Echo sat in the dingy, Hogwarts library nearly buried by stacks of books that needed to be catalogued. Just when she thought they were nearly finished, a new shipment had come in. These books had belonged to a dark mage in Ireland who had died, naturally, of old age. He had no heirs, and since he'd attended Hogwarts almost a century and a half ago, he had bequeathed his massive library to the school.

The young witch had quite liked her job. It was fascinating to see the books that were coming in, to sneak long looks into their contents, and to covet each and everyone. The problem was that Echo and Madame Pince were not getting along. Each day that Echo returned to her quiet job, added another layer of dark resentment to the library witch's gaze.

Echo thought that if it were just the gaze, she might have tolerated the insufferably stiff and territorial woman. What Echo couldn't stand was the constant, non-ending flow of criticism that emanated from the woman. There couldn't be a more negative person on the planet. Madame Pince mothered her books, but she had a viperous bite for anyone else, including students, who dared encroach upon her territory.

Lately it seemed that Madame Pince's remarks cut deeper, and being pregnant, with hormones that just weren't behaving, Echo was feeling overly sensitive. As it was, buried amongst the stack of musty books, she was weeping silently.

"Really Madame Snape," came the sneering, sharp voice of the librarian. Echo scrambled and wiped her tears away. When she looked up, the witch was looking down her narrow nose, through her reading glasses. Her gaze was directed right at the swell of her belly. Echo suddenly felt self-conscious and wished her outer robes weren't draped over a chair and out of reach.

Madame Pince let out a poisoned sigh. "Such histrionics so early in the day? I cannot have an assistant who cannot do the work that is required, Madame Snape. Why you even returned after opening that bookstore of yours, I'll..."

Echo shot to her feet. Her tears were gone as her cobalt eyes burned with anger. "I have had it!" Echo shouted. "Someone else can... try working with you, you horrible harridan, but I am finished!"

Echo grabbed her robes and wended her way out of the maze of books. She was slightly off kilter, but as she banged firmly against the starched librarian, knocking the woman askew, it was a blessed clumsiness.

An hour later Echo found refuge in her book shop. With the exception of the books, everything was in place. The only clutter was the many boxes of books that she was working on now in placing them on the shelves. Normally she would have used her magic to make the work quicker, but Echo preferred being able to examine every book, old and new.

At one of the clock, Echo rose up from one of the lower shelves in the children's section, stretched and smoothed the skirt of her dress. Summoning her winter cloak, she went for a walk along Diagon Alley, wondering how she might tell her husband she was now without a job.

Echo was unaware of two eyes that shone briefly from the shadows between two buildings. The eyes watched the witch walk up the street and vanish into the crowd. The eyes faded back into the shadows.

"You killed my daughter!" Shock, anger, grief... so many emotions warred upon Lucius' face as he spared a glance for the small girl that was no longer breathing. Having no wand, and still no sign of his magic, Lucius launched himself at the dark-haired wizard.

Four years of working some of the hardest, most thankless jobs in the circus had strengthened the once aristocratic wizard who had relied upon nimbleness and deception to win his battles. Lucius could now fight with his fists, hands, or both. Although considered a dirty streetfighter, he was known as a fair man. His years of fighting allowed him to get one, good solid punch against Severus' jaw before he was thrown backwards and trussed up smartly in a Binding Spell.

Severus strode forward, released the spell, and drew Lucius up to his feet, shoving the round bottle of potion at him and forcing it into his hand. "You know that potion!" he hissed.

Lucius looked down at the potion in his hand. The deep forest green, sparkling as the Forbidden Forest did with Night Pixies, was familiar. It was the potion, a derivative of the Draught of Living Death, that Severus had created to bring a deep, and death-like slumber upon the children they'd been able to save from the vicious hands of Voldemort and his followers. He lifted his head, his grey eyes asking what he could not vocalise.

"Nagini's poison is a Naga's poison and in a child... how she lasted this long, I cannot say, but I have put a stopper in death."

"You've halted the poison?" Lucius asked hopefully.

"Only for a short while. I have to brew an antidote and I have less than two hours in which to do it." When Lucius looked toward his daughter, Severus placed his hands firmly on the man's shoulders. "Listen carefully," he spoke sharply. "Do NOT move her. Do NOT touch her."

Lucius nodded and broke away from Severus, conjuring a chair so he could sit vigil by his child. Severus then turned to Journey, who had watched everything from the door of the bedroom. "Do me a favor and send an owl to my wife Echo Snape, and tell her to return home at once. Then, if you need me, owl me directly at Fairwinds, Snape's Lab. I'll answer, if I can."

Severus pushed a bit brusquely past Journey and then left the tent. Within minutes he was back home at Fairwinds and busy brewing the antidote.

The owl that Journey Leeds sent on the Potions Master's behalf, found Echo in almost a half hour. Echo was in the herbalist shop that belonged to the old witch, Edwina Smidge. They were having tea in front of a pot bellied stove at the shop's center when the owl demanded entrance.

Edwina waved her wand to open the window and the owl fluttered in, landing on a shelf of dried lavender wreaths near where the women sat. Edwina couldn't reach the owl and so he hopped down and then held out his leg. The older witch removed the small scroll and the owl left without even a reward.

"For you, dear," Edwina smiled as she handed the scroll over to Echo. Echo unrolled the parchment and quickly read the brief note. She then tucked it into her pocket. "I'm needed at home, Edwina. Do you have a Floo?"

"In my office, dearie. Come along?" The old herbalist ushered Echo into the cozy office where flames were crackling in an old, sooty fireplace. Using the Floo powder that Edwina proffered, Echo called for Fairwinds. In the blink of an eye, she was home.

Echo draped her winter cloak over the back of the sofa and called for Dobby. "Missy Madame! You is to be going to lab. Master Sir says you go. Now!" The little house elf popped away and Echo made her way down the stairs beneath their home, to the lab.

"Severus?" she spoke softly, so as not to startle him.

Without looking up, he spoke sharply, "I need your help, Echo. The bezoar in the mortar needs to be pounded into a powder."

Echo strode over to the table, took up the pestle and began pounding the green marble pestle against the bezoar in the mortar. "Are you able to tell me what's happened?"

"You recall I told you about the Naga serpent that Voldemort had as a familiar?" He didn't wait for an answer. "It seems Nagini is one of the exhibits at the circus. She bit a child." Severus could hear his wife's intake of breath showing her shock. "Nagini bit Lucius' daughter."

The pounding of the pestle stopped abruptly. "Lucius has a daughter?"

Severus lifted his head from his brewing. "Her name is Sophie and she is nearly four years old."

There was a long quiet only interrupted by the potion bubbling and Echo pulverizing, or chopping new ingredients as she assisted her husband. At a point where both were able to breathe as the potion simmered over a blue flame, Echo summoned tea for them both.

"Severus, how in the world did the little girl survive a bite from a Naga? Adults may have a chance, but a child?"

Severus gratefully sipped his tea. "Because the Naga is a magical serpent. The poison of a Naga attacks the magical core as it attacks the body; a double-bladed devastation. I am fairly certain that Sophie is half-Muggle which means she's either a squib, or her magic is late in developing. Without the catalyst of the child possessing magic, the poison is behaving more like the poison of a normal snake, such as a cobra." Frowning darkly, he put down his tea and inhaled the almond fragrance of the potion so far. "I never gave a thought as to what happened to that familiar of Voldemort's. Now I'd like to know not just how it came to be at the circus, but why it wasn't immediately destroyed."

Severus rose from the work table and disappeared into his storeroom. He returned carrying a crystal, spiral cut flute sealed with a silver cap. Inside was a vaguely eerie, green glowing liquid that moved sluggishly.

"What is that?" asked Echo, curious, but not really wanting to know the answer.

"Nagini's venom," elucidated her husband. "Every Naga's venom has its own signature which is why there isn't a single antidote ready for use. Of course, not all Naga venom is fatal for there are Nagas that have venom that will cause the victim to tell the truth, or to lie."

"And Nagini's kills," murmured Echo softly as she watched Severus carefully measuring three drops of the venom into the bubbling antidote. They both watched as the potion went from a cloudy, pale and thick liquid, into a livid, glowing green. The glow faded as Severus reduced the flame beneath the cauldron.

"The Killing Curse," Echo whispered as she stared into the cauldron.

Severus nodded, despite the fact that his wife couldn't see the gesture. "A particularly vicious venom, Nagini's poison is equivalent to that of the Killing Curse."

Echo looked up at her husband, noting a haunted look deep in his dark eyes. "You discovered the antidote, Severus?"

Again he nodded, but sadly. "Not in time, though." Echo waited quietly knowing that Severus spoke of some time in the past. Sometimes Severus would speak no further until his nightmares dragged forth the past. This time, though, he spoke. "Jonas was once one of my most promising students. His mind was not just brilliant, but creative. Jonas didn't want to be a Death Eater and I had plans to make him my first apprentice. That wasn't to be, though, as his father, an enthusiastic devotee of the Dark Lord, demanded that his son be pledged into Voldemort's service."

Severus paused as he stirred the cooling potion a requisite seven times clockwise. When done, he put down the stirrer and continued his story. "I tried to tell Jonas to acquiesce, to be obedient... to be quiet. Jonas did not have the discipline required." The Potions Master's dark gaze stared into that dark night in Riddle Cemetery; a place of so much horror that it had always weighed heavily upon Severus' shoulders. His voice, as he continued, was far away and edged with an old grief. "Jonas refused to take the Dark Mark. Nagini struck. She was so swift. I didn't know that anything had happened until Jonas fell at the feet of Voldemort. He wept like a small child, begging his father to help him..."

Echo touched her husband's forearm, deliberately putting pressure on the place where once his own Dark Mark had been. It shook him from the past and brought him forward to the present.

Severus glanced down at the antidote and using his wand, he summoned several phials and began to fill them. "I had to trick Voldemort into giving me a quantity of Nagini's venom. When I had it, I began working on an antidote."

Summoning his cloak, he placed the phials into the inner pocket and then put it on. He quickly kissed his wife's cheek. "Will you retrieve our son from school and have Dobby make up a room for our young guest?"

Echo followed her husband out of the lab and up the stairs. "Won't Sophie and Lucius be more comfortable in their own home? At the circus?"

"They might. However, I have never tested this antidote on a child," he said ominously as he threw Floo powder into the flames. "It is best that I am near my potions in case..." Severus paused and called out his destination. Without finishing his sentence, he vanished into the green flames.

Harry tapped his feet upon the floor, and then looked over at the dancing orange flame, hoping they would turn green; they didn't. He'd already helped Molly to clean the classroom, like he always did since his mother or father were always the last to show to pick him up from school. They were late today, and Harry sat at his desk while Molly sat at her desk correcting her students schoolwork.

For several minutes, Harry beat out a rhythm on his desk using the heels of his shoes and his fingertips on the desk. Once that bored him, he scraped his nails against his thighs, listening to the 'bumpy noise' his corduroys made. That only lasted two minutes. He was about to count the squares in the carpet when Molly's voice interrupted his 'quiet' thoughts.

"Harry, dear, why don't you write in your journal til your parents come?"

Harry brightened at that idea and picked up his backpack and rummaged through its capacious contents for his journal. Once found, he found a quill and some ink. His father had promised to replace the beautiful quill that Sarah had broken at their next excursion to Diagon Alley.

He was soon bent over the purple leather dyed journal writing away.

Hello journal. I didn't get to write in you yesterday because of Sarah Weasley being a mean git. She was nice today after she apologised. Do you think her dad is going to make her pay for my broken quill? She didn't say and I forgot to ask. Maybe my dad knows.

Uncle Lucius, isn't it neat that he's going to let me call him uncle like Draco calls me dad uncle? Anyway, Uncle Lucius got his memories back pretty fast though they made him cry last night. That made my stomach hurt for him.

Ron and Fred and George would sometimes talk about the Death Eater Lucius Malfoy and how evil he was and that he was so bad he probably ate little kids. I think maybe they made that up.

Draco told me that his dad had a scary temper and that there were a couple of times when his dad hit him. Uncle Lucius didn't mean it. He was just working for the really evil wizard Volly... Voldeme...

Harry paused in his writing and then carefully wrote out what he was sure was the correct spelling of the Dark Lord's name.

V O L D E M O R T

Okay so see, Journal, there were some wizards that weren't really bad, but evil Voldemort had dark magic on them and he was going to blow up their families if they didn't do bad things with him. Dad told me once that those were Death Eaters that hadn't been marked like him and Uncle Lucius were.

I wonder if Uncle Lucius still has his Mark?

So anyway, Uncle Lucius wasn't really bad, but he had to be or else Volde mort would kill his little boy, that's Draco. Uncle Lucius didn't want Draco dead because he loves him a lot so dad, who is his friend, helped him out and he was really clever and secret about it. Dad was, that is.

I'm getting bored Journal. Should I give you a name? That's silly. I think. Mouse named his journal after his mum that was killed by Voldemort. He pretends he's writing to his mum. That's kind of neat, I think. I think I'll write to grandpa because I don't see him much. Grandpa's the headmaster of Hogwarts and not my real grandpa, but since he's old and loves me and says that my dad is like a son I get to call him grandpa.

Since Miss Molly says we're supposed to write daily stuff in our journals, I should have lots of stuff to write because I'm busy and do lots of things.

Well, this is all I can think of, so even though I wrote Hello Journal at the beginning, I'm going to write this - I love you, Grandpa. Next time I'll write and tell you all about Hagrid's visit today.

Bye.

Harry closed his journal and just as he was putting everything away in his backpack the Floo whooshed and he turned, a hopeful smile on his face.

"Mum!" Harry wriggled out of his desk and ran to his mother and threw his arms around her.

Echo smiled and kissed her son's head. "Now that's an exuberant greeting, sweetheart."

Harry pulled back and then glowered. With his arms crossed and with the scowl darkening his features he looked very much like his father. "You're late!"

"I know, Harry, and I am sorry, but your father had something that he needed my help with and the time got away without us."

Harry's expression sobered and he took his mother's hand in his. "You're okay, aren't you, mum?"

"I'm fine." Echo glanced up to see that Molly had risen from her desk. "Oh, Molly! I'm so sorry for being so late to pick up Harry," she began.

Molly smiled and shook her head. "Nothing to worry about, Echo. I would have just taken him into dinner." Molly chuckled. "He's a good boy and I hope..." she glanced down pointedly at Harry, "...that he had a good day?"

Harry nodded. "Sarah was much nicer and it was a lot of fun having Hagrid here. Can he come again sometime, Miss Molly?"

"I hope so, Harry. Hagrid is a busy teacher during term, but it was lovely that he had time to visit us today. You'll have to tell your mum and dad all about his visit."

"I will! Can we go home now, mum?" he asked Echo, taking her hand into his.

"Let's go, sweetheart. Thanks again, Molly."

With Harry and his mother gone, Molly went happily back to her grading until it was time to get dinner started.

Lucius' grey eyes were hawk-like as he watched Severus tending to his small, dying daughter. The Potions Master had administered a variation of the Draught of Living Death to slow down the child's system to such a crawl that she appeared dead. He now had to revive her, carefully, with an antidote to the draught. The difficulty in this was that with the awakening of her body, so too would the poison awaken and continue its damaging path through her veins.

Sophie began to breathe again, but it was labored and her whole body shivered. Lucius reached for his child, but Severus stopped him. The Potions Master was seating himself beside the girl and he drew her into his lap so he had leverage to administer the antidote to Nagini's poison.

"Is that enough?" Lucius asked in a whisper as he stared at the tiny phial.

"Since she isn't an adult, I must introduce the anti-venin gradually." Severus smiled grimly at the sign of the child's breathing becoming smoother. He rose and moved away from the little girl. "Echo is readying a room for her, Lucius. This will take about two, possibly three days, and I can help her best if I am near my lab."

Lucius rose swiftly from his chair and in one smooth movement, he had Sophie in his arms. Before he left the bedroom entirely, he looked over his shoulder, "I can never repay you for lives of my children, Severus, but I will try." Without allowing the Potions Master a second to reply, Lucius ducked away and was on his way to the Floo in the big tent.

Shaking his head, Severus was quickly following and soon they were both at Fairwinds. Echo was already showing Lucius to the room she'd had Dobby prepare.

Hearing the sound of all the adult footsteps, Harry knew his father was home, but there was an urgency that made him pause in the doorway of his bedroom. He watched, curiosity rife in his gaze, as he watched Lucius, with a little girl in his arms following his mother. Severus was behind them, his outer cloak billowing with purpose.

Hector, Harry's overly large golden retriever, nosed his way against his boy's side, wedging them both firmly in the doorway. Hector sniffed and let out a small whimper.

"Yeah," Harry agreed as he watched the three adults disappear into a bedroom that was next to the one Lucius had slept in the night before.

Harry popped from the doorway and trotted down the hall. He stuck his head through the open doorway and watched as Echo pulled back the covers of the bed and Lucius laid the girl upon it. She was a pretty little thing with cornsilk, pale gold hair and cherubic cheeks. Her small chest was beating like a bird's as she took in the air rapidly.

"Daddy?" Harry asked softly.

Severus couldn't spare a moment to look to his son, so Echo went over to Harry. She tried to usher him back to his bedroom but the little boy spun deftly away and further into the bedroom.

Severus caught the movement and dropped a glare in his son's direction. "Harry, out. Now. I'll explain everything later."

Although his father didn't shout, he could tell that his father meant business so Harry ducked past his mother and headed down the stairs and to the livingroom to wait for his father to explain what was going on.

Harry sighed as he curled up in Severus' favourite chair. He hoped the little girl would be all right. He was sure his father could save her.