Episode Ninety Five

Part One

            Gwen remained in her mother's house for a few more days, alerting Aunt Ann to her travel plans and cleaning up some of the mess that a disused house accumulates. She wasn't exactly certain what, if anything, she might find out.

            Her aunt looked pale and thin again, instantly worrying Gwen and putting her own issues on the shelf she babied her aunt for several days before she even remembered why she'd traveled so far in the first place. One stormy afternoon over a cup of tea in Ann's pristine yellow kitchen Gwen stumbled upon her opportunity.

            Ann was asking if she'd been to visit her father's grave. Gwen replied with as little tact as she ever had, "if he even is my father."

            "Now, what's all this about?" Ann asked.

            Gwen explained the innuendo of Professor Snape and the strange dreams of Henry LeFey. Ann looked at her with a mixture of confusion and apprehension. The younger woman sensed immediately that her aunt was holding something back from her. She pressed, heavily until Ann seemed near the breaking point.

            "Gwen, you shouldn't push this any further."

            "Ann." Gwen said with a sudden thrill that she had called her aunt simply Ann, something only an adult niece might do. "I've been avoiding this issue for an entire summer and I think that now I might be getting close to something. If you know anything you must tell me."

            Ann looked at Gwen for a long, somber moment. What she knew was only very sketchy and to fill someone so impressionable with flighty ideas was something she did not approve of. Yet she felt that since Beorc had passed on and left her daughter with so little of the truth that it might be better to tell Gwen something and let her form her own opinions. She stood to put more water on the boil. As she went about fixing the kettle she spoke softly and slowly, without looking at Gwen.

            "It was a very long time ago that I suspected something wrong. It may have been nothing mind you, but since you said something it might turn out to be something very big. I remember George coming home and being very cross with me that afternoon, which is something he rarely ever did. He was upset because we'd been trying for a child and finally he went to the doctor. He was devastated to learn that he was sterile and all our hopes for a child were not to be realized. What made it worse was that Henry, who had been trying for ten years with his own wife to conceive had just received the good news that Beorc was pregnant, with you."

            Ann sat across from Gwen, pushing a fresh cup of tea to the rapt and eager girl. She continued, falling into a faster pace. "It was only a few days later that Beorc came for a visit. She was so excited and I think she wanted to share a bit of her joy with us. But I could tell all the same that something was wrong. I knew she would come again and again until she finally had the courage to get out what she needed to say.

            "Many visits later found us sitting on the back porch, sipping tea and gabbing about what names would be good for a girl baby. She broke down, Gwen, crying and sobbing. I didn't know what I should do, I just asked her: 'what's wrong.' She turned to me all swollen bellied and said in the tiniest voice 'I don't remember.' Of course, I thought that was ridiculous and I told her so, trying to lighten her mood some.

            "She just sobbed on, 'no, I don't remember the night that the baby was conceived.' I didn't know what to make of it. I asked her what, if anything she remembered about that day. She just looked at me as if I'd said the stupidest thing. 'That was well over seven months ago. You expect me to remember that far back?' It was just such a Beorc response that I couldn't help laughing at her. She sighed and said: 'I'm not sure of anything, Ann, but I don't think that this is your brother-in-law's baby.'

            "It didn't seem possible at the time, and she never said another word after you were born. You had your father's hair and that was enough for her. You certainly have his temperament." She looked up at the girl, whose color had gone decidedly white. Gwen sat across from her, her face resting on her hand with the most disconsolate expression.

            "You wanted to know Gwen, that's why I told you."

            "It sounds terribly like a memory charm, doesn't it?"

            "A memory charm." Ann repeated, mulling the idea over. "It makes sense, but who would do such a thing?"

            Gwen sighed. "I might never know. If he wanted to cover his tracks so that no one would ever know he was my father…" Something occurred to her, a half thought that she'd been ignoring since Snape had said it. "Do you know anything about my father?"

            "That's a rather general question Gwen."

            "I'm sorry." She said. "I want to ask something rather sensitive and I'm not sure how to pose it."

            "Just ask Gwen. The truth, I think, is best."

            "Do you know if my dad was a death eater?"

            Ann looked truly scandalized. "Are we talking about Henry LeFey?"

            "Yes." She replied, ashamed she had said anything about it. Ann's face was thinly veiled and the mask of emotions she was putting up wasn't hiding the deep regret she felt inside. Gwen realized soon enough what that mask meant and she understood why Snape had taken such a risk by showing her the Dark Mark. "So it is true?" She said, hardly believing her own mouth had uttered those words.

            Ann nodded her head slightly. It was too painful for her to admit it out loud. She had known of course for many years, but she felt a certain responsibility to keep it from Gwen. Henry had been young and wanted to impress a beautiful Slytherin girl who had captured his heart. He had never meant any harm, or so she told herself. He never meant to really become one of Voldemort's minions.

            Gwen felt the tears slipping down her face, but they hardly seemed to matter at the moment. Snape had told her the truth and for some strange reason that seemed to be the most important piece of information she had learned this afternoon. Snape had been instrumental in this revelatory process. She needed to go back to Hogwarts, right now.

            When Ann looked up, Gwen was gone without a trace and she was regretting dearly her admission, even if it was the truth.

Part Two

She ran down the hall and into Snape's classroom with little concern for the first year students who were enduring their most painstaking double potions lesson to date. "I've just been to see my Aunt Ann." She bristled. "You might've saved me a trip and just told me the truth rather than hinting at it. I know all about the obliviate spell used on my mother, what I don't know is who and I am really burning to know."

"Guenivere, this is not the time nor the place to discuss this." Snape said under his breath, barely maintaining his cool, in control demeanor.

"And when will be a good time for you?" Her face was closed off, the lines around her eyes taking on a hardness that defied diamonds.

"Perhaps in my office, after classes?"

"Fine." She said and stormed off, leaving Snape with a jittery bunch of first year students. They had never seen anyone stand up to Snape and while it was a treat it was also a terror, for Snape rounded on them with twice as much of his usual gusto.

He arrived at his office shortly after the terrified first years dashed from his room, some of them crying for not the first time after a potions lesson. He hardly felt it necessary to lecture Gwen on her dreadful decorum, but he planned to tell her off about her dreadful sense of timing.

"What is it that you want to know, now you've had a chance to cool off some?" He asked, while taking his seat. He seemed unusually calm to Gwen, which immediately set of alarm bells in her head.

"So you weren't lying about my father. Aunt Ann confirmed that he was indeed a death eater. I cannot begin to comprehend it, but it looks like I'm just going to have to live with it. But you didn't tell me about my real father and I think you know a lot more than you're letting on."

Snape took a deep breath. "I don't know who your real father was Guenivere."

She turned her face; she couldn't look at him, even if he was telling the truth.

He immediately felt a pang of discomfort. Once again, he was actually concerned for and caring about this girl and it made no sense to him, whatsoever. He stepped around the desk and touched her arm gently. "I am sorry, but I thought you should at least be tipped in that direction. I assumed your mother would've known something about it and left you some notice."

Gwen looked up at Severus, her eyes filled with salt. "Not a single note." She said. "Only a black box with a password I can't get past. You took a huge risk in trusting me."

He nodded plainly.

"Why?" She asked. As she watched him scramble for an answer she thought she saw the corners of his mouth turn up just slightly in a hidden smile.

"I'm still not sure why." He said finally. "I suppose it just felt right."

Something stirred in Gwen's stomach. "If you don't know who my father is…" She began slowly. "Then you must not be him." She finished with much difficulty.

Snape looked at her as if she had just told him he'd won the Miss America Pageant. She was afraid he was going to laugh at her. Instead he smiled genuinely, something no one at Hogwarts had ever seen and said gently: "no. I'm sorry to have led you to that conclusion. I just wanted to make you think Gwen. Your mother died with so many secrets. You really have no idea."

"No I don't."

"One day you'll find that you're so much stronger because of everything your parents put you through."

Gwen smiled and it was like the sunshine breaking out from behind the clouds. Snape patted her on the shoulder, gave her a fatherly grin and stepped away.

"If you don't mind terribly, I have a great deal of homework to grade."

"I do have one question." She said meekly.

"Go on."

"Why did you become a death eater?"

"Why does anyone do anything? It was a bad decision and I'm paying for it, every day for the rest of my life. It's the risk you take when you do anything of greatness. Good or bad."

She looked at him as if she were seeing a new man, someone she had never known just sprouted out of Snape, a man she had hated for years. But she realized now that he was human, just like anyone else and that he was prone to mistakes. He'd made so many he'd lost track, but he was aiming to make up for them now, even if it was a little slow in coming.

From that day on Gwen considered Severus Snape a good friend. Strange as it was, Snape returned her friendly affection and became something of a late blossoming father figure, even if he never showed it in the classroom.