Entry tags:
FIC: Fathers' Day, Part 2
Title: Fathers' Day, Part 2
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Snape/Lupin
Word count: 5145
Disclaimer: No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.
Warning: AU; introduced several OCs and made a major departure from canon by the end of the Book 5 timeline. (And Snape is a pureblood, since the series was started pre-Book 6.)
Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, Phoenix Rising, Aftermaths, The Revenant, Ash's Story, Summer Vacation III, and Scars. (These stories are archived on my website and also on Moonshadow.)
Summary: This was written for Family Fest on
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lupin_snape. Dylan and Theodore take Snape and Lupin to the zoo, but things do not go quite as planned...Author's notes: For those not familiar with the series, Snape and Lupin adopted two orphaned sons of Death Eaters after the war ended. Snape adopted Theodore Nott as his legal heir, and Dylan Rosier, son of Evan, is their foster son.
And much thanks to:
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red_day_dawning, bonfoi, jbfrancis2000, shipchan, and persevero for giving me some excellent plot bunnies to work with when I had writer's block!Part 1
***
Hermione had said that making breakfast for one's parents was a Father's (and Mother's) Day tradition, but the Snape house-elf, Vorcher, would have been hurt and offended if someone else had tried to take over his duties. So as part of their surprise, Dylan and Theodore had insisted that they stay over at Lupin's little cottage in the woods the night before. Lupin went along with it cheerfully, although Snape seemed rather suspicious.
The boys got up early the next morning to prepare a breakfast of eggs, toast, bacon, and sausages; both their fathers enjoyed a simple, hearty meal in the morning. There was fresh-churned butter purchased in the neighboring village for the toast, along with some cherry preserves from the Madley farm that had the perfect combination of sweetness and tartness; Snape was particularly fond of them. Laura Madley regularly sent the Professors small gifts of fruit, preserves and jams, or magical herbs from the farm in gratitude for their help in saving her brother Ash when he had been kidnapped by the Macnairs. They also brewed some tea for Lupin and some coffee for Snape, who was not much of a morning person. He didn't really have trouble getting up early when necessary, but he didn't particularly enjoy it, either, and caffeine helped to improve his mood slightly.
The Professors emerged from the bedroom when the aroma of coffee and frying bacon began to fill the cottage. They blinked sleepily and, in Lupin's case, sniffed the air appreciatively.
"Ah, how lovely; you've already fixed breakfast!" Lupin said, then grinned and winked at them. "By any chance, did someone move my birthday to June without informing me?"
"No, Remus," Theodore replied, grinning back at him. "But it is a special day."
Snape raised an eyebrow and asked, "Would the two of you care to enlighten us as to what in particular is special about today?"
"It's a surprise, sir," Dylan said, his eyes sparkling with glee and anticipation. "You'll just have to wait and see."
"Hmph!" Snape snorted, but good-naturedly, and they all sat down to breakfast. Theodore handed him a mug of coffee, and Snape sipped it, looking pleasantly surprised to find that it already contained the precise amounts of cream and sugar that he preferred. He relaxed further as he buttered a piece of toast and spread it with a liberal amount of cherry preserves. The boys grinned at each other, pleased that their plan was going so well.***
After breakfast was over and the dishes washed and dried, Lupin asked, "So now will you tell us where we're going?"
"No, it's a surprise, so Theo and l will Apparate the two of you there," Dylan replied.
"Just how far are we Apparating?" Snape asked, scowling suspiciously. "And have you practiced side-along Apparition before? I wouldn't care to be splinched."
"Dylan has had his Apparition license since last summer, and I've had mine for nearly two years," Theodore replied calmly. "We've practiced side-along Apparition with each other and our friends, and the location we're Apparating to is well within our capabilities."
"Don't you trust us, sir?" Dylan asked, a wounded look on his face; he imitated the "hurt puppy dog" look that Lupin always used quite well. Snape turned his scowl on his lover, who just chuckled. The werewolf was really a bad influence on the children sometimes.
"Of course we trust you two," Lupin said without hesitation. "Don't we, Severus?"
He did trust his sons, with his life, although he had an aversion to letting anyone else Apparate him, and he hated even more having to Apparate without knowing where he was going, since it reminded him of his Death Eater days when he would have to blindly Apparate when his Master called. The magic that linked the Dark Lord to his servants through their Dark Marks would always summon the Death Eaters to him, even when they did not know his exact location.
But the Dark Lord was dead, and his sons only wanted to please him and Remus. And since they had been trained by him, they were competent wizards--he'd certainly never allow Potter or Weasley to Apparate him anywhere! So he glared at Lupin one last time, then sighed, "I suppose so."
"And here, you'll need to wear these," Dylan said, handing both Lupin and Snape a small charm strung on a length of cord.
"What is it?" Lupin asked, slipping it over his head as the boys donned two more similar charms. "Or is that part of the surprise, too?"
Snape examined his charm more carefully; it was a wooden disc engraved with tiny runes, and it radiated an active sense of magical power. "It's enchanted with a preprogrammed spell. Some sort of illusion or glamor, I think?"
"Yes, Theodore carved the charms and Master Satoshi helped us to enchant them," Dylan replied.
"Nice work," Lupin told Theodore, who smiled proudly.
"And why do we need to be wearing an illusion?" Snape demanded.
"Well..." Dylan temporized, and the two boys gave him a sheepish, slightly guilty look.
"Out with it!" Snape snapped.
"Oh, don't ruin their surprise, Severus," Lupin chided.
"It's just that we'll be going into a Muggle area, and we would stand out too much wearing wizard robes," Theodore explained apologetically.
"And we knew that you would hate wearing Muggle clothes, so we spelled these charms to make us look as if we're wearing Muggle clothes," Dylan said brightly. "So you can walk around comfortably in your robes without anyone being the wiser."
"How clever of you!" Lupin praised him.
Dylan smiled modestly. "Well, I rather thought so, too."
"And why are we going to a Muggle area?" Snape asked, in the low, threatening tone he used on his students when his patience was running thin.
The boys went a little pale, then turned to Lupin with a pleading expression on their faces. "It's a surprise, but I promise that you'll like it!" Dylan argued desperately.
"At least, we think that you'll like," Theodore mumbled, sounding rather uncertain.
"Of course we'll like it," Lupin declared firmly, then gave Snape a look that said he had better like it if he knew what was good for him.
"Not an alpha wolf, my arse," Snape muttered under his breath, then gave in to the inevitable. Besides, it was hard to resist both of his sons giving him that bloody puppy dog look. He slipped the charm over his head with a sigh of resignation, then held out his arm. Theodore cautiously took it, as Dylan grasped Lupin's arm, and Snape's stomach lurched slightly as the floor beneath his feet seemed to vanish and a loud cracking noise filled the air...
They landed smoothly enough, without even a stumble (and no splinching, thank Merlin) in what appeared to be a Muggle parking lot filled with automobiles. They had landed in a distant corner, hidden behind a large van, so fortunately, no one seemed to take any notice of their sudden arrival.
"It's this way," Dylan said, leading them through the parking lot and to their intended destination, which turned out to be a zoo. Snape had heard of such things before, but had never seen one, since the Snapes did not deign to lower themselves with crude forms of Muggle entertainment...or at least, that was how Lady Selima would have phrased it. He began to suspect that his mother didn't know about the boys' plans, after all--or at least, not the full extent of them.
"The zoo--what a wonderful surprise!" Lupin exclaimed. "My parents brought me here once when I was a little boy, but that was years ago." He looked as excited and eager as any of the young children passing through the entrance gates, parents in tow. There seemed to be an ungodly number of them, laughing and chattering and whining; it was mostly the latter that set Snape's nerves on edge and caused him to grit his teeth.
"I wanna ice cream!" one particularly annoying little brat was whining in a shrill voice.
"I said later, Tommy," his harried-looking mother retorted. "And if you keep this up, not only will you not get any ice cream, we'll turn around and go straight home!"
"Perhaps we could feed him to the lions," Snape whispered to Lupin.
The boys snickered, and Lupin fixed them all with a stern look. "Remember the prohibitions against using magic in front of Muggles," he warned.
"All it would take is just one quick flick of my wand," Snape cajoled. "No one would notice."
"There will be no feeding of small children to the animals," Lupin said firmly.
"Pity," Theodore sighed.
"He would probably have given the lions indigestion, anyway," Dylan said with a shrug.
Lupin pretended to glare at them, but then ruined the effect by laughing when the boys just grinned at him. "All right, so what should we see first, then?"
Dylan had procured a guidebook and map of the zoo ahead of time--the boys appeared to have planned this outing in great detail, down to having changed some Galleons into Muggle money at Gringotts to pay for the admission fees. They looked over the map, but there were so many exhibits that they couldn't make up their minds what to see first. So they just continued walking down the path that they were on, wandering through the zoo at a leisurely place.
Lupin and the boys paused to laugh at the antics of the monkeys, but the animals reminded Snape too much of a bunch of unruly first-years for real enjoyment...although he had often wished he could lock some of his more troublesome students up in a cage. That thought did make him smile, and his smile grew a little wider when he took a closer look at his lover's and sons' faces. Lupin, as usual, was taking a childish Gryffindor delight in their excursion, and while the boys tried to maintain an air of proper Slytherin dignity, their eyes sparkled with as much pleasure as Lupin's.
Neither of them had had much of a childhood: Theodore had been raised by an abusive father, and Dylan had been sentenced along with his mother to an unofficial exile on a distant family estate in Wales, for crimes his father had committed before he was born. There would have been no trips to the zoo or any similar outings for either boy.
Theodore seemed to notice Snape's lack of enthusiasm, and asked anxiously, "Are you not enjoying yourself, Father? I suppose this must all seem rather silly and childish to you..."
"Actually, I am finding the experience surprisingly amusing," Snape reassured him. Theodore knew now that his adoptive family loved him and would never abandon him, but brief moments of insecurity would surface every now and then as an unbidden reflex. "I was just thinking that these animals remind me a great deal of my first-year Gryffindor class--except that the monkeys are a little more well-mannered."
Theodore laughed and relaxed, and Lupin chuckled good-naturedly; he never seemed to mind Snape's frequent slights against his House. "Speaking of Gryffindors, shall we go check out the lions now?" he suggested.
Fortunately--or perhaps unfortunately, depending on one's point of view--the whiny child from earlier was nowhere near the lion exhibit.
"They're very regal, aren't they?" Lupin said, admiring the lions as they lay sprawled out, basking in the sun like oversized house cats.
"King of the jungle--hah!" Snape snorted. "They're lazy creatures, or at least the males are." As if to prove his point, one of the male lions yawned, stretching his jaws open wide to expose his large fangs. "The females do all the hunting, but the males always eat first--they can chase off the lionesses and cubs with their superior size and strength. The females eat when he's done, and the cubs get whatever is left after that--if there is anything left, that is. When the hunting is bad, they go hungry."
"Well, it's a bit too late to change the Gryffindor House crest at this point in history, even if the symbol of our House isn't quite as noble as it looks," Lupin said philosophically, then grinned. "Since the three of you are Slytherins, should we go look at the snakes now?"
Dylan consulted the map, then said, "The reptile house is this way..."
The snakes and other reptiles were kept in a cool, dark building--because they were cold-blooded animals and their body temperature fluctuated with any changes in their environment, Snape informed them didactically. Too much heat or too much cold could kill them.
The reptiles were all housed behind glass windows that were lit, presumably to allow the visitors to view the animals more easily. Most of the snakes were as lethargic as the lions had been, lying quietly on the floor of their enclosures, or in a few cases, coiled around a tree branch. Snape frowned disapprovingly at a boy standing next to them who was tapping the window to get the snake's attention, despite the "Please do not touch the glass" signs clearly posted.
It seemed that his glare worked as well as on Muggle children as it did on young wizards and witches, because the boy turned pale and hastily backed away from the window. The boy's father looked offended and opened his mouth, but immediately shut it when Snape intensified his glare a few degrees and turned it on the father. The man grabbed his son by the hand, saying, "Let's go look at the monkeys instead of these nasty, slimy creatures," and the two of them hurried out of the reptile house.
"Snakes aren't slimy!" Theodore said indignantly, then muttered under his breath, "Ignorant Muggles."
"To be fair, most wizards don't like them, either, unless they're Slytherins," Dylan reminded him.
"It is a shame, but most people are too ignorant to appreciate the subtle elegance and grace of the serpent," Snape said disdainfully.
Lupin sidled up next to him and purred, "Well, I assure you that I very much appreciate the subtle elegance and grace of the serpent," although his gaze was focused on Snape rather than the python behind the window.
"Kindly restrain yourself in public," Snape scolded his lover, although secretly he was rather pleased.
Before Lupin could do anything to scandalize the Muggle families in the reptile house, Theodore exclaimed, "Father, look!"
The python behind the window had shifted its coils and raised its head, staring intently at them as it hissed, its forked tongue flicking in and out of its mouth.
"It's a pity Harry's not here," Lupin murmured. "He could tell us what it's saying."
"Maybe it wants to thank you for chasing away the brat that was tapping on the glass," Dylan said with a grin.
"Perhaps," Snape agreed. "Or maybe it's just thinking of what a lovely meal that boy would have made." Still, he bowed his head in acknowledgment to the snake, who hissed again and dipped its own head slightly before sinking back to the floor of its cage.
"Mummy," a little girl whispered in awe, tugging on her mother's skirts as she pointed at Snape. "The snake was talking to that man!"
"Nonsense," the mother replied, though a bit uncertainly. "Snakes don't talk to people. I'm sure that it was only a coincidence that it happened to look up just now."
"Perhaps we should move on to another exhibit," Dylan suggested hastily. "How about the wolves?"
However, on their way to the wolf exhibit, Lupin's eyes lit up when they happened to pass by a father and his young son and daughter, all three of them enjoying double-scoop ice cream cones. The children had melted ice cream running down their chins and dripping onto their clothes, but the father didn't seem overly concerned.
"Shall we stop to get a snack first?" Theodore asked with a grin.
So a few minutes later, they were all eating ice cream cones as they continued on their way to see the wolves. Snape frowned at his cone slightly; he enjoyed eating sweets, ice cream included, but licking at a cone of ice cream was just so...well...undignified, especially in public. And it was so messy, since it tended to melt and run down your hand if you didn't eat it fast enough. However, the boys had already ordered the cones before he had a chance to voice his preference for a bowl and spoon instead, and he hadn't wanted to hurt their feelings.
Ah well, it wasn't a huge sacrifice to make. The ice cream was rich and sweet, though not quite up to the quality of Fortescue's. But for Muggle food, it wasn't bad, he supposed.
Lupin obviously had no problem with eating ice cream cones in public...in fact, he was enjoying it a little too much. He grinned at Snape slyly through half-closed eyes and swirled his tongue around the top of his cone in a deliberately lascivious manner that caused the boys to blush and snicker nervously. Snape felt heat spreading through his own face--and through his groin, although Lupin ought to look more ridiculous than sensual, since his tongue was stained green from the mint-chocolate chip ice cream that he was licking so provocatively. Snape was very glad that he was wearing wizard robes, then remembered that the charm he was wearing made him appear to be wearing Muggle clothing. He only hoped that the illusion concealed any embarrassing physical reactions.
"Remus John Lupin!" Snape hissed, giving the werewolf a glare normally reserved for first-year students who melted their cauldrons. "Behave yourself!"
"Or what?" Lupin retorted with a lazy, insolent smile. "Will you punish me?"
"I think you might enjoy that too much," Snape replied sourly, firmly keeping the corners of his mouth turned down, although they kept wanting to quirk up in amusement. "No, if you cannot behave yourself, I will simply take you home and that will be the end of our little outing at the zoo." He glanced at Theodore and Dylan, who were beginning to look anxious, and added, "And you will have ruined the boys' special plans for us today."
Lupin immediately looked contrite and said meekly, "Sorry, I'll try to behave myself for the rest of the day."
"See that you do," Snape said sternly, but inwardly he was smirking. Lupin had manipulated him with guilt often enough; for all his Gryffindor brashness, he had a streak of sly subtlety that was worthy of a Slytherin. No one did passive-aggressive as well as Remus Lupin, and Snape found that it was very satisfying to turn the tables on the werewolf for a change.
They managed to reach the wolf exhibit without further incident, and soon Lupin and the boys were laughing as they watched two wolf cubs playfully frolic and wrestle with each other as the adult wolves watched indulgently. Then one of the cubs turned in Lupin's direction and looked at him curiously. It ran up to the edge of the enclosure and barked excitedly at him.
"I think he knows you're a wolf, Remus," Theodore murmured.
Unfortunately, the cub wasn't the only one who sensed Lupin's true nature. A large gray male, clearly the alpha of the pack, slowly stalked forward, growling and baring its teeth at Lupin.
"He seems to think of me as a strange wolf intruding on his territory," Lupin whispered to the boys.
Snape was about to suggest that they move on before they attracted too much attention, but Lupin had something else in mind. Normally a wolf would acknowledge a stronger wolf's superiority by rolling over and exposing its throat, but that was impractical in their current situation. So Lupin knelt down on the ground, bringing himself down more or less to the wolf's level, then bowed his head and cast his eyes downward submissively.
The wolf growled softly, staring at Lupin uncertainly for a moment before it relaxed, apparently deciding that Lupin wasn't a threat. It turned away, herding the cub back towards the rest of the pack with a nudge of its nose. The cub went along obediently, casting one last curious glance back at Lupin.
"Um...Remus, people are staring at us," Theodore said nervously.
A crowd of Muggles were staring at them wide-eyed, and Lupin calmly rose to his feet, saying with a smile, "I have a way with animals."
"Yes, he has a great deal of experience with canines," Snape snarled, grabbing Lupin by the arm and hustling him off before anyone could shake off their shock long enough to question them. "Honestly, Lupin, are you trying to get us in trouble with the Ministry? Dawlish is still holding a grudge over being proven wrong yet again, and he would jump at the opportunity to get us in trouble."
"That isn't the Aurors' department, and besides, I haven't used any magic," Lupin said mildly.
"Yes, but you're drawing suspicion onto yourself," Snape argued. "Wolves don't normally communicate with Muggles!"
"Neither do snakes," Lupin pointed out with a grin. "So we're both equally guilty."
Snape spluttered, trying to come up with a good retort, and Dylan hastily suggested, "Ah, shall we go to the aviary next?"
But Lupin was already distracted. "Oh look, someone is selling balloon animals! Shall we get one? I wonder if he can make a wolf?"
A nearby vendor was blowing up long, thin balloons and twisting them into the shapes of animals. He was currently making a long-necked giraffe with a yellow balloon, and his customer was none other than the whiny child that Snape had threatened to feed to the lions earlier. The boy seemed to be in a better mood now, having obtained the ice cream that he had been begging his mother for. He held a melting cone in one sticky hand and reached for the balloon with the other.
While the boy's parents were paying the vendor, the boy ran ahead, shouting, "I want to see the real giraffes now!"
"Wait for us, son!" the father called after him, while the mother shouted irritably, "Tommy, don't run; you..." The boy ran straight into Snape, and the mother finished with a sigh, "...might bump into someone."
"My ice cream!" the boy...Tommy...wailed, staring in dismay at his empty cone; the ice cream itself was now smeared all over the front of Snape's robes. Snape just stared down at the boy coldly.
"I told you not to run," the mother scolded wearily. "Now apologize to the gentleman."
"Sorry," Tommy said sullenly, still more concerned with the loss of his ice cream than with Snape.
"That wasn't much of an apology," Snape told the boy disapprovingly.
"Now, now," the father said placatingly, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. "I'll pay for the cleaning bill for your clothes."
"That's not really necessary--" Lupin started to say, but Snape interrupted in a sharp, cold voice.
"I don't want your money. I want a proper apology."
"Come now, Tommy said he was sorry," the father said, frowning.
"He didn't sound very sorry."
While the mother was annoyed with her son, she was obviously beginning to get annoyed with Snape as well. "He's just a little boy!" she said in an exasperated voice. "You don't have to be so harsh on him; he doesn't know any better."
"That is true," Snape said smoothly. "Children cannot be expected to know how to behave if their parents do not teach them any manners."
Dylan winced, and Theodore was beginning to look a little frantic, as if he were afraid that Snape was going to whip out his wand and start hexing the family any second now. It was a tempting thought, but not worth the trouble he would get into if the Ministry got wind of it.
"How dare you!" the mother cried, and the father said, "Now that's going a little too far!" And the boy stuck out his tongue at Snape.
On the other hand, maybe it would be worth it, after all...
Now it was Lupin's turn to grab him by the arm and drag him away, saying, "Come along now, Severus, let's get you cleaned up. And we wouldn't want to ruin the boys' outing, now would we?"
Snape reluctantly let himself be pulled away, while the other family headed off in the opposite direction. Tommy turned back to stick out his tongue at Snape again. Snape glared at the boy and slipped his wand out of his pocket for just a second; a quick flick, and the giraffe balloon popped, exploding into dozens of little pieces of yellow rubber.
"Mummy!" Tommy wailed. "The bad man broke my balloon!"
Snape had already pocketed the wand before the parents had time to turn around. He contrived to appear as innocent as a Slytherin could possibly look, which was not very. The parents stared at him suspiciously for a moment, then the father said briskly, "Nonsense! He was nowhere near you or the balloon! Come along now, I've had enough of your whining."
"But Daddy..." the boy wailed, his voice fading off into the distance as the family walked away.
"What happened to not using magic in front of Muggles?" Lupin scolded.
"No one saw anything," Snape said defensively. "And if no one saw it, then it never happened." That was the motto of the late Professor De Lacy, who had been Head of Slytherin during Snape's student years at Hogwarts.
"Just because no one saw it, doesn't mean it didn't happen," Lupin argued. "Yes, the boy was behaving like a brat, but there was no need for you to sink to his level. Honestly, Severus, can't you act a little more mature than a five-year-old child?"
Dylan and Theodore exchanged anxious looks, and before Snape could argue further, Dylan said soothingly, "There's a restroom up ahead, Professor. You can clean up over there."
Fortunately, the restroom was empty, so Snape was able to use a quick spell to clean his robes. "Did you still want to see the aviary?" Lupin asked the boys, sounding a little subdued, and Snape began to feel a little guilty about spoiling the boys' outing. But he wondered what on earth had made them decide to go to the zoo today. He appreciated that they seemed to be trying to do something special for himself and Lupin, but he had never given them any reason to think that he would be interested in Muggle pastimes. Despite his past association with the Death Eaters, he didn't hate Muggles, but he didn't have any special fondness for them, either.
"Actually, I think we should be moving on," Dylan said with a falsely bright smile. "We have other things planned, and if we spend too much time here, we'll fall behind schedule."
"Oh?" Lupin said, looking intrigued, his good cheer beginning to return. "What else do you have planned?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise," Dylan laughed, then reached into his pockets and handed Lupin a handful of paper bills--Muggle money. "There's a gift shop at the end of this path. Why don't you and the Professor buy some souvenirs while I, ah, go over our schedule with Theo?" He smiled sweetly. "And Professor, please try not to hex anyone in the meantime."
"I'll do my best to restrain myself," Snape said dryly, and headed down the path with Lupin.***
"Now what?" Theodore demanded plaintively. "We were supposed to go boating and have a picnic at the park next, but it will probably be crowded with families, and I don't think it's safe to have Father near any more Muggle children."
"You're probably right," Dylan sighed. "I guess we'll have to change our plans."
Theodore gave him an accusing look. "You said nothing would go wrong. You said you planned everything perfectly."
"Well, I did!" Dylan said defensively. "My calculations didn't include some snot-nosed brat running into the Professor with an ice cream cone!" Then he sighed again and admitted, "I guess it wasn't really a good idea to take the Professor to a place with so many children running around. But he's never hexed any of his students before, not even Potter or Longbottom, so I thought the Muggle children would be safe from him."
"He can sentence his students to detention," Theodore pointed out. "He can't make some stranger's child at the zoo gut horny toads or pickle rat brains."
"True," Dylan sighed, then the expression on his face suddenly brightened. "Ah, I have an idea! We can still go boating and have a picnic--we'll just do it at the lake by the school instead! Let me Apparate ahead and ask Hagrid if we can borrow a boat."
"Do you think he'll say 'yes'?" Theodore asked doubtfully. "He doesn't like us Slytherins."
"Everyone likes me," Dylan said, with his most charming smile, and Theodore rolled his eyes. "And actually, he's been getting along well with Crabbe and Goyle ever since they got interested in the Thestrals. Besides, Hagrid likes Remus, so he'll help me for his sake, if nothing else." He smiled confidently. "Don't worry, Theo; everything will work out. Go on to the gift shop and make sure the Professor doesn't hex anyone, and I'll meet you there in a few minutes."
"I just hope you know what you're doing," Theodore muttered under his breath as his brother Disapparated.
Fortunately, Snape didn't hex anyone, and Lupin seemed to be enjoying himself in the gift shop. Everyone was in a much better mood when Dylan returned.
"Look, I bought some stuffed animals," Lupin said, showing off his purchases. "The lion is for Cedric Drake, and I got this tiger for Regulus."
"Then who are these two for?" Dylan asked, examining a plush, cuddly wolf cub and snake, the latter smiling cheerily with a forked tongue made of red felt hanging out of its mouth.
"Oh, those are for me and Severus, of course," Lupin said with a grin.
Snape sniffed disdainfully. "I told you that I don't need that thing, Lupin. It is an abominable parody of a true serpent, and a disgrace to Slytherin House."
"You'll hurt his feelings, Severus," Lupin chided.
"A plush toy does not have feelings, Lupin," Snape retorted.
"Ah, we should be going now," Dylan interrupted.
"And where are we going?" Lupin asked with a smile.
"Theodore and I will Apparate you," Dylan replied. "But don't worry, you'll recognize it when we get there."
Part 3
The boys got up early the next morning to prepare a breakfast of eggs, toast, bacon, and sausages; both their fathers enjoyed a simple, hearty meal in the morning. There was fresh-churned butter purchased in the neighboring village for the toast, along with some cherry preserves from the Madley farm that had the perfect combination of sweetness and tartness; Snape was particularly fond of them. Laura Madley regularly sent the Professors small gifts of fruit, preserves and jams, or magical herbs from the farm in gratitude for their help in saving her brother Ash when he had been kidnapped by the Macnairs. They also brewed some tea for Lupin and some coffee for Snape, who was not much of a morning person. He didn't really have trouble getting up early when necessary, but he didn't particularly enjoy it, either, and caffeine helped to improve his mood slightly.
The Professors emerged from the bedroom when the aroma of coffee and frying bacon began to fill the cottage. They blinked sleepily and, in Lupin's case, sniffed the air appreciatively.
"Ah, how lovely; you've already fixed breakfast!" Lupin said, then grinned and winked at them. "By any chance, did someone move my birthday to June without informing me?"
"No, Remus," Theodore replied, grinning back at him. "But it is a special day."
Snape raised an eyebrow and asked, "Would the two of you care to enlighten us as to what in particular is special about today?"
"It's a surprise, sir," Dylan said, his eyes sparkling with glee and anticipation. "You'll just have to wait and see."
"Hmph!" Snape snorted, but good-naturedly, and they all sat down to breakfast. Theodore handed him a mug of coffee, and Snape sipped it, looking pleasantly surprised to find that it already contained the precise amounts of cream and sugar that he preferred. He relaxed further as he buttered a piece of toast and spread it with a liberal amount of cherry preserves. The boys grinned at each other, pleased that their plan was going so well.***
After breakfast was over and the dishes washed and dried, Lupin asked, "So now will you tell us where we're going?"
"No, it's a surprise, so Theo and l will Apparate the two of you there," Dylan replied.
"Just how far are we Apparating?" Snape asked, scowling suspiciously. "And have you practiced side-along Apparition before? I wouldn't care to be splinched."
"Dylan has had his Apparition license since last summer, and I've had mine for nearly two years," Theodore replied calmly. "We've practiced side-along Apparition with each other and our friends, and the location we're Apparating to is well within our capabilities."
"Don't you trust us, sir?" Dylan asked, a wounded look on his face; he imitated the "hurt puppy dog" look that Lupin always used quite well. Snape turned his scowl on his lover, who just chuckled. The werewolf was really a bad influence on the children sometimes.
"Of course we trust you two," Lupin said without hesitation. "Don't we, Severus?"
He did trust his sons, with his life, although he had an aversion to letting anyone else Apparate him, and he hated even more having to Apparate without knowing where he was going, since it reminded him of his Death Eater days when he would have to blindly Apparate when his Master called. The magic that linked the Dark Lord to his servants through their Dark Marks would always summon the Death Eaters to him, even when they did not know his exact location.
But the Dark Lord was dead, and his sons only wanted to please him and Remus. And since they had been trained by him, they were competent wizards--he'd certainly never allow Potter or Weasley to Apparate him anywhere! So he glared at Lupin one last time, then sighed, "I suppose so."
"And here, you'll need to wear these," Dylan said, handing both Lupin and Snape a small charm strung on a length of cord.
"What is it?" Lupin asked, slipping it over his head as the boys donned two more similar charms. "Or is that part of the surprise, too?"
Snape examined his charm more carefully; it was a wooden disc engraved with tiny runes, and it radiated an active sense of magical power. "It's enchanted with a preprogrammed spell. Some sort of illusion or glamor, I think?"
"Yes, Theodore carved the charms and Master Satoshi helped us to enchant them," Dylan replied.
"Nice work," Lupin told Theodore, who smiled proudly.
"And why do we need to be wearing an illusion?" Snape demanded.
"Well..." Dylan temporized, and the two boys gave him a sheepish, slightly guilty look.
"Out with it!" Snape snapped.
"Oh, don't ruin their surprise, Severus," Lupin chided.
"It's just that we'll be going into a Muggle area, and we would stand out too much wearing wizard robes," Theodore explained apologetically.
"And we knew that you would hate wearing Muggle clothes, so we spelled these charms to make us look as if we're wearing Muggle clothes," Dylan said brightly. "So you can walk around comfortably in your robes without anyone being the wiser."
"How clever of you!" Lupin praised him.
Dylan smiled modestly. "Well, I rather thought so, too."
"And why are we going to a Muggle area?" Snape asked, in the low, threatening tone he used on his students when his patience was running thin.
The boys went a little pale, then turned to Lupin with a pleading expression on their faces. "It's a surprise, but I promise that you'll like it!" Dylan argued desperately.
"At least, we think that you'll like," Theodore mumbled, sounding rather uncertain.
"Of course we'll like it," Lupin declared firmly, then gave Snape a look that said he had better like it if he knew what was good for him.
"Not an alpha wolf, my arse," Snape muttered under his breath, then gave in to the inevitable. Besides, it was hard to resist both of his sons giving him that bloody puppy dog look. He slipped the charm over his head with a sigh of resignation, then held out his arm. Theodore cautiously took it, as Dylan grasped Lupin's arm, and Snape's stomach lurched slightly as the floor beneath his feet seemed to vanish and a loud cracking noise filled the air...
They landed smoothly enough, without even a stumble (and no splinching, thank Merlin) in what appeared to be a Muggle parking lot filled with automobiles. They had landed in a distant corner, hidden behind a large van, so fortunately, no one seemed to take any notice of their sudden arrival.
"It's this way," Dylan said, leading them through the parking lot and to their intended destination, which turned out to be a zoo. Snape had heard of such things before, but had never seen one, since the Snapes did not deign to lower themselves with crude forms of Muggle entertainment...or at least, that was how Lady Selima would have phrased it. He began to suspect that his mother didn't know about the boys' plans, after all--or at least, not the full extent of them.
"The zoo--what a wonderful surprise!" Lupin exclaimed. "My parents brought me here once when I was a little boy, but that was years ago." He looked as excited and eager as any of the young children passing through the entrance gates, parents in tow. There seemed to be an ungodly number of them, laughing and chattering and whining; it was mostly the latter that set Snape's nerves on edge and caused him to grit his teeth.
"I wanna ice cream!" one particularly annoying little brat was whining in a shrill voice.
"I said later, Tommy," his harried-looking mother retorted. "And if you keep this up, not only will you not get any ice cream, we'll turn around and go straight home!"
"Perhaps we could feed him to the lions," Snape whispered to Lupin.
The boys snickered, and Lupin fixed them all with a stern look. "Remember the prohibitions against using magic in front of Muggles," he warned.
"All it would take is just one quick flick of my wand," Snape cajoled. "No one would notice."
"There will be no feeding of small children to the animals," Lupin said firmly.
"Pity," Theodore sighed.
"He would probably have given the lions indigestion, anyway," Dylan said with a shrug.
Lupin pretended to glare at them, but then ruined the effect by laughing when the boys just grinned at him. "All right, so what should we see first, then?"
Dylan had procured a guidebook and map of the zoo ahead of time--the boys appeared to have planned this outing in great detail, down to having changed some Galleons into Muggle money at Gringotts to pay for the admission fees. They looked over the map, but there were so many exhibits that they couldn't make up their minds what to see first. So they just continued walking down the path that they were on, wandering through the zoo at a leisurely place.
Lupin and the boys paused to laugh at the antics of the monkeys, but the animals reminded Snape too much of a bunch of unruly first-years for real enjoyment...although he had often wished he could lock some of his more troublesome students up in a cage. That thought did make him smile, and his smile grew a little wider when he took a closer look at his lover's and sons' faces. Lupin, as usual, was taking a childish Gryffindor delight in their excursion, and while the boys tried to maintain an air of proper Slytherin dignity, their eyes sparkled with as much pleasure as Lupin's.
Neither of them had had much of a childhood: Theodore had been raised by an abusive father, and Dylan had been sentenced along with his mother to an unofficial exile on a distant family estate in Wales, for crimes his father had committed before he was born. There would have been no trips to the zoo or any similar outings for either boy.
Theodore seemed to notice Snape's lack of enthusiasm, and asked anxiously, "Are you not enjoying yourself, Father? I suppose this must all seem rather silly and childish to you..."
"Actually, I am finding the experience surprisingly amusing," Snape reassured him. Theodore knew now that his adoptive family loved him and would never abandon him, but brief moments of insecurity would surface every now and then as an unbidden reflex. "I was just thinking that these animals remind me a great deal of my first-year Gryffindor class--except that the monkeys are a little more well-mannered."
Theodore laughed and relaxed, and Lupin chuckled good-naturedly; he never seemed to mind Snape's frequent slights against his House. "Speaking of Gryffindors, shall we go check out the lions now?" he suggested.
Fortunately--or perhaps unfortunately, depending on one's point of view--the whiny child from earlier was nowhere near the lion exhibit.
"They're very regal, aren't they?" Lupin said, admiring the lions as they lay sprawled out, basking in the sun like oversized house cats.
"King of the jungle--hah!" Snape snorted. "They're lazy creatures, or at least the males are." As if to prove his point, one of the male lions yawned, stretching his jaws open wide to expose his large fangs. "The females do all the hunting, but the males always eat first--they can chase off the lionesses and cubs with their superior size and strength. The females eat when he's done, and the cubs get whatever is left after that--if there is anything left, that is. When the hunting is bad, they go hungry."
"Well, it's a bit too late to change the Gryffindor House crest at this point in history, even if the symbol of our House isn't quite as noble as it looks," Lupin said philosophically, then grinned. "Since the three of you are Slytherins, should we go look at the snakes now?"
Dylan consulted the map, then said, "The reptile house is this way..."
The snakes and other reptiles were kept in a cool, dark building--because they were cold-blooded animals and their body temperature fluctuated with any changes in their environment, Snape informed them didactically. Too much heat or too much cold could kill them.
The reptiles were all housed behind glass windows that were lit, presumably to allow the visitors to view the animals more easily. Most of the snakes were as lethargic as the lions had been, lying quietly on the floor of their enclosures, or in a few cases, coiled around a tree branch. Snape frowned disapprovingly at a boy standing next to them who was tapping the window to get the snake's attention, despite the "Please do not touch the glass" signs clearly posted.
It seemed that his glare worked as well as on Muggle children as it did on young wizards and witches, because the boy turned pale and hastily backed away from the window. The boy's father looked offended and opened his mouth, but immediately shut it when Snape intensified his glare a few degrees and turned it on the father. The man grabbed his son by the hand, saying, "Let's go look at the monkeys instead of these nasty, slimy creatures," and the two of them hurried out of the reptile house.
"Snakes aren't slimy!" Theodore said indignantly, then muttered under his breath, "Ignorant Muggles."
"To be fair, most wizards don't like them, either, unless they're Slytherins," Dylan reminded him.
"It is a shame, but most people are too ignorant to appreciate the subtle elegance and grace of the serpent," Snape said disdainfully.
Lupin sidled up next to him and purred, "Well, I assure you that I very much appreciate the subtle elegance and grace of the serpent," although his gaze was focused on Snape rather than the python behind the window.
"Kindly restrain yourself in public," Snape scolded his lover, although secretly he was rather pleased.
Before Lupin could do anything to scandalize the Muggle families in the reptile house, Theodore exclaimed, "Father, look!"
The python behind the window had shifted its coils and raised its head, staring intently at them as it hissed, its forked tongue flicking in and out of its mouth.
"It's a pity Harry's not here," Lupin murmured. "He could tell us what it's saying."
"Maybe it wants to thank you for chasing away the brat that was tapping on the glass," Dylan said with a grin.
"Perhaps," Snape agreed. "Or maybe it's just thinking of what a lovely meal that boy would have made." Still, he bowed his head in acknowledgment to the snake, who hissed again and dipped its own head slightly before sinking back to the floor of its cage.
"Mummy," a little girl whispered in awe, tugging on her mother's skirts as she pointed at Snape. "The snake was talking to that man!"
"Nonsense," the mother replied, though a bit uncertainly. "Snakes don't talk to people. I'm sure that it was only a coincidence that it happened to look up just now."
"Perhaps we should move on to another exhibit," Dylan suggested hastily. "How about the wolves?"
However, on their way to the wolf exhibit, Lupin's eyes lit up when they happened to pass by a father and his young son and daughter, all three of them enjoying double-scoop ice cream cones. The children had melted ice cream running down their chins and dripping onto their clothes, but the father didn't seem overly concerned.
"Shall we stop to get a snack first?" Theodore asked with a grin.
So a few minutes later, they were all eating ice cream cones as they continued on their way to see the wolves. Snape frowned at his cone slightly; he enjoyed eating sweets, ice cream included, but licking at a cone of ice cream was just so...well...undignified, especially in public. And it was so messy, since it tended to melt and run down your hand if you didn't eat it fast enough. However, the boys had already ordered the cones before he had a chance to voice his preference for a bowl and spoon instead, and he hadn't wanted to hurt their feelings.
Ah well, it wasn't a huge sacrifice to make. The ice cream was rich and sweet, though not quite up to the quality of Fortescue's. But for Muggle food, it wasn't bad, he supposed.
Lupin obviously had no problem with eating ice cream cones in public...in fact, he was enjoying it a little too much. He grinned at Snape slyly through half-closed eyes and swirled his tongue around the top of his cone in a deliberately lascivious manner that caused the boys to blush and snicker nervously. Snape felt heat spreading through his own face--and through his groin, although Lupin ought to look more ridiculous than sensual, since his tongue was stained green from the mint-chocolate chip ice cream that he was licking so provocatively. Snape was very glad that he was wearing wizard robes, then remembered that the charm he was wearing made him appear to be wearing Muggle clothing. He only hoped that the illusion concealed any embarrassing physical reactions.
"Remus John Lupin!" Snape hissed, giving the werewolf a glare normally reserved for first-year students who melted their cauldrons. "Behave yourself!"
"Or what?" Lupin retorted with a lazy, insolent smile. "Will you punish me?"
"I think you might enjoy that too much," Snape replied sourly, firmly keeping the corners of his mouth turned down, although they kept wanting to quirk up in amusement. "No, if you cannot behave yourself, I will simply take you home and that will be the end of our little outing at the zoo." He glanced at Theodore and Dylan, who were beginning to look anxious, and added, "And you will have ruined the boys' special plans for us today."
Lupin immediately looked contrite and said meekly, "Sorry, I'll try to behave myself for the rest of the day."
"See that you do," Snape said sternly, but inwardly he was smirking. Lupin had manipulated him with guilt often enough; for all his Gryffindor brashness, he had a streak of sly subtlety that was worthy of a Slytherin. No one did passive-aggressive as well as Remus Lupin, and Snape found that it was very satisfying to turn the tables on the werewolf for a change.
They managed to reach the wolf exhibit without further incident, and soon Lupin and the boys were laughing as they watched two wolf cubs playfully frolic and wrestle with each other as the adult wolves watched indulgently. Then one of the cubs turned in Lupin's direction and looked at him curiously. It ran up to the edge of the enclosure and barked excitedly at him.
"I think he knows you're a wolf, Remus," Theodore murmured.
Unfortunately, the cub wasn't the only one who sensed Lupin's true nature. A large gray male, clearly the alpha of the pack, slowly stalked forward, growling and baring its teeth at Lupin.
"He seems to think of me as a strange wolf intruding on his territory," Lupin whispered to the boys.
Snape was about to suggest that they move on before they attracted too much attention, but Lupin had something else in mind. Normally a wolf would acknowledge a stronger wolf's superiority by rolling over and exposing its throat, but that was impractical in their current situation. So Lupin knelt down on the ground, bringing himself down more or less to the wolf's level, then bowed his head and cast his eyes downward submissively.
The wolf growled softly, staring at Lupin uncertainly for a moment before it relaxed, apparently deciding that Lupin wasn't a threat. It turned away, herding the cub back towards the rest of the pack with a nudge of its nose. The cub went along obediently, casting one last curious glance back at Lupin.
"Um...Remus, people are staring at us," Theodore said nervously.
A crowd of Muggles were staring at them wide-eyed, and Lupin calmly rose to his feet, saying with a smile, "I have a way with animals."
"Yes, he has a great deal of experience with canines," Snape snarled, grabbing Lupin by the arm and hustling him off before anyone could shake off their shock long enough to question them. "Honestly, Lupin, are you trying to get us in trouble with the Ministry? Dawlish is still holding a grudge over being proven wrong yet again, and he would jump at the opportunity to get us in trouble."
"That isn't the Aurors' department, and besides, I haven't used any magic," Lupin said mildly.
"Yes, but you're drawing suspicion onto yourself," Snape argued. "Wolves don't normally communicate with Muggles!"
"Neither do snakes," Lupin pointed out with a grin. "So we're both equally guilty."
Snape spluttered, trying to come up with a good retort, and Dylan hastily suggested, "Ah, shall we go to the aviary next?"
But Lupin was already distracted. "Oh look, someone is selling balloon animals! Shall we get one? I wonder if he can make a wolf?"
A nearby vendor was blowing up long, thin balloons and twisting them into the shapes of animals. He was currently making a long-necked giraffe with a yellow balloon, and his customer was none other than the whiny child that Snape had threatened to feed to the lions earlier. The boy seemed to be in a better mood now, having obtained the ice cream that he had been begging his mother for. He held a melting cone in one sticky hand and reached for the balloon with the other.
While the boy's parents were paying the vendor, the boy ran ahead, shouting, "I want to see the real giraffes now!"
"Wait for us, son!" the father called after him, while the mother shouted irritably, "Tommy, don't run; you..." The boy ran straight into Snape, and the mother finished with a sigh, "...might bump into someone."
"My ice cream!" the boy...Tommy...wailed, staring in dismay at his empty cone; the ice cream itself was now smeared all over the front of Snape's robes. Snape just stared down at the boy coldly.
"I told you not to run," the mother scolded wearily. "Now apologize to the gentleman."
"Sorry," Tommy said sullenly, still more concerned with the loss of his ice cream than with Snape.
"That wasn't much of an apology," Snape told the boy disapprovingly.
"Now, now," the father said placatingly, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. "I'll pay for the cleaning bill for your clothes."
"That's not really necessary--" Lupin started to say, but Snape interrupted in a sharp, cold voice.
"I don't want your money. I want a proper apology."
"Come now, Tommy said he was sorry," the father said, frowning.
"He didn't sound very sorry."
While the mother was annoyed with her son, she was obviously beginning to get annoyed with Snape as well. "He's just a little boy!" she said in an exasperated voice. "You don't have to be so harsh on him; he doesn't know any better."
"That is true," Snape said smoothly. "Children cannot be expected to know how to behave if their parents do not teach them any manners."
Dylan winced, and Theodore was beginning to look a little frantic, as if he were afraid that Snape was going to whip out his wand and start hexing the family any second now. It was a tempting thought, but not worth the trouble he would get into if the Ministry got wind of it.
"How dare you!" the mother cried, and the father said, "Now that's going a little too far!" And the boy stuck out his tongue at Snape.
On the other hand, maybe it would be worth it, after all...
Now it was Lupin's turn to grab him by the arm and drag him away, saying, "Come along now, Severus, let's get you cleaned up. And we wouldn't want to ruin the boys' outing, now would we?"
Snape reluctantly let himself be pulled away, while the other family headed off in the opposite direction. Tommy turned back to stick out his tongue at Snape again. Snape glared at the boy and slipped his wand out of his pocket for just a second; a quick flick, and the giraffe balloon popped, exploding into dozens of little pieces of yellow rubber.
"Mummy!" Tommy wailed. "The bad man broke my balloon!"
Snape had already pocketed the wand before the parents had time to turn around. He contrived to appear as innocent as a Slytherin could possibly look, which was not very. The parents stared at him suspiciously for a moment, then the father said briskly, "Nonsense! He was nowhere near you or the balloon! Come along now, I've had enough of your whining."
"But Daddy..." the boy wailed, his voice fading off into the distance as the family walked away.
"What happened to not using magic in front of Muggles?" Lupin scolded.
"No one saw anything," Snape said defensively. "And if no one saw it, then it never happened." That was the motto of the late Professor De Lacy, who had been Head of Slytherin during Snape's student years at Hogwarts.
"Just because no one saw it, doesn't mean it didn't happen," Lupin argued. "Yes, the boy was behaving like a brat, but there was no need for you to sink to his level. Honestly, Severus, can't you act a little more mature than a five-year-old child?"
Dylan and Theodore exchanged anxious looks, and before Snape could argue further, Dylan said soothingly, "There's a restroom up ahead, Professor. You can clean up over there."
Fortunately, the restroom was empty, so Snape was able to use a quick spell to clean his robes. "Did you still want to see the aviary?" Lupin asked the boys, sounding a little subdued, and Snape began to feel a little guilty about spoiling the boys' outing. But he wondered what on earth had made them decide to go to the zoo today. He appreciated that they seemed to be trying to do something special for himself and Lupin, but he had never given them any reason to think that he would be interested in Muggle pastimes. Despite his past association with the Death Eaters, he didn't hate Muggles, but he didn't have any special fondness for them, either.
"Actually, I think we should be moving on," Dylan said with a falsely bright smile. "We have other things planned, and if we spend too much time here, we'll fall behind schedule."
"Oh?" Lupin said, looking intrigued, his good cheer beginning to return. "What else do you have planned?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise," Dylan laughed, then reached into his pockets and handed Lupin a handful of paper bills--Muggle money. "There's a gift shop at the end of this path. Why don't you and the Professor buy some souvenirs while I, ah, go over our schedule with Theo?" He smiled sweetly. "And Professor, please try not to hex anyone in the meantime."
"I'll do my best to restrain myself," Snape said dryly, and headed down the path with Lupin.
"Now what?" Theodore demanded plaintively. "We were supposed to go boating and have a picnic at the park next, but it will probably be crowded with families, and I don't think it's safe to have Father near any more Muggle children."
"You're probably right," Dylan sighed. "I guess we'll have to change our plans."
Theodore gave him an accusing look. "You said nothing would go wrong. You said you planned everything perfectly."
"Well, I did!" Dylan said defensively. "My calculations didn't include some snot-nosed brat running into the Professor with an ice cream cone!" Then he sighed again and admitted, "I guess it wasn't really a good idea to take the Professor to a place with so many children running around. But he's never hexed any of his students before, not even Potter or Longbottom, so I thought the Muggle children would be safe from him."
"He can sentence his students to detention," Theodore pointed out. "He can't make some stranger's child at the zoo gut horny toads or pickle rat brains."
"True," Dylan sighed, then the expression on his face suddenly brightened. "Ah, I have an idea! We can still go boating and have a picnic--we'll just do it at the lake by the school instead! Let me Apparate ahead and ask Hagrid if we can borrow a boat."
"Do you think he'll say 'yes'?" Theodore asked doubtfully. "He doesn't like us Slytherins."
"Everyone likes me," Dylan said, with his most charming smile, and Theodore rolled his eyes. "And actually, he's been getting along well with Crabbe and Goyle ever since they got interested in the Thestrals. Besides, Hagrid likes Remus, so he'll help me for his sake, if nothing else." He smiled confidently. "Don't worry, Theo; everything will work out. Go on to the gift shop and make sure the Professor doesn't hex anyone, and I'll meet you there in a few minutes."
"I just hope you know what you're doing," Theodore muttered under his breath as his brother Disapparated.
Fortunately, Snape didn't hex anyone, and Lupin seemed to be enjoying himself in the gift shop. Everyone was in a much better mood when Dylan returned.
"Look, I bought some stuffed animals," Lupin said, showing off his purchases. "The lion is for Cedric Drake, and I got this tiger for Regulus."
"Then who are these two for?" Dylan asked, examining a plush, cuddly wolf cub and snake, the latter smiling cheerily with a forked tongue made of red felt hanging out of its mouth.
"Oh, those are for me and Severus, of course," Lupin said with a grin.
Snape sniffed disdainfully. "I told you that I don't need that thing, Lupin. It is an abominable parody of a true serpent, and a disgrace to Slytherin House."
"You'll hurt his feelings, Severus," Lupin chided.
"A plush toy does not have feelings, Lupin," Snape retorted.
"Ah, we should be going now," Dylan interrupted.
"And where are we going?" Lupin asked with a smile.
"Theodore and I will Apparate you," Dylan replied. "But don't worry, you'll recognize it when we get there."
Part 3
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I know I was a bit disillusioned when I found out what the "king of the jungle" was really like when I was a kid. ;) And I was always a bit squeamish about snakes, but I'm trying to appreciate them now from a more Slytherin mindset.
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But now I´am up to date *gg*
Lovely fic... You make me smile and laugh!
Is there an update sooooon, please?
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Does the giant squid try and get them next?
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