Sors Vita- Chapter 3
Firstly, thank you to all my followers and all those who left a review. They really give me the push needed to continue and make the story even better.
I know many of you have been waiting for this chapter and I apologise. I'm a university student so as many of you may notice it was exam season and that means hardcore studying. I haven't forgotten about this and will try to post a few chapters in quick succession to make up for it. After that I will try to stick to one chapter per week, keyword is try.
Disclaimer: Being the responsible fanfiction writer that I am I remind you all that I am not J.K. Rowling nor do I own the Harry Potter universe.
After learning about the unfortunate circumstances of her son's birth Hermione turned to watch her two son's. Several hours had passed since she had suggested to her son's to play with a alchemy set and to her surprise they were still at it. She watched as the older brother picked on the younger brother, ordering him to mix different color liquids together. Celedonius looked uncertain but without questioning his brother he combined a light blue liquid with the clear one and poof a tiny explosion had occurred. Emeterius was rolling on the ground in laughter, yelling, "I can't believe a smart kid like you fell for it!"
Celedonius was recovering from the shock of the explosion, he had knew that mixing the two liquids would give an unfavorable result but had listened to his older brother anyway. Hermione looked at the shocked expression on the younger boys face and turned to her eldest, "Em, that wasn't very nice. Why don't you apologize to your brother?"
At the sound of his mothers voice Emeterius calmed his laughter and turned to his younger brother. "Sorry 'bout that Don," Emeterius said as he smoothed out his younger brothers hair which had went slightly askew from the blast. Emeterius heard his brothers stomach growl and realized that he was fairly hungry himself. "Mom, isn't it time for dinner at the Great Hall?"
Hermione glanced up at the clock on the wall, the Dungeons being underground didn't look different during the day than it did in the night. She jumped up noticing that it was time for dinner and remembered her employers comment about dinner when she was at their quarters. "Oh, it is. I'll just go get your father."
Hermione headed towards the rooms she had found herself in this morning. She considered knocking the door but decided not to, being all too aware that the potions masters quarters were quite small and the children would be quick to pick up the oddity. Hermione opened the door to see her colleague hunched over a pile of newspapers. It seems that Severus had taken the academic approach in grasping the realities of the alternate universe. Hermione hesitated for a second before softly speaking, "Severus, it's time for dinner at the Great Hall. I expect that Minerva will fuss if we don't show up like she requested."
Severus looked around to see the woman at the door, he raised his wand to close the door. "What have you learnt?" He asks as he picks up the newspaper with the headline, "You-Know-Who Returns- Is This The End For Wizarding Britain?" He stands up and approaches the woman with a dark look in his eyes.
Hermione took a step back to find herself up against the door, fearing her colleagues intense look Hermione could only manage a small nod. Severus continued to approach enraged by what he had learnt. He had enjoyed his last few years of relative peace and freedom to find himself stuck in a foreign alternate universe. To him it was bad enough that he had to keep up the rouse of being married to the witch and a father but now he learnt that he had to pretend to raise a family while serving the dark lord made him further wish that he could return to his universe. In a matter of moments, Severus was right in front of Hermione and placed his hand on the door. "What else do you know? Speak!" Severus growled at the woman.
"I..." Hermione struggled to find her tongue, unable to move and escape the eyes of the Potions Master. "I... found out that he returned when Don was born," Hermione managed. She noticed Severus's expectant look and gathered the courage to continue. "We met that night, the night you sent the Sword of Gryffindor," Hermione looked up to see if she should continue. Seeing that Severus had yet to cut her off she continued, "I started to realize your true loyalties then and saved you at the Shrieking Shack." Severus continued to stare at the witch uncertain where the story was going, "I seemed to have taken a liking for you and-"
"Enough." Severus cut the witch off realizing that she was above to retell the love story of two strangers who happen to share their names. He removed his hand from the door and opened it. Severus stepped out of the room, looked back at Hermione and spoke, "You said Minerva will be upset if we missed dinner." Without looking back he walked towards the living room and refrained from making eye contact with his children.
Hermione was upset that Severus had cut her off as she explained their backgrounds here in this foreign world. She had found the love story of their alternate selves to be quite romantic and had wondered if their alternate selves were any reflection of their true selves. Hermione herself had found herself connecting with the alternate self in the journal. Before she could ponder more on the subject, she heard Severus mention dinner and walk off without her. She quickly followed the older man's footsteps and told her sons to get up to go to the Great Hall.
At the Great Hall, Severus found that the staff was mostly unchanged from the staff that he worked with in his own reality. He spotted four empty chairs beside the Headmistress as he opened the staff entrance door. His eldest son took a dash for the seat next to the Muggle Studies teacher and the younger followed suit. The two children argued a little and the younger son resignedly walked off to sit in the chair next to the Headmistress. Unsure of where to sit considering his seat was always next to the Headmistress as the Deputy Headmaster he decided to take the closest seat available next to his younger son. His so-called wife took the seat next to him as she would as the Head of Gryffindor.
"How nice of you to join us Severus," Minerva said, "We were beginning to think you won't show." Minerva ruffled Celedonius's hair as a greeting to the younger one, gave a brief nod to her Arithmancy professor before winking at the older Snape boy.
"We were a little caught up, my apologies Minerva," Severus replied to his long time colleague. He decidedly started cutting up the steak that was served for dinner that evening. Without looking at the looks of the rest of the staff as he started eating his own food. Which to Severus seemed to be the most logical thing to do as they had walked in to the dinner late. Beside him, Hermione was doing much the same as she ate her salad.
Celedonius stared at his steak hungrily but unable to eat it while his brother on the other side glared at their parents before trying to cut his steak by himself. Minerva noticed this oddity and finally spoke, "Goodness Severus, did you two get in to a quarrel?"
The rest of the staff murmured, as someone said, "Odd, of Severus to not serve his wife and children first before eating."
Another staff member added, "I hope they didn't fight, last time they did all the brooms went missing."
"Not like Hermione to not fuss that her son is using a knife."
Severus and Hermione looked around at the separate discussions occurring at the headtable and all the students who had shift their attentions from their dinner to the table. They knew that this was ought to happen if they were stuck in this dimension long enough but they didn't think they would end up here for the whole day. "No, Minerva, me and M-" Severus caught himself before referring to the witch by her surname, "My wife did not quarrel. I've just had a rather trying day today."
Severus picked up his plate and swapped it with the witch's, "Help Emmeterius cut his steak will you, dear?" He managed to get the words out, he looked across the table to see if his address of his wife was somehow incorrect and was relieved to see the table satisfied with his performance. Severus inwardly smirked at his success before he reached for his son's plate and cut up the steak in to smaller bite-size pieces. His fellow colleague followed suit as she took the knife out of her son's hands and cut the steak for him.
Not to Severus's surprise the entire dinner was rather awkward and awful with his son glaring at him from behind his mother. While the Snape glare was quite intimidating on a grown man the glare was not as frightening coming from a child as he neatly returned the glare. He didn't quite understand why the boy was reacting in that way considering the rest of the staff had just labeled him as an excellent family man. He wondered where his assumption of this alternate selfs character had went wrong. He had assumed that he was as poor of a father as his own and had chosen during his short day here mimicking his father's parental model. However the staff's expectations of his character did not fit in with his own image of his father. In the end Severus concluded that the alternate Severus was as two faced of a father as he was a spy.
At night, after some difficulty in figuring out the routine; the two parents take turns watching over their two sons in the bath before putting the children in to bed while the other parent is allowed some time to themselves. According to the children it was Hermione's turn to supervise the bathing of the children where both children continuously protested to be left to bathe alone. Severus was much relieved to be lifted of the child caring burden and had retreated to his rooms the second he walked back in to his quarters.
Hermione struggled to take care of the two young children with one refusing to bathe and the other refusing to bathe in the presence of his mother and younger brother. While she could feel that she would be loving and caring mother to her children, at her current age and situation Hermione found herself lost in the role of a mother. Exhausted after the supervision of bath time, Hermione had left the children in their room to change in to their night clothes.
In their room the two boys were lost, neither of their parents would ever leave them in their own room to change. While Emeterius had been asking to be left alone for the last week since he had just turned 6, his mother had always liked to fuss over their attire and his father never trusted them to dress in an appropriate manner. Feeling odd but slightly empowered Emeterius ran to his favorite closet to grab his favorite Appleby Arrows pajamas and put them on.
Celedonius was left staring at his pile of pajamas with no idea which on to wear. His mother always helped him to choose his pajamas because he had no opinion on aesthetics, his father on the other end always told his to stick with three colors, black, white and green. Celedonius looked at his brother hoping to get an opinion on what to wear.
"Wear your green pajamas, it's the safest," Emeterius told his brother as he grabbed the said pajamas and handed them over to his brother. Emeterius watched as his brother slowly put on his pajamas. He thought back to his parents odd behavior today: their inattentiveness when they ran out, his mother's strange detachedness when talking with them, their parents lack of gross displays of affection at dinner, his fathers inattentiveness at dinner, his mother not fussing over their dressing and his parents not arguing over who gets to spend time with them tonight. All these oddities made Emeterius feel like his parents are really far away, like they were going to disappear any moment. "Don, don't you think Mom and Dad were being really weird today?" Emeterius asked his brother who had finished dressing.
Celedonius nodded, the strange atmosphere was awfully familiar and Celedonius remembered that his parents had acted similarly a few months ago. While the two brothers acknowledged their worries they huddled up next to each other when there was a knock at the door. The door opened and at it was their mother.
Hermione walked in to the small room with only one double bed in the middle and the room divided in to two different sides. She found her two boys sitting on the bed huddled up together in an intimate embrace and despite not understanding how she felt, she understood that something was wrong. She approached the two boys and pulled them in to a tight hug before asking, "What's wrong, love?"
Emeterius and Celedonius took turns explaining how odd their parents were acting and their fears. Celedonius in the end added, "Are you and Dad really going to get a divorce this time? Are we going to have to live with Granny Molly?"
At that Emeterius started to cry remembering the arguments a few months back when his dad had told them that they would have to live with mom and his mom had told them to live with dad until they both told him that they might need to live with Granny Molly. In the end it didn't happen but if it really did happen this time it will be all his fault. Reverting in to a child Emeterius wailed, "Mommy, it was all my fault. It's because of me that Daddy is angry."
Dealing with a six year old acting like an upset toddler and a poker faced four year old left Hermione very lost. She tried to trust her instincts as she pulled the two children in and tried to sooth them by patting their backs. "No, we're not getting a divorce," she assured the children as she inwardly laughed at the hypocrisy of her words considering the two weren't actually married. However what worried her was the children's familiarity with divorce, that made her wonder what a rotten relationship her alternate self must had have had with the alternate Snape.
Despite this the older son had not calmed, Hermione was starting to get frustrated, unable to understand what the boy had done to make him believe his father was angry. There was an infinite number of things that could tick off the potions master but the man rarely held a grudge unless the offensive behavior had been continuously repeated. She doubted that the actions of a small child could be equal to the offenses of the Maruader's. She continued attempting to convince the boy that his actions had not angered his father but the boy was inconsolable. Frustrated and tired, Hermione gave up and coldly told the boy to stop crying and to go to sleep. With that Hermione got up, extinguished the light as she left the room.
Hermione had managed to sneak in to the room while her colleague had taken a shower. She had retrieved her night clothes and decided that she would take a shower in the children's bathroom instead of the one in the master suite. The room she noticed when she had entered it looked nothing like the comfortable and oddly familiar room she had awoken it. It was as though the potions master had rearranged the room to look more like what she assumed was the bachelors bedroom. Feeling unwelcome in the room she decided to limit her time in the room, she was inside the Potions Master's quarters making her a guest.
Likewise Hermione decided after her shower that it would be wise to not disturb the Potion's Master and sleep in the living room. Hermione looked at the sofa and decided that it wouldn't be difficult to change it in to something more comfortable to sleep in. After transfiguring the couch in to a bed she spent a short moment admiring her wand work before settling in to bed.
In her transfigured bed she reviewed the events of the day, starting from the shock of waking up in her colleagues quarters, becoming acquainted with her children, coming out of the confusion about the alternate reality, learning about her alternate self and the possibility of a different Severus Snape. She thought back to the fairy tale like stories about her alternate selfs romance with an alternate Severus Snape. Her mind recalled images of her two young sons, the young beaming Severus look-alike that made her curious about the man behind the cold exterior. The younger boy who was the picture of an angel despite the hideous large nose but his cold exterior took away the magic from the boys eyes.
As she felt her eyelids feel heavy, Hermione heard a frightening scream coming from the master bedroom.
Okay, so that's it. I was working on this throughout the exam period and I tend to write more coherently in my opinion when I don't write in fragments because I can let my idea run it's course. I hope this chapter is acceptable even if it wasn't worth the wait.
Again, I love constructive criticism as it help me improve my writing. That doesn't mean a nice review doesn't make my day. I won't cry over any flames or plain criticism so if you find it needed feel free to post those too. So please review, it really makes me happy to know that someone bothered read the story and say something about it.