I walked into the church and climbed the stairs to the loft, case in hand, as I do most days of the week.  Once in the loft, I opened my case, setting up my music and removing my cello to make sure it was tuned before I needed to play.  The other musicians were talking idly, as they often did, and occasionally I would join in with their chatter, but for the most part I quietly looked over my music and tuned my instrument.

            My name is Severus Snape.  I was born here in Czech, along with my brother, with a Czech mother and a British father.  I once played the cello in the Czech philharmonic, but, after I was arrested for assault, I was asked to leave because of the bad publicity it earned me.  Personally, I think it had more to do with the philharmonic wanting to please the Russians by instating Russian musicians. But that is why, in 1988, I was playing my cello at funerals, renewing memorial plaques and other large, engraved pieces, and giving lessons to aspiring cellists in order to pay back the old friend of mine who had bailed me out of jail. 

            It was later in that day that began like so many others that I met with my old friend.  As I was handing him what I had to spare to continue clearing off my debt to him for that week, he looked at me with the twinkle in his eye that made me listen to what ever he had to say very tentatively.

            "I was told of a certain… proposition today that you may be interested in, Severus."

            I raised an eyebrow in response and he continued.

            "A proposition that would allow you to pay your debt to me and have money left to spare."

            I frowned,

            "Could you possibly get to the point, Albus?"

            I knew his beard barely concealed a smirk,

            "There is a woman whose niece desires to become a citizen of the republic.  Her niece is willing to pay a handsome fee to the man who agrees to marry her, thus allowing her to become a citizen."

            I sighed,

            "You know that I will never marry, Albus.  I haven't the time or patience for it."

            "Indeed, I know, but this is a golden opportunity, Severus.  All you would have to do is marry the girl, concede that you are married to her for 10 months, and then divorce her on the grounds that you 'weren't ready for the commitment' or 'lost the spark'.  Only that, and you will have your debt completely repaid."

            I gave another sigh.  It was true that I desperately wanted to clear my debt to Albus; any spare money I had every week went to him.  This "proposition", however, seemed a bit too easy,

            "You're certain that I would only have to be married to her for 10 months?  That I wouldn't have to do anything else, and that she would pay me upfront?"

            "I am positive," Albus insisted.

            I looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, before his grandchildren came bounding into the room, Albus's wife stepping in after them.  They ran to embrace him, and one put a small pup she'd been holding down.  As she turned to retrieve it, she saw that it had crept over to sniff at my shoes curiously.  She picked the puppy up again and seemed to notice how put off I was by the presence of both her and the animal.

            "Don't you have any pets of your own?" she asked.

            I shook my head,

            "No."

"Any children?"

"No."

She cocked her head and gazed at me for a moment before Albus's wife came to usher her into another room with the other children.  I turned to look at Albus, but got up from the table,

"I'm afraid I'll have to be going.  I will… think about what we discussed."

Albus nodded,

"Very well.  I will see you next week, then, Severus."

I stood at the door,

"Indeed.  Good bye."

It was a week later that I sat in Albus's house with two Russian women, two Russian boys, and Albus himself.  One of the women, who appeared closer in age to Albus than to myself, spoke both Russian and Czech fluently.  Her niece, who desired to become a citizen, spoke only Russian and German.  Thus, I was forced to talk to the young woman through her aunt.  I cleared my throat,

"Those boys are hers?"

The older woman shook her head,

"No, no.  Dimitri is her son," she gestured to the portlier of the two,

"Harry is her nephew.  She was charged with care of him after the death of her sister and her sister's husband.  They were the black sheep of the family; she should've known better than to marry an Englishman-"

"My father was an Englishman, madam," I interrupted.

She seemed a bit flustered,

"Well, at least your father had the good sense to not give you a name that can't even be pronounced in your native tongue."

I inclined my head to look down my nose at her,

"Hmm.  Well…  I suppose everything is in order, then.  We'll be married October 24th at St. Paul's Church, make sure all the appropriate papers are filed, and in August we will divorce.  The only remaining matter is the…dowry, shall we say?"

The older woman nodded her head and reached into her purse.  She slid two thick packs of bills wrapped in plastic across the table,

"Twenty-thousand, as promised."

I nodded, taking the money.

We were married as planned, with a modest but not meager service, to which I invited the members of the church ensemble.  The woman and her aunt paid for everything, and things went off without a hitch.  I was as unencumbered as I had ever been, my debt repaid and an ample amount of money remaining.  Things seemed to be looking up for the first time in a long while.  The prosperity was to be short-lived, however.

Albus called me some 6 weeks after my 'wedding' and asked me to meet him at a nearby hole-in-the-wall bar.  I arrived promptly to see him sitting at a table looking rather worrisome.  He looked up as I sat down and gave me a weak smile that belied the look in his eyes that said he had bad news.

"Is everything alright, Albus?"

He sighed, shaking his head,

"I don't know how to tell you this, Severus.  Petuniya is gone."

I gave him a confused frown,

"What do you mean, 'gone'?"

He sighed again,

"I just spoke with her aunt this morning.  Apparently she has a lover in Germany.  She's run off to be with him, and taken her son with her.  She left her aunt a note and evidently didn't bother taking her nephew with her."

I shook my head, still not understanding,

"Why did she want to become a Czech citizen if she were going to run off to Germany anyway?"

"She became a Czech citizen for the purpose of running off to Germany.  Russians cannot travel into Western Germany, but if they become naturalized citizens here, they can."

I sat back in my chair, nonplussed.  I knew it had been too easy.  Why would anyone so desperately want to become a citizen of Czech?  Russians got better treatment here, anyway.  I looked up as Albus spoke again,

"The police will probably come to question you about it.  You'll have to have a believable story to tell them by the time you have to talk to them."

I nodded mutely.  Albus reached forward to pat me on shoulder,

"Don't worry, Severus.  I'm sure things will be fine."

He stood, bid me good-bye, and left.  I sat there for some time.  It seemed the very opportunity to pay off the debt for my bail could very likely put me in jail.  Things were looking decidedly down, but it was one of the many times in my life when I learned not to think things couldn't get worse.

I was playing my cello in my apartment one rainy afternoon when there was a knock at my door.  I paused in my playing, feeling a slight stir of anxiety as I wondered if the police had finally come to question me.  I walked to the door and opened it to reveal a man in a medical technician's uniform.  The man looked grave as he spoke to me,

"Severus Snape?"

I nodded and he continued, gesturing to the boy I had not previously noticed who stood hanging his head behind the man,

"You are this boy's step-uncle?"

I felt my eyebrows shoot up a bit at this, but then suddenly realized that the boy was none other than Petuniya's orphan nephew.  I nodded again,

"Yes, I am."

The man gave me a calculating look before saying,

"His… aunt… has had a stroke.  She's been taken to St. Francis Hospital, and you are the boy's only known relative within the country.  I'm going to have to leave him with you."

I looked back and forth between man and boy with disbelief.  Leave him?  With me?

"What?  No, no, you don't understand.  I really don't know the boy at all; we're very distant-"

The man shouted over his shoulder,

"You'll have to do, sir.  There's no one else," and he walked away.

I stood there for a moment, nonplussed at the situation, before I again took notice of my new burden.  He stared down at the floor, looking by all accounts like a beaten dog, holding a suitcase at his side.  I frowned and sighed,

"Well, come in, then."

He continued to stare down, not moving.  I heaved another sigh and took his suitcase from him,

"Come in, come in!" I pushed him inside and shut the door behind him.  I sat his suitcase on my bed and turned to him.  He still kept his eyes downcast, and I took in his appearance.  His clothes were considerably too large for him and seemed old and worn.  His glasses were broken at the bridge and had been taped back together.  I looked down at his feet and found them encased in what was presumably once a pair of shoes, but now were not much more than torn, tattered scraps of leather.  My frown deepened, if possible,

"Do you have any other shoes?"

He raised his head a bit as though he'd heard, but didn't reply,

"Do you have anything else to put on your feet?  A pair of slippers, perhaps?"

He remained mute, and I sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time since I'd opened my door. I unzipped his suitcase, finding that he did have a pair of slippers that looked no less second-hand than his clothes, but certainly would have been warmer than his shoes.  I handed them to him,

"There, put those on."

He looked up at me, then looked between me and the slippers before finally taking them from me and putting them on.  I moved to my telephone, turning to the boy as I picked up the receiver,

"Don't touch anything."

Albus responded to the news of my situation with his normally unsettling amount of wise-seeming laxness,

"He's just a boy, Severus; it can't do you much harm to look after him while his aunt is infirmed-"

"Look after him while-?  You are very mistaken if you think I'm going to be responsible for this urchin for one day, Albus-"

"You're the only one he has, Severus…"

"I'm bringing him to your house right now-"

"Severus, you know my grandchildren are staying with me for their winter break; I couldn't possibly care for another child."

I scoffed, but couldn't find the words for any rebuttal.  At length, I sighed and ran a hand through my mass of dark hair, and Albus apparently found this a fit response,

"Just let him have a bath and send him to bed.  It's not all that difficult, Severus."

I eyed the boy who had moved to peer over the windowsill to see the pigeons sharpening their beaks on it,

"That's easy for you to say."

With that, I hung up the phone and moved to the boy's suitcase; I hoped it held within its contents something with which he could occupy himself.  At the bottom of the case, almost as if the boy had tried to hide it, I found some scraps of paper and two pencils.  I laid them on my kitchenette table,

"Here, come and draw."

The boy stayed staring out the window at the birds.

"Come draw something."

He did not move a muscle.  I sighed again, wondering if I wouldn't be bald from yanking my hands through my hair before the boy was finally gone.  Realizing I was getting nowhere, I relented and picked up one of the chairs from the table, carrying it over to him.  I set it down behind him and gestured for him to sit,

"There, go ahead and be pigheaded.  What do I care?"

The boy gave me a curious look, then gave a similar look to the chair before sitting down and continuing to watch the birds. 

Around the time I was beginning to consider how much I really wanted the boy clean, there was a knock at my door.  I rose to answer it, and found there a girl I had been teaching to play the cello.

"Ms. Granger…  Do we have a lesson today?"

The girl nodded fervently,

"Yes, sir."

I sighed…  I could not remember ever sighing so much in one day.

"I'm afraid I'll have to cancel it, Ms. Granger.  An unforeseen circumstance has arisen, and-" I paused, considering something I thought I'd heard the bookish girl mention,

"Ms. Granger, you speak Russian, don't you?"

She nodded again,

"Yes, sir."

I was so pleased by the response it was hard to not grin in lieu of replying.  I strode quickly to fetch the boy, grabbing his wrist and hauling him to the door.  I stood behind him, one hand on his shoulder,

"This is my… step-nephew.  He came into my care under rather confusing circumstances, and I'm afraid he only speaks Russian…  If you could ask him a few things, I'd be very appreciative."

The girl nodded again,

"I'll do what I can, sir."

"Thank you.  Ask him what his name is."

Ms. Granger looked at me strangely,

"You don't know his-"

"Just ask him, please, Ms. Granger."

The girl pursed her lips but looked to the boy without further question and spoke to him in Russian.  He replied, and Ms. Granger looked to me,

"I think he means to say his name is Harry, but he can't pronounce the 'H' well."

I nodded,

"Very good.  Ask him how old he is." 

Again she spoke to the boy and he answered her in a shy-sounding tone; at his response to that question, Ms. Granger seemed surprised,

"He says he's 15."

I felt my brow furrow in disbelief as I looked at the boy, taking stock of his height and build,

"Fifteen?  He doesn't look a day over 13, if that.  Are you certain that's what he said?"

Ms. Granger turned to the boy and again they conversed in Russian.  When they finished, she looked up at me, a piteous look in her eyes,

"He says he knows he doesn't look his age because his aunt didn't feed him much, and his clothes make him look small because they're hand-me-downs."

I frowned,

"I see.  Thank you, then, Ms. Granger; that will be all today.  You may return next week; by then I will certainly be free to give you your lesson."

The girl nodded,

"Yes, sir.  Thank you, sir."

She walked out, leaving me again alone with the boy.  I sighed for what felt like the millionth time that day and found myself groping for something to say when there was another knock at the door.  I opened it to find my landlady standing there, a basket of laundry on her hip.

"Sorry to bother you Mr. Snape, but I thought I would remind you that everyone is expected to put up a Russian flag; they're judging the best decorated building again this week."

I narrowed my eyes,

"Again?  Haven't we done enough for those people already?"

The woman shook her head,

"I don't make the rules, Mr. Snape, I'm just hoping to keep you out of trouble."

I nodded,

"Yes, I know.  Thank you."

I closed the door and walked to my desk where I kept my flags:  our flag and the Russian flag.  I'd put up one of each, so no one could say I had truly given in, but neither could I be persecuted for not decorating.  I felt the boy's eyes upon me as I was putting up the flags, then suddenly he spoke,

"Ours is red."  The words were spoken slowly as if he were unsure of them, but what he said was unmistakable.  I turned abruptly to look at him, nonplussed,

"So, you can speak some Czech."

"Ours is red," he repeated, more clearly and assuredly this time.

I shrugged slightly, gesturing to the flag,

"What's so beautiful about it?  We used to put your flag up in gratitude, but now we do it because we are forced to.  Your people are like insects; they come in and set up shop, regardless of whether they are wanted or not."

The boy looked at me, his expression curious but confused.  I sighed (again) and moved away from the window,

"You should have a bath."

He looked at me over the rims of his old, broken glasses.  I realized that I was hoping for too much, and walked to grab him by the wrist again.  I pulled him to the bathroom and started filling the tub.  The boy gave me a curious look and started backing out of the room.

"No," I told him, "the bath is for you.  Come on."  I gestured for him to undress but he just looked up at me shyly.  I rolled my eyes,

"Alright, if I leave you alone can I trust you to bathe yourself?"

He still didn't seem to understand, so I walked toward the door and ask him again.  He nodded this time, if not understanding the question, at least understanding that a question had been asked.

"Alright.  I'll leave you to it."

I walked out, sitting down on my playing chair.  I scrubbed my face with my hands before reaching for my cello and beginning to play.  Time passed without my knowledge, and I soon opened my eyes to find the boy pulling clothes from his suitcase with one hand as he clutched a towel around his hips with the other.  It was then I became aware of just how underfed the boy was:  his ribs protruded from his chest, and the bumps of his spine were grotesquely visible through his back.  I frowned in distaste, but did not stop playing.  The boy must have thought I had not noticed him because he dropped his towel right in front of me and dressed himself for bed.  At length, I stopped playing,

"Feeling better, then?"

He jumped slightly as I spoke, but seemed to relax as he looked up at me and nodded.  I wondered again if he truly understood the question or rather if he just knew a question had been asked.  I moved to my dresser and pulled out some nightclothes before walking to the bathroom and changing into them.  There was only one bed in my apartment, and the couch was not large enough to be slept on.  That left only the option of him sleeping in bed with me; something I was not looking forward to.  I emerged from the bathroom and turned down the bed sheets, sliding underneath them.  The boy stood beside the bed, looking at me.

"Well, get in, then."

He gestured to the bed, and I nodded,

"Yes, get in."

He slowly pulled the covers on his side of the bed up, and just as slowly got under them, as if he were still not sure that this was what I had instructed.  Eventually, he lay on his side, facing away from me.  I was laying on my back, and noticed out of the corner of my eye (and from the vibration of the bed) that the boy appeared to be weeping.  I closed my eyes, quietly heaved a sigh and reached a hand out to his shoulder.  He flinched away violently and I glared,

"Fine, be that way."  I rolled to face away from him, and we fell asleep like that:  facing away from each other, clinging to our respective edges of the bed.