Headmistress Minerva McConagal led her ill-tempered colleague to her office in silence while she thought over the situation. She cursed herself for a fool for not realizing that the Marriage Act might reveal Severus' true paternity. She wondered if she should simply tell him the truth but decided she'd rather it came from a neutral third party.
Minerva gave the password to the gargoyle, some obscure bit of Scottish history Severus was sure, and they rode the moving staircase up to her office. As soon as the door to her office closed, Severus began complaining, "I don't like being hauled off to your office like some naughty third year."
"Then stop acting like one," Minerva retorted, maybe more sharply than she intended.
Severus had a biting comeback on the type of his tongue, but he bit it back, knowing it wouldn't do to antagonize Minerva if he was to get her to grant him a boon. Minerva filled the silence with a further reproach, "I don't care if you swear like a drunken sailor, but don't do it in front of the student body."
Again Severus' immediate thought was to explain just how blue those sweet children could turn the air, but he restrained himself and instead did the unimaginable. Severus sighed and said. "I apologize."
"My, you really want a big favor badly," she ventured.
Severus was loathed to tell her she was correct, but knew he needed to swallow some of his enormous ego so he could get on with sorting out his life.
"Not such an enormous favor, I just want the morning off, so I can go get this mess," he waved the parchment from the ministry at Minerva, "taken care off."
"Alright, do you have lesson plans for today's classes in your desk drawer for a substitute instructor?"
"Uh, no, I don't," Severus reluctantly admitted.
"Severus! You know you are always suppose to have at least a weeks worth of lesson plans in your desk," Minerva scolded, though there was no real bite to her words.
"I know, but since the war ended I haven't been so worried that I wouldn't be able to make a class and well," he hesitated a moment, and a look Minerva was having difficulty cataloging settled on his features, "I've become lax," Severus stated somewhat surprised at as own words.
"I never thought I'd say this, but how lovely, to think you've finally gotten to the point where you take it for granted that you will be there in class everyday."
"You're not angry?" he asked somewhat surprised.
"I probably should be and I probably should be thinking of some appropriate punishment, but for now just write up an appropriate day's lessons for your students in all of your classes today."
"All?"
"Yes," Minerva wanted to give him the whole day off so he could cope with what he would learn but she needed a good excuse. "You probably aren't the only one having to deal with this particular problem and you may need to wait and fill out forms and do other sorts of time wasting bureaucratic things."
"You're right of course. I am going to deal with the Ministry of Magic. The process will be slow and maddeningly illogical."
"You had any doubt that I was right?" she asked with a smile.
"Never Minerva, now lend me your quill and some parchment and I will dash off those lesson plans for today."
As Severus worked at her desk, Minerva could see in him her childhood rival who she finally became friends with, Eileen Prince. Severus had his mother's dark eyes and hair but she could see his father in him too, in the shape of his face, his height, his long elegant fingers and most of all in his Gryffindor courage.
"There, all done," Severus said and presented Minerva with the parchment containing the assignments for his classes to complete in his absence.
"Alright then, would you like to floo to the Ministry from here?"
Yes, if you don't mind," he answered and Minerva shook her head and smiled, grabbing up a pinch of Floo powder and pitching it into the fireplace. Severus stepped in and spoke his destination "Ministry of Magic" clearly.
As soon as he had left she turned to address the portrait of a particular Headmaster only to find the frame was empty.
Severus found that Minerva had been correct, he was redirected several times before he was asked to wait to speak to a Deputy Undersecretary Wofford with the Department of Vital Statistics. She was an exceptionally plain witch with greasy blond hair, the color of old straw, and an unremarkable face save for the pair of granny glasses that perched on her nose.
"My, my Professor Snape, it's not every day we get a bona fide war hero in the office," she didn't notice Severus cringe at her pronouncing him a war hero. "What can we do for you today?"
"You can straighten this mess out," he said impatiently waving the Marriage Act Notification letter at her like a baton.
"Let me see what you have there," she said taking the parchment out of his hand.
"Well, this all seems to be in order," she said wondering how long it would take to reel in this big fish, and into what she could parlay his information. All morning long witches and wizards had been coming in disputing their notification letters and she, Margaret Wofford would help them ascertain their true paternity. She was also keeping a magical copy of the Doubting Thomases' pedigrees for her own for future use.
"It can't be, my father was a Muggle and my mother was a pure blood witch, that makes me a half-blood.
"There is a way to be absolutely sure, sir, a simple potion and spell.
The potion maker in Sevrerus made him curious and not a bit incautious, "What potion?
"It's a combination of veritaserum and your own blood. You simply bewitch a quill and parchment asking them to write your true pedigree."
Undersecretary Wofford produced the necessary parchment, quill, inkwell, veritaserum and ceremonial dagger and then a small piece of parchment with the spell scribe nomen ut genitus is cruor (write the names that begot this blood) written on it and a diagram of the proper wand movements. "I'll allow you some privacy to cast the spell that will produce your pedigree chart back to your great grandparents."
Snape nodded and found himself mesmerized by the idea that with the sacrifice of a few drops of his blood he would know the truth of his birth. As soon as Wofford left the room he set to work. He used the dagger, which he noted had the "recipe" for the ink engraved on it's handle, "two parts blood to three parts veritaserum", to cut his left palm. He prepared the ink then healed his hand. He studied the wand movements a moment and then cast the spell. Immediately the bewitched quill wrote his name at the bottom of the parchment and then above that wrote Eileen Prince, the quill moved up and added in his grandmother Maria Roth and his grandfather Andrew Prince. Severus grew inpatient as the quill finished his mother side of the tree because he already knew that information. He wanted to see his father's side to see if that was different from what he had always assumed was true. When the quill dropped back down to write his father's name, he almost wished he'd never cast the spell, never came to challenge the notification. It just couldn't be. As soon as the quill completed the pedigree chart, he snatched it up and ran out of the room.
"Professor Snape! Professor Snape!" Undersecretary Wofford called after the mass of billowing black robes until the loud crack of apparition was heard. She then proceeded into the room where the excess blood veritaserum ink was and recast the pedigree spell on a new piece of parchment. She could always claim she wanted to see what upset the professor so, but in truth she'd realize these disputes about half-bloods realizing they were purebloods could be a way for her to augment her meager ministry salary. When the spell revealed Snape's true father Wofford cackled, "Well, well, well dear Miss Rita Skeeter missed that old Wizard's biggest secret!"
