'I've immersed my body in the river of vengeance/ and thrown away my youth many moons ago... Oh, is the world a dream or an illusion/ I am all alone in jail.' 'The Flower of Carnage' Meiko Kaji (adapted).

Chapter Three

Last night, Mr. Khan came to visit me. "Someone's made an appointment to see you," he said almost cheerfully. "You better make yourself presentable..."

"You mean I'm not already?" I ask lightly. I have always been so sure to keep myself clean shaven and well dressed (as it is possible), I was a little hurt.

"No, no," he reassured me. "But you know what I mean. Get out your eau-de-cologne or whatever it is," he then said something in French which I did not understand and laughed to himself, seeing the look on my face. I hoped that it conveyed all the disbelief that I was feeling just then. "Never mind," he said soothingly, by way of explanation. "I'm not allowed to tell you who it is that's coming, but all I can say is that you ought to look your best."

That told me all I needed to know.

I woke up at my usual time this morning. I have been writing (if my intestines speak true) since five in the morning. The sea is unusually calm. A good omen.

At around nine in the morning, Mr. Anumis strides into my cell and says, "Mr. Prince-Snape: if you'd kindly follow me, please. You have a guest who awaits you." It's the usual phrase: he has said it every time someone has paid a call on me.

Flanked by Mr. Khan and Octavius, I am led by Mr. Anumis to the visiting hall, which is now empty and still smelling slightly of mothballs and perfume of the previous visitors. There is indeed someone sitting there, on the opposite side of a forlorn looking table, waiting for me. He does not look up when I enter and only stirrs (he is reading and making some notes) when I sit directly opposite him.

It's my son, Francis.

If there's one thing that I take comfort in, it is that my guards (especially Mr. Anumis and Octavius) are scared of my son. I've never quite understood the effect he has on other people, probably because I'm his father, not least his effect on Mr. Anumis who even I myself am quite terrified of, being, in my view, the most dangerous and clever of my guards. I suppose it's partly because he's so tall, taller than me even and taller than Mr. Anumis.

Francis, aside from being tall (he is well over six feet), is also of a stockier build than I, something that he has inherited from his muggle grandfather. He has broad shoulders, large, strong hands and generally has no trouble in making his presence felt, wherever he is. He also wears glasses: the ridiculously strange old fashioned sort, with iron, circle frames. I could never understand why he liked them so much or what made him to buy them. But then, my son is often like that. He has gone through a number of different phases, though substantially less than those of the average person, I'd admit. There was a time he would go everywhere with a large black umbrella hooked on an arm, wearing pale coloured clothes (linen suits and all the rest of it: he had some of the Elders screaming at the sheer excess of it all). Then there was the time when he suddenly became interested in botany, then anthropology. He used to read dictionaries for bedtime stories (though that phase was particularly short lived to my great relief) but he'd promptly forget everything he'd read. I can remember well into my teaching career in Hogwarts, casually asking him for some trivial information to mark my students' homework with, safely assured in the knowledge that he of all people, would know.

Although he has inherited his skin tone from his mother, everything about him betrays the fact that it was I who fathered him. He has my nose, my eyes and the same oval shaped face as I. Even when he was younger, when I looked into his face to scold him or greet him, I was always struck by how like me he was - at times it seemed that I was simply talking to a younger version of myself. Now is no different. He is so still and quiet, you would be forgiven for thinking that he was deaf or blind. Being so alike, I know it is simply his way of setting his own time and pace for this meeting, regardless of whatever my guards may do or say.

Finally he looks up at me and smiles warmly. It always looks strange to see my face contort into so alien a vision. "Hello Father," he says. "How are you?"

I tell him that I am well and that my guards have still managed to maintain their polite facade, despite my best efforts. He laughs shortly and I can see Mr. Khan's lips twitch from the corner of my eye.

"That's good. Mother sends her love, by the way, as do the twins. Have you heard from them?" He always asks this.

"I'm not allowed letters, you seem to have forgotten." I say slowly.

Francis blinks at me, then frowns slightly. "Well that won't do. They're both studying at Uni now - they'll never be able to visit you."

Give it two weeks, I think to myself, and the letters will come pouring in. I can sense the intent radiating from Francis. He is such a stubborn boy, only I could have possibly been his father. Mr. Anumis can sense it too, because I see him stiffen and hear him move slightly, uncomfortably. This isn't the first time something like this has happened and it won't be the last. Could a man love his son any more than I did at that moment? It was wonderful to see Francis in a position of power against my captors, however polite they may be.

"Oh, well," he continues. "I have good news, Father," he pauses, looking at me carefully to see my reaction to the knowledge that a glimmer of hope exists. "They have postponed your trial indefinitely." He actually smiles, so suddenly that its alarming. I can't help myself: my lips twitch.

"See, I knew that should cheer you up. As it happens, time has passed and the wizarding world has more pressing matters at hand. The Ministry can safely pretend that you don't exist. And in a way they're still grateful that you ensured the removal of most of the Death Eaters from society." He folds a handkerchief into quarters, quiet triumph in his features. "Only people like the Diggory's are clamouring for your trial. But the Ministry is smart enough to see that that would be a huge mistake. They know perfectly well that I'd hire the best lawyers - and probably revolutionise the use of Wizarding law for all time," he smiles ironically and shakes his head. "You wouldn't be able to get off murder charges, mind, or involvement with the Death Eaters..." He gives me a careful look.

"I wouldn't expect to," I interrupt. Neither would I want to, though I don't say this. I do have some concept of justice and well does my son know it. He nods.

"But certainly a good deal of the truth would come out and it would seriously damage the Ministry of Magic, not to mention the very way wizarding society looks at itself."

What a marvel. Most fathers are proud of their sons, and most who are proud are excessively so, and I gladly count myself among them. At times I wish I were as intelligent as Francis is, at that age: I could have saved myself an awful lot of trouble. Francis notices me staring at him and grins randomly. He used to do that a lot when he was younger. Now, defending his murderous father has taken that away, much in the same way that avenging my parents stole my youth away from me.

It was selfish, what I did. I was deluded enough to think that I could have a private life, that I could fall in love and have children whilst at the same time hunting down my parents' killers and spying for my family. What a fool I was. But in a way I am grateful for that foolishness for it has given me something to comfort myself with today.

We continue to talk. I ask him about the family, the two tortoises (who may just manage to outlive me), and the remainders of the Order. He asks me about my health (is my hearing any the worse for being kept at so close quarters to the relentless pounding of the sea? How are my eyes? Do I still get the migraines?) and the state of the prison now, as far as I might know. We then discuss his siblings and his mother and what funny things have taken place since the last time he visited me. Then it's back to some ridiculous trivia. A cynical take on the latest policies of the governments (both wizarding and muggle), restarts by failing companies and the drivel that is most of popular culture. I have certainly missed this: Francis, being my first, was always the closest to my heart. I suppose that's the thing with being a parent: you expect the first born to behave more like an adult than you do by the time the next one comes along, if only because you're just as clueless as they are, if not more so. And, having spent more time with you, they generally turn out to be more able than you are by a long way. It's one of those strange things, I suppose.

An hour or so passes before Francis lifts some stray strands of hair out of his eyes and bids me goodbye. He kisses me in a businesslike manner, once on each cheek and nods stiffly to Mr. Anumis who shows him out. I watch him leave. He treads his way carefully as if trying not to step on some hidden booby-trap. For one so large, his self-conscious formality and grace is quite surprising. I probably won't see him for another fortnight. I am very fortunate that my son takes such care to visit me so often.

Sometimes, I feel guilty that I have caused Francis so much trouble; whilst most young men are thinking about their girlfriends (or lack of any), their studies or some such thing, my own is wondering how on earth to keep his Father out of the limelight, and to keep up his duty as a son in such difficult times. The rest of the time, I just don't think about it.

It is not just Francis who I have heard from. When I first arrived in Azkaban, the authorities did not think that anyone would want to write to me, but a few did. They weren't the expected hate mail (to my surprise) because, I think, those who would have wanted to send me such things must have thought it unlikely that the warders would allow me any post. Instead I received pathetic letters demanding (or not quite demanding in the case of Remus Lupin) a reason for all that I had done and so on and so forth from some of the members of the old Order, others from my family. Some of them were quite touching. It was then that the authorities clamped down on any post directed to me.

The guards are always at their most amusing around my son. Mr. Anumis is thin-lipped, pale (occasionally sweating slightly), eyes flashing, jaws clenched. He instantly relaxes once Francis leaves his presence. I think they had some sort of an argument when I first got here. He doesn't speak to him directly, (if he speaks to him at all) and pretends that he cannot see him. Francis is probably oblivious to this: he thinks Mr. Anumis suffers from constipation.

Mr. Khan is slightly better. I think he is as proud of Francis as I am. "Your son is quite something isn't he?" He'll say to which I might nod or look at him in a rather bemused sort of way. "You should be well proud of him. Asked me how I was when he came by to make his appointment. Smart lad you've got there, Mr. Snape. What a polite kid..."

Octavius, however, simply stutters all the time and drops things.

Now that I am writing this, the first thing that comes to my head is that by the time I was Francis' age, I was settling down to business as a Potions Master in Hogwarts, having managed to convince Dumbledore of my trustworthiness. By the time I was Francis' age, five out of the seven who had killed my parents were dead by my own hand. Only the Dark Lord and Dolohov were left. I can remember my desperate state by that time. My task seemed nigh impossible.

Nott was the first one to die. He had been the most difficult to win around, the most suspicious of the old Death Eaters and so I wasted no time in dispatching him before he would suspect me and have me executed by the Dark Lord. He was also the most useful: it was his memory that helped me make up the last moments of my parents' lives and him who ensured that I would succeed in all my future missions. He was the hardest to kill.

The Dark Lord had sent me to Nott to bring some book full of carnal knowledge of some sort for Nott had a very extensive library and was possibly as well versed in the Dark Arts as the Dark Lord himself. Nott was never particularly happy about the arrangement and as he led me into the library; he muttered all the while as to why his own son couldn't have performed the deed for the Dark Lord.

Once inside the library, I let him walk some way ahead of me, so that he would not be able to see me lock the door and cast a spell to make it soundproof. I looked up and checked that all the windows were closed: the library was on the far side of the manor and so no one would be able to hear anything from outside. He called out roughly to me and I apologised as I caught up with him to which he merely hmphed. Being in that library, I experienced a surge of anger that such a murderous, twisted fiend could be living in so much luxury, attended upon by house elves, safe in the knowledge that no one knew of the things he had done in his past, whilst my parents had been forced to die in the most ignoble way possible and made to witness what they no doubt believed to be their only son's death.

After summoning the book to him, he turned round to hand it to me and that is when I first struck him.

It was only a Crutacius curse. I had my plans to keep him alive for as long as possible, if only to extract the memory of my parents' demise. I wasn't particularly enthralled by the idea of torturing my victims: a kill was easy enough to do so long as I remembered not to use my wand to do it.

For someone so skilled in performing the most gruesome of tortures, Nott had certainly no tolerance for pain himself. Within seconds of the curse being performed, he vomited on the floor and would have begun convulsing if I hadn't stopped. I was fastidious then. I hated the sight of vomit or anything like that.

"Who are you?" He spat at last. He was an intelligent man, that Nott.

"Severus Snape," I replied. "Tell me," I went on, almost conversationally. "Do you recall a certain Eileen Prince? Married a..."

"Muggle," he spat out viciously, teeth and blood hurtling from his mouth. "That whore!"

"Damn you!" I smashed my foot into his head and left him spluttering and shaking slightly. I had to be careful: this could have been a way to catch me off my guard. Although he had no stomach for pain, he was quite disciplined in his way of controlling his mind under whatever conditions. He could easily exaggerate his condition to eventually kill me before I could set another finger on him. "Just answer the question please."

There was a hateful pause before he eventually said yes. I nodded.

"Thank you. Do you recall the name of their son?"

He sneered. "No. Should I?"

"Or the surname of the Muggle?"

"No, I -"

"Obviously," I interrupted him. "Seems a stupid question. Of course you didn't because if you did... well..." I shrugged. "I'd probably be dead by now." Then I looked at him again, directly into his eyes. There was another pause, but this one was full of recognition and fear. Nott's eyes widened and his breath rattled in his throat. Then, in an instant, his brow furrowed, his face twisted with rage and he leapt up, knocking me back so that hit my head against the mantelpiece before lying flat on my back. I cursed myself and swore repeatedly in my head as I tried to get up in time. I succeeded, only for Nott to aim a stunning spell at me that I had to dodge.

His face was terrifying to behold. "You... you... you fooled us all!" He aimed another spell at me which I deflected, gasping for breath. "Even the Dark Lord... how? How did you manage to... to take us all in? Who are you? Who are you really? One of Dumbledore's spies...Or from that muggle-loving, traitorous family itself?"

"You know who I am," I said in a low voice that frightened even me. I looked up at him between my hair which had fallen over my face. I winced, straightened up and swung it aside with a flick of my head. I remember thinking that I should have cut it before hand.

"No... you can't..."

"Why not?" I snapped, my head aching. I could feel one of those migraines coming along. "You never checked to see if I was ali-" before I finished the sentence, I had whipped out my wand and hurled him to the floor then performed a body binding curse quickly, knowing that I would get no chance otherwise. Once Nott was on the floor, I grabbed his wand. "-alive," I finished my sentence. "Did you?"

He gasped and cursed me in the foulest language imaginable.

Then I stooped down to the floor and put my own wand to his head. "How did they die?" I asked.

It took him a few moments, before he contemptuously rolled his eyes and looked away from me. I tortured him some more but still he refused. Eventually I warned him that I would simply force my way into his mind, but even then he refused to relent, and so that is what I did.

By the time I had finished, I had garnered several other bits of information as well, about the other Death Eaters, the Dark Lord and the way he organised everyone to do their duty and what he was planning to do. When I had gleaned this from him, Nott suddenly looked old and defeated and I realised he was regretting taking such a stance instead of having given me the information I had wanted in the first place.

Not wishing to waste any more time, I killed him with his own wand, before taking the book and leaving, clearing up any signs of a struggle. It would look more like a suicide than anything, and after a while, people would forget and life would go on. No one would suspect that someone as powerful as Nott could have been taken down by a youth like me and besides, I was about to gain myself an alibi.

Following this, it was quite easy to dispatch of the rest of them. I was always aware that the Dark Lord would wake up one morning and suddenly become awfully suspicious as to why his Death Eaters were all dying off. I had to be incredibly careful and the strain nearly drove me to collapse.

Some were easier than others: Abraxas Malfoy, for instance, was severely weakened by dragon pox (it was in it's final stages) and killing him was strangely satisfying, if only because I had to do the murder quickly and efficiently, without causing too much suspicion and yet make sure he knew who it was who was putting an end to his miserable life. The look on his face was very pleasing. I was, after all, the young man with whom his own son had made friends with so quickly, who had so much of the Dark Lord's trust... It was laughable. I almost enjoyed myself. But, as they say, vengeance is a dish best served cold.

The funeral was magnificent. A far better one than would be afforded his son, unfortunately. I had no hand in Lucius' death, and so felt quite sad when he died: he had been, save from Bartholomew and the woman who I would later claim as my wife (flippantly, I'll admit) something of a friend.

Until the Dark Lord sent me to gain employment from Dumbledore, I was one of the more covert members of the Death Eaters. I was rarely sent out on field work, and there came a point where I could simply refuse to torture Muggles (I managed to get away with that because I was seen as something of a threat to the Dark Lord, who had always been a complacent underachiever when it came to later studies of magic as an adult, I always thought. But then, perhaps I flatter myself), if I was not in the mood. My life as a Death Eater was only a little more interesting than life as a student in Hogwarts. I spent most of my time doing research for some vaguely thought out ambition to publish a complete history of magic and treatises on the Dark Arts and so on. Philosophical works were a rarity then. No doubt the novelty may have helped them to sell, I seemed to think at the time.

My work as a Death Eater helped a great deal, though. I learned more about the use of Dark Arts through the ages (the Dark Lord proved as interested in the subject as I) and, most usefully, about wizarding society. I had been cut off, when I really come to think about it, from society on the whole, muggle or wizarding. So often did I flit between the two as well as that private, third world of the eccentric family, migraines and a burning hate for just about everything and everyone except the most fortunate of individuals. My time with with the Death Eaters turned me into something of a socialite, with a growing taste for elf-made wines and rich, dark clothes and being waited upon hand and foot by trembling elves. It also transformed the more petty, finicky young man that I was into something with more depth and a hardened soul. I learned how to make jokes that were suitable for various company, how to make light conversation, even how to toast properly and relieve the trickiest of situations with a minimum shedding of blood.

Impressive as these things no doubt were, none of them particularly impressed my young wife, Moralis.

We had married young as it was acceptable in those times to do. Both of us (on the surface at least) were poor, young, idealistic. Our fellows were getting married and having babies left, right and centre. To a certain degree, we had the approval of the older generation to an extent which would not exist for the generation we have spawned. I certainly would be displeased if Francis had already been married and had children by his age, not to talk of the twins. But in those times, a heady mix of sexual revolution and political awareness and riots, young marriages were still the norm for people like Moralis and I.

I met my wife when I was seventeen, during my last holidays before I would be to leave Hogwarts for the first time. On a rare excursion to the muggle world, I made my way to the local library, a grim old Victorian building with a desperate need for a new coating of paint, looking for some Ancient Greek text (I forget what it was now. Needless to say, I went through similar phases as my son did). I found it eventually, but, just as I was checking the book out, the young woman next to me caught sight of it and began to gesticulate towards it.

"Yes?" The librarian said. I turned to look at the girl standing next to me.

She came up to my ear and was almost as skinny as I was, with the strangest sort of hair I had seen. It reminded me very much of Bartholomew's wiry curls, but it had a remarkably soft sheen to it. Her skin was a pale brown, the colour of coffee with milk. She was generally strange anyway. She wore glasses (nothing like the trendy frames one finds in those opthomerists today, but the plastic NHS ones that were the bane of her life) and dressed in old-fashioned clothes, that looked as if they'd come from World War Two utility stock, but had been re-cut to suit the styles of the seventies.

"Ah," the librarian said, "Miss Toksvig... how may I help?"

"I'm sorry," she began, avoiding my gaze at first and looking directly at the librarian, "but I've been waiting for that book for ages. I was even put down on the waiting list for it. I wondered if it had been returned, but I couldn't find it and now I realise that it's about to be taken out again for another indefinite period of time." I blushed a little at that because I had no intention of returning the book. She finally looked at me and gave me a polite, distant smile before returning to the librarian. "So I was wondering if you could let me take this book. Please."

This was an unexpected turn of events to say the least. I remember looking from her to the librarian wondering what on earth would happen next. Finally, the librarian bit his lip and said appealingly to me, "She has been waiting a long time for it. And it's very important for her... I believe she's studying Ancient Greek at school..." I looked at this Miss Toksvig and she nodded a little, embarrassed, flustered. "So you see... do you mind so terribly, sir?"

Of course, as it happened, I suddenly felt that I didn't. This girl intrigued me (how many girls do you meet who study Anicent Greek at school? And that surname, it sounded Swedish...) and so I graciously let it go. I was thrilled and amused to see her trying to conceal her happiness and relief, and her awkwardness in thanking me. I dipped my head in acknowledgement, in as stately a way as I could manage.

Ah yes, now I remember, it was something by Herodotus, but whether it was his first or fourth book, I can't remember.

The upshot of it all was that I ended up walking her home and got to know her quite well. We spoke about the stupidest of things, but, being young and drawn to extremes as most young people are, we both found the conversation incredibly striking and deep. Things like politics, the true meaning of revolution, even Sartre no doubt.

My God, it makes me laugh to think that we (especially she, my Athena as I once christened her in a fit of emotion, who was always so rational and an odd mix of geniality and aloofness) were ever that naive and stupid and uninformed.

By the time I had reached the house in which she lived with her uncle and aunt, it was late and so she invited me for tea (I feel incredibly old when I say that you couldn't do that these days), which I enjoyed. Strange, considering that I'd only met her a few hours before, but true nevertheless. Her uncle and aunt were surprisingly welcoming, for all my being a complete stranger. I suppose Moralis introducing me as a fellow 'scholar' helped with that. I actually felt at home.

As could be expected, though, it was then that the Dark Lord realised he needed my services for something or other and so I had to leave their cosy sitting room and apparate to some unknown location where I would torture innocents and shout for the enslavement of the Muggle population.

It's always been my one source of true guilt. What I have done to my children, well, I can rationalise that to myself, say that they had a choice as much as I did whether or not to avenge my parents. I can claim that it would be arrogant to take so much of the blame: that there were other factors that I have not accounted for. Or I can simply ignore it and just be grateful that I have such devoted offspring. But not so with my wife. After all, Moralis had a choice that our children didn't. They did not choose to be borne to me; Moralis, however, made a choice to marry me and (I believe) to continue loving me. I cannot account for her. She can only account for herself. I suppose what I really feel, if I am to be truly honest with myself, is a sort of panicky awareness, in that she is very much a random card in my ordered deck; that she is outside my control.

For this reason, she has always enthralled me. It strikes me how all of my closest friends are those from backgrounds and of characters far and away from my own: Bartholomew, my childhood friend from Jamaica, talkative, passionate, who later would succeed in entering one of the best Universities in the country, in spite of all that counted against him; Lucius Malfoy, rich, upper-class with a confidence that was completely alien to someone like myself and with far too much money at his disposal; Moralis, wiser than she ought to be, and capable of seeing through the layers most people are not even aware exist, the only woman I would ever count as a friend as well as a lover, equally as successful as Bartholomew in her own right, with as much counting against her as anybody.

One of the first things we ever did together was to attend those underground meetings that are now legend in modern social history: the sorts of groups from which spring revolutionary poets and artists and philosophers and writers. During my holidays and long weekends when I had no lessons to occupy me, I would apparate my way to M and make myself at home amongst the new breed of hippies and agitated youth. What did we talk about? I really have no idea, but I recall it being a lot of fun.

Of course, it was at this time that I was exterminating the murderers of my parents and bowing to the Dark Lord whilst uttering obscene oaths and torturing and killing, the majority of whom died simply on a whim.

But even in the wizarding world, Moralis had an effect on me. It was her influence (though she was not to know it at the time) that made me urge the Dark Lord to withold making me torture and kill Muggles as often as he normally would have done. By that time, I had proved my loyalty, and so the Dark Lord granted me my request, assured that the recent execution of Regulus Black was enough of a deterrent against any other similar attempts at rebellion. There would be times when I would ignore the painful summonings just to spend just a few more minutes talking to her, only to be tortured most cruelly for disobeying the Dark Lord's call at the next meeting. Eventually, it became accepted amongst the Death Eaters and to the Dark Lord, that I was to be one of the more privileged ones; That, loyal as I was, I had agendas of my own elsewhere. How I managed to get away with this and live is something I still marvel at today. No doubt Lucius Malfoy helped a great deal.

But that particular friendship is another story.

Time passed. A year later and she had helped me read those books by Herodotus for myself, having tutored me in my Ancient Greek (and then Latin): she was never a one to let ignorance flourish. By that time, we had started sleeping together. By that time, I had only two on my list left to kill.

This may seem a little ridiculous, but it has now occurred to me just how surreal that period of time was. That is the precise reason why I am writing this, of course: to help organise my motives and my past, but that doesn't stop it from seeming strange even to myself.

For one to hold such a contradiction of thoughts and experiences within oneself is not in itself really that strange: for me, my muggle life and my wizarding life were two entirely separate, complex states of existence of their own. I was able to sleep with Moralis, argue a little over where we should get an apartment (or if we should even live with each other at all and not just continue as we were then), and then argue some more over what we'd be doing next week (the demo or the cheap restaurant that her old schoolfriend had opened?) and then be summoned in the dead of night, making some pathetic excuse to her before struggling into clothes and rushing off to see to the Dark Lords requests, or murdering some middle-aged man in revenge.

Moralis, as you have no doubt realised, is a Muggle. That was something else which I did not seem to have any difficulty in assimilating with the rest of my existence. I would feel no guilt whatsoever as I made fun of and cursed the Muggle population with Lucius: it never occurred to me that Moralis and our friends in those underground societies were included, but of course - of course - they were.

Killing Muggles was relatively easy for me as well because, in spite of what is commonly believed, I killed as many wizards and Squibs amongst others as I did Muggles. Torture for it's own sake held no appeal to me. I always saw it as a waste of magic if done simply for fun and I simply couldn't stand the sight of anyone rolling around on the ground. I have always valued the virtue of continence and so performing the Crutacius curse has never been to my tastes. People can make an unspeakable mess when they're in pain.

Is that to say that I have always had a deep-rooted superiority complex against my wife? I cannot say that I did. In many ways, she was my superior, having had a more extensive education, a wider circle of friends and being generally more knowledgable in matters of the world than I. I loved her (and still do) with a passion that veered at times to the almost self-destructive. It mattered not a jot to me that seeing her would cause me unspeakable pain when next I would gather with my fellow hooded ones. In a disturbing sort of way, that almost intensified my love for her. One of the things that cut me the most deeply about my life sentence in Azkaban was that, as a Muggle, Moralis would not be able to see me. After all, there are numerous enchantments about the place which makes Azkaban prison practically non-existent to the Muggle eye and that makes it nigh impossible to ever be visited by my wife.

I suppose it really comes down to the obvious: those nameless victims in the past barely register. We were at war, and they were (not to be too dramatic) the enemy. Those that I knew and were closest too, well, I would not have dreamt of any harm coming to them. The base hypocrisy of mankind.

And now I am getting sentimental.

It was shortly after our first son was born (Francis) that we decided to get married. That was when I revealed to my great great grandfather that I even had a life outside of visiting his home and helping him with his studies and so on. He was shocked to hear that I was involved with anyone on such intimate terms, and at first urged me to give it up and leave it all behind. This I would not do, of course. He then tried to persuade me not to get married, but I knew enough of the world to know that as liberal and enlightened as my generation had become, it was the older generation - our employers, basically - who we would have the problem with and so I insisted that Moralis and I should get married.

Then he advised deception of a lesser sort: that I sign the registrer as a Prince and not a Snape, but that I would not accede to either. Finally, he agreed to have my young family protected to the best of his ability and let me go ahead with the Civil wedding. And so Moralis bcame my wife.

And he has done a thorough job of it, I must say. Even Dumbledore himself remained completely unaware of the existence of my family, not to mention my colleagues and even some of the Family itself. Only my guards know, for instance, that Francis is my 'son'. The authorities are not even sure of what relation he has to me.

Eventually, there came a point in time when I could no longer hide from Moralis my actual identity. This point came a few months before she became pregnant with Francis, in truth. She took it remarkably well, though at times I suspect she is still getting over the shock. I introduced her to a few members of my muggle family and to my great great grandfather and I was pleased to see that she had impressed them as much as she had done me. Strangely, she has always gotten on better with the few members of my wizarding family who know of her, than I have ever done. Certainly she captivated my great great grandfather for one and he always spoke very fondly of her.

As such, it was a rare thing for me to hide anything from her and once my wizarding identity was out of the way, I was able to tell her a good deal more, most of which I had not even told my great great grandfather. What can I say? She was always the steadier partner in our relationship (something which Francis has evidently inherited) and whilst she never pretended to approve of what I was doing, she nevertheless made sure that I knew she would always have her arms open for me.

This would make me a little self-conscious, I'd have to admit: I would wonder if the feelings she claimed to have were somewhat falsified. After all, how could anyone like her feel affection on any level for someone as murderous as I? But goodness knows that the human mind is complex and strange enough, and the human heart capable of being open anough to accomodate such things, as I later realised.

We had two more children who were a good deal more unexpected than Francis. They are the twins, Vida and Cronan, born only a month or so after 'The Boy who lived' (and is now dead) himself. When the Dark Lord fell, I was able to spend more time with them, which was pleasant despite my initial misgivings.

Thus far has my life progressed, until the year when Sirius Black escaped from his prison - with no thought as to what may follow, as always - and the Dark Lord was reunited with his most dangerous supporter of us all.