BOOK 2: CHAPTER 28

As they sat watching the sun set later that day, Severus held the baby in his arms, bouncing him here and there and making faces to make him laugh. Pink streaks crossed the blue sky and just a hint of rose filtered through the air.

Smiling to himself, Snape picked up a stone. With a quick flick of his wrist, he skipped it across the calm waters of the lake. It must have skipped four times; then backward three; then ahead two. It sank with a neat splash. Amelia laughed and hugged him. The baby giggled and cooed in delight.

Snape picked up another stone and flipped it up in the air, with a slightly different wrist movement. It skipped across the lake twice, sprang back into the air in a somersault; down again, twice across the water – and back into his hand.

Severus Jr. wiggled and giggled and held out his hands to try. Snape folded the stone into his son's fingers, covered his hand with his own, and then flicked both their wrists. The stone swept over the water, skipped four times; then up into the air in a spiral, and down with a great splash. The baby laughed in joy, and threw his arms around his father's neck.

"How did you ever learn that?" Amelia asked in true admiration. "Is it magical?"

"No. I've spent a lot of time alone before you came along to pester me. You read lots of books; skip lots of stones; torture a lot of people. You know how it goes."

Laughing merrily, she reached up and kissed him softly. His lips responded gently and tenderly, and he cupped her face in his free hand.

"You're beautiful," he said softly.

"No, I'm not." She looked down and blushed.

"Yes, you are. You're a vision. I don't deserve the dirt you walk on. I don't deserve…"

There was a hint of sadness in his voice. A melancholy that was there, somewhere. In some intonation of his voice. In some echo.

"What's wrong?" she asked gently.

"Amelia…" he began softly, slipping his arm around her.

"Yes," she answered, smiling adoringly into his eyes.

His jaw tightened.

"I love you."

That was it. Something was horribly wrong. She just knew it. He was dying. Oh God, he had some incurable wizard's disease. How many months were left? Automatically, her hand flew against his forehead.

"Are you ill?" she asked in raw panic. "Oh my God, you're warm…"

Shrugging off her hand, he frowned.

Her stormy eyes were full of concern, and she reached for his forehead once again.

"Good God, can't I tell you I love you without being accused of delirium?" He drew her hand away.

"I'm sorry, but I usually have to feign depression – or talk about suicide…or..."

"I am not hearing this." He frowned in disgust.

"Or just pry it out. Sometimes, I can pry it out. Kind of like prying a pearl out of an oyster."

"Your mother has started and she isn't going to stop," he told Severus Jr. "You just have to wait it out. Like stomach flu."

"...a stubborn, grumpy oyster that refuses to open, so you have to take a huge wrench and pry and pry and pry. And then the shell finally opens for a second..."

She smiled proudly at her poetry. She'd have to submit this one to the newspaper.

"Are you finished, Miss Rossetti?" he asked dryly and she held up a finger.

"…and the pearl, the precious stone of love, appears, just for a sacred moment." She glowed at her genius.

"I think pearls are semi-precious," he replied. "And most of them are cultured in oyster farms."

"Oh."

He smiled acidly.

"Well, how about a diamond that…"

His eyes narrowed. "I'm truly wounded. The woman I love describing me as a grumpy oyster. I bare my soul, and you judge me, once again."

She clenched her hands remorsefully. "I didn't mean to judge, Severus." She took his hand.

"Quit feeling for my pulse, Amelia."

Smiling sheepishly, she looked down.

"I profess my pure, aesthetic love for you, and you judge me. I thought we had this talk a few days ago."

Her forehead creased. "Yes, well…it won't hurt to check your throat…" She opened the picnic basket and dug for a tongue depressor.

He frowned. "I'm not ill. I swear."

Seeing the deep, sincere worry on her face and in her eyes, he paused. She was a nurse, after all, and perhaps he was acting just a bit abnormal. Naturally, her first instinct would be to check his vital signs.

"I'm sorry, my dear," he said in a gentler voice. "Please don't worry. I promise I'm not sick. There…may be just a tidbit of bad news."

She closed the basket and stood to face him, most of the warmth escaping from her body. He cleared his throat.

"My dear, you may have a choice to make. A difficult choice."

Grimly, she glanced off into the hillsides and crossed her arms to warm herself. But no warmth came now. And the scenery seemed to fade to black and white.

"If we continue investigating these pranks, we may find out information. Painful information."

"I don't follow you," she answered softly.

"Information about your parents. About you. We just don't know yet."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I don't want our son to be in danger. I don't want to feel threatened all of the time - worried about the next room being yellow; or the next dinner being full of poison…"

He smiled gently and studied her eyes intensely.

"Would you want to know, Amelia? Do you want to know what Miss Granger and I find out? Would it hurt too much?"

She paused and then looked back at him.

"If you think I should know, tell me. I put my life in your hands when we married."

"Damn it, I knew you'd say something like that," he muttered.

She slipped her arm around him. "I think I know what you're going to say, anyway."

"No. I'm going to tell you something horrible, but something I think you should know. Oddly, I think it may ease some of the pain…about your father."

She felt her own pulse start to gallop, and a twinge of nausea hit her stomach, like when she was getting a test back; or reading not-so-good results of someone's X-rays.

Squaring her shoulders, she took a deep breath.

"I know he didn't love us, Severus. There can't be more pain than knowing that. More detail doesn't matter."

"Perhaps it does," he said, with a bit more hope in his voice. "Perhaps it does."

"What do you mean?"

"Amelia, it appears as though your father was a Deatheater. I don't know if he was a wizard. I don't know if he was a muggle spy…but he belonged to the Deatheaters. Miss Granger discovered it earlier this week."

All of the warmth evaporated from her body, and she felt herself go cold and numb. For a few moments, the hideous, yellow color seemed to flash before her eyes and then fade; flare up and fade again.

"I am telling you this because I'm hoping it may comfort you."

"How?" she managed, in a croak.

"Because I know the way Deatheaters think. Amelia, when I joined them, I was so filled with hatred and anger and frustration…I didn't know it was a poisonous alliance. I thought we were right. I thought Peter Pettigrew was right. And that everyone else was wrong. Everyone else was the enemy."

Studying him intently, she just nodded and continued listening.

"Often, when people have been hurt; when they're enraged and spiteful, as I was, they believe they're correct in feeling that way. If they're lucky, the truth eventually forces them to realize how wrong they were to begin with."

"You realized it, Severus. I think that's commendable."

"You're very charitable, my dear, and I feel extremely fortunate. But many aren't so fortunate. To this day, Deatheaters staunchly believe they're right. They're right to be enraged; they're right to destroy those who block their paths; they're right to seek violent revenge and ultimate tyranny."

Her blood had turned to ice. Only the tender warmth of his hands over hers kept her from passing out then and there.

"Your father didn't reject you, Amelia. He was a fanatic. He may have been fanatical enough to want to destroy you and your mother – for the cause. He may have feared your powers, Amelia. You see through everything. Perhaps he feared you could see through him, and his allies."

"But why would he have married her to begin with?" she asked. "And why would they have had me?"

"Those are questions we need to ask. He may not have been a Deatheater when they married. Or he may have – and hoped to convert her with the marriage bond and use her power. Or he may have been a muggle spy."

Her eyes darkened and she sighed miserably. "Ever have one of those lives where nothing goes right?"

He laughed softly. "You're sounding more like me every day."

"Remind me how this is supposed to make me feel better?" she asked bleakly.

He sighed tiredly. "Because…now you don't have to take his rejection so personally. He was a Deatheater. They're all fanatics. They hate everyone. Hatred is their motivation; their fuel."

She just sighed again.

"If your mother refused to become involved with his cause, she was an enemy; and so were you, if she was protecting you."

Depressing as they were, something about his words made sense. And something did seem to lift in her heart. She slipped her arms around him and smiled.

"But we need to know more," he continued. "And there's one person who may help us."

"Who?" she asked curiously.

"Lucius Malfoy. Narcissa mentioned him when I gave her the veritaserum."

"But he's in Azkaban," Amelia reminded him.

"Yes. It's horrible and dangerous." He smiled provocatively. That was all she needed.

"Let's go."

His eyes lit up. "I love you. I really do."

They laughed brightly and skipped a few more stones.