Readers: A longer than anticipated wait between chapters-apologies! I've been sidetracked by my grown children. Apparently, they are never too old to need their mum (as I help son 1 with his Personal Statement for this grad school application...) Sigh. To the reader asking about making these stories into e-books/e-stories, go for it! I'll try to get another chapter out in two weeks. Thank you all for your patience. This story is taking its time but hopefully holding its own... -SS
Chapter 9
The Magical Registry
"Come in, Harry."
Minerva glanced up from the essays she was grading as Harry, followed closely by Ginny, opened the door and came in to her office. Harry smiled and glanced around the homey office, then slid into one of the comfortable chairs in front of her desk while Ginny settled in on the other.
"You said we could see the Magical Registry tonight?" he said as Minerva put down her quill.
"I did," answered Minerva. "Though I wondered if you were coming at all." She glanced over at the clock. "It's nearly nine o'clock, Harry. I'm usually off to my quarters with a good book by this time of the evening."
"We took a chance you'd still be here," said Harry, grinning at her. He didn't mention that he'd run into Draco in the corridor earlier and had had one of the longest and least confrontational conversations he'd ever had with Malfoy before coming here.
Minerva arranged the completed essays in a neat pile in front of her. "It's easy to lose track of time. It certainly has been a busy day, has it not? I couldn't turn a corner in the castle without running into an Auror."
"They've had a lot of new leads today," said Harry.
"Severus told me you've written back to your mysterious correspondent," said Minerva, glancing over at Ginny who, until now, had remained silent.
"He told her he didn't want to have babies until he's thirty," Ginny said with a displeased scowl, elbowing Harry.
"I wasn't serious!" he protested, in such a way that Minerva could tell this was already a tired argument between the two. "It was just to let her know I wasn't listening to her advice!"
Minerva shook her head fondly. All this talk of babies! An idea occurred to her, and she tucked it away with a smile. A fire call, a few supplies…yes, indeed. This could indeed put all talk of babies to bed for quite some time.
"You mentioned leads?" she said, looking at Harry keenly.
Harry leaned forward, apparently eager to share, then stiffened and sighed.
"You'll have to ask Severus if you want to know anything," he said, remembering his promise not to talk about the case in return for Severus' permission to work with the Aurors.
"Of course," she replied with a tight-lipped smile, pleased that he had remembered and had been discreet. "Very good, Harry. I know this isn't easy for you."
"He won't even tell me," groused Ginny. Minerva frowned. This was unusual behavior for Ginevra Weasley. The girl was usually a supportive friend and could and did stand on her own two feet. This business with babies was getting out of hand.
"Well, since you're here to see the Magical Registry, why don't we get at it?" Minerva asked, easily turning the conversation. She stood, hand on the small of her back, and stretched, then moved to a door that Harry had always assumed led to a cupboard. It was a narrow door, set in a small alcove behind Minerva's desk and was barely as tall as Minerva. She waved her wand in a complicated series of movements to unward and unlock the door, then pulled it toward her and held it open.
"Come on now, inside, both of you."
Harry ducked in first, and Ginny followed. He looked around the small room curiously as Minerva came in behind them, crowding them so they stood nearly shoulder to shoulder. It seemed very much as if they were in a storage cupboard. Two walls were lined with shelves, the shelves full of parchment and books, envelopes and ink bottles, candles and cleaning supplies.
The third wall, however, was bare, and Minerva turned to this wall and performed another series of wand movements until the wall seemed to melt away, leaving a curtain made of strands of multicolored beads where it had been. A soft light came through the beads and, had there been a smell of perfume, Harry would have thought they were standing outside of Professor Trelawney's classroom. He looked at the odd curtain suspiciously.
Minerva regarded the beads and shook her head.
"It always does this," she said with a long-suffering sigh. She parted the beads with her hands and stepped inside the curtain. Harry exchanged an amused glance with Ginny and followed her through.
The room beyond the beaded curtain was small, the size of his bedroom in the eighth-year dorm, but definitely larger than a storage cupboard. Large pillows in a rainbow of colors were strewn about the room around low glass tables. Another circular beaded curtain, hanging from the ceiling, hid something in the center of the room. The castle's flagstone floor was covered by a thick carpet in a deep green color.
Minerva waved her wand and the pillows, curtains and carpet disappeared, leaving a very ordinary looking room with a very tall table in the center.
"The magic in this room," she said as she stepped onto the two step platform that surrounded the table and beckoned them to approach as well, "attempts to disguise the room even if the wards are removed legitimately. It's been throwing out this illusion of a 1960s student lounge for years now."
Harry's eyes were on the table as he stepped up onto the small platform beside Minerva. "Wow."
The Magical Registry was as large, as ornate, as over-the-top magical as he could possibly have imagined it to be. It was open, displaying a page of cream-colored parchment with several ornate lines written in dark green ink in a formal hand. A magnificent quill, made from the feather of a bird Harry could not readily identify, rested beside a bottle of ink. The ink bottle was as ornate as the feather and the book and looked very, very old.
Minerva studied the page before her. She smiled at something she saw there.
"Another Harry," she said. "Born yesterday. This one a Harry Albus."
"I wish they wouldn't do that," said Harry, sighing. "Harry is just an ordinary name."
"It's a grand name," said Minerva. "And they honor you by using it. Someday, Harry, you will understand what you did for us."
"I love your name, Harry," said Ginny. "I don't think there can ever be too many Harrys in the world." She looked down at the book. "Harry Albus. That's lovely." She had a fond smile on her face and Harry could tell that she really did think it a very nice name. He blushed and Ginny reached over and squeezed his hand.
Minerva turned back to the book and studied it again. She flicked her wand and the pages turned backward, each one lifting up and then settling down individually, like great wings attempting to raise the book off the table. She leaned down to glance at the newest records. "As I suspected," she said after a moment. "I've seen the same thing the last few years. The birth rate among witches and wizards has fallen during these years of uncertainty and unrest. However, the number or magical births overall remains largely the same." She smiled and looked up at Harry and Ginny. "Magic is a great compensator."
"What do you mean?" Harry was trying to read the open page, tilting his head and leaning in toward Minerva.
"When fewer magical babies are born to witches and wizards, more magical babies are born to Muggles," said Minerva. "We're going to have an interesting few years…" Her voice trailed off. "Here you go, Harry—your godson."
"Ohhh…" Ginny was leaning in toward Minerva now. "Ted Remus Lupin, born this thirteenth day of April, 1998, to Remus Lupin, a wizard, and Nymphadora Tonks Lupin, a witch, with residence in London, England. 2009."
Harry felt a familiar lump form in his throat as Minerva spoke again.
"The book starts a new section each September 1st, and groups class years together. Teddy is in the group that will receive their Hogwarts letters the summer of 2009."
"So that's why it says 2009 after his entry," said Harry. He looked down at the page again and noticed something curious. "Why are some of the words…well…glowing?"
Minerva touched her wand to the number '2009' which was, indeed, glowing faintly. The book turned back two pages. "The students who will be invited to attend Hogwarts the summer of 2009 begin here," she explained. "The glowing words are short-cuts, of sorts. The Registry creates magical cross-references within the tome." She paged ahead to Teddy's entry then touched her wand to Remus' name, which was also glowing.
The pages began to flip rapidly backward, settling on a new page further back in the book. "We've gone back to 1960," said Minerva. She nodded at the book. "Remus," she said fondly, running her finger over his name on the page with a sad sigh. "March 10th."
"His mum was a Muggle," said Harry, reading Remus' entry on the page. He sounded surprised. "And her son was a werewolf…"
"It must have been horrible for her," breathed Ginny.
"It was horrible for all of them, I'm sure," said Minerva. "Remus was born before the Wolfesbane Potion was perfected. His early years as a werewolf were particularly traumatic, as much for his parents as for the poor tyke himself."
Harry noticed that Remus' father's name—John Spencer Lupin—was glowing while his mother's was not.
"So his father went to Hogwarts, then," he said.
"He did," said Minerva. She didn't comment further, or attempt to short-cut back to his father's own entry. Instead, she pointed to the entry below Remus.'
"Your father," she said to Harry. "He and Remus were only a few weeks apart in age."
"Wow. I didn't know that," said Harry, leaning down again to study the entry. "Charles Potter, a wizard, and Lydia Hansen Potter, a witch," Harry read. "They lived in Godric's Hollow?"
"They did," said Minerva. "Where to next?"
"Dad," said Harry. He bit his bottom lip. After all, they were already looking at James Potter's entry. "I mean Severus," he added quietly.
"I know who you mean, Harry," said Minerva vaguely as she turned the pages backward with her wand. "January, correct?"
"The ninth," supplied Harry. "There it is."
It was an entry just like all the others. "Eileen Prince Snape, a witch and Tobias Snape, a Muggle." There was nothing on the page to suggest that Tobias Snape hated magic, or that Severus would one day join the Dark Lord's forces, or serve as Headmaster of Hogwarts, or nearly die in the Shrieking Shack. Harry stared at the page a moment, suddenly underwhelmed.
"Let's look up Ginny," he suggested. "I'd expect there will be stars and moons shooting out of the pages at the world finally producing a female Weasley."
"Git!" said Ginny, but it was clear she didn't mean it.
They paged through to find each of the Weasleys in turn, saw that George had been born just before Fred, then found Hermione, then Harry himself. They turned back to Sirius, then to Lily Potter, then forward from Lily through a dozen pages until Harry saw a familiar name.
"Regulus," he said. "Sirius' brother."
He glanced over the entry then froze as he saw a name just below Regulus'.
"Wait."
"Anastasia Snape?" Ginny read the entry aloud and even Minerva leaned in. "Daughter of Tobias Snape, a Muggle, and Eileen Prince Snape, a witch. Professor Snape has a sister?"
"No he doesn't," said Harry. "Or didn't. He couldn't have. He's never mentioned her." He looked at Minerva, who had a puzzled frown on her face as she read the entry herself.
"She must have died," said Ginny. "As an infant, probably. Look—she was only a bit more than a year younger than he was. He might never have known."
"Oh." Harry looked up at Minerva and swallowed. The knowledge that Severus had a sibling that died before he got to know her made him inexplicably sad. He wondered why Severus had never mentioned this sister, no matter how short her life may have been.
"There's no year of death, though," said Minerva, her voice faint. She was obviously puzzled. She looked over at Harry. "It is not common, but there are occasions when I check the book for the incoming year and find that a magical child recorded in it has died. The book always inscribes a year of death in those cases. But there isn't one here."
"Maybe it's a mistake, then," said Harry. Both Minerva and Ginny looked up at him with identical expressions on their faces. "Oh, right. Magic. No mistake, then." He frowned. "But I don't understand. If she didn't die, what happened? Severus never mentioned a sister—not once. And I've been to his house—the house he grew up in. He didn't say anything about a sister when we were there either."
"I was teaching here while Severus was a student," said Minerva. "If he had a living, magical sister only a year younger than himself, she was not here at Hogwarts."
Harry was trying to process all of this. It didn't make sense—not at all. "It has to be a mistake," he said. "Or…maybe there was something wrong with her. What if…what if she was physically or mentally ill? Would she have gotten a Hogwarts letter then? What if she was like Neville's parents? Would she have been sent to St. Mungo's or some other institution?"
Minerva shook her head. "Magic tends to protect magical children, Harry," she said. "Those kinds of diseases and injuries are uncommon in the magical world, though they do sometimes occur. It is not exactly impossible, just highly improbably."
"Well there has to be some explanation," said Harry, looking from Minerva to Ginny.
"There are several," said Minerva. "Any of which requires more research. The most likely explanation is that the child did not grow up in the same household with Severus, and may not have kept the name she was given at birth."
"You mean she was given away? Adopted?" asked Harry. "Wouldn't there be a record of that somewhere? Maybe at the Ministry?"
"Not one accessible to just anyone," Minerva answered. Harry thought she looked…well, concerned. "She could have been raised by someone else in Severus' family—by his maternal grandparents, perhaps. They could have sent her to a different wizarding school. Still, it would be odd that Severus never knew of her existence. If we had sent a Hogwarts letter out to her, it would have reached her at her current residence and likely with her current name. The magic is tied to the witch or wizard himself or herself, not to the name. We would have to examine the Deputy Headmaster's records for 1972." She looked up at Harry again. "But Harry, this may come as a great shock to Severus. I'd like to do a bit of digging then go speak with Severus privately, before you say anything to him."
Harry swallowed. "All right," he said. "When do you think you'll talk to him?"
"Tomorrow," Minerva answered definitively. She looked over at Ginny, who looked nearly as shell-shocked as Harry did. "Agreed, Miss Weasley? You will keep this information private?"
"Of course," Ginny said.
A million possible scenarios came to Harry's head that night as he tossed and turned on his bed. Perhaps the mediwitch who had delivered the baby had taken it—telling Eileen that her baby had died. Maybe the baby had been born deformed, or had been oxygen deprived and had suffered brain damage. Maybe some sort of accident had happened after they got home from the hospital. Perhaps she was institutionalized, maybe even living in a Muggle hospital somewhere. He even imagined a kidnapping—a scenario in which Eileen brought the baby home, but someone snatched it from her when it was still a wee thing, while Severus was too young to remember what had happened. And Eileen, traumatized, had destroyed all evidence of the baby to try to get through the grief.
Or maybe…maybe Eileen had had an affair, and the baby wasn't Tobias Snape's. But the book had listed him as Anastasia's father, hadn't it? So that couldn't be the case.
The more obvious explanation—that Eileen and Tobias had given the baby up for adoption—didn't make much sense to him. Why would they have done that? They were married, weren't they? There was no shame involved in having a second child so soon after a first, especially when the parents were legitimately married.
Had Tobias forced her to give up the baby? Had he not wanted a second child? A daughter? A witch?
Perhaps they could not afford another child so soon after having Severus. He remembered how Severus had dressed as a child, how poor he had seemed.
Had…had Tobias himself done something to injure the child?
And while Harry certainly lost sleep that night, the mystery of Severus' sister at least kept him from thinking about Hilda Smith.
He never once imagined the two mysteries were related.
/
Harry was on pins and needles most of Sunday. He spent several hours studying with the other eighth years in their common room, sitting on the floor in front of the low coffee table beside Ron and across from Malfoy.
Malfoy. Now there was a puzzle. When he had run into the Slytherin in the corridor the previous day on his way to meet Ginny to go to Minerva's office, they had ended up in an empty classroom discussing Malfoy's theories on the incident in Hogsmeade and about Prudence Carson, his former nanny.
Malfoy thought someone was out to get Severus. To discredit him, not to kill him. To set him up to suffer.
"They know him," Draco insisted. "They know how to push his buttons. It has to be a Death Eater, or someone associated with the Death Eaters. They don't think he deserves to continue on at Hogwarts, in a respected Ministry-appointed position, and they sure as hell don't think that he deserves to have a happy family." He looked at Harry significantly.
"You're saying that I'm putting him in danger, aren't you?" said Harry. "And that's pretty much what Hilda Smith is saying too, only the other way around. That he's putting me in danger."
"What I'm saying," said Malfoy, shaking his head, apparently at Harry's stupidity, "is that people will use either of you to get to the other one. So, someone who wants to hurt Severus only has to do something to you. And if they want to hurt you, they only have to get to Severus."
Harry stared at Draco, looking at him with new eyes. Draco was right, of course. He'd been pretty blind so far, thinking that now that Voldemort was dead, they could just get on with their lives and people would leave them pretty much alone. After all, he'd done what he was supposed to do. So had Severus. Chapter written, book closed.
Malfoy's theory was that his former nanny, Prudence Carson, was being used by someone with a more serious axe to grind.
"She's not the brightest witch in the coven," he said. "She follows orders well and is extremely loyal, but she's not the mastermind behind a nefarious plot." He rolled his eyes. "She always carried out my parents' instructions to the letter," he said. "But she didn't have an original idea of her own. Ever. Effective nanny." He grinned, as if Harry would understand the joke.
Still, it was a cordial conversation. And Harry had gotten the sense that Draco was worried about Severus' safety.
And that unsettled Harry, adding to the other items keeping him constantly off-balance.
On Monday, Harry caught up with Severus after breakfast.
"Did Minerva talk to you yesterday?" he asked as Severus stopped in the corridor and turned to wait for him.
"She did." Severus' voice did not give away his feelings on the matter. "Harry, can you wait until dinner tomorrow night to discuss this?"
Harry opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. He nodded, then fell in step beside Severus as the Headmaster headed for his office. "Did she find out anything else?"
"She did." Severus' voice was low and held something—a note, an inflection—that was unfamiliar to Harry.
"Oh." Harry didn't know how to follow that comment.
Severus put his arm around Harry's shoulders and rubbed his arm affectionately, before dropped his hand altogether.
"It's a long story, Harry. I haven't had time to properly digest it all yet or to track down some of the loose ends. Give me another day?"
"Sure. Of course." They walked side by side in silence until they reached the T at the end of the corridor.
"Are you going to be all right?" asked Harry, looking worriedly at Severus.
"I'll be fine, Harry. We'll talk tomorrow at dinner as planned. It's been quite a…shock." He smiled, but the look on his face seemed more of a grimace than one of pleasure.
Severus turned and continued to his office, leaving Harry staring at his back.
For the rest of the day, Harry was distracted. He bollixed up so much—spells and charms and potions—by lunch that Hermione pulled him into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom after Transfiguration and he ended up spilling everything to her and to Ron, who had followed them in.
"Are you worried that he'll find out he has family other than you?" asked Ron. "Maybe a niece or a nephew that's related to him by blood?"
Well no, he hadn't even thought of that yet, thank you very much. And now he had something new to worry about.
"I just wish I knew what's going on," he explained as they sat leaning against the wash basins.
"You will—tomorrow," said Hermione. "Just try not to think of it."
"Hey—I just remembered something," Harry said a few minutes later as they walked to lunch. "You'll really be interested in this, Hermione. Minerva said that the births of babies to witches and wizards were way down because of the unrest and all these last few years. But she said there are more magical births to Muggles—that magic compensates."
"What?" Hermione was, as predicted, immediately interested—on high alert, as he and Ron liked to say. Ron groaned.
"Oh great! Good going, Harry. She's never going to let this one go. By the end of the week she's going to have a graph showing the number of Muggle-born students per year and she'll have it tied back to political and social events in the Magical world. Just wait!"
"Ron!" Hermione was beaming at him. "What a marvelous idea! We'll get started right after classes." She turned to Harry. "You can help us. It will keep your mind off of Severus."
But it was getting through the mountain of new homework they were assigned that day that kept his mind off of Severus that evening. A full class schedule distracted him on Tuesday, as well as a ninety-minute long assignment from Auror Peace just after his last class. Reuben put him on guard duty outside of their war-room door while Severus and Kingsley met with the Aurors inside.
An hour and a half standing at attention just outside the door, unable to hear a single word that was spoken inside, while keeping his focus on the corridor.
It was torture. Pure mental torture. He hated not knowing what was going on just behind him.
Harry thought that Reuben Peace was a cruel teacher. Effective, but utterly cruel.
/
They ate supper together at Severus' small kitchen table. Harry watched Severus eat almost mechanically, not enjoying his food, perhaps not even tasting it. He had insisted that they eat first before discussing the startling discovery that Harry had made on Sunday evening, that Severus had a sister. When they finished eating, Severus poured himself a glass of wine and, in an uncharacteristic and surprising move, offered one to Harry as well. Harry sat on the sofa, shoes off, legs drawn up, sipping his wine and feeling awkward.
"I want to thank you, first of all," said Severus. He looked over at Harry and gave him a genuine smile, though he looked drawn and tired. "If it were not for your insatiable curiously, your obsession with the Magical Registry, I doubt I would ever have known that I have a sister."
Have, thought Harry. Not 'had.' "What did Minerva find out?" he asked. "Do you know what happened?"
Severus gave him that some smile, this time with a touch of indulgence. "Minerva compared the list compiled from the Magical Registry with the enrollment list from 1972, the year that my sister would have received her Hogwarts letter. She noticed immediately that one of the boys on the Registry list had not attended Hogwarts—turns out his parents sent him to school in the States. The only other difference was that there was a letter for Anastasia Snape and a subsequent enrollment from an Estelle Smith."
Severus said the name very quietly. He took a drink of wine, eyes closed, as Harry stared at him.
"Estelle Smith?" Harry repeated, staring at Severus. He swallowed. "She went to Hogwarts? She was here when you were here too?"
Severus nodded, the movement of his head abrupt. "She was a Ravenclaw. I knew her by name, just as you might recognize the name of one of Luna Lovegood's Ravenclaw year mates."
Harry had a million questions, but one pushed up amongst the others, demanding to be spoken.
"Does she have anything to do with Hilda Smith?"
Severus nodded again. "She was Hilda Smith's older sister. Minerva spent most of Sunday going through Hogwarts student records and was able to piece the story together amazingly well. Estelle was born in 1961, Hilda in 1965. They both lived with Harper and Margaret Smith."
"You're convinced this is real, aren't you? That Estelle is your sister?" Harry was leaning in toward Severus now, eyes bright.
"The Magical Registry tells one story, Harry, and the Hogwarts enrollment roster corroborates it. But here…" He reached into his robe pocket and drew out a Muggle envelope. He opened it, his hand shaking somewhat, and drew out a photograph.
"My father," he said, laying the wallet-sized photo on the table. Harry had seen a photograph of Severus' mother, the grainy newsprint Hermione had found their sixth year. But he had never seen Severus' father, save in a memory gleaned during those horrendous Occlumency lessons his fifth year of a menacing, hook-nosed man.
Severus had clearly inherited his nose from his father, but little else. His father had a rounder, fuller face, nearly non-existent eyebrows and a wide and full-lipped mouth. His eyes were blue.
Harry looked his fill, then looked back up at Severus. "You must resemble your mother," he said with a small smile.
"I do," said Severus. It was clear, even from those two words, that he held his mother in much higher esteem than his father. "This is a copy of her photograph from her seventh-year yearbook." He drew out another photo and laid it next to the first. This was the Eileen Prince that Harry remembered from the photograph Hermione had shown him. Dark brows, long face, pale skin.
"I have an idea what you're going to pull out of there next," said Harry.
"Estelle Smith," confirmed Severus, sliding a third photo beside the other two.
The resemblance to Tobias Snape was impossible to deny. There was a bit of Eileen as well—a bit of Severus—but the general impression was of a young Tobias with a fuller, rounder face, blue eyes, blonde hair turned darker with the loss of childhood.
Harry studied the three photographs then looked up at Severus.
"Have you found her? Do you know where she is now?"
"I expect," said Severus, his words measured and careful, "that she is in hiding,."
"In hiding?" asked Harry, clearly confused.
Severus nodded.
"In hiding, and contemplating what she will say to you in response to your recent letter."
To be continued…
