Disclaimer- Go back to Chapter 1 and READ IT
Chapter 2- Struggling, just stop
My name is Severus Snape
Snape the name my father left for me to carry on. To carry on his distorted view that the name Snape held power. All it gave to me was weakness- that I've carried on.
I don't ever view myself as part of the Snape family. Yes we share the last name. But I'd rather watch my own blood rush away from me than acknowledge that is what I share with the Snapes.
The Snapes
Although I have spent many sleepless nights musing on this subject, at some point in time no matter how much I don't like it or myself I've accepted I'm Severus Snape.
Supposedly the only son of Lord Edward Snape and Lady Angele Snape.
How this title came to my father is unknown to me. My tutor guarded me from any knowledge of my parent's past lives as I grew older.
Finding out things on one's own is always painful.
My tutor never anticipated my height would assist me in reaching records and family trees in libraries and never questioned the time I spent in said library.
The family tree was located in a large book to the left of my father's financial records, the cover showing a painting, easily recognised as "The Last of Summer"
On the right of the family tree my mother's handwriting was shown and relations penned in. I am aware of 4 grandparents, 5 aunties, 6 uncles, and 19 cousins.
Then in the middle was my name.
Severus Snape
1970
Right next to Bella's name.
Bella was my sister, well was to be my sister.
In 73' my mother gave birth to a baby girl, a stillborn. Bella.
Over run with grief and denial my mother penned the event into the family tree. My father let her, as I can recall as hazy as it all is, with a cruel smile on his face.
I believe he never wanted a second child, well a girl at the very least.
I didn't want a sister.
So I suppose I've always been bit like my father.
I was Edwards only son, but Angeles second.
Bella would have been her third child
This was unknown to my father and I.
People in the village, which my father had great influence over (this village was located at the foot of the hill the Snape manor sat upon) were notorious for their gossip and knew a whisper of another son.
The name of the village escapes me these days. I sold Snape manor shortly after I left Hogwarts and put the profit to doing up the mansion, another estate I came to own through my father, in Richmond. I can barely remember the beaches of Brighton, or the halls of the manor, let alone the name of the village
I knew my mother was married before she fell victim to love. Love for my father. And what a victim she turned out to be. She was married then to an English gentleman Lordon. Not such an influential man as my father was but an honest hard working man (or so I'm told)
The story seems to go, from what I've gathered from my aunt Suzanne, Angele's kid sister who looked up to my mother like a botticelli Angel, that Charles Lordon stole Angele Russier away from France and married her while they were hidden away in Tielt, Belgium.
On Charles's return to England the Russiers caught up with him and demanded the marriage be annulled. Unfortunately it was 2 months too late as of the 6th august 1966.
And 7 months later they had a son. His name was Jacques. Yes, my half brother Jacques. My mother was a young French beauty of only 19 years. The village labelled her a gypsy. People said she had a wild fire burning in her eyes and it was the Lordon fellow that brought her into England, like a plague. The Lordon fellow died early 69'and my father took very sudden interest in Angele. I am surprised he did not notice a baby in their courtship, if indeed there was any courtship.
Jacques is not much older than I….
Only 3 years and 3 months to be exact.
Jacques was sent to my Grandmother Lidia in France and he lived there in the in La Rochelle until he went to Beauxbatons. The Lordons requested in 79 that Jacques transfer to Hogwarts and complete his education there as they wished for him to live in England.
Of course they made attempts at contacting my mother to confirm these arrangements with her. Rumours sprouted, and Jacques transferred to Hogwarts without Angele's consent
My father heard these rumours, and waited patiently for an explanation.
He never got one.
He was outraged.
She did not tell him, she hide it so well...
So seeing as there was no explanation for him, he based all his accusations on rumours, vicious rumours.
For days and days I watched my father's anger build up. He let it out in little fits, blaming things on who he could; leaving my room was a risk in itself.
My mother withdrew and eventually so did her sanity
And one night, one cold night made for sitting by the fire Father stormed in and snatched my mother from the piano. I sitting in the corner, after intently listening to her playing, watched him do so.
I'd been sitting there stiffly for an hour or so listening to Valse Brilliante and welcomed an interruption but none so violent.
He yelled so loud it was hard to make out what he was saying, He was yelling in English and my mother was pleading in French. Pleading forgiveness from the man she loved completely. He hated when she spoke to him in French.
I watched
I watched in complete horror
She struggled
Called my name
Screamed for me to leave
But my father never understood her words
He never understood her
That is why he hated me so
He strangled her until she could bear no more
And then she stopped struggling
Stopped struggling
Stopped struggling to love a man she that did not love her in return
Struggling to conceal the secret of her other child
Struggling to spare her dear son having to watch her die
Struggling
She stopped
She stopped struggling
It had been a 10 year struggle with Edward that she lost.
The French pleading died away and left only the roarings of English
And when she had stopped he could get no answers to his questions
She did not answer
This drove him to strike the final blow
Against the very wall
Opposite where I sat
Where I sat
Watching my creator kill my other
And after the thud, she lived no more
Sometimes I wonder if he had planned to kill her
Crime of passion perhaps… but not a planned murder
He was grief stricken afterwards.. how ironic
Until he noticed me
He noticed me
The little boy in corner
I was only 9
But I knew far more than I ever let him know
He noticed me
Staring with his black eyes right back at him
From beneath my long black hair
With a questioning
That required an answer
He raised a hand
"Severus- boy"
I got up
Staring with a new expression
One I had never formed
A cold mask
Of no emotion
I left the room
After taking the last glance in the mirror at what I might one day become.
My father
The muggle community found out before the Ministry.
This incident had nothing to do with magic
So it wasn't really their concern
My father was hung.
That influential man
The one who decided who would be hung
… Was killed
By the method of punishment he favoured
…Was killed
My mother's body was taken to Richmond and buried in one of her gardens in the world while my Grandparents on my father's side made arrangements for a burial somewhere in Birmingham.
My mother's side of the family were outraged that Angele was buried in Richmond after what England and an Englishman did to her. And I can only vaguely remember the tug of war that sprang up over me. Where I was to live, where I was to be schooled, whether I was still to be Severus Snape or Severus Russier and the list went on.
Eventually agreed that no grieving child, although that was never the true description of me, should have to be put through the legalities involved in all decisions both families allowed for my tutor to become my Legal Guardian until such time I was old enough to understand.
And everything was left to me
The manor, the title, the land, the estates, the Snape fortune.
None of which interested a 9 year old
None of which a 9 year old could manage