Tea and Roses: Part I: Introduction to the Snape Family
The Snape family was one of the most prosperous families in the wizard world 30 years ago. They owned 4 estates, had a vast collection of top of the line brooms, and had almost an army of servants.
Sterling Snape, the head of the family had made his fortune in a popular line of potion ingredients. With his wife, Darvulia, they had 4 children. Severus, Beryl, Lorna, and Korinna.
Sterling was a short, rotund man with a head of white hair. He treated his wife, children, workers and servants well, and was known to give large amounts of money to charity. Despite all of these wonderful qualites, he had quite a few bad ones. Not only was he fond of the drink, but he also was quite a bit of a glutton. Most of his meals would last about 2 hours, and it was not all chatter. His wife did not dis-courage this. It was not that she didn't care about him, she let him do it because it made him happy. He was known to be a great story teller, and would talk for hours after meals. This delighted his children in their younger years, but became quite bored when they were older. Because of his fondness of telling stories, he told about himself a lot. (the signs of his large ego)Soon, all his close friends knew about every single thing about him!! From the exact time that he was born, to the way he planned to be buried when he passed on.
As for his wife, Darvulia, she was a mysterious woman. She never talked about herself, if she said anything at all. She was in many ways different than he husband, especially her appereance. She was very tall, so tall she was taller than her spouse. And she was very thin, with a long wavy mane of jet-black hair, that she passed on to her only son, Severus. Her daughters were blonde, which they got from their father, whom had blonde hair before his hair turned white. She also had a birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon underneath her left eye. She did not try to cover it up, she rather liked it. She thought it added to her strange way of looking. Rather than wearing lacy, pearled and jewled dresses, she usually swept about in long black dresses with trains. As for her hair, it was in dozens of tight braids, and some of them were looped around and fastened to the back of her head, while the rest just hung there. As for her personality, it could only be described as quiet. She was not shy, she did not shrink away from meeting new people, she just never spoke that often. Because of her odd personality and odd looks, most people suspectued that she was involved in the dark arts, but did not ask.
Severus, the oldest child and only boy, was much like his mother. They looked a bit alike because of their hair and thin bodies. A strange thing about him was that he had somehow inherited his mothers birthmark, except his was on his right wrist. Some people saw this as an omen, that the young boy would grow up to be involved in the dark arts. Because of this, a lot of parents did not allow their children to play with him, but he did not mind, the only person he really wanted to be with was his mother. The two of them were both very quiet, and did not like to go out and socialize much, they rather liked to read books together by a crackling fire, or have tea out in the gardens of their summer estate. Severus was very smart. He was reading at age 3, and doing math at age 5. This gift was not given to his sisters, who were all rather feeble-minded.
Beryl, Lorna and Korinna hardly looked as though they were related to Severus and their mother. The 3 girls all had blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and dimples. Their personalities also differed, the girls liked to go out and play with other girls, or go unicorn riding. They all showed absolutely no interest in books, or having a quiet afternoon out in the gardens. The sisters all had rather expensive tastes, they liked fancy dresses and lots of jewlery. They were not intelligent, and did not show any signs of wanting to do anything with their lives rather than grow up, marry a rich and handsome husband, and spend all day combing their hair.
Note Number 2: Ok, ok, I couldn't think of a proper way to finish this part. Oh well. Look for the next part soon. And as for the name Darvulia that I have used previously in one of my fics, oh well, I just really like that name. I hope you have enjpyed this little story of mine.