Snow
-- a Half-Blood Prince story
By
MMM
Disclaimer: JKR and WB own HP.
Christmas Night '97
Snape sat in bed, fully dressed, in yet another dimly-lit Muggle B&B. Somewhere in the gloom, he heard a church bell ring. There were a bottle of gin and a half-eaten loaf of stale bread sitting on the bedside table, but he hadn't touched them. An old book sat on the lap unopened. He lacked the energy to move.
He had been alone on Christmas before, after he left Hogwarts as a student. Several times. But he couldn't remember what he did then. It seemed to him he had always spent Christmas at Hogwarts, with its comforting routines and frenzy of activities: Hagrid bringing in gigantic Christmas trees, Flitwick decorating it with charmed angels, stars and glass ornaments, the Christmas drinks at Hogsmeade, House Elves busily preparing for the Feast ...
But even before Hogwarts, Christmas had never felt like this, this dire loneliness, the hollowing despair of it. True, he didn't have to spend Christmas by himself. The Malfoys had actually invited him for Christmas dinner. But he declined and said he had other plans. It seemed ridiculous to replace Hogwarts with the Malfoys.
He poured himself another drink, without any mixer. The transparent, sardonic taste of the liquor, which at first he had found unpalatable, now seemed no different from the taste of his mouth, bitter and numbing.
Lately, he spent a lot of time sitting alone. In the mornings, he would buy a cup of coffee, sit in the park and watch small boys and girls running around, chasing each other. On a bad day, their laughter mocked him and it took all his self-control not to draw out his wand and hex them. But on some days, just for a second, their frenetic movements and limitless energy gave him a flash of what it felt like to be whole again, when the simple act of living and breathing didn't hurt, didn't send ground glass down his spine.
But do I even deserve to feel whole again?
He was tired, that's all. The sheer exhaustion of packing up all his emotions, blocking them out, day in, day out. He never thought about what had happened in the summer. Alone, he would think about what he needed to do, what still to be done, but not what happened in June. He had done his damage. There was nothing more to think about.
And he never thought about the White Tomb that haunted his dreams.
Snape traced his finger across the embossed cover of the old book, and looked out the window painted white by the snow. He didn't know what was worse, a past he couldn't regain or a present that would destroy him if he looked at it too closely.
&&&&
Christmas '63
'Come inside, Severus.'
The small black-haired boy spun around with his arms outstretched. The drifting snow whirled and fell on his hands. He stared at the white solitary glistering snowflake as it shrank, then slipped away between his fingers.
'It's gone,' the boy observed. He beckoned his mother, but she stood resolutely at the threshold.
'You better come inside,' she said, with a hint of anxiety in her voice. 'Your father wants you.'
'Just a minute.'
He put his hand tentatively into the fallen snow and scooped up as much as he could carry in his tiny hands. He opened his pocket with the dexterity of a much older child.
'Don't put the snow in your jacket,' said his mother. 'It will melt.'
He looked up and saw, instead of the tickling snow, his mother's prematurely lined face. He ducked away from her. He wanted to be outside for just a bit longer. The furious, wind-whipped flakes struck him as infinitely beautiful.
'Time to go,' she said, picking him off the ground and held him tight. 'Your father wants his dinner now.'
He put his head on her shoulder. She smelt of dry herbs and rosemary.
&&&&
They never talked at the dinner table; his father disapproved of it. Talking at the table was a beating offence. Many things were, as Severus slowly learned. He tried hard to remember all the rules but sometimes, he just forgot.
Like tonight.
He was excited. It was the first time his mother had allowed him to play in the snow. And he wanted to tell his father all about it, longing for approval that would never come.
'...and then the snow¡¦s gone,' he said excitedly. He never noticed his father expression darkened.
'It disappeared, did it?' said his father, looking across the table at Eileen, who seemed terrified.
'Yeah, disappeared,' Severus repeated. He's rather fond of this new word. It's very long.
'Tobias. Don't be silly,' his mother said, putting one hand tentatively on her husband. 'Snow melts.'
Tobias stood up, pushing his wife roughly out of the way. Severus's puzzlement turned into fear. He shook as his father came closer. He knew how hard he could hit.
'Go to your room,' his mother said quickly. 'Severus. Now.'
But he couldn't move. He was petrified with fear as his father loomed above him, casting menacing shadows all over the room. Tears streamed down his face but he was too afraid to wipe them away.
'YOU SAID HE WON'T HAVE IT!' screamed Tobias, grabbing his wife by the front of her robes and shaking her like a rag doll. 'YOU SAID HE WON'T BE ONE. YOU SAID IT WON'T PASS ON.'
'He isn't,' said his mother, cowering. 'It's just snow. It melted.'
'DON'T YOU ARGUE WITH ME, YOU WITCH,' Tobias roared. He shoved violently her onto the floor and raised his hand. 'YOU FREAK. YOU SAID HE WOULD BE NORMAL!'
'I'M SORRY,' cried Severus, tugging at the tail of his father's jacket. 'Father, I'm sorry! PLEASE! I'm sorry.'
But his father ignored him. Severus began to cry -- not because he was in trouble but because he knew it was all his fault. He had been a bad boy.
He was consumed by such grief and hopelessness that he couldn't stop. He screamed as his father picked up a bottle from the table, and closed his eyes when he raised it above his head. As the bottle was brought down, whistling in the air, Severus felt a powerful force coursing through his tiny, trembling body, like the scream that never left his throat.
The next thing he knew, the plates on the table began to wobble, tipping slightly at first, then swinging on the side. One by one, with increasing force, they exploded, sending shrapnel all over the dining room. His father had let go of his mother. For a moment, his face was full of fear, then turned scarlet with rage. Severus had never seen his father this angry before.
At that precise moment, someone had muttered a strange word quietly, and the lights had gone out. A warm hand gathered him up quickly. His mother muttered another strange word as she closed the door behind her.
Severus dried his eyes on the shoulder that smelt of herbs. He covered his ears to block out his father's indignant shouting. A small stick dangled in his mother's hand.
She gave him a bath but didn't speak. Severus waited for her to say something but she tugged him in wordlessly. He looked on as she turned off the lights, this time without using her stick.
'I didn't mean to do it, Mother,' he said just before she crossed the threshold of his bedroom. 'It just happened.'
She turned back, thought for a moment, then said: 'How did you know?'
'I knew it was me. I made the plates blow up.' His lips quivered as he thought about it. He knew this wasn¡¦t normal.
His mother walked back into the room and drew a chair. She stroked his hair softly and sighed to herself. 'Go to sleep, Severus. It was an accident. Your father will forget about this soon enough.'
He could hear his father banging on the door downstairs, his shouts muffled.
'Am I a freak, Mother?' he whispered.
His mother straightened up and traced her long finger along his chin. 'No. You're just a very special boy. Very talented.' She paused, deciding what to say next.
'Would you like to hear a story?' she asked, looking into his eyes.
His mother had told him bedtime stories before, whenever his father was away for the night. She had been teaching him how to read as well, holding his hand to point out the words. He could already manage a few sentences. So he nodded. Anything to take him far away from this place ...
'Once upon a time, there was a prince,' she started with a dreamy look, as though she was telling the story to herself as well. 'A prince who grew up in an orphanage ...'
'What happened to his parents?' Severus interrupted. 'Why did he have to live in an orphanage if he¡¦s a prince?'
'His mother died after he was born,' said his mother. 'Nobody knew about the baby¡¦s true identity. As the Prince grew older, many strange things began to happen around him. The Muggles who raised him all thought he was a very peculiar boy. He had no friends because everyone was afraid of him. They didn¡¦t know he had descended from the noblest bloodline of the land, the last of the line.'
'Mother, what are Muggles?' Severus asked.
'People who can't do magic. Ordinary people.'
'Can the Prince do magic then?'
His mother nodded. 'He was a very powerful wizard. He could do many things.'
She continued: 'Naturally, the prince was very unhappy, for nobody understood him. He knew he was different from the Muggles. He couldn't live with them, even though he's a Half-Blood.'
'What's a Half-Blood?'
'That means his mother was a witch and his father was a Muggle. The Prince was a Half-Blood, Half-Pureblood, Half-Muggle,' she swallowed hard. 'He's the Half-Blood Prince.'
And from that night, the Half-Blood Prince story became his favourite tale. He made his mother tell it whenever he could.
&&&&&
Christmas Night '98
So there it was. Snape looked at it and knew this was the place to stop. It was time to stop running.
Snow fell that morning. The Hogwarts Castle loomed out of the snowfall. Beyond it was the Forbidden Forest and Hagrid's burnt-down hut. The wind drove snowflakes steadily onto the trees and left just a glimpse of the greenness beneath the white snow. Like a homing pigeon, there was only one destination on his mind after he burst through the Aurors's salient two months ago. He had read about it in the paper but he wanted to see it for himself. They said the sight of it was tragically beautiful.
He put his hand on the slab of white stone and collapsed onto his knees. The wound between his shoulder blades began leaking again. The wetness on his back spread quickly but he couldn't reach the wound to treat it. He shifted away from the tomb. He didn't want to mar the pure whiteness of the stone.
Sometimes, he thought of the wound as a memory he struggled to keep down. He tried his best to patch it over and forget but it wasn't enough. It kept leaking into the present, reminding him of the past.
Future historians will call this year the year that changed the world. Numerous books will be written about it: the year Harry Potter defeated the Dark Lord. What future historians will not know is the role he played. Most will assign him to the footnote, an afterthought-- the murderer of Albus Dumbledore, died Christmas Night 1998, two months after the Dark Lord was defeated.
The more curious ones will puzzle over why his body was found next to the White Tomb of Albus Dumbledore. Was it atonement, they ask. Or guilt? Was it a final absolution that he seeks? Or a final confession?
None of them would be any closer to the truth.
Snape looked up and saw snow falling around him. He held a snowflake in his hand but it didn't melt. How he longed to see his mother's lined face once more. But all he could see was more snow.
He closed his eyes.
And waited.
&&&&&&&
It was the night before he went to Hogwarts. His mother came into his bedroom and gave him her old schoolbook, Advanced Potion-Making. For luck, she said.
And he made her tell the story of the Half-Blood Prince for one last time.
She repeated the story once more:
The Half-Blood Prince was a wizard. When he turned eleven, a kind professor came and took him away from the orphanage to a school for wizards and witches, in a magnificent castle. There he found his true home, the place he truly belonged to. The Prince made many friends at his new school. The teachers all loved him because he was very smart, the most talented student they had ever taught. The only people who didn't like the Prince were the Gryffindors, who were jealous of the Prince's talent and heritage, and were always trying to undermine him. Like the Muggles, they didn't understand the Prince was special, the last heir of the most ancient and distinguished family, one of the founders of the school.
Then one day, a girl was found dead at the school's toilet. The most dreadful of death. Nobody knew what had happened. Everyone was scared.The Governors were going to close the school down if the crime remained unsolved. The Prince was most anxious because he would then have to go back to that awful orphanage. He was determined to find the culprit.
The Prince was, by that age, a very knowledgeable wizard. He knew the girl had been killed by a monster, a dangerous Dark Beast. The Prince fount out the beast was an acromantula, a giant spider, controlled by a Gryffindor boy.
The Prince confronted the Gryffindor boy and destroyed the beast. The school was safe once again and the Gryffindor boy was expelled. The Prince graduated top of his class and became the most powerful wizard of the land.
'Mother, you never told me the Prince's name,' he said when she finished. 'He's real, isn't he?'
'His name is Tom, Severus,' she said, kissing his forehead. 'Tom Riddle.'
&&&&
Snape was awakened by the wooden tip of a wand pressed against his temple. He didn't have to open his eyes to know whose wand it was.
Harry ...
Harry, please ...
--fin