Chapter 7
Judah and Layla, the adult ones, accompanied Devanye, Severus, Carson, and their infant counterparts on the fishing excursion. After a thoroughly enjoyable late afternoon by a pond with a small bubbling waterfall, they retreated to the master’s quarters. Layla and Judah were completely enamored of the cats and set to ruffling ears and scratching chins immediately. Devanye and her husbands set their babies down for the night, rocking their cribs and gazing down adoringly on them.
“They really are perfect,” Devanye murmured, her hands folded under her nose, before she turned to Severus. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Perfectly alright,” he smiled tiredly. “The sedatives are kicking in, that’s all.”
“I’ll be in bed in just a minute,” Devanye assured him, turning with a restless movement toward the giant red candle the Israeli Minister of Magic had given her during the bris.
“I want to help.” Severus grasped her hand. “Sympathetic magic or not, nigh omnipotent or not, you can’t pull this off on your own.”
There was a polite knock on their bedroom door and Carson bustled over to answer. “Layla,” he said in some surprise. “Judah … what’s the matter?”
“Nothing, dad, we just wanted to help with the magical mezuzahs.” Layla assured him, pinning her cheerful yellow yarmulke in place. Judah followed solemnly behind her as she hurried inside. He crossed to his own father.
“Thanks, dad,” he smiled, grasping Severus’ elbows before carefully pulling him in for a hug. “You always participate in my milestones even if you don’t understand why we do them.”
“Of ― of course,” Severus managed stiffly, patting his son’s shoulder a little awkwardly at first, before chafing his arms a bit more naturally. “So …” he looked at Devanye, “how does it work?”
“We hold our intention, light the candle, and build energy for eighteen minutes, directing it at the mezuzah, then snuff the candle out,” Devanye told him. “First thing in the morning, and last thing before bed, every day, without fail.”
“And what do you mean by ‘build energy’?” Severus wanted to know.
“Typically, it means we listen to banging music,” Judah smirked, producing a glass device that fit in the palm of his hand. His thumb stroked it and it lit up like Christmas. Or, Hanukkah, anyway. “Patriotic Israeli and Jewish pride music mostly ― the requirements are Jewish or Israeli-specific and, more importantly, life affirming. Simcha Leiner is mom’s favorite. We play him on repeat.” He tapped the glass screen with his thumb again and a bouncy beat pulsed out.
“Am Yisrael Chai, we are here to stay,” sang out a crystal clear baritone, “We keep goin’, goin’ ― whoooaa ― We are meant to be ― for eternity ― Lanetzach ― whoaaa … Am Yisrael Chai ― That will never change ― we keep goin’, goin’ ― whoaaa ― We are meant to be Lanetzach …”
Then followed a long string of triumphant Hebrew to a marching beat that Judah and Layla cheerfully joined in while Devanye beebopped along, pulling out her red ritual lighter and lit the candle. It popped theatrically, spitting sparks as the spell enveloped the mezuzah on the small table they were gathered around in the warm glow. The half-English chorus came around again and Severus joined in, grasping Carson’s hand. Another mezuzah, this one actually fixed to their door, began to glow faintly. Devanye held her lit lighter a moment before plucking up a red pomodoro timer and setting it for eighteen minutes, joining in with gusto as well ― and the glow emanating from both mezuzahs intensified just a little bit.
Eighteen minutes passed like this and the timer dinged and Judah’s thumb tapped the glass screen again, quickly, cutting it off mid-verse. The glowing mezuzahs dimmed and faded out, leaving just the light of the candle, which Devanye quietly snuffed out with a snuffer.
“We don’t need to finish it out?” Carson frowned, disappointed.
“Eighteen minutes, not a second less or more,” Layla told him knowledgeably.
“Eighteen is the gematria for chai, or life,” Judah explained, earning a confused look from both his fathers.
“Jewish numerology,” Devanye explained, then, for Severus’ benefit, “Arithmancy, but make it Hebrew.”
They nodded, exchanging a dubious look.
“So …” Carson looked from the cradle to his adult daughter. “What do we do together? I mean, Severus, apparently, participates in the Jewish stuff with Judah, I assume I do as well? Or will?”
“The things you have time for,” Layla nodded brightly, and Carson’s face fell. She bit her lip. “What?”
“I didn’t make time for you?” he asked in a strained voice, tears welling in his blue eyes.
“Of course you did,” she backtracked, taking both of his hands in hers. “Every spare second. You have important work, that’s all.”
“It sounds like there weren’t enough of them,” he probed miserably. “I at least make time for the big things, right? Like your bat mitzvah? No work is more important than …” She was biting her lip nervously again, and he gaped at her, eyes widening in horror, “I missed your bat mitzvah?!”
“Not … all of it,” she hedged. “Just the … part where I was called up to the bimah to read the Torah and lead everyone in ―”
“Oh my God!” Carson started to cry. “I’m a terrible father!”
“But you made it to the party afterward and downed Shirley Temples with the best of them!” She tried to assure her father. “I’m really mucking this up ― you’re not a terrible father ― you’re the best ever, dad!”
“I missed your bat mitzvah!” he cried incredulously.
“You had a very good reason,” Judah chimed in at Layla’s pleading look.
“I missed your bar mitzvah, too, didn’t I?” Carson gasped. “There’s no excuse for ―”
“There were complications in Aunt Astoria’s double bypass surgery,” both adult children implored.
Carson sniffed, mopping his eyes, “What?”
“You saved Aunt Astoria for my bat mitzvah,” Layla beamed tearfully. “And you helped us both study our Torah portions, like I said, every spare second.”
“There were plenty of them,” Judah agreed, his lips tipping up behind his facial hair. “Though, I’m not sure there’s any such thing as ‘enough’.”
Bursting into a fresh wave of tears, Carson pulled both of them into his arms. “Ach, bless ye both!”
“It looks like you were sorted into different Houses,” Devanye remarked. “Hogwarts treated you well? You would have gone … well, after 2020 obviously … right?”
“Right!” Layla beamed. “I went after I turned eleven in 2019 ― I mean, I went in September of 2019 since I turned eleven in November of 2018 ―”
“Focus,” her brother teased.
“Right, because Medi Muggle Beckett was there, I mean Seanair ― anyway, everyone would just assume I was his kid and it explained away what a Muggle was doing taking over after Madam Pomfrey retired. He was the ‘dad of a Muggleborn,” she added air quotes, “and my mom was, er … well her whereabouts weren’t spoken about. But obviously Judah couldn’t join me until after ‘Severus Snape’ was spotted at Platform 9¾ and the events of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child played out. So he was homeschooled the first two years. Came to Hogwarts just in time to go to Hogsmeade.”
“But did Hogwarts treat you well?” Devanye insisted.
Judah paled. “Er …”
But Layla snorted. “It’s magical junior high, mom. Nobody gets out unscathed. Except for maybe James Potter,” she added with just a hint of bitterness. Severus’ eyes sharpened.
It was Devanye’s turn to pale. “What did he do?”
“To me?” she asked, shrugging unconvincingly. “Asked me about my mom every day for two years, then when he found out you were a Hansen Christmas of 2020 … he asked me how many witches I killed. Got the whole school in on it.”
“I’m so sorry,” Devanye said softly.
“It really wasn’t even that clever,” Layla wrinkled her tiny nose. “The bullies in that place have really let themselves go since dad’s time. Didn’t stop them from copying the masters with Judah, though.”
Severus’ lips parted and Devanye instinctively reached for her son. “Did I at least write McGonagall about it?”
“Of course!” Judah chafed her hands. “I’m just … more fun to tease than Layla, I guess. Worth the detentions. By the time I left, I was actually answering to Snivellus sometimes. James really got a kick out of that.”
Devanye tilted her head in confusion. “More fun to tease?”
“He looks like dad, but he’s all you in there,” Layla grinned. “Busting into tears for every little thing, never fights back. Scorpius became very protective of him. So did Albus Potter, unfortunately, which meant that James used him to get under Albus’ skin. Plus, he got your ADHD like whoa and has trouble regulating his emotions. We have a bet going that he’s going to inherit your bipolar disorder, too. He thinks it’s going to be me. So far, I’m just dyslexic, though.”
“It’s only fair,” Judah sniffed haughtily. “Anyway, Scorpius and Albus are great. And going places, more importantly, unlike people like James Potter who peak in high school.”
“Oh?” Devanye smiled tentatively. “Going places like where?”
Judah smirked, wagging his left ring finger coyly. “First stop for Scorpius is under the chuppah with me. Right after his beit din. From there, anywhere in the Federation, I guess. It’s a post-scarcity society, it’s gonna be great! James can just keep mucking around with his seventeen times tables. I’ll be quite happy to never calculate wizard money again.”
“Albus and I don’t put a label on what we have, but we’re pretty damn exclusive,” Layla grinned wickedly.
“Oh my God!” Devanye and Carson squealed. “Congratulations!”
“And just why doesn’t Potter want to put a label on what you have?” Severus bristled.
“Oh, he does, dad,” her grin widened. “Desperately. But mom wears a tichel, and she’s tried to teach me how to wrap one, but I’m just hopeless at it.”
“You don’t have to wear a tichel if you don’t want to, honey,” Devanye frowned. “We’re Reform.”
“Yeah, but I want to wear a tichel if I’m married, mom. So if I can’t figure out how to wrap it,” she shrugged, “better not to put a label on it. Besides,” her blue eyes sparkled, “he keeps coming up with more and more elaborate ways to propose. I’d hate to spoil his fun by actually saying yes. Then he’d have to stop.”
“Besides, can you imagine the size of the brick that easily half of the people the most excited about mom’s pet project would shit if her son married a man and her daughter didn’t wear a tichel as a married woman?” Judah snickered.
“Oh, let them,” Devanye rolled her eyes. “We’re Jews, and more to the point, we’re human. We live to complain. It’s good for them.” She squeezed their hands, bouncing a little on her toes as she led them out of the bedroom and into the main living area of the master suite. “Why didn’t you invite them?”
The twins exchanged a look, then Judah let out a piercing whistle. The door to the corridor cracked open just enough for two men to peek their heads bashfully in. Scorpius wore his hair in a long ponytail and had a smattering of stubble along his jaw that was just barely visible against his pale skin. His grey eyes met hers and widened in the split second before he ducked back behind the door.
“No you don’t,” Albus Potter snorted, his wild black hair tumbling to his shoulders as he shoved his friend through the door. “Come on, ‘Scorpius the Undaunted’, you know better than anybody, she’s not that scary.”
“Two points, first point: ‘Scary’ isn’t the word I’d use to describe what I’m experiencing,” Scorpius Malfoy pointed out ruefully, barely audible. “‘Daunted’, sure. ‘Nervous’, even.” He cleared his throat. “Second point: what do you say to the person you stranded in time ― after stranding her in time wildly, dramatically, utterly unpredictably changed your life for the better? Like, three years after it happened? She hasn’t had the thirty-odd years she had to process it that she had when I asked for her blessing to marry her son.”
“Apology accepted, come here, you,” Devanye hurried over to him, hugging him tight. Then she gave Albus the same treatment before setting them both at arm’s length and drawing on her very best Molly Weasley impression. “Car crashed! No note! Could’ve dropped off the face of the earth, but did you care?! Never so long I’ve lived,” she gave them both a tearful smile and fell back into her normal voice, “have I ever been so happy to be stranded in time. What happened to you after 2004? Come in! Sit down!”
She tugged them over to the couch and settled in near a cozy hearth. “Y’all sit right here, and you two,” she pointed between her adult children and the two young wizards on the couch. Severus perched gingerly on the arm of the plush chair across from the couch Carson took, and Devanye sat in Carson’s lap, wringing her hands. “I sort of changed things with Delphi, and I don’t know how that altered things.
“It went almost exactly like the play, actually, until the third act,” Albus filled her in. “I went back to the first task, got Rose unexisted, Scorpius fixed it, I went to the second task and got Cedric Diggory disqualified from the Triwizard Tournament, he killed Neville Longbottom, my dad died at seventeen, I ceased to exist, and Scorpius fixed that reality too, with the help of one Severus Snape.”
“How?” Severus straightened. “I died before Potter faced the Dark Lord.”
“Delphi had gone back even farther,” Scorpius explained, “told him if he took Wiggenweld Potion after being attacked by Nagini, he wouldn’t bleed out, and he listened to her. She told us later that the plan was to bring him, whole and hale, back to Cedric Hansen to kill at the opportune moment, after he had introduced Snape to the Devanye he held captive and recreated the events in which he was conceived. Cedric shot him in the heart before the dementors swarmed him,” he hunched his shoulders, “but he lived long enough to buy me enough time to escape back to the second task. We lied about the time-turner to the adults, resolved to destroy it, and Delphi took us to the parking lot where we ran into Severus … twice.” He looked between Devanye and Severus. “I can’t tell you how weird and horrible it was to watch Severus Snape die for Lily Potter’s cause after everything you told us about the version of you that went back in time. Even though Snily is what I grew up hearing about.”
Judah chafed Scorpius’ fingers between his palms. He turned his fiance’s palm up and kissed his wrist and started up his arm like Gomez Addams to Scorpius’ Morticia. Scorpius cheered up at once, blushing and ducking his head.
“How did your beit din go, luv?” Judah asked, and Scorpius’ face lit up. “I passed! I can’t believe it!”
“It’s not a test,” Layla snorted, but she was drowned out by Devanye and Judah crying, “Mazel tov!” and Severus and Carson adding their congratulations.
“Who was your rabbi?” Devanye wanted to know.
“Rabbi Becca,” Scorpius beamed. “From our time. Seemed obvious ― I am joining the family, after all.” He pushed Judah’s face playfully away when he began another Addams-like display of affection. “She said she’s going to call us up to the bimah to light the Shabbat candles.”
“Why did you decide to convert?” Devanye asked curiously. “You didn’t have to. We’re Reform.”
Scorpius’ lips tipped into a lopsided smile. “I’ll tell you like you told me when I asked you that: Judaism is intellectually honest to a fault.” He gave a twittering little laugh. “It’s probably the only religion that will tolerate all the points I have to raise about religion. It didn’t seem intellectually honest to raise any children with Judah as Jews if I didn’t fully immerse myself. And the more I immersed myself,” he blushed even deeper, “the more I liked what I saw.”
“Are you going to grow a beard now, too?” Albus asked slyly, rubbing his face to indicate Scorpius’ stubble.
“No, I just haven’t had a chance to shave yet.” He hastily explained, “Grandad Weasley gave me a Muggle shaving kit as an engagement present.”
“Wonderful!” Devanye laughed.
“We wanted to invite you all to the wedding,” Judah ventured. “Before we join Starfleet.”
“Omigod, yes!” Devanye felt tears spilling down her cheeks, and began mopping her face.
“There is one catch,” Judah posited uncomfortably. “It’s very small. My aunts and uncles on your side are obviously welcome, but Scorpius isn’t comfortable with PawPaw, MawMaw and Great Grandma being there. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve come a long way and our ones are … at least not saying anything bad.” Judah regarded her steadily. “But I’m a powerful Legilimens and a terrible Occlumens and I don’t want them ruining what should be the best day of Scorpius’ life with thoughts they can’t help thinking.”
“Fair enough,” Devanye agreed quietly. “I’m so happy for you!”
“Thanks, mom.” He made a real show of stretching and sliding his arm around Scorpius’ shoulder. Scorpius’ cheeks were now burning scarlet.
“You two are disgusting, do you know that?” Layla smirked.
“Don’t you want to share your news?” Judah asked innocently, and it was Albus’ turn to blush.
“What news, luv?” Carson asked.
Layla tilted her head saucily at Albus, whose eyes widened. “He was serious?!”
“He’s always serious, it’s part of his charm,” she dismissed. “Should we tell them, or show them?”
“Tell us what?” Carson fretted and Severus stiffened, already narrowing his eyes at Albus, who gulped.
“Both?” Layla asked judiciously.
“Both?!” Albus yelped, going as pale as Scorpius was red.
“Both is good,” Layla decided, sliding a small photograph across the coffee table slyly. Carson blinked slowly, blue eyes wide as he looked from the face-down photo paper to his daughter. “I’m pregnant!” she beamed between their disbelieving faces. “It’s a girl. Judah and Scorpius are going to take her in ―”
Severus surged to his feet, dragging Albus Potter up roughly by his collar. Albus whimpered nervously. “Just punch me, please don’t pull out a wand, because I am just hopeless at dueling.”
“Just punch me, sir, Potter,” Severus seethed venomously. “Explain to me why you aren’t raising your daughter with my daughter, right the fuck now. Then I will decide what to do with my wand.”
“Well, I’d love to, sir, I really would, but Scorpius is sterile and male … and Judah is … male, and it was Layla’s idea in the first place, and I … love her dearly … and I , er … really wish you’d put me down. Sir.”
Severus released him with enough force to send him careening unsteadily back onto the couch.
“Dad!” Layla gasped in outrage, pulling out her wand and getting to her feet.
“SHE WAS BORN EIGHT DAYS AGO, DAMMIT!” Severus roared, pulling his own wand and leveling it at Albus. Devanye hurried between them to intervene. Carson was staring at his daughter in shock, picking up the photo with trembling fingers.
“SHE WAS BORN TWENTY-NINE YEARS AGO!” Layla roared right back, pushing Devanye out of the middle of their circle forcefully but gently, and pointing her wand at Severus. “And to answer your question,” she breathed in exactly as venomous a tone, “even if I wanted to raise a child, YOU WON’T BLOODY WELL LET ME MARRY A POTTER!”
“Alright, Scorpius?” Judah asked in some concern, propping up his fiance, who had started to hyperventilate.
“So you get your wish,” Layla spat, flicking her wand and watching idly as Severus’ clattered to the floor. “I won’t marry him. But one way or another, there’s bloody well going to be a Potter in the family in six short months, so you’d better adapt real fucking fast, father.”
“She’s lovely,” Carson managed weakly, holding up the ultrasound in his hand. “Three months along?”
Layla nodded, tears welling in her eyes in the split second before she flung herself into his arms, weeping inconsolably. Severus cast Devanye a worried look, and she placed her hand on her daughter’s shoulders, massaging gently. “We’re very happy for you,” she assured her. “We’re just at a very different stage in your life. We love Albus … don’t we, Severus?” she prompted pointedly.
“I only meant,” he began stiffly, “are you sure ― absolutely sure ― you want James Potter as your brother-in-law?”
“Like I’d give him the fucking satisfaction,” Layla snapped, and Severus stiffened.
“She doesn’t mean that the way she’s saying it. Sir,” Albus hastily excused her. “Zrikha, darling, that is your father you’re speaking to. Who only wants to protect you. And he has a point about my brother ― you remember what he did to Judah just to get under my skin.”
“She’s been like this for six weeks,” Judah whispered in Devanye’s ear so Layla couldn’t hear. “We all think it’s bipolar disorder, but she won’t believe dad, and she thinks he’s influencing Dr. Kate. She thinks it’s just pregnancy hormones.”
“Then we’d better get another opinion,” Devanye said quietly. She crossed to an ornate wooden jewelry box on a shelf and pulled out a comm badge. “Bones,” she called softly. “We have a family emergency with the adult twins. Can you make a house call? … Excellent … I think Layla’s rapid cycling.”