Chapter 99: What Becomes Of Apples From Trees
{A/N: Here's Another Update...The beginning of the rain...late post, forgive the mistakes...}
My Thanks To All My Readers And Reviewers...Enjoy-S.S.
Warning: Abuse and Spousal sexual assault included in flashback...Sexual content ahead
The Snape Residence, Muggle London, England...
Morning at The Snape residence had been quite a thing given all the breakfast eating and dressing Sidney for Primary school. Upon awakening there had been a good deal of excitement with Hermione experiencing what was referred to as Braxton Hicks contractions. A process that despite having been made aware of during her pregnancy with Sidney continued to catch the panicked Potions Master off guard. She had awoken him in a panic of her own feeling the movement of their unborn child within. Snape hopped out of bed with the same infamous cat like reflexes he had since his time as a spy and possibly before hand given all that he suffered as a child. His wand had been gripped tight in his large pale hand and his obsidian eyes focused so intensely on Hermione and their unborn child as if he had been given the power to see in the dark, as well as any cat that was on the prowl in the empty alleys.
"Severus." said Hermione as fear coursed through her.
Hearing the trembling in his wife's tone seemed to bring Snape to the present as he made his way over toward her.
"It's alright love." he said climbing back into bed with her as she quickly took his free hand and squeezed it for dear life. "I'm here...you are safe...it's just the pre-birth contractions...breath like the doctors have told you to."
Hermione did as he requested.
Snape got into bed with his lean form behind supporting her from behind much like he had been instructed to by those very same muggle and wizarding doctors. His long legs on either side of his pregnant wife like a kind of barrier as she leaned her back against him. She had been doing her best to breath despite the tensing of her body that came as a result of her fear. To further get her to relax during this time, Snape had discovered while she had been pregnant with Sidney, that rubbing her back also contributed to her passing the time. He did so as she began to loosen up and the contractions passed.
"Soon love." he said softly in her ear.
His free hand moving from her back to her belly as effortlessly as when he had been preparing ingredients of one of his potions.
"I'm so happy to have you home." said Hermione leaning against him as she caught her breath. "I couldn't imagine doing this without you again."
Snape silently pushed back his thoughts of the past and how she had to fare without him during her pregnancy with Phaeron.
"Shhhh." he said softly still stroking her belly. "Think nothing of it love...just relax...I'm here...and we are together...that is all that matters."
Taking his advice, Hermione settled back down losing herself in the pleasure of her husband's soft touch.
She had loved him more than he would ever know.
Snape planted a kiss atop the sleepy witch's head and eased her back into a contented sleep.
That was how their morning began.
Hours later Snape had gotten up and began his usual morning routine fussing about in a bid to ready himself for work and to take Sidney to Primary school. Getting the rather rambunctious boy dressed, fed, and out the door was a war in it of itself. Especially when he wished to play or sleep in or throw his food around in a bid to get his father's wavering attention. Gryffindors.
Snape shuffled the fully dressed and happily readied boy out the door with one last kiss to his pregnant wife as he and Sidney began their day. Hermione had been alone only for the course of two hours when Severus had come home not at all too keen on having Hermione be home alone. She had been on bed rest for the duration of the pregnancy and it worried Snape to leave her alone for so many hours.
His boss, a surprisingly sympathetic muggle man, had taken pity on the weary Professor and allowed him to stay home with her at least until the baby was born. He had surprised Hermione with this knowledge upon his unscheduled return to the flat that evening. She had initially been skeptical about his apparent vacation time and looked into it personally. Once everything was in the clear, she had been overjoyed to have his company.
They conversed, debated, ate, and planned for the future of their unborn child as thoroughly as they had the first two. Phaeron being a Potions Master like Severus was always a given. Sidney had been the true wild card in the group. This new baby, had been a tricky one to plan for given they knew nothing of the personality that would emerge once the birth took place.
Soon Mr. and Mrs Snape found themselves exhausted and passed out rather unceremoniously on the sofa. Hermione rested her head in her sleeping husband's lap while he sat up with his back pressed against the sofa and his arms around her. The witch had been stretched out on her back with her belly beneath his possessive hand.
The book they had both been indulging in had fallen to the floor from the lack of space on the sofa.
{ Spinner's End had been as vivid as the day it had been before it's destruction. Even more so given that it had been the year 1966. Severus Sebastian Snape had been only six years of age when he stumbled through the halls in the middle of the night. He had heard the screams that had shattered his sleep for close to three hours now. His trembling had only intensified as his drunk brute of a father beat his mother swelling her dark eyes and busting her pale lips.
The copper scent of blood had been thick in the barely can be described sitting room of old. Broken glass, and toppled furniture, whatever can be called as such littered the otherwise barren hard wood floor.
Tears streamed down the sallow pale face of the six year old Severus as he made his way toward the kitchen. As he neared the hall the unmistakable sound of his father grunting caught his attention. Fearing for his mother though he had no idea why, Severus quickened his steps. Once he entered the kitchen he was treated to a sight that he would never be able to erase for as long as he lived.
Tobias Snape, his so called father had his mother Eileen pinned against the very table where they ate whatever passed for any sort of meal in those impoverish days. Her face was swollen from various bruises and tears streamed down her sallow pale cheeks. She did not put up a struggle as he held her body into the cold teal painted steel. Her usual yellow cotton dress had been raised at the waistline and her knickers cast aside.
The obsidian eyes of Tobias Snape fell upon his young son Severus as a wicked grin filed across his face.
"COME BOY!" he demanded the look of malice not retreating.
Severus took a step forward in his need to obey his drunken father.
"Let me learn you how a man takes what he wants from a woman." he spat throwing his now empty bottle of whiskey against the nearby wall and shattering it to pieces on impact.
The noise did little to startle the emotionally dead Eileen as she laid there allowing her husband to have his fill of sexual conquest lest he take to beating their six year old for entertainment.
Severus tried to shield his eyes after noting upon getting close enough to that his father's trousers were about his ankles and that he was thrusting rather violently into his helpless wife.
Tears streamed down the cheeks of Severus as he noted that what his father was doing was terribly wrong and that he was intentionally hurting his mother.
"GO ON AND CRY YOU LITTLE QUEER!" thundered the voice of his father as he continued to thrust into the battered Eileen. "You're a fucking waste of time and money just like your fucking useless bitch of mother."
Severus had never hated anyone so much in his young life as much as he hated Tobias Snape. He made a silent vow to himself that he would never be anything like that monster was to the mother of his children. }
"Severus." the concerned voice of Hermione Granger-Snape seemed to shatter what appeared to be a bad dream.
The Potions Master's obsidian eyes fluttered open and he found himself back at the flat with Hermione's amber eyes peering into him with utmost concern.
"Severus wake up." she said her voice had been kind and bordering on mother-like.
Focusing on his wife, Snape seemed to find his way back to reality.
"H-Hermione?" he said confused.
"Y-You were..." started the bushy haired witch as if she knew not how to find the words. "Well...there's tears running down your cheeks."
Snape arched an eyebrow at this and touched his face. The feel of wetness had furthered his confusion. Apparently, he had been weeping in his sleep. So much so that it caused concern for Hermione.
"I-I don't know what to say." he said looking at her as if he had been ashamed.
"Don't." said Hermione forcing him to meet her gaze. "Don't hide yourself away from me Severus...I am not ashamed of you."
Snape closed his eyes trying to get a better sense of himself.
"Talk to me." she said softly stroking his tear stained cheeks.
"I was dreaming of...Tobias and Eileen." he replied honestly. "I have not really thought of them all that much in years...aside from my trip to Spinner's End I haven't really thought about them at all."
"Do you miss them?" asked Hermione unsure if she should inquire further about her in-laws.
"No." replied Snape in an emotionless tone.
"Then why?" asked Hermione before she found herself cut off.
"I hated them." he replied looking into her amber eyes. "My mother was weak and cared nothing for her self nor I...Tobias wasn't any kind of father that I would wish on my greatest enemy...he was an abusive drunkard and given to preference of sexual assault."
Upon hearing this Hermione's eyes widened.
"Severus..." she began.
"Think nothing of it." he replied still emotionless. "They're fucking dead and good riddance I say...the world is better off without them."
Hermione had been stunned by the apparent rage behind that last statement.
"Severus what were you dreaming about?" she asked inquiring further despite the signs that she shouldn't pry.
"Are you sure you want to know?" he asked as if it were some dark thing that would destroy her innocent beliefs.
The bushy haired witch met her husband's gaze.
"Yes." she said true to her Gryffindor nature.
"I was about Sidney's age..." began Snape looking off into the distance as if he were going some place far away for the memory. "When I heard the familiar sounds of the drunken brute beating my mother in the kitchen...her favorite place in the house it seemed...she's spend hours scrubbing the floor there...day in and day out it's where I always found her...no matter how clean she had gotten it...he would always find a way to make it dirty again."
"He?" asked Hermione wanting to understand this tortured man she married.
"Tobias of course." replied Snape. "Her sorry excuse for a husband...if he wasn't home beating her for much of my childhood...he was drinking away the only money we had...if mother were not so good with Potion making and the like we'd have starved for sure..."
"Y-You get your love of potions from your mother?" asked Hermione stunned to note this about her husband.
Snape sighed thinking back on how his mother use to take him into the kitchen and read from her journal all the ways to mix and brew potions and elixirs for any kind of ailment. She had mostly shown him for first aid purposes if Tobias had beaten her a little too badly and she needed to brew for their supper or for proper healing...that sort of thing.
From the time he had reached the age of ten, Severus was an experienced Potioneer. So much so that Slughorn wasn't able to really teach him any thing at Hogwarts. He simply attended the class for access to ingredients to make his own brews.
"Something to that sort." replied Snape not wishing to confuse the point. "Anyway, Tobias was in the kitchen with Eileen bent over the breakfast table."
Hermione didn't seem to register what he was getting at.
"He beat her until her face was swollen and was marred by tears...then proceeded to brutally rape her in front of a six year old boy." said Snape emotionless despite the trauma he apparently suffered.
Hermione gasped in complete horror.
"Severus." she said unable to imagine what it must have been like for her husband to grow up in such a terrible environment.
"Do not pity me Hermione." said Snape almost bitterly. "I am no saint...and over the years it seemed the apple did not fall far from the tree."
This caught the stunned witch's attention.
"Severus what are you...?" she started.
The Potions Master got to his feet leaving his puzzled wife behind on the sofa.
"I have never believe much in hope." he said looking into her eyes. "Not before I met you witch...after everything that you've shown me about love and family, it's a wonder I am still here...even given my own lack of upbringing...but for the first time in my life I find myself hoping...that my children take after their mother...I hope that ever once of goodness that is in you witch is what they inherit...because I am my father's son."
Hermione didn't know what to say.
She couldn't even began to understand what he was trying to tell her.
"Severus you are a good man." she said trying to grasp a concept that would reach him.
"No." he said taking a breath. "I am not...I am the son of a monster Hermione...Dumbledore knew it...Potter knew it...both if we are being honest...hell even Black knew it when we were kids...Lily knew it...it's why she left me...The Dark Lord knew it hence he recruited me...I am the son of Tobias Snape...even my mother recognized what she had given life to...and hated me accordingly."
"I don't believe that." said Hermione getting to her feet.
"Of course not." replied Snape with a sigh. "You see the good in everyone...even when you are hurting...I was a death eater for real once...witch...there was no honorable reason for joining a group of murderers and brutes...I've been downing various bottles of firewhiskey for years...I am as much a drunkard as Tobias and equally cruel...the things I've done in both wars would shake you to your core...the people I've hurt number in the thousands...I am my father's son wither you want to believe it or not."
"Severus you are nothing like him." said Hermione in a stern tone.
"Not to you." he spat bitterly.
"Not just to me." replied Hermione defensive of him even to himself. "Your children love you...I love you...the wizarding world is indebted to you for all that you've done to help defeat Voldemort...what your father did was monstrous and cruel...no one should ever have to endure what you had to especially not as a child..."
"Hermione...I wish I was the man you want me to be." he said sadly. "I wish that I was that simple to live life through your eyes...but I know who I am...I know what I've done...no amount of wishing nor honey words could ever change that."
"There is good in you Severus." said Hermione as tears streamed down her own cheeks.
"Because of you." he replied walking over toward her.
He stroked her cheek and wiped the tears away.
"If I am anything worthy it is because of you...Hermione." he said softly. "Perhaps one day I will be able to explain it to you...perhaps not...but my past is a very real thing and I fear that my children will have to answer for it."
"I won't let you look down on yourself." said the amber eyed witch. "You are worthy of love wither you chose to believe it or not."
Snape smirked.
"You insist on fighting me on this." he said.
"You're damn right I do." she replied a flicker of defiance in her amber eyes.
"Ever the Gryffindor cause seeker." he said unable to resist a quip at her former house.
"Look who's talking cynical Slytherin extraordinaire." she replied with a quip of her own. "Face it, Severus Sebastian Snape, I do not regret marrying you...there is no other wizard I would rather share the rest of my life with...if you need assurance, look no further than our children...you being their father is surely a testament of my love for you...and trust me Severus if I did not love you there is no way I would be this pregnant at this present moment."
Snape treated her to a hearty chuckle.
"You are indeed very pregnant." he said amused. "Thought it can technically be attributed to how much you love my cock than me."
Hermione rolled her eyes and punched the ever cynical git in the arm. Snape continued to laugh and offered blatant apologies for his crudeness in a bid to stop the raining blows from her. He managed to smooth things over and get her to join him back on the sofa where he massaged her feet in payment of his insolence and as a gesture of his appreciation for her having to carry his child within her belly.
"You terrify me witch." he said after a moment or two of silence.
Hermione looked at him further puzzled.
"Me?" she asked in disbelief.
Snape smirked as he watched the expression on her face.
"I have never known a more passionate, nor loving person in all my life." he elaborated. "From the very moment I met you...you have been this force of nature that couldn't be tamed...too smart for your own good and brave to a fault."
The bushy haired witch smiled at the detailed compliment.
"Well you are a force of nature yourself." she said nearing a giggle. "Especially in the bedroom."
This earned another chuckle from Snape.
"I aim to please." he replied smoothly taking her hand into his own and kissing it. "Whatever happens...know that I do love you witch...and I am so very grateful to have you in my life."
"I know that you love me wizard." she replied with a smile. "But understand that I love you more than you could ever imagine and to hear someone speak about you as if you were..."as you put it" monster...makes my wand hand itch to cast a few hexes...even if that someone is you."
"Point taken." said Snape smoothly.
"Good." replied Hermione pleased to have settled the matter. "Now dashingly handsome wizard of mine...take me to bed...we have some hurt feelings to iron out and must do so promptly."
Snape smirked knowing all too well where she was going with this.
"As you wish Mrs. Snape." he replied pleasantly.
Both Hermione and Severus ventured toward their bedroom. They had a few hours before Sidney had to be picked up from Primary school. Snape spent the first four of them earning his wife's forgiveness for ever doubting himself or her love for him in the confines of their shared bed.