Elias sat at the Slytherin table slowly munching on a piece of dry toast and sipping a small glass of juice while nursing a headache. The weather was changing bringing the gloomy fall weather Scotland was known for and with it changes in pressure which were downright awful. He had never had issues with headaches before, just occasional twinges in his scar caused by being around Vol- the Dark Lord. Now, however, he felt as though he should go into weather forecasting. And the knowledge of being under a prophecy and trying to understand what all that meant was not helping.

He had tried to beat the majority of the students to the Great Hall, however it had taken him longer than expected to gather the motivation to get out of bed and he didn’t want to ask the house elves to bring him food in their quarters when he could just as easily make it to the Great Hall for breakfast and get to see his friends

“-lias?” Nott’s voice said next to him, dragging him almost painfully from his thoughts. “Are you feeling well? You’ve been staring at the Hufflepuff table for almost five minutes.”

“W-w-weath-ther’s ch-changing,” Elias mumbled, rubbing his forehead and wincing.

Nott nodded knowingly though concern still shone in his eyes. He would occasionally get headaches when the weather would change as well, though his were typically mild. The most anyone knew was that he was more quiet when the weather would change. “Is it just your head?”

“N-no, m-my w-whole bod-d-dy is … unc-c-comfort-table,” Elias winced, shifting his weight on the chair in an effort to change the pressure points. “Everyth-thing aches, b-but my head-d-d is the w-worst.”

“Does your father know?” Nott asked quietly, slowly stirring a small amount of sugar into his tea. “Surely he has something he can give you to help?”

“He’s al-lready g-g-given me what-t he had-d,” Elias smiled wryly. “D-don’t w-worry, it’s n-not t-t-to bad.”

Nott raised an eyebrow before taking a sip of his tea and grabbing a piece of toast for himself. Elias didn’t seem to be getting ill, so he wasn’t going to press the issue. It still worried him that Elias was so tired and seemed in pain, but there wasn’t much he could do about it if Professor Snape already knew.

A slight fluttering from above them startled several of the students as they looked towards the ceiling. While other owls had been coming and going throughout the morning, delivering various newspapers and packages, this owl sounded much larger than the others. The students who had heard the sound looked on in amazement as a large eagle owl descended through the spelled clouds in the Great Hall and circled around the hall once before settling itself on the Slytherin table, a thick package tied to its talons.

Looking up rather blearily at the owl in front of him, Elias stared at the animal for a moment before finally reaching down to untie the package. Had he ordered anything recently? He didn’t think he had, but maybe his father had ordered him some new clothing? Double checking the name on the package and feeding the owl several pieces of bacon, he was surprised to find the name was written in two languages as well as a more formal, muggle style address for the delivery.

“International post?” Draco said, looking at the owl in curiosity. An owl that large must have come from somewhere in Eastern Europe, though the package looked like it had come much farther than that.

Staring at the address for a moment longer, Elias picked at the paper wrapping around the package before his eyes suddenly widened with realization as to what he had just received.

A book. Durmstrang had sent him a book.

It wasn’t much, just one book was contained within the wrapping of the package, but it was far more information than he had gotten from Beauxbatons and would hopefully expand the amount of sources he had for his project. Something was better than nothing! Honestly, he was surprised they had sent anything at all; Durmstrang was known for refusing acceptance to muggleborns after all.

Excitedly ripping off the paper and wincing at how loud it was, Elias’s hopes for immediately digging into the book were immediately dashed when he saw the cover. There was no way he would be able to read that right away. Not without the use of some rather significant spell work or maybe a potion. It wasn’t even written in a Cyrillic alphabet, so he couldn’t even narrow down what language it was in.

With slightly less enthusiasm, he opened the book and began thumbing through it. It certainly seemed to have a lot of information and a lot of graphs placed within it, but what those graphs showed was anyone’s guess. Continuing to thumb through the book, he suddenly frowned once he reached the halfway mark.

Had the request been misunderstood? What would maps have to do with electricity? The latter portion of the book contained map after map but without any understanding of what he was looking at, he was unsure if the book was even going to be useful in the slightest.

“What’d you get?” Crabbe mumbled, leaning over to look at what Elias was staring so intently at. “A book?”

Elias nodded, his frown deepening and his headache spiking as he continued to try and make sense of why they would have sent this book. Flipping back to the first few pages, he quickly began scanning the text to see if there was any recorded date of publication. Anything more recent than the ‘Muggle Magic’ book would be a god send.

“N-ninet-teen eight-ty two,” he muttered, nodding his head and rubbing his forehead once more. “N-not b-bad.”

“Can you read that?!” Draco asked, standing up from beside Crabbe and quickly snatching a scone from the tray in front of him.

“N-no, unf-f-fortun-nately,” Elias said with a sigh as he closed the book. “D-d-do any of y-you?”

Looking around, he was saddened to find all of the Slytherins shaking their heads as they looked at the title of the book. Sighing, he turned back to the book and opened the front cover to see if there happened to be an English title page. Instead, he found a short letter written to him in broken English.

Dear Mr. Snape,

This is only book we have about electricity. Please find them good.

Thank you,
Madam Crnčević

Despite the obvious grammatical errors in the presumably librarian’s writing, it gave him some hope. His message was understood and the book he received was indeed about electricity. It would just be a matter of finding out what the book was about now. Once he figured that out, he was certain the maps it contained would make much more sense.

“I-i n-n-need to g-go!” Elias said quickly, grabbing the book off the table and swinging himself around so he was sitting facing the other direction on the bench. He couldn’t wait to get started on digging into the medium sized tome.

Just as he was about to stand up, Draco grabbed him by the back of his robes and held him down. “No you don’t. Your father is going to kill you if you don’t eat something other than plain toast.”

“‘M n-not h-hungry though!” Elias griped, trying to pull Draco’s hand off his robes.

“Look, just eat some porridge and …”

“Hem, hem,” the sickly sweet cough of Professor Umbridge sounded from next to them. “Is there a … problem here?”

“No, ma’am,” the Slytherins all responded politely.

“We were just expressing our concern for our friend,” Blaise said, quickly pouring a bowl of porridge for Elias and adding a few berries to it.

“Splendid! Such excellent camaraderie in the Slytherin house!” Umbridge said with a smile. “Though, Mr. Snape, I do not recall you being a student at this establishment.”

“I’m n-n-not,” Elias said confidently, though he could feel his blood pressure rising and his headache growing. “I o-o-onl-ly s-sit…”

“I do not care why you are sitting with the Slytherins,” Umbridge interrupted. “My concern lies in the book you and your friends have been looking at. Hand it over please.”

Elias cautiously handed the book to the woman who immediately snatched it from him and began quickly flipping through it, much like he himself did only moments before. A few moments and a few disparaging clicks with her tongue later, she closed the book and began casting numerous spells on it as though looking for any curses or dark magic on it. Out of the corner of their eyes, the Slytherins noticed a dark figure rise from the head table and approach as Umbridge continued to become increasingly frustrated at not finding whatever it was she was looking for.

“Madam, why are you inspecting my son’s book?” Severus said, arms folded as he stopped near the fifth years, robes swirling dramatically around his ankles.

“Ah, good! Severus, you’re here,” Umbridge said, snapping the book shut. “I have reason to believe your son was showing his ‘friends’ a book on Dark Magic!”

Severus raised his eyebrow as he looked at his son whose brow was beginning to glisten with sweat and who looked more miserable than normal. His headache must have been getting worse and Umbridge’s accusations weren’t making things any better. Looking at the cover of the book, he sighed. “And have you thought to interpret the title of the book before making accusations?”

“It was sent from Durmstrang,” scoffed Umbridge. “I would recognize those owls anywhere.”

“Madam, Durmstrang is a place of education just as Hogwarts is,” Severus stated calmly, though his frustration rang loudly in his posture. “While it is known that they teach Dark Arts there, they also teach how to defend against them. The fact my son has reached out to them with a purely academic question and they responded in turn is of no consequence to you.”

“It is when there is a potential for injury to one of my students, Professor Snape!” Umbridge snapped, waving her wand over the book once more. “Verbis Interpretari.”

The words on the cover of the book morphed quickly into English, though it was quite obvious some meaning had been lost as the title now read “Magical Systemization: Relocation to the Future.”

“See!” Umbridge cried, making her own interpretation on the title. “Magical systemization! I would know a dark topic when I saw it, and that is a dark topic!”

“Yes, yes, if that was a proper translation,” Severus said calmly, taking the book back and translating the summary on the inside cover. “That is a building manual from Romania on where to build new wizarding communities. A decidedly not dark topic. I would know.”

“You would know? Admitting to your past now, are you?” Umbridge scoffed loudly, aware half the hall was listening and the other half was pretending not to. “You are on thin ice, Professor. Thin ice! You and your son!”

“Elias, take your book and go to the Hospital Wing. Ask Madam Pomfrey for a standard migraine reliever and a nutrient potion,” Severus hissed, ripping the book away from Umbridge and glaring down the ministry official. “Draco, walk with him.”

Elias immediately launched himself to his feet and took the book in one hand and limped heavily out of the Great Hall, ignoring his cane which he held in the other hand as though it were a club. Draco quickly stood as well and followed Elias out of the Hall, head held high though he was secretly trying to listen for the sound of arguing behind him. Umbridge had touched a nerve and Severus would happily defend himself and his son against her nonsense.

“Hospital Wing!” Draco called as he exited the Great Hall and was rather unsurprised to see Elias turning to go down to the dungeons and his quarters rather than up to the Hospital Wing like he was supposed to. “Elias! You need to go to the Hospital Wing.”

“N-n-n-no I d-d-don’t,” Elias panted as he leaned heavily on the stair rail. “W-we have p-p-p-p-potions at h-home.”

“I think he wants you under observation if you take one,” Draco said, wondering if he would have to force his friend to turn around or if he would willingly go. “Besides, he has class today and if this becomes a migraine he can’t very well arrange coverage instantaneously.”

Elias hesitated for a few moments as he mulled this over before finally turning around and walking back up the few stairs he had gone down. Draco had a point. It wasn’t a good one, in his opinion, but it was a point. He just hated having to be under someone’s watch all the time. Even something simple like a headache potion required supervision in case it reacted poorly with something else he was on. It was just one more thing in the long and ever growing list of things he disliked about his new situation.

Finally making their way up to the Hospital Wing, Elias stopped right outside the doors and steeled himself.

“Come on,” Draco said with a sigh. He knew he would be in the same mood if he was in the same situation, but he also wanted to finish breakfast before class started.

Elias pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and handed the book to Draco. He had his own reason for hating going into the Hospital Wing in the morning. In fact, he avoided going into any east facing rooms in the morning whenever he could. And bright lights. And any major change in lighting.

Groaning, he opened the door and braced for the inevitable sneeze. He had complained about the sneeze before when they were still living at Spinner’s End, but the only explanation he had received was it was ‘his nerves responding incorrectly to stimuli.’ That was an annoying understatement.

And with a headache already?

“Good morning Elias,” Madam Pomfrey called from her office, hearing his tell-tale sneeze echoing through the wing. “I’ll be there in a moment!”

Elias groaned and rubbed his nose vigorously before limping over to one of the beds closest to the office and laying down. While it wasn’t as comfortable as ‘his’ bed in the Hospital Wing, he knew Madam Pomfrey would want him to be close to her office in case of any side effects. Thankfully he had only had to be in the wing once since school started and that was only a check up as some of his potions were being adjusted.

Struggling with his robes for a moment, he sighed in annoyance. He should have listened to Blaise and eaten the damned porridge; now he was going to have to take a nutrient potion and wait an hour before he could take the Fulgur. If he could even take it with the headache potion that is. He had never had his headache potions fail like this and though this wasn’t a migraine (yet) he really hoped he wouldn’t have to take that potion today.

He wanted to be able to do something and not be in a fog the entire day as his potion was apt to do.

In particular, he wanted to start trying to get through the book! It had been nearly a week since he had sent the letter to Durmstrang and Beauxbatons and nearly two weeks since the letter had been sent to Ilvermorney. This was the first information he had gotten from any of them and, building plans or not, it was more information than he currently had. He hated the idea of another delay in his research, especially one caused by his stupid body.

As if to reiterate its current hatred for him and remind him of why he was taking Fulgur in the first place, his legs began twitching incessantly as he worked to get his shoes off. The twitching quickly turned into a spasm which ran up his legs and into his low back causing him to groan almost involuntarily as he lowered himself into the bed.

“Thank you for staying, Mr. Malfoy,” Madam Pomfrey said, finally exiting her office. “Now, what is ailing you, Mr. Snape?”

“J-j-just a head-dache,” Elias said, throwing an arm over his eyes and sighing exasperatedly as his hand jolted at the movement.

“Professor Snape said to ask you for a standard migraine reliever and a nutrient potion,” Draco piped up. “He didn’t eat much breakfast nor did he take the ... poison.”

“F-fulgur.”

“Yeah, that one.”

Madam Pomfrey nodded and went to her potions cabinet and rifled around for a moment before finally finding the potion she was looking for. She hesitated for a moment before measuring out a dose, however, and grabbed a large tome from a slot in the door of the potions cabinet. She quickly flipped through the book to a few pre-marked pages and studied them for a few moments before remeasuring the dose she was going to give and handing it over to Elias. “Your father truly is a master of his craft.”

Elias raised an eyebrow in question at her statement before grimacing at the flavor of the migraine reliever. He knew his father had a mastery in potions making, but he assumed that meant he had some sort of higher level degree.

“What do you mean by that?” Draco asked rather haughtily. “Of course he is!”

“Not many potions masters could keep track of the compatibility of as many potions as you are on and know which potions can be added to that mix without causing harm to the user.”

Elias smiled slightly at the statement. He had never really thought about it, but Madam Pomfrey was right. He was on an absurd number of potions; for Severus to just be able to pull a potion out of thin air, know its effects and ingredients, and know if it would interact with anything that he was on was incredible.

Head already feeling much better, Elias went to sit on the side of the bed only to be overwhelmed with dizziness. It felt as though the entire world was tilting on its axis and he was going to fall off it any minute!

“Easy there, child!” Madam Pomfrey exclaimed, helping lower him back into a lying position before turning to Draco. “You are free to leave, Mr. Malfoy.”

“Is he going to be ok?” Draco asked, refusing to move before his question was answered.

“He may be quite dizzy for a few hours as that potion takes effect, but he’ll be fine otherwise,” Madam Pomfrey assured the teen. “Not to worry, this is expected.”

“T-to y-you!” Elias whined, hands on either side of his head as though trying to hold it still despite laying down. “I j-j-just w-wanted to r-read my b-b-book!”

“Hush, dear!” Madam Pomfrey said with a laugh, spelling him into a set of hospital pajamas and shooing Draco out of the wing. “He needs rest and you need to get to class. I’ll contact Professor Snape if anything happens.”

“Thank you,” Draco said, casting one last worried glance at his friend. “I’ll see you later, Elias!”

“B-b-bye!” Elias called, waving one hand at the Slytherin while the other continued to try and hold his head still.

Madam Pomfrey shook her head good naturedly as she flicked her wand at the discarded clothing and folded it quickly, placing it on the table by his bed and leaning his cane against the wall before looking at the book he had brought with him. Though she couldn’t read the language, she was intrigued. It wasn’t often she saw students working on projects outside of assigned schoolwork and typically those who were, were working towards a mastery in their chosen topic. “How has your project been, Elias?”

“N-not g-g-good,” Elias mumbled, groaning as the world continued to spin around him. “I j-just got th-that b-b-ook-k today a-and th-that's the f-f-first l-lead I’ve had-d in a wh-while.”

---

It was nearly lunch before the dizziness caused by the potion had finally worn off enough he could sit up without immediately feeling as though he were going to fall over, vomit, or both. He was grateful Remus had been so willing to adapt his teaching schedule around his needs, otherwise he would have felt extremely bad for causing their schedule to be off yet again. He was still hopeful he would be able to sit OWLs with his classmates this year, but Remus had informed him that the examiners would be sitting other OWLs at various times throughout the summer and into next fall so there really wasn’t a reason to worry if they fell behind a bit.

As frustrating as missing lessons and potentially being behind was, it paled in comparison to the more immediate frustration he was having: he had completely missed the morning dose of Fulgur because of the migraine reliever and was feeling every bit of it. It hadn’t been purposeful, but the severity of the dizziness made Madam Pomfrey concerned and his father agreed missing the dose was in his best interest.

A fact he sincerely disagreed with now, but how was he supposed to know it would be this bad?

His stutter had worsened throughout the day as last night’s dose slowly worked its way out of his system, his muscles twitched incessantly, his brain felt as though a fog was wrapping around it, and (most annoyingly) he constantly felt like he needed to use the loo.

The only solace he had was knowing he would get a stronger dose tonight and had the new book to distract him somewhat.

“Afternoon, Elias,” Remus’s voice said, pulling the boy from his thoughts and breaking his tenuous grasp on concentration.

“‘L-lo,” Elias mumbled, rubbing his mouth in annoyance before turning back to the book with a groan. He had completely lost his place yet again and the translation spell wasn’t helping his confusion at all, nor could he get it to work at the same time as the text enlargement spell. With a sigh he placed a piece of parchment in the book to act as a bookmark and tried to put it on the bedside table only for it to fall to the floor when his arm jerked.

“Have you made much headway in the book?” Remus asked, picking it up and placing it on the table nonchalantly, as if it had just slid off on its own accord.

Elias shook his and winced as his neck twitched in response. Could he not move normally for once and not have his muscles rebel?

“May I see your notes?” Remus asked, looking at the pile of chicken scratch notes he had made while attempting to read. Seeing Elias’s small nod, Remus gathered up the notes and quickly sorted through them, frowning sadly as the handwriting visibly deteriorated as the shakes and spasms got worse throughout the day. He had gotten quite a bit of practice trying to read Elias’s writing when he wasn’t using the dictaquill, but this was so much worse than usual it was nigh illegible.

While he had only just managed to get through the first chapter it seemed, he already had several pages of notes and questions about the translation of certain words. Already, this book was proving to be a valuable resource, though not in the way Remus expected.

Grabbing the book himself to compare it to Elias’s notes, Remus initially frowned at the translation of the title then quickly realized once he began reading the first few pages of the book that there was indeed a gross mistranslation of a term for a Romanian program of relocation and rebuilding of communities under the communist regime. Remus had heard briefly of the atrocities in Romania during their communist era, however during that time the war against Voldemort was nearing its height and it had seemed the majority of these had been geared towards muggles.

From what this book was saying, however, it seemed some of the Communist government’s policies had trickled into the magical community as well in the form of forced relocations of citizens to new, more modern dwellings and off of the traditional ley lines wizarding communities had been built on.

It was well known that wizarding communities were built on ley lines and those who lived on the ley line itself were known for having increased powers if born there. The only reason for moving off of a ley line was if there was something which could provide more magical energy; something the Romanians had noticed when they began building new electrical power plants throughout the nation. No longer would the magical community be tied to the ley lines of old; wherever a power plant was built, so too could a magical community.

“Elias, did you…?” Remus began, looking up only to find Elias was no longer in bed. The covers had been frantically cast aside and were half on the floor. “Elias?”

A flush from the nearby loo answered his question as to where the boy had gone. Moments later and red faced with embarrassment, Elias stumbled back out of the toilet and back to bed, nearly falling as he climbed in and pulled the covers over him once more. Remus looked at him in concern as Elias cradled his arms against his ribs and gasped for a few moments before seeming to catch his breath.

“Do you need a moment to catch your breath?” Remus asked gently, resisting the urge to rub the boy’s back to comfort him as he knew any touch would only send him into another round of spasms.

Elias only groaned in response before shakily reaching over and tapping the page Remus was on. “R-r-r-read-d.”

“Do you want me to read the book?” Remus asked, guessing at what Elias was trying to say.

“Mmm,” Elias nodded, focusing on his breathing. He needed something to help distract him from the ache. Though much of the book seemed to have elements of propaganda and was geared towards convincing the magical community how amazing these new communities would be, it was fascinating to see what ‘benefits’ were being introduced by this plan.

“Would you like me to re-read chapter one?” Remus asked, rewording his original question into a simple ‘yes/no’ question to allow easier answers. As painful as it was to think about, he sincerely doubted Elias had managed to retain a single iota of what he had read over the past few hours.

Elias nodded, tucking himself down under the covers as though he were expecting a bedtime story. It took him a few minutes to find a somewhat comfortable position, but once he was there, he looked at Remus expectantly, waiting for the story to begin no matter how dry it actually was.

Remus chuckled at the look before cracking open the book once more and turning to the first page. The last time someone had looked at him with that level of expectation for a textbook had been when he had been studying to get his teaching license nearly fourteen years ago and had been pressed into service as an emergency babysitter for the Potter’s so they could go on a mission for the order (though Remus suspected it was more of a date night than anything.)

Harry had been extremely fussy that night, gumming anything he could get his mouth on including Remus’s notes. He had been teething for several weeks and already had a few small incisors poking through his gums. Not far, but just enough to hurt and make anything a potential teething device.

While he had been a rather happy baby up until this point, he was not in any mood to behave that night. Cold washcloths only stayed cold for so long, toys were only appealing for moments, and even the moving pictures in the Prophet weren’t interesting enough to hold the child’s interest.

“Try reading to him,” James’ voice had said laughingly when Remus, in a fit of frustration and desperation, sent his two friends a patronus message begging for assistance.

So Remus did just that. A bath, a bottle, and a book seemed like a good combination to hopefully get the poor child to fall asleep. The bath went terribly and little Harry found great joy in continually throwing the bottle through the rails of his crib to watch Remus pick it up, but once Remus pulled out the driest, most boring, and largest textbook he had in his possession, Harry settled down immediately. If anything, Remus would call the look Harry was giving him a look of excited expectation.

It didn’t matter what he was being read, so long as it was a book and he was being read to.

Remus paused for a moment as the memory of that night washed over him and he looked at Elias once more, his smile faltering momentarily.

He could see Severus in Elias’s frame and facial structure, but why, why, WHY were there parts of him which screamed ‘Lily Potter?’ There was no feasible way Lily could have ever had a son with Severus, especially not if Elias was going to be turning sixteen in a few short weeks. While not improbable that she could have been pregnant twice in such a short period of time, Remus was certain he would have known if she had been.

She was terrible at keeping secrets afterall.

Perhaps Elias was a cousin of Harry’s on her mother’s side? Severus had grown up in the same town as Lily, afterall. It only made sense that he would know more of her relatives than just her. And didn’t Lily have a sister or two? But Severus was a known Death Eater at the time of Elias’s conception, so him dating a muggle made no sense.

Maybe that’s what happened to Elias?

Remus shuttered at the idea of Severus being forced to torture his own significant other, but his curiosity was piqued. He needed to know who Elias’s mother was and why certain features of his were so distinctly similar to Lily Evans.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, he opened the book and began to read as best he could from the poorly translated and excruciatingly dry book.

“The systematization of magical communes, basic territorial-administrative units, and component villages must ensure their development in correlation with that of neighboring muggle localities, the organization of functional areas - production units, housing, socio-cultural facilities, planted and traffic spaces - taking into account of the dominant agricultural profile, ability to house magical plants, and hidden from muggle interference to establish the height regime, the density of the buildings, the lots for the peasant households, the route and the profile of the streets. The judicious location of all the constructions will be followed, as well as the creation of magical centers to group the main socio-cultural endowments…”