Hey, Next chapter, people.
I did no research what so ever on this story. I lived in Maine for 13 years and I know it pretty well.I know quite a lot about the adoptive services and foster care in the state of Maine from growing up in that environment myself, and I have to say it isn't fun, but I got one good thing out of it; the knowledge of how to write this chapter!! SQUEE!! Enjoy!
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Severus awoke the next morning to a grumpy sounding voice from behind his door.
"Room service!"
He groaned and sat up, squinting at the bright sunlight filtering through the grimy windows of the place. He must have slept very late.
"Hold your knickers on, woman," he grumbled, pulling on a clean robe from his pack and opening the door for the cleaning woman.
She was really ugly, with dimples enough to fill the craters on the moon and empty, brainless blue eyes, her blonde hair limp and greasy. She wore a simple dress and an apron and was carting around a sort of trolley filled with cleaning supplies he'd never heard of.
"Cleaning lady," she grumbled sourly, and she pushed rudely past him without even asking and began to cleean, her dusting rag moving of its own accord.
"Sure, you can come in," he said sarcastically, but quietly so she couldn't hear. He grabbed his things and headed downstairs, his broom in hand. He used a spell to shrink it and stuffed it into his pack with the rest of his things and approached the counter.
The grumpy redhead was back.
"You know where I can find a muggle orphanage or a foster care place?" he asked loudly, so she would hear him over the din of a television set on the wall. This was a wizarding place, what was a TV doing in there?
"I've no idea. You could check that information place, it's across town," she said, slightly less grumpy sounding than she had been the night before.
"What street," he said coldly, glaring at her, giving her the most evil expression he could muster. He really hated being woken up and he didn't like mornings.
"I dunno, follow the road signs," she said, glaring right back.
As he left, he thought he could feel the eyes of the bouncers and everyone in the pub glaring holes in his back.
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He didn't know why he wanted to try to adoptive agencies. He supposed he just figured. He could assume his children were still... well, children. He guessed they would be in an adoptive agency. His problem, of course, was finding the place, and then managing to convice the muggles there that he was the father. He himself wasn't so sure of the fact, he'd only heard it from Dumbledore. He remembered almost nothing from his brief eight years with Lily Evans. He would have to use his wand.
He looked both ways before taking his broom out and casting the Disillusionment charm yet again.
He flew low over the street, just over the solid metal bars holding the streetlights up. He could still see the road signs very well, and he cared nothing for the ugly scenery of this suburban environment. He passed a lot of delapidated houses, yards with fencing and vicious animals barking at him.
He stopped still, hovering
over an intersection called "Kissimee Avenue".
(A/N: A
town in Florida)
To his left was a plain brick building, with a large plastic sign out front saying "Visitor Information Center". He decided to go to it, thinking it was the building the woman at the pub had mentioned.
He flew over into the shadows, dismounted, lifted the spell on himself, shrunk his broom once more and walked inside.
He could tell at a glance that this was not the place.
He had walked into a sort of colled lobby, with several large pictures and posters of environmental warnigns and various wildlife, and there was a single counter, with donations and charities there. A single old man in a checked green hunting jacket and a cap with earflaps on was reading a catalogue there. He looked up as Severus entered.
"C'n I help you?" he asked, his accent even more lazy and slushy than the blind wizard he'd seen in the supermarket the previous day. He had learned by now, that this was the American accent. At least it seemed to be the dominant one in this part of the country, anyway.
"I'm looking for the nearest Adoption agency or Foster Care facility," he said softly, glancing for a moment at the world atlases on the desk. He took one down and read the cover. Apparently, it was a detailed Atlas of the country, and more specifically, the state he was in.
"Adoption Agency? Why there's one right down the road from here," he said, sounding surprised. When he said 'road', irt came out as "rud", and Severus made a mental note to try and get used to this strange accent. He could hardly understand this man at all!
"Great. Can I take one of these?" he asked, although he would have taken it either way. He needed a map, and he wasn't about to liase with a man he could hardly understand. He just thought it better manners to ask.
"Shore ya can," he said. Severus pocketed it and made a mental note to enchant it to direct him when he got outside.
He took out his wand and muttered the simple spell that would enable the Atlas to point him in the right direction. He said "Adoption Agency", and bright green lines traced a complicated web all over the state of Maine, with bright gold points marking the spots at where every Adoption Agency in the state was located. There indeed was one very near to where he was. His position on the map was marked by a single black dot.
He followed the street the Information Center was located on, noticing that the back streeeets of the town called Rockland was a pretty place, off the main road. The houses weren't the same identical model, the lawns were differently sized, the cars were different. He noticed with some amusement that the steering columns were on the other side of the cars and everyone drove on the wrong side of the street. This certainly was a backwards country.
He noticed a particularly large Victorian house and several children playing in the back yard, which was fenced in and there were a myriad of toys in bright, annoying plastic colors. He assumed this was the Adoption agency.
He crossed the lawn, then looked down at his clothhing. He frowned and wavfed his wand at himself. Instantly, his robes melted into a long sleeved black shirt with a closed throat and a pair of black trousers and black shoes. His robes had been folded up and he put these into his pack.
He opened the door and found himself in a sort of sitting area, with chairs and poufy cushions.
"Can I help you, sir?" asked a woman, and he jumped a mile. He hadn't noticed anyone coming in.
He looked and saw a woman standing there on the other side of a desk. Beyond her was what looked like the rest of the house, instead of an office as was usual. Three small children stared at him, and one giggled excitedly. Despite himself, he felt a pang of sadness in this place; all these children were homelss and unloved. He could only guess what went through all of their minds when someone walked through those doors.
He looked at the three children. One wore a sruffy jumper, another wore a pair of bright green shorts and a white tank top, and the other was very very young, perhaps two years old, with overlong black hair.
"Sir?" said the woman, watching him look at the k ids.
He shook himself and looked back at the woman. She probably thought he was a creep!
"Yes, I um... my name is Severus Snape. I believe my... er... girlfriend dropped a child off here a few years ago... black hair, green eyes? I wasn't aware and I'd like to get him back," he said nervously, glancing again at the three kids. At his words, the oldest looking one giggled and the other two shrieked with laughter.
"Amy, go take the others outside! Go on!" the woman kindly shooed them all out abck, and they took off running, laughing the entire way.
"Do you have birth certificates? Identification?" the woman asked, typing letters and numbers into the computer at her side. She was staring ardently at the screen, and she turned the monitor around so he could see. There was a list of pictures of different children. As she typed, a different piucture of each child popped up and enlarged itself. Finally, Severus spotted one that looked oddly familiar.
"There," he said, pointing. He pointed at a child with large, almond shaped gray eyes and black hair who was holding up a small garter snake and smiling toothlessly.
"It says here this boy was named Shannen James Evans Snape by his mother and was dropped off here by another woman who apparently adopted him from England somewhere... hang on a second," she said, more to herself than him.
"I have a baby picture," he said, and he used his wand out of the corner of his mouth to accio it from his bag. He caught all three of the kid's photos in his left hand and produced both pictures of both his sons. The woman took both of them, and frowned slightly.
"There are two children here. Do you know which is which?" she asked.
"He took them back and kept glancing from the pictures in his hand to the picture on the computer screen. Finally he decided on one, the picture of what Dumbledore had called his second born son. So Lily had named him Shannen?
"This one," he said, tapping the picture of the sleeping baby, and she typed a few more things into the computer screen and frowned again.
"It says here he's on his way here, from Augusta... apparently, something happened to the couple who tried adopting him and when they tried to take him back, there was no space... he won't be here until tonight. Would you like to wait? I can tell you're from out of town... maybe do some sight seeing?" she asked.
He sighed explosively and ran a hand through his hair nervously. It wasn't something he did often, but he felt the need for it now.
"How old is he?" he asked.
"Says here he's about two and a half. No one knows when his birthday is, so we don't know for sure," she replied, tapping the screen. He read it again. Next to his picture was information about him.
Name: Shannen James Evans Snape
DOB: Unknown
Birthplace: England
Age: approx. two
Hair: black
Eyes: green
"I think I'll wait here," he said, and he took one of the squishy seats and decided to look at magazines.
It was going to be a long wait.
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He ate lunch there at the Adoption Agency. The woman came out, five kids tagging along behind her, and she carried a small plastic tray of what looked like kid's food.
"Would you like something to eat?" she asked kindly. He looked up, his eyes itching with tiredness from reading for so long.l His behind had long since gone numb, and he felt the need to stand up and move around.
"Sure," he said, and he grudgingly took a few apple slices from the tray, as well as half of what looked like a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. He hated peanut butter, but beggars couldn't be choosers. He took a bite.
"Thank you," he said mechanically, and there was a tingling as the doors opened from behind them. He heard a child sobbing and when he looked around, there was a uniformed official carrying a black haired boy by the hand. He was crying and clutching what looked like a dead snake.
That was how he met Shannen James Evans Snape. His second born son.
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They all sat there in a seperate room behind the front counter. It resembled a conference room with no table. Instead there was a couch and a chair and several books and children's toys. Shannen sat on his pudgy bottom, playing with several toy cars, rambling happily to himself. His dead snake had been discarded and hopefully, forgotten. Severus sat on the couch across from the official looking Adoption lady, and she was uncommonly sharp.
"How old are you?" she asked. Severus decided to lie.
"21," he replied. In fact, he was eighteen.
"Date of birth?" she asked. He sighed and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He wasn't going to use magic unless he absolutely had to.
"January 9, 1958," he said, remembering to make it two years earlier to account for the fake age he gave her.
"Are you married? Do you have an adequate source of income?" she demanded sharply, staring suspiciously at him.
He groaned, took out his wand, tapped the piece of paper she held on the cliboard, her eyes went out of focus, she stared at the paper again, and frowned slightly. He had cast a spell on the adoptions papers to forece her to believe he was true to his word he would take care of the boy. Immediately the ink dried, and she smiled and shook his hand. She reached down and took out a few sheaves of paper from her bag and slipped them into a plastic shopping bag.
"What are these?" he asked.
"Papers and belongings from his mother that she left with him. They're yours now. Please take care of him, Mr. Snape, he's been looking so long for a place to call home," she said affectionately, looking at the little boy playing on the floor. Severus was forcibly reminded of his own childhood, but there had been an abusive father in it instead of countless failed adoptions.
"I will," he said. He cleeared his throat and spoke to his son for the first time, trying his hand at being dad. He still wasn't sure.
"Um... Shannen?" he called to him. He spun his head around, his pink lips parted halfway in a smile, a toy car in hand.
"What!" he said childishly.
Severus couldn't help but smile.
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Well, what did you think? Please review!!
