the rest of the time. I haven’t even seen you crack a smile. Not once.”
“I don’t smile.”
“You do. You smiled when I fell up the stairs on Tuesday.”
“That was a reflex. I thought you’d broken your face.”
Luciel snorted and poked Severus in the shoulder. “Please? Just one night. One film. There’s a bakery next door. You can scowl at people in the dark if it makes you feel better.”
Severus groaned. He was exhausted, but something inside him, some stubborn whisper, said maybe it wasn’t the worst idea. No one here knew him as the sallow, greasy git of the dungeons. No one feared or pitied him. He could… perhaps… exist.
“I’ll consider it,” he muttered.
Luciel grinned and went to dig out his cleanest jumper.
Earlier That Week…
On Monday morning, Severus had arrived fifteen minutes early to Magical Theory & Philosophy. He did not expect to leave the classroom questioning his own concept of spell structure and magical willpower.
Professor Lamarché, a tall woman with bright white braids and a deep voice, had asked them all one question to begin:
“If magic is born of intent, how do we quantify intent? Is it action? Emotion? Language?”
That had stumped even the loudest students.
When one girl tried to answer with the Latin root of “incantation,” Lamarché nodded and said, “And what of the druids? Of African griots? Of the Wolof root-spells carved into tree bark?” She gestured to the walls. “There are a thousand magics. Beauxbatons does not ask you to copy. It asks you to create.”
Severus had been scribbling so furiously he nearly snapped his quill.
Later that day, in Magical Psychology, he found himself riveted by a discussion on trauma-linked magical outbursts. The professor gave examples of children whose magic had fractured furniture, timepieces, and even memory wards during periods of intense fear or grief.
He had not meant to raise his hand. But he had.
“Would,” he asked slowly, “a persistent exposure to violence… create a subconscious feedback loop of defensive magic?”
The room fell silent. The professor gave him a long, thoughtful look.
“Yes,” she said softly. “It could.”
He didn’t speak for the rest of the class.
By Wednesday, Severus had discovered that Beauxbatons didn’t just offer intellectual classes. They offered practical ones too—like Artificing, where students learned to craft small magical items, and Spellcraft & Invention, where one was expected to design and test their own spells.
“I can’t believe you’re doing Spellcraft,” Luciel had said over lunch, stirring a bright purple soup. “That’s like wizard math. I nearly cried during the application form.”
“You cry during thunder,” Severus replied dryly.
Luciel just beamed. “Still.”
There were moments, small ones, where Severus caught himself enjoying these conversations. Enjoying company. Luciel was ridiculous, dramatic, and very nearly insufferable. But he was kind. He never stared too long, never poked fun at Severus’s silences. He seemed to accept that Severus didn’t laugh easily, didn’t trust quickly.
He didn’t need Severus to be anyone other than who he was.
That alone made Severus suspicious. But grateful.
Friday Afternoon – Advanced Potioneering
The cauldron hissed softly. Silver steam curled upward.
“Ah,” Professor Rousseau said, peering into Severus’s potion. “Mr. Snape. You used crushed lionfish spines instead of the powdered scale?”
“Yes,” Severus answered, “I substituted due to the regional acidity of the water supply here. The powdered version would dissolve too quickly and result in overreaction.”
Rousseau blinked, then smiled. “You will teach me yet, mon garçon.”
Severus did not smile, but his fingers curled with pride.
Friday Night – Luciel Wins
Severus relented.
They walked the cobbled edge of the magical village and crossed into the Muggle district. Luciel bought tickets to a black-and-white vampire film and a sugary butter pastry Severus refused to admit he liked.
The theater was dim and half-empty. As the film began, Severus felt a strange ease settle over him. The Muggle world was simple. Shadows, screen, dialogue. No ghosts. No hexes. No expectations.
Luciel leaned in halfway through and whispered, “The vampire reminds me of you.”
“Because he drinks blood?”
“No,” Luciel said, grinning. “Because he wears all black, has perfect cheekbones, and glares at everyone.”
Severus made a noise of disdain, but he was secretly… not entirely offended.
As they left the cinema, Severus realized something.
For the first time in years, he had not thought once, not once, about James Potter, Sirius Black, or Lily Evans.
Not even in passing.
The weight of Hogwarts had begun to slip from his shoulders.
He didn’t know who he would become here.
But whoever it was, they would never be that boy again.

Chapter Text

The dream clawed at him long before it began.
Severus had learned that Beauxbatons had different hours than Hogwarts, classes began earlier, the corridors were bathed in soft morning sun, and even the enchanted ceiling in the Great Hall did its best to replicate pleasant weather. But sleep still came to him like a grudge, wrestled from his body, not gifted by peace.
He curled tightly beneath the velvet blue covers of his new bed, the dormitory bathed in silver light. The window was cracked open, the warm French air rustling the edge of his parchment-laden desk, and the soft snores of Luciel drifted across the room like the hum of bees in a summer garden.
But Severus did not sleep peacefully.
In the dream, the old wallpaper peeled like skin in the house on Spinner’s End. The walls pulsed with something sour and stagnant, and the familiar stench of stale alcohol and mold rose like a living presence.
His mother stood by the kitchen door, her thin shoulders shaking.
“You shouldn’t have left him,” she whispered through trembling lips, her eyes red-rimmed and hopeless. “It’s your fault now, Sev. You left him there alone. You left us.”
He took a step forward. “Mum—”
Her face crumpled into a sob, and she sank to the floor, fists clenched around the hem of her threadbare skirt. “He’ll come after you. He always comes back.”
Behind her, the hallway darkened. Footsteps echoed, slow, deliberate. The dull clink of a bottle neck against fingers. A low slurred growl. And then a man appeared, face lost in the shadows except for one bloodshot eye and the bottle held like a club in his knotted hand.
“OI,” Tobias Snape snarled. “Where d’you think you’re going, boy?”
Severus couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. He was nine again. Small. Cornered. Weak.
“Don’t—” he tried to say.
Tobias lifted the bottle high.
And Severus screamed.
A bright, musical voice shattered the darkness.
“🎵Mamma mia! Here I go again—my my, how can I resist you?🎵”
Severus’s eyes flew open.
His dormitory. His real one. Bathed in early golden sunlight. No peeling wallpaper. No shouting. No bottles. No—
Luciel was dancing in front of the full-length mirror, hair unbrushed and curling wildly around his face like a sun-kissed lion. He wore glittery sunglasses and a long lavender bathrobe that shimmered when he moved. His hips swayed with disturbing accuracy.
“🎵Mamma mia! Does it show again? My my—🎵”
“Luciel,” Severus rasped, voice rough with sleep.
Luciel paused mid-spin and turned toward him, pushing the sunglasses down to the tip of his nose. “Good morning, sleeping beast. Did you know your eyes twitch when you’re dreaming?”
Severus sat up slowly, still gripping the sheets.
His hands were damp.
His breathing still uneven.
The dream still clung to him like damp fog.
Luciel tilted his head, clearly catching the change in his demeanor. The usual brightness in his face softened. “Nightmare?”
Severus nodded.
Luciel crossed the room and sat on the edge of his bed but didn’t push. He didn’t offer platitudes or ridiculous comfort spells or a cup of hot cocoa (though Severus wouldn’t have refused one). He just leaned in, adjusted his sunglasses like a dork, and said, “Well, I was going to sing the whole ABBA Gold album, but I’ll spare you.”
Severus gave him a dry look. “I might scream again if you don’t.”
Luciel grinned. “See, you do like me.”
“I tolerate you.”
“That’s a ‘yes’ in Severus-speak.”
He turned to fetch his wand from the desk when a faint clicking sound reached Severus’s ears.
Tiny legs.
Sharp tapping.
He turned just in time to see a spider, Thingette, scuttling across the floor with something small and papery tied to her abdomen by silver thread.
Severus’s face relaxed, his breath finally stabilizing.
Luciel jumped back. “By all that’s magical, is that a message spider?”
Thingette climbed up Severus’s leg like it was a personal mountain trek and placed the note delicately on his knee.
The Addamses, of course.
Their handwriting was unmistakable—long, elegant, dark ink on parchment that smelled faintly of smoke and old roses.
To our most beloved Severus,
How is our prodigal potioneer enjoying his new kingdom of pastel blue towers and flowery courtyards?
Have you hexed anyone yet?
Do the teachers shiver at your presence?
We miss your gloomy sarcasm terribly. The house has been eerily quiet without your brooding footsteps and ghost-like mutterings in Latin.
Thingette insisted on delivering this personally (Thing is quite proud of her), and we trust she has not tried to bite anyone, yet.
Tell us everything, what you’ve learned, what they feed you, and whether you've made any friends. Be honest.
With eternal fondness (and sharpened blades),
Morticia, Gomez, Wednesday, Pugsley, Uncle Fester, Grandmama, and Lurch
P.S. Lurch cries every time he passes your old room. Pugsley says it’s allergies. We know better.
Severus read the note twice before a genuine smile threatened to crack his face.
Luciel, who was now cautiously sitting on his own bed with his legs tucked up like the spider might attack again, leaned forward.
“They send spiders?”
“They send love,” Severus said simply, folding the letter.
He gently lifted Thingette into his palm and allowed her to climb onto the corner of his desk. She crouched, cleaning one leg with eerie precision.
“Wait, are those the Addamses?” Luciel asked, wide-eyed. “The Addamses? That explains so much. You look like a vampire who went to boarding school.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Luciel beamed. “It is one.”
The rest of the day passed in its usual haze of coursework and softly murmuring halls. Severus spent the morning in Advanced Potioneering, and even the Beauxbatons professor, a severe woman with violet robes and a face like a pinched lemon, had raised an eyebrow at his flawless technique.
“Have you considered applying for the National Youth Alchemy Apprenticeship?” she had asked.
“No, i-is that a thing?,” Severus replied flatly.
“Yes and you should apply, these potions you make could make headlines in the daily prophet”
He blinked. “I’ll consider it.”
That afternoon was Magical Theory & Philosophy, where students debated the ethical use of memory charms on magical criminals. Severus listened more than he spoke, but when he did open his mouth, several students looked surprised that the dark-eyed, sharp-featured boy in the corner could speak with such calm clarity.
By evening, he’d attended Magical Anthropology, which involved identifying the cultural magical practices of Central African wizards, and Spellcraft & Invention, where he was paired with a girl from Corsica, anida her name, who had enchanted a spoon to sing lullabies.
He was so exhausted by the end of dinner that he nearly fell asleep into his plate.
Luciel nudged him with his fork. “We should go out.”
Severus squinted. “Out where?”
“The Muggle world. This weekend. Movies. Popcorn. Culture.”
“I’ve had quite enough culture, thank you.”
Luciel pouted dramatically. “You can’t just hide in your cauldron all weekend like a depressed boggart.”
“I very much can.”
“But you shouldn’t! Come on, Severus. Imagine it, you, me, and an overpriced bag of stale popcorn while an American actor screams about aliens. What could be more healing?”
Severus rubbed his eyes. “You’re exhausting.”
Luciel looked pleased. “I try.”
Severus thought about the dream.
The shaking walls. The bottle.
And then he thought about Wednesday’s flat stare and Morticia’s cool fingers brushing the hair from his face as she said, You are ours now. Not his.
He looked down at the letter again.
Made any new friends?
He sighed.
“Fine,” he said.
Luciel lit up like a Christmas tree.
That night, Severus climbed into bed earlier than usual.
The sky beyond the window was dark and cloudless. Thingette was asleep in her little glass terrarium. Luciel was humming softly in his bed, flipping through a magazine about enchanted fashion accessories.
Severus pulled the covers tight around him and stared at the ceiling.
The nightmares didn’t come this time.
Instead, he dreamt of spiders spinning webs shaped like letters.
Of strange families who never questioned his anger.
Of potion bottles lined with silver skulls.
And somewhere in the distance, a song played softly—
🎵There’s not a soul out there… no one to hear my prayer…🎵
He smiled faintly in his sleep.

Chapter Text

The Beauxbatons morning sun cast golden light across the pale marble floors as Severus crossed the courtyard, his satchel slung over his shoulder and a yawn barely stifled behind one hand. Luciel had insisted they skip breakfast in the dining hall and instead enjoy pastries beneath the enchanted glass ceiling of their classroom wing, where the ceiling reflected the sky like polished water.
“I still think almond croissants are vastly superior to anything your British schools offered,” Luciel was saying, brushing crumbs off his robes.
Severus didn’t reply. He was unusually quiet this morning, eyes still lingering on the lines of notes he’d scrawled late last night in their shared dorm room.
He’d never slept with the ease Luciel did. His roommate could fall asleep mid-sentence if he was warm and well-fed. Severus, on the other hand, had spent the night staring at the arched canopy of his bed, thinking about owl post and the people he left behind.
He hadn’t written Regulus yet.
It wasn’t intentional. He had simply… needed space. But guilt, as always, had a way of finding him, creeping under his skin and curling in his chest like damp fog.
The classroom door swung open, and Professor D’Albret, whose robes shimmered faintly like sea glass, ushered them in for Enchanted Herbology. Severus found his seat near the back while Luciel sat beside him, already chatting with the girl across the aisle in rapid French.
Severus barely had time to pull out his textbook before a deep, echoing pop sounded overhead.
All heads turned upward.
Then came the screech of red smoke and a single parchment-red envelope fluttered from nowhere and slammed directly in front of Severus.
A Howler.
He froze.
Luciel let out a startled gasp and immediately leaned over, whispering, “Is that for you?”
Severus didn’t answer.
The Howler burst open in a gout of scarlet flame and bellowed:
“SEVERUS TOBIAS SNAPE, HOW DARE YOU DISAPPEAR WITHOUT TELLING ME WHERE YOU’VE GONE—”
Regulus Black’s voice, unmistakable and furious, echoed off the polished walls of the classroom.
“I WOKE UP AND YOU WERE GONE! NOT A SINGLE OWL, NOT A NOTE! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO SLEEP IN OUR ROOM WITH SIRIUS AND POTTER ON MY BACK, WHEN YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE WHO’S NOT IN ON THEIR LITTLE PRANKS?!”**
Luciel had nearly fallen out of his chair. Several students were gawking now.
“I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! I EVEN CHECKED THE SHRIEKING SHACK! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KIDNAPPED BY MUDBLOODS OR MERCENARIES OR—OR–WHATEVER IT IS THAT LIVES IN KNOCKTURN ALLEY!”**
The Howler flared again.
“AND THE WORST PART IS YOU’RE NOT DEAD, YOU’RE JUST TOO FANCY FOR HOGWARTS NOW! I SWEAR TO MERLIN, SEV, IF I FIND OUT YOU'RE SIPPING WINE FROM ENCHANTED CRYSTAL WHILE I'M STILL EATING HOGWARTS' GRUEL—”**
A sudden snap from Professor D’Albret silenced the Howler. It burst into confetti-like ash, which drifted gently down onto Severus’s open textbook.
The class was silent.
Severus’s ears were burning. He wanted nothing more than to disappear into the floor.
Professor D’Albret, to her credit, did not scold him. She merely said, in calm French-accented English, “I believe we have all had a passionate friend at some point in our lives. Let us not shame Monsieur Snape.”
She moved the class on with ease, her voice floating into a lesson about memory-enhancing magical fungi.
Luciel, however, was still turned toward him, eyes wide and grinning.
“So…” Luciel said, his voice low. “Is he your boyfriend?”
Severus whipped his head toward him. “What?!”
Luciel wiggled his eyebrows. “I mean, it sounded like a lover’s quarrel. ‘You left me behind, how dare you,’—very dramatic. Ten out of ten on the emotional intensity scale.”
Severus’s face flushed crimson. “He’s not—he’s not—he’s like a little brother. Merlin. Shut up.”
Luciel giggled, pleased with himself. “You’re blushing! This is excellent. I was worried you were incapable of turning red.”
Severus glared, which only made Luciel laugh harder.
Later that evening, after dinner and a brief walk around the orchid-covered garden near the library, Severus climbed the spiral stairs to his dorm. He paused only briefly in front of their door, polished wood, carved with constellations—and stepped inside.
Luciel was humming at his desk, carefully gluing glow-in-the-dark stars above his bed.
Severus sat at his own desk, pulled out a sheet of parchment, and began to write.
Regulus,
First off, I’m sorry.
I didn’t mean to leave you without saying anything. I should’ve sent a letter the minute I arrived, but everything has been overwhelming, new classes, new people, and I didn’t want to make things worse for you by making you part of it.
You have every right to be angry. I would be too.
Hogwarts was a mess for both of us, and I didn’t want to burden you with more drama. But I should have told you.
I miss you. I miss our late-night rants about how idiotic the Gryffindors are. I miss our potions competitions and your smug face when you beat me by a second.
I promise to write every week. I mean it.
Be safe.
—Severus
He folded the letter and sealed it with the wax stamp Morticia gave him.
Just as he turned to look for an owl, Luciel peeked over his shoulder again.
“Tell your ‘little brother’ I said hi.”
“Luciel,” Severus warned.
Luciel held up his hands innocently. “Just making conversation.”
An elegant barn owl landed softly on the windowsill.
Severus tied the letter to its leg and gave it a gentle scratch behind the ears. The owl hooted once and took off into the night.
“Studying time!” Luciel announced the moment Severus sat back down.
Severus sighed. “Do you ever stop talking?”
“Only when I’m asleep. And even then, I’ve been told I hum.”
The rest of the evening passed in relative peace, at least, as peaceful as it could be with Luciel dramatically reenacting the history of Magical Music while standing on his bed, singing ABBA’s “Money, Money, Money” with a quill for a microphone.
Severus tried to ignore him, scribbling notes on the effects of powdered moonroot on necrotic potion bases.
Then came the moment Luciel struck a pose, holding out a hand to Severus and belting:
“I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay!”
Severus gave him a look. “It’s ten o’clock.”
“Which means we’re running out of prime musical performance hours!”
And just like that, the tension of the day, Regulus’s Howler, the embarrassment, the lingering homesickness, broke.
Severus laughed.
Not a polite snort or a dry smirk.
An honest-to-Merlin laugh.
Luciel froze mid-spin, then grinned like the sun. “See? I knew I could make you laugh.”
Severus shook his head, still chuckling. “You’re impossible.”
“Correction: I’m charming.”
And despite himself, Severus believed him.
That night, as Severus climbed into bed, he felt a quiet comfort he hadn’t expected.
Not home. Not yet.
But something like it.
And for the first time in a long while, he didn’t dream of screaming voices or cold tile floors.
Only stars.

Chapter Text

Regulus Black sat on the windowsill of the Slytherin common room, legs pulled close to his chest, the early morning mist curling like smoke outside the enchanted glass. The lake beyond shimmered with ghostly green light, casting his pale features in an eerie glow. His hands clutched the parchment in his lap, the letter from Severus. It had arrived that morning, delivered by an owl with feathers as black as pitch, bearing the careful, precise handwriting Regulus knew so well.
He had read it three times already.
Dear Regulus,
I’m sorry I left the way I did. I needed a change, and it happened quickly. I didn’t mean to leave you behind. I’ll write to you often, if you’d like. You’re not alone. Not truly. Please be safe.
Yours,
Severus Snape
The ink had smudged slightly, as if Severus’s hand had trembled—or perhaps his eyes had been wet. Regulus wasn’t sure which hurt more.
He stared out the window, the words replaying like a loop. It wasn’t like Severus to apologize. Not like that. Not in words that sounded… sincere. Hurting.
And then, of course—
“Is that from a mysterious admirer?" Sirius Black’s voice broke into the silence like a Bludger smashing through glass.
Regulus didn’t flinch. He didn’t turn either. “Go away, Sirius.”
“I thought I’d see how my baby brother was doing. You’ve been sulking around like someone drowned your cat.” Sirius lounged against a green velvet armchair, one boot kicked up on the seat. He was dressed in full Gryffindor rebellion attire, shirt untucked, tie half undone, a Quidditch bruise blooming on his jaw like a badge of honor.
“Don’t you have something better to do? Like… torment a first-year? Or charm your way into detention again?”
“I did that already. Twice. Got bored.” Sirius stretched lazily. “So.what’s that?, Letter from Snape, yeah?”
Regulus’s fingers curled around the parchment. “You don’t get to say his name.”
“Oh, come off it. You know he’s gone, right? Gone off to live with those Addams freaks. Ran away from Hogwarts. Ditching you without a word. Bit rude.”
“He didn’t ditch me,” Regulus hissed, turning now. His voice shook, not with weakness, but fury. “He escaped, From here to people who wants him, something you’ll never experience.”
That struck home. Sirius blinked, taken aback. For once, he didn’t have a snarky comeback. His mouth opened slightly, but no words came.
“I know what you and your friends did to him,” Regulus continued. “I heard about the hexes, the traps, the way you used him like some sick game for six years. And now, now you’re obsessed because what?, he’s beautiful and powerful looking and not crawling at your feet anymore.”
Sirius’s face turned red, then pale.
Regulus shoved past him. “Stay away from me and him”
Across the castle, Gryffindor Tower had quieted from its usual post-breakfast buzz. James Potter sat at the far end of the common room, a book open in his lap, but his eyes hadn’t moved in fifteen minutes. Beside him, Remus Lupin picked at a torn bit of parchment, trying and failing to pretend he wasn’t watching James.
They hadn’t really talked since their fight, not Since they’d confronted Severus and Lily had offered herself up to James like a prize, and James…
…hadn’t cared.
Not in the way he used to. Not like he thought he would.
“You alright?” Remus asked finally.
“Yeah,” James replied, voice distant.
“You haven’t spoken much.”
“Neither have you.”
Remus rubbed his temple. “It’s just weird, isn’t it? Without him.”
James looked over slowly. “You mean snape?”
Remus hesitated. Then: “Yeah.”
James swallowed, closing the book without reading a word. “He hates us.”
“Can you blame him?”
James didn’t answer. His mind played back Severus’s words, the venom in his voice, the pain in his eyes. The way he stood with a wand adorned in Addams macabre, powerful and poised and no longer the boy they'd belittled.
He was haunting James now. That sneer. That strength.
That beauty.
And James didn’t know what to do with it.
Lily Evans leaned on the stone railing just outside the Arithmancy wing, her voice low and bitter as she whispered to Mary Macdonald.
“He didn’t even look at me. Not once.”
Mary glanced at her sideways. “Severus?”
Lily nodded sharply. “After everything, after all those years of keeping him by my side, he just… ignored me. Like I’m nothing to him.”
“Maybe he’s hurt, Lily,” Mary said carefully. “It’s been a lot. You haven’t exactly… made it easy on him.”
“I tried to help him!”
Mary didn’t respond.
Lily turned on her heel, voice rising. “He was so selfish, leaving like that. Leaving me. Leaving James.”
“You said there was nothing between them,” Mary reminded.
“I didn’t mean like that! Now he’s all… Addams-y and unrecognizable and fancy and pretty and everyone’s obsessed with him! Even James won’t shut up about him.”
Mary, wisely, said nothing. She couldn’t disagree without getting an earful, and she wasn’t about to lie either. Truth was, Severus had changed. And it suited him. He looked like he belonged to another world now, dark and elegant and unreachable.
And Lily… Lily looked like someone who had just realized she’d lost something she thought she could always control.
Meanwhile, deep in the Slytherin dorms, Evan Rosier and Avery sat huddled at a desk, parchment and quills scattered in front of them.
“So we agreed,” Rosier said, dipping his quill. “We write to Lucius.”
Avery nodded. “He needs to know. Snape leaving, transferring, isn’t just a petty thing. It’s dangerous.”
“Exactly. If he’s with those Addams people, who knows what they’re teaching him? What powers he has now?”
Rosier leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “He used to be one of us. And now he’s something else. Something we need to watch.”
Avery grimaced. “He’s not coming back, is he?”
Rosier shook his head. “No. But Lucius will want to keep track of him. He always liked Snape’s mind. And if he’s gaining power outside the Dark Lord’s circles…”
They both went silent, the implications heavy in the air.
Rosier penned the final words of the letter with flourish.
Dear Lucius,
We write to inform you of a change you may wish to observe closely. Severus Snape has transferred from Hogwarts and taken up residence with a most unusual family, the Addamses. His loyalty has shifted, and we are uncertain where it may fall now.
We suggest vigilance.
Yours in caution,
Rosier and Avery
They sealed the letter with green wax and sent it by owl, the bird vanishing into the sky like a shadow.
Later that night, in the quiet of his room, Regulus read Severus’s letter again. Then he grabbed parchment and began to write back.

Dear Severus,
Thank you. For writing. For thinking of me. I was so scared you’d forgotten me or that you were just… gone. Everything here is awful without you. Sirius is unbearable, and the Marauders keep acting like they’re haunted. Honestly, I hope they are.
I miss you. I’m glad you’re happy, or closer to it. Write soon. I’m still here. I’ll wait.
Always.
Your BEST friend,
Regulus
He didn’t send it yet.
He just held it to his chest and stared out the window, waiting for a reply that, this time, he knew would come.

Chapter Text

The laboratory beneath the eastern wing of Beauxbatons was unusually quiet, save for the rhythmic bubbling of cauldrons and the scratch of Severus’s quill on parchment. Despite the pristine stone floors and softly enchanted ceiling that mimicked the clear blue sky above, there was an air of tension around him as he hunched over a half-complete brass mechanism, runes etched along its rim like a whisper of forgotten languages.
It had taken weeks of theoretical study, long hours of testing, and even longer hours of undoing his own mistakes. But the core of his project, the Alkahest Crucible, was nearly complete. A portable, rune-inscribed cauldron that didn’t just brew potions, but could also purify corrupted magical substances, something even St. Mungo’s alchemists hadn’t managed reliably. It was bold, maybe even foolish. But Severus didn’t believe in playing it safe anymore.
Especially not after everything he’d left behind at Hogwarts.
“You haven’t eaten in nine hours, darling,” said a bright voice behind him. “That qualifies as a crime against cuisine.”
Luciel Soleil, his roommate, friend, and relentless cheerleader, bounded into the lab, his arms full of two baguette sandwiches, three pastries, and a floating bottle of honeyed lemon water. He was dressed in a periwinkle cloak lined with lace and had charms glittering along his collar like stars. “Also, you look like a brooding novel character, so I brought the food of champions.”
“I’m refining the glyph alignment for the purification sequence,” Severus muttered, not looking up. “You’ll distract me.”
“Excellent,” Luciel grinned, dropping onto the bench across from him and sliding a sandwich into his hand anyway. “Because you’re due to present the project of your alchemical career to a panel of terrifying adults in three days, and your hands are shaking.”
Severus stared down at his ink-stained fingers. They were trembling. Slightly, but enough.
Luciel didn’t press the point. He just sat, munching his own sandwich, occasionally humming under his breath. It wasn’t until Severus took a reluctant bite, chewing thoughtfully, grumbling, that Luciel clapped his hands.
“That’s my boy. Now tell me about the final phase of the Crucible. Do I get to throw something into it dramatically?”
Severus gave him a long look. “It’s not a cauldron of chaos, Luciel.”
“Shame.”
The National Youth Alchemy Apprenticeship was hosted at the Maison des Arts Magiques, a sprawling, gold-accented estate surrounded by magically manicured gardens and guarded by sphinxes with impeccable manners. Students from all over Europe had gathered in glimmering uniforms, with their projects displayed across elegant tables under enchanted glass domes.
Severus’s booth was minimalistic but arresting. The Alkahest Crucible, polished and quietly humming with runes, sat upon velvet, beside a display showing samples of corrupted potion ingredients being purified by the Crucible in real time.
Judges passed by in waves, nodding, inspecting, asking questions. Most were polite. Some were fascinated. A few were skeptical.
And Severus, dressed in navy Beauxbatons robes with his hair tied back in a neat ribbon Morticia had charmed for him, stood proud. Not just because of the work, but because he’d done it while healing, slowly, painfully, but truly.
Luciel had refused to leave his side.
“I’m your pageant escort,” he whispered dramatically, slipping an arm around Severus’s elbow. “The muggle term is hype man, I think. Your Crucible has a fan club now because of me. One of the Danish kids just said you look ‘sexy.’”
“Luciel,” Severus said, ears pink.
“I’m just repeating facts.”
That was when he saw them.
Across the room, at the far end of the event floor, a small group of British visitors entered with a judge in polished scarlet robes. It was Fleamont Potter, unmistakable with his regal bearing and sweeping silver beard. And behind him—
James. Sirius. Remus. Peter.
Severus’s shoulders went rigid. Luciel, sensing the sudden chill, turned sharply. “Friends of yours?”
Severus didn’t respond immediately. His gaze had locked with James’s, only briefly, and there had been a flicker of recognition. But not the recognition of familiarity.
The recognition of realization.
‘man , are they following me or something?’
James’s face changed. His eyes widened as he noticed Luciel’s arm looped around Severus’s.
Sirius’s expression shifted from dazed admiration to something rawer, more desperate.
Peter ducked his head.
Remus stared like he’d just seen a ghost walk across the stage.
Luciel leaned close. “Want me to flirt obnoxiously with you to scare them off?”
Severus exhaled slowly. “Be my guest.”
Luciel practically glued himself to Severus’s side, glittering like a human disco ball, and whispered in his ear loud enough for James to hear: “If your jaw gets any sharper, I’ll be legally required to write poetry about it.my love”
“LUCIEL!” whisper-shouted, face flushed pink
James stumbled into a table.
The judging was mercifully uninterrupted. Fleamont, to Severus’s horror, paused at his table and asked several pointed questions about the Crucible’s purification cycle. But to Severus’s shock, he was...fair.
Impressed, even.
“It’s innovative,” Fleamont said after a pause. “Ambitious. You’ve made something important here, Mr…”
“Addams,” Severus said without flinching.
Fleamont blinked. Then nodded once, gravely. “Well done.”
The Marauders said nothing. They hovered at the edge of the crowd, ghost-like. Sirius looked as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t. James kept glancing between Severus and Luciel, visibly struggling with something, maybe the fact that he hadn’t known Severus could look this powerful. This composed. This unreachable.
Luciel waited until they were out of hearing range before saying, “Is it awful if I want to hex them into tomorrow?”
“They’re not worth it,” Severus said.
But he still watched as they moved on.
Jmes father stood on the podium, looking gleefully “Students of the regional area, I thank you for taking time out of school and coming here to present your hardworks, and I especially thank Ms maxime for letting us use the schools auditorium for this event—”
Severus stopped listening and was going to the bathroom, with luciel on his trail “mon amour, comment as-tu pu t'éloigner de moi ?”, severus looked at him confused “my french isn’t that good, what did you say” luciel clinged to his side “I said you were leaving me”
While they were walking they ran into the marauders…..it was quiet between them
severus pushed a letter into sirius’s hand“uhh-um-wha?”, “give it regulus, I don’t want him to panic..make sure he get it black” severus glared pulling him away from them

That night, under the soft blue lights of the Beauxbatons dormitory, Luciel danced around their shared room with a glittering silk scarf and a feathered hat. “You were spectacular. Glorious. The dark alchemy prince of my dreams.”
Severus rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop the smallest of smiles from twitching onto his face.
He had presented the Crucible. He had stood in the same room as his former tormentors and not flinched.
And tomorrow, he’d begin the next phase of his Beauxbatons journey, with Luciel singing ABBA at dawn and Thingette delivering letters from the Addamses in her eight-legged gait.
Maybe, for the first time, Severus Snape wasn’t just surviving.
Maybe he was thriving.

Chapter Text

The owl arrived at Malfoy Manor long before dawn, its beak tapping sharply against the frosted windowpane like a skeletal finger. Lucius Malfoy stirred from restless sleep, already in a foul mood from dreams he couldn’t remember but left an impression of hollowness in his chest. Narcissa, still elegantly composed even beneath silk sheets, opened her eyes as Lucius rose from bed.
“Another early owl?” she murmured.
Lucius didn’t answer. The moment he unrolled the parchment and saw the names Avery and Rosier scribbled at the bottom, his pulse began to spike. The content of the letter made his blood run cold.
“Severus is gone. No one knows where. He hasn’t been seen in days. Dumbledore is pretending like he’d lost something valuable but we’re certain he left Hogwarts entirely. The Marauders had something to do with it, we’re sure of it.”
He read the message twice. Then a third time, his grip tightening with each pass until the parchment crinkled in his palm. His breath hissed through clenched teeth.
Narcissa sat up, frowning. “Lucius?”
“He’s gone?....” Lucius said lowly. “They lost him.”
Without another word, he moved across the room and began dressing with precise, jerky motions, buttoning his shirt like he was preparing for war. Narcissa slipped out of bed, already pulling on a robe, her expression tightening in alarm.
“You don’t mean Severus?”
Lucius turned to her with eyes like pale steel. “I do. And I intend to get answers.”
The first people to see Lucius at Hogwarts that morning were a pair of unfortunate fourth-year Hufflepuffs coming down the stairs for breakfast. They stopped dead in their tracks.
Lucius stood in the front foyer like a conjured storm, robes of deep emerald swirling around his ankles, pale blond hair immaculate, but his eyes were glowing with a terrible intensity. He held his cane in one hand, and his magic pulsed from him in short, coiling waves.
The doors to the Great Hall swung open on their own. Silence fell as he stepped inside.
Students stared. Teachers paused. Whispers erupted and then died instantly as Lucius Malfoy’s cold, elegant wrath filled the room like fog.
The Marauders, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter, froze halfway through their breakfast. Sirius paled; James sat straighter with a grimace. Remus’s hand slowly moved toward his wand.
Lucius stalked down the center aisle toward the staff table.
“Where is he?” Lucius said, voice ringing sharp and deadly through the hall.
Professor McGonagall stood, her brow furrowed. “Mr. Malfoy, this is highly irregular—”
“Where. Is. Severus Snape.”
All heads turned toward the staff table. Dumbledore remained seated, looking placid behind his half-moon spectacles, but there was a flicker of something, annoyance, perhaps?, beneath his calm.
“Mr. Malfoy,” Dumbledore said softly, “I can assure you, the situation is under control—”
“Don’t bullshit me,” Lucius snapped, drawing his wand in one smooth motion.
Gasps rang out. Even the portraits on the walls seemed to still.
Narcissa entered the hall then, regal as a queen in a winter blue cloak, her heels clicking against the stone floor. She reached Lucius’s side and placed a hand gently on his arm.
“Lucius,” she said quietly. “Let him answer.”
Lucius’s lips thinned. His wand remained raised. “Then answer, Headmaster. Where is Severus?”
Dumbledore exhaled. “He has... left Hogwarts. At his own request.”
“Why?” Lucius growled. “What drove him away so completely that he’d flee without telling anyone, without telling me?”
Dumbledore’s silence was all the answer Lucius needed.
His eyes shifted slowly, deliberately, to the Gryffindor table.
James flinched. Sirius swallowed.
“I see,” Lucius said darkly. “You let them break him.”
“Mr, malfoy I assure you-” dumbledore continued
“Headmaster,why are you still talking to me?” everyone went silent, except–
“No one—” James started.
“Shut your mouth, Potter,” Lucius spat.
The temperature in the Great Hall seemed to drop several degrees.
“You four have hounded him for years. What, exactly, did you do this time?” Lucius asked, his tone deceptively light, voice trembling with fury beneath it. “Humiliated him in public again? Stripped him in the corridors? Threatened him under your prefect’s vision? Or was it something more creative?”
Peter looked like he might vomit. Remus didn’t move. Sirius seemed to shrink in his seat.
Dumbledore stood now. “Mr. Malfoy. Please. This is not the time—”
“No,” Lucius snapped. “The time was six years ago, when you first let them torment him under your nose. And now he’s gone, and it’s on your head.”
His magic flared again, knocking over a students at the table with a clang.
“I want access to Severus’s dorm and his whereabouts. I want to see what he left behind. And I want your assurance that no information about his new location will be released to anyone else without my approval.”
Dumbledore’s mouth drew into a tight line. “That is not your place to demand.”
Lucius stepped forward, wand still drawn. “Try me.”
For a long, tense moment, no one moved. Then, reluctantly, Dumbledore gave a shallow nod.
“...Very well.”
Lucius turned on his heel.
As he passed the Gryffindor table, he paused for one final glance at the Marauders.
“He wanted a normal life at hogwarts and you ground him into dust,” he said coldly. “You’ll regret that, you’ll all regret that”
The door to Severus’s old dorm opened with a creak.
Lucius entered first, his wand illuminating the darkened room. The other Slytherin boys were not there, it was empty, as if it had already begun erasing Severus’s existence.
A single trunk remained at the foot of the bed, slightly ajar. Lucius opened it and saw potion ingredients carefully packed, a few books on Dark Arts folded neatly, a broken pair of reading glasses, and one worn scarf.
Narcissa touched a piece of parchment stuck between two books.
She read it aloud: “Find the place where you are not ashamed to exist.”
Her lips pressed together. “He left this intentionally.”
Lucius nodded. “A message.”
His hands tightened around the book’s spine. The fury in him was cold now, not explosive, but deep and sharp, like a blade kept under one’s tongue.
“He’s not coming back,” Lucius said softly.
Back in their manor, Lucius penned a letter to Avery and Rosier.
“Thank you for informing me. Dumbledore was, as expected, utterly useless. I will find Severus’s new school. I will make sure to see him, about his loyalty, that’s a topic for another day.”
He paused. His gaze drifted toward a family portrait across the room, young Draco, playing with a toy broom. Narcissa had joined him, brushing his hair.
Lucius closed his eyes for a moment.
He had failed Severus once, by trusting that Hogwarts would not destroy him. He would not fail again.
Across the country, in Beauxbatons, Severus sat at a desk by the window, carefully stirring a potion of calming essence for his Advanced Potioneering class. He did not know that Lucius had marched into Hogwarts like a stormfront, or that the Marauders hadn’t been able to meet each other’s eyes all day. He didn’t know how many students were now whispering about the infamous Snape and the mysterious Malfoy meltdown.
But he did feel something, a subtle shift, as if something heavy had been lifted.
And for the first time in years, he didn’t feel it towards him.

Chapter Text

In a chamber lit only by floating green fire, Voldemort stood in silence. His eyes, red and glowing, stared into the void cast by the Pensieve before him.
Memories swirled within: scenes of Severus Snape at Hogwarts, eyes sharp, robes fluttering, lips pressed in defiance. And then a final, cruel absence, his sudden disappearance from the chessboard of Voldemort’s carefully laid plans.
The silence broke as Lucius Malfoy entered, bowing deeply. "My lord."
"He’s vanished," Voldemort murmured. "And no one told me."
Lucius straightened slowly. "I only learned recently. He is... under the protection of a very unconventional family."
Voldemort turned to him, eyes burning. "The Addamses."
Lucius blinked. "You know them, my lord?"
"Only by reputation," Voldemort said. "Witches older than empires. Creatures that laugh in graveyards. They have claimed him?"
Lucius nodded. "Severus is changed. Unrecognizable. And content."
For a moment, Voldemort said nothing. Then he whispered, almost wistfully, "I could have given him everything."
Lucius hesitated. A whisper of Morticia’s voice echoed in his mind: You make it sound romantic.
And now he understood. It was romantic. Not with love, but with obsession. A twisted longing to possess something unique, something brilliant.
"You want him for his talent?," Lucius said carefully.
Voldemort smiled thinly. "He was mine, once, lucius and they stole him from me"
“My lord I-” lucius was struck with a crucio that put him on the floor,
“Lucius, I want him back, I want you to get him back< I need him back, do you understand?”
Lucius scrambled on the ground “y-yes m-m-y lord”

Meanwhile, at Beauxbatons, sunlight filtered through enchanted windows in pale gold hues.
Severus stood over a simmering cauldron in Advanced Potioneering, measuring out crushed moonseed with steady hands. Luciel leaned beside him, already blew up his cauldron, his chin resting on his palm as he watched Severus work with obvious fondness.
"You look very serious when you stir," Luciel said.
"That’s because you’re distracting me," Severus muttered.
"What, with my devastating beauty?"
"With your constant commentary."
Luciel chuckled. Across the room, a girl with curling auburn hair glared at them. Marina DuVall, talented in charms and terrible at subtlety. Her eyes lingered far too long on Luciel.
And on Severus.
She leaned toward her own cauldron and muttered a spell under her breath. A faint shimmer passed through the steam rising from Severus’s potion.
He didn’t notice.
But the next moment, the calming essence Severus was brewing began to twist, its color deepening from pale blue to almost violet.
Severus frowned. "That’s not right."
Luciel leaned in. "Did you add belladonna too early?"
"I didn’t add belladonna."
They exchanged a look.
Across the room, Marina turned away, hiding a smug smile.
She hadn’t anticipated the potion would react so fast, or so violently. A faint, unstable hiss began to emit from Severus’s cauldron.
Luciel’s wand was out in an instant, casting a freezing charm that held the reaction mid-explosion.
Professor Luneau turned at the sound and rushed over, her expression sharp. "What happened?"
Severus didn’t answer right away. He was too busy analyzing the cauldron, eyes narrowed.
"Sabotage," he said flatly. "Or contamination."
Professor Luneau’s eyes scanned the class.
No one admitted anything.
Luciel’s jaw tightened. He looked at Marina, whose wand was already hidden. Her face a mask of innocence.
Later, as they left the classroom, Luciel whispered, "Someone is trying to undermine you."
"I know," Severus replied.
He didn’t know who yet.
But he knew one thing:
He had enemies everywhere, even here.
And something tell him this was just the beginning

Chapter Text

Lucius Malfoy sat in the solarium of Malfoy Manor, golden light pouring through the stained glass, dust swirling in lazy patterns across the air. His tea sat untouched beside him. He hadn’t moved in over an hour.
The Addamses. Severus. Voldemort.
He rubbed a gloved hand across his face.
He had tried to reason with the Dark Lord.
He had tried.
But Voldemort had stared into the flickering green fire of obsession and not blinked.
Lucius had seen obsession before. Narcissa’s devotion to family. Bellatrix’s madness. But this… this was different.
Voldemort didn’t want to use Severus.
He wanted to possess him.
The way he spoke of Severus’s mind, of his potential, of the unfairness of his escape.
As if Severus was stolen property.
Lucius shuddered.
And then there was the Addams family, calm, eerie, self-assured. Morticia had spoken to Voldemort as if he were merely another dinner guest, one to be tolerated before the coffins were locked for the night.
He’d seen the faintest hesitation in Voldemort’s voice when speaking of them. That was new. The Dark Lord feared almost nothing. But they unnerved him.
Rightfully so.
Gomez Addams had once smiled at Lucius and said, “Would you like to see what our roses grow on?”
Lucius had declined.
But the memory of his smile still haunted him.
At Beauxbatons, Marina DuVall was unraveling.
She watched them constantly, Severus and Luciel.
Luciel with his casual grace, his golden earrings and his devil-may-care attitude. Severus with his solemn voice and haunted eyes. The way they leaned into each other without noticing, spoke in unspoken codes, laughed in shadows.
‘He should be looking at me’, Marina thought, her manicured nails digging crescent moons into her palms. ‘Not him. I was here first’
Luciel had always been hers, in a way. Until Severus came.
And Severus had taken everything. Attention. Compliments. Luciel’s gaze.
Marina began brewing darker thoughts than even her sabotage could satisfy.
Far from the chateaux and charm of Beauxbatons, in a crumbling manor cloaked in shadows, Voldemort paced.
He no longer sat.
He stalked.
Severus. Severus. Severus.
He whispered the name like a prayer, like a curse.
“How dare they take him from me,” he hissed, red eyes burning. “He belonged to me. He chose me.”
Avery quivered in the corner, wringing his hands. “M-my lord, perhaps he-he was simply frightened. Or confused. Or—”
“SILENCE!” Voldemort’s magic cracked through the room like a whip.
“He would have been my right hand. My mind made flesh. My legacy.”
He halted, eyes unfocusing.
“They say he thrives. That he is… happy.”
He spat the word.
“He smiles. Since when did Severus smile?”
He turned toward a black mirror mounted on the wall, an enchanted thing, recovered from the ruins of a forgotten necropolis. It shimmered.
He spoke a spell.
And Morticia Addams appeared on the surface.
Not a reflection. A direct gaze.
"Well," she said coolly. "I suppose you were bound to find me. Most creatures do this when they crawl beneath the right stones."
Voldemort recoiled slightly, but said nothing of it. "You’ve taken him."
"We adopted him," she corrected. "He came to us broken. We stitched him back together."
"He was mine."
"He was no one's," Morticia replied. "And now he is his own."
"I could kill you."
"You could try. But there are older things than you, Tom. We know where they sleep."
Voldemort’s eyes narrowed. “You forget your place.”
"And you forget that love is not possession. Even you, for all your hunger, cannot devour the moon."
The mirror shattered.
Voldemort’s hands trembled ‘I’ll have him back, even if I have to kill them, they won’t get in my way’ he thought
Back at Beauxbatons, Professor Luneau entered the grand dining hall carrying a scroll sealed in shimmering sapphire wax.
Students looked up.
Luciel perked.
Luneau cleared her throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, and our honored exchange students—” she nodded toward the small delegation from Ilvermorny, Mahoutokoro, and Durmstrang seated at the far end of the hall—“Beauxbatons has been selected to host this year’s Triwizard Tournament.”
A roar erupted through the dining hall.
Severus stiffened.
Luciel turned to him, grin already forming. “This is going to be a disaster. I can’t wait.”
Marina’s eyes flicked to Severus.
‘He would never be chosen…but then again’
But she could make sure Luciel was.
And make Severus watch.
Lucius received the news of the tournament via diplomatic owl, and nearly spilled his brandy.
Severus.
In a public, magical competition?
With Voldemort watching his every move?
No. This would not do.
He needed to act.
He summoned an emergency meeting with the Beauxbatons Board of Trustees to make sure severus doesn’t participate
They listened politely, then dismissed him gently.
Severus was safe, they said.
He was thriving, they said.
Lucius left with dread curdling his stomach ‘voldemort is gonna stalk him, cage him, what to do, what to do, what else can I do?’
Dumbledore, meanwhile, was less concerned with safety.
He sat in his office, fingering Fawkes’s feathers absently, as the phoenix tried to inch away, reading the Beauxbatons announcement with a calculating smile.
“So,” he murmured, “young Severus has bloomed.”
Minerva frowned. “Headmaster, surely we should be concerned for his well-being?, I mean, he was here for so many years, it’s-”
“I am concerned,” Dumbledore replied smoothly. “It’s precisely why I want him close again.”
“You plan to interfere?”
He waved his hand. “Only subtly. A nudge. A name slipped into the Goblet. An enchantment here or there. I merely want the boy reminded of who shaped him.”
“But—”
He looked at her, and something dark flickered through his gaze.
“Severus Snape is a piece I am not willing to lose minerva….he left too soon”
In the Addams estate, Morticia and Gomez sat by candlelight.
A letter lay on the table.
“From Severus,” Morticia said softly.
She read aloud:
They’ve announced the Triwizard Tournament. Luciel is excited. I am... wary. I feel eyes again. Like the ones I left behind. But I am not alone. Not anymore, I hope to see you all for yule….severus
Gomez lit a cigar.
“They’ll come for him,” he said. “From every corner.”
Morticia smiled. “Then let them come. We’ll have traps in every shadow.”
Wednesday came in with thing on her shoulder “thing suggest we make an acid explosive"
“A wonderful idea thing, we’ll see what happens first” morticia smiled, her voice flowed like cool water

Marina stood at the edge of the Beauxbatons lake that night, her reflection silvered in moonlight.
She whispered a name to the water.
A forbidden one.
And far away, in the shadows between mirrors, something answered.
It promised her what she wanted most.
Luciel Soleil.
And Severus Snape’s ruin and it will happen

Chapter Text

Voldemort stands alone in the Chamber of Secrets. He speaks to Nagini, to himself, and perhaps to something older in the walls of the castle, older even than Slytherin's bones. He had just learned Severus Snape was adopted by the Addams Family. Obsession and reverence mix with fury and awe.
‘They are older than I thought.’
‘Older than magic, perhaps.’
The Addamses.
Ancient, untouched by the tides of war, unbent by the petty squabbles of light and dark. It offends me... and yet, gods help me, I envy them.
“You see, Nagini, they remember. That’s their secret. While we forget, while Dumbledore cloaks his Order in the colors of false righteousness, while the Ministry grinds its teeth on bureaucracy and the fools of my own camp preen in black, they endure. Watching. Neither ally nor enemy. A third path.
Neutral.
And that is what makes them terrifying.
They have never bent the knee, not to wand nor crown. Not to bloodlines, not to Dumbledore, not even to me. And I am Lord Voldemort. The culmination of centuries of cunning and curse. The heir of Slytherin himself. Yet when I speak their name, even the shadows pause. Even the stones remember.
Addams.
They did not choose sides in the Goblin Rebellions. They did not lift their hands when Grindelwald summoned his storm. They do not hoist banners for peace, nor for purity. Their home lies beyond the Veil of alignment. It is not darkness they serve. It is not light. It is... tradition. A deeper code. One written not with ink, but with blood and ash and silence.
And somehow they, they of all people, have taken him.
Severus.
My Severus.
Not the boy who cowered under the weight of his father’s fists, nor the boy who was laughed at by filthy Gryffindor mudbloods. Not even the boy I wanted to bend into shape with promises and pain.
No. The boy who now wears silks blacker than mine. Whose eyes no longer plead, but pierce. Whose voice does not tremble. The boy who left me.
To them.
They gave him a new name. A new tongue. A new way of moving that is not the shuffle of the beaten, but the stalk of a panther. His magic has changed, Nagini. I felt it when he looked lucius looked at me. It was... clean. Balanced. No longer scraped raw by guilt or desperation, but honed to elegance.
And do you know what they call him now?
Severus Addams.
They've woven him in.
Gomez Addams, that impish fool with the eyes of a predator, calls him “son.” Morticia’s voice, softer than a Diricawl’s sigh and twice as deadly, wraps around his name like a spell older than Parseltongue. Even that ghoulish child, Wednesday, regards him not with scorn, but with something akin to kinship.
And he belongs.
He belongs with them. Not with me.
It’s unnatural.
It’s perfect.
I have ruled through terror. Shaped minds. Torn open legacies and carved my name across graves. But I could not do what they have done. I could not remake Severus.
Not like that.
I offered him power. Secrets. I wanted to make him useful. They made him whole.
I heard of him last week,at a potions contest. The wind didn’t dare touch his coat. His wand rested, not clenched, but held, like a pen in the hand of an author who had already written his ending. He did not look for me. He did not need to.
I wanted to follow him, you know.
Like a common ghost, I cling to him. Through shadow and street, into the edge of something that was not quite this world. They’ve carved out a place, the Addamses. Somewhere between planes. Where the rules are not ours. Where ghosts drink tea with witches and the floorboards hum with laughter and blood memories.
He walked into that house as if he had always lived there.
And they welcomed him.” he sighed
“I have never been welcomed, Nagini. Not truly.
Feared, yes. Worshipped, yes. Desired, occasionally.
But never loved.
They love him.
Even Thing, that absurd dismembered hand, brushed against his palm like a loyal dog. And Fester, some aberration of spellwork and joy, tried to teach him to juggle with skulls.
He smiled.
Severus smiled.
Not that tight, twisted thing he offered me when he begged for my recognition. Not the sneer he wore for Dumbledore. A real smile. The kind that made his eyes flash with something that might have been... happiness.
It sickens me. It intoxicates me.
He was meant to be mine. My creation. My blade.
Not theirs.
Not a son.
Not a brother.
Not a prince of some twisted old neutral court that doesn’t kneel.
And yet...
There is a beauty in it.
Even I cannot deny that.
What are the Addamses, really? Wizards? Yes. But more. They are... mythology incarnate. They do not fight wars because they do not recognize them. They are the dream that haunts both sides of every conflict, the nightmare that laughs instead of screams.
And they have claimed him.
Do you see it, Nagini?
They chose him.
And that is the one thing I could never offer.
Choice.
I demanded. Dumbledore guided. The Addamses invited.
And Severus... walked in.
I do not understand them.
They are chaos without cruelty. Madness with manners. They do not punish, they welcome. Even pain is a game in their house. I heard of Wednesday , the little girl, stabbed Pugsley. He thanked her and he chuckled. They sat down for soup.
What are they?
Not Death Eaters.
Not Aurors.
Not manipulators.
Not saints.
They are the storm that does not destroy.
And that makes them the oldest power in our world.
Older than wand law. Older than the Founders. Older than even me.
They are the bones beneath our politics. The ghosts who never fade.
And Severus is one of them now.
He wears their sigil. That obsidian ring. I have tried to touch it through magic. It burns me. A neutral artifact, warded not against evil, nor good, but against intention itself.
I have seen their graveyard, you know. Every tomb smiles. Not a single one bears the words “loyal” or “brave” or “ambitious.” Just names, dates, and strange epitaphs like He danced in fire and never blinked or She taught Death how to knit.
These are not our people.
They are something other.
And Severus... has become them.”
“~Doooo youuu hate him?~” nagini hissed
“No.
No, I find I cannot.
Because for the first time, he is no longer my echo. No longer the boy begging to be shaped. He is... himself. And if I am honest, and I must be, for the walls are listening—he is glorious and terrifying creature
A creature of balance. Not mercy. Not vengeance. Not love.
But balance.
He would not save me.
But he would mourn me.
And perhaps that is what I always wanted.
Not loyalty.
Not even affection.
Just... to matter.
And in his eyes now, I do not.
I am a tale he’s gonna outgrown.
He walks through fire and shadow without flinching. He speaks to ghosts as equals. He dines with ghouls and writes potions that hum with music older than alchemy. He is not mine.
He is Addams.
And perhaps, in some twisted, perfect world, he was always meant to be.
Even Salazar Slytherin would bow his head to such legacy.
Not of power.
But of permanence.
The Addamses will outlive us all.
Even me.
Even death.
Perhaps... I envy him most for that.
Because when I fall, and yes, I feel the prophecy breathing down my neck like a wolf, when I fall, I will vanish into history. Into whispered terror and crumbling books.
But Severus?
He will be remembered.
By those who never forget.
By the house that does not die.
By them.
Addams.
And I—I will be nothing more than a shadow that once dared to obsess over a boy too strong to stay broken.
And gods help me, I think I am proud of him”
…
Nagini hisses, tilting her head.
“Buuuutt iff hee’ssss tooo sssstrong? ”
“Yes.
I know.
I must kill him, if he stands in our way.
But perhaps...
Perhaps I will wait.
Just a little longer.
Just to see what he becomes, just to see what malfoy will do, I will kill him if it meant keeping him close and that scare me a bit nagini, it scare me to lose him”

Chapter Text

Golden‑blue dusk bled over the Béziers plain, gilding the spires of Château de Beauxbâtons in molten light. From the grand glass galleries to the rose‑etched parapets, every surface seemed to hold its breath for the moment when ceremony would become fate.
The announcement took place in the Opal Hall—a cathedral‑wide nave entirely paneled in moon‑opal. The walls did not merely reflect; they shimmered with a nacreous glow that bent time until every torch looked like a frozen comet.
Students filed in beneath constellations of floating chandeliers. Silvery phantom violins played a somber waltz. At the head of the hall, upon a raised dais of lapis‑veined marble, stood La Coupe des Échos.
It was not a goblet. It was a mirror.
Tall as a grown Hippogriff and thin as a breath, the mirror was framed in carved black yew twined with living white roses that never wilted. A soft wind, though there were no open windows, brushed petals across the marble.
In the mirror’s glass glimmered nothing: not the hall, not the students, only a depthless silver mist.
Madame Maxime, robed in midnight silk, tapped her staff once. The violins died.
“Tonight,” she said, voice booming in the domed chamber, “Beauxbâtons embraces a duty older than any of our nations. The Triwizard Tournament returns, in a form vaster, darker, and more sublime than history remembers. Three champions only will be chosen, as the Pact demands. But the tasks are manifold, layered, and lethal. Victory will crown not merely a school but a philosophy.”
A hush thickened.
“Present yourselves. Intention will be judged; truth will be tested. La Coupe des Échos sees the wish beneath your mask.”
The Staff of Mirrors, twelve Beauxbâtons professors in azure, spread like guardians around the frame. Silent spells of containment laced the air: no one’s name could be pushed without consequence.
And yet names had already been whispered.
Luciel Soleil’s heart hammered riotously beneath his dove‑grey frock coat. The opaline floor showed his reflection: gold earrings, mischievous grin, and the tremor in his fingers. Severus, at his side, noticed, taking his hand in his own
“Breathe,” Severus murmured, voice low and dark as cello strings. He touched the back of Luciel’s wrist, steadying. “Intention, remember? The mirror will feed on nerves if you let it.”
Luciel swallowed. He had wanted glory once, when it was an abstract dream. Now it breathed inches in front of him, and the dream had teeth. Nevertheless he stepped forward when Madame Maxime nodded to the Beauxbâtons queue.
Each student approached the mirror, spoke their name, their school, their request to be considered, then turned away before their own reflection could devour them whole. If the mirror approved, the name would remain behind its mist until the choosing hour.
Luciel exhaled and advanced.
“Luciel Soleil, Beauxbâtons Academy,” he said, voice ringing like bronze. “I seek the crack between night and dawn.”
The mirror rippled. A pulse of pearl sped across the glass, as if acknowledging poetry. Then it stilled.
Luciel stepped back, sweating.
From the shadows near the dais, Marina DuVall watched, emerald eyes glinting. She clutched a silver vial of lake‑water at her hip—the whisper‑bargain still quivering inside like a trapped breath.
Doors at the rear boomed open. A gust of northern frost spiraled in, extinguishing candles on one side of the hall. Durmstrang’s delegation marched: wolf‑fur cloaks, lacquered rune‑staves, boot‑heels echoing. At their front walked Igor Karkaroff.
At Hogwarts he would have been a impeccable duelist, long past his dueling years. But in this world, one where obsession rewrote lineages and time bent to narrative need, Karkaroff strode as Durmstrang’s prodigy champion‑hopeful: 17, whip‑lean, scar lived across his jaw, eyes hungry for recognition none would grant.
He surveyed the mirror with proprietary disdain. Durmstrang myths said mirrors were traps for the weak. Still, he bowed stiffly and spoke:
“Igor Karkaroff, Durmstrang. I seek absolution through fire.”
The glass clouded. A single shard of crimson flared, like a dropped ember. Karkaroff smirked. Approval.
Then came the Hogwarts cohort, fourteen students, two professors, one phoenix feather drifting behind Dumbledore’s slow, theatrical walk. He wore twilight robes and half‑moon spectacles that caught the opalescent gleam and fractured it into weaponized innocence.
Severus felt the man’s gaze like a chill on bone. Dumbledore gave him a grandfatherly nod, too tender, too cold, and guided his group forward.
Among them, Sirius Black was a black hole of restless energy. Long dark hair swept his shoulders, grey eyes blazing challenge. He had spotted severus through the crowd after the confrontation, once in love(still is), again in legend, and freedom tasted of lightning. Yet some defiance still chained him: the need to prove he was more than the boy who ran with wolves.
When his turn came, he strode up, winked at the mirror, and said:
“Sirius Black, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I seek a miracle grand enough to quiet every ghost.”
The mirror rippled with silver laughter, unexpected, and savored the audacity.
Behind him, Dumbledore’s lips curved. He had not needed to slip Black’s parchment; the boy was always going to volunteer.
But for Severus Addams, the Headmaster had other plans.
Severus did not step forward. Luciel caught his sleeve. “You should,” he whispered. “Your name deserves to test that glass.”
“I have fought too many mirrors,” Severus replied.
Fate disagreed. From inside Dumbledore’s sleeve a fold of dusky parchment slipped like an obedient moth. Invisible ink hissed into letters: Severus Snape. Dumbledore flicked his wand, subtle as a heartbeat. The parchment darted across the hall, aiming for the mirror’s back rim.
But before it could touch glass, a black hand, severed yet alive, Thing, scuttled from nowhere, leapt mid‑air, and snatched the parchment. Gasps erupted. Dumbledore’s eyes widened behind spectacles; annoyance cut through the twinkle.
Thing perched on a candelabra and held the parchment high, gesturing rudely with two fingers. Then it skittered along the shadows, parchment devoured in its palm, and vanished behind a statue of Melusine.
On the balcony above, Morticia Addams traced the railing with one languid finger, unsurprised.
Severus’s cheeks warmed with momentary gratitude, and a whisper of terror. The Addamses were here?, Eyes in every corner.
An hour later, the hall darkened. Candles died one by one until only the mirror glowed, its inner mist now roiling.
Madame Maxime raised her staff. “Coupe des Échos, speak.”
The surface of the mirror liquefied, then jutted outward like a sheet of quicksilver. Slowly, letters emerged, each line chiseling itself in radiant frost.
LUCIEL SOLEIL — BEAUXBÂTONS
A roar thundered. Blue and gold sparks burst from every balcony. Luciel went numb. Severus squeezed his shoulder hard enough to anchor him.
The mirror breathed again.
IGOR KARKAROFF — DURMSTRANG
Cheers turned to wary applause. Durmstrang students slammed spear‑butts on the floor in a cadence of war drums. Karkaroff bowed with elegance bordering on arrogance.
The mirror pulsed a third time.
Mist twisted. For a moment it looked as though two names wrestled inside, letters sliding over letters. One name might have been Severus; the other drowned it.
Finally:
SIRIUS BLACK — HOGWARTS
Pandemonium. Hogwarts students whooped; Gryffindor banners(marauders especially) unfurled themselves though no wind blew. Sirius threw both fists in the air, then turned full circle as if saluting every ghost he’d promised to quiet.
Luciel exhaled, dizzy. Karkaroff sneered. Sirius grinned like a man sprinting toward salvation.
Madame Maxime nodded. “Champions, approach.”
They stepped onto the dais, lights swirling around them: three figures, three fates. In that instant the tournament was no longer rumored, it was a leviathan coiled beneath the castle, waiting to feed.
~MEANWHILE~
Far away, in a manor that smelled of wet stone and iron, Lord Voldemort leaned over a scrying basin. The selection unfolded in ghostly miniature upon the liquid surface.
“Luciel Soleil…” he hissed, thoughtful. “How loyal are you to my Severus?”
When Sirius’s name burned across the mist, Voldemort’s expression curdled like sour wine. Old hatreds hardened; new strategies sprouted.
Then the mirror nearly wrote Severus, Voldemort’s pulse skipped, and then did not.
“Interference,” he whispered. “Addams.”
Behind him, Avery dared speak: “My Lord, should we move the timetable?”
“The board is set,” Voldemort murmured, fingers flexing like talons. “But Severus is not a piece. He is the whole game. I will extract him from their theatre, during or after their tasks, it matters not. And anyone who calls him champion, friend, or family will bleed.”
Nagini hissed approval.

That same night, Lucius Malfoy received identical owl post from two sources: Dumbledore and Narcissa. Both letters burned with wax still hot; both conveyed the news of Sirius Black’s selection and Luciel’s ascendancy.
Lucius sat alone in the solarium again. Moonlight this time, not sun, spilled like mercury over his desk. He sipped brandy that tasted of ashes. Severus had not been chosen, but that changed nothing, if Luciel fought, Severus would place himself in danger to guard him. And Voldemort would be drawn to any stage where Severus might bleed.
Lucius wrote three letters in reply: one to Narcissa (assuring her he would not allow the Black boy to die stupidly), one to Severus (urging caution, almost paternal), and one to Morticia Addams (enclosing a rare cut of cursed roses, as apology for whatever he might be forced to do).
He sealed them, then poured another drink he could not taste.

Under the silver crown of midnight, Beauxbâtons’ Headmaster’s Tower pianissimoed with secret meetings.
Luciel sat on a circular divan with Sirius opposite and Karkaroff pacing. Madame Maxime, two French Ministry officials, and representatives of the Department of International Magical Cooperation (including an auror whose name tag read Tonks, S.) laid out the contract.
“The Triwizard Pact of 1692 limited tasks to three,” the Ministry man explained, spectacles flashing. “But L’Accord de l’Étoile Morte, resurrected by Beauxbâtons’ board, expands them to five. Each task occurs in a different arrondissement of the magical world, a labyrinthine network larger than any one school’s grounds.”
He unfurled a star‑chart scroll.
Task I: Danse Macabre — an underground ballroom of restless dead beneath the old Paris Opera, where champions must dance with specters until they earn a lost name.
Task II: La Chasse des Chimères — a hunt through the Breton fog moors, where illusions weave with real beasts. Bring back the heart‑flame of a creature not of this earth.
Task III: Orchard of Thorns (Yule) — a midnight heist: pluck a winter rose from the tree that grows upside‑down beneath the catacombs of Montségur.
Task IV: The Drowned Library — dive the sunken archives off Corsica, recover a single memory sealed in glass, and bear it to the surface unbroken.
Task V: Palais des Miroirs — a mirror‑realm finale inside Beauxbâtons itself. Navigate reflections given life; emerge with your identity intact.
“Wands are allowed,” Tonks added, “but no lethal curses on opponents. The environment, of course, may attempt to kill you, so that rule feels politely theoretical.”
Karkaroff scoffed. Sirius arched a brow. Luciel listened, expression sober.
“What of allies?” Luciel asked. “The original tournament forbade outside help.”
Maxime smiled thinly. “This edition recognizes conduits of legacy. To triumph you may accept aid, so long as you pay its price. The Addams Family will understand the nuance.”
Luciel felt the phantom brush of Wednesday’s shadow.
Below in the dormitory annex reserved for foreign exchange students, Severus bent over a cauldron charmed to remain silent. He brewed a potion none had seen since the Ashen Crusades: Hexe‑Eisenblut, Witch‑Iron‑Blood—an elixir to steel a heart against vampiric despair. It took phoenix ash, basilisk scale, and a single tear from a man who had loved truly once and would never again. His tear hit the potion; the mixture turned iridescent black.
He ladled three vials: one for Luciel, one for Sirius, one for—he hesitated—Karkaroff, perhaps; or maybe Marina, whose jealousy smelled thick as storm‑clouds.
Thing perched on the windowsill, tapping insistently. Severus passed the vials into its palm. “Deliver,” he whispered.
Thing saluted and vanished into the half‑moon night.
Then Severus allowed himself a moment, back pressed to cold stone, eyes closed, to wonder whether survival was a form of courage or cowardice. In his pocket lay a letter from Morticia that read simply:
The world is full of cages, mon cher. Ours are lined with velvet. But a cage is a cage. Keep the key in your heart, not in your keeper’s hand.
He pressed the letter to his lips like sacrament.
Marina DuVall crept to the lakeshore at 2 A.M. Frost jeweled the reeds. She uncorked the silver vial; black water poured across her palm, swirling into the shape of a face half‑formed, a woman drowned centuries ago.
“I held my end,” Marina breathed. “Luciel’s name stands. Now ruin Severus. Give him nightmares until he quits the field.”
The revenant’s eyes, luminous and empty, stared through her. Price, the water‑woman mouthed. Blood or breath?
“Both,” Marina whispered, madness sharpening. “Take them from him.”
The revenant smiled, and the lake rippled with a pre‑echo of storms.
Back in Durmstrang’s ship‑quarters moored upon the Beauxbâtons lake, Karkaroff unrolled a set of iron brand‑marks, each one the sigil of a past betrayal: names he had given the Ministry, lives he had ruined. Tonight he heated one brand and pressed it to his forearm, skin sizzling. He bit down on leather to silence the scream.
recognition, he believed, was not granted, it was earned through penance and dragonfire. The tournament was his pyre. He would burn every sin to ash or die with them scorched upon his bones.
On the roof of the Astronomy Turret, Sirius Black lay on cold slate, cloak flared like wings, eyes skyward. Stars wheeled. He spoke softly to them—names of friends, he missed James, Lily??(debatable), Remus, Peter, and Regulus, beloved and betrayed.
“Watch me,” he said. “I’ll come back alive, and for once there’ll be nothing left to outrun…severus will see that I have changed”
A shadow climbed the parapet, Luciel, boots soundless. He offered a silver hip‑flask. “Nightcap?”
Sirius took it, sipped, coughed. “You French poison everything with flowers.”
Luciel grinned. “Jasmine and absinthe. It helps with pre‑tournament insomnia.”
They drank in companionable silence. A fragile truce: Gryffindor chaos and Beauxbâtons charm, soon to be adversaries.
“What are you fighting for?” Luciel asked.
Sirius thought. “For the idea that I can be something other than a bully or heir black.” He glanced sideways. “And you?”
Luciel’s smile faded. “For whoever Severus becomes when people finally stop trying to own him.”
That HITS sirius far more than it should’ve
In the distance, a clock struck three. Night’s heartbeat slowed. They parted without another word.
Inside a private guest suite, a crypt‑chic apartment walled in damask,near beauxbaton, the Addams entourage settled. Candle‑flames burned black. Gomez removed a rapier from his cane and tested its balance. Wednesday polished blow‑darts. Uncle Fester, glowing faintly, read a French cookbook on poisons.
Morticia entered Severus’s dreams as easily as stepping through a doorway.
He found himself in a moonlit grave‑garden. She stood among headstones, hair flowing like midnight silk.
“moth-uhh-morticia,” he breathed, surprised that the word carried so little bitterness now.
“Beloved boy,” she answered. “The mirror did not choose you, but danger circles closer than ever. Remember: nothing binds you but your own will.”
“What if my will is to protect them?” he asked.
“Then do so,” she said, fingertips gentle on his cheek. “But do not sacrifice who you are becoming for fear of who you were.”
He woke before dawn, pulse calm as still water.
By sunrise the château’s east façade glimmered with banners for each school. The first task would begin at nightfall beneath the Paris Opera. Twelve hours to prepare, twelve to doubt.
Luciel met Severus in the Greenhouse of Perfumed Night, a glass‑spire conservatory harboring orchids that sang weather predictions. Dew silvered Severus’s lashes; Luciel pressed a vial of Hexe‑Eisenblut into his palm.
“For courage,” Luciel said.
Severus slid it into an inner pocket. “And for survival,” he returned, handing Luciel a miniature obsidian crow carved by Wednesday, an omen and a ward.
They did not speak to each other, Not yet. But their silence rang louder than declarations.
“Heh-no goodluck kiss?” luciel asked too nervous, “would you like one?”.....he ran
Across the lake, Durmstrang’s ship unfurled blood‑red sails heavy with runes. On the rampart, Sirius paced, practicing wand‑flourishes beneath a cloak charmed for concealment. Marina watched him from a dormer window, jealousy coiling like smoke.
And beneath the château, in catacomb tunnels older than Rome, the revenant paced too, drawing heat from the stones, forming limbs of drowned lace, mouth widening for the first taste of fear.
The tournament thrummed awake.

Chapter Text

The streets of Paris had been evacuated under the guise of a gas leak. It was a weak lie, but sufficient for Muggles. Beneath the surface of the city, old magic stirred, unfurling like smoke through the catacombs and crumbling cathedrals. The Ministry of Magic, both French and British, were not fooled. They knew the truth, that something ancient had been awakened.
Beauxbatons had chosen a location of grandeur and death for the opening task of the Triwizard Tournament: the Opéra Garnier. Its mirrored halls, its red velvet seats, its subterranean secrets, it was perfect. And it was cursed.
The champions gathered at dawn in silence beneath the marble colonnades. Above them, the grand chandelier shimmered like a sun wrought from bone and crystal. The chill in the air had nothing to do with the season. The ghosts of Paris were watching.
Behind the velvet curtains, hidden in shadow and enchantment, sat the audience: professors, diplomats, judges, ghosts, and more. The Addams Family had not asked for admission. They had arrived, claimed their cursed box seat, Box Five, and sat with wine, knitting, and explosives.
Luciel Soleil stood in the center of the marble foyer, tugging at the cuffs of his peacock-blue coat. He was radiant and strange, the very picture of Beauxbatons elegance, except for the wicked curl of his smirk.
Severus stood on the balcony above, flanked by Morticia and Wednesday. From this height, he watched Luciel with a tightness in his chest he would never name aloud.
Madame Maxime's voice echoed across the opera house. "Champions. The first task lies beneath. You will descend into the Phantom Ballroom. Within, you must find the ghost who does not dance. Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not lose your partner. Do not forget the steps. Or the dead will make you their own."
The floor opened beneath the champions.
The Descent
A stone spiral staircase unfurled, slick with mist and lit by blue flames. The champions walked in silence: Luciel of Beauxbatons, Sirius Black of Hogwarts, Igor Karkaroff of Durmstrang, and two others, yumi from Mahoutokoro and william from Ilvermorny.
Sirius chuckled under his breath. "This place is straight out of a horror story."
Luciel turned his head and smiled. "Then we are perfectly cast, non?"
Karkaroff scowled. He had expected children. These were predators.
The stairs ended in a grand ballroom sunken deep into the foundation of the opera house. Crystal chandeliers flickered. Mirrors lined every wall, but reflected nothing living.
Ghosts glided across the marble floor, dozens of them locked in endless waltzes. Their music rose from instruments played by skeletal hands.
A voice boomed. "Begin."
The Dance of the Dead
Each champion stepped forward and bowed. A ghost stepped forward in kind. The dance began.
Luciel spun effortlessly, eyes locked with his ghost partner, laughter on his lips. Every step was perfection. He danced as if he belonged there, as if he remembered.
Sirius stumbled through the first few measures, then caught the rhythm. His ghost partner, a woman in a Victorian gown with a slash across her throat, twirled him with supernatural strength.
Karkaroff struggled. He missed steps. The ghost glared.
From the balcony, Severus watched.
"He looks like he was born under chandeliers," Morticia murmured.
"He bleeds elegance," Severus agreed quietly.
"He bleeds for you," she added.
Severus said nothing. But his hand clenched the railing.
III. Karkaroff's Approach
As the music continued, Karkaroff slipped away from his partner, hoping to catch Severus’s eye. He approached the edge of the ballroom, glancing up.
"Severus," he called softly. "You could help me. I know you see things."
Severus remained impassive.
"You are wasted here. You should have joined us."
Severus finally looked down. "You left others to burn. You would have let me burn."
Karkaroff paled.
Luciel, ever-watchful, glided by and murmured, "You should watch your step, monsieur. The dead have sharp memories."
Karkaroff flinched.
The Revenant
Something changed. The music grew slower. The lights dimmed. A new ghost entered the ballroom.
She did not dance.
Her hair floated like seaweed. Her face was featureless but for a mouth too wide and eyes that wept shadows. She fixed her gaze on Severus.
He froze.
"No," he whispered.
Luciel faltered mid-step, clutched his head. The revenant turned to him. Energy cracked.
"She's not one of them," Morticia said sharply. "Wednesday. Go. Thing, alert Fester."
"She's here for Severus," Wednesday said. "Or through him."
"Severus," Morticia said gently. "You must go to him."
"It's against the rules."
"So is resurrection."
Severus ran.
Severus Enters the Ballroom
He crossed the spell-line without hesitation.
Luciel was on his knees, clutching his head. The revenant stood behind him, arms outstretched.
Severus raised his wand. "Expecto Patronum!"
A silver serpent erupted, lashing through the air. The revenant screamed, then turned to Severus.
"who brought you?," he hissed.
"ahhhkk," she said. "She did."
Above, Marina clenched her jaw. Blood leaked from a sigil carved into her palm.
The revenant turned toward her. A scream ripped through the room, echoing through stone.
Luciel gasped, then stood.
"Your timing is impeccable," he murmured.
Severus offered his arm. "You always fall at the most dramatic moment."
Luciel took it. His fingers lingered.
"Only when I know you’ll catch me."
Everyone was shocked, “that was amazing sev’rus, your talent is much better used at my school“ kakaroff tried to woo him in, but no appeal
One by one, the champions received names whispered by their ghost partners:
Luciel: "Armand."
Sirius: "Colette."
william: "Jean-Pierre."
yumi: "Takashi."
Karkaroff: Nothing.
The music stopped.
The dead vanished.

Back in the antechamber, Sirius flopped onto a chaise. "That was mental."
Luciel unbuttoned his cuffs. "Delightful, wasn’t it?"
Sirius eyed Severus. "Did you really throw a Patronus at a banshee?"
"It wasn’t a banshee," Severus sneered. "It was worse, and don’t talk to me like we’re close black"
"Sorry but, you’re terrifying," Sirius grinned. "I like that."
"You mistake tolerance for warmth," Severus replied.
Luciel laughed. "He’s very warm, in private. If you ever get that far."
Sirius looked shocked, then at severus for correction… Severus did not deny it.
The Addams Council
Back in Box Five, the Addams Family gathered. Morticia held Severus’s hand.
"You did well," she said.
"I endangered him."
"You saved him. And yourself."
Gomez lit a cigar. "We should set traps around the next task. Just in case."
Wednesday whispered something to Thing. It scurried off
Pugsley came in, still wearing an apron, “I made a bomb with live shells, can we use it as a trap”
“Ofcourse darling, but don’t tell severus, you might make him uncomfortable” morticia said with an almost wary smile “cara mia, are you ok?” gomez, hugging her from the side
“Is everything alright mother” wednesday ask, while pugsley struggle to get out of the apron
“It’s severus, he’s young, have his life ahead of him and yet something or someone like to add unwanted colour to his dimly life, it’s not fair to him”
Pugsley hugs her other side “don’t worry mom, we’ll protect him, he’ll be fine”
~MEANWHILE~
In her dormitory, Marina fell to the floor. The mirror she had used cracked, then shattered. A voice hissed from the shards.
You owe.
She screamed, her arm burned with black marks all over
If you fail to give us something in return we will remove your want and take what we need
“Please don’t I’ll give you anything, please, what is it that you need?”
The water-woman loomed over her…your soul

Morticia and Severus sat atop of the astronomy tower together.
That night, by candlelight, Morticia brushed Severus’s hair.
"Why do I feel so afraid?"
"Because you love."
"I never asked for this."
"No one asks to be saved, darling. But they are. And then they must live."
Severus leaned into her touch, falling asleep silently “thank you for taking me in”
LATER
"I never thought I’d have this. Any of this."
"And yet there you are. Loved. Dangerous. Alive."
In a room lined with bone, Voldemort watched through his enchanted mirror.
"Severus. You continue to shine. Even without me."
Nagini hissed.
"We will attend the next task. Personally."
His smile stretched unnaturally.

Chapter Text

The second task arrived not with fanfare, but with frost.
Snow cloaked the Beauxbatons grounds in perfect silence, as though the very earth had stopped breathing. Ice crept across windows and cracked along statues’ faces. The
frozen fountains sang in brittle glass tones. And in the center of it all, a ring of enchanted mirrors had appeared overnight, rising from the frozen lake like spires of silver.
Severus stood with Luciel at the edge of the frozen lake, hands tucked into the sleeves of his black coat.
"Well," Luciel said, tossing a snowflake into the wind, "this is either a marvelous illusion or a truly grotesque trap."
"Why not both?" Severus murmured.
Luciel grinned and leaned closer, his voice brushing Severus’s ear. "If I die, tell my admirers I died beautifully."
"You’d haunt them just to critique their fashion."
Luciel chuckled. "And you’d write gothic poetry in my name."
“If I find your death interesting” severus quipped looking away “oh please do my lovely dark prince, and make sure you make me sound pitiful” luciel said with the upmost
seriousness
luciel laughed and severus chuckled looking at each other longingly

The task was announced at dawn:
"Within the Mirror Labyrinth lies a reflection that is not your own. You must face it, survive it, and return whole, or be lost."
Each champion was given their wand, one name whispered from the mirror’s surface, and one warning:
Do not trust the familiar.
As Luciel vanished into the labyrinth, Sirius caught sight of Severus lingering near the frozen arch.
"Still brooding, snivellus?" he said, trying for a grin.
"Still breathing, Black?" Severus returned dryly.
Sirius laughed and brushed a lock of hair back. "You know, you’re oddly attractive when you’re being vicious."
Before Severus could retort, Luciel’s voice echoed from behind him: "That’s quite enough, cher chien. Go fetch elsewhere."
Sirius blinked as Luciel appeared behind Severus, arms folded, one eyebrow arched with elegant threat.
Severus looked between them, puzzled. "Did he just call you a dog?"
"Yes," Luciel said. "With terrible taste"
“....are you saying I’m for someone with terrible taste?” severus asked oddly, looking at luciel offended
Sirius snickered, “no no sev I mean he isn’t a good match, you’re better than him and deserve better” luciel explained frantically
“Do you know any better taste for me?”
‘Me, Myself and I’ luciel wanted to say but he laughed off severus question, man, love really make you say stupid things

Elsewhere, cloaked and uninvited, Dumbledore paced within the Beauxbatons garden, tracing glowing runes into the snow. Behind him, a shimmer of smoke curled into a silent form: a boggart, molded by magic into Severus’s shape.
He turned to Minerva, who had followed.
"The boy is being manipulated. He needs...a correction."
"You’re framing him?!"
"No," Dumbledore replied, smile thin. "I’m reminding him who raised him."
“What do you mean by that albus?” she ask, wary of his attitude
dumbledore gave her a solemn look “minerva, he was the best at every subject, basically a prodigy, and he just left like that, it isn’t natural minerva, so he needs….a correction”
She didn’t say anything to that but she also didn’t stop him from doing what he’s about to do

Lucius Malfoy, hidden in diplomatic robes, stood beside Morticia in the viewing tower. Thing perched on Severus’s shoulder, grooming his collar with meticulous attention.
"They’ll try to corner him, y’know" Lucius said.
"And we’ll be there," Morticia replied, cool and absolute.
Thing signed something with its fingers.
"Yes, darling," Morticia said. "You may dismember anyone who gets too close."
Wednesday and thing gave a thumbs up to morticia, reading “SPELL-CRAFTING AND ABILITIES by Arlestia MC’friget” given to her by severus

BACK TO THE TASK

Inside the Mirror Labyrinth, Luciel moved like ink through water. The mirrors whispered.
Sirius stumbled through his path, nearly blinded by mirrored versions of James, Remus, and, worse, himself, bleeding and laughing
They got separated by visions in the mirror’s vision of each other
James and Remus argued as they waited outside.
"You’re obsessed with him y'know moony" James said.
"And you’re jealous, that I can actually get over him, while you grovel in your sorrow which you clearly deserve"
They moved closer, their argument shifting into something physical.
And then, abruptly, remus hand collided with james jaw and for a moment time stop…, their breaths tangled and could be heard in the empty hall,they stared.
“James, I—"
"Don’t moony, Just—don’t.", remus slowly wrapped his arms around james neck, giving him time to pull back if wanted, mumbling apologizes every second

~BACK OUTSI-~(wait no)

Lily Evans watched it all from a distance. Her fists clenched. Her glare fixed on Severus.
"I could have saved him, and have james" she muttered. "He belonged with me. He wanted me."
Marina, not far off, smirked. "Funny. I was thinking the same."
Lily blinked. "You? He doesn’t even know you."
Marina’s grin sharpened. "Hehe not your james, my luciel, he will know me. Once I fix his little parasite."
She threw a silver shard into the snow. It hissed
‘This isn’t over severus addams’

—

In the heart of the labyrinth, sirius found his mirror.
It showed severus, younger, broken, bleeding on the Hogwarts steps.
Then it flickered.
And showed him with the Addamses. Whole. Laughing. Happy.
Then him and Luciel.
The mirror cracked.
Behind him, Voldemort emerged from the frost.
"Beautiful, isn’t he? What he could have been...if they hadn’t stolen him."
Sirius turned slowly. "Who the hell are you?"
"He belong wherever he wants." sirius snapped, Voldemort, in his normal body, stared him down with his red eyes before disappearing in the frost “we’ll see”
Sirus stood alone with his thousands of reflections staring
—

Outside, alarms rang.
Luciel screamed Severus’s name and ran into the mist.
The Addamses moved as one.
Lucius drew his wand.
Thing leapt from the tower with a tiny knife between its fingers.
—

The second task was never finished.
The mirrors shattered.
And Severus addams was gone.

Chapter Text

The moment Severus vanished, Luciel Soleil felt it in his bones.
He was standing by the Beauxbatons lake, haven done finished his task first, staring at the frost that had begun to crawl unnaturally over the surface, when his knees buckled. Something inside him screamed. It wasn’t just magic, it was Severus. Severus calling without a word.
Luciel was already running before anyone asked what had happened.
The Addams Family mobilized with terrifying grace. Morticia, pale and regal, summoned a murder of crows with a single whispered curse. Gomez unsheathed a blade carved from basilisk fang. Wednesday sent messages via vials of blood and scented black wax.
Thing clambered up Luciel’s shoulder, tapping his finger insistently at a compass enchanted to point toward Severus.
“Merci, mon ami,” Luciel whispered, heart racing. “Lead the way.”
Behind him, Wednesday narrowed her eyes. “We’ll need help.”
James Potter, out of breath and flushed, appeared with Sirius and Remus.
“We felt it too,” Sirius panted. “He’s... gone. Something wrong.”
“How would you know?, And why would you care?” Luciel’s voice was acid.
James frowned. “We all do. In our own way.”
“He’s not yours to rescue,” Luciel hissed.
“But we will anyway,” Remus said gently.

Beneath an abandoned manor in the Highlands, Severus hung by cursed chains, his magic humming in rebellion against them. Bloodied, trembling, he gritted his teeth as Voldemort’s wand struck again.
“CRUCIO.”
A painful, and guttering scream fell from his lips.
“You left me,” Voldemort hissed. “You transferred. You bloomed without me. Ungrateful boy.”
Severus spat blood. “I was never yours, I didn’t even join you”
Voldemort’s face twisted in something between adoration and rage. “I made you. I gave you purpose.”
“And you wanted my skills, not me.”
Crucio again.
In the shadows, Lucius Malfoy watched, heart clenching. “My lord,” he said cautiously, “we might still use him. He’s... valuable.”
Voldemort’s gaze snapped to him.
“Lucius,” he purred. “Would you betray me too?”
Lucius paled. “Never.”
But he was already writing a secret letter with the silver ink of treason.

Meanwhile, at the Ministry, Dumbledore sat across from three senior officials.
“I believe young Severus Snape has become compromised,” he said mildly. “Influenced by dark families. Perhaps even working with the dark lord. His disappearance is... suspicious.”
“You have evidence?”
“Not yet,” Dumbledore said smoothly, “but my contacts are searching. If he reappears, perhaps Azkaban should be considered.”
But his words had not gone unnoticed.
Pugsley Addams stood outside the office, listening with a cursed earplug made from banshee hair.
he smiled.
“You’ll regret that,” he whispered.

Following sirius’s lead, the rescue party descended into the Highlands. Wards shattered under Addams magic, cloaked in nightshade and bone.
Luciel stormed ahead, a blade in one hand, wand in the other.
Inside the manor, Voldemort raised his wand to Severus again, just as the wall exploded
“wha-”
Sirius burst in first, shield charm flying. James followed, then Remus. Wednesday sent a whip of shadows around the Death Eaters, Gomez dueled two at once with joyful menace.
Luciel ran straight to Severus.
“sev,” he breathed, breaking the chains with a curse “I’m here.”
Severus collapsed into his arms with a whimper of pain
Then the Addamses turned on Voldemort.
Morticia raised her hand. The crows screamed.
“Ancient One,” she whispered. “You have overstayed your welcome.”
Gomez struck the final blow, a cursed dagger to Voldemort’s heart, while Wednesday poured a vial of Addams venom into his mouth “this will keep you dead for a while”
Voldemort’s scream was silent as his body crumbled into dust.
Thing signed: Good riddance.
~At the Ministry~
Lucius Malfoy, his betrayal unmasked, chose instead to protect Severus. He testified, argued, and defied.
“My brother, in all but blood,” he said. “I owe him everything.”
Azkaban never came, yet

Severus woke up in St. Mungo’s, wrapped in bandages, warm sheets and silence.
Luciel sat beside him, holding his hand.
Sirius sat on the other side, sketching Severus with trembling fingers. Remus and James bickered by the window, somehow managing to look like lovers mid-breakup.
“You’re awake,” Luciel said softly, looking tired but relieved
Severus blinked. “I’m... safe?”
“You’re home.”
Thing crawled up his pillow and patted his cheek.
Severus smiled.
Outside, Lily Evans stared through the glass, her face bitter and pale.
“He doesn’t need you anymore,” Morticia murmured, Appearing beside her
“I was his best-friend, he-” morticia interrupted “yes….once”
Lily’s jaw clenched. She turned and vanished into shadow.
Inside the room, surrounded by love and chaos, Severus sighed. Voice raspy
“I never thought I’d be wanted...or s-saved”
James looked up. “We always wanted you.”
Sirius added, “We were just too late.”
Luciel’s fingers tightened on his, looking at them disgustedly
“No,” he whispered. “You’re just in time.”
“Not what they mean luciel, but.. Thanks” remus chimed
“I still hate you guys tho, nothing will change that” they looked defeated before severus added “for now”

Chapter Text

Midnight struck with a toll that echoed through mountain bones, deep beneath Montségur, where frost curled through catacomb tunnels and time stretched thin as silk; above, the world whispered of snow and Yule fires, but below, in the ancient vaults beneath the earth where no sunlight had touched since the Cathars bled their last, the Orchard of Thorns bloomed upside-down, suspended in void and memory, and the champions were already descending, Luciel Soleil moving with grace sharpened by love and obsession, Sirius Black cloaked in nervous defiance, the Veela-eyed Durmstrang heir striding like a prince from a cursed ballet, and the dragon-scarred Romanian girl walking with blood-stained calm. The descent was not a staircase but a spiral of vertebrae carved into the walls, lined in flickering blue torches that hummed with binding spells, and at the mouth of the final passage Madame Maxime stood tall, her wand transfigured into a glass staff crowned in winter’s bloom. “You enter not merely for glory,” she intoned, her voice rolling over stone and silence, “but to pluck the impossible, a single winter rose from the tree that grows in nothing. It is old magic. You must take it while its petals still turn. The orchard shifts. It tests. You cannot return the way you came. You cannot take what is not yours. Begin.” The gates opened like ribs, and the catacombs swallowed them whole.

The orchard was not a garden, not truly, but a chamber the size of a cathedral turned upside-down; the roots of the world tangled in a dome of stone and frost above, while the tree itself hung suspended from nothing, its trunk coiled in reverse, branches reaching downward into air like frozen lightning, and from those glassy limbs hung roses pale as moonfire, each one spinning slowly as if dreaming. Around the tree lay a maze, not of hedges, but of thorns, towering, animate, shifting, breathing, their spines gleaming with venom that shimmered blue in torchlight. The air was thin and cold, steeped in memory. Illusions already bled into reality. No one hesitated. The champions scattered at once.

Luciel didn’t run. He walked, measured and listening, wand out, the compass embedded in his gloves ticking softly to Severus’s name, a grounding spell he had etched into his skin before they left Beauxbatons. The path before him twisted through what looked like a snow-laden forest, but every tree was wrong, leafless and humming, bark made of ribs and the echoes of voices that no longer spoke language. Behind one tree, a pale figure watched him, it looked like Severus but with eyes white as winter and no mouth. He didn’t stop. The orchard wanted him to fear. It wanted offerings of doubt. He gave it none. In one clearing, the thorns rose and took shape, forming a spiral staircase downward, and he followed it, deep into what seemed like a memory stitched from shadows, his childhood home in Provence, except the doors bled when touched and the mirrors whispered his mother’s name. “You will lose him,” they breathed. “You lose everything.” “No,” Luciel said, casting a burst of lunar fire through the mirrors. “Not this time.” The illusions cracked. The orchard shifted again.

Sirius, in contrast, struggled from the beginning. The walls moved with his indecision, at first it showed him Hogwarts halls, full of laughter and light, and he ran toward them like a fool, only to crash into walls made of moving portraits that shrieked his regrets. “You mocked him,” one cried. “You followed James,” screamed another. “You never said sorry.” The maze split him in three, three paths, three versions of himself: the son of Walburga, the rebel in leather, the coward hiding in jokes. “Choose,” the orchard hissed. He chose silence. It did not reward him. Ahead, he found a hallway where Severus lay bleeding, silent, unblinking, and Luciel stood over him, holding the rose. “Too late,” Luciel whispered. “You always are.” Sirius screamed and blasted the illusion apart with a hex he barely remembered learning.

The Veela boy found himself in a ballroom, dancing with ghosts made of fire and smoke, and each step he took burned pieces of his identity. He danced perfectly, arrogantly, and by the end, he was only a shimmer of his original self. The Romanian girl fought her way through with blades and broken spells, dragging a piece of her soul behind her in a spell-forged cage. Neither of them saw the rose. They saw illusions of it, bait, but only Luciel pressed forward with steady breath and a hunter’s patience.

The true path revealed itself at the end of a bone-bridge, guarded by a thorn-creature shaped like a woman with seven arms and no eyes. It asked him one question, whispered in a voice that made the walls bleed: “Who do you love enough to die for?” Luciel answered, not aloud, but by handing the creature his glove, runed with Severus’s name, bound in spell-iron. The creature hissed and stepped aside. He stepped forward.

The tree waited in stillness, suspended in a shaft of silence. Up close, it was impossibly delicate, its petals moved like thoughts, and the light it gave off was not light at all, but memory: Severus’s smile beneath moonlight, the curve of his hand when casting, the sound he made when dreaming. Luciel reached for the nearest bloom. The branch recoiled. “Name,” it demanded, but not his. “Name the one you pluck it for.” “Severus Snape,” Luciel said without hesitation. “Of House Addams. Of midnight and ash, My first and only love” The tree bent. A rose fell into his hand. Cold. Alive. Dying. He turned and ran.

Sirius was already limping back, burns on his arms, wildness in his eyes. The Veela was ahead of him but coughing blood. The Romanian girl hadn't made it out yet,  Luciel sprinted past them all, weaving through broken vines and screaming mirrors. He saw the exit open like a maw of light. He did not look back. The rose began to wilt the moment it crossed into the living world.

At the threshold of the catacombs, beneath torchlight laced with silver, Madame Maxime stood with goblets of moonwater and a ring of judges wrapped in starlight. “Four entered,” she said. “Three returned.” The Veela coughed, fell to his knees. Sirius staggered to one side, holding his ribs. Luciel stood, bleeding from three thorn wounds, but his rose still whole. “You bear the only true bloom,” Maxime said, her voice low with awe. “You win this task. But all who returned with breath deserve applause.” There was none, luciel couldn't hear it, the audience above would cheer later, For now, there was only one person on his mind

As healers descended to tend the wounded and the catacombs began to seal themselves again, Severus watched from a distant crystal scrying mirror inside the quiet of Beauxbatons’s infirmary, the glow flickering in his eyes. He saw Luciel cross the threshold. He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Behind him, someone spoke. “y'know he bleds for you right?” Severus turned. Regulus leaned against the windowsill, arms crossed, silver eyes narrowed. “You should kiss him before he decides he deserves better and leave” “He won’t,” Severus murmured. “And he doesn’t need me to kiss him to keep going.” “No,” Regulus said, walking over. “But you might need his, You’re not unlovable, Severus. You just got very good at pretending you were.” Severus looked at him then, really looked. “You sound like someone who finally gave up pretending.” “I did.” Regulus smiled faintly. “Hurts less that way.” They stood in quiet, not quite touching, until the mirror dimmed. “Thank you,” Severus said. “For coming.” “sev, you're my family no matter where you are or who you are,” Regulus said. “Always.”

Later that night, Luciel limped into the infirmary, his coat torn, the rose now preserved inside a stasis charm shaped like a teardrop. He dropped it gently onto Severus’s nightstand. “Did you see me?” “I did.” “It was never meant to last. But I brought it back.” “Why?” Luciel lean down and kissed his temple. “Because you’re the only thing worth bleeding for.” Outside, snow began to fall again. The orchard had closed. But its thorns would never forget, and severus thinking of what regulus said

Chapter Text

The day after the third task, Beauxbatons was soaked in rare silence. Snow laced the courtyards, but it was not the kind that danced or shimmered; it was the kind that muffled footsteps and weighed down tree limbs. The kind of hush that made even ghosts hold their breath.

Severus sat in the Beauxbatons greenhouse. Not his usual haunt, but Luciel had once brought him here to see the moonblossoms, a flower that only bloomed when no one watched. Now, with frost pressed against the glass panes, they lay dormant. Like everything else.

He wasn’t supposed to be up. He was still healing, bandages ghosting his ribs, magic still slowly knitting bone to muscle after what Voldemort had done. But he needed air. Space. Something quiet to sit in and not be looked at like he might crumble.

Regulus found him first.

“Slipping out of the infirmary?”

Severus didn’t turn. “Don’t start.”

Regulus sat beside him on the cold bench. He didn’t wear a coat. Of course he didn’t. Blackthorn blood ran cold.

“I sent you a howler,” Regulus said after a beat.

“I know.”

“You didn’t respond.”

“I was tied to a chair and being Crucio’d, Regulus, apologies for not being prompt.”

A silence. Then Regulus winced. "Don’t joke like that."

Severus turned to him, finally, and in his eyes there wasn’t anger. Just exhaustion. “Why are you really here?”

Regulus looked at his hands. “Because I was scared. Because I thought I lost you. Because—”

From across the garden, Sirius’s laugh cut the quiet. It was too loud, too sharp, and too forced to be natural.

James had joined him, arms crossed. “You know, for someone who claims to care about Severus, you barely showed your face when he was gone.”

“I was preparing for the next task,” Sirius snapped.

“Right. And yet Luciel was bleeding through a mirror and brought him the flower”

“Don’t bring him into this,” Sirius growled.

“You just don’t like that someone else got to his heart first.”

Luciel stepped into the greenhouse at that moment, gaze flicking from James and Sirius to the bench where Severus and Regulus sat.

He looked tired,hollow under the eyes, shoulders tense. But he was alive, and Severus’s heart did a strange twist at the sight.

Luciel walked past Sirius without a glance.

“Luciel,” Sirius called.

The other boy didn’t stop.

“Luciel!”

Luciel paused, just long enough to say: “Je ne te dois rien.” I owe you nothing.

Regulus raised an eyebrow. “Well. That’s a bit hot.”

Severus side-eyed him. “Do you flirt with everyone?”

“Only the ones who threaten my brother’s pride.”

Sirius whirled on them both. “Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?”

“It’s not not funny,” Regulus replied breezily.

James looked between them. “You two never change.”

Regulus stood. “And you two never stop bickering like a bad marriage. Remus not here to referee today?”

James’s face twitched. “He’s busy.”

“With someone else?” Regulus asked, too innocently.

James’s wand sparked at his side.

Luciel stepped in front of Severus. “Enough. All of you.”

Everyone went still.

Luciel glanced at Regulus. “Give us a minute?”

Regulus nodded. “Come, brother, deer,  Let’s not kill the mood.”

Sirius hesitated, then followed.

Luciel and Severus were alone now.

For a long time, neither spoke.

Severus finally said, “You saw, didn’t you?”

Luciel nodded. “Through the mirror. During the task. I couldn’t breathe when I saw you like that.”

“I didn’t think anyone would come.”

Luciel stepped closer. “I’d always come. Even if the world burned around me.”

Severus blinked, jaw tight. “Don’t say things like that. Not unless you mean them.”

Luciel reached out, fingertips ghosting Severus’s cheek. “Then let me show you, that I do”

Severus stared at him. As if waiting for the joke. The cruelty. The trap.

But none came.

And so, slow as frost crawling across glass, he leaned forward.

A brush of lips. Barely there. A breath shared more than a kiss.

But it was enough.

And then—

“MERLIN’S TITS.”

Regulus.

Severus jolted back, face burning.

Luciel turned calmly. “I told you give us a minute”

“I thought you were going to angst, not snog.”

Sirius peeked in. “Wait—WHAT.”

james peeked in, "I missed that?!"

Luciel laughed. “Go away.”

Severus hid his face in his hands.

But for once, he was smiling underneath, while regulus was jumping onto luciel's back, laughing hard

And surprisingly the winter didn't feel so cold

Chapter Text

It began with snow. Not soft, storybook snow, but razor-fine shards against the sky, falling like white ash. The kind that whispered of funerals more than fairy tales. The kind that coated Beauxbatons in silence, not peace.
From the ramparts of the palace, the banners fluttered low. Beneath them, the courtyard was being transformed into the staging ground for Task Four: The Drowned Library. No spectators would watch this time. The sea, cruel and endless, required no audience. Only sacrifice.
In the highest tower of Beauxbatons, Albus Dumbledore stood before a fire that no longer warmed him. His reflection shimmered faintly in the glass, lined and grey, eyes dulled by the weight of schemes unraveling too fast.
He was not alone.
“I was wondering how long you’d hide here,” came Morticia Addams’s voice, smooth and lethal as a poisoned blade wrapped in velvet.
Dumbledore did not turn. “I have done nothing wrong.”
Behind him, the Addams family had entered in full.
Gomez’s cane clicked sharply on the stone floor as he walked to the fire, casting an amused glance at the embers. “You sound like every man we’ve ever buried, Albus.”
Wednesday Addams stood with Pugsley near the tall windows. Neither spoke. But Pugsley’s satchel squirmed with ominous clanking, full of things he called “get-well gifts” for Severus.
Thing perched beside them, still as a shadow, but tense.
“Explain to me,” Morticia said, stepping closer, her black gown brushing the cold stones, “why we were only notified after my son was taken. Why no alarms were raised. Why no effort was made to find him. Or—” her voice lowered into something ancient, “—why his name was placed in a mirror linked to the Dark Lord's signature.”
Dumbledore’s silence was answer enough.
But Professeur Colette spoke for him, stepping from the gloom of the tower stair. Her face was carved from stone.
“I warned him,” she said. “That playing this game would cost him.”
“Which game?” Gomez asked cheerfully. “The one where a boy is framed as a follower of the Dark Lord, or the one where you let children nearly die to prove they’re clever?”
Dumbledore finally turned. His eyes, once so twinkling, now held the dull gleam of someone cornered. “The mirror was meant to test allegiance. Not to frame.”
“Then you won’t mind explaining,” Wednesday said softly, “why you tampered with the enchantments to make sure it reacted only to Severus.”
Dumbledore’s lips pressed together. “He had... affinities.”
“Affinities,”Professeur Colette repeated coldly. “You mean trauma. Darkness forced upon him. You mean the war he fled from, because of you and your ex, The mark he never wanted. The boy who was almost murdered and still you saw a weapon.”
“That boy is mine,” Morticia said, voice a low, silken death knell. “And if he had died beneath your mirror’s spell, I would have skinned you alive and give it to a cousin of ours….cousin It”
Thing made signs from the windowsill.
There was silence.
And then Gomez laughed, a delighted, unhinged little bark. “You always say the most romantic things, cara mia.”

Far below, in the cliffside grottos beneath Corsica, the Drowned Library stirred.
Salt wind rushed through natural stone arches, carving pillars from coral. The water shimmered faintly with enchantment, drawing in magic like breath. Ancient runes glowed on the submerged walls, older than any living school, built by Atlanteans who had once believed memory was holy and knowledge was sacred.
Now, the sea remembered only drowning.
Luciel Soleil stood barefoot on the jagged rock ledge, beside Sirius Black. The salt-bitten wind whipped his hair into his face, but he did not flinch. The water roared below.
“Still think I’m the reckless one?” Sirius asked, half-hearted grin faltering.
Luciel didn’t answer. His mind was with Severus, pale in his hospital bed, a thin line of blood beneath his nose, a memory curled behind his eyelids. A kiss, barely more than breath. A promise. Or a mistake. Or something holy.
“I will bring you something back,” he had whispered at Severus’s bedside, hours before. “From the next task, I promise”
Sirius elbowed him lightly. “Don’t die.”
Luciel stepped forward. “That is not my intention.”
Behind them, the other champions prepared: potions, runes carved into wrist and collarbone, old sigils written in blood. Gillyweed. Breath spells. Anchors.
Professeur Pascal’s voice rose from above, echoing against the cliffs: “Begin.”
Luciel dove.

The sea closed over him like a mouth.
The water was cold and full of memory. Kelp wrapped around his waist like grave-cloth. The pressure of ancient magic bore down on his bones, whispering names he’d never spoken.
Below him, the Library bloomed.
Towers of coral. Shelves of stone. Lanterns that glowed with forgotten fire.
He swam through it like a ghost.
At the heart of the ruins sat the memory, trapped in a pearl of living glass, floating above a silver pedestal shaped like a skull.
He touched it.
And it touched him back.
He saw a boy running through a forest of silver trees.
A child. Maybe himself. Maybe someone else.
Laughter. Screaming. Someone crying his name. A burst of magic, then cold.
Severus, chained to a stone altar. His voice hoarse. Blood on his hands.
Luciel flinched. The memory trembled.
He clutched the pearl. (get it, he’s underwater, clutched his pea-nevermind)
Something ancient stirred in the Library’s dark.
Behind him, skeletal merfolk began to shift.
And in the tower above, the sky cracked with magic, not lightning, but power older than stars.
In the hospital wing, Severus stirred in his sleep.
Not from pain.
But from smell.
He cracked open his eyes.
The room was dim and warm, heavy with shadows. Someone had closed the windows. On his bedside table sat a black porcelain mug, steaming faintly.
“Belladonna cocoa,” Morticia murmured, sitting elegantly in a nearby chair. “Your favorite. The one I made you when you first came to us. Still deadly to most. But not to you.”
Thing rested beside his arm, one finger gently tapping his wrist.
Pugsley was nearby, fidgeting with a strange, clicking box labeled ‘Incendiary Apology #2’.
Wednesday looked up from her book of French poisons. “We’re planning to burn Dumbledore’s clothes collection.”
Severus blinked. “That... that sounds lovely.”
Gomez, from the foot of the bed, beamed. “Mon petit, you’re awake! And clearly recovering. Tell me, did the see the third task, did it involve any opera, fire, or dance, any monsters?”
“I saw Luciel,” Severus rasped. “And he…kissed me.”
“He what?!” Pugsley shouted delightedly.
“About time,” said Wednesday.
“I like him,” Morticia said. “He bleeds well.”
Severus coughed, and Thing handed him a handkerchief.
Madame Maxime entered a moment later, her arms crossed. “He’ll return shortly. He has completed the task. It is done.”
Severus closed his eyes.
“Good,” he murmured. “Then it’s nearly over.”
Morticia smoothed a hand over his hair.
“No, my darling,” she said sweetly. “Now it truly begins.”—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The air in the Beauxbatons hospital wing was still heavy with the scent of crushed herbs and antiseptic charms when the echoes of the earlier confrontation faded, though the tension they left behind lingered like a low, constant hum. Severus lay propped against a bank of pale-blue pillows, his pallor yet unshaken by the lingering aftereffects of the dark curses he had endured, though his sharp gaze tracked every flicker of movement in the room. Morticia sat at his bedside as though she had claimed the space as sovereign territory, her posture regal, one hand resting on the arm of his chair while the other cradled a porcelain cup of steaming belladonna cocoa, the exact brew she had made for him the first night the Addams family had welcomed him into their home, a silent reminder that no matter the threats or schemes that had tried to swallow him, he had a family who would answer with fire and blood if need be. Thing clung stubbornly to the coverlet by his side, its twitching fingers occasionally patting his arm as though reassuring him in its own way. Across the ward, Wednesday and Pugsley huddled near the foot of another bed, whispering in tones low enough to be ominous, passing a scrap of parchment between them that looked suspiciously like a floor plan with several marked X’s, Severus did not have to ask to know arson was on their minds, though the thought tugged at the edge of his lips in faint amusement. Gomez, ever the storm of enthusiasm and devotion, had been pacing in broad, expressive strides, recounting the earlier confrontation with Dumbledore to anyone who would listen, his hands slicing the air as he described with unfiltered glee the moment Madame Maxime had, with the serene ferocity of a queen, pronounced the Hogwarts Headmaster persona non grata on Beauxbatons soil. The ban had been immediate and absolute, her voice carrying the weight of centuries of French magical law, Dumbledore would not set foot upon these grounds without risking diplomatic incident. The Addams patriarch seemed particularly delighted by the detail in which Maxime had itemized his failures: the negligence in protecting a visiting champion’s companion, the audacity of attempting to frame Severus for conspiring with the Dark Lord, and his callous indifference during the hours Severus had been in enemy hands. That the Ministry representatives present had exchanged alarmed glances during the dressing-down was only an added pleasure. For all his carefully polished composure, Dumbledore had been forced to retreat under the eyes of Beauxbatons faculty, foreign dignitaries, and even a few of his own students, a retreat that looked, in truth, far more like a rout. Now, with the political ripples beginning to spread through both the British and French magical communities, whispers were already forming that the venerable Headmaster’s influence was waning; without Beauxbatons’ cooperation in the Triwizard administration, and with the Addams family’s name thrown pointedly against him, his power base would feel the strain. Severus, however, seemed uninterested in the broader chessboard, his world at present was a narrow one, framed by the shadows of the bed curtains and the presence of those who refused to leave his side, Luciel had entered quietly during a lull, his steps measured, his expression a careful blend of relief and anger at the sight of Severus awake and alert. For a moment he stood at the foot of the bed, taking in the picture of the young man surrounded by his strange, fiercely loyal family, before crossing the space to sit beside him. Their conversation was low and brief, Luciel’s words threading concern with restrained fury at the events that had unfolded; Severus’s replies were clipped, tinged with the defensive distance of someone unused to such overt care, but his eyes softened fractionally at Luciel’s persistence. By the time evening light began to slant through the tall windows, casting the ward in shades of gold and indigo, the others had drifted into their own quiet occupations, Wednesday and Pugsley poring over their diagrams, Morticia coaxing Severus into sipping more cocoa, Gomez humming contentedly over a cigar by the open doors. In the dimming light, Luciel leaned in to murmur something meant only for Severus’s ears; whatever it was drew a faint, sardonic smirk from him, and before caution could reassert itself, Severus allowed a fleeting press of lips against Luciel’s in a gesture so subtle it might have been overlooked by anyone, except gomez, who didn’t say anything…but straightened up, feeling proud

Chapter Text

The final task began a week later....
---

The walls of the labyrinth pulsed, a living black-bark organism. Each step Luciel took seemed to echo somewhere else, down corridors that didn’t exist a heartbeat ago. His magic, faintly glowing around his fingertips, hummed in warning, but the illusions pressed in, relentless.

He came first to a clearing of silver mist. Voices whispered from every direction, soft and melodic, almost comforting. But the words were all lies. They spoke of Severus: He doesn’t need you. He has moved on. He survived without you.

Luciel’s stomach twisted, his pulse spiking. The mist coiled around his legs, slippery and cold, as if trying to root him to the floor. He clenched his jaw and reached inside himself for the memory of Severus, the quiet warmth of their shared glances, the brief kiss that had shaken him more than anything else. That tether anchored him. He forced a step forward, breaking the spell.

Behind him, Sirius’s path twisted into a corridor lined with mirrors reflecting endless versions of Regulus, scolding, accusing, disappointed. Each reflection whispered things only Sirius could hear: You abandoned me. You leave me to the chaos. You’re not enough. His fists clenched, and he moved with brutal determination, pushing past each reflection, refusing to let it dictate his reality.

Outside, Severus pressed both hands to the balustrade, as if he could reach through the wards and touch Luciel. Regulus’s hand on his shoulder steadied him. “He’ll make it,” Regulus said, dark eyes unreadable. “He trusts you. He trusts himself.”

Severus didn’t answer. His lips pressed tight together, a line of steel and fear. Thing crawled onto his lap, tapping insistently with its little finger, as if to remind him that he wasn’t helpless entirely. He sipped the belladonna cocoa, letting the warmth steady him, focusing on Luciel’s face in his mind.

---

The labyrinth shifted again. Luciel emerged into a hall of mirrors that weren’t mirrors at all, they were doorways into what could have been. In one, he saw himself failing Severus, letting him drown during the past kidnapping. In another, Severus turned away, indifferent to Luciel’s calls. The illusions pressed on, tangible and cruel.

He stumbled, nearly giving in. The whispers promised safety, comfort, reunion, but only if he abandoned the task. He bit back a scream and pressed his hand to the nearest mirror. It shivered and pulsed, but did not break him. I know you, Sev, he thought. I know the real you. Nothing else matters.

The Heart Tree waited beyond the twisting corridors, bathed in silver moonlight that filtered through the magical canopy above the maze. Its roots writhed like serpents, and the fruit glimmered faintly, pale as frost, perfect and waiting. But before he could reach it, the maze presented its final trial.

A corridor opened, and Luciel stepped in. The walls faded, leaving only one reflection: Severus, chained, eyes wide with terror, bleeding from old wounds that hadn’t existed outside the illusion. Luciel’s breath caught. Every step he took toward the Heart echoed as a betrayal. The maze whispered, cruel: You cannot save him. He will die again if you touch the fruit.

Luciel’s hands shook. He remembered Severus’s smirk, the weight of their last kiss, the promise unspoken but felt. His magic flared, weaving a protective barrier around him. “No,” he muttered, voice raw. “I will not lose this not now, Not ever.”

With that, he stepped into the clearing. Roots wrapped around his ankles as though the maze itself resisted his progress, but he pressed the blood from his palm onto the Heart Tree’s base. A pulse of light radiated up the branches, and the illusions shattered. Severus’s face lingered in the shards, now smiling faintly, unbroken.

He plucked the Pomme de Vérité from the highest branch. Its surface shimmered with clarity, reflecting not the maze’s lies, but the truth of himself: brave, flawed, and unyielding. The labyrinth convulsed, walls quivering, then dissolved, leaving Luciel standing atop the soft grass of Beauxbâtons’ central courtyard.

---
Outside, Severus exhaled sharply, nearly toppling off the balustrade. Regulus held him steady, eyes flashing with relief. Sirius stumbled forward from where he had been observing, chest heaving, as Luciel emerged, alive and victorious.

Severus didn’t move at first, caught in the intensity of seeing Luciel stand unbroken. The boy’s hair was damp, clothes clinging, eyes shining with unshed tears. Luciel ran forward, and before either could think further, Severus bent slightly, letting Luciel’s lips brush his in a fleeting, desperate kiss.

The courtyard erupted with murmurs and gasps. Regulus’s eyes widened, sharp and calculating, and he coughed delicately to announce he had witnessed it. Sirius grinned wildly, waving a hand like a general declaring victory. James muttered something incomprehensible, while Remus groaned, burying his face in his hands.

Severus pulled back slightly, breathing ragged, dark hair sticking to his forehead. “I—” His voice faltered, something between command and confession.

Luciel only smiled, luminous and steady. “I never doubted myself and it was because of you” he said simply, gripping Severus’s hand.

Regulus’s sharp voice cut through the moment. “Well, that is… certainly a revelation.”

Severus turned a dark glance on him, and Regulus, unflinching, simply raised an eyebrow. Sirius clapped loudly, breaking the tension entirely. “Finally. About bloody time, I saw it with my own eyes”

The Addams family emerged from the shadows, Morticia’s smile calm, Pugsley and Wednesday quietly thrilled at the chaos, Gomez practically bouncing with delight. “Ah,” Gomez said warmly, sweeping forward. “It seems our young champion has returned in triumph, and with a reward for his bravery.” He gestured at Severus and Luciel, beaming. “Tell me everything, my boy. Every dreadful, terrifying moment.”

Severus’s shoulders slumped, the tension finally easing. He glanced at Luciel, then Regulus, then Sirius and the others. Chaos, toxicity, love, loyalty, they were all here. And somehow, against every cruel twist the world had thrown, they had survived it together.

Luciel squeezed his hand again. “We did,” he whispered. “All of us.”

The maze, the trials, the illusions, they were behind them. And for the first time in months, Severus allowed himself to believe it: maybe some truths were worth fighting for, and some hearts were worth returning to.

Chapter Text

The fire in the Beauxbatons guest chamber burned low that evening, its embers casting long, skeletal shadows against the carved stone walls. The room smelled faintly of belladonna cocoa and burning sage, the kind of scent that clung to the bones long after the fire was out. Severus sat stiffly in a high-backed chair that seemed older than the school itself, a blanket Morticia had draped around his shoulders like a shroud. He had not expected the Addamses to remain after his convalescence, yet they lingered, as though bound to him by more than hospitality or familial courtesy.
It was Grandmama who broke the silence, her voice gravelly yet sharp as a crow’s caw, the sort of sound that carried old power. Her hands, liver-spotted and knotted with age, played absently with a bone-handled knife she used to peel the skin off an apple. The fruit fell into her lap in a spiral, white and glistening in the firelight like a strip of flesh.
“You don’t know us yet, boy,” she said, eyes glittering as they fixed on Severus. “You think you do, you see the trappings, the house, the oddities, but you don’t know us. The wizarding world doesn’t speak of the Addams family in polite company. They whisper in taverns and graveyards, with candles lit to keep the shadows back. They fear us, and more importantly, they respect us. Because long before Dumbledore, long before Grindelwald or the Dark Lords of Britain, we were already here. Already ancient. Already watching.”
Gomez leaned forward with a grin, clasping his hands together as though hearing the tale for the first time, though Severus suspected he had memorized every word. Morticia, pale and statuesque, sat beside him, her smile razor-thin, her gaze fixed lovingly on Grandmama as if the story itself were a cherished heirloom. Wednesday and Pugsley, sprawled on the rug, leaned closer. Thing perched on the arm of Severus’s chair, fingers tapping against the wood like a heartbeat.
Grandmama’s eyes narrowed, and the fire seemed to dim.
“We were not born of light or of shadow, child. We were born of obsession. The Addams line began in blood and pact. Centuries ago, when wizards scrabbled like rats for scraps of magic, one family lived in a crumbling monastery in the Pyrenees. They were poor. They were mocked. They were told their blood was weak. But they had one gift the others lacked, a hunger to peer where no one else dared. While others prayed to the sun, the Addams prayed to the abyss beneath their feet.”
Wednesday’s lips twitched into the barest hint of a smile.
“They found it,” Grandmama went on, voice dropping. “The oldest magic. Not curses, not charms, not incantations, but the binding of names. They learned that if you carve a name into bone and bury it beneath a blackthorn tree on All Hallows’ Eve, that name becomes yours to keep. They kept many names. Wizards, spirits, things that never walked this world. The Addams monastery became a place of screams at night. The villagers fled, but our family remained, laughing, singing, feasting with the dead. And from those rites, the wizarding world realized, we could not be touched. Not by hex, not by flame, not by time itself. We had bargained with something older.”
Severus shifted uneasily beneath his blanket. Morticia laid a cool hand on his shoulder, her touch as steadying as it was unsettling.
“Of course,” Grandmama croaked, “the other families tried to stop us. The Malfoys of France, the Rosiers, the Carrows, the Prewetts, they all sent their strongest. Wands blazed, curses flew, but none of them left the monastery alive. Some say the Addams did not even raise their wands. They only laughed. And in the morning, the challengers’ bones were strung from the rafters like garlands, inscribed with runes no one could decipher. Since then, the Addams name has been sacred. Not sacred for holiness — oh no — but sacred for terror. To cross us is to be marked. To ally with us is to be elevated. Even the Ministries treat us with care, for they remember the old blood-debts.”
Pugsley let out a delighted chuckle. “Like the time Cousin Caliban cursed the entire Wizengamot into coughing up blood whenever they said the word ‘justice’!”
“Ah, yes,” Morticia sighed fondly. “A beautiful gesture.”
Grandmama stabbed the apple core with her knife. Juice ran down her wrist like blood. “It was not just Britain. Spain, France, Russia, the Addams have always been… how shall I say it? Neutral. But neutrality in our hands is not weakness. We sided with no Dark Lords because we are older than their causes. Grindelwald once came, oh yes. Begged for our allegiance. He wanted our archives, our relics. He wanted the Book of Silence, the one that holds the names of things erased from history. Gomez’s grandfather showed him the door. He left trembling. And later, Voldemort tried the same. He did not dare step inside our house. He only left letters, written in his fine serpentine hand, asking, pleading. We kept them as kindling.”
Gomez erupted into hearty laughter, clapping his knee. “Burned beautifully, too! Marvellous blue flames!”
Severus’s mouth went dry. The image of Voldemort, the most feared sorcerer of Britain, reduced to begging at the Addams doorstep was beyond comprehension. Yet the way Grandmama told it, it seemed inevitable.
“We do not meddle in wizarding wars,” Morticia said softly, eyes like twin pools of night. “Not because we are afraid, but because wars are… so noisy. We prefer our family dinners in peace. But make no mistake, child. If the Addamses ever chose a side, the world would burn. Wizards know this. That is why they whisper of us in dread. Dumbledore himself treads lightly around our name. He wears a mask of geniality, but beneath it, he fears us. He knows we are a power that cannot be reasoned with, bribed, or banished.”
Grandmama leaned forward, her knife gleaming. “Because unlike the rest, we are not bound by their morality. We thrive in places others avert their eyes. Where they see decay, we see beauty. Where they see death, we see family. And magic, real magic, child, the kind that cracks the sky, it flows to those who do not look away.”
Thing crawled into Severus’s lap, curling its fingers comfortingly against his arm. Severus, who had endured more curses than he could count, felt a strange tightness in his chest that was not fear so much as awe.
“Tell him about the Pact,” Gomez urged, practically vibrating with glee.
“Yes,” Morticia purred. “The Pact.”
Grandmama’s eyes gleamed like coals. “Every hundred years, the Addams renew it. We gather at the family mausoleum, all branches, all blood. We call upon the ones we buried beneath the monastery. And we offer them a gift. It may be blood, it may be a name, it may be a life. They always accept. In return, we remain untouchable. Some say the Addamses are half-human, half-specter now, our veins running with things not meant for this world. Perhaps. Who cares? It makes the cocoa richer.”
She cackled, slapping her knee. Wednesday’s eyes shone with something like pride.
“Wizards call us sacred because they cannot destroy us,” Morticia finished, her voice soft as falling ash. “They build their wars, their Dark Lords, their Hogwarts. But when it is over, when the ashes settle, the Addamses are still here. Still watching. Still laughing. Still together. They know this. They bow to this. And you, dear Severus, must understand, you are part of this now. They will fear you too.”
The room fell silent but for the crackle of the fire. Severus sat rigid, the weight of history pressing upon him like a shroud. He thought of Voldemort, of Dumbledore, of the Marauders and all their cruelty, of Luciel’s frantic devotion, of his own endless hunger for belonging. And now, here he sat, wrapped in a blanket, drinking cocoa, listening to a family speak of laughing with the dead as casually as others discussed the weather.
Severus realized with a chill that settled deep in his bones: if the wizarding world feared the Addamses… then perhaps for the first time in his life, he was truly safe.
Gomez leaned back, raising his glass. “To legacy!”
Morticia touched her glass to his. “To family.”
Grandmama lifted the knife, still dripping apple juice, and grinned with missing teeth. “To the abyss.”
Wednesday whispered, “To arson.”
Pugsley echoed, “To blood.”
Thing tapped Severus’s hand insistently until, after a pause, he raised his cup of cocoa. His voice was quiet, almost reverent.
“To the Addams.”
The fire flared blue, as if the abyss itself had heard and approved.

Chapter Text

love yall, thx for being patient everyone, this fic is coming to an end today, it was an unplanned project but I'm glad I continued

Chapter Text

The courtyard of Beauxbatons had been transformed into a tribunal. No longer the grand, glittering garden of fountains and roses, it had been stripped bare, banners lowered to half-mast, and a circle of ancient runes carved deep into the stones. Snow fell in muted flurries, clinging to the black iron gates where shadows lingered like vultures awaiting carrion. Students gathered along the edges, silent, their gossip strangled in their throats. Something sacred and dangerous was about to be unspooled, and none dared interrupt.

At the center of it all stood three figures, bound by shimmering chains of judgment magic: Maria Lenoir, Lily Evans, and Albus Dumbledore.

Maria looked small, shivering, her eyes darting from Luciel to the crowd and back again. She had dressed herself in desperate finery, as though charm could undo betrayal. The jewels at her throat glittered mockingly beneath the storm-grey sky. Lily, by contrast, carried herself with brittle defiance, her red hair a snarl against her pale, furious face. She did not cower. She seethed. And then there was Dumbledore, once a titan in his plum-colored robes, now an old man hollowed by the weight of consequences he had evaded for too long. His beard was ragged, his eyes no longer twinkled, and the chains at his wrists seemed to fit too easily, like they had been waiting for him all his life.

Above them on a raised dais sat Madame Maxime, her presence towering and unyielding, flanked by the Addams family. Morticia stood like a blade in midnight silk, her gaze colder than the falling snow. Gomez leaned casually on his cursed rapier, smiling with unnerving warmth. Wednesday idly traced runes into her palm with a silver needle, while Pugsley fiddled with a jar of dragonfire that hissed with hungry light. Even Thing had climbed onto the stone rail, fingers twitching in judgment.

The atmosphere was suffocating.

“Maria Lenoir,” Madame Maxime’s voice rang through the courtyard, sharp as cracked ice. “You are accused of blood magic against your fellow student. Of luring shadows into their rooms to endanger lives. Of practicing jealous enchantments to use against Severus Snape and Luciel Soleil. Do you deny it?”

Maria’s lips trembled. under veritaserum, She looked straight at Luciel, her voice breaking. “I did it for you. You don’t understand, you never looked at me, only at him—” her eyes darted to Severus, venomous, “—always him. If he were gone, you would have seen me. Loved me.”

The silence that followed was heavier than a curse. Luciel did not move. He did not soften. He simply looked at her, face carved from marble. Severus shifted uncomfortably beside him, unused to such naked malice directed his way, but he did not look away either.

Morticia leaned forward, her voice smooth and deadly. “Love born of sabotage is not love, little girl. It is hunger dressed in ribbons.”

The students shivered. Even Maria faltered under that voice.

“Your punishment is expulsion,” Madame Maxime decreed. “Your wand will be broken. You will leave this place today, in disgrace. May the shadows you summoned keep you company.”

Maria cried out, lunging forward despite the chains. “Luciel-please!”

But Luciel did not answer. He turned his head away, his hand tightening protectively around Severus’s sleeve. That silence was the cruelest answer of all.

The chains dragged her back, and Maria’s scream echoed off the walls as she was pulled from the courtyard.

“Lily Evans.” Maxime’s gaze cut to the girl like an axe. “Once the pride of Gryffindor House, once whispered as a shining example of light. You are accused of wielding forbidden magic, binding curses, necrotic flames,and conspiring with maria upon severus downfall. Do you deny it?”

Lily lifted her chin. Her green eyes blazed, not with shame, but with fury. “I used them because I had no choice. Because no one would listen to me. Because Severus has corrupted everything he touches. He dragged us all into darkness. I tried to fight it, and now you call me the criminal?”

Severus flinched. It was not the words, he had endured far worse, but the venom, the way her voice cracked not with grief but with hatred. Once, long ago, she had been his only friend, someone he'd once loved. Now her curses were sharper than Voldemort’s had ever been.

Regulus, standing beside him, gave the faintest shake of his head. 'Do not answer her'

Madame Maxime’s voice did not waver. “You are no martyr, mademoiselle. You are no savior. You are simply fallen.”

“Expelled,” she continued. “Placed on probation within the Ministry’s watch. You will never do magic again. Your wand will be bound with suppressive runes until you are deemed safe. Which, I suspect, will be never.”

Lily’s breath caught, her face blanching. But then her gaze found Severus in the crowd, and all her fury condensed into a single, poisonous glare.

“You did this to me,” she whispered. “You’ll regret it.”

Morticia, pale lips curling into the ghost of a smile, leaned down and whispered just loud enough for Lily to hear. “He does not need a friendship like yours anymore, child. He has family now.”

Something in Lily’s face cracked then, and she let out a sound that was half snarl, half sob. The chains pulled her away before she could spit another curse.

And then there was Dumbledore.

The courtyard grew so quiet that the snowfall itself seemed to still, hanging motionless in the air.

“Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,” Madame Maxime intoned. “Former Headmaster of Hogwarts. You are accused of negligence, of manipulation, of turning your eyes away from the torment of children. Of watching as Severus Snape was broken beneath cruelty, of whispering suspicions to the Ministry without proof, of allowing a boy to be kidnapped under your very nose. What say you?”

The old man looked up, his eyes dim and watery. “I did what I always thought was best,” he murmured. “Always for the greater good.”

A hiss spread through the crowd. The words, once his banner, now sounded hollow.

Gomez laughed merrily, the sound like a blade through silk. “The greater good? My dear man, you sound like a villain in denial! At least Voldemort never pretended his war was mercy.”

Morticia’s voice was quieter, but it carried further. “You played with lives as though they were pawns. You knew of the bullying. You knew of the chains that bound him. And you did nothing. That is not wisdom, Albus. That is cowardice.”

Even McGonagall, standing stiff in her emerald robes, could not meet his eyes. “I followed you for decades,” she said softly, “and I cannot defend you any longer. Too many scars litter our halls. Too many students left unprotected.”

Dumbledore tried to rise, to summon that old gravitas, but the chains pulled him down again. For the first time, truly, he looked like what he was: an old man stripped of power, naked without his myth.

“Albus Dumbledore,” Madame Maxime pronounced, her voice echoing against the stones, “you are hereby stripped of all titles. You are banished from Beauxbatons and Hogwarts both. By decree of the Confederation, you are sentenced to Azkaban for willful negligence and endangerment of children under your care, for a war they do not understand”

The gasp that followed was not shock, it was satisfaction.

The chains flared, dragging him forward, and for the first time in his long, illustrious life, Albus Dumbledore was reduced to nothing more than a prisoner.

aSeverus did not cheer. He did not smile. He only watched, pale and still, as three figures were dragged away by aurors shadow, one by jealousy, one by hate, one by pride. He felt Luciel’s hand tighten around his. Thing patted his sleeve comfortingly.

Behind them, Gomez threw his arms wide. “Justice served! At last! Morticia, my love, shall we toast with belladonna cocoa tonight?”

She inclined her head regally. “Naturally, darling.”

The courtyard slowly dispersed, whispers trailing like smoke. But the echoes of that tribunal would linger far longer

The tribunal ended, but the courtyard did not breathe again for some time. Students scattered in hushed clusters, their whispers like insects buzzing in the walls. The air was too heavy, the stones themselves still echoing with chains and verdicts. Snow melted into rivulets that streaked across the carved runes like veins of pale blood.

At the dais, Madame Maxime remained standing, her great form dark against the grey sky. Beside her, McGonagall stepped forward, hands clenched behind her back. She looked neither triumphant nor sorrowful, only resolute, her mouth set in the thin line of someone who had watched an era end.

“From this day forward,” Maxime intoned, “the leadership of Hogwarts shall pass into the hands of Minerva McGonagall. She has proven herself unflinching in truth, loyal to her charges, and untainted by the corruption that rotted its former Headmaster.”

There was no applause. Only silence, an acknowledgment of gravity, not celebration. McGonagall inclined her head, voice steely when she finally spoke.

“I will not wear rose-colored glasses,” she said. “Hogwarts is scarred. Our children have bled in its halls while adults looked away. I cannot promise to heal all wounds. But I can promise this, so long as I am Headmistress, no child will be ignored. No child will be abandoned to cruelty. That era is finished.”

Her words carried, firm and clear, cutting through fog and whispers alike. Even the ghosts lingering at the edges, Beauxbatons’ pale phantoms, the shades of Hogwarts drawn here for the tribunal, nodded silently, as if in grim approval.

Severus stood near the edge of the circle, Luciel’s hand still warm around his wrist. He could not help but think of his years beneath that castle’s stone ceilings, of hexes whispered in corridors, of teachers who had seen but turned away. He should have felt vindicated. He should have felt rage. Instead, he felt… hollow.

“Poetic, isn’t it?” Sirius murmured from behind him. His voice was softer than Severus remembered it could be, stripped of bravado. “McGonagall gets the crown, Dumbledore gets the chains. Everything we thought was solid, gone in an instant.”

Regulus, at his brother’s side, gave a humorless smile. “Not solid. Just rotting. It was always bound to collapse when truth pressed hard enough.”

Severus turned slightly, gaze flicking between them. Sirius’s eyes lingered on him, not sharp with mockery, but tired. Regulus, however, kept his posture taut, protective, like a hawk shielding its territory.

“You’re quiet,” Sirius said finally, to Severus. “Don’t you have anything to say? He let it all happen to you. He knew, and he let it happen.”

Severus’s lips parted, but no words came. For once, the acerbic retorts that always rested on his tongue were gone. All he could manage was, “What good would speaking do now? He’s already caged.”

That silenced Sirius, though only for a moment. His jaw flexed, something unspoken trembling behind his teeth.

Regulus broke the pause. “Come, Severus. Let others gnash their teeth on old bones. We have newer shadows to contend with.” His hand brushed Severus’s sleeve, light but firm, steering him toward Luciel. Sirius’s expression tightened, but he didn’t stop them. He only looked at his brother, some fragile thread of their shared childhood flickering in his eyes.

When the two Black brothers’ gazes met, it was a battle and a truce all at once.

“Still playing the loyal dog?” Regulus asked quietly, venom laced with affection.

“Still pretending the viper’s coils aren’t chains?” Sirius shot back.

But their voices lacked true bite. It was the weary rhythm of brothers who had fought these battles a thousand times and had no strength to cut deeper today.

Severus, caught between them, gave a sharp exhale. “Both of you, enough. If you want to duel, do it when the snow isn’t watching.”

That startled Sirius into a bark of laughter. Regulus only arched a brow, but the tension broke, if only slightly.

The Addamses had lingered deliberately, drinking in the unease like fine wine. Gomez clapped his hands together, startling a group of nervous Beauxbatons students into scurrying away.

“Delicious! Absolutely delicious!” he exclaimed, his rapier flashing as he saluted the empty air. “A trial, a fall, a crown restored, Morticia, my beloved, it is better than theatre!”

Morticia’s eyes gleamed like obsidian. “Tragedy has always been the purest art form. But this… this borders on opera. The world trembles, yet our family stands untouched. How divine.”

Wednesday, ever calm, pricked her finger with her needle and watched a drop of blood bloom. “They’ll talk about today for centuries. How the so-called light was found darker than the shadows. It’s… symmetrical.”

Pugsley grinned, his jar of dragonfire sputtering dangerously. “Do you think Azkaban will eat Dumbledore alive? Or will he eat it instead?”

Thing tapped Severus on the shoulder, pointing at McGonagall as if to say *watch her closely.* Severus gave the faintest nod. For all her promise, he had learned never to trust blindly again.

Luciel drew Severus closer then, his voice low. “You’re safe sev, That’s all what matters.”

Safe. The word felt foreign on Severus’s tongue. He let it sit there, heavy and strange, as the snow thickened into veils.

That night, the castle halls whispered with new alignments. Maria was gone, Lily was broken, Dumbledore was shackled. Hogwarts would never be the same, and neither would Beauxbatons.

But for Severus, between Luciel’s steady presence, Regulus’s guarded loyalty, Sirius’s surprising restraint, and the Addamses’ ever-watchful shadow, one thing was certain: the game was not over.

not yet anyway.

Chapter Text

The years moved like shadows across stone walls, sometimes swift, sometimes lingering, but never unnoticed In the silence of time, children became men, boys who had once warred with one another stepped into roles greater than schoolyard grudges, and the world itself shifted to accommodate the strange harmony between old legacies and new lives.
The name Snape no longer echoed with derision or cruelty; it was spoken with reverence in laboratories, whispered in guild halls, stamped proudly on bottles and boxes carried across the wizarding world. Severus had become one of the youngest Potions Masters in living memory to establish a successful research and production company ‘’Noxphoros Elixirs’’ The name chosen carefully, carried both weight and artistry: “bearer of light through darkness.”
His headquarters in Paris stood unlike any other apothecary. Glass and wrought iron spiraled in gothic arches, flames beneath cauldrons casting shadows across high ceilings. Potions simmered in chambers arranged with precision, while Severus himself, no longer the half-hidden boy from Spinner’s End, wore confidence like a second skin. His dark eyes still carried storms, but they had purpose now, and in his measured voice there was an authority that could not be ignored.
He employed apprentices, made new innovative potions, and argued fiercely at symposiums. Where once potioneers dismissed him, now colleagues leaned forward to hear his ideas. He was still sharp, still dry, still unwilling to suffer fools, but there was respect in every nod offered to him. He had made himself indispensable
And when exhaustion sometimes weighed heavily, he returned to the Addams mansion, his true home. Morticia would pour him tea scented with cloves, Gomez would clap him on the shoulder with pride, Wednesday and Pugsley would demand stories, and Luciel..... Luciel was never far.
Luciel had carved another kind of kingdom, one of velvet curtains and stage lights. Where once the wizarding world had no theatre to call its own, preferring endless lectures, duels, and pompous speeches Luciel built the impossible: Le Théâtre du Soleil Noir, the first and finest wizarding musical theatre
Its opening night had drawn witches and wizards from across Europe. Spells twined with music, illusions painted the air with moving scenery, and voices soared higher than broomsticks. It was art the wizarding world had never dared to imagine, but Luciel, with his boundless charisma and relentless vision, made it reall
He was more than an owner, he was a director, a performer, and a dreamer whose name lit marquees. Though his fame grew swiftly, Luciel’s heart remained grounded. He always reserved a box seat for Severus, claiming the theatre could not breathe without him nearby. Sometimes, after performances, he would drag Severus backstage, pressing a laughing kiss to his temple and cheek despite protests about “inconvenience”
Where Severus brought intelligence, Luciel brought laughter Together, they balanced like alchemy and flame, artistry and science, logic and love.
james potter’s name was etched into the annals of Quidditch, not just as a player but as a champion whose daring plays changed the game. For years he flew with the Mantrose Magpies, later the Kenmare Kestrels, and his face adorned posters in pubs and shops. His reflexes, his grin, his impossible dives they made him a household figure.
Yet in quieter hours james admitted he carried one disappointment, Severus’s heart was never his to win, he had pursued, he had tried, and in the end, he had accepted Sadness had lingered, but not bitterness over time, that sadness folded into something gentler, a fondness, a memory of what might have been.
he dated, laughed, and lived loudly as always ,at one point, he and Remus even gave romance a chance, For a while, it worked, there was affection, care, shared nights but eventually they realized their bond thrived better in friendship. James, to his credit, never pretended otherwise “Moony,” he said with a crooked smile, “you’re the brother I chose, I think I like you that way better”
And so he remained, a Quidditch star, still reckless, still warm, still chasing adventure
Remus had walked a quieter path but no less noble. He had risen, step by step, through the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, his voice steady in meetings, his passion for fairness undeniable
By his late twenties, he had become Minister for Magical Creatures, a role once thought impossible for a werewolf, But Remus Lupin carried dignity that silenced doubters. He drafted laws, secured protections, and gave voice to those ignored. Werewolves, centaurs, house-elves, goblins, creatures long dismissed began to see change
And though the weight of bureaucracy often wore him thin, Remus found peace in simple things: moonlit walks, evenings spent with friends, and the knowledge that he was shaping a better world
If Sirius had once burned too bright and too reckless, adulthood had tempered his fire into something formidable. He had become an Auror, one of the best, feared by criminals and respected by peers. His dueling skill was unmatched, his instincts sharp, and though his methods often bent rules, his results spoke for themselves
Yet he had not hardened completely. He still laughed, still teased, still found excuses to visit Severus or drop into Luciel’s theatre uninvited. He sparred verbally with Regulus, drank with James, and backed Remus in policy fights when needed. Sirius had grown, yes, but he had not lost himself
Where Sirius fought in the field, Regulus ruled from halls of shadow and light. He had taken the title of Lord Black and, unlike their ancestors, wielded it with grace. The Black name no longer stank of blood purity or cruelty it became a banner of responsibility, one that balanced tradition with progress
Regulus rebuilt alliances, opened vaults to fund new causes, and repaired the fractures in their family. He remained careful, calculating, but no longer lonely. The bond between brothers, though often strained, had deepened into something resilient
And Regulus himself found contentment in stewardship, in knowing he had turned a cursed name into something worthy
Peter never sought fame. He never courted glory. Instead, he found quiet fulfillment in the Department of Magical Creatures, working under Remus’s guidance. His hands, once clumsy, grew deft in binding wounds, mending wings, and coaxing frightened beasts into calm
He was not a hero sung in newspapers, but in every grateful glance of a healed creature, Peter found meaning. His friends saw it too, they saw his loyalty, his gentle persistence
Time, touched the Addams family, Gomez’s hair had slightly silvered but his laughter never dimmed, Morticia remained a study in grace, her presence commanding silence without words, They were proud not only of Severus, who had become more than they could have dreamed, but of the legacy continuing
Wednesday and Pugsley entered Hogwarts as storms contained in small bodies. Pugsley, to nearly everyone’s surprise, wore Ravenclaw blue, his sharp mind dissecting magic with glee. Wednesday took her place in Slytherin, eyes sharper than blades, already feared and respected in equal measure Together, they carried the Addams name like a herald of inevitability
At gatherings, the family sat together, firelight painting their faces, laughter mingling with past stories The wizarding world, once wary, had learned not to fear the Addamses but to respect them deeply, They were older than blood feuds, darker than dark lords, and yet kinder, in their own peculiar way, than most dared hope
Lily had long since left the magical world behind. Expelled, disgraced, and restlss, she had returned to the Muggle world, carving out a quiet life For her, magic had become something of the past, a door closed, never to reopen. Those who remembered her rarely spoke her name
And so it was that the boys who had once circled each other in hate, envy, longing, and love had grown into men. Their lives intersected still, dinners at the Addams estate, theatre nights at Luciel’s stage, chance meetings in Ministry corridors, but the battles of youth were gone
Severus would sit sometimes in his study, quill scratching, and pause at the window. Luciel’s laughter would drift in from another room, Sirius’s bark of a voice echoing, James boasting about Quidditch, Regulus murmuring sharp truths, Remus laying down reason, Peter chuckling quietly
The years had not erased scars, but they had shaped something better: a future none of them could have predicted, and one they could finally claim as their own.
The Addamses watched, content, as their peculiar flock thrived. For in the end, darkness and light had found balance, and the story that began in tangled corridors of rivalry ended in a strange, hard-won harmony
And for Severus, who once had nothing, there was everything: a family, a future, and, most rare of all, a lover he could trust and the peace he had wished for