Hey everyone! Thanks for reading and making it to chapter 2! Hope you enjoy!
One week later, Severus Snape found himself packing for his trip to America in order to locate Olivia. She was apparently in New York City, a place he most certainly did not want to have to visit. It was supposed to be one of the greatest cities in the world, but all Severus could think about was how crowded and dirty it must be. Mostly though, he dreaded the crowds. He could put up with a bit of dirt, but he had no desire to be surrounded by people nearly everywhere he went. More than that, however, he had no desire to confront Olivia after nearly 15 years.
Would she be angry with him for abandoning her? Had she somehow found out all the terrible things that he had done to her? Or would she not even remember him?
He thought, perhaps, the realization of that last fear would be even worse that her being angry; but that was selfish of him. If she did not remember him, perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps if she did not remember him, she also had found a way to forget all the horrible things that had happened to her.
But Severus knew that could never be the case. There were some things she would never be able to forget; the evidence of them lived within her, and was painted across her skin in her multitude of scars. Those things had changed the very way that she was able to do magic.
Severus pulled his mind from these thoughts, thoughts of those horrific surgeries he had performed. Thinking on them would not do any good. He had a mission to complete, and getting caught up on his past transgressions would not help with that.
Confronting Lord Voldemort had gone exactly as Dumbledore had thought it would. When Snape had arrived at the grave yard, Voldemort had not been in a pleasant mood, to say the least. Potter had escaped merely hours before, and the mutilated corpses of several Death Eaters littered the various grave sites. It seemed a rather wasteful way for Voldemort to vent his frustration, by killing his own men, but Severus had wisely kept that thought closely guarded with occlumency.
Lucius Malfoy was being tortured when Severus had arrived. He looked as if he had endured several rounds of the cruciatus curse. His limbs twitched randomly, but violently and a thin trail of blood dripped from his nose. Voldemort seemed to have bored of that curse however, for by the time Severus had arrived, the Dark Lord had moved on to using another favorite curse of his, flagella.
A thick, red, hot whip was flying through the air, biting flesh from Lucius back as his screams echoed out into the night. The other remaining death eaters looked on uncomfortably.
Lucky for Lucius, the Dark Lord had soon turned his fury on Snape. Snape was accused of betrayal, and endured what felt like an endless cycle of whipping followed by bouts of the cruciatus curse. He had no idea how he managed to keep his mind shielded from the Dark Lord, but his guard had never come down. And, after when felt like an eternity, Severus had finally been able to convince Voldemort of his loyalty. He communicated to the Dark Lord his offer – he could bring him Olivia, and beyond even that, she would be loyal to him.
This news had cheered Lord Voldemort greatly, "At long last, my lethal weapon, returned to me. If I do not kill her for her insubordination, she will prove valuable in my plans."
"My Lord, from what I was able to determine, she was not insubordinate, she was kidnapped," Snape ventured, stupidly.
Voldemort's heartless, red eyes narrowed in anger, "I will determine that. Guilty until proven innocent is what I say. For now, it appears to be as if she willingly went with Dumbledore without so much as a fight."
"She was a little girl, with no magical training, and no wand. She was weakened by the surgeries –"
"Crucio!" Voldemort cried. He laughed at Severus's pain. His mirthless, cruel, high pitched laugh sounded out over the empty grave yard, mixing with Snape's screams of pain. As Severus had twisted and writhed, Voldemort hissed, "Do not presume to tell me the way of things, Severus. As of now, you are defending a traitor; and if what claim proves true, well then, you will soon be bringing me a second spy, which means you could become expendable very soon. Now behave."
He lifted the curse, demanding Severus bring him Olivia within the week. Severus had barely had the strength to pull himself up off the ground, but he had left as soon as possible. He did not want to give the Dark Lord the chance to decide his torture was not yet done.
Apparating had been a very terrible idea. His concentration faltered half way through, and when he had appeared in Hogsmeade, he had only been conscious long enough to know that he was in terrible shape and needed medical treatment immediately. As he fell forward, his consciousness fading, he hoped somebody would come across him and help him before it was too late. He thought hopelessly that if he died, he would never see Olivia again. But, as darkness engulfed him, some cowardly part of his mind thought at least he would never have to take responsibility for his crimes against her.
Three days later he woke up in the hospital wing, having learned that he had splinched off most of his right leg. Between that, and the after effects of the torture, he was probably lucky to be alive. Nevertheless, Madame Pomfrey was able to heal him completely; although Severus had to endure entirely too much disapproving tongue clucking as she went about her business.
It took two more days before Madame Pomfrey would even hear of Snape getting out of bed; and it took yet another two days before Snape felt strong enough to travel to America – where he was going to find Olivia.
Why Dumbledore was making him go, rather than going himself, was beyond Severus. The old man obviously had a reason for it, but it was not a reason he felt the need to share. They had argued over the arrangement for nearly an hour, but Dumbledore always got his way, which was why Severus was currently packing his bag.
Snape packed angrily. He threw several black pairs of pants and several black button down shirts into his suitcase with completely unnecessary force. He would not be able to wear his infamous billowing robes in the muggle city, so he did not bother packing them. Besides attracting attention, it would be summer in New York, and likely to be stifling. It was yet another reason he did not want to go. Summer was not Snape's season of choice, to say the least. Then again nothing in this situation was really Snape's choice – the season was probably the least of his problems.
Dumbledore had asked Snape to come by his office one more time before he left, and while Snape had initially agreed, he had since decided against that. He felt no need to inform Dumbledore of his changing plans. The Headmaster had gotten everything he wanted, with little regard to what Snape desired; this small act of defiance was disproportionately satisfying, especially with Dumbledore's nagging words still ringing in the back of Snape's mind.
"Wants are small matters compared to needs," Dumbledore had said, "In times like these, needs will always cast a shadow over what we want. Sacrifice, Severus, is what wins wars."
"Stupid twit," Snape hissed, whipping several pairs of socks into his suitcase. Snape could not handle the Headmaster and his eloquently worded manipulations any longer. Snape did not want to go to New York, he did not want to drag Olivia into this mess, yet here he was doing it, Merlin knew why. His loyalties to the Headmaster were baffling sometimes.
The entire reason Snape had come over to the 'light' was because of Olivia. That little girl had warmed his cold, frozen heart and made him realize that the shadows were not where he belonged. He did everything he could to grant her freedom, to atone for his mistakes and to vanquish Voldemort for her. And now, here he was, bringing her back into the middle of everything.
Snape knew Dumbledore was right. Olivia would be a huge asset in the war. If the experiments forced upon her by Voldemort were still successful, her powers would be unmatched. According to Dumbledore, the experiments, while horrific, had been very successful. In addition, a second spy would be undeniably useful. Olivia deserved revenge, and it was not right of him to try to keep that from her. But he felt an almost a protective fatherly need over her, and dragging her into the middle of a war went against those instincts.
You're not her father, he thought to himself, you have no right to make any decisions for her.
Indeed, Severus was not her father. Lord Voldemort was.
Olivia had been born because Voldemort was researching biological magic – magic that was based upon a person's genetic make-up. This magic was incredibly dark, but that of course meant nothing to Voldemort. He was looking for a way to enhance the magic that ran through his very blood, but he would of course never experiment on himself. Instead he had repeatedly raped several captive muggle-born witches until one of them gave him a child. He then killed the lot of them, save the mother, whom he tasked with raising the child until she was old enough be experimented on. Olivia had never seen the outside of that dungeon cell until she was nearly 2 years old.
At that point, Voldemort had killed her mother and commenced the experiments. It was seven years before Severus joined the ranks. Olivia had fended for herself that entire time. Severus barely knew of all that she had to endure. She had never really talked about it.
Severus had joined the Death Eaters directly after he graduated from Hogwarts. Voldemort was eager to put his skills to work, especially in the experiments regarding Olivia. When Snape had met Olivia she did not even have a name. She never spoke and barely ate. She wore a dirty nightgown that made house elf garments look extravagant, and she looked as if she had never been given a bath in her life time. Every time Snape had approached her, regardless of the reason, she would jump, silent tears streaming down her face, cutting tracks through the layers of dirt that smudged her face. She hardly made a noise, though, no matter what he did to her. She had obviously been trained to stay quiet.
Every time he saw her, she had new bruises and cuts or broken bones or something worse. He learned that the Death Eaters liked to play a game where they competed to see who could get her to scream to first. Sometimes her injuries were so extensive she would hardly be able to move. Her tiny body was already covered in scars before she had even reached the age of 10. She rarely met Severus's eyes, but she seemed to trust him a bit more than any of the other Death Eaters, probably because he never raised a wand against her - although, maybe trust was too strong of a word. Just because she did not wet herself when he walked in the room, or convulse with fear induced shivers when he approached her, did not mean that she trusted him.
When Severus secretly started healing some of her more serious injuries, that was when the real trust had actually started forming. She had been so young, but her eyes had held so much. As she started to meet his eyes more and more, Snape found that she could read him in an instant. Perhaps it was an instinct she had needed to pick up. She was liable to be tortured any time she annoyed somebody; she needed to be able to read what people wanted so she could give that to them. So young and so little, and yet she had needed to learn survival. It made Severus feel sick; and it was that realization that initially made Severus doubt his decision to join the Death Eaters.
When it came time for the big experiment, Snape feared she would not survive the surgery. It wasn't that he cared that her death would mean the ruin of his experiments; he was actually worried about her, not that he would ever admit that to Voldemort.
He told the Dark Lord that people needed to stop harming her; she needed rest and a real bed. Severus also began bathing her regularly, claiming that for surgery, things would need to be clean less she risk infection and death. He taught her to comb her hair and rinse her nightgown.
More so than all of that that, however, was the fact that she needed nourishment. He could not get her to eat anything, no matter what he brought her. He would bring her sweets, sandwiches, fruits, vegetables – she would barely touch anything. Until one day, he brought her a salad, and she picked the olives out. The next day he brought her a jar of olives, and she finished the entire jar within minutes. He began bribing her to eat other things with olives, and he soon found himself calling her Olive as if it were her name.
"Why do you keep calling me that?" she had whispered one day, her voice was surprisingly clear and bright. It was the first time she had ever spoken to him.
He had looked at her shocked, and she had visibly paled. She covered her mouth with her hand, looking terrified that she had spoken.
"Don't be scared," he said, quickly, "I won't hurt you. You're allowed to talk to me."
She shook her head no, backing away into the corner of the room. They were in his lab. He had taken to letting her stay in there while he worked. He claimed to be running various tests on her, but really it kept her safe from the other Death Eaters and it was better than the cold, stone cellar she was forced to stay in otherwise.
"You want to know why I call you Olive?" he asked
She looked at him, doubt in her eyes. She looked as though she thought he was trying to trick her, and she stayed silent.
"I don't know your name," he continued, "So I gave you a nickname."
She still did not answer, so Snape had gone back to work. Several minutes later she said, "I don't have one."
He looked at her confused, she clarified, "I don't have name. The bad men say I don't deserve one because I'm not a real girl."
"You're a real girl," Snape replied, "And it looks like now you have a real name – Olive. It can be short for Olivia."
"Olivia," she whispered, she looked almost excited, "it's pretty. Do I have two names? I know some of the bad men have two different names."
"Two names?" Snaped asked confused, "Oh, you mean like a first and a last name?"
"I don't know," Olivia replied, her excitement shriveling. She looked embarrassed and also fearful, like maybe she had asked for too much.
"People usually have a first and a last name. My first name is Severus and my last name is Snape. My full name is Severus Snape."
"So, do I get a last name too?" she asked, shyly. She was picking at the hem of the dirty nightgown nervously.
"Of course, why don't we pick one together?"
"I don't know how," she said, "Do I pick another food that I like?"
"If you want, or you can pick something else that you like," Snape said.
"I don't know what I like," she said. She looked like she was thinking hard, "I like it when the bad men leave me alone, and I like it when you let me sit in here."
"What else do you like? There must be more," Severus said, a little disturbed. Any other ten year old girl would tell you they liked princesses or puppies, but he supposed she had never even been exposed to such things.
"I like you," Olivia said, shyly, "You're nice and you don't hurt me as much as the others."
Snape had no words for that, and when he stayed quiet she continued, "I like making things fly and making the lights appear."
"What do you mean?" asked Snape.
Olivia made a giant orb of light appear in her hand, "Isn't it pretty?" she asked, "And watch this, I can make it different colors."
Sure enough the orb changed colors, little sparks flying out of it. Snape was impressed; most 10 year olds could not do wandless magic like that with such control.
"That's very impressive magic for such a little girl," Snape said, kindly.
The light went out immediately, "That's magic? I'm not allowed to do magic, I'll get hurt if I do magic."
Her eyes were wide and fearful. Snape could see her hands trembling, and without thinking about it, he walked over to her and held her hands, "You will never get in trouble for using magic in front of me."
Eventually, because making lights was Olivia's favorite thing, she decided that should be her name. She wanted it to start with an O, however, so that both her names started with the same letter, just like Severus's two names. Olivia Olight.
After that conversation, their relationship had blossomed. She was unbelievably smart. She took to following him around his lab, or watching him brew potions, and he soon found himself teaching her things. She picked up everything so quickly. He taught her to read in write in what felt like no time at all, and she picked up numbers and math even faster. Soon, he was smuggling books into the lab for her to read while he worked. She had a thirst for knowledge, and for some reason, it made Severus proud.
They bonded rapidly, much to Severus horror. He was growing attached to her, and that was not something that somebody who serves the Dark Lord should be doing. You do not grow attached to the experimental subject. He was a Death Eater, he was not supposed to have feelings like that. But it was becoming difficult to remember why he had joined the Death Eaters in the first place.
He had fully recognized that he cared for her at that point, and yet, he still went through with the surgeries. The pain she was in after each one was horrendous. And he had done that to her. He had betrayed her. He hated himself, and he hated even more that he did not have the strength to tell her that he was the one that had performed the surgeries. He was the one that had ruined her and lied to her.
He was, and still is, a coward.
Snape slammed his suitcase shut, while also consciously cutting of his line of thought. He had not thought about Olivia this much in a long time. He did not want to remember how broken that little girl had been. In fact, he usually made a point of pushing her from his mind if she happened to pop up in his thoughts. She had come so far. In the several months after she had been rescued, she had blossomed – and then Dumbledore had moved her to America for her own safety. Snape had never gone to visit her, the guilt of what he had done always holding him back. He had abandoned her. Sometimes he wondered about the woman she had become. She was in her mid-twenties now, hardly a little girl.
This was not going to be an easy trip, but it needed to be done. He had to face her. Besides, he also needed to get away from here – from the place where people either hated him because they thought he was a 'greasy old bat' or only cared about him because of the services he could perform for them. New York would have been the last place on earth he would visit if the decision were up to him, but at least it was better than here.
With that thought, he shrunk down his luggage so it would fit in his pocket, and then grabbed the port key that had been sitting upon his bed side table.
"To America," he whispered, and Olivia he thought, as he tapped the port key with his wand and felt that familiar tug behind his naval. There was no going back.
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**Obviously, the characters and world of Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling...I'm just borrowing them. :)