Sanction (Familia Ante Omnia - Book Three) by SaraJany
Summary: After their narrow escape from Voldemort’s clutches, Severus, Saturnine, Draco, and Harry retreat to Dumbledore’s safe house to lick their wounds. But what should be a peaceful holiday in the countryside turns out to be anything but.

The old man should have seen it coming, though. After all, what else did he expect thrusting four wizards—with the emotional baggage of a small royal court—together in a cottage by the sea for an entire summer.

Can Draco and Harry learn to become friends as they discover that they are not so different? Can Severus and Saturnine bury the hatchet long enough to remember how to be siblings? And what will be the price to pay for having thwarted the Dark Lord’s plan to take over Hogwarts?
Categories: Parental Snape > Guardian Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Draco
Snape Flavour: Canon Snape, Snape is Loving
Genres: Drama, Family, General
Media Type: None
Tags: Adoption
Takes Place: 7th summer
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: Familia Ante Omnia
Chapters: 19 Completed: Yes Word count: 61349 Read: 9334 Published: 26 Dec 2021 Updated: 30 Dec 2021
The Day After by SaraJany

As Harry put the finishing touches on his Transfiguration essay, he glanced up to look at Draco’s parchment. Sitting as they were—cross-legged next to each other on the Slytherin’s bed—Harry could easily read the blond’s elegant handwriting. Even Draco’s script was better-looking than his. Draco had nearly finished his twenty-inch-long parchment. By the looks of it, there were about two or three lines left of blank space at the end of the sheet.

Harry placed his quill back in its holder and blew on his parchment as he waited for Draco to catch up. He felt like suggesting they go out for a walk or something. It was a sunny day, after all, and Harry wanted to see the cliffs. He hadn’t been out much since they got here, and he wanted to travel the trails and check the hidden coves he’d discovered last year to see if they were still there. He thought he could show Draco around. Perhaps that would change his mind and help lift his spirits.

The aftermath of Mrs Malfoy’s funeral had been a nightmare—not that Harry had expected it to be any different. When he’d entered the bedroom, he’d found Draco in quite a state. The blond was acting out the part of the slimy Slytherin prat once more, calling him Potter and Scar-Face and clearly angling for a fight. Harry had hurriedly cast a Silencing Charm on the room as Draco continued to spout the vilest things about Saturnine and Severus and the cottage they now lived in. He’d taunted Harry about his forced seclusion, away from everything else. And he’d made many disparaging comments about what the Mudblood and weasel had to be up to now that they were rid of him.

That comment, acerbic as it was, had come close to reaching Harry’s limits, and it had taken him a real effort of will to keep his temper in check. He’d felt like lunging at the snake and plummeting him to the ground until he’d reduced him to a pulp. But that’s what Draco wants, a little voice in the back of his head muttered. Draco wanted the fight and the punishment. He wanted the physical pain to mask how awful he felt inside.

Harry understood the feeling all too well, having felt similarly only a year before. But he’d had no outlet for his rage and anger then. He had let it consume him, eat him up inside until there wasn’t much left of him. He didn’t wish that upon Draco; he wouldn’t wish that upon his worst enemy. So, he’d done the opposite of what Draco wanted. Turning a deaf ear to the blond’s insults, he stepped forward with open palms instead of closed fists. He caught the boy in a fierce hug, drawing him close and pinning him there even as he felt Draco stiffen against him. He didn’t listen to the barbs and insults that the snake kept throwing at him, and he held on a little more strongly when Draco tried pushing him back. The more he resisted his offer of comfort, the stronger the Gryffindor held him. And the stronger Harry held him, the more Draco lashed out. It continued that way until the rage peaked, then started to abide. As it vanished, the rage left some room within for something else: something raw and precious. Naked, honest pain. And the tears came alongside it.

Harry held Draco as he cried. He never let go—not even when the blond’s knees buckled beneath him. Easily supporting them for a little while, Harry moved them to the nearest bed. There, he held the crying Slytherin close as he allowed himself to express his grief with raw honesty.

And for a little while, they became kindred spirits. They were no longer enemies—no longer a Slytherin and a Gryffindor but two innocent souls sharing the pain.

Harry had no idea how long the tears lasted, but he stayed where he was until they dried out. When he felt Draco’s breathing calming down, he loosened his grip a little without letting go entirely. He wouldn’t, he decided. He wouldn’t be the first to move away. He’d let Draco decide when he was ready to be let go of.

And Draco did eventually, pulling back slowly, almost regretfully, until they were both sitting inches aside. The blond brushed away the last of his tears with his sleeve, murmuring a small, “Thanks,” as he did.

“Don’t mention it,” Harry said in an equally soft voice.

***

Draco hadn’t realised he missed being outside until he stood by the tall, rugged, Cornish cliffs. Warm rays of sun warmed his skin while a fresh breeze tried to force his hair into his eyes. Below them, wave after wave crashed upon the granite rocks, creating a soothing melody in the background.

The young Slytherin couldn’t remember the last time he’d been outside. Surely it hadn’t been months. But it had. His last weeks at Hogwarts, he’d done very little other than trying to fix the Vanishing Cabinet. And then he’d stayed cooped up inside the cottage. Being outside again felt liberating, especially after the last couple of days.

“How did you get inside the bloody room?” he asked Harry, suddenly remembering the question that had pestered him at that moment.

“What?” the Gryffindor asked from where he sat on a large boulder.

“The Room of Requirement,” he clarified. “I thought it was impossible to get in someone else’s space.”

“I wasn’t looking for you,” Harry replied. “I mean I was, but then I wasn’t.”

Draco frowned at the convoluted comment that explained nothing.

“I tried getting in for weeks,” Harry explained further. “I tried guessing at what you had asked for, but nothing worked.”

The admission surprised him. Sure, he’d known the Gryffindor was on his back all day long, but he’d never felt him following him at night. “You knew I was inside?”

“Yeah, I always knew where you were,” Harry admitted.

“Spying on me now, Potter?” he asked, smiling to let him know the switch to his last name was done in jest and not in spite.

Harry chuckled. “I knew you were up to something.” Then he sobered up and continued with a bit of a rueful smile. “You can’t tell anyone this, but I kinda have this map that I inherited from my dad.” He paused, and Draco turned to face him fully, wondering where this conversation was headed. “It shows everyone at Hogwarts—where they are, all the time.”

“Everyone?” he asked incredulously.

Harry nodded. “Everyone.”

“All the time?”

Another nod. “All the time.”

“No way!” But if it was true, it surely explained a lot, except… “Why’d you keep following me around, then? If you knew where I was?”

“I wanted you to know that I was onto you,” Harry admitted, and Draco scoffed at the words. “That’s why I made it obvious I was after you all day long. But I also knew you went to the Room of Requirement most nights. I just followed you about in a different way then.”

“Bloody hell,” he muttered. “And I thought that cloak of yours was bad. Talk about an unfair advantage.” Then another thought occurred to him. “Professor Nine caught me in the hallways one night; it was your doing, I suppose?”

Harry seemed surprised to hear that. “She didn’t tell me about it, but I told her early on what you were up to.” He sighed. “She asked me to stop spying on you, but I’m too stubborn for my own good sometimes—or so I’ve been told.”

“How d’you get in, then?” he asked. “How did you figure out what to wish for?”

“I—uh—I sort of didn’t,” Harry explained sheepishly. “I—uh—I guess you could say that I was stalking you. But—uh—there was a noise, and I feared getting caught after curfew again. I had nowhere to go. So, I just wished for a place to hide.”

“A place to hide?” Draco echoed, thinking it over. “Yeah, I guess that was close enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Vanishing Cabinet was in something called the Room of Lost Things. It’s kind of Hogwarts’ Lost and Found. If you want to hide something, that’s where you go. I guess it also works if you want to hide someone.”

“Just dumb luck, then,” Harry said. “Sorry for fixing the cabinet, by the way. I had no idea what it was.”

“Yeah, well—” Draco shrugged. “Sorry for inadvertently getting you kidnapped.”

“Sorry for your mom,” Harry added, and it was the first time they’d come close to the subject since his mental breakdown the day of the funeral. Boy, was he glad that it had happened in the privacy of their bedroom and not in front of his godfather. He could never have lived down the shame.

Returning to the discussion at hand, Draco shrugged again before saying, “It’s all right. We weren’t that close.”

“She was your mom, though,” Harry countered.

It was the truth. Cold and distant as Narcissa had been, she was his mother. And it hurt to know that she was gone.

“What happens now?” he asked, willing the conversation to move to another topic. “Do we just go back to Hogwarts for our seventh year? Sounds a bit futile, doesn’t it?”

“Guess we don’t have a choice, do we?” Harry sighed. “Saturnine’s pretty adamant that I study—that’s probably the Ravenclaw in her and all that. And she’s determined that I get at least a few Os on my N.E.W.T.s. And I doubt Professor Snape will let you sit on your hands all year round, either.”

“What does it matter what he thinks?” Draco asked petulantly.

“He’s your godfather, isn’t he?”

What does that have to do with anything? he wondered. “So? He’s not my father.”

“Lucius Malfoy isn’t there, but Professor Snape is,” Harry replied as if that explained anything. “And you better put in an effort when it comes to your Potions essay.”

Fuck! He’d forgotten about that. The blasted things always gave him a headache. Classes were one thing, but Severus tended to set the bar overtly high with his summer essays. “The Parchment from Hell?”

Harry sniggered. “You call it that, too?”

Draco nodded. “Everyone calls it that. Slytherins are no exception. So—how did you score last year?”

Harry huffed out a breath. “I didn’t.”

Draco vaguely remembered something happening when the Potions Master handed them their graded essays back. But his memory was vague on the details. “What? He refused to grade it again?”

“Not quite—he said he needed more time to read it,” Harry shrugged. “I guess he still hasn’t finished it yet.”

That sounded silly. “You wrote that much?”

“No, I just made it good, for once. And I don’t think the man is capable of giving me a good grade.”

Draco was tempted to laugh at that—it did sound like something Severus would do. His godfather had always had it in for Harry, ever since their very first lesson. Draco had never thought about it much, content that someone was finally taking the famed Boy Who Lived down a peg or two. But now, he found the unfair treatment quite callous and unbecoming of his godfather. The man may be a cantankerous curmudgeon, but he was never vindictive with no reason—except where Harry was concerned.

“Why does he dislike you so much?” he asked, his curiosity genuine.

There was a long silence, punctuated by the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below, before Harry gathered up enough courage to explain, “My dad and him—they were at school at the same time. Professor Lupin and Sirius Black, too.” Another lengthy pause, followed by a sigh. “From what I understand, there was a lot of Slytherin versus Gryffindor rivalry going on then, too. And my dad and his friends were pretty mean to Professor Snape. Really mean, actually. Sirius took it so far once that it nearly got Snape killed.” Harry swallowed hard, clearly not at ease with this dark foray into his father’s past. “Anyway, I don’t think the professor’s quite forgiven them for all these years of misery.”

“And he’s taking it out on you, then?”

Harry nodded. “Something like that, yeah.”

“Shite,” he said. “Sorry.”

It was another part of his godfather’s life that he had never heard about; it piled up with the rest. “I had no idea he had a sister,” Draco mused as he looked at the stretching ocean on the horizon. “He never once told me.”

“I’d known Saturnine for about a year, and she didn’t say a thing, either,” Harry offered.

“What do you know?” Draco asked, wondering if the other boy had some of the missing pieces of the jigsaw that was his godfather. He knew Severus came from somewhere in northern England and that he’d been a potioneer for as long as Draco could remember. But that was about the extent of personal details he had on the wizard. It wasn’t that he’d never cared to enquire, but Severus was adept at changing the subject when there was something he didn’t want to discuss. “What else do you know about them?”

“Not much,” Harry said. “They come from somewhere in the Midlands. They’re Half-bloods—their dad was a Muggle, and he didn’t really like magic.”

Draco was flabbergasted to hear that, and he moved to sit down by Harry’s side. He’d always assumed Severus was a Pureblood. The way he held himself and behaved in society, combined with his natural talent at Potions and the scope of his magical power—damn. Goes to show how little blood purity matters, after all, he thought.

“They didn’t have much money when they were young,” Harry continued. “Saturnine didn’t really say it, but I think their dad may have had a drinking problem or something. Anyway, I think he was violent with them, and they had a pretty rough childhood.”

All of that was news to Draco. He’d never imagined Severus suffering anything like that. The man was so well-put-together, so collected. He’d never seen a chink in his armour. And then he realised the armour that was his trademark frock coat did more than protect him from outside assaults. It hid all the scars within, too.

“I think they were rather close when they were young,” Harry added. “But then something happened, and they split ways. Saturnine lived abroad for a few years. She left right after finishing Hogwarts. And I don’t think they saw each other much for the past fifteen years or so—not until Dumbledore came to enlist her help.”

Draco shook his head. “I had no idea about any of that.”

“Yeah, well—they’re very private. At least they’ve got that in common.”

That made the corner of Draco’s mouth curl up. “They cross their arms over their chests the same way when they’re pissed off at you or something—did you notice?”

Harry chuckled at that. “Yeah, and when she raises an eyebrow, the gesture’s like a sentence in itself.”

Draco joined in on the chuckle. “Severus does that, too—all the time. It’s so annoying.”

“Say, do you want to go flying?” Harry asked, with a trace of eagerness in his voice, as he got to his feet.

“Flying? We can?”

“Yeah, only we can’t go too high or too far,” Harry said, then proceeded to explain the limitations of the boundaries even as they made it back to their shared bedroom. Harry pulled out his trusted Firebolt, and they returned outside.

Draco had never flown on one, and he was eager to try. He expected the Gryffindor to go flying first, but the instant they were back outside, Harry thrust the broom in his hands.

“You want to go first?” he asked. “Only remember not to go too high, okay?”

Draco nodded, feeling the tingling anticipation he always felt when he was about to take off. He couldn’t wait to be in the air—to fly high, to fly fast. He mounted the broom and flew upwards. He tried a few turns and loops to get a feel of Harry’s broom, and then he was off.

The Firebolt was a magnificent piece; reliable, strong, and responsive. It wasn’t as fast and powerful as his Nimbus 2001, but it was a bit more manoeuvrable and responsive. He pushed it hard, going round the cottage in quick circles, feeling the strength of the wind hitting him in the face as his magic thrummed in his veins. He forced out more and more power to propel himself faster and faster, slicing the air like a well-aimed curse.

He pushed himself to his limits and maintained the velocity for a minute or two before slowly flying back down. He felt better than he had in weeks, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

Harry had rounded the house and was now waiting for him in front of the cottage, his back leaning against one of the support beams.

Draco dismounted the broom before handing it back to him. “It’s a nice piece.”

“I wish we had another so that we could race,” he said, smiling.

Draco scoffed. “I’d run you into the dirt.”

“You wish!” Harry said as he reached for his broom. And then he was off, looping and swirling and doing figures. He didn’t try to go for speed but went for agility instead. He was turning his bout of flying into a showcase of his talents in the air. And then he did a quick twisted turn on himself that looked impossible.

“Do that again?” Draco asked, running forward to get a better look, certain his eyes had deceived him.

Harry repeated the motion, flying forward at a steep angle and then twisting in on himself as he swirled and turned and collapsed back onto where he’d been. His moves were impossibly graceful and looked aerodynamically impossible.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

Harry flew back down and started to explain the motion, breaking it into parts and using his hands to demonstrate. Then he handed the broom back to Draco as he offered him a chance to try for himself.

Draco did, mounting the Firebolt and taking a bit of height before trying. Halfway through the first swirl, his hands slipped from the handle, and he fell to his bum.

Harry was at his side an instant later, worry in his gaze. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing at his lower back. “You made it sound simpler than it was.”

“Took me a while to get the hang of it, too,” he admitted, extending a hand.

Draco took it, and Harry hoisted him up.

“You were off to a good start. But you need to slow down a little,” he said, pushing the Firebolt back into his fingers. “When you start turning, you can’t go too fast. Otherwise, the broom can’t keep up.”

Draco tried again, and he got to the second turn before he fell again. But this time, he managed to land on his feet. Harry explained again what he’d done wrong, and Draco was back in the air for a third try.

He tried repeatedly until he’d mastered the complicated sequence. By then, they were both tired and covered in sweat. They were also in agreement that this was the best afternoon they’d had all summer and that they should really get around to doing that again.

Walking around the cottage to return to their bedroom so that they wouldn’t be dragging dirt and blades of grass all over the living room floor, Harry challenged Draco to a quick game of Snaps to decide who would get dibs on the shower.

Draco readily accepted; he was good at cards. He had an exemplary poker face, and he would trample the Gryffindor lion into the ground. Harry would be eating dust while he languidly took a warm shower.

They played one game and then another, deciding to make it the best out of three. And Draco realised that he didn’t mind that he was dirty and covered in sweat as if he’d just run a marathon through the Forbidden Forest. There were grass stains on his trousers and shirt and caked mud underneath his fingernails, but he paid it no mind and readily kept on playing.

For the first time in a long time, he was having fun. He was playing a game with a friend, and he wasn’t about to stop.

***

Severus was engrossed in an old Potions treaties that he’d found on one of the shelves when his sister’s voice cut into his concentration.

“Come check this out,” she said with an eagerness that surprised him.

Placing a finger between the pages to keep his place, he lifted his eyes to seek her out. He found her standing behind him with her arms crossed over her chest and peering outside of the window.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Come and have a look,” she said, waving a somewhat urgent beckoning hand. There was a smile on her face. So, whatever it was couldn’t be bad.

He was tempted to resist, partly because the Potions treaty was interesting and partly because he still had a hard time standing on his own. He could manage walking a few steps, but the getting up and sitting down parts were difficult.

“What is it?” he asked again.

“Harry and Draco are outside playing. Come have a look, will you?”

Potter and his godson playing together? Well, that was something he wanted to see. He placed a bookmark inside the pages, and using the back of the sofa, pushed himself to his legs before slowly rounding the corner and making his way to his sister’s side.

He didn’t miss the fact that her azure gaze stayed on him the whole time. She held out an arm for him to take when he was close enough. He readily accepted it, and she took some of his weight as he peered outside the window to discover that both boys were indeed outside—with a broomstick, of course.

“Is it safe for them to go flying?” he asked.

“I extended the charms a little. Harry knows the limits; don’t worry.”

Severus wasn’t worried about that. His concern was that there was only one broomstick and two very competitive Quidditch Seekers on the field. But they didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to go flying. Potter was busy explaining something to his godson, his hands wildly moving about as he tried to mime something. And Draco was listening to his words with rapt attention, his gaze fastened on the Gryffindor’s hands as he studied his motions.

Severus found the scene most peculiar and would never have believed it possible mere months ago. But unless someone had cast a powerful illusion or Imperiused the boys, he was forced to admit that the two were really starting to get along.

Potter handed his broom to Draco, and his godson readily took it before lifting off. He flew a short distance away, then attempted what looked like an inordinately complicated manoeuvre that caused him to fall to the ground.

Severus felt himself instinctively lurch forward to help him. But Saturnine held him in place.

Potter was by Draco’s side in a flash, extending a hand to help him back to his feet. His godson looked all right—if the lopsided smirk on his lips was any indication. Severus relaxed a little—until Draco got back on the broom to try the complicated move again. And he fell again.

Severus was half-tempted to return to the sofa rather than force himself to keep watching from a distance as he waited for a broken arm, or worse—a broken neck. Who was he kidding? He wouldn’t return to the sofa, even if his legs started to turn to jelly. Severus would stay there until his godson’s common sense returned and he decided to keep his feet firmly on the ground.

Needing something to stop his brain from repeatedly picturing Draco falling to his death, he asked, “You care a lot about Potter; don’t you?”

“Don’t call him that,” his sister said. “He’s got a first name, and you know it.” Severus scoffed. “Harry isn’t his father. He’s not James.”

Saturnine’s hand reached for his arm, rubbing up and down a little as she added, “I know what James and Sirius did to you. I know they were awful, and I understand your resentment. But Harry has nothing to do with it. He isn’t his father.”

And wasn’t that the truth. Only the boy was the spitting image of Potter Sr, a constant reminder of a past he so dearly wished to forget.

“He resembles him so much,” Severus admitted. “It’s hard to see past it.”

“He’s a lot like Lily, too, you know,” she said. “Not just the eyes.”

Severus felt his throat constrict at hearing her name.

“He’s got her heart—all that love and kindness she had for everything and everyone,” Saturnine said. “And a bit of her sly humour, too, when he gets going.”

It was hard to hear all that, to be reminded so vividly of Lily Evans. No one ever talked to him about her anymore. Lily was the only person, aside from his sister, he had ever deeply cared about—his first and only love.

“I miss her,” he admitted almost inaudibly.

“I miss her, too,” his sister said. “She was a good friend to the both of us.”

Without the protection of Occlumency, he felt his eyes moisten. Saturnine’s hand on his arm was a comforting anchoring point, and he leaned against her a little.

“Harry isn’t James or Lily any more than Draco is Lucius or Narcissa,” she said. “They are their own selves, and you know it.”

Severus nodded, conceding the point. He had known that all along, but he’d refused to see it. It had been easier to give in to the anger and the resentment. He’d lost Lily to James, and the man had died before he’d had a chance to get him back for it, forever depriving him of his revenge. It had been so easy to seek it upon his young ersatz. Another innocent child made to suffer an adult’s misguided rage. And oh, did that thought hurt­—the parallel was easy to make, and he knew just who his actions made him resemble. He’d behaved no better than the orphaned, vindictive Tom Riddle had.

He felt his stomach churn violently and leaned a little more against his sister. Her comforting warmth spread through his entire right side, and he let his head rest on her shoulder, needing an additional point of contact as he fought the surge of emotions that threatened to drown him.

“You love him, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she breathed out. “I never intended for things to turn out this way. But Harry’s got an uncanny ability to blindside me—again and again. You expect him to come at you one way, and he sneaks in another and—it just happened. He’s a wonderful boy, Severus. Truly. So kind. A gentle soul. I wish you could see him the way I do.”

Severus nodded, feeling like he could have told her the same thing about Draco. He, too, had a gentle soul. It was still there, a little damaged and tarnished but still there. Maybe it could be made to shine again. But was it even their job? Either of their jobs?

“You’re not his mother any more than I am Draco’s father,” he said.

“I’m well aware,” she said. “Except that we are.”

Severus looked up to her at that, needing to see her gaze to understand the true meaning of her words.

“We’re all these boys have left, Severus,” she explained, peering down at him. “They have no one except us. They’re alone in a very dangerous world—a world they don’t fully understand yet. And you know what happens to children forced to grow up on their own, without any clue of what’s right and what’s wrong…”

He looked down again as he fought to hold back the tears. Of course he knew. He knew all too well what mistakes a misguided teenager could make.

“I do not wish that for either of them,” she continued. “I won’t let it happen. If you cannot find it in you to love Draco, I will.”

Severus felt something constrict in his chest at her words. Love. He hadn’t felt the feeling in so long. He couldn’t remember what it looked like. Did he have it in him to love a child?

Saturnine was still looking at him, clearly awaiting an answer.

He told her the truth. “I don’t know that I can.”

It wasn’t a yes, and it wasn’t a no. But, at that moment, it was the best he could do.
The End.
End Notes:


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