Changing Destiny

Sixty-Nine: Take Your Brother To Work Night

Angel

The students had left by the time Severus was left alone with him in the so called Room of Requirement, which became a lovely training/lair for him. He looked over his half brother, and sipped his blood laced wine.

"You look remarkably like our father," Angel finally remarked. "Which is saying something. Do you want a drink?"

Severus nodded. "Obviously."

Angel poured him a glass, and Severus grimaced at the taste. "There's blood in it."

Angel grinned. "Naturally. Come, sit if you like. I do have regular wine, though the taste is not completely unwelcome to you, I notice."

Severus did after waving a wand over his Slytherin uniform to change it back to his teaching robes. "No. You have a gift for teaching. I was curious to see how different wandless magic was. How else can mage lore be used?"

Angel rose, and brought over his long sword. He handed the sword to him, and warned, "Don't touch the blade without gloves. I have placed certain enchantments on it that trap demons in it."

"I wouldn't know how to use it. But it is quite balanced, and light," Severus admitted. "What are the daggers for?"

"Close quarter fighting. They are imbued with silver, and deadly to werewolves," Angel winked. "My guns have ultraviolet bullets that I invented myself to kill criminal vampires. Most of the criminal element among my people are of the turned variety, you see. They want to continue to commit the crimes they committed while mortal, but the worst one is to take out innocent immortals. Murder is murder even in the vampire world."

"So, your Order functions as the equivalent to aurors," Severus surmised.

Angel smiled. "You could say that, but most of the clans have a scattering of every mage Order loyal to them. Only the Imperial Queen has the ultimate authority, even over the Council of Elders."

"No King?"

"Should my mother require a King?"

"Not necessarily. But...how far down the line of succession are you?" Severus realized.

Angel waved his left hand, and his sword and weapons belt floated neatly back on to his bed. "I haven't been at the Imperial Court in over...hmm, I want to say fifty years? So, it's difficult to say. A rough estimate would be about four hundredth in the line. But considering how long my mother has been alive, and how she is insatiable in her desires, well, you can imagine how many purebloods she actually has. I think she has only been in love a handful of times, and only to those men she has shared her blood with that give them the power to breed as any of her pureblood children can with those most compatible to their powers. Turned vampires can be intimate, but they're sterile, and can only turn others through passing the Dark Gift to a person. Sometimes, they die in the process, but those who live become vampires. Yay. I myself wouldn't have chosen immortality if I had the choice."

Severus understood. He told Angel what his mother told him, and Angel listened patiently. "Yes, I know of that practice of having bed slaves. I'm sorry your mother was part of that arrangement, but father he..." Angel trailed off, shaking his head, frowning, "The reason I even sought you out to even know you, brother, is that father went crazy. Legitimately insane. Most of our half siblings? He had them killed, and when I found out about you, about how powerful you were, I knew that I had to at least offer you the choice of being part of the Dracane legacy."