The Liber Severi
Liber I - Severus Snape's True Love
Copyright (c) 2001 by Cassandra Houston
Illustrations by Gabriel (http://www.angelfire.com/art/angelgabriel/)
Author's Notes:
Most of the characters within belong to JK Rowling. Amethyst Rayne Black Snape, Lapis Meaker and some others belong to me, Cassandra Houston. I will not accept money for this book, nor any others made with the wonderful characters JK Rowling has created. I am only putting on paper my interpretation and theory of what the Rowling characters may have been like before the Harry Potter series and what they may be like after. I am not trying to insult or steal from Rowling. I am only having fun here.
If you like what you read (and I certainly hope you do), please feel free to forward a copy of this ebook along to friends, family and anyone else who may enjoy its contents.
I must take the time here to thank Gabriel. Gabriel! You are a saint and I am forever in your debt!
I now give you Severus Snape's True Love, the first in the Liber Severi series.
Cassandra Houston
Chapter Eleven: The Potion
Severus straightened and glared down at his own handwriting. He closed his eyes. "This is not happening." He whispered.
"What?" Amethyst said, straightening up from the caldron on the fire.
"Nothing." Severus lied to his wife for the first time in he couldn't remember when. Probably since they first met in the clearing. "I was just marveling at the complexity of this potion." He added, since that much was true.
They'd received the potion that morning and had spent the better part of the day analysing it. The potion had come with a note from the Ministry of Magic asking for the analysis. It was being sold in the wizarding world as a tranquilizer and had landed five wizards in the hospital where they slowly deteriorated to a near death like state. Fortunately they were able to give descriptions of the wizard who sold them the potion.
Severus double-checked the potion on the fire just so he wouldn't have to face his wife. "It is ready to be bottled." He said, slowly. "Do that while I check downstairs." He said and turned without a word, feeling, more than seeing Amethysts half bewildered, half angry eyes on his back.
Downstairs, Sirius, Harry and Ron were leaning over several pieces of parchment. Sirius glanced up casually at Severus' approach, and did a double take. "What's the matter with you?" He asked. "You look brassed up."
Severus scowled. "The price I have to pay being stuck in the same building with you." He snapped. "How is your investigation going?"
Sirius ignored the jab. He knew Severus probably didn't mean it. Probably. "The victims are all young. They're the sorts who don't feel good about themselves. One had acne and one was very overweight. You know the type."
Severus nodded. Ron picked up the thread. "They are all illegal potions users of old. Pretty bombed out lot. We got a pretty good description of their grafter, though." And he started rummaging through all the pieces of parchment and organizing them, mumbling as he went.
"About" he frowned. "That American bloke said he was about six foot two inches. What is that in English."
"Severus and I are six foot two American." Sirius said, calculating.
"Right then. About your height" Ron said and returned to sifting through the parchment.
"That girl put him at about eighty kilograms."
More shuffling.
"Dark hair. Long. Greasy."
"Long hands, thin."
"Dark eyes. Said they gave him the creeps."
"Pale."
Ron looked up suddenly, "Hey that sounds like, -"
Harry and Sirius were staring at Severus. "That sounds like you, mate." Sirius said solemnly.
"'This is not happening.'" Said a voice from the stairs.
Amethyst was standing on the stairs, staring at Severus. She came the rest of the way down the stairs and walked right up to Severus. "That's what you were saying, earlier." She said, looking up at him, looking concerned.
"Yes." Severus said.
"Now, a few years ago, I would have said you'd done it all right. Poisoned a bunch of illegal potion using wizards." Harry said, softly. "But I can't believe it now. I know you now."
"That's not your style." Sirius said. "It wasn't then, either, for that."
"Then who is it?" Ron asked. He was still looking over the pieces of parchment, re-reading their notes. "Because they have all described Snape."
"They have at that." Severus whispered, staring into his wife's eyes. "But it wasn't me."
"I know that." Amethyst said softly. "But who could it have been? And why are they describing you?"
Severus broke eye contact and began pacing the room. He didn't speak for a long moment. He eventually walked to a window and looked out onto the mid-October afternoon.
"What is it, love?" Amethyst said softly to his back.
"I only know of two wizards who are capable of making a potion as complex as the one we analyzed today." He said. "One of them is, of course, myself." He turned to face them. "The other." He began pacing again. "But it's not possible. It just can't be."
Sirius got in front of Severus and stopped him. They looked into each other's eyes. "What?" Sirius said.
Severus took a deep breath. "That potion is a variation on the old Draught of the Living Death. But this one adds powdered moonflowers. It is very complex. Very dangerous."
"And who besides you is capable of making it, so we can go and arrest them." Harry said.
"The only other wizard capable of making that potion besides myself," Severus said and everyone was surprised to hear a quavering in his voice. "Is Samuel Snape. My father."
The silence that greeted this was so pronounced that they could hear the Muggles walking along on the street two floors below. Amethyst broke the silence.
"But your father is dead. The Death Eaters killed him. You took a leave of absence. I remember. It was in my Seventh Year at Hogwarts."
Severus was shaking his head. "Not if he cast the Dark Mark himself, then drank the Draught of Living Death."
"Why would he do that?" Harry asked, incredulously.
"Yes." Severus did not appear to have heard Harry. "You see, my father was a Death Eater. A disgraced Death Eater, no less, and that is no easy feat. They would have killed him, eventually, no doubt and the assumption at the time was that a rogue Death Eater killed him. But if he staged his death."
"But that's crazy." Ron said.
Severus laughed humorlessly. "My father was insane, Ron. He killed my mother when I was just a boy. He beat her to death." He said, shaking slightly at the memory. "He beat me every chance he got. He sought me out just to beat me. As a student at Hogwarts I was relatively safe, but I could not stay there year round."
Amethyst was staring, her eyes hard. "You think he's somehow alive?"
Severus looked at his wife. "I know he is." He said. "I don't know how, but I know he is."
Severus sat by the fire and calmed his breathing. That had been the worst argument he had ever had. He alone, against Sirius and Amethyst. They had argued with him for hours. Sirius saw the logic first and the two of them spent another hour trying to talk Amethyst into agreeing. She was a stubborn woman sometimes. Working together, he and Sirius had managed to get Amethyst to see their logic. (Severus still marvelled at the idea that he could work with Sirius Black.) He'd kissed his wife passionately and she went with Sirius to his flat to wait for him to finish this.
For Severus knew why his father was poisoning wizards. He was trying to get his attention. Samuel Snape knew well how to get his sons attention. He had dragged Severus into many altercations during Severus' childhood and every time Severus would rise to the bait. And Samuel would beat his son down. Literally.
Not tonight.
Sissy walked into the room and bowed low before Severus. "Yes Sissy." He said, quietly.
"I is going to beg you to not do this, Master Severus." Sissy squealed.
"This has been coming for a long time, Sissy. You know that. I thought he died before I could finish it. Now I know better." He said, simply. "And this conversation is over, Sissy. You may go. Do not disturb me again. I will call you if I need you."
The house elf bit her lip, but turned and walked away.
Severus heard the swish of the cloak and looked up. Out of the shadows across the room walked Samuel Snape. He looked, of course, much older than Severus remembered him, but he was still just as thin as all Snape men were. Thin, but muscular. Strong.
"Severus," he drawled. "It has been a long time."
Severus said nothing. Samuel removed his cloak.
"Still a sullen little brat." He father said, draping his cloak over an empty chair. "I am glad you got my message." He walked into the firelight. "Can you not say hello to your father?" Severus stood. He'd grown to be half a head taller than his father and he enjoyed looking down at him. And enjoyed the look his father got when he realised his son was no longer a full head and more shorter than he. "What happened, Father?" he asked quietly, glaring down at the man who made his life unbearable for so very long.
"I was on a hit list." His father said. "My fellow Death Eaters felt the need for my demise. Something about funds stolen." He shrugged. "I arranged my own death. I cast the Dark Mark over the house. It was very simple. I waited in the near death state for the potion to wear off. I suppose in my nerves, I made the Draught too strong. It has taken me these twenty years or so to come back."
"Why come back, Father?" Severus asked. "Why not stay in your grave for the maggots?"
Samuel laughed. "Ah" he breathed. "You developed a rapier wit not unlike my own, Severus." His eyes flashed. "I came back to claim what is mine. My house, my land, and my son. But I see there is so much more now. A wife, Severus? And a beautiful one. I never would have believed. I just knew you had to be one of those funny guys fucking other funny guys every chance you got." He laughed as Severus nostrils flared. "But she is not getting what she deserves. A real man. I will claim her, also."
Severus tightened his jaw. And pulled out his wand. His father did the same. Samuel handed his wand to Severus and Severus turned to put both wands on the mantel over the fire.
"I am glad you remember how I like it, Severus." Samuel said. "Wands are truly the cowards way."
Severus turned from the fire and struck with the speed and accuracy of a viper. He punched his father, catching him off guard and sending him sprawling. Samuel recovered and found his feet.
"Well, I see you have improved your fighting skills, Severus. Spar with that whore of yours, do you?" and he came at Severus with an uppercut.
Severus caught his fist and bent his wrist back. Samuel slowly fell to his knees. Severus brought his fathers arm behind his back, almost dislocating his shoulder. Now behind Samuel, and with a good grip on the right arm and the left shoulder, Severus, still braced against any sudden moves from his father, bent and whispered into his fathers' ear.
"I felt so cheated when the Dark Mark appeared over the house." He tightened his grip on his fathers shoulder. "I wanted to be the one to kill you. You killed my mother and did everything in your power to keep me down. Now you dare come into my home and call my wife a whore?" He pulled on his fathers arm, dislocating the shoulder. "I always suspected you might have taken the Draught of Living Death. But I didn't think you would make such a stupid mistake and knock yourself out for more than twenty years." He pushed his father to the floor and pinned him. He let go of the dislocated shoulder and listened to the pain in his fathers breathing. He put his right hand on the top of his fathers' head. "How many times did you dislocate my shoulder, just as I have now dislocated yours, Father?" he asked, still in a whisper. "A dozen? Two dozen?" He caressed his fathers face with his left hand.
"Severus." Samuel gasped. "Please."
Severus slipped his left hand under his fathers chin. He cradled his fathers' head with his right hand. "I have no Draught for you tonight, Father. No living Death for you. No waking in twenty years. Or two hundred. Or ever." And he quickly moved his left hand, jerking the head until he could look into his fathers dead left eye. Samuel Snape's neck was broken.
Severus looked into the eye for several minutes before he stood. He double-checked for a pulse. He spit on the corpse and walked from the room, calling "Sissy! Take this filth out of my house! Burn it!"
Liber I - Severus Snape's True Love
Copyright (c) 2001 by Cassandra Houston
Illustrations by Gabriel (http://www.angelfire.com/art/angelgabriel/)
Author's Notes:
Most of the characters within belong to JK Rowling. Amethyst Rayne Black Snape, Lapis Meaker and some others belong to me, Cassandra Houston. I will not accept money for this book, nor any others made with the wonderful characters JK Rowling has created. I am only putting on paper my interpretation and theory of what the Rowling characters may have been like before the Harry Potter series and what they may be like after. I am not trying to insult or steal from Rowling. I am only having fun here.
If you like what you read (and I certainly hope you do), please feel free to forward a copy of this ebook along to friends, family and anyone else who may enjoy its contents.
I must take the time here to thank Gabriel. Gabriel! You are a saint and I am forever in your debt!
I now give you Severus Snape's True Love, the first in the Liber Severi series.
Cassandra Houston
Chapter Eleven: The Potion
Severus straightened and glared down at his own handwriting. He closed his eyes. "This is not happening." He whispered.
"What?" Amethyst said, straightening up from the caldron on the fire.
"Nothing." Severus lied to his wife for the first time in he couldn't remember when. Probably since they first met in the clearing. "I was just marveling at the complexity of this potion." He added, since that much was true.
They'd received the potion that morning and had spent the better part of the day analysing it. The potion had come with a note from the Ministry of Magic asking for the analysis. It was being sold in the wizarding world as a tranquilizer and had landed five wizards in the hospital where they slowly deteriorated to a near death like state. Fortunately they were able to give descriptions of the wizard who sold them the potion.
Severus double-checked the potion on the fire just so he wouldn't have to face his wife. "It is ready to be bottled." He said, slowly. "Do that while I check downstairs." He said and turned without a word, feeling, more than seeing Amethysts half bewildered, half angry eyes on his back.
Downstairs, Sirius, Harry and Ron were leaning over several pieces of parchment. Sirius glanced up casually at Severus' approach, and did a double take. "What's the matter with you?" He asked. "You look brassed up."
Severus scowled. "The price I have to pay being stuck in the same building with you." He snapped. "How is your investigation going?"
Sirius ignored the jab. He knew Severus probably didn't mean it. Probably. "The victims are all young. They're the sorts who don't feel good about themselves. One had acne and one was very overweight. You know the type."
Severus nodded. Ron picked up the thread. "They are all illegal potions users of old. Pretty bombed out lot. We got a pretty good description of their grafter, though." And he started rummaging through all the pieces of parchment and organizing them, mumbling as he went.
"About" he frowned. "That American bloke said he was about six foot two inches. What is that in English."
"Severus and I are six foot two American." Sirius said, calculating.
"Right then. About your height" Ron said and returned to sifting through the parchment.
"That girl put him at about eighty kilograms."
More shuffling.
"Dark hair. Long. Greasy."
"Long hands, thin."
"Dark eyes. Said they gave him the creeps."
"Pale."
Ron looked up suddenly, "Hey that sounds like, -"
Harry and Sirius were staring at Severus. "That sounds like you, mate." Sirius said solemnly.
"'This is not happening.'" Said a voice from the stairs.
Amethyst was standing on the stairs, staring at Severus. She came the rest of the way down the stairs and walked right up to Severus. "That's what you were saying, earlier." She said, looking up at him, looking concerned.
"Yes." Severus said.
"Now, a few years ago, I would have said you'd done it all right. Poisoned a bunch of illegal potion using wizards." Harry said, softly. "But I can't believe it now. I know you now."
"That's not your style." Sirius said. "It wasn't then, either, for that."
"Then who is it?" Ron asked. He was still looking over the pieces of parchment, re-reading their notes. "Because they have all described Snape."
"They have at that." Severus whispered, staring into his wife's eyes. "But it wasn't me."
"I know that." Amethyst said softly. "But who could it have been? And why are they describing you?"
Severus broke eye contact and began pacing the room. He didn't speak for a long moment. He eventually walked to a window and looked out onto the mid-October afternoon.
"What is it, love?" Amethyst said softly to his back.
"I only know of two wizards who are capable of making a potion as complex as the one we analyzed today." He said. "One of them is, of course, myself." He turned to face them. "The other." He began pacing again. "But it's not possible. It just can't be."
Sirius got in front of Severus and stopped him. They looked into each other's eyes. "What?" Sirius said.
Severus took a deep breath. "That potion is a variation on the old Draught of the Living Death. But this one adds powdered moonflowers. It is very complex. Very dangerous."
"And who besides you is capable of making it, so we can go and arrest them." Harry said.
"The only other wizard capable of making that potion besides myself," Severus said and everyone was surprised to hear a quavering in his voice. "Is Samuel Snape. My father."
The silence that greeted this was so pronounced that they could hear the Muggles walking along on the street two floors below. Amethyst broke the silence.
"But your father is dead. The Death Eaters killed him. You took a leave of absence. I remember. It was in my Seventh Year at Hogwarts."
Severus was shaking his head. "Not if he cast the Dark Mark himself, then drank the Draught of Living Death."
"Why would he do that?" Harry asked, incredulously.
"Yes." Severus did not appear to have heard Harry. "You see, my father was a Death Eater. A disgraced Death Eater, no less, and that is no easy feat. They would have killed him, eventually, no doubt and the assumption at the time was that a rogue Death Eater killed him. But if he staged his death."
"But that's crazy." Ron said.
Severus laughed humorlessly. "My father was insane, Ron. He killed my mother when I was just a boy. He beat her to death." He said, shaking slightly at the memory. "He beat me every chance he got. He sought me out just to beat me. As a student at Hogwarts I was relatively safe, but I could not stay there year round."
Amethyst was staring, her eyes hard. "You think he's somehow alive?"
Severus looked at his wife. "I know he is." He said. "I don't know how, but I know he is."
Severus sat by the fire and calmed his breathing. That had been the worst argument he had ever had. He alone, against Sirius and Amethyst. They had argued with him for hours. Sirius saw the logic first and the two of them spent another hour trying to talk Amethyst into agreeing. She was a stubborn woman sometimes. Working together, he and Sirius had managed to get Amethyst to see their logic. (Severus still marvelled at the idea that he could work with Sirius Black.) He'd kissed his wife passionately and she went with Sirius to his flat to wait for him to finish this.
For Severus knew why his father was poisoning wizards. He was trying to get his attention. Samuel Snape knew well how to get his sons attention. He had dragged Severus into many altercations during Severus' childhood and every time Severus would rise to the bait. And Samuel would beat his son down. Literally.
Not tonight.
Sissy walked into the room and bowed low before Severus. "Yes Sissy." He said, quietly.
"I is going to beg you to not do this, Master Severus." Sissy squealed.
"This has been coming for a long time, Sissy. You know that. I thought he died before I could finish it. Now I know better." He said, simply. "And this conversation is over, Sissy. You may go. Do not disturb me again. I will call you if I need you."
The house elf bit her lip, but turned and walked away.
Severus heard the swish of the cloak and looked up. Out of the shadows across the room walked Samuel Snape. He looked, of course, much older than Severus remembered him, but he was still just as thin as all Snape men were. Thin, but muscular. Strong.
"Severus," he drawled. "It has been a long time."
Severus said nothing. Samuel removed his cloak.
"Still a sullen little brat." He father said, draping his cloak over an empty chair. "I am glad you got my message." He walked into the firelight. "Can you not say hello to your father?" Severus stood. He'd grown to be half a head taller than his father and he enjoyed looking down at him. And enjoyed the look his father got when he realised his son was no longer a full head and more shorter than he. "What happened, Father?" he asked quietly, glaring down at the man who made his life unbearable for so very long.
"I was on a hit list." His father said. "My fellow Death Eaters felt the need for my demise. Something about funds stolen." He shrugged. "I arranged my own death. I cast the Dark Mark over the house. It was very simple. I waited in the near death state for the potion to wear off. I suppose in my nerves, I made the Draught too strong. It has taken me these twenty years or so to come back."
"Why come back, Father?" Severus asked. "Why not stay in your grave for the maggots?"
Samuel laughed. "Ah" he breathed. "You developed a rapier wit not unlike my own, Severus." His eyes flashed. "I came back to claim what is mine. My house, my land, and my son. But I see there is so much more now. A wife, Severus? And a beautiful one. I never would have believed. I just knew you had to be one of those funny guys fucking other funny guys every chance you got." He laughed as Severus nostrils flared. "But she is not getting what she deserves. A real man. I will claim her, also."
Severus tightened his jaw. And pulled out his wand. His father did the same. Samuel handed his wand to Severus and Severus turned to put both wands on the mantel over the fire.
"I am glad you remember how I like it, Severus." Samuel said. "Wands are truly the cowards way."
Severus turned from the fire and struck with the speed and accuracy of a viper. He punched his father, catching him off guard and sending him sprawling. Samuel recovered and found his feet.
"Well, I see you have improved your fighting skills, Severus. Spar with that whore of yours, do you?" and he came at Severus with an uppercut.
Severus caught his fist and bent his wrist back. Samuel slowly fell to his knees. Severus brought his fathers arm behind his back, almost dislocating his shoulder. Now behind Samuel, and with a good grip on the right arm and the left shoulder, Severus, still braced against any sudden moves from his father, bent and whispered into his fathers' ear.
"I felt so cheated when the Dark Mark appeared over the house." He tightened his grip on his fathers shoulder. "I wanted to be the one to kill you. You killed my mother and did everything in your power to keep me down. Now you dare come into my home and call my wife a whore?" He pulled on his fathers arm, dislocating the shoulder. "I always suspected you might have taken the Draught of Living Death. But I didn't think you would make such a stupid mistake and knock yourself out for more than twenty years." He pushed his father to the floor and pinned him. He let go of the dislocated shoulder and listened to the pain in his fathers breathing. He put his right hand on the top of his fathers' head. "How many times did you dislocate my shoulder, just as I have now dislocated yours, Father?" he asked, still in a whisper. "A dozen? Two dozen?" He caressed his fathers face with his left hand.
"Severus." Samuel gasped. "Please."
Severus slipped his left hand under his fathers chin. He cradled his fathers' head with his right hand. "I have no Draught for you tonight, Father. No living Death for you. No waking in twenty years. Or two hundred. Or ever." And he quickly moved his left hand, jerking the head until he could look into his fathers dead left eye. Samuel Snape's neck was broken.
Severus looked into the eye for several minutes before he stood. He double-checked for a pulse. He spit on the corpse and walked from the room, calling "Sissy! Take this filth out of my house! Burn it!"