Severus Snape sat in his room at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, clutching a piece of parchment in his hands. It'd been delivered to him by Special Owl Post fifteen minutes before, free of charge. He couldn't believe what it said.
"Dear Severus,
You're needed back in Blackpool immediately. Your father, sadly, has finally passed on. Nephew, dear, I know that you have had no love for your father since you left for Hogwarts on the Hogwarts Express many, many, years ago, but you can't not say goodbye to him. I look forward to seeing you, Severus, and I still love you.
Your Aunt,
Mairwen Snape."
He hadn't heard from his Aunt Mairwen in many, many years, long before he became Master of Potions here at Hogwarts. She hadn't even been at his mother's funeral. Now, to get THIS letter from her, bearing THIS news... he did not have words to expres the range of emotions he was feeling. Anger for his father, who ruined his and his mother's lives, hatred that even in death he could disrupt Severus's simple life, confusion at the letter in his hands. Could it be true? He was finally free of that leering bastard at last, he would never have to look upon his face -so much like his own- ever again?
He finally gathered himself back together. Ah, well, he thought, putting on his cloak and heading out the door, I had nothing to fear from the old man anyway, not now. Snape went up the stone steps cut into the wall of the dungeons and walked towards Professor Dumbledore's office. He reached the stone gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster's office, mumbled, "Everlasting Gobstopper,"and climbed the moving staircase, taking the steps two at a time. He'd barely reached the door when the headmaster opened it, saying, "Can I help you , Severus?"
"Yes, sir. I need to leave the school for a few days, maybe even a week. You see, my father, Gade, has just passed on, and I am needed to go to Blackpool."
"By all means, Severus. You needn't have even asked permission, especially now that summer is here and the students are all gone. Go to your family." Professor Dumbledore looked at him with sadness in his eyes.
"I just wanted to make sure, Headmaster. After all, with the Ministry knowing that Lord Voldemort has returned, I feel that my first priority ought to be the Order of the Phoenix."
"Nonsense, Severus. Always, one's family, no matter how bad of a family it is, is first. Now, go."
"Yes, Professor Dumbledore." He turned to leave.
"Severus?" Professor Dumbledore reached out to put a restraining hand on his shoulder. "You're always welcome in my office for tea, or for a chat."
"Yes, sir." Severus smiled wanly and left the office, allowing the escalator to take him back down. Dumbledore was a very good man, even he had to admit that. After all, would any other man have given him a job after being a Death Eater? He bustled back to his room, and lit a fire in his grate with his wand. He grabbed some Floo powder from the bag hanging from the mantle and threw it into the fire. With a glance back at his rooms he stepped into the grate, and said very clearly, "Snape Hall." The familiar whooshing took him to his old room at his father's house, Snape Hall. He stopped and thought about it. With his father's death, that meant that Snape Hall probably belonged to him now, no matter how much his father hated him in life, and probably in death. Sadness stuck in his throat as he thought about his mother, Kaia, dead these 14 years, destroyed at last by Gade's hatred. It had been the day of her funeral that Severus had sworn he'd not step foot in Snape Hall again until his father was no longer in this world. The day after that, he'd had his application at Hogwarts accepted, not as the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher that he'd wanted to be, but as Potions master. He took what he could get, though, and went to Hogwarts happily to try and rebuild his life. Now he was here again. He went downstairs, and was greeted by the sight of his Aunt Mairwen sitting at the table in the dining room alone.
"Severus! I see you got my letter. Poor nephew, now we are truely all alone."
"Aunt Mairwen, I have been alone for nearly fourteen years. How did he die?"
"Yelling at Tan." She worn a tired smile on her face.
"The house-elf? He died yelling at a house-elf?" It was almost funny. Gade the magnificent, the pompous, the hateful, dying while screaming at a house-elf! Oh, the farce of it all.
"Yes. He had a heart attack. Tan was scared out of his mind. He popped to St. Mungo's and summoned the healers. Alas, they could do nothing when they got here. He was already growing stiff when they apparated."
A cruel smile had been threatening to form on Severus' face when his aunt smacked him open-handed across the back. "I know you hated him, Sev, but show some respect! He was your father, no matter what else he was."
Severus looked at her, stunned. "But he hurt you, too. You've told me so before! How can you stand before me and say that."
"Because, Sev, we are survivors. We are here and he is not. Now, everything has been attended to, so you can just go up to your room and try to get some sleep. I'm going home for now, and I'll be back tomorrow for the cremation." She dissappeared with a pop. Severus sat down in the chair that she'd been sitting in. he was alone, for the first time ever, in Snape Hall. He wasn't very tired, and he didn't know what to do. After sitting there for a while, he got up and began to walk the halls of the mansion. He found himself being pulled towards Kaia's room. He'd never been allowed in there while either of his parents had been alive, but who was to bar his way now? He paused with his hand against the heavy oak door, almost expecting his father's harsh, deep voice to shout, "Boy! Get away from there! Don't you know better yet?!", followed by the rough smack from the man's cane across his back. Then he threw off his fear and opened the door.
His mother's room. He did not know what he had expected, but this surely was not it. It was more like a cell. There was a bed only big enough for one person, made with rough woolen sheets, a lamp on one bedside table that leaned towards the door. Leaning awkwardly against one wall was a oval mirror with it's glass cracked spiderweblike. Against another wall was a small desk, with a small chair to match. It was to this desk he strode first. All his mother's belongings were still here, her jewelry and her few knick knacks. He opened her jewelry box and looked through her favorite pieces there. Her wedding ring (oh, his poor mother. How she must have dreamed.), a locket, and her engagement ring lay together wrapped in a tissue. He took them and put them in his pocket. He'd wondered for years where they'd gone. They were the only peices of jewelry that he'd ever seen her take any pride in. The locket had contained a picture of Severus and his mother, and he wondered if it was still there. He opened it, and there she was, smiling out of the frame, holding a one-year-old version of himself on her lap. Severus began to feel tears, unwanted as early snow, pricking at the back of his eyes. He opened her the drawers of her desk and found nothing but dust until he opened the last one. Lying there was a journal, not unlike the one that he had seen Ginny Weasley writing in nearly three years ago. He'd nearly taken that journal away from Ginny because she'd been writing in it during class one day. It still haunted him to this day that he hadn't. But this journal! It was his mother's, and he felt his heart begin to race. He picked it up and left the room. He had no desire to go near his father's room, not now. He hurried to his own room and sat at his own desk, and looked at the journal. It was fastened with a lock unlike any other he'd ever seen before. He tried opening it with Alohamora, but nothing happened. Then he looked at the locking mechanism closely. The lock was held together by his mother's locket! He hastily opened the locket and placed it in the lock. It clicked open.
He grabbed a quill and dipped it in the years-old ink there on his desk. He paused as his hand trembled over the first page. Here was his opportunity. He put the pen to the paper and began to write.
"Mother? Are you there?" His hand still threatened to tremble, but he willed himself to be calm. His words were absorbed into the page and slowly different words formed.
"Sev? Is that my little Severus?" It was his mother's script, curved and delicate, there on the page.
"Mother, it is me! Oh, Mother, I miss you."
"I assume that since you have found this, your father has died, too?"
"Yes, Mother."
"How did he die, my son?"
Severus told her what his Aunt Mairwen told him, and he could almost hear his mother's laughter as she wrote, "The house-elf?!"
"Yes, Mother."
"Well, good riddance to him. He was never very good to us, was he, Sev?"
Severus though for a moment. His earliest memories were of Gade yelling at his mother, while he, Severus, curled up in a corner pretending not to be alive.
"Mother, why? Why did you let him do the things he did?"
"You mean before or after you were born?"
"Both."
"Severus, your father's family was very important when he was attending Hogwarts. Your grandfather, Paras, was the Minister of Magic. I was going to Beauxbatons but was sent to Hogwarts as an exchange student in my seventh year and was sorted into Ravenclaw. Your father was of course a Slytherin."
"All Snapes are." Severus wrote bitterly.
"Yes. Your father saw me my first day at Hogwarts and he decided then and there that he had to have me. He may have even though he loved me. I'm not sure. I saw your father and fell head over heels in love. Gade was a big man at Hogwarts, and what he wanted he got. He wanted me. We married right after seventh year ended and I moved in to his father's house. His father retired from the Ministry and died a year later. After we were alone, things went bad."
"But you haven't answered me, Mother."
"You wanted to know why? I'll tell you, my little Severus. I was aftraid that he'd kill me if I left. After you were born, he told me that if I left, it'd be you he killed and not me. That kept me here. My love for you kept me here."
Severus was crying openly now. His mother had suffered so much from his father, and most of it was his fault. A tear ran off his hooked nose, so much like his father's, and fell onto the page, where it was absorbed.
"Sev, do not cry. I'm okay now. You see, before I died, I put most of my mind and awareness into this journal in the hopes that you might one day find it. You shall never have to be alone again, my dearest son."
Severus' heart leapt. Here was his opportunity have his mother back again, without his father's leering face over their shoulders all the time. Would he take it?
"Dear Severus,
You're needed back in Blackpool immediately. Your father, sadly, has finally passed on. Nephew, dear, I know that you have had no love for your father since you left for Hogwarts on the Hogwarts Express many, many, years ago, but you can't not say goodbye to him. I look forward to seeing you, Severus, and I still love you.
Your Aunt,
Mairwen Snape."
He hadn't heard from his Aunt Mairwen in many, many years, long before he became Master of Potions here at Hogwarts. She hadn't even been at his mother's funeral. Now, to get THIS letter from her, bearing THIS news... he did not have words to expres the range of emotions he was feeling. Anger for his father, who ruined his and his mother's lives, hatred that even in death he could disrupt Severus's simple life, confusion at the letter in his hands. Could it be true? He was finally free of that leering bastard at last, he would never have to look upon his face -so much like his own- ever again?
He finally gathered himself back together. Ah, well, he thought, putting on his cloak and heading out the door, I had nothing to fear from the old man anyway, not now. Snape went up the stone steps cut into the wall of the dungeons and walked towards Professor Dumbledore's office. He reached the stone gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster's office, mumbled, "Everlasting Gobstopper,"and climbed the moving staircase, taking the steps two at a time. He'd barely reached the door when the headmaster opened it, saying, "Can I help you , Severus?"
"Yes, sir. I need to leave the school for a few days, maybe even a week. You see, my father, Gade, has just passed on, and I am needed to go to Blackpool."
"By all means, Severus. You needn't have even asked permission, especially now that summer is here and the students are all gone. Go to your family." Professor Dumbledore looked at him with sadness in his eyes.
"I just wanted to make sure, Headmaster. After all, with the Ministry knowing that Lord Voldemort has returned, I feel that my first priority ought to be the Order of the Phoenix."
"Nonsense, Severus. Always, one's family, no matter how bad of a family it is, is first. Now, go."
"Yes, Professor Dumbledore." He turned to leave.
"Severus?" Professor Dumbledore reached out to put a restraining hand on his shoulder. "You're always welcome in my office for tea, or for a chat."
"Yes, sir." Severus smiled wanly and left the office, allowing the escalator to take him back down. Dumbledore was a very good man, even he had to admit that. After all, would any other man have given him a job after being a Death Eater? He bustled back to his room, and lit a fire in his grate with his wand. He grabbed some Floo powder from the bag hanging from the mantle and threw it into the fire. With a glance back at his rooms he stepped into the grate, and said very clearly, "Snape Hall." The familiar whooshing took him to his old room at his father's house, Snape Hall. He stopped and thought about it. With his father's death, that meant that Snape Hall probably belonged to him now, no matter how much his father hated him in life, and probably in death. Sadness stuck in his throat as he thought about his mother, Kaia, dead these 14 years, destroyed at last by Gade's hatred. It had been the day of her funeral that Severus had sworn he'd not step foot in Snape Hall again until his father was no longer in this world. The day after that, he'd had his application at Hogwarts accepted, not as the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher that he'd wanted to be, but as Potions master. He took what he could get, though, and went to Hogwarts happily to try and rebuild his life. Now he was here again. He went downstairs, and was greeted by the sight of his Aunt Mairwen sitting at the table in the dining room alone.
"Severus! I see you got my letter. Poor nephew, now we are truely all alone."
"Aunt Mairwen, I have been alone for nearly fourteen years. How did he die?"
"Yelling at Tan." She worn a tired smile on her face.
"The house-elf? He died yelling at a house-elf?" It was almost funny. Gade the magnificent, the pompous, the hateful, dying while screaming at a house-elf! Oh, the farce of it all.
"Yes. He had a heart attack. Tan was scared out of his mind. He popped to St. Mungo's and summoned the healers. Alas, they could do nothing when they got here. He was already growing stiff when they apparated."
A cruel smile had been threatening to form on Severus' face when his aunt smacked him open-handed across the back. "I know you hated him, Sev, but show some respect! He was your father, no matter what else he was."
Severus looked at her, stunned. "But he hurt you, too. You've told me so before! How can you stand before me and say that."
"Because, Sev, we are survivors. We are here and he is not. Now, everything has been attended to, so you can just go up to your room and try to get some sleep. I'm going home for now, and I'll be back tomorrow for the cremation." She dissappeared with a pop. Severus sat down in the chair that she'd been sitting in. he was alone, for the first time ever, in Snape Hall. He wasn't very tired, and he didn't know what to do. After sitting there for a while, he got up and began to walk the halls of the mansion. He found himself being pulled towards Kaia's room. He'd never been allowed in there while either of his parents had been alive, but who was to bar his way now? He paused with his hand against the heavy oak door, almost expecting his father's harsh, deep voice to shout, "Boy! Get away from there! Don't you know better yet?!", followed by the rough smack from the man's cane across his back. Then he threw off his fear and opened the door.
His mother's room. He did not know what he had expected, but this surely was not it. It was more like a cell. There was a bed only big enough for one person, made with rough woolen sheets, a lamp on one bedside table that leaned towards the door. Leaning awkwardly against one wall was a oval mirror with it's glass cracked spiderweblike. Against another wall was a small desk, with a small chair to match. It was to this desk he strode first. All his mother's belongings were still here, her jewelry and her few knick knacks. He opened her jewelry box and looked through her favorite pieces there. Her wedding ring (oh, his poor mother. How she must have dreamed.), a locket, and her engagement ring lay together wrapped in a tissue. He took them and put them in his pocket. He'd wondered for years where they'd gone. They were the only peices of jewelry that he'd ever seen her take any pride in. The locket had contained a picture of Severus and his mother, and he wondered if it was still there. He opened it, and there she was, smiling out of the frame, holding a one-year-old version of himself on her lap. Severus began to feel tears, unwanted as early snow, pricking at the back of his eyes. He opened her the drawers of her desk and found nothing but dust until he opened the last one. Lying there was a journal, not unlike the one that he had seen Ginny Weasley writing in nearly three years ago. He'd nearly taken that journal away from Ginny because she'd been writing in it during class one day. It still haunted him to this day that he hadn't. But this journal! It was his mother's, and he felt his heart begin to race. He picked it up and left the room. He had no desire to go near his father's room, not now. He hurried to his own room and sat at his own desk, and looked at the journal. It was fastened with a lock unlike any other he'd ever seen before. He tried opening it with Alohamora, but nothing happened. Then he looked at the locking mechanism closely. The lock was held together by his mother's locket! He hastily opened the locket and placed it in the lock. It clicked open.
He grabbed a quill and dipped it in the years-old ink there on his desk. He paused as his hand trembled over the first page. Here was his opportunity. He put the pen to the paper and began to write.
"Mother? Are you there?" His hand still threatened to tremble, but he willed himself to be calm. His words were absorbed into the page and slowly different words formed.
"Sev? Is that my little Severus?" It was his mother's script, curved and delicate, there on the page.
"Mother, it is me! Oh, Mother, I miss you."
"I assume that since you have found this, your father has died, too?"
"Yes, Mother."
"How did he die, my son?"
Severus told her what his Aunt Mairwen told him, and he could almost hear his mother's laughter as she wrote, "The house-elf?!"
"Yes, Mother."
"Well, good riddance to him. He was never very good to us, was he, Sev?"
Severus though for a moment. His earliest memories were of Gade yelling at his mother, while he, Severus, curled up in a corner pretending not to be alive.
"Mother, why? Why did you let him do the things he did?"
"You mean before or after you were born?"
"Both."
"Severus, your father's family was very important when he was attending Hogwarts. Your grandfather, Paras, was the Minister of Magic. I was going to Beauxbatons but was sent to Hogwarts as an exchange student in my seventh year and was sorted into Ravenclaw. Your father was of course a Slytherin."
"All Snapes are." Severus wrote bitterly.
"Yes. Your father saw me my first day at Hogwarts and he decided then and there that he had to have me. He may have even though he loved me. I'm not sure. I saw your father and fell head over heels in love. Gade was a big man at Hogwarts, and what he wanted he got. He wanted me. We married right after seventh year ended and I moved in to his father's house. His father retired from the Ministry and died a year later. After we were alone, things went bad."
"But you haven't answered me, Mother."
"You wanted to know why? I'll tell you, my little Severus. I was aftraid that he'd kill me if I left. After you were born, he told me that if I left, it'd be you he killed and not me. That kept me here. My love for you kept me here."
Severus was crying openly now. His mother had suffered so much from his father, and most of it was his fault. A tear ran off his hooked nose, so much like his father's, and fell onto the page, where it was absorbed.
"Sev, do not cry. I'm okay now. You see, before I died, I put most of my mind and awareness into this journal in the hopes that you might one day find it. You shall never have to be alone again, my dearest son."
Severus' heart leapt. Here was his opportunity have his mother back again, without his father's leering face over their shoulders all the time. Would he take it?