I would like to thank my beta, Kuilin.

Chapter 40.

Nurmengard, Interlude, Message to Britain

3:42 pm, July 16th, 1993 (Kiev Time)

"Circaduplucem!" Severus wiped sweat off his forehead, panted, and reapplied the powerful disillusion charm that his rejuvenated ancestor taught him.

Salazar studied the map of Kiev in his hands, and pointed to his left, "I think the former Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti of Ukraine building should be the fourth one on our left, and that is probably where we can find the wizards working for their Muggle government."

Severus nodded, and gasped, "Yes, the Muggle minister I - I used Legilimens on, thought so."

"Control yourself, Severus. Otherwise, you will be stuttering in modern English as well." The thirty-something Lord Salazar Slytherin scolded. "And your learning speed of the Slavic languages is slower than mine!"

Severus tried hard to prevent his wand hand from trembling, and followed his energetic ancestor and mentor's foot steps.

"Be quick! We haven't even figured out where they are holding the nuclear talks yet, not to mention Russian's magical discoveries." Salazar strode towards the entrance of the former KGB building.

Panting hard, Severus ran after Salazar, so that he didn't need to enlarge the circle of Circaduplucem.

What saved Severus from total magical exhaustion was the beeping sound from the double-sided mirror in his pouch. The black-haired man stopped, pulled the mirror out from his pouch, and pressed the "call-you-back-in-five-minutes" button.

"The Boy-Who-Lived?" Salazar asked.

Severus nodded.

Salazar grabbed Severus' wrist, and Apparated to their room in an upscale muggle hotel.

Severus quickly took care of his appearances, and steadied his breath.

Before Severus opened the double-sided mirror, Salazar stood in front of Severus where you couldn't see from the mirror holding in Severus' hand, getting ready to memory charm Severus in case he was pressed to utter some inconvenient truth in Parseltongue.

Severus silently thanked Salazar for not memory charming him directly, for he was so sick of being memory charmed all the time.

Severus opened the mirror, and connected to the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Professor Snape, Mr. Lucius Malfoy is being transported back to Britain to provide evidence on the crimes committed by other Death Eaters at 3 pm, London Time. It should be 5 pm in Kiev Time," Harry Potter said. "Can you come back to join us in my office then?"

Severus was silently amazed by the ex-Lord Malfoy's efficiency, and nodded. "I will be back on time."

Severus closed the mirror and sighed as he accepted his fate of being memory charmed again.

2:54 pm, July 16th, 1993 (London Time)

When Severus exited from the green flames, he received a warm welcome from Mad-Eye in the form of a number of jail-time-enabling charms. As Severus refrained from throwing deadly hexes toward Mad-Eye, and only used his Protego Vitamaxima, he snapped, "Mad-Eye, if there is ever some sort of official entitlement that proclaims that you can check on everyone, instead of others throwing all these hexes on you, please do enlighten me."

"Ha, speaking more and more like a Malfoy." Mad-Eye's magical eye jumped like crazy, and he spat, "Obtaining some important message from Grindelwald within twenty-four hours of imprisonment, am I to believe that?"

Severus refuted with a smug smile, "Mad-Eye, I know it is hard for you to absorb the harsh reality that, with Lucius' help, I have bribed out more useful information in one day than you did in one year. As the saying goes, you can't teach an old dog-"

Before Severus could finish his sentence, the Boy-Who-Lived interjected: "Professor Snape, Mr. Moody, could you please check on each other's identity, and make sure that neither of you is under any sort of mind-controlling magic? I mean, you use the same spell on each other, one spell by another, no more, no less."

Both Severus and Mad-Eye growled, and followed the Boy-Who-Lived's instructions.

Just as Mad-Eye was finally done with Severus, and claimed that there were several spells that he hadn't used on the Malfoy brat yet, the fireplace lit up again.

Madam Bones and the handcuffed Lucius stepped out of the flames.

While Mad-Eye was busy probing Lucius with all sorts of spells and magical devices, the blond man provided more things for Mad-Eye to check on: "Good afternoon, Lord Potter, Lady Granger, Severus, and Draco, my dearest son. When I visited Gellert Grindelwald this morning, he had provided me with proper wizarding garments to replace the ugly uniform provided by Nurmengard. Though I have not found any hidden message on the garments, I have worn them back here for all of you to check on. And Mr. Moody, although you might have the unfortunate instinct to just burn everything, I do need to remind you that Grindelwald is perhaps expecting me to wear something proper when I see him next time. They are all in the pouch Madam Bones brought here."

"Grindelwald's expectation, you say?" Mad-Eye jabbed a funny looking stick into Lucius's chest so hard that the blond winced, "Fantastic speed at finding a new lord."

"I can speak Parseltongue, so my loyalty is verifiable." Lucius sneered. "On the other hand, what evidence can you provide to prove your loyalty? How am I to know that you are not working for Grindelwald or anyone else?"

Observing the fire-seething Mad-Eye, Severus suddenly felt their petty squabbles were quite pathetic. If any of us here wields real power, none of this would ever happen.

With renewed determination to become all-powerful, the black-haired man rolled his eyes, and started to apply privacy and security charms around them, for he knew Mad-Eye wouldn't even let him sneeze in the general direction of the garments provided by Grindelwald before he had tested them, so for the sake of efficiency, Severus didn't try.

After the old Auror finally ran out of his tricks, and nothing abnormal was found, the real conference began.

With the memory Lucius provided, and the large Pensieve brought here by Madam Bones, they took turns and watched the entire meeting between Lucius and Grindelwald.

Severus watched as the Boy-Who-Lived and the Girl-Who-Revived put their heads into the Pensieve first, and tried to read Lucius' face. Unfortunately, the most useful expression on blond man's face was only his bitter-sweet smiles towards his son.

A while later, the Boy-Who-Lived raised his head from the Pensieve, and frowned. "Mr. Malfoy, you presented yourself as - err, I guess we can discuss that part later. More importantly, Grindelwald indeed considers Britain as his own playground; this is both good news and bad news. And now, he might think that we have means to communicate with Dumbledore, which can be good, in a while. And the last part... Err, Mr. Malfoy, did you take a look at the contents?"

"Yes, I have also provided that memory to Madam Bones." The blond man answered.

The Girl-Who-Revived was also frowning, and Severus could see a sense of unease on her face.

Severus wondered what the latter memory would be, and put his head down into the Pensieve together with his godson.

Lucius' memory started when he was escorted into Grindelwald's cell.

Severus gazed around in Grindelwald's cell, and was silently amazed by the level of privilege the former dark lord enjoyed in Nurmengard: The lords and ladies in America and the comrades in Russia do value Grindelwald's mind a lot. Hmm, I heard the American and Russian Muggles did something similar to Nazi Muggle scientists as well. I need to go back at the Muggle newspaper I read before - if my memory is correct, the Nazi scientists were not even imprisoned. Should I congratulate ourselves for having higher moral standards than the Muggles?

However, there was something else that caught Severus' eyes as well: Draco flinched a bit upon seeing his Father in handcuffs and in ugly prison uniform.

Severus sighed inwardly: The boy will get used to it. As for the pain he is suffering, well, I am hardly someone to give advice on that subject…

As Severus and Draco followed Lucius into Grindelwald's comfortable guest room, Severus patted on Draco's shoulder.

The blond boy smiled bitterly, "I just hope Father can have something similar."

Severus supposed it was highly unlikely that Lucius would become someone as powerful as Grindelwald, and Potter would hardly have the impetus to reward an ex-Death Eater with such luxuries. The black-haired man stated matter-of-factly, "Then either you or I need to be a powerful lord."

Draco avoided his eyes from Lucius as the man changed his clothes. The boy bit his lips, and nodded.

When Lucius exited the guest room, Severus and Draco followed him back to Grindelwald's living room, and observed the conversation between Grindelwald and Lucius.

As Lucius established himself as some sort of special envoy from Great Britain to Nurmengard, Severus almost congratulated Lucius on his achievement.

-Oh, this is why Lucius doesn't need to approach Grindelwald during the out-of-cell time slots, and gets there so fast. Once others consider him as such, the Americans would probably arrange things for him. And by coming back to Great Britain so fast, Lucius is confirming his role in front of every pair of interested eyes. What a sly snake!

When Grindelwald guessed that the so-called sacrificial ritual was actually an Unbreakable Vow from the little information he had, Severus' eyes almost bulged out: In the name of Atlantis, how did he managed that? Is this the level of intuition required to become a powerful lord?

Severus and Draco changed uneasy glances, as neither of them knew how to outsmart this very intelligent dark lord.

Then, Severus saw Lord Grindelwald had entered some sort of deep thinking mode. Severus felt that he had seen this sort of thing - somewhere.

-Don't tell me Grindelwald worked out a plausible ritual to explain everything from an Unbreakable Vow! This is…

Severus then had a feeling that he had recently been working on something quite similar to an Unbreakable Vow - which was…

Severus hated it when his memory became blurry, but a quick glance at Draco told him what he had worked on for more than a week: house-elves, and the rules governing them.

Severus' mind was so intent on this matter that he missed what Lucius indicated later, and how Grindelwald dismissed Lucius with a standard welcome package.

When Severus pulled his head out from the Pensieve, he heard the Potter boy said in bewilderment: "You can't swear that you know other's password, can you? I mean, how could an Unbreakable Vow possibly explain things in Grindelwald's head?"

Mad-Eye scoffed, "I've known idiots who took Unbreakable Vows, stating that they would do something they didn't possess the capability to do, and they just died from the Vow."

"Yeah, I know it wouldn't be that easy to cheat." The Boy-Who-Lived said. "Mr. Moody, you can enter the Pensieve now, and see what you can find."

While they were enjoying the absence of the roaring old Auror who wasn't sharp in powerful wizardry anyway, Severus said, "Mr. Potter, I guess Unbreakable Vows do bear resemblance to what you instructed me to work on for more than a week."

"You mean -" The Boy-Who-Lived was clearly sharp enough on this matter. "Oh, yeah."

The Girl-Who-Revived, and - to Severus's delight - his godson, also showed apprehension.

It seemed like Harry Potter wanted to say something, but he closed his mouth, and gave Granger a look.

From Potter's reactions, Severus knew there had to be something there, along the lines of imposing a rule on oneself, and that onto other magical creatures.

-Or even onto the world, such as the Interdict of Merlin. Hmm, I wonder what Merlin sacrificed when he made that Interdict.

When Severus was working on how to make an Interdict stand, an unpleasant interruption named Mad-Eye exited the Pensieve, roaring that Lucius was by no means an envoy, and began to list out reasons why this might be a plot by either Lucius or Grindelwald to end the world.

Severus rubbed his temples, "Mad-Eye, can we take a look at Grindelwald's welcome package first?"

"You're still a blood purist as the day you joint the Death Eaters, aren't you?" Mad-Eye sneered. "Admiring the Malfoys for their blood, right?"

Severus then remembered Grindelwald might have mentioned something such as "blood purity". To hide his forgetfulness, Severus rolled his eyes, "We do need to look at it, in case he left some message there."

"Err, can Hermione and I take a look at what's in there first?" The Boy-Who-Lived asked, "And then we will decide who's the proper audience."

Severus nodded, while searching Lucius' face. To Severus' slight surprise, Lucius gave him a bitter smile in response.

-Lucius doesn't seem to be too happy about the welcome package. Why is that? And since Grindelwald called it "standard welcome package", I should be able to find it elsewhere as well. If the Ministry of Magic in Ukraine runs similarly as our respected Ministry, I can probably figure something out from there.

When Potter and Granger stood up from the Pensieve, both of them held a blank face. However, the Girl-Who-Revived, who wasn't as good as hiding her emotions as the Boy-Who-Lived, had a sense of shock and disgust in her. Severus supposed, they probably saw some results from certain inhuman experiments, and they probably didn't like the conclusion much, either.

-And the boy might be up to something as well.

Severus remembered the infamous Nazi mating experiments, and guessed that it might be something of such nature.

-I wonder what the result is, that neither Lucius nor the Boy-Who-Lived likes it.

Severus asked, "Should any of us take a look at it, Mr. Potter?"

The Boy-Who-Lived's face twitched in pain as he slowly said, "Professor Snape, you alone can see it. And, would you gather information on whether some of the parts have been applied and/or improved in other places of the world? You would know what I am referring to when you see it."

Severus gave the Potter boy a strange look, nodded, entered the Pensieve, and left unpleasant sounds from Mad-Eye behind.

This time, Lucius was in his small single cell, laying down one piece of paper by another on the floor. Lucius was clearly preparing the memory to be watched by others.

-What a considerate snake!

Severus commented silently, and bent over to see the contents of the welcome package. He was instantaneously absorbed by the contents.

The title of the welcome package was Eugenics for the Benefits of Wizarding Society.

Severus had heard the word "eugenics" used alongside with the words such as "sterilization", "witch", and "freak", by none other than his own abusive Muggle father Tobias Snape in several of the many arguments he had with Eileen Snape. Severus supposed, "eugenics" might mean that people with certain inheritable traits shouldn't reproduce, or something of sorts.

The first chapter of the package discussed the magical inheritance of various types of couples.

It stated that more than 98% of children pureblood (defined as anyone with all wizarding ancestors for at least four generations) couples were magical. As for the pureblood witches who gave births to squib children, with the approval from their husbands who were probably eager to wash the stain of squib kids from themselves, or who had already suspected something, interrogators had subjected the witches to Veritaserum and Legilimens. About 50% percent of these witches or their ancestors were found guilty for crimes such as "contamination of the magical blood", and "forgery of superior blood status". Grindelwald had personally examined some of the pureblood witches and their living parents and grandparents who were cleared from all charges, and also of that of their husbands', and he had to admit that for all children born to pureblood couples with impeccable records, about 1% of them might be squibs. Severus thought, the numbers basically fitted the numbers from the pureblood families he knew.

Then, it examined the probability of wizarding children born by Muggleborn couples. With the potential infidelity problem removed, about 92% of the kids were magical, 7% were squibs, and 1% were Muggles. These numbers also made sense to Severus - Lucius and other blood purists were not complete idiots, and they actually had some numbers and examples to support their belief. And judging from here, with Severus' limited knowledge on Muggle genetics, the Boy-Who-Lived's previous idea on magical inheritance could safely go down the drainage.

Things got really interesting as pureblood-Muggle couples were examined. It showed that only 7% of the children with pureblood wizarding fathers and Muggle mothers were magical, while about 35% of the kids born to pureblood witches and Muggle fathers were magical. According to the little Muggle genetics Severus knew, this indicated that the magical inheritance was partially linked to the sex chromosome - somewhat similar to that of hemophilia. However, registration records showed that kids conceived out of wedlock in wizarding father-Muggle mother pairs had a much lower probability to be magical (~5%) than the ones born in wedlock (~15%); while in the case of witch mother-Muggle father pairs, the differences were much smaller. These statistics initially led Grindelwald's researchers to doubt whether marriage had some magical impact on magical inheritance, yet further examination showed that children conceived and born in magical environment had a much higher probability to be magical than those in Muggle environments. In the case for witch mother-Muggle father, if the witches were in strong magical environments - such as in whole-wizarding villages or in old magical houses - the whole time, the probability of giving births to magical children could go up to about 50%, yet if the witches chose to follow their Muggle partners into non-magical environments, the chances went down to about 30%. Then, the differences in numbers between males and females made a lot of senses, for the bodies of witches were obviously a much more magical environment than the mere close presence of wizards. Severus guessed, that he - and on a second thought, the Dark Lord - were among the lucky 30%.

In the case of squib couples, the statistics also showed that the environment that the children were conceived and born could have a significant effect on the probability of wizarding children. For squibs living in magical environments, the chances were about 22% - fitting the Boy-Who-Lived's data quite well, yet for those living in non-magical neighbourhoods, the probability dropped to only 8%.

As for other types of couples, such as halfblood, half-blood-squib and pureblood-squib couples, the numbers could all be explained by the combination of blood purity and environment.

From the numbers in the first chapter, it seemed that blood purists had their points. However, the second chapter showed that blood purity also came with some huge disadvantages: the decrease in fertility rates, and the increased probabilities for deformity, insanity, and homosexuality.

The number showed that in the era when an average Muggle female gave births to seven and more kids during their lifetime, squib couples had 3.1 kids, halfblood couples had 2.1 children, while the average number of children for pureblood couples was only 1.4.

As for insanity and deformity, Severus guessed he needed little data from Grindelwald to confirm that: Mad-Eye Moody was obviously paranoid, Grindelwald was cruel, the Blacks and Gaunts were well-known for their fervent pursuit of blood purity and their madness, the Potters were near-sighted, and the Crabbes and Goyles were obese. As for the Malfoys, unless you called their white blond hair a deformity, they were a lucky lot, except that they usually only had one male heir for the past one thousand year. However, Severus did hear that the Malfoys had secretly married halfblood witches, and altered the records.

Moreover, Severus did doubt that whether it was too much of a coincidence that both Dumbledore and Grindelwald were gay. The Grindelwalds were a well-known pureblood family; as for Albus, Severus didn't know much about Albus' mother, but the Dumbledores were an old wizarding family living in Godric's Hollow for hundreds of years. Also, for a long time, Severus had doubted whether Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew were sleeping together.

From the statistics, it didn't take a genius to predict that without the constant introduction of Muggle blood into the wizarding world, wizards and witches would die out due to infertility, madness, and deformity sooner or later.

As a matter of fact, these data also explained why the percentage of wizards were always limited even in societies that considered wizarding folks as their leaders. And even for the magical creatures that could interbreed with their non-magical counterparts, the magical ones were never dominant in their numbers.

The following chapters discussed Grindelwald's solutions to the problems.

One of them was to encourage his men to marry pureblood witches, and to have casual relationships with squib and Muggle females in magical environments. The pregnant squib or Muggle women were then taken care of by some special program. Magical children born in this way were registered as half-bloods, and adopted by the many infertile magical couples; as for the squib kids born in this manner, they were handed to Grindelwald's Muggle allies' specialized camps.

Another approach employed by Grindelwald was to experiment various methods to increase the fertility rates in pureblood couples, and to increase the probability of magical births. Some methods were quite useful and harmless - Severus had recognized the recipe of a potion treating male infertility, a very similar one of which was supposedly invented by one of the American Lords in the 1950s. They also had some early experiments of cauldron babies, way earlier than the Muggles invented test tube babies. Some were much more sinister, such as a ritual that ensured the pregnant squibs and Muggles would give births of magical children. From the horrific death rates during the ritual, Severus guessed that the primary function of this ritual was to kill anyone who was not pregnant with a magical child.

Severus supposed, this was what the Boy-Who-Lived had referred to as "some of the parts have been applied and/or improved". Harry Potter probably wanted everyone to be magical in the future, yet it would be impossible unless there was some breakthrough in the magical fertility problem.

Severus sighed, and pulled his head out of the Pensieve.

As Severus was standing up, he sized the situation of the world outside the Pensieve. It seemed that Mad-Eye had kept speculating Grindelwald's evil plots.

"As I said before, nobody should ever take the damn 'standard welcome package'. Albus never did!" The old Auror roared, "I've heard about what's in it: how to kill every female who isn't pregnant with a magical child and stuff. Suits your appetite, doesn't it, Malfoy?"

Lucius rolled his eyes, "Grindelwald and his followers are all cruel - we all agree on that. Can we move on to something useful? Such as, how we should respond to Grindelwald, if we still want to continue our pretenses that we can establish some type of communications with Dumbledore?"

Mad-Eye spat, "You pretended, not 'we'!"

The Boy-Who-Lived took this chance to eye Severus, and Severus responded with a quick nod. Before Mad-Eye could issue more protests, the Potter boy said, "What Mr. Malfoy did is fine for the time being. However, we do need a long term solution, or something that could work for at least the next five years."

From the "five years" remark, Severus estimated that Harry Potter planned to become all-powerful by the age of eighteen, when regular students graduated from Hogwarts, and when Muggles were considered adults.

Severus didn't know anyone who had gained that level of power that young. The Dark Lord was an exceptional wizard who perhaps gained much ancient knowledge somewhere, yet his magic only reached that level perhaps in his late thirties or early forties. According to what Mad-Eye digged up for the story "Quirrell" told in class, soon after the Muggle martial arts school where "David Monroe" had learned much from was slaughtered in 1958, a really powerful Japanese lord named Fujimoto had chased down a relatively powerful dark lord, and almost killed him. The dark wizard only escaped with the sudden increase of luck. Considering the fact that Lord Fujimoto died a mysterious death nine years later, Severus assumed that the Dark Lord had failed in his first fight with Lord Fujimoto, and only gained the ability to assassinate the aged Japanese lord during these nine years. Although Severus didn't think he himself would be able to kill a powerful lord when he turned forty, this story did mean even Tom Riddle's power needed time to develop.

-And the Boy-Who-Lived wants to become all-powerful at the age of eighteen! I'd say Draco is more powerful than an averaged fourth year student, while Potter and Granger might be somewhere near the level of an average fifth year student. Potter is quite exceptional for his age, - but to match the power level of Albus within five years, how is that even possible?

From the rituals the Dark Lord used to make Granger hard to kill, Severus gathered that it wasn't too hard to gain physical strength and agility.

-Can this also be used to gain magic? Can you sacrifice a dragon and gain its magic? Or even, can you sacrifice powerful wizarding lords and ladies and gain the magic from that?

-Nah, even if it is possible, it would be against Potter's ethics to kill people for their magic. But dragons are probably OK to be sacrificed.

-However, we don't know if sacrificing dragons have some unwelcomed side effects. Besides, though dragons are more powerful than most ordinary folks including myself, they are not as powerful as Albus or the Dark Lord.

-If Potter wants the magical power of dragons, why five years? I suppose Mad-Eye and I can work out the details on how to sacrifice a dragon within a week or so.

As Severus was deep in his own thought, others already had several rounds of discussions on how to stall the rest of the world - plus Voldemort - from organizing an instant attack.

Lucius said, "Just as Lord Potter said, if Riddle hasn't figured out how he failed last time, he probably wouldn't be too eager to be the first serious attacker. However, what would happen if Riddle instigate other powerful wizards and witches in the world, and let them rob the Stone first, and then he will rob it from others later? With Riddle doing the persuasion, I am sure that some really powerful lords and ladies would try."

The boy who resembled Albus so much closed his eyes for a while, and then said, "Mr. Malfoy, this scenario is a logical response for - for some other dark wizards, and we do need to keep an eye on this possibility. However, for Tom Riddle, he might prefer a solo play." Harry Potter swallowed hard. "He might try to gain more power, either by learning Muggle science, or by -"

The Boy-Who-Lived glanced at Lucius, and then at Severus.

And Severus understood. Judging from Lucius' expressions, the blond man also understood.

Draco looked at his ashen faced Father, and then at his black faced Godfather. The blond boy drew in a breath, and his body tensed up.

Mad-Eye's no-longer-scarred face turned a shade whiter, and he snarled, "Damn it! I need to check on every single soul in Nurmengard!"

Lucius responded almost automatically, though his tone lost his usual sarcasm. "Be careful, some of them might be American or Russian spies. Don't cause a world war with your normal methods."

Severus pondered, and then said: "And I will look for similar signs in former Soviet states - I suppose, both in the Muggle world and the magical one. I heard there was an exodus of Muggle scientists since the Soviet Union collapsed, maybe I should look for recently disappeared distinguished Muggle scientists."

The Boy-Who-Lived nodded gravely. "Mr. Malfoy, could you tell Grindelwald that, according to the holder of Line of Merlin Unbroken's understanding of Tom Riddle, the reappeared Riddle might approach him for his biggest secret? And, err, the holder of Line of Merlin Unbroken has found the welcome package - no, the existence of the welcome package - morally unacceptable."

Then, Mad-Eye, Bones, Potter, Granger, Lucius, and Severus, who had known Albus Dumbledore from various perspectives, discussed the wording of the message, and how to make it more Albus-ish.

By six o'clock, they had agreed on the message to be delivered to Grindelwald and the rest of the world, and it was time for Lucius to be time-turned and to give testimony in the DMLE. Before the man was taken way, he looked at the Boy-Who-Lived and the Girl-Who-Revived imploringly: "Lord Potter, Lady Granger, can I spend some private time with my friend and family?"

Harry Potter's mask cracked a bit as he glanced Draco, and Hermione Granger seemed a bit uneasy.

Severus knew what Lucius was playing at - even if Severus didn't, Mad-Eye had already called it out. "You manipulative snake deserves every part of this! Don't think that you can play the pity card-"

The Boy-Who-Lived interjected, "Mr. Malfoy, you can have an hour."

After some promises in Parseltongue from both Lucius and Severus, Potter, Granger, Bones, and Mad-Eye (reluctantly, and with quite a few nudges from the Boy-Who-Lived) left the circle of privacy.

As they were waiting for Narcissa, Severus began to check what interesting spells and magical items Mad-Eye had left in this circle. The black-haired man wanted to keep himself busy, for he didn't want to consider the possibility that this might be the last time he saw Malfoy Sr. - unless he made some real breakthroughs in reviving people without their heads.

Severus knew that he was being manipulated by Lucius, but, by the time Narcissa came, he still couldn't help himself and promised: "Draco, Narcissa, don't worry too much. If anything happens, I will figure out a way to bring Lucius back, no matter what. I sspoke truth."

The three Malfoys all looked at Severus with great gratitude. Lucius walked up to Severus and gave him a hug. "My dearest Severus, my brother and my friend, you be careful yourself. If anything happens, well, you might have to wait for a while, but I shall bring you back as well. I sspoke truth"

"Godfather, me too." The younger blond also promised.

Severus knew Lucius was a bastard - Draco might be a better person, but still a little bastard. However, the black-haired man still felt the empty hole in him ever since Albus' disappearance was being filled.

-Oh, damn Malfoys!