Chapter 1

Ayasha

When my father died my sisters and I breathed, for a moment, a sigh of relief. Our sadness had been great but his suffering had been ever so much more. Throughout his entire life our father had known fewer kindnesses than should ever be known to any man. This, however, we did not find out until after his death. Our collective sigh was tinged with curiosity as well, for the man we called 'Father' lived his entire life in secret. Even in the days when he was married and bounced us on his knee, saw us to school and even walked Savannah, the eldest of us, down the aisle at her wedding, he kept so much more hidden away. His diaries and journals collected dust on the shelves in his study and though we longed to sneak in and take a small peak at the man our father was, we all knew that if we valued our lives we would not dare to open the cracked leather covers.

I myself had just turned twenty when the news of our father's death had reached me. I was living in a small flat in Muggle London, just getting used to my new surroundings and re-adjusting to the muggle world when I received the fateful telephone call from my one and only brother, Nico.

Nico and I were closest, myself being the baby of us all, was the only one he had ever been able to act like a proper brother and protect me and I, being the youngest, fully accepted this preferential treatment with little complaint. Our father was nearly 60 when I was born and was nearly 81 when he died.

Nico had called me and let me know he had booked a spot for me on the next flight from London to Pittsburgh, there was a lay-over in Atlanta though, and it would be best if I only brought a carry on; Anouk had agreed to buy me a nice dress once I arrived, so as to avoid missed flights due to security or lost luggage.

I arrived back in Pittsburgh on a very cold, bitter evening. Three inches of snow lay on the ground outside of the airport and the moon shown bright and full in the blue-black sky overhead. I remembered all the special moments my father and I had shared that were similar to this, the cold turning our cheeks pink and the thick blankets of snow that coated the sidewalks as we walked carefully through town trying to find Christmas presents for my mother and sisters, and of course dear Nico.

By the time I arrived my father was an old man by muggle standards. He wore his thinning gray hair in a tail wrapped in a regal black ribbon and kept his goatee in perfect order with daily pruning. By this time he must have given up his evil ways because I scarcely remembered even so much has a harsh word ever passing his lips. He was by no means a jovial old man, he simply was my father and as such he was very indulgent and attached to me. He always read to me. All 5 of us had been home-schooled by our father, but it was me especially he drilled into important works of literature, both muggle and magical and he always lured me to sleep with the sound of his deep voice reciting potion ingredients and new cauldron standards. I was always so worried about living up to my sisters. When I was very young he would braid my hair before bed, cooing about how I looked so much like my sister, or when I cried for him he would remark how much like my sister I was. 'Which one?' I would laugh and he smiled. I was often afraid that he might decide he preferred them over me, so I worked extra hard in all of my studies, especially potions, to impress him and to keep his love with me. I never understood until now that there was never any danger of that love ever leaving.

"Hello little one." a tall, thin man shouted out to me over the wind. His long coat whipped behind him as he trudged through the snow to collect my bag and put it in the back of his car.

"Hello Nico." I smiled half-heartedly, happy to see my brother, but sad on the occasion that had brought us back together. Nico had just settled into a house with his new wife, Susan, a pretty blonde from Boston. She was shy and quiet and always looked as though saying her name the wrong way might make her burst into tears. Susan was 5 years older than my brother, which made her a decade older than myself but that didn't stop us from being good friends. Out of all my sisters, Susan had decided that I was her confidant and thus was elected Maid of Honor over Savannah, who will still foam at the mouth in anger if you ask her to retell the story.

"How was the flight?" Susan asked as I slid into the backseat of the Volkswagon.

"Tiring, boring, bad food and even worse films if you can imagine!" I smiled, genuinely happy to see my sister-in-law. Nico slid into the drivers seat and began pulling away from the curb.

"How's London then?" He asked, gazing back at me through the rear view mirror. Sometimes it was like looking directly into my father's eyes.

"It's busy, noisy, full of muggles." This statement made him laugh and Susan shudder. Susan was a muggle, and although she knew perfectly well that she'd married into a wizarding family, the concept still shook her up. It was a new and scary thing to learn, that your new husband, the love of your life, had a secret he kept from you, not just the type of underwear he wore, but something so all encompassing, it could completely change the way you saw him forever.

I let her shiver register before going on,

"There is a conference in two weeks time on the standards of magical education in the UK and Europe which I am expected to attend, of course, and in January, after holidays are over I am going to begin student teaching at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"What an exciting life you lead sister dear. Where exactly is this place?"

"Scotland, I think." I faltered somewhat, but Nico kept on with friendly conversation.

"Which class will you be teaching then?"

"Potions, of course" I rolled my eyes and smiled, "I think I was bring prepped from conception to have this job. Even if it is just student teaching at the moment. Dad was obsessed!" I nearly laughed, but a sob broke through when I realized that I had just used the past tense and the word 'dad' in the same sentence for the first time. Except this time I wasn't referring to something he did last week, I was referring to his entire life. Nico did catch this, and let me sob quietly into my hat for the rest of the ride to our old home.

Savannah was waiting for me when we pulled into the driveway. Her face was contorted with anger and hurt and jealousy, the only three things I was always convinced, she was ever able to feel. I barely had a foot out of the car when I heard her banshee shrieks.

"How dare you! You come into this house acting as though you have a right to be here, you left him when he was so sick and you left him with me! You were always the favorite and you left him with me! I was so happy to get out of that house, happy to be rid of him, but no! You went running off to jolly old England the first chance you could get!" I examined her for a moment, her frizzy blonde hair had come free of its barrette and now framed her face like a lions mane, her teeth were bared unattractively and the few extra pounds she had always carried seemed now so much more obvious, giving her the appearance of someone's spinster aunt. Savannah had never been the beauty of us girls, but she had a nice face and an endearing manner except when it came to our father. He loved her, she was his daughter, but he never seemed to really care for us. When by the age of 10 she showed no aptitude of magic at all, my father threw up his hands and sent her to public school. What could he teach her that would be beneficial in the muggle world? Literature, yes, Maths, yes, but History of the wizarding world was all her knew in that avenue, and his science experience was limited to potions-making. Savannah was sent to public school where her funny way of speaking (using terms like 'muggle') in combination of the fact she started after cliques had long been established, made it difficult to find any friends at all.

On the occasion of her screaming at me as I arrived to bury our father, I simply ignored her and walked into the house. I walked past Samara, who smiled genially at me as I passed her and went straight into the kitchen. She had rose from her seat and followed me through the swinging door.

"Samara." I said, not turning to face her, as I prepared a cup of tea for myself.

"She hasn't gone round the bend, yet. She's just tired." Samara reasoned with a sigh. Samara always saw the good in everyone. She always saw the most positive aspect of every situation and it was very irritating sometimes. I turned and looked at her with skepticism clearly painted on my face. She looked at me straight on and then got up to make her self a cup as well. Samara and I were the most alike. We were both stubborn and had wills of iron. We both looked just like father as well. She had always kept her poker straight hair short, because of its thinness, and her obstinate chin and large nose gave her the look of a haute couture model, however, she had forgone a fast-paced life in international modeling to be a housewife and mother to her three sons, James, David and Luke.

"What are you talking about?"

"She has been with Dad none stop these last few months. The rest of us have just been so busy. Anouk has all that work and Cornelius just getting married, you off in London and I have the boys of course. Lukey's magic seems to have finally come through as well. The news didn't sit well with her. God forbid she ever mother a witch or wizard."

"God forbid she ever mother anything at all." I giggled and Samara smiled at me.

"How are things?" She asked, her face straight again.

"They are busy. I am starting at Hogwarts in January."

"Hogwarts?" Samara asked, putting her cup down with more force than even she had expected.

"Yes. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." I replied with a proud smile. "Why? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing. That was where dad taught before he came here. Didn't you know that?"

"No I didn't! I was never told this at all! How do you know?" I replied, a little upset and very disappointed that I had never been let onto this secret.

"When I turned eleven I received my Hogwarts papers. Mother put up such a fight! You were still a baby then. She adamantly refused to send me so far away and all by myself. At that point Dad started combing the country trying to find a school at would take me. That was how I ended up at Seattle School for Witches and the rest of you at the prestigious Boston College of Magic. Dad tried telling her I was on the other side of the country and just as far away, but she told him at least I was still in the country." Samara shrugged as I tried to pick my jaw up off the floor.

"But, mum died when I was 4. After you'd come back from your first year, the rest of us could have gone to Hogwarts!"

Samara shrugged again.

"I think dad was the type to keep a promise. Even if it was to our muggle mother." She trailed off a bit here and I took it as a chance to leave. Her mentioning Dad's teaching at Hogwarts made my mind float to the room directly above us. His study.

I left the kitchen quietly and walked softly up the stairs and down the long corridor to his office. The door seemed to jump open as I touched the handle and the creaking of the door juxtaposed the eternal silence this room now rested in. I clicked the door shut behind me and basked in the quiet for a few moments, though it seemed like hours, waiting for Savannah to come in screaming again. When she failed to materialize, I ran to the opposite wall and grasping at the shelf I read the titles of all the books that sat before me. One, was plain leather bound, its pages not yet yellowed with age. I grasped it, hoping for the opportunity to understand the man I so loved and admired. The first page was dated May 2004. The month I graduated he had begun a new journal!

Silently, I read on.

"May 2004

My dearest Ayasha. Clever, sweet Ayasha, so like your sister. Every book in this study is now yours. This wish is also stated in my will, to be read promptly postmortem so that your sister will not have a chance to sink her claws into anything that is not meant to be hers.

I have left you all of this for a reason. I want you to know everything. You are my most beloved child, there is no denying it and I feel that it is you who must know the truth because you will judge me fairly. Savannah has already made her mind up about me, although I did everything in my power to give her a good life. But what good is a father who belongs to a completely separate world?

Samara is a good girl, but she has not the thirst for all dimensions of knowledge, like you do. Anouk is simply too like her mother and of course I cannot let Cornelius know any of this. A son is always most at risk of following the same path as his father and the less he knows, even though he is grown now, the better. It is you my Ayasha, that I leave my life and my history to. There are things I have done, both great and terrible. There are a great number of things I regret and that I do not regret. You know me well enough to be able to tell the difference. I leave you my past in hopes that you might be able to amend things for me, if you feel it proper to do so. I never had gave myself the chance to do it whilst I was on Earth and I can only hope that you will carry out my last wishes for me. My life is yours now, do what you will with it. It is now all in your beautiful hands.

Your ever-loving father,

Severus Snape