A Life of Hiding
Author: Leta McGotor
Disclaimer: I own nothing because JKR does and I'm not her.
Chapter 3
It was dark outside but not because it was really late but a really early morning. The sun hadn't risen yet and the birds were sleeping for they didn't sing nor were flying around. Only one lonely figure made her way along the hills and the dark forest. Turning around an edge she saw the sky shined red announcing the upcoming day. But the thoughts of the person were not by the upcoming day but by the people, getting a knock on the door at that early hour.
Nearly half an hour later Minerva McGonagall was standing in front of a small cottage, which seemed very old and broken. The flowers had no life in them and the small way as well as the windows needed desperatly to see a cleaning spell. In the moment this all didn't matter to Minerva, she only hoped that the people, or better the man, inside of the cottage would give her some information. She only had this one question she simply had to know the answer for.
Minerva knocked but there was no reaction. After several minutes she knocked again, louder this time in the hope, that the owner rather hadn't heard her knock instead of ignoring it. She waited patiently and sometimes she knocked again, but after one hour of waiting she gave up hope and turned around. She would try it again later this day and hopefully then she would receive her answers.
Lost in her thoughts she strode through the forest not looking back or around her, not noticing the singing birds now or the few animals looking for their meals. Her thoughts were far, far away by the man she so desperately wanted to see again, wanted to feel again, wanted to hold him and to be hold by him. Therefore she never saw the man, clothed in green and brown to cover himself, following her with a gun in his hands.
On and on she walked through the forest and on and on she was followed by the man with the dirty grey-black hair and the long nose. Then suddenly she reached a clearing and a precipice. Minerva attempted to walk around the dark hole but in the moment she reached the edge of it, she felt a hand in her back pushing her forwards to the black precipice.
Severus Snape was kneeling at a small river, somewhere in the mountains he used to hide. Nobody would find him here and that was the one thing he wanted. He sighed and took the bowl, filled with fresh water. On his way back to the summe cottage of his parents at a time they had been in love at the beginning of their marriage, he looked around. The birds were singing and all was glowing because of the bright shining sun. But Severus wasn't interested in his surroundings, his thoughts used to wander back to the night he became the murderer of Albus Dumbledore.
It wasn't all clear to him, more a dark blur. The one thing he really saw clear, every day and night was the pleading look in the eyes of his oponent. The most people would think he pleaded for his life, but Severus knew better. The powerful wizard had pleaded that he, Severus, did his job, that he murdered him. A smile crossed Severus' features, not a happy but a sad one. Most people would think, that that wasn't the truth, that this idea was completely insane. But to be exact, it was nothing more than the real truth.
Severus placed the bowl on the small table in the cottage. He had no problems with living here for his parents had never taken the dishes and clothes away from here. All was ready and waiting for someone, who would live there, someone like Severus. His parents used to come here, when they hadn't to work. They always enjoyed it. This was, what his mother had told him. But then they started arguing more and more until the argumentation was always there, no matter what they were doing. Severus remembered often sitting in the corner of his rooms or in the broom closet and hearing his parents yelling at each other. But all that was over now. His mother had died years and years ago and his father was living in the cottage they used to call their home, far, far away from this one. Never had he visited his father, and he never would. This was the one thing Severus knew for sure.
But thinking about it, he thought, too, that he knew other things for sure as well. But he had been mistaken, what led o his situation now: He was a wanted man. He looked at the picture lying on the table – the only thing he had been able to rescue. He longed for the woman, who was standing beside him in this picture, the woman he loved, but probably would never see again. He sighed. Another one, he thought he knew. He had wanted to marry her but now he was alone and nothing could change that.
With the day he did the Unbreakable Vow he knew, that he would break her heart, either because he was the murderer of her best friend or because he had died for not fulfilling the vow. But it wasn't the will of Albus Dumbledore that things went the last way. Severus remembered clearly the day the Headmaster had told him to come to his office. There he had said, that he knew of the Unbreakable Vow he had sworn to Narcissa Malfoy and had explained his plan to him while they were going outside. Severus didn't want to do what the older man had told him and had begun to argue until Professor Dumbledore had given the order. Severus had had no other choice but he wished that he had had the strenght for further argumentations, but he hadn't.
Severus looked out of the window in the small kitchen with his thoughts by the woman of his heart. He hadn't told her what Dumbledore wanted him to do. He knew she wouldn't tolerate it. He wondered what she thought about him now. Had she the same opinion like all the others or believed she that there had to be something wrong, a mistake in the system?
Severus looked at the birds, flying and singing in their freedom. Why was he doomed to be a prisoner of his own life? Why can't he be so free like the birds? He turned away from the window, looking at the bowl of water. This all reminded him on happier days, days with Minerva. But in the moment the memories were more a torture than a gift. He hoped that at least Minerva would be as free as a bird.
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A big thank-you to all who have read the other chapter.
