Rose saw Snape stand up and face her. His pitch black eyes locked on her as he took few steps towards her, his oversized robes sweeping over moist grass.

The young witch fingered the wand in her pocket, intending to use it if the wizard tried to harm her. But something told her to trust him, the only reason she let him close the distance between them.

At last, when he stopped, it appeared as if there was a duelling contest about to take place, letting alone the fact that only one was armed.

"You want to know what happened so wrong that I let your mother die?" a hoarse whisper escaped from Severus's throat. He wore a remorseful expression on his face. Rose thought otherwise.

There should be something he should tell and I shall kill him.

"Because I was a fool!" he cried. "I was foolish enough to believe that power gave me whatever I wanted. I was tired of being weak, vulnerable to every sort of mockery that Potter made of me with friends till the end of his days. I wanted to be something more, some different, which would have got me my Lily back. So blind I was not to see the same kind of happiness your mother, Ruby bought into my life." Tears gleamed in his eyes as moonlight fell on his face.

"She was there, all along, managing her life as a double agent and pleasing Dark Lord until I destroyed her. It was after I lost Lily I realized what I made her suffer. I couldn't bear all this and it made me jump on top of world to know that you were alive." He couldn't hold back his tears, they rolled off his cheeks as he bowed his head. Even Rose was fighting hard to keep her eyes dry.

"And now…" he continued, looking hopefully at her. "…after all this, there is only one thing I expect. I want to give you back that small and sweet family you lost due to me."

Rose looked at Snape hatefully. He bend his head again and was crying frantically. A tear escaped her eye's corner as she pulled out her wand. Her hand shivered when she struggled to point it at the wizard.

That's it, father. I wanted a reason. You gave me one. Soon, I wouldn't regret killing you.

But she couldn't. How could she destroy the last of her family she found about after waiting for nineteen years? The person she looked so much like though she didn't notice before? Her wand hand was shaking terribly and throat ran dry.

She gulped a short breath, when she heard Snape whisper across the distance. "It is the only thing I give you right now, my dear daughter."

Rose had enough. She raised the hand above her head and brought it down, tossed the wand between them. She was crying dreadfully.

How long she waited for someone to call her 'my daughter'? She remembered the time when she would wait for her mother or father to come home when she was two. Not after long, Aberforth told she was as good as an orphan which traumatized her for a week, unable to speak or eat anything. Sooner or later, she got used to the idea.

But now, she decided to forgive him for every mistake he made. She skipped across the distance and wrapped her arms around the wizard. "I forgive you, dad. I do." She mumbled, struggling hard to control her emotions.

Never before Severus felt like doing it but he let go of his feelings. Holding Rose tightly, he remembered the time he held Lily like that. But this time, he would not let any power take his daughter away from him.

Neither realized time fly by until one of the wild roosters in the Forbidden forest crowed. The sky had warm streaks of orange against grayish background. "It's nearly dawn." She said, looking at sunlight intensifying every moment.

Awkwardness settled between both of them and they let go each other. Turning her face away at rising sun, the witch mumbled, "I think you better get back. Madam Pomfrey does not like her patients out of their beds before she lets them."

She dared not turned back until Snape was half a way to castle door. Her eyes were red and swollen. Half of her face had dried crust of salt which left mild rashes on her skin as she rubbed it off.

Rose sighed at dark figure walking towards the door. There was strange pain she felt to accept her only family, when she long lived with the notion that she was all alone in the whole world. She wanted to speak about this to someone, but not anyone and definitely not someone she just became only family of or vise-versa.