3.
Inevitably, the school year passed, from one day into the next, and as it went a sense of anticipation grew within Severus just as a sense of dread grew in Cordelia. It would be the first year they spent apart; worse, in Cordelia's opinion, the first year she spent in the house alone with their parents.
When Severus' Hogwarts letter had come, Cordelia had gone up to her room quietly so that Severus wouldn't see her jealousy on her face. She knew it wasn't fair to envy him - she would go away too, if she could, and in fact she would next year - but she couldn't help the way that fear and dread and, yes, jealousy rose up within her, clouding her happiness for him.
Still, after his birthday, when the novelty of the Hogwarts letter had faded against the daily routine of school, and homework, and going to the playground with him, and hiding from their father in the evenings, she managed to almost forget about the fact that he was leaving her.
Until the day, two weeks before the end of the summer, when their mother took Severus on a special trip to Diagon Alley to purchase his school supplies. Cordelia begged to be allowed to go too, but their mother said no. Instead, she was stuck inside the house with an irritable Tobias, who was pained to see his hard-earned money going to all the schoolbooks and things that his son needed to start at Hogwarts. Cordelia had wisely stayed out of his way, electing to hole herself up in the stuffy, sweltering heat of her attic room instead.
It must have been the heat, she would reflect later, but something happened to her that afternoon. She had been standing in front of her bookshelf, glumly eyeing the row of familiar titles, wishing she could have kept some of her books from school, because at least she hadn't read them a hundred times, when she felt suddenly weak-kneed, light on her feet. Something like queasiness gripped her, and she was instantly certain that she was horribly ill somehow, though she had been fine only moments before. She remembered reaching her hand out to steady herself against the wall. She could see her hand touching the wall, but she couldn't feel it; it was like she was having a dream, nothing felt tangible anymore. Was she having a dream?
The next thing that she was aware of was opening her eyes; the unfinished wooden floor stretched out in front of her; she could see the legs of her bed on the horizon, although they rocked back and forth when she tried to focus on them. She lifted herself up, trying to shake the grogginess out of her head; she realized that she had a headache, and she slowly became aware that her knee hurt, too. She gathered herself into a sitting position on the floor, looked at her knee. It was scraped up - nothing worse than she'd gotten numerous times at the playground, but there were two or three little splinters of wood, too.
She was still dizzy; she closed her eyes, concentrated on breathing in and out, and eventually, she felt like she could stand again. She rose, walked carefully over to her bed, and set to picking the splinters out of her knee. She winced when she accidentally pushed one in further before getting a grip on it with her fingernails, but she knew there would be no point in going to Tobias for help, and her mother and brother weren't home.
The rest of the day, she felt strange. Better, but not completely herself. She felt like she was walking through water when she went downstairs for supper; when Severus tried to show her all of his new things for school, she could barely muster a tired smile through her headache. True, a great number of his school things had been purchased secondhand, but it did little to diminish Severus' buoyancy at having received them.
Cordelia thought that she wouldn't be able to eat, but she was surprised to find herself clearing her plate in record time. Most likely in an effort to appease Tobias, their mother Eileen had cooked steak, which was a rarity in their household, since they could never afford it, and Cordelia had actually licked her plate clean for possibly the first time in her life.
Severus had saved his most prized new possession for last; only after the supper dishes had been cleared, and with a hushed sort of reverence, he opened a long, narrow box and drew out a length of polished birch wood with an ornate handle.
"Look, Cory! I'm a real wizard now; I've got a magic wand."
Tobias snorted derisively as he left the room; Severus hardly seemed to have noticed - his face was aglow in a way that his sister couldn't remember ever seeing. He waved his wand a couple of times, experimenting with the way it felt to hold, the way it swished through the air with an efficiency that made him feel as though it were just itching to cast some real spells.
Cordelia was feeling a little more like herself after eating; she clapped her hands eagerly. "Can you do any spells yet?" she asked, even though she knew that he hadn't learned any yet.
"You can't do magic outside of Hogwarts until you're of age," Severus explained again, "So I couldn't show you even if I knew any spells." He looked to his mother, perhaps for confirmation, or perhaps he was hoping she would indulge him and give him permission to try a spell.
Eileen only pressed her mouth into a thin line, loading the sink up with the supper dishes. From the living room came the faint creaking of Tobias' armchair as he settled into it, and then a meaty belch.
"How did you choose your wand?" Cordelia asked, "Was it on discount?"
Nearly everything the Snape family owned had been purchased secondhand or on discount, and often both, so it was a fair question, but their mother whipped around, caught her daughter's eye with a warning glare.
"Mum's told you before," Severus said carefully, glancing at his mother as his ears perked for further sounds from the direction of the living room, "The wand chooses the wizard. They take your measurements and all that, and then you practice waving wands around until something happens. This one felt warm, and green sparkles shot out of the end; it's birch and dragon heartstring."
"Oh," Cordelia said, "I wasn't sure if that was what Mum really told me, or if I just had a dream about buying a wand."
"Discount," Tobias sneered from the other room, and all three of them in the kitchen, Eileen, Severus, and Cordelia, stiffened. "A month's salary on sodding school supplies, and the brat wants to know if it was on discount."
Cordelia looked stricken, but Severus just put his wand carefully away, gathered it up with the rest of his new things.
"I'm going to bring this stuff up to my room, Mum," Severus said quietly. In the other room, Tobias rocketed wordlessly to his feet, the chair creaking and thumping behind him. Three sharp steps, and then he was pulling a bottle off of its shelf. He uncapped it, swirled it around, inhaling the scent of the brown stuff inside; bottle in hand, he strode into the kitchen, opened a cupboard and took down a glass, still without sparing a word to any of them.
Severus, arms laden, ducked carefully out of the room, crossing the living room and climbing the stairs as quickly as he could without dropping anything. Cordelia watched their father, eyes wide, while Eileen scrubbed at the dishes in the sink with a dingy rag, despite the fact that her own wand lay in plain sight on the kitchen table.
Tobias poured whiskey into the glass, took a long swallow. He stayed where he was, in the corner of the kitchen, glass in one hand and bottle in the other.
"Did you like the steak?" Eileen ventured, voice small. She tried to smile, but found that it took a lot more energy than she remembered.
Tobias ignored her, fixed his eyes on Cordelia, where she still sat at the table. Cordelia felt her heart race, and the thin, airy feeling returned to her head. She was glad, suddenly, that she was still seated, but dread pushed at her from the outside in; the air in the kitchen was sticky, heavy with resentment; she didn't know if it was hers, or her father's, or even Eileen's, as she stood there, dutifully elbow deep in scalding, soapy water for dishes she could have washed in seconds with magic.
She felt, then, that something terrible was about to happen; she winced without meaning to, though Tobias was feet away from her, though he hadn't moved save to take another long draw of whiskey. The seconds stretched out; Tobias watched her through narrowed eyes. Eileen cleared her throat, eyes darting nervously between husband and daughter.
"I think it's time for children to be in bed," Tobias said, the words drawn out, anticlimactically. Eileen's shoulders dropped, and Cordelia realized they had been hunched, tense, the whole time Tobias had been in the kitchen. "Isn't it a school night?"
It was August, and school started in two weeks, and all three of them knew it. Cordelia slipped off her chair, crossed the distance to the stairs, barely felt her feet touching the steps. She didn't go to bed, though; instead she ducked into Severus' room without knocking.
He looked up as she entered. He was sitting on his bed, with all of his Hogwarts things spread out in front of him. He looked her over in an instant, concern pushing in at the edges of his expression despite an attempt at a smile. "Everything all right?" he asked.
Cordelia nodded, easing his door closed behind her. "Dad told me to go to bed because it's a school night," she murmured, "He knew better, I think he just didn't want to look at me anymore."
"Don't say that, Cor," Severus said absently, fingering the frayed cloth jacket of one of his school books.
"It's true," she said, matter-of-factly, "And I don't care, I don't want to look at him either."
Severus sighed. "You didn't have to say the thing about my wand being on discount," he admonished half-heartedly.
"I thought it might've been a dream," she repeated, as though this were a commonplace mistake, and perhaps for her it was. Cordelia, Severus knew, always had one foot in her own world.
"Still," Severus said, "You know he's touchy about money."
Cordelia frowned, running her finger over the edge of Severus' bedspread. "He's touchy about everything."
Severus pressed his lips together in much the same way as his mother, exhaled through his nose. "Cory," he said, after a pause, "Be careful when I'm gone. Don't give him a reason to be cross with you. Just… just stay in your room when you're not at school, or go to the playground, if Mum lets you go alone."
Cordelia bit her lip, and even though she didn't think she'd put much pressure into it, she felt a warm bead of blood well up. Her tongue slinked out of her mouth, licking the drop away, before she answered him.
"I wish he didn't hate me so much," she said, forlornly, "I wish I looked just like him, so he'd stop."
Severus laughed bitterly, reflexively pulling his books and robes closer on the bed, as if trying to cloak himself with the reality of his impending escape to Hogwarts. "How much better do you think it would get, Cory?"
#
On the first of September, Cordelia had begged to be allowed to see Severus off at the station, and finally their mother had relented, excusing her from school for the day. It passed in a blur, and Cordelia warred with the desire to be happy for him, and the pit of despair that was growing in her stomach.
All too soon, he was stepping onto the train on the heels of his friend Lily, and Cordelia's vision of the scarlet train was blurred by tears; he turned and waved, and she bit her lip and waved back, even though every fiber of her being was willing her to throw caution to the winds and jump on the train behind him.
The whistle blew, and the train pulled away. Cordelia remained rooted to the pavement, until Eileen tugged at her elbow gently. "Come on," she said, "You'll have your turn next year."
As they walked back through the wall between Platforms 9 and 10, Cordelia felt the heat of her tears streaming down her face. After a few steps, Eileen paused, rummaging in the pocket of her worn, patched coat. Her hand emerged with a handkerchief twisted between her thin fingers; she passed it to her daughter, who siped half-heartedly at her tears, and held the handkerchief back out in her mother's direction.
Eileen glanced down as she went to take it, and then stopped, tsking. "You're bleeding," she said, wiping the handkerchief across Cordelia's lips roughly. She squinted. "You mustn't bite your lip anymore," she said, "You've got marks where you keep doing it."
"I don't do it on purpose," Cordelia sniffed defensively. Her mother frowned, and turned to face her daughter directly, leaning down to look at her closely. People streamed around them on their way to and from the other platforms.
"Open your mouth," Eileen said, and there was something in her voice that frightened Cordelia. She parted her lips uncertainly, letting her jaw drop partway open.
"Smile," Eileen said, insistently, and it was the most absurd thing that Cordelia could have imagined, at that moment. Her brother was gone, wouldn't come back home until Christmas, and would be gone again soon after. She felt like half her world had been ripped away, and now her mother was inches from her face in a crowded train station, asking her to smile. Cordelia bared her teeth, still feeling twin hot pinpricks in her eyes of tears threatening to fall.
Eileen sucked in her breath suddenly, and her face turned the color of sour milk. Her eyes went blank, shuttered, and she stuffed the handkerchief back into her pocket, gripping Cordelia's hand tightly and pulling her through the crowd, towards the exit.
"Mum, what's wrong?" she asked urgently; now there were people pressing against her, whipping past her, and she was dizzy again. Her mother's suddenly iron grip was the only thing she could keep track of through the blur of the crowd.
Eileen wouldn't answer; she shook her head every time Cordelia asked. When they got home, she told Cordelia to go play in her room, and as Cordelia climbed the stairs, she could hear her mother opening and closing cupboard doors, rinsing off a pan, checking the icebox.
Tobias wasn't due home for hours yet, which meant that Eileen was preparing an elaborate supper, if she was starting already, which meant that something had happened that was likely to anger him. Severus going away to Hogwarts had been an expected event, so as far as Cordelia could see, that left only one thing: whatever had bothered her mother when she'd looked at Cordelia's face.
Instead of climbing the attic stairs to her room, Cordelia slunk into the washroom, stood on her tiptoes, and examined herself closely in the tiny, chipped mirror over the sink. Her skin was pale, paler even than her brother's, and her light blue eyes stood out against her skin. The dark slashes of her eyebrows, coupled with her narrow chin made her small face look severe. Her nose was a bit long, but it was narrow too, and didn't hook like her father's or her brother's. Her lips were full, and on the bottom lip, she could see twin indentations made from biting down, just like her mother had said. She bared her teeth again, the way she had done for her mother at the train station.
They were a bit yellowish; she often forgot to brush them. Maybe that was why she hadn't noticed what Eileen had surely seen today - two of her teeth, the canines, were half again as long as her front teeth, and they narrowed to a sharp little point. But that was normal, wasn't it? Everyone's canine teeth were a bit pointy, she thought, and stretched her mouth wider. She turned her head this way and that, trying to gauge whether they really were longer than normal.
She closed her mouth, bit down on her lip in the same way she always did; and then she noticed how two of her teeth, the pointy ones, extended beneath the edge of her upper lip, and dug into the flesh of her lower lip.
She was sure, now. They didn't look like everyone else's teeth. They looked like tiny fangs. She scowled, pulling her lips tightly over her teeth. So what? She had weird teeth. There were worse things, right?
#
The next time it happened, Cordelia was in science class at school. This time, she was seated, book open on her desk, eyes studying the diagram of the layers of the earth. She already knew the names for each of the layers, knew what they were composed of, but she found herself wondering, as she stared at the small drawing of the earth's core, if it were possible that there were people that lived there.
She knew, of course, that people like herself, regular humans - even witches - wouldn't be able to live there, but what if there were different kinds of people, or creatures, that could live in the extreme heat, that didn't need water or air to breathe? She knew from her brother that there were creatures in the magical world that didn't need to eat like regular people, that mermaids could live underwater and breathe through their gills, so maybe there were some kind of molten-men that could live far beneath the surface of the earth, snug and warm.
She was looking at the drawing in the book and thinking all of this, when she realized that the book seemed a lot further away suddenly, like she had stood up and then climbed a ladder while looking down at her book. She turned her head to make sure she was still level with her classmates; the room rocked in front of her, streaks of color dancing in front of her eyes; she was so dizzy, again, and she felt something grip her from the inside; a terrible cramp, or perhaps just an overwhelming urge to vomit. She didn't want to, not here in front of her whole class - she had to keep it together. She concentrated on drawing a deep breath, only she felt like her heart was beating so hard it was stopping her from inhaling all the way; it was pounding through her chest, swelling, taking up the space that should have been reserved for her lungs to expand, and suddenly she no longer cared if anyone saw her faint or retch; she only hoped that she wasn't about to die, here in the classroom of her Muggle school, before she ever even made it to Hogwarts…
Everything - the pain, the blurry, smeary shapes, the clenching in her gut - it all disappeared as she sank, unceremoniously, into an empty blackness.
Then - opening her eyes, late afternoon sunlight streaming in from her left - but, the windows were always on her right in her science classroom, weren't they? She slowly realized that she was lying down, but not on a floor; it felt like a soft bed. She blinked, and the room around her slowly came into focus. It wasn't her classroom, or any room she had ever been in before.
The bed had railings, like a baby's crib. The walls and ceilings were all white; there was a window to her left, and a curtain to her right. Beyond it, she could hear someone's labored breathing. A hospital. She must be in a hospital room, she realized, though she couldn't remember ever being in one before.
She craned her neck, looking down the length of her body. She was covered with a blanket, but her arms were outside of it. She could see a long wire running from a stand next to the bed. A needle at the end of the wire was taped to the inside of her elbow, poking into her skin. Something in the room was beeping; she couldn't tell if it was on her side of the curtain or not.
She felt her heart speed up again, and she took a few shallow, quick breaths. Why was she here, all alone? Where were her classmates, her teacher? What if no one knew she was here, what if her mother was looking for her at the school?
And then she could hear quick footsteps, coming closer. Before she had time to decide if they sounded familiar, the curtain was drawn back a few inches, and a woman in a white apron came into her side of the little room. She had a clipboard in her arm, she was looking down at it; a strand of honey-colored hair slipped forward, and when she reached her hand to push it behind her ear, she looked up, smiling softly at Cordelia.
"You're awake, dear. Glad to see it. We just need to run some of your blood tests again - something must have gone wrong with them."
Cordelia stared blankly, or so she thought; some of her fear must have shown on her face, because the nurse came over, patted her arm gently. "It won't hurt too much, don't fret."
The nurse frowned, moved her hand from Cordelia's arm to her forehead. "You're awfully cool; did they take your temperature?" She didn't really seem to be asking Cordelia, so the little girl didn't answer. Another woman came in then, this one wearing a long coat, with a medical instrument around her neck. Cordelia thought she had seen a picture of one before, but she couldn't remember what it was called.
"Snape, Cordelia. Who ran her vitals and her blood tests?" the new woman asked brusquely, "These numbers are all wrong."
"Sophie did. I was just about to run them again, but…" the nurse turned her hand over, so the back of it touched Cordelia's forehead. "She does feel quite cool. Could it be a circulatory problem?
"It's quite possible, but with the numbers on her chart, she wouldn't be with us, so we need to run them again."
The nurse nodded, and she took something from the pocket of her apron; it was a strip of fabric with a tube and a gauge on it; another thing Cordelia thought she'd seen a picture of, perhaps in her science book.
There were raised voices in the hallway; both womens' heads turned. Then, "Ma'am, you need to check in -"
Forceful, hurried steps came into the room, the curtain was pushed aside like a spiderweb. Eileen Snape strode into the hospital room, dark eyes flashing; she was full of energy, something between anger and fear; Cordelia had never seen her move as fast as she did now.
"Come on, Cordelia. We're leaving." She stepped up to the bed; she looked like she was about to try and rip the wire right out of her daughter's arm.
Both women were taken aback; the first nurse recovered first. "Mrs. Snape?" she questioned.
"Yes," Eileen said, and she gestured to the wire instead of touching it. "Take that off her; I'm taking her home."
"Mrs. Snape," the nurse tried again, "We really think it's in your daughter's best interest to stay here a bit-"
"No," Eileen said again, "I don't want her to be treated here. I'm her mother; I can make that call."
"That's certainly true," the other woman said, and she extended her hand out for Eileen to shake, offered a professional smile. "I'm Dr. Nicholls. I work with children admitted through emergency services. I know she looks much better now, but your daughter had a fairly severe medical episode today, and I really think it's best if she stay here so we can figure out what caused it."
"I'm taking her to our family doctor," Eileen said, and Cordelia opened her mouth to ask her mother what she was talking about; as far as she knew, she had never been to a doctor in her life. She hadn't needed to; folk with magical blood rarely got sick.
"Oh," Dr. Nicholls said, undeterred, "Does your family doctor have any recent bloodwork records that we could see? We ran our own tests today, and we were just about to run them again, since the numbers were so far outside of normal ranges on several counts… Has she ever had strange test results before?"
Eileen pressed her mouth into a line, exhaled. Cordelia could see the way her mother's eyes went wide, round; the same eyes she had when Tobias was drinking. Fear, plain as day.
"I appreciate your concern," Eileen managed, "But I am taking Cordelia to another doctor, right now. Don't run anymore tests. I'm not paying for the ones you've already run."
The nurse softened. "If it's a financial concern-"
"Now," Eileen said wearily, gesturing once more to the needle in her daughter's arm.
The women exchanged a glance, but Eileen had won. Within fifteen minutes, she was striding out of the hospital with her daughter's hand gripped firmly in her own.
#
They didn't go to another doctor. Cordelia asked her mother if there was a special wizard hospital they were going to instead; her mother said there was, but that Cordelia wasn't going. Instead, Eileen asked her a bunch of questions about what had happened - how exactly did it feel, how often had it happened before, could Cordelia tell she was going to faint before it happened, and on and on until the little girl's head was spinning.
When they got home, Eileen fed the family dinner quickly, then sent Cordelia to her room, without a word to Tobias of what had happened that day. For once, she was glad to be sent to her room early, because her head was still light; she went to bed as soon as she got upstairs.
The next day, Cordelia got up and dressed for school. She climbed down the attic stairs, wondering with trepidation if the other students would make fun because of what had happened yesterday. She didn't wonder for long, though. When she got downstairs, her mother was waiting for her in the kitchen, a bowl of porridge steaming on the table. There were bits of sausage in it, a rare treat.
"You're going to stay home from school today," Eileen told her, "We're going on a special trip instead, but it's a secret. You can't tell your father, or your teacher, or anyone at school."
Cordelia slurped a spoonful of porridge, swallowed, looked up at her mother. "Can I tell Severus?"
EIleen shook her head. "Not for now. Just you and I, all right?"
"Where are we going?" she asked through another mouthful of porridge, "Are we going to the wizard hospital?"
"No," Eileen put her jacket on, slipped her wand into one of the deep pockets. "We're going on a shopping trip to Diagon Alley."
Cordelia lit up, pushed the bowl away, jumped to her feet. "Really?! Does that mean I get to go to Hogwarts early? Can I go back with Severus when he comes home for Christmas break?"
It was coming up quickly; if it was really true, Cordelia calculated, she would be going to Hogwarts in barely more than two weeks.
"Shhh," Eileen admonished, even though they were the only two in the house, "No, you can't go to Hogwarts until after you get your letter, you know that. And you can't tell anyone that we went, remember. Not even Severus."
"Am I getting my wand early?" she asked eagerly.
"No," Eileen said again, "Finish your porridge, we can't afford to let it go to waste."
She ate her breakfast in record time, slipped on her worn trainers and Severus' old overcoat, and they left hand in hand for the train station. They were taking the train into London; Cordelia had rarely been outside of her neighborhood, so it was a treat for her. There were all kinds of interesting people around, all sorts of bustling activities.
The most interesting thing of all though, was when her mother pulled her into a dark little pub called the Leaky Cauldron, and they slipped out through its back door. They were in an alley, until Eileen pulled out her wand and tapped on one of the bricks. Cordelia gasped in surprise and delight when the wall opened up, revealing a long, cobbled street filled with people wearing all manner of strange and eye-catching clothing.
There were long black robes that looked like the ones Severus had gotten for school; there were fuschia robes and green robes, and clothing that didn't look like anything Cordelia had ever seen or heard of before. There were shops that had broomsticks in the windows, shops that had owls in the windows, shops that had things Cordelia could only guess at in the windows.
The shop they ultimately went into, though, was far less interesting. Cordelia didn't even notice it until her mother steered her inside; there were no windows, and the doorway was narrow and dark. There was no sign overhead like most of the other stores had, but letters across the glass on the window said "Virasht's Occult Offerings. Potions, Talismans, and Oddities."
A small, hand-lettered sign had been taped up underneath it. It said, in crooked lettering, "Dark Creatures Welcome. We stock for you."
Inside, it was little more than a dark, dingy junk shop, as far as Cordelia could tell. There were rows of dusty glass bottles with liquids of all different colors inside; grimy little knickknacks that looked like they had been dug up from someone's basement; moldy, yellowed books that made the whole place smell. Dust swirled around the doorway when they entered, and Cordelia sneezed.
An old, grizzled-looking man grinned wolfishly at them from behind the shop's counter. "'Ello, ladies," he said, and Cordelia shrank behind her mother, still gripping her hand tightly. "Virasht Sixclaw, Proprietor. Would ye be looking for a talisman? Something to ward off -" and he grinned, a gnarled, toothy, and altogether terrifying look, "Werewolves, p'raps?"
"Werewolves?" Cordelia whispered in alarm, looking anxiously up at her mother, "Are those real?"
The grizzled man chuckled, even though Cordelia didn't think she'd spoken loud enough for him to hear. "Oh, they're realer than my own two hands," he said, placing his hands on the counter, spreading the fingers out. Cordelia recoiled when she saw his twisted, dirty hands. He was missing the pinkie and ring fingers from both hands, and on all the other digits, his fingernails were long, dirty, jagged. "Or should I say, what's left of 'em." He chuckled again, hoarse and rough, and Cordelia shuddered. "Was a werewolf got the rest of my fingers."
He leaned over the counter, peering at Cordelia as she peeked out from behind her mother.
"'Course, that'd make me a werewolf, too. if ye believe the tales."
Cordelia squeaked in terror, and the man threw his head back and laughed, a deep, grating belly laugh that echoed off the four walls of the tiny shop.
Eileen patted her daughter's hand, wrapped one arm around her. "We're looking for-" she swallowed, glanced down at her daughter's dark head, looked back at the man, trying to conceal her own fear and unease, "Blood," she said, voice quavering; she tried to meet his eyes, tightened her hold on Cordelia.
"Potion-grade?" he asked, leering at them, "I think not though, since ye could get that at the Apothecary across th'way. No," he grinned, yellowed, sharp teeth on display, "If ye're in my shop, ye'r here for blood ye can consume. Only… Ye don't much look like a vampire, missy."
He made a show of squinting at Eileen, as if she were a puzzle he could solve; although, judging by his expression, he might have believed she was a puzzle he could solve by eating her. Cordelia felt blood trickle down her chin, realized that she was biting her lip again, couldn't bring herself to unclench her jaw and stop.
"Do you have it, or not?" She tried to sound steely, but instead it came out as a whine. Virasht walked slowly around the counter, coming out from behind it to stand in front of them. Cordelia clutched her mother's coat like it was a life-raft; both of them stepped back involuntarily. Virasht stepped over to the shelves lined with bottles, ran his fingers across a row of them. Dust smeared away from the labels on each of the bottles he touched. He paused, a dark look on his face. Tilted his head with mock curiosity or concern.
"So if it ain't ye," he said, as if the thought had just occurred to him, "It must be th' wee one." he leaned forward, peering down at her; she tried to back up further, but bumped into another set of shelves behind her. "Oh, aye," he said, "I see the wee fangs. But I see blood, too, and it looks like yer own."
He looked back up at Eileen. "An 'alf-blood. 'Ave ye found out yet if she can turn 'em?" he asked, greed lighting his beady eyes, "I can give ye a discount if ye bring me new customers." The wolfish grin was back; Cordelia whimpered involuntarily.
Eileen cleared her throat; forced a note of resolve into her voice. "We'll buy two bottles."
Virasht looked disappointed; but he stepped back, picked two of the dust-covered bottles off the shelf. "Can't stock human blood," he said, "Trade Laws won't allow it. Pity, if ye ask me. My customers tell me there's naught else near as potent, but if ye want it, ye'll have to get it from the source." The yellow teeth flashed again, and he glanced down at Cordelia. "If ye do that, girly, let me know if it turns 'em. Wasn't kidding about the discount."
He looked back up at Eileen. "Best I can do is pig's blood. It ain't th'real thing, but it's better'n all the other stuff ye can buy. Most shops'll just sell ye rodent blood, but Virasht only carries pig an' goat. Closest to human ye can legally sell. It's costly, though." He wiped the bottles with a grimy rag, set them down on the counter.
"Four Galleons an' Ten Sickles for two bottles," he said, and Eileen flushed as she pulled the wizarding coins from her pocket, counting them three times before handing them over. She was loathe to part with all that money, and Virasht must've seen it, because he snatched the coins from her as soon as she held them out. He slipped the money into the pocket of his own dirty, tattered robes, and pushed the bottles across the wooden counter. They slid heavily. Eileen picked them up, tucked them into the folds of her jacket, and stepped quickly out of the store.
When they were back out in Diagon Alley, Cordelia felt tears of relief sliding hotly down her cheeks. "Mum, that man was scary," she whispered, choking back a sob. "Why did we have to buy blood? I'm not a v-vampire."
Eileen pressed her lips together for the second time that day.
"Are vampires even real?" she asked tearfully.
"Shh," Eileen hushed her, pulling her along the street again. They stopped at a much more cheerful place there was an outdoor patio and a brightly colored sign that read "Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour". Eileen directed Cordelia to a seat, ordered tea for herself and a tiny dish of vanilla ice cream for her daughter. She sat across from Cordelia on the spindly cafe chair, zipping the two glass bottles carefully into her jacket.
Cordelia didn't think there was much that would cheer her up after the horribly frightening encounter in the store, but the ice cream certainly helped. Never mind that it was December, and the air was chill enough to make her breath fog; ice cream was ice cream.
"No telling anyone we were here today," Eileen said again, "Especially not about all that money. And you must never, never say the word -" she leaned across the table, whispered "vampire", pulled back again, "in our house."
"But Mum," Cordelia said, turning her light blue eyes on her mother, "It's not true, is it? What that man said?"
Eileen took a sip of tea, set the cup carefully back down, put a hand to her own forehead, and sighed heavily. "It… it's partly true," she said, and Cordelia's spoon dropped back down into the dish of partly eaten ice cream, jaw dropping along with it.
"This is… I didn't want to tell you at all, and certainly not like this. Curse that old bast-" her eyes cut down to her teacup and back up, and she cleared her throat again.
"It's… what he called you," she said carefully, "There is… it is part of what you are. I didn't think… sometimes, it doesn't get passed on, but then there was the hospital, and the fainting…your teeth..."
"Mum," Cordelia said, pleadingly, ice cream forgotten. "Stop. You're saying silly things. I'm not… I'm just a regular person, like you, and like Severus. Like Dad, even."
Eileen sucked in a breath, took a fortifying sip of her tea; resolve crossed her plain features, and she locked eyes with her daughter. "Yes," she said, "Yes, you are a regular person. It's not like that man said. It's just an illness, Cordelia. It's just something you were born with, and this… the stuff in the bottles is your medicine, okay?"
Cordelia wrinkled her nose, pushed the half-eaten, now-melted dish of ice cream away. "I am not drinking blood," she said, her horror making her forget to keep her voice low.
"Shh!" Eileen hissed. "Cordelia, you can't talk about it, not here and not anywhere. Just… just pretend it's juice," she said desperately, "You have to try it, Cordelia, or you'll… you'll get sicker. You'll faint again, and if you wind up back in the hospital, they'll-"
She paused, scooted her chair closer to her daughter's glanced around nervously; there was no one else eating ice cream on this December afternoon; people walked by on the sidewalks, but no one really paid the pair any mind.
"You know how being a witch is a very important secret that you can't talk about to Muggles?" her mother murmured, leaning into her ear. Cordelia felt her mother's breath hot and moist against her cheek. She nodded.
"Well, this… this illness is much more secret than that," she said, "You can't tell anyone, especially not T- your father, and not any other Muggle. They'll… Cordelia, people don't understand v- this illness. They'll hurt you if they find out."
Cordelia's eyes filled with tears again, and Eileen pulled her close, even though it was awkward from her separate chair. "Shh," her mother tried again.
Cordelia barely felt the warmth of her mother's embrace; all she could feel was the hard coldness of those glass bottles tucked into her mother's jacket, pressing against her.