Title: The Pureblood Prince

Chapter Title: The Moment

By MystFatale (I had a name change ;) )

Disclaimer: All characters you recognise belong to J.K. Rowling.

AN: Thank you all so much for your nice reviews. Sorry this chapter took quite a while to get up. This was meant to be doubly as long but I decided to cut down the length substantially. So the next chapter shouldn't be too far around the corner :)

CHAPTER VIII: The Moment

Severus couldn't quite comprehend what the woman had just said. All these years… he had never even seen his grandmother before. The enormity of what this sudden meeting would mean to him hadn't quite sunk in yet.

Mrs. Prince motioned to two of Hagrid's low chairs, though by the look on her face it appeared she would have preferred to stand in the doorway. "Shall we sit down and get better acquainted?"

"Why are you here?" Severus demanded, ignoring her request. Ever since he was a young child he had wanted to meet his mother's parents, he had never pushed the issue with his mother though – silly really, he guessed probably should have. He supposed the childlike trust one has that their mother was all-knowing and omnipotent had carried into his later years.

But now, being face-to-face with her, with the side of his family he always thought he would have belonged to much more than the Snape's, the harsh realisation of their past actions had hit him completely.

"I wanted to see my grandson for the first time," Mrs. Prince replied haughtily. "Is that so strange to you, boy?" She dusted off one of the low-slung chairs and sat gracefully upon it. Her grandson remained standing.

"Why now?"

"I wanted to have a proper look at you before you left Hogwarts. I don't suspect I'd get a chance if I left you leave this place and go back home to your parents."

"And that's really urgent, is it?"

Mrs. Prince shot him a wry smile… he didn't like the way she looked at him.

"You could say it was, yes. Please, sit down"

Severus decided he might as well.

For a few moments neither Severus nor the old lady spoke. What could he possibly say to her? She was a stranger to him, grandmother or not. Mrs. Prince certainly did not appear as uncomfortable; she was looking him up and down, occasionally cocking her head to one side as if to make sure he didn't transform into a completely different being at certain angles. After a few minutes, she appeared, not pleased with, but acceptant of his authenticity.

"Ah. I see you are a Slytherin, boy!" She finally spoke up with great zeal. "I am very proud. I too was a Slytherin, you know. No finer house… you'll be destined for great things."

"I will, will I?" came Severus's half-hearted reply. He certainly didn't take too well to strange old women waltzing into the school on a matter of urgency and telling him they were very proud of him.

"I am sure of it," came Mrs. Prince's reply. "You are a Prince, after all."

"So is mum."

He thought he ought to start testing the waters. The anger that had been bubbling up inside of him would not stay put forever. Mrs. Prince tensed up her hands, then relaxed them, and then repeated the same pattern several times over.

"She was once, child. Before she became a Muggle."

Severus wasn't sure if she had intended to voice the last part so audibly. "No, she married my idiot Muggle father - there's a difference."

He could instantly tell by the way in which the stranger looked at him that he should have kept his stupid mouth shut. "You don't like your father, boy? I should have guessed from the moment that your mother first started running off with that stinking Muggle youngster. Has he hurt you?" The fury in her eyes was irrefutable.

"Not me," Severus snapped angrily. "The only reason I live in that hellhole is to look after my mother, your daughter. The one who you haven't visited ever since I've been alive!"

"That was her choice, not mine."

"It's your choice!"

"It has been my choice to seek you out!" Mrs. Prince spat back with equal vehemence. "Your mother barred me from your household eighteen years ago! You are my only grandchild – the last remaining heir to the Prince line! No matter what your blood… paternal heritage is, you are still half a Prince. Soon to be the only one left."

This sudden outburst seemed to take a lot out of her. Nothing she was saying was new to Severus; it simply created more questions, and more anger.

"I have waited eighteen years for you to land on my front door. You never have. Therefore, I must take things into my own hands from here on in."

"What is it that you want, exactly?" Severus asked yet again. "You appear to have a talent for evading fundamental questions. Doesn't work too well in the company of another Slytherin, I can assure you."

"I want you to stay with your grandfather and I over the holidays. Your mother need not know anything about it; tell your parents you shall be at one of your school friends homes…" Mrs. Prince explained with an infuriating air of confidence. "Let me train you to be the wizard you deserve to be."

"Wasn't that what all this Hogwarts business was for?" Severus smugly retorted. To his surprise, the woman gave a bitter laugh.

"I am talking of the magic of, say, the restricted section kind. You want to stop what your bastard Muggle father is doing to your mother? I can show you ways to punish him in which you've only dreamed, Severus…."

"I have my own ways, thank you." Severus said, visibly unimpressed. He bit one of his fingernails lazily. "I assure you that nothing you could teach me would be anything new, or anything I would not know."

Mrs. Prince deliberated this. When she spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper – but it was pure poison.

"Have you ever heard of the Death Eaters, Severus?"

~*~

~*~

Eileen Prince was coming home for the last time, and she was very excited. As she sat in one of the carriages of the Hogwarts Express, her arm resting on the cold windowsill, watching the summer rain hit the pane gently – she thought she may have felt just a tinge of sadness from leaving Hogwarts forever… but she didn't, not really. She merely felt greatly unbound.

"So who's going to Peter's graduation party? His family have a castle in Scotland! Imagine that!" Lucy Fawcett, a fellow seventh year Ravenclaw with golden blonde hair and one of Eileen's closest friends, stated excitedly.

"Wouldn't pass up that opportunity!" Catriona McKinnon piped. "Are you dragging your boyfriend along, Luce?"

"Of course. Who else is going hold my travelling cloak while I'm dancing with you girls?"

"What else are wizards for?"

The two girls giggled and continued gossiping about the apparent 'party of the year' for the graduating witches and wizards for most of the remainder of the journey. Eileen knew they would force her to go… she supposed she might as well; it beat sharing the same space with the monster of a father she had any day.

Not that she would have to stand him much longer.

As usual, her parents were waiting at Kings Cross when she arrived. Eileen thought they needn't have bothered… she could apparate herself where she pleased and hardly needed parental escort. She was happy to see her mother, though.

"I'll send you an owl in a couple of days, Leeny." Lucy said, giving her friend a tight hug. "Promise me we'll never lose touch… ok?"

"You were my closest friend at school, Luce – I'm afraid you're stuck with me now." Eileen replied with a friendly smile. If there was one thing she would miss about Hogwarts, it was her Ravenclaw friends. With another quick hug and a wave, Lucy had apparated.

"Hello, darling. I've missed you."

Her mother, who had been waiting patiently for Eileen to say goodbye to all her friends, had now drawn her daughter into a gentle embrace with one arm. She still felt as delicate as ever. "Hello, mother."

Atticus Prince wasn't nearly as welcoming but Eileen couldn't falter his effort. Apart from the short nod of greeting at Platform 9 ¾ he did not speak until the three Princes apparated into their West Sussex manor.

"I believe congratulations are in order?" he said in usual stiff and supercilious way after Eileen had packed away her belongings and had settled in their living room. "Top Potions student in the school for over a hundred years, according to Headmaster Dippet. I spoke to him at a Ministry meeting."

"Yes, well." Eileen replied, rather uninterested at Atticus's attempt to praise. Her mind was swimming on pleasant thoughts of her new founded freedom.

Time seemed to drag on forever as she waited for six o' clock to roll around. Eileen busied herself by sorting away all the potions she had brought back with her – many her own inventions, which needed testing. Her magical equipment, books, potions and various knick-knacks lay all over the manor; her parents encouraged her to use the better resources available to better herself as a witch.

Eileen had never known life outside of this colossal, cold manor. No matter how much she tried to deny it, she knew that she was a spoiled rich girl who had always been given ample resources to excel. It was a thought that constantly got to Eileen, it made her feel very unworthy of her accomplishments. The only way she could ever get rid of this horrible feeling was to leave this house for good.

And by inventing things.

When she invented, ample resources meant nothing if she didn't have good theories and a curious mind. Every accomplishment in this area was something Eileen knew was all thanks to her, and not her parent's money. But, if she had been honest with herself, which she wasn't at this present time, she would have accepted the fact that the wizarding world was leaving her with less and less reverence for it as the years passed. It was simply all too easy, and all too familiar.

Six o' clock made its sluggish way around eventually. Eileen, who usually did not like using spells for everyday mundane tasks, was forced to use a drying spell on her hip-length black hair as she had spent far too long in the bath. She quickly pulled on a pale blue dress and made herself as decent as possible, and was pulling out some of the more painful looking high heels from the very back of her wardrobe (which her mother had bought her and she had refused to wear) as the doorbell rang.

"Missy!" her father called from downstairs. "Door!"

"Don't bother!" Eileen shouted back as she rushed down the stairs. For two people who were so usually so motivated and industrious in their work, her parents were atrociously lazy with household tasks – relying on their poor overworked house elf for everything.

She managed to rush out of the door and was hurrying down the driveway with her female companion by the time her mother appeared at the front entrance. Serafina could verbalise displeasure all she wanted, but Eileen could safely pretend not to hear her – the night was off to a good start!

"Bye, mother! Yes, I love you too!" Eileen shouted with a comic wave. The Muggle girl running next to her hit her playfully on the shoulder.

~*~

~*~

Severus stumbled back into the Slytherin common room a good two hours after he had planned. Potions exam rather forgotten, he threw himself into one of the green leather chairs by the fireplace – feeling far too lost in thought to give any attention in positioning himself properly.

She shouldn't have come… that was for certain. He had told her so in the end, but only after hearing what it was she had to say. Severus wondered now if that had been the right course of action. He felt as if he had betrayed the only person who had possibly ever loved him; or at least pretended to.

He should have refused to speak to the old woman completely.

But he didn't. And from the ideas and promises and hopes that she had now implanted into his mind - he knew he would live to regret it…. having no choice than to suffer had always seemed like the worst possible scenario to Severus; but now, now he had been presented with a choice. A choice he refused. Suddenly, the feeling of having nothing paled in comparison to the feeling that he had just knowingly turned down everything.

"Oi!"

Severus nearly jumped out of his skin. He gave a quick unwelcome jolt before whipping around to see Aurora standing behind him, hands on her hips and looking very intrigued indeed.

"What?"

"What do you mean 'what'?! Where on earth have you been? It's nine thirty!"

"I don't have to be studying in the common room all the time, you know."

"No, I'm sure you'd much rather get caught by Filch studying in a dark, closed library." Aurora said, rolling her eyes… Severus had noticed she did that quite a lot. She took a seat opposite him. "Did you even manage to study for this tiny little trivial thing called the Potions NEWT exam tomorrow?"

"As a matter of fact, Hagrid let me study for my detention." Severus replied lazily. The exam was the last thing on his mind at present.

Aurora gave him a satisfied smile. "My plan worked then."

"Yes, you are a mastermind at blatantly bringing Hagrid up to date with our exam schedule. I shall build you a shrine."

"Oh, the galleons I would pay to see you dancing around a shrine, Snape. You could make a fortune."

"Can't you study anywhere but near me?"

Aurora omitted a heavy sarcastic sigh. "But I wanted to be as close to you as humanely possible!"

"Hilarity is surely your middle name, Sinistra."

"Actually, it's Shobha. But I'm sure if I wasn't cursed with primarily Hindu speaking parents then Hilarity may have made an appearance." Aurora replied over her textbook, not bothering to look him in the eye. "Anyway, it's too cold up in the dormitories… and seeing that the only other girl doing the NEWT exam is dimmer than a black hole that's been covered in black paint and thrown into the back of a closet - well, compared to us anyway - then I thought I might as well go through some notes with you."

"Just how long did you wait to throw the black hole joke out there?"

Aurora shrugged. "I've been working on it since you left."

Severus could not help but smirk. He supposed that studying for this final exam would, for the time being, distract him of thoughts of his grandmother's promises. He ripped Aurora's notes out of her hand. "Alright, seeing as you did give me a lot of physics notes for our Astronomy exam - what is it you want to go over? … Ah, well, see, this is wrong for a start…"

~*~

~*~

The roaring Muggle bar in the middle of London was nothing and everything like Eileen had always dreamed it would be. Full of life and laughter and dancing and joy. There was nothing cold, nothing genteel about it; Eileen liked that. For the first hour and a bit she and her Muggle friend had a few drinks, tried to have a decent chat over the loud music crackling over them (while they failed at the latter, it hardly bothered them) – all which ended in the two of them dancing with each other in a more secluded section of the dance floor.

Eileen had not laughed so much in years. Freedom had suddenly been handed to her – and not on a silver platter.

"I need to sit down a while, Aofie!" she shouted over the music while limping over to a barstool. Aofie, her blonde Muggle best friend, continued to dance with various bar occupants, clearly a tad more inebriated then Eileen herself. Whatever would her parents say?

"What'll it be, love?" the bartender asked loudly. Eileen gaped at him for a while. She had never ordered a Muggle drink before… without Aofie there to harp in before her, she was rather stuck.

"Um… a red wine, please." … She was sure that Muggles drunk wine. Didn't they?

"Merlot?"

"That's fine."

Handing the bartender the Muggle money that she had kept in her room after exchanging it in her fourth year (she had wanted to see what it looked like and had never really found any use for it until now), sipping on her merlot and watching the Muggles, Eileen could not help but feel closed off from them all. She felt a certain stab of jealousy; that she could never truly fit in with them. She supposed she could study them… find out as much as she could for the time being…

There was a loud crash near the jukebox. The bartender suddenly quipped up: "OI! YOU LOT! I've warned you before!". Eileen turned around to see four or five young men dressed in very scruffy looking clothes laughing and raising their beer glasses.

"Sorry mate! See here now Brian – I told yer about trying to boogie with the music machine!". The men all roared with laughter. Eileen tried to stifle a smile, but it was no use. She suddenly found herself quietly giggling along with the rest of them.

One of the taller men of the group scanned the bar and had abruptly met her eye. At the sight of him grinning back at her, Eileen looked away and hastily rearranged her smile into a pout, something she assumed looked much more ridiculous.

He had managed to place himself rather clumsily on the stool next to her before she could do anything else.

"Want another drink, ma'am?"

Eileen sloshed her half full glass at him. "No thank you. I've had more than enough, I can tell you."

He was a very rugged looking man, Eileen thought, there was absolutely nothing neat about him at all – scruffy brown hair, unshaven beared, an ancient looking leather jacket… and try as she might, she couldn't help feeling drawn to it.

"Ah ma'am, when you're dancing with jukeboxes you've had enough," the man grinned. The corner of Eileen's lips rose slightly. "What's your name if you don't mind me askin'?"

Her mother's teachings suddenly broke into her mind. "Well, that's a tad impertinent of you. A proper man would tell me his first."

The way in which he stared at her showed her that, while he understood what she had meant, he had obviously not expected her to be so well mannered.

"Sorry miss, but I ain't a proper man," he said. With that lop-sided smirk and that Yorkshire accent, Eileen suddenly felt very weak at the knees… 'How ludicrous!' she thought. The man held out of his hand, "Snape."

"Pardon me?"

"My name. Tobias Snape."

"Oh," Eileen replied, flushing as she took his rough hand. "Prince. Eileen Prince."

"That's a pretty name, ma'am," the man called Tobias Snape said as he kept a hold of her much tinier and frailer hand. "Would yer like to dance, Miss Prince?"

Eileen almost shot her head around the bar; looking for any other women called Miss Prince that Tobias might have been referring to (she was hardly used to invitations like these). "Um, well, my friend is probably ready to go home…", that wasn't a lie. Aofie was currently pulling on her coat and chatting away to one of Tobias Snape's equally scruffy friends. Eileen couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.

Tobias leant a little closer to her, which made her feel somewhat uncomfortable seeing as though they had only just met. "I'm the driver tonight yer know, haven't a drink all evenin' me. I can take yer home later."

Whether it was the alcohol or the man, Eileen was sure. But she agreed to it. She could not even imagine the throttling her father would have given her (behind her mothers back of course) for doing such a stupid thing. Though after learning that Aofie was going home with one of Tobias's friends, she relaxed a little.

He had made her feel special that night. The way he danced with her, the way he wrapped his strong arms around her slight frame. He was so different from the wizard boys at school – but then Eileen had always been attracted to Muggle men. It was the only option, really, since declaring that she would never marry a wizarding man. Not after… everything that had happened.

Tobias leant in close to her long, pale neck. His breath sent shivers down her spine and Eileen closed her eyes, relishing in it, for it was sure not to last forever. She knew she should have stopped right where she was and run outside to apparate - before her parents became unforgivably furious with her, before she did something stupid with this Muggle; but Eileen had never been held, never been whispered to like she was truly wanted, never felt the lips of another's upon her neck... such chapped, strong lips… every breath he made tickled the hairs on her neck and made the rest stand on end.

"You want to go for a drive?" his voice resonated in her ear after a few minutes of bliss.

"I would like that, yes," Eileen whispered back.

~*~