That had been so terrible. For the both of us.
Severus, my biological father, disliked my entire existence. Well, 'disliked' was maybe an understatement. Despised. Hated maybe. Those were better words to describe the situation. The man had wished so terribly I wasn't his. My own father had wished I had never existed. How sad was that.
It was sad indeed, but it rather made me angry at the moment. He had lost himself in his emotions after learning that his believes or hopes or maybe both were wrong. Maybe that was the sad thing. An adult man, who always tried to keep himself cool under any circumstances, losing himself like that. Arrogant, he was too. Always looking down at me for not having as much knowledge as he had. Pathetic was maybe the right word to describe his behaviour.
I looked up at the ceiling. While lying on the blankets of my bed, I stared at the white ceiling with that old white, round lamp hanging on it. Yes, it was old, but it fitted in the room and Severus as the person he was or at least showed to me. The man was hard to fathom. I wondered where that had been coming from. His childhood? A family trait? Or had he just always been that way, from the day he was born? Probably all of them.
I sighed and thought about the situation a bit more.
Maybe I was a bit too hard on him. Hearing you have a daughter you have never known the existence of is quite a thing. And everyone has an outburst at some point if we push all of our emotions away.
However, he could have accepted it from the day he met me. Of course he had the right to doubt about it, but come on, we look awfully the same in appearance. The greasy black hair, the pale face, a slender body.
I looked down at my belly and nodded. Yeah, I was slender.
Severus could have predicted it, right? Even by the appearance only. And then my mom's letter. And the comparison of the date I was conceived and the date I was born. A lot of evidence I would say.
No, I had made my decision. He should have never said he had never wished for me to exist. Even though I had always known that, just by the way he was acting, but I had never wanted to acknowledge it. I had desperately longed for someone I could rely on after the death of my parents and there had he been, my true biological father. I had been blinded by my luck. An escape from an orphanage. Family.
I had been foolish.
I had forced him to take me in by writing that letter to Dumbledore. I had realised back then that that had been the only solution for not going to an orphanage, but was not going to an orphanage really the best outcome? Now, I was here, in the house of my biological father, who had never wanted me and still didn't want me. The future for our father/daughter relationship didn't seem that bright as I had hoped for. Maybe I would have been happier in an orphanage. At least Severus would have definitely been.
Although I was thinking about the different outcomes my future could have gotten, I knew that I had already chosen mine by taking the decisions I had taken in the past.
Severus had said it himself. "Cause if you are indeed mine, as you claim, than you are going to live under my guardianship. I think that's the task of a father, isn't it?" A quote from Severus Snape himself.
The man had already decided before the testing he would give me a home if I was indeed his after all. Not out of love for me, but presumably out of decency. Decency towards himself. The decency to acknowledge his mistake, me, and take care of the consequences, raising me. Unbelievable that a man can be such a swine!
I sighed, cause this was the situation I had to deal with and I just had to make the best out of it.
I turned my head and looked out of the window. The grey houses. The sad grey houses. I smiled in a cynical way. The view was just very appropriate for the current situation.
At that moment, I heard footsteps on the stairs. I frowned and looked with an angry frown at my bedroom door. I took a sitting position on my bed and waited for what was coming.
The door slowly opened and revealed Severus standing in the doorway. His face looked empty. At that moment, I didn't know what to expect. Was he going to be angry with me again? Or did he want to apologize? Probably not the last one. He wasn't the type for doing that.
We had stared at each other for some time before he said with his monotonous voice, which only he could do: "Ellea, we have to talk."
The shivers ran down my spine at that statement. It had sounded so threatening and friendly at the same time. Maybe that was the thing that had scared me. The fact that everything could happen at the moment was frightening.
He gazed at me with an expecting look. I didn't know what to do, so I just stared back.
"Can I come in and sit with you?" he asked calmly. I became a bit suspicious. His behaviour was strange. A bit too calmly. However, I nodded in response and he seated himself on the end of the bed.
Now, we were seated opposite to each other. He on the end, I on my pillow. The back of his legs pressed against the wooden frame of the bed. I noticed he was a bit tensed, just like me, cause he stared down at the blanket and didn't start talking- it was his idea to talk after all-, so I had to do it. Otherwise there would presumably be no talking at all and he was right about us needing to talk.
"Well, I think I know where you want to talk about." I stated softly. Severus didn't look up, but just nodded with his head bent. He pressed his lips together and seemed to gather all the courage he could find in himself to start talking too.
"You should know that I was… well… ehm… surprised by the results and that I have acted in an unacceptable way." he admitted. I was a bit surprised myself he wanted to admit so little. He just wasn't the man to do so, I guessed. He just wasn't the type for it.
"Some of what I have said downstairs came out a bit harshly." he said, while still staring down at the blanket. "I should… we should have talked in a normal way." I raised my eyebrows at his statements. It meant that he only regretted the way he had told me the information, not about the information itself. It meant that everything he had said, had been no other than the truth. I had to suppress a tear.
"You say that you regret the way you spoke and not what. The information was clear. I only want to know how you truly see the future from here." I stated coldly. He looked up at me with a rather surprised look on his face, but that disappeared very soon.
"Well, I would like to clear up some things first." "We think differently about a lot of things. I don't want to and up in another quarrel." I stated just as coldly as before. Severus sighed agitatedly.
"I only want to tell you this and what you do with it is your business, Ellea!" he stated fiercely. "It won't be a conversation, cause I don't want you to react on what I am going to tell you! I will just leave the room afterwards." Severus sighed to reduce his anger. "We will talk about the future at supper." He gave me an expecting look. I simply nodded.
Severus nodded too and said: "Good… well…" he began uneasily. "Your mother and I had a short time relationship. We have never discussed marriage, nor have we ever talked about getting children, so I can imagine that being pregnant was a big surprise for your mother." He took a big breath and wanted to go on talking, but suddenly he seemed to have a lump in his throat and he stopped talking. He looked down at the blankets and I couldn't stop wondering where this was going to. He swallowed the lump away and resumed talking.
"So what I said about me never wanting you is… kind of right." he explained softly. I frowned and stared down at the blankets too. He noticed it and tried to make it up with: "but it's not completely how you think." I frowned deeper and looked up at him. His face had turned into a tensed one. His dark eyes said noting, as always. They were cold and seemed to penetrate me, as always.
"I have indeed never had the desire to become a father, so suddenly becoming one is a bit of a shock." he explained. I had to give him that one. I knew of the shock it had given him and I could sympathize. And that he had never had the desire to become a father had been obvious, so nothing new.
"You should know that now I know for sure you're mine, you can stay here." he said. "I am indeed your father, so will be your guardian and caretaker." I frowned at that.
"You do it out of decency, don't you?" I asked him monotonously. He looked up at me, bewildered. "I beg your pardon?" he asked, clearly confused. "You don't do it for me, but because you think that's the right way of dealing with your mistake, me. I'm your mistake. You have said it yourself down in the basement." Severus looked bewildered, maybe even a bit busted, but that was hard to tell by only getting to see his daily emotionless façade.
"I had said no comment!" Severus snarled. I straightened my back and made my confidence clear to him. I wasn't afraid of him. Although that was strange, cause he was way taller, stronger and older than me and to not even mention his ability to do magic.
"And I have asked a question." I stated bravely. Well, maybe bravely, but also foolish, since this only made the anger in his body rise up again. His eyes widened in stupefaction and his scowl became angrier by the second.
"How dare you to be brutal to me!" he exclaimed. "Cause I need answers! True answers to my questions!" I shouted back at him. Severus seemed confused about that and his scowl softened. He looked down at the blanket and sighed to reduce his anger.
"I need to know where I am at this point and the only thing you do is turning my questions down. I know that I do not always ask them in the right way, but that's because I am emotional too." I explained softly. I had wanted to add his name after the sentence, to make it feel more personal to him, but I had not known how to call him at this point. Severus? Just Snape? Father? No, not that, definitely not that. Neither of us would feel comfortable with that, I knew for sure.
Severus' anger had reduced mostly and he was even looking at me. That gave me the confirmation that I was making my message clear in the right way.
"Of course I am emotional about this too. Did you think that have always been okay with this? Of course I wasn't. I was devastated when I read my mom's letter for the first time. I found out that the man of whom I had always thought to be my father actually wasn't my biological father. That was pretty shocking, you know?" Severus nodded and said: "of course you were. I have never thought you weren't."
"All of this…" I sighed, but couldn't find the right words to finish it. "I still have troubles with the thought. And that's not your fault, it's on my part. Just like your emotions aren't my fault." Severus let out a sceptical laugh at that. "Well, I think that lies a bit more complicated." "And how so?" I asked him on a normal tone. Severus shook his head and said: "You started all of this with writing that letter to Dumbledore. You have started my emotions about this. You have reacted on my emotions at your turn and that's how the arguments came to exist. But don't worry. Someone of your age doesn't have to understand that." I raised my eyebrows at that one. I knew by his tone he hadn't meant it in a wrong way, but it just came out so rude. I wondered if he was like that to everyone.
I sighed. "Well, if you want to play it like that." Severus frowned, but didn't stop me from talking.
"YOU have actually all started this with hooking up with my mother and conceiving me. And then later on by not opening the letters in which she told YOU, YOU had made her pregnant." I stated arrogantly, cause I knew I was right. Severus sighed and frowned a bit, all while looking at me with those dark eyes of him.
"You are a true Slytherin at times, do you know that?" I frowned, thinking 'Slytherin' to be an insult.
"I have no idea what that insult means, but don't even try to change the subject." I stated strictly. Severus frowned an rolled his eyes at the same time. "It's not an insult, you know! It's rather a compliment. It means that your cunning, resourceful and ambitious, the main characteristics of a Slytherin." he explained agitatedly.
"Don't change the subject! I want answers to my questions to end all the quarrels." I stated, still as strictly as I had been. Severus frowned and nodded at the same time. "Yes, you are right. We have to talk. I only wanted to explain something, since you completely got the meaning of the word wrong." I frowned, but decided to just let it be.
Severus looked at the clock. Time for supper.
"I came here to talk about all that has happened down there in the basement, but it seems like we have to do most of it during supper."
"We both need to know where we are right now and how the future will look for the both of us." He gave me an attentive look.
"I need you for that too, Ellea." he stated as if the world depended on it.
"I am the adult and I make the decisions in the end, yes. But we both have to live with those decisions, so I think knowing about your opinion isn't a wrong thing." I nodded. "Cause I think that when I take a decision for you, you completely don't agree with, you will make my life a living hell." I thought he had meant it as a joke, so I smiled, but when I saw him, not smiling at all, I immediately stopped. He had meant it terribly serious.
"And don't get me wrong, cause if you make a decision I don't agree with, I can make yours even worse." He gave me a serious look and I slightly started to become scarred of him.
"But we both won't have a nice time if we start doing that, so I think that talking, at least at this point, is key." I nodded in response and was pleased with his conclusion to say the slightest.
Severus nodded too and asked: "Time for supper then?" He showed with that remark he was done talking and his tone revealed he was pleased with the results. I smiled to show him I agreed.
Author's Note:
Hey reader!
Would talking really be the key to success for their father/daughter relationship? Or will it only create more quarrels? Read next weeks' chapter to find out.
See you next week!