Prologue
A slight young woman sat stiffly on the edge of a high-backed leather armchair. She watched with unseeing eyes as a small, dark-haired boy arranged and rearranged a queue of books along the floor. When sharp footsteps echoed into the room from the hall, the woman stood from the chair and nervously wrung her hands together before forcing them down to her sides, hands balling into fists. A tall man with greying hair and a large hooked nose entered the room, his expression sour and forbidding. His dark eyes passed over the woman, rested on the boy and then snapped back to the woman when she spoke timidly.
"Hello, Father."
"How old is he?" the man asked brusquely.
"He'll be three years old on the 9th of January."
"So," the man said quietly. "You've been hiding this for over three years. And yet here you are, come to beg for help."
"Mother told me—" the woman began.
"Your mother is dead," the man snapped. "Whatever promises she might've made or offers she extended to you died with her."
The boy had abandoned his books and was watching the two adults with a blank expression on his little face. The woman pressed her thin lips together as though she was trying to stop something from escaping her mouth. Her eyes welled with tears as she stared at the man in silence for several long moments.
"Father, please," she said, her voice quavering dangerously. "I have nowhere else to go."
"Where is the father?" the man asked coldly.
"He's dead." The words sounded hollow.
"And his family wouldn't take you?"
The woman hesitated.
"Your mother told me about the wedding announcement in the Prophet, so at the very least I know you haven't sunk so low as to have spawned a bastard. You have legal claim to his estate. And since you are here, that must mean he was penniless." The man scoffed derisively. Then, as if struck by a sudden and vile thought, his eyes narrowed and he glared at her menacingly.
"Was he a Mudblood?"
The woman flinched. When she opened her eyes again, they were lowered to the floor and quickly filling with dread and panic. The boy's tiny voice split the air like the slash of a sword.
"Mama?"
"I asked you a question," the man hissed, ignoring the boy. "Was the father a Mudblood?"
"No," the woman whispered. "He was a Muggle."
For a moment, all of the air in the room seemed to disappear. The little boy, his dark eyes now wide with fear, began to back away from the adults into a corner. The woman's hands were trembling even though she still kept them clenched tightly into fists. The man's expression had changed abruptly from suspicion to complete and utter fury.
"What!" he spat through white lips. "WHAT!"
The woman cowered away from him, her entire body now shivering violently. The boy had begun to cry in the corner, trying to wedge himself between the wall and a wooden step-stool.
"YOU DARE!" The man seemed beyond reason. "YOU DARE COME HERE AND ASK ME FOR ANYTHING AFTER YOU HAVE SO BEFOULED—"
"But Mother told you about the wedding announcement!" the woman gasped in terrified desperation.
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" the man screamed. He seethed through clenched teeth, his eyes wide and almost wild with rage. He did not appear to even register the boy's cries, and the woman seemed too paralyzed with fright to move.
"Your mother knew," the man finally growled in an ominous undertone. "She knew what I would have done if I had learned the whole truth. I shan't speak ill of the dead. But you will pay for both her deception and your crimes against this family."
He approached the woman, and she bunched her shoulders, her head dipping down slightly as though she was anticipating a blow to the face. The man came to stand before her, looking down his large nose at her with an icy, contemptuous glare.
"You will leave the boy here and get out of my house. You will never show your face here again. I don't care where you go or how you survive, for no shame to which you lower yourself now could possibly be greater than the one you have already embraced. The boy will be raised with a proper understanding of the world and our place in it. After he has come of age, it will be his responsibility to undo some of the dishonor you have brought to the name of Prince."
The woman let out a piteous sob and bit down hard on her lower lip. Her eyes flickered over to the boy, still crying and huddling behind the step-stool.
"Please…" she moaned, barely audible.
"This is the price you will pay," the man said. A cruel smirk twisted his mouth. "You will reimburse me a grandson for the daughter I've disowned."
The woman's face was contorted in anguish and her hands clutched at her sides, her body quivering in a strange kind of half-convulsion. She looked like a person suffering from a painful form of torture. She took great, gasping breaths in an effort to steady herself, finally raising a tear-streaked face to look up at the man.
"Now get out," he spat harshly.
With another loud sob, the woman turned and walked out of the room, her steps uneven as her legs threatened to give out beneath her. She stopped briefly beneath the frame of the door, and though she did not turn around, her voice was clear and held a shaking note of defiance.
"His name is Severus. Severus Snape."
