A/N: I don't own the characters, except for Sidda. This is a response to the Whiskey challenge on WIKTT
The italics are the song "Whiskey Lullaby" by Alison Krauss and Brad Paisley. Both are great artists, I recommend them, highly.
A skinny girl stood out under a willow tree on a blustery, gray day. Anger had welled up inside of the girl to the point where even lashing out at someone, anyone, would have done no good. She just wanted to curl up in the darkness. Most importantly, she wanted her daddy. She could have been no more than 10 or 11 years old and there she stood, no protection from the heavy winds or the steadily falling rain. She watched a deep hole in the ground intently, almost as if she was contemplating jumping in herself. She was the only one to bury her mother. Her mother had had friends, maybe, yes, perhaps she did at one time. But now there was nobody. And Sidda wanted nothing more than to be rid of her mother, the woman who had made her life a living hell, the woman she had never met. Hermione Granger.
11 years earlier
Severus Snape stood in the middle of his bedroom, looking confused and heartbroken all at the same time. Where was she? Where was his wife? He had left a day and a half earlier to stay in Hogsmede, so he wouldn't get in the way of mediwitches and midwives coming and leaving his rooms to bring his child and keep his wife safely in this world. Severus had gone to a jewelers to buy matching rings for mother and baby, plain, thin gold bands, and on his return his wife was gone.
Severus rushed to the armoire and thrust open the doors, pulled open the drawers. Everything had been left behind. All of her jewelery, her wedding ring, necklaces, all of her dress robes still hung in the closet. All that she had taken were plain, dark robes, the shoes on her feet and her thick woolen cloak. The rest of her belongings she left. Perhaps to torture her husband into always remembering her existence. It was harder to forget someone when they left evidence of themselves everywhere.
Still, Severus stood in the middle of his bedroom in a trance. One million questions zoomed in and out of his head, scarcely staying long enough for him to sit and think on. A high pitched scream was emitted from a tightly wrapped bundle in the corner of the room. Dropping his bag, Severus whipped around and snapped back to reality.
He approached the bassinet with the care and caution of a spy, since that had been his status until a few short years ago. From beneath a pale green blanket he could see a head full of black curls and milky blue eyes staring back at him. He raised one eyebrow and sniffed the air over the baby. When no foul odor had been detected, he glanced over at the desk next to the bassinet. She had left a letter!
Severus,
I'd like you to meet your daughter. Siddalee Anne. You'll be getting to know each other very well, very soon, as I will not be returning. I cannot lie anymore. I hate the life I have built for myself. I never wanted this for me. I wanted to learn, to travel. I cannot do this with a husband and a baby. I hope you understand why I will never come back to you. I don't hate you. I just can no longer return your love.
Hermione Granger
He balled up the note in his fist and threw it into the fireplace. Turning, he looked down at his daughter. His daughter. He no longer cared about anything else in the world. He poked her gently and she latched onto his finger for dear life. There were all the other had in the world.
She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette
She broke his heart he spent his whole life tryin' to forget
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind
Until the night
2 years earlier
She thought he was sleeping. Siddalee Snape touched her father's cheek. He was still warm. She tucked a piece of her thin, dark hair behind an ear and walked over to get the empty bottle from his hand. It was a large, old bottle of Odgen's Firewhiskey. A deep amber in color with a fancy glass topper that she knew her father had thrown somewhere or broken in the fireplace. When she was younger, Sidda especially loved playing with one shaped like a beautiful woman. She carried it with her everywhere, calling it 'Mama'. Once Severus found out he took it away from her, angrily smashed it against the wall and he had hit her. He hit his little girl. Since then she stopped playing with the bottle tops. She stopped playing with everything, just closed herself up in her room, reading or playing by herself with one of the many dolls he had bought in begging for her forgiveness. Apart from this, she took care of her Daddy. Even now. Sidda took the bottle with the faded label from his clammy grip and put it on an end table. In several small strides she was back at his bedside, pulling down the thick, green duvet to cover him with. Sidda untied his shoes and put them underneath his bed. She gathered her night dress into her small fists and climbed onto the great bed with her father and curled up next to him. Turning, she kissed him on his still warm cheek.
"I love you Daddy. Goodnight", were her last words to her dead father.
He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away her memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees
We found him with his face down in the pillow
With a note that said I'll love her till I die
And when we buried him beneath the willow
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby
Across the room a bit of parchment lie on the desk with a long letter of love for Hermione.
The rumors flew but nobody knew how much she blamed herself
For years and years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath
She finally drank her pain away a little at a time
But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind
Until the night
A creased and faded piece of parchment was still in her hand as she drank her way through the night. He was gone. Her life was hell and her beloved Severus was now gone from this world. Whatever imaginary world she had pictured her daughter and Severus in was now cold and barren. Trees didn't bloom and streams dried up. All she could picture was a cold and sad little girl, with dirt on her feet and in her hair, crawling after dropped and discarded pieces of food to survive. Living in a deep and all consuming sadness. Hermione Granger was not that far off.
Sidda had been sent to live with a distant relative, Draco Malfoy, until she was old enough to attend Hogwarts. She had everything she could have ever wanted in his home. She had dresses, toys, doll houses, piano lessons and a new older brother. She wanted to go back to her old bed, her old rooms and dresses. She didn't want an older brother. Draco tried his best to make her happy, but he knew it wouldn't happen. She hadn't spoken a word since she woke up screaming in the stiff and cold arms of her father.
Draco had tried to reach Hermione. It was he who had sent the letter that was found on Severus' desk. Still, after two years, he had heard nothing from her. Of course that was because she was drowning herself in a bottle of Odgen's old. But Draco didn't know that.
She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away his memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees
We found her with her face down in the pillow
Clinging to his picture for dear life
We laid her next to him beneath the willow
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby
They had found her clutching the parchment and a picture of Severus and Sidda that she had gotten along with it from Draco. At her feet lay a an empty, deep amber bottle with a faded label. In the corner of the room a glass bottle top of a beautiful young woman lay, already beginning to collect dust.
She was alone again. Granted she had never known her mother, it was still hard to place the incredible void Sidda felt in her heart. It was like a giant gaping hole that would swallow her up the next time she fell asleep. She knew it would. She was so afraid of laying down and never waking up again, but at the same time, she longed to see her father again. Sidda blamed Hermione for everything. How could she not? She felt no emotional attachment to the woman, so it was an easy thing to do. As she stared at the plain oak box that now contained her mother, she wanted to scream. She needed to. How dare her mother? How dare that woman just leave her and her father like that? If she hadn't have left, none of this would have happened. Sidda knew she'd still have her Daddy. Daddy. She missed calling him that. A dark shadow of a 16 year old boy loomed over her. It was Aurelius, her brother. Her brother and her betrothed. She knew her father was always watching out for her.
"My father wanted me to give this to you." He held out a purple velvet pouch. Inside were a picture of her and her father and the bottle top of the woman she called 'Mama' so long ago.
"How are you feeling?" He asked, devoid of emotion.
"I could kill someone." She answered.
"Really?" A smirk played on his thin lips.
"To bad she's already dead." Sidda peered down and spit on the oak box.
"All the makings of a Slytherin. Father will be so pleased."
"My Father would have been too."
He wrapped his arm around Sidda and they left. She never came back.