To do things well

Sev arrived at his house on Cokeworth Spinner's End by Floo from Dumbledore's office, carrying his trunk in one hand, the trombone in the other, and with his backpack on his back.

Eileen was waiting for him sitting on the couch in the living room and she got up immediately. "Boof..." she sighed deeply. "What two months you've put me through."

Ugh… she's very bad, he worried.

Sev came out of the fireplace, put his trunk and trombone on the floor, and hugged her. "Mum... I love you very, very much…"

She clung to him too. "You could have written to me more often and I wouldn't have had to deal with the old man so much," she reproached him.

"You're right."

"It's okay, I haven't done it either. But from now on I plan to do it. We already have an owl."

"How are you? You don't look good," he said.

"It's nothing, Severus, you won't be able to understand it until you are a father. Concern, simply."

"Ugh, Mum... you must take care of yourself, now I'm worried about you too."

"It's nothing, Severus, in these two months everything goes away. I'm finally going to get a good night's sleep."

"Are you sure it's just that? Have you been to the doctor?"

"Yes, I went, yes. I went to the Muggle doctor on the recommendation of Lily's parents, and he wanted to give me sleeping pills. I didn't take them."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because those pills are addictive, Severus. They are legal drugs, half the country takes them, once you get used to them you need them forever and I don't want to be hooked on a drug, I've had enough in my life with your father."

"Of course, I understand you."

"One of my clients has recommended that I do yoga and relaxation exercises, but the classes are expensive."

"That's no problem. I'm a millionaire, Mum."

"Well, well, don't claim victory so soon. Wait for Violet to make the arrangements, they can cause problems if she goes out of line."

"You are already informed of everything through her."

"Of course, you've written to her more than me," Eileen complained.

"I'm so sorry, Mum, it was for not worrying you."

"Not knowing is the worst, Severus. Let's see, let me look at you."

She separated from him, they held each other arms.

"You look magnificent, better than ever, you even have some color," his mother told him.

"True."

"I see that you have finally learned to take care of yourself despite how you must have gone through it too. You don't know how much it makes me happy and relieved, I'm already telling you that I'm going to sleep well. And those clothes?"

"Almost no one wears a uniform at school anymore outside of classes," Sev explained.

"Wow… incredible."

"We have turned Hogwarts upside down, Mum, not only with the Army, but with many initiatives that we have been thinking about and that I have proposed to the old man."

"He was already telling me that you have become his right-hand man," she said.

"I'm going to make him go down in history."

They sat on the couch.

"You're going to go down too, you don't know how proud I am of you," Eileen said.

"What do you know about that, Mum?"

"Deborah already put me in contact with her parents to install the phone. They have subscribed to The Prophet twice, they send it to me every day and they also call me on Floo telling me what she tells them."

"Do you know that I found out about the phone yesterday?" he asked.

"Of course, Severus, they take your worries off your mind. What you told me at Easter, we have formed an exceptional team together. We will win the war."

"You look bad but I see your spirit as better than ever."

"Of course, Severus. I'm also Sly, combative, and I'm finally being able to make up for what my family did to me when I was young."

"Great, Mum."

"Have they also told you that I'm not going to go to work until Saturday?"

"No, they told me today and tomorrow," Sev responded.

"They told me to reserve the two and a half days for you. It doesn't matter, we'll have more than enough time today and tomorrow to catch up, on Friday do whatever you want. If you are not here, I will notify my clients again and I will not fail, with the telephone they have solved my life, and if I feel like it I'll take it off, if I sleep well I'll sleep all morning."

"Of course. Today I have something to do after dinner."

"Yes, I know. Hippolyta, Deborah's parents told me," said Eileen.

"She."

"I really want to meet her."

"And I really want you do it, Mum."

"And with Lily, what happened?"

"Booff… don't make me talk about that."

"I'm not making you talk about anything, I already know everything too," she said. "Last night I was having dinner at her house and her parents updated me. Your Gryff friend, Cecile, wrote to them explaining it. They are very warm with her, by now they must have had a good one."

"Ugh… that wasn't what I wanted for her."

"Of course not you, but she deserved it, Severus. You've been watching for her for seven years, her parents know that, and she only have for you since Christmas. Let her wake up once and for all."

"Let's stop talking about Lily, please. I noticed that you abbreviate Houses."

"Conversations with Deborah's parents."

"Oh... Now the entire Army does it, even the old man does it when he is alone with me," he said.

"One more revolution. Soon the Prophet will too, you'll see. Do you want to see what has come out about you?"

"Of course. When did it come out?"

Eileen got up to look for the newspaper in the chest of drawers. "On Sunday, maximum circulation."

"I'm very surprised that Jack, who receives it at school, didn't tell me."

"Because Deborah asked them to save the surprise for you so I could give it to you."

"Sure…"

"You have already gone from villain to hero. Look," she said. Eileen sat down next to him again, showing him the cover.

"Wow..." Sev exclaimed.

"And it's not small news, huh? There is a review on the cover and appears on the first pages."

"Great."

"Shame about the photo, but better not, given the situation. Read, read, I already know it by heart." She handed him the paper, the blurb on the cover said:

SEVERUS SNAPE RINGS THE BELL

The questioned leader of the revolution that occurred at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on May 15th finally demonstrates his change of sides by conjuring Patronus in his OWL practical exam for the DCAO subject. But this is not the only extraordinary fact about such an examination. If you want to know everything that happened during it, true prodigies, you will find it described in great detail on page 3.

"How awesome!" he exclaimed.

"What I told you, from villain to hero. On the cover and as the main news on Sunday. It was good for you to become famous in a bad way, now they take advantage of it to sell more."

"Of course... No wonder the old man was jealous of me on Monday."

"Oh, really?" Eileen asked.

"Yes, Mum, I'll tell you in more detail later. Let me read the news first."

Sev turned the page, it was the first news item on page three, the most notable of the day, it took up the entire page without a photo and was faithful to what the review said. Everything that happened during his practical Defense exam was explained in great detail, and not only that, the extraordinary career he had had during his five years at school was highlighted and a very promising future and a very prominent position in the Wizarding World when he finally graduated, relating it to the impending war.

Of course, the newspaper did not at any point renounce how he had been vilified just a month and a half ago, but luckily there was not a word about what had really been happening since then at Hogwarts, the creation of the Army. Sev discussed each paragraph of the news with his mother, which took them more than half an hour.

He finally concluded, "Perfect, it was perfect. My name cleared, the path to the Chair clear and not a word about the Army. I suspect that my school family was the one who wrote the news and sent it as is."

"Make no mistake, Severus, the style is that of the Daily Prophet. The rumor simply spread and from Thursday to Sunday there was time for many students to write. With all the information they completed the article."

"Of course, of course…"

"Something else is coming that will interest you a lot, if you are not very hungry, look at it now too."

"What? What page is it on?" Sev asked.

"Guess. What other notable news occurred over the weekend?"

"I know, the Quidditch final."

"Sports, page twenty-one," she said.

He flipped through eagerly and found the page. It was the first sports news, also very extensive, it took up the entire page. He started reading. The headline said:

SLYTHERIN WINS ITS FIRST FINAL AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS THANKS TO THE NEW SILVER STAR OF QUIDDITCH

"Take that!" Sev exclaimed. "That's my girl! A star is born!"

Eileen laughed. "You're more happy about that than about yours, huh? You will never change, Severus."

"Of course not, I love that aspect of my personality, it gives me a lot of satisfaction."

"Also many disappointments."

"Well yes, also a lot of disappointments," he admitted. "Let me read."

"Let's see, we'll read it together and you'll explain it to me, I don't know much about the technical aspects, you know that I was dedicated to the Gobstones."

"I'm not going to find out either, huh? Furthermore, I only saw the first goal, as soon as she went for the Snitch I only looked at her, I even timed the game."

"Oh…"

They read the news together. Firstly, a very detailed review of the match, with the names of all those who had scored goals and those who had avoided them and descriptions of the plays, with which the names of the three Sly Chasers and the two Beaters appeared.

Then a description, also detailed, of the evolution of both Seekers, so the names of both and the magnificent maneuvers performed by Hippolyta also appeared. To finish with the descriptive part, how the girl had caught the Snitch in front of the Sly stand.

Throughout this part, the game carried out at all times was valued, praising the enormous quality of the players of the green-silver team, and Hippolyta was even said that she could have caught the winged ball much earlier and that she had done so precisely at that moment for doing it in front of his dedicated fans. They were also predicted that as long as she continued in school they would continue to win all the championships.

Finally, almost a third of the article was dedicated solely to talking about the girl, how she had dedicated the award to the entire school at the presentation of the Cup and the triumphant reception in the Great Hall, her career the rest of the year, of the promise that she represented for Quidditch in the United Kingdom, and it was also predicted that she would participate in the next World Cups whenever the imminent war allowed it.

Sev and Eileen discussed that news extensively as well. When they finished he exclaimed, "Wonderful! Wonderful! She's already famous too! They'll come check her out next year! I'm mad at Jack for not showing me this, Hippolyta didn't know anything either."

"So that her parents, Severus, could give her a surprise..." patient. "It is thanks to them that she is going to succeed in Quidditch, they taught her to fly since she was little."

"Of course, of course. What I don't understand is how, if there was no editor, they were able to describe the game so well."

"I do know how they do it," she replied. "Some players from the Houses that did not play, Huffle and Gryff, are in charge of observing and writing everything down from the presidential stands."

"Oh…"

"Of course, then they put it in common with the match referee."

"Professor Wing, who is teaching us how to fly," Sev informed her.

"That is, and they send the review to the newspaper. Those of all the games played at school appear."

"Oh…"

"Of course, I know because you know that when I felt like it I went to Diagon on Sunday to buy it, and the school games are always played on Saturday," Eileen explained.

"I didn't know they published it because I was in school."

"That is."

"But the people on the Quidditch team at home, with whom I now also have a good relationship, didn't tell me anything about how they did that," he said.

"Did you ask them?"

"I didn't."

"Then the topic simply didn't come up," she downplayed it. "I know because with the Gobstones championships we did it that way."

"Sure."

"Anything else to comment?"

"No, no," Sev responded.

"Then I'm going to heat up lunch, it's very late. You must be hungry and I am too, tonight I haven't slept a wink because I was so anxious to see you and I didn't even have the stomach for breakfast when I got up."

"Ugh, Mum... And have you gone to work without sleeping or eating?"

"Well yes, boy, it hasn't been the first time in my life nor will it be the last," Eileen responded. "That's what being a Mum has to do, so that you'll find out when it's your turn."

"Then rest, come on, I'll heat up lunch."

"We will have to lit the kitchen, it must have been turned off."

"There is no problem," he said.

"Do it, go on, while I levitate your things to your room. What is that strange thing you brought?" contemptuous.

"It is a rod trombone, a musical instrument."

"Booff... no... don't bother me... They're going to kick us out of the house, that's making a huge scandal," his mother complained.

She doesn't hesitate to blame me for things, neither will I, Sev thought. "Cecile is going to buy me a mute. It won't make any more scandal than the ones you and my father made when I was little."

"You are absolutely right. And where did you get it from?"

"From the Room of Requirement."

"Did you discover the Room of Requirement?" she was very excited.

"Of course, when we read the teachers."

"Wow... Come on, come on, let's each do our own thing and tell me while we have lunch. I'm dying to know, and no one has said a word to me about that."

Sev went to the kitchen, lit the wood stove, put the food on the fire, and then went to the bathroom. He returned to the kitchen to stir the pot so it wouldn't stick.

His mother was already waiting for him there, standing. "Start telling me now, come on, I can't wait," she asked him.

"I'll bring you a chair from the living room, don't stand."

He went to the living room and brought her a chair. When he returned, she was stirring.

"Leave that, come on, I'll do it, sit down," Sev told her. He took the ladle out of her hand.

She didn't sit down, she smoothed his hair. "You have sand in your hair. Have you been to the beach?" very surprised.

"Yes, Mum, I spent the night on the beach."

"And so?"

"I just told you, the Room of Requirement. You can ask for anything you want, even a beach."

"Wow... amazing," she was surprised.

"But let me start at the beginning, let's not start the house by the roof."

"Okay, okay…"

"Sit down, come on."

Eileen sat down, Sev began to tell her and continued to do so while he finished heating up their lunch, set the table in the living room, served the food, carried it to the table and they both ate a single-course stew for lunch.

He narrated the entire story of the Room of Requirement from the beginning, when he and Lauren discovered it reading Slughorn and Minerva, through the discovery of the storeroom, the mirror of Erised, the books removed from the Forbidden Section, the Piano Classroom, the Study and Training Space in Forgotten Sorcery, the Wind Instrument Classroom. He just skipped everything about Horcruxes.

Eileen was amazed, and at first she asked him numerous off-topic questions, especially regarding Lauren, but Sev refused to answer her and asked her to let him tell things his way, since they would talk about that topic later, because he wanted her to go to bed after lunch and take a nap with the Restorative Potion so that she could recover what she had not slept that night.

They still stayed for a while after dinner, it was already three in the afternoon when they finished talking about the Room.

"Just a couple of hours, huh, Severus?" she said. "Starting at five, Lily's parents are going to call, probably so that we can both go to their house to talk about the controversial topic. Maybe both, maybe just you."

"Okay, a couple of hours is worth six."

"Which is what I usually sleep when I sleep well. If I sleep so much I won't sleep at night. So better only an hour and a half, which is worth four and a half to me."

"Alright. How much do you weigh, Mum?"

"About one hundred and twenty pounds."

"You're very thin, huh, Mum?"

"Of course, I have lost weight with worries."

"What a cross we have. You reproach me for being the way I am and it comes from you."

"Of course it comes from me, surely not from your father," Eileen opined.

He served her the dose. "Take it when you are already lying down, you will fall asleep immediately."

"How good, like a blessed one."

"This is also engaging, huh? It has side effects."

"Yes, you already told me. Let's see if you improve it now in St. Mungo's," she said.

"I hope so."

Eileen went to bed and Sev took a shower, dried his hair in his own way with the Muggle hairdryer his mother had already bought, changed his clothes, hand-washed and put to dry the ones he had taken off, and then stayed sitting on the couch reading the book 'The Way of the Stars', which he had little left to finish.

Shortly after four-thirty his mother appeared again and said, "Like a blessing, I haven't felt so rested since you left for Hogwarts. That potion of yours is prodigious."

"I can tell, you look much better."

"Keep reading, I'm going to make dinner in case we stay late at Lily's house."

"Mum... keep still. I'm sure we'll have tea and something to eat there. Today I'm going to make dinner, whatever time we arrive, sit with me and we'll continue chatting."

"But you have to go to Hippolyta's house."

"But I can go without dinner and do it when I return, don't worry. I want to talk to you about Lily before I see her parents face to face. To know what you were talking about last night."

"Okay, Severus, you're right, it's important."

Eileen sat with him.

"Tell me, what did Cecile tell them?" Sev asked.

"That Lily had fallen in love with another boy and she had stopped loving you, she explained to them about the Red Magic Couple Bond."

"Well done. Did she tell them that I had also been with other girls while still loving her?"

"Yes, she told them too," she replied.

"Great, one less predicament I find myself in, having to explain it myself. Now she has changed her mind again."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, she was talking on Monday night with Jack and Ariel, and she told them both that she was very sorry, that she was going to continue loving me even though I didn't love her, and with the little one she cried and everything," he explained.

"Oh…"

"That's why I hope her parents haven't scolded her too much, she's in a mess."

"Have you checked it? Have you bonded with her again?" asked his mother.

"No, because now I'm the one who wants to take time and think about it, and if I get too close to her again I'll fall like a fool again, I'm too dependent on her. I'm going to tell you something else, don't interrupt me, there isn't much time."

Sev told her about Remus' visions, the consequences they would have had if they had come true, and his own premonitions in Erised, who that same morning had looked at himself and did not see Lily, he saw only Hippolyta and Lauren.

"What a story..." said Eileen.

"That has made me think that Lily, at the moment, is not the person for me. She has never truly loved me, if she had been able to do something like that to me after so many years of close friendship."

"Of course not, I advise you to never return to her."

"I can't say for sure, but for the moment I want to avoid contact with her as much as possible, I'm going to be tempted by having her so close at hand," he said.

"But you do want to be with her parents, don't you?"

"Of course, and with Tuney."

"Very well, then I'll tell you their opinion on the subject," she said. "They are not going to force you to be in the same room at any time, they have decided to divide their time between the two of you."

"Oh…"

"They also consider you their son, they already told you, not since you were with Lily, long before."

"True. And did you talk about the holidays?" asked Sev,

"We did it. If you want, we'll go to Cornwall with just them and Tuney, and then they'll take another week with their daughters or just Lily if Tuney has to study. If so, if she has to stay alone in her house, we will take care of her, we will go live there if you want."

"Never that. In that case Lily would be alone for a whole week while the rest of us are in Cornwall. I'll think about it between now and then and either we'll go with Lily too, or I won't go, it depends on how things go. Did you talk about all this before Tuney?"

"Not everything, not your intimacies, but sharing their time and holidays, yes," Eileen responded.

"Well done."

"Lily's parents know how to do things well. I have learned a lot from them this season."

"Well, they haven't done too well with Tuney until now, huh?" he said.

"No, we must admit that no, we have talked about the subject many times."

"And I also don't think it's right that they considered leaving Lily alone to give priority to me."

"But it's understandable, Severus, you've never gone on holidays and she has."

"But I'm the one who has the problem and needs to get away. Don't worry, I'll talk to them and explain it to them. What did Tuney think about maybe her not spending the holidays with Lily?"

"If she has to choose, she would rather spend them with you and me than with her sister. After all, if it hadn't been for us she would never have gotten her back."

"That's true," Sev admitted. "In fact, Lily still spent more than a month without writing to her apart from school while Tuney did. I had to be the one to tell her to do it."

"There you have it, Lily is not the person she should be."

"But for that reason, they need to spend time together. Lily is going to Cornwall no matter what."

"Have you written to Tuney apart from her parents?" she asked.

"No, because she hasn't done it with me either."

"You did well by not getting involved. It's already five o'clock, they can call at any time. Do you want to take it or do you want me to take it?"

"Oh... you have a watch..." he realized.

"Of course, they gave it to me."

"Look, I have it too, Jack gave it to me."

"Wow... green and silver, Sly... how elegant," Eileen admired. "You haven't answered me."

"Ugh… I don't know, I've never spoken on the phone."

"But you have spoken projecting and bonded. It's the same thing, speaking without seeing the expression on the other person's face, just being guided by their tone of voice."

"Do you think it's better that I take it or that you take it?" Sev asked.

"Whatever you want, honey, but don't fear anything from them, they will be very happy when they hear you. They also fear for you and are eager to see you. You already know that they know everything that has happened."

"Then I'll take it."

"That's how I like it, giving it courage," his mother approved.

"If they ask me if you want to come, what do I tell them?"

"Yes, I want to go, so I support you. If they want to talk to you alone later, I'll come home earlier and that's it. But keep something to yourself, don't admit to them that you could have been on the other side, Severus, I don't think they will accept that."

"Oh... Everyone I've told it to has accepted it, and there are already many people," he disagreed.

"Well, then do as you want, if you need to tell them, tell them, but be aware of the consequences, maybe you will lose them."

"If I lose them out of that, I prefer not to have them. Loving someone also means accepting everything about him, his past and present, his virtues and defects."

"You're absolutely right, I know that better than anyone," she admitted.

"Of course you know."

"How much more you have matured in two months, Severus, you are unknown."

"I'm going to live perhaps for years in constant risk of death, Mum. That toughten you a lot."

"Luckily the situation with the old man couldn't have gone any better, you will be protected at Hogwarts as you expected, you will not fight."

"That is. But in exchange I am going to send many people I love to fight. In the end I dedicated myself to protecting someone who perhaps didn't deserve it."

"True. I think her parents are going to accept what I told you before that they won't," Eileen said. "They don't fear for their daughter like I fear for you."

"Because their daughter is completely protected thanks to me. She has a summer escort if she must go to Diagon, she can become invisible, it has not yet reached the ears of the Death Eaters that we may be together and it will not arrive, because at home they suspected it but my family has been in charge of denying it, and when she graduates, she will have a job at Hogwarts, the most protected place in the Wizarding World. And something else, apart from expelling the malefic Slys, we lynched five others, three Raves and two Gryffs that remained, and Obliviated them."

"Oh…"

"You should have seen how they turned out, we used a spell that is equivalent to giving a Muggle beating, we burst them, bones, teeth, everything," Sev told her. "We were very close to killing them, they spent a whole week in St. Mungo's and they no longer returned to Hogwarts."

"Great," very satisfied.

"We did that because my escort and Lily screwed it and they saw them together, they were thinking of snitching to Voldemort so that he would accept them into his ranks."

"Indeed you have protected her. Tell Lily's father that too, so that he finds out what a stuff you are made of, that you risked ending up in Azkaban to protect her daughter," her mother recommended. "Indeed he will accept everything you tell him. Explain to him, explain to him what Dementors are and how they spend their time."

"He must already know, I asked Lily to tell him to read the Defense books."

"Wow... very well done."