A/N: This part is more angsty, it has a bit more character-development, and
leaves many unanswered questions, to be answered in later chapters
Disclaimer: as you have probably guessed by now, I am not JK Rowling, and the HarryPotter-verse does not belong to me ("thank goodness!", I hear you say); I am using the characters and settings for my pleasure, and hopefully for yours, and I certainly don't deserve to be sued.
Summary: In Harry's seventh year, Voldemort issues a threat to the families of the Hogwarts staff, and they are forced to seek refuge in the school. This uncomfortable situation will allow us some insight into the family life of everybody's favourite Potions Master.
Rating: PG or PG-13, just to be on the safe side.
Review this story as you would like yours to be reviewed! (I hope that will take all flames off my back; if it doesn't, I'll use them to save on the electricity bill)
FAMILY MATTERS
PART II
"Daddy, mom?" asked Siena sleepily, looking around her, from her mother's arms.
"I don't know, sweetie. He'll be here soon, don't worry" reassured Svetlana, who was sitting at the very border of a chair, with her cloak still on, and looking warily around her. She was in a big circular room, with its rough stone walls covered by tapestries, a fireplace crackling merrily and a group of armchairs around it. The floor was covered in thick, black Persian rugs, and there were several doors leading out of the room. One of those doors opened and Severus Snape came in, robes billowing behind him.
"Daddy!" squealed Siena happily, throwing herself from Svetlana's restraining arms and into the carpet below; once there, she raced clumsily towards her father, who reached out and scooped her up into his arms.
"Siena, how are you?" The normally gruff voice was now velvety and warm, as Severus looked at his daughter and smiled. "How was the trip? Are you very tired?" The girl yawned in response, and Snape tickled her "To bed with you, miss!" Carrying the girl in his arms, he opened another of the doors and stepped into a small bedroom, with a cot, shelves full of toys and stuffed animals, and the walls adorned with silver-and-green wallpaper. Svetlana followed them timidly, watching with unease as Severus put the little girl to bed and kissed her good-night.
"Good-night, mummy" whispered Siena, when it was Svetlana's turn to give her a kiss; the witch didn't say anything, afraid she would break down crying if she opened her mouth, and instead hugged her daughter fiercely and left the room. A few moments later, Snape followed her out into the living room. Both spouses remained in silence for a moment, looking at each other, before Snape grabbed the first book he found in a nearby table, and sat down to read next to the fire. That was too much for Svetlana, and she began to feel big, warm tears slipping down her cheeks; she kept her breathing even, trying to calm herself down, and praying that Severus wouldn't notice she was crying. That was the exact moment he chose to look at her, watching her slight figure leaning against the wall, her dark hair covering her face, and the barely repressed sobs shaking her frame.
"Why are you crying?" he snapped, noting this was the first time he actually spoke to Svetlana. She tried to speak, but finding it increasingly difficult, shrugged instead, and tried to stop her tears from flowing. "Oh, for Merlin's beard, stop it!" he snarled, placing a Sound-Proofing charm on the door leading to his daughter's bedroom.
"I can't!" she exclaimed, her voice wet with tears "I can't stay here if this is the way that is going to be! The children will be safe with you, Severus, let me go!"
"That wasn't what you said before" growled the Potions Master, standing up and pacing his side of the room.
"Before it wasn't the same! How did you want me to leave the children with you, if you were being hunted down?! It was dangerous, for you and for them..." Svetlana's foreign accent became stronger as she lost her self- control.
"It's still dangerous, I haven't been fully forgiven"
"That's why I brought them. *They* will be safe here, like *you* are safe here"
"What about you? Do you think *you* will be safe out there?" Snape fisted his hands at his sides and faced Svetlana.
"It doesn't matter" she answered softly "I will be better off out there than here"
"It's a relief to know you find my company so agreeable" snarled Snape, needing desperately something to smash to bits.
"Severus, it's not that, and you know it" said Svetlana, giving him a reproachful look.
"It isn't?" he asked, mocking surprise "By the way, do tell me what you said to Mandy McGonagall on the train, to make her so incensed towards me? Isn't it enough for you to make my life a misery, but you also have to pit my friends against me?"
"I didn't tell her anything!" answered Svetlana, tears welling up in her eyes again "We only talked about Siena, and Serguei, and how school was going to be this year..."
"Serguei... how is my son doing, then? Does he still hate me, the proud protector of his mother?" Snape's voice had become the silky whisper that the Hogwarts students and teachers alike feared.
"He doesn't hate you" contradicted Svetlana "He was angry, and scared, and he has taken his job as my protector very seriously indeed... he is the only man of the family, after all"
"Oh, so, is it my fault now?" hissed Snape "My son firmly declares that he hates me and wants me out of his life, and it's *my* fault."
"Whose else, mine?!" answered the witch, standing up "I am not the one who has never been there for him, Severus. I am not the one who barely knows his own son. I am not the one who threatened him when he tried to talk to you. Don't go around putting the blame on someone else when it's you own fault"
Snape gave a deep, therapeutic breath, and turned to the stone wall, his burning black eyes unseeing; it had been a very long time since he was that angry, but then again, it had been a very long time since he had had a talk like the one he was having with his wife.
"I can't stay here if this is the way that it's going to be" repeated Svetlana, more calmly this time "I don't want the children seeing us fight all the time, or ignore each other. My trunk must still be unpacked; tell Siena I had to go on a trip, and I'll write to Serguei myself"
"You can't leave, Svetlana, it's too dangerous" affirmed Snape, turning back to see his wife fastening her cloak around her. Her face was a mask of grim determination, and the Potions Master knew he would better come up with a wonderful line of reasoning, or she'd be gone in five minutes. "The children need you"
"I'll still be there for them" said Svetlana sadly "I can come and visit Siena on certain weekends, and keep a correspondence with Seriozsha. They'll have to understand, after all, they are used to be with one parent alone"
"The Death Eaters will be after you, and the Ministry cannot offer you protection" Snape kept insisting, although he had a gut feeling that there was only one thing that would stop her.
"I'll go to my family in Russia; they have links with the Mafia, they'll keep me safe"
"That didn't help your father, woman!" said Snape brutally, considering Igor Karakoff had been killed less than six months before.
"My father didn't have a reason to fight, except for himself; I have my children to live for"
"Svetlana..." persevered Severus, watching as she brought her trunk out of the master bedroom and shrunk it to pocket size "I would never forgive myself if something happened to you"
"Nothing will happen to me" said Svetlana, sounding less than sure herself "And if it does, you will be there to take care of the children. Goodbye, Severus"
"Svetlana, wait! You can't just leave like that... at least go and talk to Serguei" Snape was stalling for time, but the offer was something she couldn't refuse. "I'll go and fetch him from his dorm, come with me" She followed him silently through the maze of the Hogwarts dungeons, finally reaching the wall leading to the Slytherin common room. "Viper-tongue"
They both went in, and made their way into the first-year-boys dorm, silent and dark, expect for a small candle lit on a bedside table, illuminating Serguei's pale face. Svetlana walked towards him, while Severus remained in the doorway. The witch sat on the border of the bed, carefully trying not to awake her child, and looked at him sadly. After a minute, she brushed his hair out of his face, and leaned in to give him a kiss; the boy's eyes fluttered open.
"Shhh, Seriozsha, don't say anything!" warned his mother; Serguei assented, and then threw a dark look to the recognisable shadow at the door "Serguei, I came to say good-bye, love. I have to go for a while, but I'll write to you, all right?"
"Are you going to leave me alone? You said you wouldn't do that!" whispered the boy frantically.
"I have to, sweetheart, I'm sorry. Siena will stay here, with you father. Take care of her, will you? I'll be OK, I'll be fine, and I'll keep writing to you every time I can. If you need anything, your father will be here, you know you can trust him"
"Don't leave me alone, mom!" pleaded Serguei, ignoring his mother's last words. She wiped a stray tear.
"I have to, Seriozsha, I have to. I love you, darling, don't ever forget that" Svetlana hugged her son with all her strength, and then drew back "You'll be all right, love, and so will I" she sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than him. "Good-bye!" she whispered, starting to stand up.
"It *his* fault, isn't it?" hissed Serguei, fully awake now, and looking at the doorway furiously.
"It's neither his fault, nor mine, Serguei" said Svetlana soothingly "It's just the way things went. I'm sorry you had to go through all this, baby. I love you. Take care of your sister, and take care of yourself while I'm not here. Bye!" Svetlana blew a last kiss to her son and virtually ran out of the dorm and into the deserted common room, where she tried to calm herself down, wiping the tears from her eyes. Snape's leaden steps descended the stairs behind her. "Take me to the doors, I can make my way from there alone"
"Svetlana, listen to me..."
"Don't make this any harder than it already is, Severus" she warned, and followed him out of the Slytherin common room and out of the dungeons. They reached the Entrance Hall in silence, and stood there for a moment. "This is it, then. Good-bye, Severus. Take good care of the children, and don't be too hard on them. Siena can stay with Mandy while you're in lessons, and she's really quiet most of the time. Serguei is a very good boy, Severus..."
"I know"
"He's just angry and scared. He'll open up to you, if you only try to talk to him. Take care of them" She turned towards the massive doors and straightened her back.
"Svetlana," said Severus, holding her arm "please don't leave"
"Severus, I don't want to make your life a misery, and I don't intend to make my own life a misery by living with you" She sighed softly "I loved you, you know?"
Obviously this was the last thing Snape expected to hear, for he stood, shell-shocked, as Svetlana softly loosened his grip on her, and began walking to the door.
"I always wondered why you went home that night" she added as an afterthought, her back against him, her hand on the handle. "And I always wondered why I was expecting you. Someday I'll find out, I suppose"
Svetlana was almost at the outer gates of Hogwarts when Severus caught up with her, his dignity forgotten as he ran down the moonlit path. He caught a glimpse of tears glistening in her cheeks before she drew the hood of the cloak over her head.
"Svetlana, I need you to stay. I'm sorry about what I said before, but please stay" he gasped, trying to catch his breath after the unusual exercise. She smiled, or at least he though she did, because the hood left her face completely shadowed, and shook her head.
"I can't stay, Severus, for your sake as well as for mine" she stepped past the heavy iron gates of Hogwarts, and turned to her husband "Good luck, Sev, take care" And with a little 'pop!', she Apparated away, and Snape was left staring at the empty darkness, with a equally empty feeling in his chest.
------------ A/N: Oh, just picture poor Sevvie standing there, looking at the darkness... it makes me want to cry!!! Don't worry, I won't leave him there for long. Now, tell me what you think of my story...
Disclaimer: as you have probably guessed by now, I am not JK Rowling, and the HarryPotter-verse does not belong to me ("thank goodness!", I hear you say); I am using the characters and settings for my pleasure, and hopefully for yours, and I certainly don't deserve to be sued.
Summary: In Harry's seventh year, Voldemort issues a threat to the families of the Hogwarts staff, and they are forced to seek refuge in the school. This uncomfortable situation will allow us some insight into the family life of everybody's favourite Potions Master.
Rating: PG or PG-13, just to be on the safe side.
Review this story as you would like yours to be reviewed! (I hope that will take all flames off my back; if it doesn't, I'll use them to save on the electricity bill)
FAMILY MATTERS
PART II
"Daddy, mom?" asked Siena sleepily, looking around her, from her mother's arms.
"I don't know, sweetie. He'll be here soon, don't worry" reassured Svetlana, who was sitting at the very border of a chair, with her cloak still on, and looking warily around her. She was in a big circular room, with its rough stone walls covered by tapestries, a fireplace crackling merrily and a group of armchairs around it. The floor was covered in thick, black Persian rugs, and there were several doors leading out of the room. One of those doors opened and Severus Snape came in, robes billowing behind him.
"Daddy!" squealed Siena happily, throwing herself from Svetlana's restraining arms and into the carpet below; once there, she raced clumsily towards her father, who reached out and scooped her up into his arms.
"Siena, how are you?" The normally gruff voice was now velvety and warm, as Severus looked at his daughter and smiled. "How was the trip? Are you very tired?" The girl yawned in response, and Snape tickled her "To bed with you, miss!" Carrying the girl in his arms, he opened another of the doors and stepped into a small bedroom, with a cot, shelves full of toys and stuffed animals, and the walls adorned with silver-and-green wallpaper. Svetlana followed them timidly, watching with unease as Severus put the little girl to bed and kissed her good-night.
"Good-night, mummy" whispered Siena, when it was Svetlana's turn to give her a kiss; the witch didn't say anything, afraid she would break down crying if she opened her mouth, and instead hugged her daughter fiercely and left the room. A few moments later, Snape followed her out into the living room. Both spouses remained in silence for a moment, looking at each other, before Snape grabbed the first book he found in a nearby table, and sat down to read next to the fire. That was too much for Svetlana, and she began to feel big, warm tears slipping down her cheeks; she kept her breathing even, trying to calm herself down, and praying that Severus wouldn't notice she was crying. That was the exact moment he chose to look at her, watching her slight figure leaning against the wall, her dark hair covering her face, and the barely repressed sobs shaking her frame.
"Why are you crying?" he snapped, noting this was the first time he actually spoke to Svetlana. She tried to speak, but finding it increasingly difficult, shrugged instead, and tried to stop her tears from flowing. "Oh, for Merlin's beard, stop it!" he snarled, placing a Sound-Proofing charm on the door leading to his daughter's bedroom.
"I can't!" she exclaimed, her voice wet with tears "I can't stay here if this is the way that is going to be! The children will be safe with you, Severus, let me go!"
"That wasn't what you said before" growled the Potions Master, standing up and pacing his side of the room.
"Before it wasn't the same! How did you want me to leave the children with you, if you were being hunted down?! It was dangerous, for you and for them..." Svetlana's foreign accent became stronger as she lost her self- control.
"It's still dangerous, I haven't been fully forgiven"
"That's why I brought them. *They* will be safe here, like *you* are safe here"
"What about you? Do you think *you* will be safe out there?" Snape fisted his hands at his sides and faced Svetlana.
"It doesn't matter" she answered softly "I will be better off out there than here"
"It's a relief to know you find my company so agreeable" snarled Snape, needing desperately something to smash to bits.
"Severus, it's not that, and you know it" said Svetlana, giving him a reproachful look.
"It isn't?" he asked, mocking surprise "By the way, do tell me what you said to Mandy McGonagall on the train, to make her so incensed towards me? Isn't it enough for you to make my life a misery, but you also have to pit my friends against me?"
"I didn't tell her anything!" answered Svetlana, tears welling up in her eyes again "We only talked about Siena, and Serguei, and how school was going to be this year..."
"Serguei... how is my son doing, then? Does he still hate me, the proud protector of his mother?" Snape's voice had become the silky whisper that the Hogwarts students and teachers alike feared.
"He doesn't hate you" contradicted Svetlana "He was angry, and scared, and he has taken his job as my protector very seriously indeed... he is the only man of the family, after all"
"Oh, so, is it my fault now?" hissed Snape "My son firmly declares that he hates me and wants me out of his life, and it's *my* fault."
"Whose else, mine?!" answered the witch, standing up "I am not the one who has never been there for him, Severus. I am not the one who barely knows his own son. I am not the one who threatened him when he tried to talk to you. Don't go around putting the blame on someone else when it's you own fault"
Snape gave a deep, therapeutic breath, and turned to the stone wall, his burning black eyes unseeing; it had been a very long time since he was that angry, but then again, it had been a very long time since he had had a talk like the one he was having with his wife.
"I can't stay here if this is the way that it's going to be" repeated Svetlana, more calmly this time "I don't want the children seeing us fight all the time, or ignore each other. My trunk must still be unpacked; tell Siena I had to go on a trip, and I'll write to Serguei myself"
"You can't leave, Svetlana, it's too dangerous" affirmed Snape, turning back to see his wife fastening her cloak around her. Her face was a mask of grim determination, and the Potions Master knew he would better come up with a wonderful line of reasoning, or she'd be gone in five minutes. "The children need you"
"I'll still be there for them" said Svetlana sadly "I can come and visit Siena on certain weekends, and keep a correspondence with Seriozsha. They'll have to understand, after all, they are used to be with one parent alone"
"The Death Eaters will be after you, and the Ministry cannot offer you protection" Snape kept insisting, although he had a gut feeling that there was only one thing that would stop her.
"I'll go to my family in Russia; they have links with the Mafia, they'll keep me safe"
"That didn't help your father, woman!" said Snape brutally, considering Igor Karakoff had been killed less than six months before.
"My father didn't have a reason to fight, except for himself; I have my children to live for"
"Svetlana..." persevered Severus, watching as she brought her trunk out of the master bedroom and shrunk it to pocket size "I would never forgive myself if something happened to you"
"Nothing will happen to me" said Svetlana, sounding less than sure herself "And if it does, you will be there to take care of the children. Goodbye, Severus"
"Svetlana, wait! You can't just leave like that... at least go and talk to Serguei" Snape was stalling for time, but the offer was something she couldn't refuse. "I'll go and fetch him from his dorm, come with me" She followed him silently through the maze of the Hogwarts dungeons, finally reaching the wall leading to the Slytherin common room. "Viper-tongue"
They both went in, and made their way into the first-year-boys dorm, silent and dark, expect for a small candle lit on a bedside table, illuminating Serguei's pale face. Svetlana walked towards him, while Severus remained in the doorway. The witch sat on the border of the bed, carefully trying not to awake her child, and looked at him sadly. After a minute, she brushed his hair out of his face, and leaned in to give him a kiss; the boy's eyes fluttered open.
"Shhh, Seriozsha, don't say anything!" warned his mother; Serguei assented, and then threw a dark look to the recognisable shadow at the door "Serguei, I came to say good-bye, love. I have to go for a while, but I'll write to you, all right?"
"Are you going to leave me alone? You said you wouldn't do that!" whispered the boy frantically.
"I have to, sweetheart, I'm sorry. Siena will stay here, with you father. Take care of her, will you? I'll be OK, I'll be fine, and I'll keep writing to you every time I can. If you need anything, your father will be here, you know you can trust him"
"Don't leave me alone, mom!" pleaded Serguei, ignoring his mother's last words. She wiped a stray tear.
"I have to, Seriozsha, I have to. I love you, darling, don't ever forget that" Svetlana hugged her son with all her strength, and then drew back "You'll be all right, love, and so will I" she sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than him. "Good-bye!" she whispered, starting to stand up.
"It *his* fault, isn't it?" hissed Serguei, fully awake now, and looking at the doorway furiously.
"It's neither his fault, nor mine, Serguei" said Svetlana soothingly "It's just the way things went. I'm sorry you had to go through all this, baby. I love you. Take care of your sister, and take care of yourself while I'm not here. Bye!" Svetlana blew a last kiss to her son and virtually ran out of the dorm and into the deserted common room, where she tried to calm herself down, wiping the tears from her eyes. Snape's leaden steps descended the stairs behind her. "Take me to the doors, I can make my way from there alone"
"Svetlana, listen to me..."
"Don't make this any harder than it already is, Severus" she warned, and followed him out of the Slytherin common room and out of the dungeons. They reached the Entrance Hall in silence, and stood there for a moment. "This is it, then. Good-bye, Severus. Take good care of the children, and don't be too hard on them. Siena can stay with Mandy while you're in lessons, and she's really quiet most of the time. Serguei is a very good boy, Severus..."
"I know"
"He's just angry and scared. He'll open up to you, if you only try to talk to him. Take care of them" She turned towards the massive doors and straightened her back.
"Svetlana," said Severus, holding her arm "please don't leave"
"Severus, I don't want to make your life a misery, and I don't intend to make my own life a misery by living with you" She sighed softly "I loved you, you know?"
Obviously this was the last thing Snape expected to hear, for he stood, shell-shocked, as Svetlana softly loosened his grip on her, and began walking to the door.
"I always wondered why you went home that night" she added as an afterthought, her back against him, her hand on the handle. "And I always wondered why I was expecting you. Someday I'll find out, I suppose"
Svetlana was almost at the outer gates of Hogwarts when Severus caught up with her, his dignity forgotten as he ran down the moonlit path. He caught a glimpse of tears glistening in her cheeks before she drew the hood of the cloak over her head.
"Svetlana, I need you to stay. I'm sorry about what I said before, but please stay" he gasped, trying to catch his breath after the unusual exercise. She smiled, or at least he though she did, because the hood left her face completely shadowed, and shook her head.
"I can't stay, Severus, for your sake as well as for mine" she stepped past the heavy iron gates of Hogwarts, and turned to her husband "Good luck, Sev, take care" And with a little 'pop!', she Apparated away, and Snape was left staring at the empty darkness, with a equally empty feeling in his chest.
------------ A/N: Oh, just picture poor Sevvie standing there, looking at the darkness... it makes me want to cry!!! Don't worry, I won't leave him there for long. Now, tell me what you think of my story...