Severus didn't return until late that night. Elizabeth had put herself to bed, and Fred had gone to sleep on the couch, so that Ron and Hermione could go back to their real beds in the dorm. When Snape came in, he regarded the redhead for a moment, and then decided to let the boy sleep. He quietly opened the door to his daughter's room and went inside.
Elizabeth stirred when he sat on the bed, looking at him sleepily. "Hey."
"'Hey' yourself," Severus smirked. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"Is Sirius okay?" Elizabeth sat up and stretched.
"He's been released," Severus said quietly. "But he's on house arrest pending an investigation. We decided that Remus should take him to the Spinner's End house, since giving the London address to the Ministry would clearly be a mistake."
He didn't add how violently Sirius had opposed the idea of being on house arrest. If Albus hadn't been present, Black might have been taken into custody all over again.
"Go back to sleep," he said, kissing her forehead. "I'm going to go transfigure the couch into a bed, not that I care about your boyfriend's comfort."
"Thank you, Dad," Elizabeth burrowed back under the blankets as he left the room.
*S*S*
BY ORDER OF
The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts
Teachers are hereby banned from giving students any information that is not strictly related to the subject they are paid to teach.
The above is in accordance with
Educational Decree Number Twenty-six.
Signed:
Dolores Jane Umbridge
HIGH INQUISITOR
*S*S*
"I think it means no more mind-digging lessons," Elizabeth said from the sofa the night Educational Decree Number Twenty-Six appeared on the house bulletin boards.
"Nice try," Severus smirked, sitting at his desk in their quarters, "Directly after dinner tomorrow."
"Daaaad," Elizabeth moaned.
Severus set his quill in the holder and turned his chair to the side. "Come here."
"Why?" Elizabeth looked warily at him.
"So I can transfigure your head into a Quaffle," Severus rolled his eyes. "Come here."
Elizabeth pulled herself off the sofa and went across the room to lean her hip against his desk, standing close to his knees.
"What is the problem with these lessons?" Severus asked, crossing his arms and looking at his daughter.
"They're stupid."
"Your eloquence leaves you when you're lying," Severus frowned. "Try again."
Elizabeth shrugged.
"Elizabeth."
"I don't like you poking around in my head!" Elizabeth finally snapped.
"Is this about my finding out about your evening activities?"
"No," Elizabeth grumbled. "I just don't like other people in my head."
"That is what we are trying to remedy," Severus said, raising an eyebrow.
"It hurts," Elizabeth dug her toe into the floor.
"What hurts?" Severus stood, taking her face in his hands.
Elizabeth pulled away, but only managed to have him move his grip from the sides of her head to her shoulders. "Nothing."
"Elizabeth Rose."
"Just forget it," Elizabeth shrugged. "I'll do the stupid thing."
"Look at me," Severus demanded, waiting until she dragged her eyes to meet his. "Is it your scar?"
Elizabeth paused a moment, cursing the fact that she couldn't keep her mouth shut to begin with. "Yeah."
"When?"
"When you hit on memories of Voldemort," she said, staring at the buttons of his waistcoat.
"Why didn't you tell me?' Severus ran the pad of his thumb over her scar. "We can remove them, you know. Before we start work. You can use my penseive."
"Won't I have to think about them to get them out?"
"Does remembering in the general course of your life effect you in that way?" Severus ushered her back to the sofa. "If you casually remember the Chamber of Secrets, for example, does your scar hurt?"
"No," Elizabeth shook her head.
"So it's only when I force it to the surface?" Severus sat beside her and stretched out his long legs. "It may be the violence of the transaction. We'll try removing those memories before we practice tomorrow. Once you improve, it should be unnecessary."
"I'm never going to be as good as you," Elizabeth sighed, and laid her head on his shoulder.
"There is no one as good as I am," Severus said, in the most pompous voice he could manage. "But you have my blood running though your veins, my child. And while that may have done us no good in Potions, perhaps your genes will assist you here." He turned her face to look at him. "You have to remember that we are working with magic far beyond your age, hatchling. We really have no right to be asking you to even attempt it. In fact, if I saw a fifth year Slytherin attempting to learn this particular skill on her own, the lecture and assigned detentions would make the student think twice before doing something so ridiculous again."
"Good to know," Elizabeth snorted.
"You'll get better," Severus assured. "And hopefully the visions will cease and we will have removed any danger of the Dark Lord seeing anything we don't want him to."
"Hopefully," she laughed humorlessly.
*S*S*
"I thought you hated Rita Skeeter," Fred said, rounding up the cards for another game of Exploding Snap.
"I do," Elizabeth shrugged. "But Hermione's got a point. If there's anyway that we are going to win this thing, we need to have public opinion on our side. And since the Prophet is obviously in the Ministry's pocket…"
"The Quibbler," Fred finished. "I get it. I just hope it doesn't backfire."
"It will most definitely backfire," George proclaimed, using his History of Magic book to prop up his feet.
"Your opinion is definitively unnecessary," Hermione glared over her Transfiguration book.
"How are you going to get Skeeter to do it anyway?" George asked, ignoring her biting tone.
"I have a bit of dirt," Hermione said conspiratorially. "I think she'll be willing to do just about anything I ask."
"A bit evil when she wants to be," Ron looked at Hermione with reverence.
Elizabeth glanced at the clock and groaned. "Dinner."
"Let's blow it off and go see Hagrid," Ron said. "He didn't look right this morning."
"Umbridge put him on probation," Hermione picked up her bag.
"Then he definitely needs cheering up," Ron said, standing. "And he's been ditching dinner lately, so you know he's home."
"I can't," Elizabeth said apologetically. "Dad'll go spare if I disappear. I have to be at dinner, then in the dungeons after that."
"When are you off house arrest?"
"Three more days," Elizabeth glared at Fred. "It's your fault."
"My fault?" Fred adopted an innocent look. "It's not my fault you can't keep your thoughts to yourself. Ow," he protested as she punched him in the arm.
*S*S*
ELIZABETH EVANS SPEAKS OUT AT LAST:
THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED
AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN
Severus Snape was having a bad day. After being summoned by Umbridge that morning and asked why he was raising a lying child, he'd had to listen to a hissed scolding from Minerva about how he needed to keep better track of what Elizabeth was doing. "It's not that the interview isn't brilliant," Minerva said. "But is she trying to be arrested? Or expelled?"
"Perhaps it's something to consider," Severus commented.
"Severus Tobias Snape!" Minerva gave him a glare that rivaled his own. "They would snap her wand. Don't be ridiculous."
After pulling himself from that unpleasant affair, he was confronted in his office by Remus, who was waving a copy of The Quibbler in the air. "This is either brilliant or suicidal, I'm not sure which," he said, sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk.
"It's will be deadly for someone, that's certain," Severus sighed. "At least she showed some sense, she didn't name any Death Eaters."
"I wanted to," Elizabeth entered the office from their chambers. "But I'd rather they not break up any Death Eater meetings at the moment." She looked at Severus, who barely quirked an eyebrow in recognition. "Anyway, it seems that, despite pissing off Umbridge—
"Language," Severus warned.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Everything seems to be working out as planned."
"It isn't, actually," Severus glared, "because there was not a plan that involved everyone in this room." He rubbed his temple. "You'd best be glad that I can't afford to send you to Beauxbatons."
"I don't speak French," Elizabeth grinned. "So I think I'm safe."
"You're a quick study," Remus commented, "I'd bet you could pick it up."
Severus examined The Quibbler again. "Whose idea was this?"
"Are you mad?"
"Whose idea?" Severus repeated.
"Hermione's," Elizabeth came cautiously to perch on the edge of his desk, unable to read her father's eyes.
"How did that child ever end up in Gryffindor?" Severus mused aloud, "Ravenclaw would have been obvious, though her Slytherin characteristics seem to be showing at the moment."
*S*S*
Weeks later, she was on the floor of their living room again, trying to clear her head. She'd been forced, yet again, to relive a stream of very early memories, most of them concerning humiliations Dudley and his gang had inflicted upon her in primary school.
"That last memory," Severus said, helping her up. "What was it?"
"I don't know," Elizabeth said wearily. "You mean the one where Dudley tried to make me stand in the toilet?"
"No," Severus said softly. "I mean the one concerning a man kneeling in the middle of a darkened room…"
"It's nothing," Elizabeth shrugged.
"How did that man and that room come to be inside you head, Elizabeth?"
"It…" Elizabeth looked everywhere but Snape's piercing gaze, "it was just a dream."
"A dream? Or a dream?"
Elizabeth didn't answer, and Severus made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "Remind me why we are here, Elizabeth."
"So I can learn Occlumency," Elizabeth answered, staring at the wall behind his head.
"Correct," Severus crossed his arms. "It would seem that since keeping the Dark Lord out of your head is our goal, you would cease keeping run-ins with him from me."
"It wasn't big thing—
"I'll decide that," Severus snapped. "It is not up to you to find out what the Dark Lord is saying to his Death Eaters."
"No, that's your job, isn't it?"
Severus was quiet for a half of a beat, then responded, his voice calmer than Elizabeth had expected, "Yes, that is my job. Now we'll start again." He raised his wand. "One, two, three, Legilimens!"
Quirrell was staring in the mirror as Severus floated, frozen above… The dementor was coming toward her on the train… suddenly, she could also see Severus in front of her… growing clearer… the dementor was growing fainter…
Elizabeth raised her wand.
"Protego!"
Severus staggered; his wand flew upward, away from Elizabeth, and suddenly her mind was teeming with memories that were not hers— a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner… a greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark bedroom… A girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick—
"ENOUGH!"
Elizabeth felt as though she'd been pushed hard in the chest, and stumbled backward onto the sofa.
"Well," Severus said, white and shaking a bit, "That was certainly an improvement. An unorthodox choice, to be sure, but no doubt effective."
Elizabeth said nothing. She was sure she'd broken into Severus' memories, that she had just seen scenes from her father's childhood. It was unnerving to think that the crying little boy who had watched his parents shouting was actually standing in front of her, having never, to her knowledge, spoken to anyone with such loathing as the memory had shown.
"Let's try again, shall we?"
Elizabeth stood carefully. He wasn't going to mention it? That she had just broken into his head?
"On the count of three, then," Severus raised his wand, counting slowly, then, "Legilimens!"
She was hurtling along the corridor toward the Department of Mysteries, past the blank stone walls, past the torches, the door opened—
"ELIZABETH!"
Elizabeth opened her eyes. She was on the floor, with Severus crouched beside her. "What is behind the door?" He asked quietly, as she sat up, shaking her head as if to clear it.
"I don't know," Elizabeth squinted at nothing in particular, trying to remember. "There's always a door, but it's never opened like that before."
Severus frowned. "I think that's plenty for the night," he said, standing and pulling her up with him. "I need to start making you stand on a practice mat."
"I'm fine," Elizabeth brushed at her robes.
"You always are," Severus sighed. "Remus was going to come and spar with you for awhile, but apparently Black needs a babysitter. So I suppose you're 'off the hook' as they say. Shower," he pushed her toward her room. "Tea in twenty minutes."
Elizabeth had started to trudge toward her room when a scream echoed outside in the hallway.
"Stay here," Severus ordered, heading out the door. Elizabeth followed, having finely honed her selective hearing to omit any order that kept her out of the action. "Elizabeth!" Severus growled, whipping around before he'd completely opened the door. "Stay. Here."
Elizabeth fell back, the look on her face making clear exactly what she thought of staying behind.
*S*S*
"I can't say that I've been a supporter of Professor Trelawney's employment," Severus commented, having returned from the screaming scene in the hallway. "However, the appointment of the Centaur certainly made Umbridge's face turn an impressive color."
"His name is Firenze," Elizabeth said, "and he's dreamy."
"Elizabeth, I am a tolerant man, but I must insist that you limit your dating life to our species."
"Dad!" Elizabeth rolled her eyes.
"As far as I know, Mr. Weasley has only two legs," Severus said calmly, stirring a splash of milk into his cup.
"So does Remus," Elizabeth looked at him with her teenage-patented, what are you going to say to that? look.
"Remus is human," Severus said firmly. "Now tell me about the door."
"All I ever see is the hallway, and the door," Elizabeth shrugged. "Voldemort wants something inside, but I don't know what it is."
Severus nodded, but said nothing.
Elizabeth paused, then narrowed her eyes. "Do you know what he wants?"
"Not necessarily," Severus drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. "However, I do know that it's dangerous for him to have anything he wants. Which is why we need to practice more. Information from your head to his will be a weapon in his hands. You are certainly improving, but I'm still making it too far into your mind."
"I'm sorry," Elizabeth curled her feet up, poking them between the sofa cushions.
"No need. Learning is a process."
"I meant… I didn't mean to push into your head."
Severus sighed and stood, moving over to the sofa to sit beside her. "Remember, I store the memories I don't want you to see before we begin. I'll survive sharing a few unpleasant childhood memories with my daughter."
"So there's worse?"
"Worse than Tobias screaming at my mother? You've forgotten our current political climate," he put an arm around her and trapped her feet with his other hand. "You'll ruin the cushion."
"Will not," Elizabeth argued, but ceased digging into the fabric.
*S*S*
"See that they've named themselves?" said Fudge quietly. "Dumbledore's Army."
Severus, one hand vice-like on the back of Elizabeth's neck, took the parchment from Fudge. "May I speak to you outside?"
"You can't brush this under the rug, Professor—
"You're welcome to accompany us, Dolores," Severus said as pleasantly as he ever spoke to anyone outside his immediate family. "Stay here," he hissed in his daughter's ear as he lead the two adults outside into the corridor.
"Your daughter has been trouble for quite a while now," Dolores began.
"Hush, woman, you'll spoil everything," Severus snapped, rolling his eyes as if he couldn't stand Umbridge's idiocy, which didn't require much acting.
"Spoil? What?" Umbridge sputtered, unaccustomed to being spoken to in such a way since the beginning of her abuse of power.
"You forget from what House my daughter was sired," Severus said smoothly, turning to Fudge. "Elizabeth knows her adoptive grandfather well," he afforded a moment for a look of distain directed to the office door. "One of his most useful qualities, at least for you, is his arrogance. Now, if you were a group of students, seeing the power shifting," he inclined his head to Umbridge, "it stands to reason that you would prepare yourself for a time when the outgoing power became dangerous to your welfare."
"So you're saying, that Dumbledore's Army…" Fudge struggled for words.
"Is a title designed to flatter the old man if they were caught," Severus finished. "It backfired slightly, however, they are merely children." He gave what he hoped was a paternal smile. "You must admit that they've provided you with a neat way to extricate him from the school," Severus dropped his voice even further. "What better reason for the resignation of a Headmaster than the fact that he was nearly overthrown by a group of under-aged witches and wizards?"
Fudge and Umbridge both looked stunned, so Severus pressed on.
"He cannot be allowed to continue working with our youth," he preached, falling into a rhythm. "As a parent of a child at this school I must insist that you remove the threat to my daughter's safety. If my insistence is not enough, I'm sure that I can have a large group of Slytherin parents here within the hour. Lucius Malfoy would certainly have opinion about his son being exposed to a man whose lack of touch with reality is endangering the school."
"But Evans," Umbridge sputtered, "speaking nonsense, the article in the Quibbler—
"Shows just how easily Dumbledore is swayed," Severus commented serenely. "Banning the article was brilliant on your part, Dolores. Showing parents that you are protecting their children from drivel."
Umbridge looked at Fudge, then back at Snape. Fudge was clutching his wand, his eyes darting from Severus to the door of the office. And the earth seemed to still, just for a moment, on its axis.