Chapter Nineteen
Severus had just finished his third pancake of the morning -- he never realized how much he could eat until he started living a Muggle farm life -- when he noticed how quiet everything had become at the breakfast table.
He looked up and over at Mr. Norton, who had just cleaned off his own plate. Mr. Norton was looking at Severus as if he had something he wanted to say. So was Mrs. Norton. So was Becky.
And Severus knew what it was.
"Severus, we've got something we'd all like to ask you --" Mr. Norton began.
"The answer is yes."
Mr. Norton's eyes went wide, losing their squint for once. "'Yes!'"
"Yes, I'd very much like for you to adopt me as your son." Severus said, a good deal more calmly than he felt. "That was the question, wasn't it?"
There was a short bout of silence, as Mr. and Mrs. Norton looked at Severus, then at each other, with their mouths all a-gape. Then Mr. Norton's face blossomed like a flower. The sheer happiness in it could have lit up the night sky.
"Yes, yes it was, son." Mr. Norton's eyes watered and shined, and he dabbed at them with a napkin. "'Scuse me, got something in my eye." Everyone else's eyes were shining, too, shining and happy, even Becky's.
"I told you he already knew, Dad," Becky said, elbowing her father good-naturedly in the ribs. "Stink knows everything."
"How did you know, son?" asked a pleasantly surprised Mr. Norton.
"I heard you talking about it with Effie the other day," Severus said, grinning like a Cheshire cat with cream. "Somebody needs to tell her that her whisper carries much farther than her normal speaking voice."
Mr. Norton laughed so hard, the table shook.
"Then you probably know that Effie's cobbled up some documents for the local authorities – the Muggle authorities – too, " he said, once he could trust himself to talk properly. "Since you obviously didn't have a birth certificate on you when you came here."
Severus nodded. "Yes, that was good of her."
Mr. Norton leaned forward in the old wooden kitchen chair, causing it to squeak slightly. "And she gets along well with the local sheriff, the judge, and the medical examiner, so she was able to get them all to accept you – or at least the papers she made for you – as a naturalized citizen."
While Mr. Norton was talking, Mrs. Norton had got up from her chair and left the kitchen. She came back holding a manila folder and a ballpoint pen.
"Effie made these up for you, Severus," she said, handing him the folder and the pen. "The forms are set up magically; all you have to do is to sign your name to them and they're good to go, both with our government and the Department of Magic. The signature will automatically appear on the copies that Effie and the folks at the courthouse have."
Severus opened up the folder and looked at its contents. There were documents on parchment, wizard-fashion, and printed forms on standard American Muggle eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch paper. All of them had at least one spot where a signature block was outlined in glowing green ink.
"So whaddya gonna call yourself, Stink?" Becky said, jumping up and down beside him like a ping-pong ball in a washing machine. "Besides 'Norton'?"
"Hmmm..." It was actually a good question.
On the one hand, he didn't want to get rid of his given name; it was one of the few things he still had from his mother. On the other hand, he would be more than happy to shed the surname given unwillingly to him by a man who only grudgingly admitted his role in creating him.
He thought about it for a few moments. Then, he took up the pen and started signing his new name in bold, flashing strokes. It seemed a bit clumsy at first, but the signature felt more and more natural to him with each document he signed.
From now on, he would be, legally, Severus John Prince Norton, son of John Bennett Norton.
John Norton would be his father. John Norton wanted to be his father. John Norton went to very great lengths to become his father.
Severus had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep the tears from starting down his face. It was the happiest day of his young life.
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Keeping them sorted in his head proved to be easier than he'd hoped.
"Dad" was of course John Norton, that was simple enough. Severus had never called Tobias Snape anything but the formal, distance-signifying "Father". But now, now Severus had a Dad, an actual Dad, a Dad who wanted him. And so Dad John Norton was and Dad he would remain.
Sarah Norton was a little trickier. He loved her very much, nearly as much as Dad, but she wasn't his Mum. That was and would always be Eileen Prince. (Severus had long since stopped thinking of her with her husband's surname.) But he could call Sarah "Mom", which was American and was like a Mum, yet just different enough. Yes, that would work.
And Becky... Becky was still "Brat" most of the time, just as he was still "Stink" to her most of the time. That never changed, and Severus accepted it.
All in all, it was a very good situation, he thought as he walked out that afternoon with Dad to learn how to start and to drive the big John Deere tractor. A very good situation, indeed.
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Lying uneasily in his bed in his bedchambers, Professor Snape's physical form seemed to the outside observer to be secure enough, though obviously tormented by whatever he was thinking and feeling. But in his mind, in a realm unreachable by normal mortal means, Severus Snape was falling to his doom, screaming as he went.
The laughter of the Dark Lord rang inescapably in Severus' ears as he hurtled dazedly through the ether. "You thought to trick me, Severus. So foolish of you..."
The Pain Curse came shooting from the Dark Lord's wand -- and stopped about ten feet from Severus' chest, the energy fizzling out as if it had hit a brick wall.
"What! You dare to defy me, Severus Snape! Crucio!"
And again, the energy stopped and fizzled well before it came near Severus' helpless form.
A mechanical hum could be heard. A man on a tractor appeared. He was carrying a shotgun. So were the two women walking alongside, one a short-haired blonde, the other a wavy-haired light brunette. They were all looking at the Dark Lord, and if mere looks could have killed, he would have shriveled and died on the spot.
Voldemort whirled around to face them, just in time to hear three simultaneous roars, and feel three loads of buckshot in his mid-section. The Dark Lord doubled over in pain and distraction.
"No one messes with Stink but me!" shrilled the younger of the women, reloading her shotgun.
Suddenly, the voices of two other women could be heard wafting through the ether, like whispers in the winds at first, but slowly getting stronger.
The first, young and light: "We won't let you fall, Severus. I won't let you fall, Severus. I love you."
The second, old and powerful: "No one harms my grandson-in-law, Buster. Nobody. Not while I'm around."
Severus felt the energy behind the first voice become a warm, soft pink blanket between him and the Dark Lord, lifting him, cushioning him, protecting him. Julie?...
I told you I wouldn't let you fall, Severus. Ever.
Julie, he'll hurt you... he's too strong...
No, he's not. Gran's taking his worst efforts and grinning.
Hjordis?... Hjordis is here?...
The scene suddenly changed, and they were all in what looked to be a small room. Julie was still a pink mist surrounding Severus, but Hjordis had now assumed a human form, that of an old, gout-ridden woman in a walker. The Dark Lord squinted his slitted eyes at her and laughed.
"Pathetic old biddy, do you think you can defeat me?"
Hjordis smiled, and held up a liver-spotted hand. In the hand was a small gold locket.
"Give that to me, woman!" thundered the Dark Lord.
Hjordis' hand closed around the locket. A potato ricer appeared in her other hand, and Hjordis popped the little hunk of gold into it, her strong hands shooting the locket through the device just like it was another cooked spud.
A blast of white light shot from the destroyed locket, overwhelming everyone and everything.
As Severus was thrown back out of the ether, back into the normal places inhabited by sleeping people, his last thought was: But I didn't marry Julie... or did I?