AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you guys for all the kind reviews! They really made me feel better yesterday! 3
They spent hours reviewing herbs and potions while they flew, until Freddie was so cold she couldn't keep answering. Her lips were chapped and she couldn't feel her nose or her cheeks. She was grateful when Snape respected that she needed a break and stopped quizzing her. That left her with silence and too much time to think her own thoughts.
Their prior conversation about Death Eaters had her thinking about her parents. She didn't think about them often, she barely remembered them. She was content to let them rot in Azkaban for what they'd done, willingly and enthusiastically, for the Dark Lord. Not like Snape, who did not like to talk about it and had done 'what he needed to to survive'. Her parents had been proud Death Eaters. Freddie had been young and hadn't witnessed any of their work firsthand...but she remembered them talking about it. Just flashes of memories, really, but enough to stand out in her mind. Talk around the dinner table of torturing Muggles, of murdering Muggleborns in their homes. And the talk hadn't stopped when her parents had been arrested, her aunt and uncle had continued it when she was sent to live with them. Bragging about their horrible deeds, about how they'd never been caught. She'd endured it for years before she learned to tune it out.
She was trying to block the thoughts out, to focus on Potions or literally anything else, but they kept creeping back in. She tried using her Occlumency but that didn't work for more than a few minutes before she was thinking about them again. Her mother's face kept appearing in her mind for some reason. In the image she was crying, her face a mask of anguish, but still beautiful. She had the same raven tresses as Freddie, only curlier, and her eyes were cat-green, almost the same shade as Ziggy's. Her mouth had been full and always painted with blood-red lipstick, but she always looked a little crazy when she smiled.
At first Freddie couldn't place the memory. She couldn't remember seeing her mother ever cry, certainly not in such an tormented way, like her soul had been shattered...if she even had a soul. Freddie wasn't so sure.
Then the memory came flooding back with such clarity and intensity that Freddie gasped, drawing ice cold air into her lungs. She felt chilled to the bone and it was no longer just the temperature. It was the memory of her mother standing in the sitting room wailing, her father cursing and screaming. Then the door was blasted off the hinges and a half dozen wizards came storming in, wands drawn-
"Do you want to take a break?" Snape called to her, startling her from her thoughts, making her broom jerk in the air. She could see the concern in his expression. "...We still have a couple hours but we could touch down somewhere for just a bit. Stretch our legs."
"Yeah, okay," she said shakily, hoping he would attribute it to the cold.
There had been a forest beneath them for the last 15 minutes and it stretched on as far as they could see. The snow-covered landscape had disappeared the farther south they got, but it didn't seem any less cold than Scotland had. They didn't bother with Disillusionment Charms this time, just drifted down slowly. When Snape spotted a small clearing she followed him automatically, still shaken from the memory that had surfaced.
They touched down in the middle of a small clearing, near a blackened tree stump that was split halfway through the center. Ziggy leapt from Freddie's broom when she was still two feet from the ground, startling her again. She landed roughly, her feet slamming into the cold hard ground. Snape still had a worried expression on his face as he landed, much more gracefully than she had.
"I'll start a fire so you can get warm," he said and she nodded in thanks. He thought it was the cold that was bothering her and she was more than happy to let him think that. He didn't want to talk about Death Eater things and she wasn't so sure she wanted to talk about what she'd just remembered either.
She pulled her fur-lined cloak around herself tightly as Snape chose a spot to start a fire. Ziggy was exploring the clearing and the jagged tree stump, seeming glad to have all four paws on the ground again. She watched him in a detached sort of way, feeling numb. She didn't even notice when Snape got the fire going or that he'd used his wand to make a small black couch appear in the clearing. Not until he touched her arm, looking down at her, his brown eyes full of worry.
"Sorry, did you say something?" she asked, trying to shake off the feeling she had. She needed to snap out of it.
"I said for you to come sit down," he said gently, steering her towards the couch. "You don't look so good. Your nose is red but the rest of your face is white as a sheet."
"It's fine," she murmured absently.
He sat her down on the couch and sat next to her. He put an arm around her and drew her into his side, but she couldn't even feel the warmth of his body. They sat like that for a few minutes. Freddie was staring at the flames in front of her when a blanket appeared out of nowhere. She realized Snape had summoned it from somewhere as he tucked it around the both of them. Still Freddie didn't speak.
"...I am sorry," Snape said finally and Freddie looked up at him, confused as to why he was apologizing. "I thought you would enjoy flying. I did not realize how cold it would be."
"What? No!" she said quickly, wanting to reassure him. "No, no, it's- I do like flying with you. I'm enjoying it, even if it is cold. That's not what...it's nothing."
"What is it then?" he asked and when she didn't immediately answer he kissed her cheek. "You have had your mind closed for hours. I can tell something is bothering you. Are you angry with me?"
"No," she insisted. "I'm not angry with you. I'm not angry, I'm...I don't know what I'm feeling. I just...remembered something when we were flying. Something bad."
"Something about Daniel?" he asked, suddenly very serious.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "I wish, but...no."
He didn't ask her again but she knew he was waiting. His arm was still around her and he gave her a light squeeze. She leaned into him, wanting to be reassured, wanting to be comforted. She lay her head on his shoulder and sighed quietly.
"My mother killed an Auror," she said softly. She felt his grip on her tighten and she drew away slightly, worried he would be angry at her for bringing it up again.
"Wha-? Winifred..." he murmured.
"I know," she said, pulling away from him but only so she could turn on the couch to look at him. "I know you don't want to talk about this kind of stuff, but I need to talk about it. I remembered...I didn't even know that I remembered."
"...You can tell me," he said gently, putting a hand on her arm. "Winifred, of course you can talk to me about anything, particularly if you feel you need to. If it will help..."
Freddie took a deep breath and rushed into it before he could change his mind or she could lose her nerve.
"I knew they had been charged with the death of an Auror," she began. "It was just one of about a dozen things they were charged with. Crimes against Muggleborns. The torture and murder of more than 50 Muggles, though my uncle always claimed the actual number was higher." She shuddered. "Multiple charges of using Unforgivable curses. Destruction of property. And the murder of one Auror, Wendell Bones."
She thought she saw a glimmer of recognition on Snape's face but he didn't say anything so she continued.
"What I didn't know – or I didn't know that I knew...I was there. I was there, Severus, and I saw it," she said, her voice hollow. "I was so young. I was only 7, I think. But I remember. It was the night the Dark Lord was vanquished, but I didn't know it at the time. I remember my mother crying and screaming, the most god-awful wailing. She was standing in the middle of our sitting room with her makeup running down her face, clutching her arm. I'd seen the Mark burn before but I never saw my mother cry before. And my father was screaming and cursing – I can't picture him, not really. I only really know what he looks like from photographs my uncle has, but I remember him shouting. I knew...I knew that something bad was happening and that I needed to hide. I needed to hide and be quiet or I might get hurt. I was inside of a cabinet, scrunched up among bottles of potions and liquor, watching them through a little hole in the wooden door. I saw when the Aurors came." She swallowed heavily and he gave her arm a comforting squeeze. "There were six of them. There was this loud bang and the door to the sitting room flew across and hit the wall. It scared me so bad that I accidentally shattered all the bottles in the cabinet – with my magic, you know. Only nobody heard me because all these men in trench coats came in and they were firing spells from the start.
My parents fought back. There was all this yelling and screaming, different colored spells were flying in all different directions. Things were flying off the walls and shelves or exploding, things were catching on fire. I was so scared one of those spells would hit the cabinet I was in, but I couldn't move. I just knew that if I moved I'd be dead. Then somebody slammed into my cabinet and I cut myself on broken glass as I tried to back away, tried not to scream. I heard the body hit the floor with a thud, but I couldn't move. By the time I looked back out the Aurors had my parents, bound and unconscious, and I was staring at a man on the floor and I knew he was dead. Not a mark on him but he wasn't moving. His blue eyes were open and for a moment I thought he was looking at me, but he wasn't blinking. And I realized that he wasn't staring at me. He was dead."
Her voice was trembling by now and she felt tears in her eyes, like she was still that scared little kid hiding in a cabinet. She wiped them away with the back of one hand. She didn't want to cry again, she was so sick of crying, especially in front of him. He was staring at her with an expression she didn't think she'd seen on him before – shock.
"Winifred..." he said. "I...I am so sorry. I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything," she said, shaking her head and wiping her eyes again. "I just needed to say it out loud."
"Come here," he said, pulling her back to him. He wrapped both arms around her, hugging her tightly. He pressed a kiss onto the top of her head. "...Why now?"
"I don't know," she said shakily, her voice muffled by his chest. "I didn't remember before. How could I have forgotten that?"
"You were just a child."
"I was 7 years old! Seeing someone murdered right in front of me, by my own parents no less, doesn't seem like something I would forget, does it?"
"I don't know," he murmured, stroking her back gently. "Maybe it was a defense mechanism, your brain chose not to remember the trauma. Or perhaps someone put a Memory Charm on you? So you would not have to remember?"
"I can't think of anyone who would have even bothered," she said, shaking her head. "I stayed in the cabinet, with all that broken glass around me, for a long time. I thought if I could just control my magic, if I could just be still and quiet until they all left I could...I don't know. It didn't matter. They took my parents away and more people came. They started tearing the house apart, confiscating stuff. You should have seen the look on this guy's face when he opened the cabinet and found me hiding in there." She chuckled weakly.
"What did they do after they found you?" he asked quietly.
"They were all sort of freaked out I think. I remember someone saying that no one knew anything about the Grays having a kid...Looking back I'm sure that's true. I was shuffled around a lot, locked in my room. It always seemed like I was in the way, like I was a big inconvenience for my parents. I don't remember ever even going out in public with them. I thought that maybe they were ashamed of me, because of my...outbursts. So I'm not surprised that no one knew I existed," she said. She kept her face pressed to his chest so she wouldn't have to see the look of pity she imagined he had on his face. "Eventually one of the Aurors, a woman, healed the cuts on my arms and legs because I was upset. I had been dripping blood on the carpet while they argued over me and I was worried that when my mother came home I'd be in trouble. It gets fuzzier after that...maybe they did put a spell on me or gave me something to make me sleep. They took me somewhere, I think it was the Ministry. And then my aunt and uncle came and they took me away. Cecil and Millicent wouldn't have put a Memory Charm on me. They wouldn't have wanted me to forget. They reminded me every chance they got that I should be proud of my parents. Proud of the work they'd done for the Dark Lord and proud that they had gone to Azkaban rather than give up the names of their 'brothers and sisters'."
"That is how most of His followers were found. Names were given up by ones that had been caught, trying to save their own skin," he said. "With the charges you listed it is highly unlikely they would have been pardoned, even if they had named names."
Freddie was silent, not sure how to feel about this information. Snape shifted slightly on the couch, cradling her in his arms.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Maybe I should not have said that."
"No, it's fine," she assured him. She felt him pull the blanket up over her. "They deserved what they got. They deserve to rot in Azkaban and I never want to see them again. I don't even remember them that well anyway. I doubt they'd have any interest in seeing me."
They were silent for a few minutes, with him stroking her back in a calming manner. And she did feel calmer. She felt better for having told someone.
"I should not have made that waitress choke on her gum," he said finally. "It was rash and stupid."
"It wasn't so bad," she assured him. "It was kind of funny. She was annoying."
"It was still foolish of me," he murmured. "Something I would have done as a teenager. I should know better."
He stopped stroking her back and she moved so she could look up at him. She was basically laying in his lap now.
"I did not do it because she was a Muggle," he said, his expression somber. "It is important to me that you understand that. I would have done the same to anyone who was popping gum in my face like that. It was not an act of hate."
"Oh I know that. I know you don't hate Muggles, Severus," she said. He didn't even like to hear someone use the word 'Mudblood'. It made him angry, she'd seen it firsthand.
"The only Muggle I have ever hated was my father," he said. His body stiffened slightly and he quickly looked away, as he realized what he'd said. Then he seemed to relax, slowly. "He was...I don't talk about it."
"I know. There are a lot of things you don't talk about."
He went silent and looked away from her again, this time gazing into the fire. She couldn't read his expression but he seemed pensive. His hand was on top of her head now, absently stroking her hair. It made her feel calm and a little drowsy. Ziggy returned from exploring the clearing and leapt onto the couch with them. He burrowed under the blanket and wedged himself between the couch and Freddie's abdomen. She felt him start to purr, a little ball of warmth and vibration. Snape was running his fingers through her hair now and Freddie thought if she were a kneazle she'd be purring too.
"I can tell you," he said finally, his voice a barely audible whisper. "About the war, about...there are some things I should probably tell you."
She was instantly alert and opened her eyes, looking up at him in surprise. The pain was evident in his face and her heart constricted painfully in her chest.
"You don't have to," she replied softly. "Not if you don't want to."
"This would be a safe place to do it," he said, casting his gaze around the clearing. "There's no one around for miles, no one to overhear...if you are sure you want to know."
She was silent for a beat, but she didn't have to think about it. She wanted to know. She needed to know. And she thought, maybe, he needed to talk about it.
"I do," she said, looking up into his pained face. He wasn't even trying to hide it anymore. She saw his nostrils flare as he exhaled slowly and he nodded slightly. Up until this point he had still been running his fingers through her hair, as if the action comforted him as much as it did her. He stopped now but left his fingers tangled in her tresses as he began.
"It was a different time. A darker time. The Dark Lord had just begun his rise into power and it was all my housemates could talk about. His ideals were...appealing to some, most of all to my Slytherin housemates. I do not have to tell you what those ideals were," he said and she nodded. She knew. The Wizarding World exposed, Muggles forced into their 'proper' place, Muggleborns eliminated so only the so-called pure wizards and witches remained. "The majority of my housemates planned to join him as soon as they could, some even dropped out of school instead of waiting to graduate. I...made bad choices. I chose the wrong friends, abandoned-" She heard his sharp intake of breath and his hand clenched slightly in her hair.
"I cast aside my one true friend, because she was a Muggleborn," he said, so soft she had to strain to hear.
She knew immediately that he meant Lily and her heart ached for him. She knew how bad it had to hurt for him to admit this. She almost wanted to tell him to stop talking, because she didn't want to cause him pain, but she didn't. She felt like she wasn't supposed to say anything and let him say what he wanted, but she wanted to comfort him. She reached for his hand under the blanket, the one that wasn't buried in her hair.
"Don't," he said softly, his voice strangled, but he let her anyway. She took his warm hand in both of hers and squeezed it, hard. He squeezed back but a few minutes passed before he spoke again.
"I made the wrong choices," he continued, his voice still soft but sounding stronger. "And before long I found myself in the Dark Lord's inner circle. Branded." He clenched the fist of his left arm, the one that bore the Dark Mark. She brought his fist from under the blanket and kissed his hand. "I found myself being made to do things that I knew were wrong, but...I did not see a way out. With the Dark Lord- when you are that close, you...If the Dark Lord senses weakness, he eliminates it. Only my Occlumency skills kept me safe. If he had sensed my reluctance, my...my fear. I would have been killed immediately."
Freddie got chills at his words and she swallowed heavily. Snape's eyes focused on her and softened ever so slightly. He ran his fingers through her hair once more before resting his hand against her scalp.
"I have never told anyone this before," he told her quietly. She felt very privileged suddenly and she acknowledged it with a nod. She knew he wasn't finished and she lay perfectly still in his lap, waiting for him to continue whenever he felt like it.
"I was sent by the Dark Lord to spy on Dumbledore. He knew that the only real threat to his plans, the only one who may be able to stop him, was Albus Dumbledore. And even then I-" he paused and looked away from her. "I was a coward. I did not turn to Dumbledore for help, to get me out of the hole I had dug myself into. I did not trust him. He had been my headmaster for seven years and...you know how he is. He is never anything but kind to Slytherin students but there is something about him that rubs us the wrong way. Maybe it is the way he seems to know us better than we know ourselves..."
"I know exactly what you mean," Freddie confirmed, nodding slightly. She couldn't imagine turning to Dumbledore for help, for anything.
"So, I did not ask for help. As much as I disliked it, I continued to spy on Dumbledore, the only person the Dark Lord feared until...there was a prophecy. A child was to be born that would have the power to defeat the Dark Lord. He was...enraged. Obsessed with finding the child. But when he found out who the child was, when I found out that he planned to go after Lily and her son..." He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. "I turned to Dumbledore. A man I feared nearly as much as the Dark Lord himself. I fully expected to be killed the moment I went to him, but I had to. And he heard me out. I turned to Dumbledore and begged him to keep them safe, to keep her safe...and in return I became his spy instead. Knowing that the slightest misstep on my part would end my life, I became Dumbledore's spy instead."
"But he didn't save her!" Freddie said loudly. She couldn't help herself. She was angry – furious even. And deeply sad. Tears had started streaming down her face as Snape spoke and she couldn't stop them. He opened his eyes to look at her, startled. She saw tears glistening in his eyes too and that only made her cry harder.
"He could not save her. Their location was betrayed to the Dark Lord by Sirius Black, a man they considered to be their closest friend." There was sadness and fury in his voice and she could tell he was struggling to contain it. "Albus kept them safe for over a year while the Dark Lord hunted them relentlessly. In that time I was Dumbledore's spy and I knew in my heart that I was doing the right thing. I joined the Order of the Phoenix – a secret organization formed by Dumbledore to fight back against the Dark Lord. I provided them with information that was crucial in preventing the deaths of countless people, but sometimes...I still had to do things I did not want to do, to preserve my role as a Death Eater spy. I did my best to...but I still may have been responsible for the deaths of a number of people. I understand if that changes the way you think about me or what you...if it changes the way you feel about me. I understand."
He pulled his hands away from her but she moved so quickly she nearly crushed Ziggy. She grabbed Snape's face in both her hands, straddling his lap, forcing him to look at her.
"I love you," she told him firmly and she kissed him passionately, trying to convey just how deeply she loved him before she broke this kiss to look at him again. "You did what you had to do and you...are far braver than I ever imagined."
She heard him inhale sharply and a single tear rolled down his cheek. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers, opening his mind to hers. A flood of his strong emotions washed over her, the strongest of which was love.
"Thank you," he whispered aloud.