Cumbria's great thaw was slow to come. Patches of snow and frost lingered for weeks, and in the shadows of great hedgerows and antique walls, large embankments of snow melted at a slower pace than they did out in the dead fields.
Still, bits of greenery poked forth with pernicious idealism. Life prevails after every season of death and cold.
Harry wasn't certain that he'd ever reflected so strongly on the way that spring warmed over the world in the early months of the year.
The manicured lawns of Little Whinging would have been scraped free of snow and ice for weeks by that point, and he'd have perhaps begun to see evidence of little buds or flowers appearing here and there, but he'd always been inclined to assume that such progress was achieved at the insistence of imperious busybodies such as his Aunt Petunia. The Lord knew that his neighborhood had been full of that sort.
If spring came, it was because it was expected. On a schedule, in a timely and reasonable fashion; and boy, wouldn't it have been terribly rude for the season to delay changing?
How different it was out in the wilds of the far north. For one thing, winter was harsher than Harry had ever seen it, and he was still bundled into his warm coat and fuzziest jumpers whenever he left the house. Two pairs of socks, minimum, were required when trekking anywhere, and the bite of the wind over the hills and through the trees was enough to take one's breath away.
Evidently, this particular winter had been stronger than those in the more recent few years, if what Gammy and some of the clients at Snape & Son said was true. Harry tended to believe it was, for he'd only begun to spot the pristine white snowdrops—the flowers, not the girl—in early February, when they normally made an appearance in January. They were still flowering now, well into March, and Gammy had speculated that she might even see them last into April, if it didn't begin to warm soon.
Harry didn't mind the cold at all. Even going out to the barn felt more invigourating with a nip of frostiness on his tiny nose.
Gammy had gifted him a pair of woolen mittens that Snowdrop had rejected once upon a time, and he'd gratefully worn them every time he went out to do his chores, and also to and from school. The pattern was a lovely fair-isle motif, worked in two-tone red and white, and the fact that the red dye had begun to bleed into the white wool only made them more endeared to his heart for he didn't have to worry about ruining them.
It was just such an afternoon, now. Feet clad in Nicky's unused wellies, he stomped through the mud and slurry with his head wrapped tight in a cowl-like cover he'd made with his scarf. It somewhat resembled a balaclava, which he'd seen in a couple of films recently. The availability of the new television set in the Snape household had been a true revelation to him. There were so many things he'd not known about or been privy to out in the world. It felt a bit like when he'd taken to reading the Daily Prophet and tuning in to Ganymede's Gaffes and Guesses. A whole new world opened up to him, and he was a captive observer, particularly on those glorious Saturday mornings where Severus stayed home from the shop and prepared the house a late breakfast.
It was like the one tranquil port in his week, those mornings, even if he did have to share them with Severus' father. While watching telly, he was a lot more fun to be around, and they'd developed a few in-jokes based around the programmes that aired weekly. On Saturday afternoons Severus insisted on driving Harry out to Penrith, where he'd begun catechism classes at St. Catherine's.
It was anyone's guess who had instigated such a thing. Or rather: Harry knew it was he himself who was interested, and that he had been ever since Severus had challenged that the day Snape himself took Communion would be the day Harry did, and now, understanding better through his classes what Communion was, Harry dearly wished to see that day come to pass. However, Lola and Severus argued each week after Mass about who it was that had inspired Harry's move towards baptism. Lola insisted it was herself, and Severus, himself.
In a technical sense Severus might well have been in the right, but Harry was too proud to give the other wizard that sort of credit. He'd been curious the moment he'd set foot in the nave of St. Catherine's. Yet, he left them to their squabbling. It seemed, at times, as though Lola and Severus loved each other all the better the more they argued.
In any case, at his late age, it had been determined by the priest—Father Pearson—that Harry ought to undergo both Baptism and First Communion on the same day, and that after (provided he was not in a state of mortal sin, thus necessitating a stint in the confessional), he would be permitted to partake of the Eucharist.
It had apparently been a bit difficult for Severus to negotiate this with Father Pearson, given his lack of parental standing and his own transient reputation in the parish. Harry wasn't privy to the deliberations, but it had required concessions on Severus' part that amounted to private meetings while Harry was in his Saturday afternoon class, and his kuya always emerged from the parish office in an odd mood after.
The ritual for Saturday then finished with a late supper back at home and whatever film was airing on television. Recently, he'd been treated to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Railway Children, and A Cottage on Dartmoor.
He felt certain that soon he'd be as well educated on film as Nicky was... nevermind that the other boy was permitted to watch much newer releases, and films that were wildly inappropriate for a nine-year-old child.
The one time that Harry had asked Severus if he might find a way to watch First Blood, Snape had sneered at him so fiercely that Harry had insisted he'd only been joking.
The pail Harry carried with him made a loud clang as he set it on the floor outside the milking stall, and he started off by stocking the tray before the stall with handfuls of alfalfa.
Babs was quite biddable that afternoon, and he managed to coax her into the stall with minimal effort.
It was a productive day, which yielded two full pails of creamy milk, and a dozen eggs—which was a lot for the winter months, when the hens laid far less than was normal—and he took more than one trip to transport his spoils back up to the house.
It was already twilight by that time, as the days were only beginning to feel as though they were growing longer, and he was brought up short on his final trip when he noticed that the man who'd come to pick him up on that evening was not Severus, but Tobias.
The eldest Snape stood uncomfortably in the entryway, a cap grasped in his heavily callused hands and a determined yet petulant look on his face.
"Laddo," he greeted, tipping the hat that was in his hands in place of doffing it from his head.
"Er... Toby."
"Aas gan yam with thee to-day."
"You... you are?" Harry asked, glancing around in case Severus might have hid himself somewhere. "Where's Severus?"
Tobias grunted. "Ain't 'ere. At t' shop."
"Oh..." Harry shifted and set the plastic bucket down that contained the eggs he'd found. "Usually he comes for me..."
Tobias rolled his eyes at this, as Harry was telling the man nothing new. "If thou divvnt want'a come yam with us, then that's yer choice. Nivver buy a pig in a pwok, says me."
Harry's face screwed up in confusion. "Never buy a pig—?"
Emerging from around the corner, Gammy wiped her hands off on the dirty apron she wore about her waist. "Take nothing on trust, he means."
Harry blinked, nonplussed. "What's a 'pwok?'"
"A bag."
"So...?"
"It's our way of saying not to go into things sight unseen," she answered gently, nodding at her reluctant houseguest with wary welcome. "Mr. Snape. How do you do?"
Tobias grumbled a response that might have been the word "fine."
Harry glared down at the second pair of socks he'd worn over the first, having taken his wellies off at the door. This top pair had holes in the toes, which he wiggled a bit against the wood floor.
Pigs in bags and gifted horses. Between the two, who knew what anyone meant, ever?
"Yeh ready, laddo?"
With a sigh, Harry toed his trainers on and slung his school bag over his shoulder. He was still attired for the outdoors as he'd not even had a chance to remove his coat and scarf yet.
"Yeah, I'm ready."
"Gan wait in yon Marina."
Harry frowned up at the man, cocking an eyebrow as he'd seen Severus do so many times before. "Go and... and wait? What am meant to be waiting for?"
"Pee in yer oan pwok neukk, nosy fowt—!"
Gammy stepped forward then and patted Harry's shoulder blade with a firm but gentle touch. "Go on, Harry. I think Mr. Snape had something he wished to discuss with me," she surmised, training her own level gaze on the man. There was a hint of censure there, but Harry couldn't imagine why that should have been.
"What would he have to discuss with you—?"
"To the car, Harry. Now, please. And I'll ask you not to be rude."
With a frustrated sigh, Harry readjusted the weight of his bag over his shoulder and trudged out over the threshold, carefully navigating the front steps which were sometimes icy. Today they were dry, but it was never a guarantee.
The Marina was parked out by the heavy gate, which was propped open behind a stone that Gammy used as a doorstop (or would it be a gatestop?). At least Tobias had had the foresight to keep it unlocked. He'd have hated to have had to go back in there and interrupt whatever stupid thing the man was asking of Gammy.
Probably he was begging her for more leads for clients. He was a natural born salesman, but pushy. Harry couldn't imagine being quite so shameless about soliciting business as he'd seen Toby be.
Severus either, for that matter. Snape seemed to think it was a fair trade off that he did all of the front-end work while his father gabbed his way through the town. Anything that saved Severus from having to fraternise with the 'hoi polloi' (as he called them) was permissible in the irritable wizard's books.
Harry entered the car through the passenger side, moving the seat forward and tossing his bag in before him. He settled into the back and closed the door against the wind, which howled outside.
It was freezing, and he was made all the more miserable by the fact that he was treated to the sight of Gammy's warm, inviting house. All of the windows were lit and it looked like a cheerful spot of sunshine on the desolate backdrop of Cumbria's late winter.
Inside the car, although the heater must have only been off for a matter of minutes, Harry could already see his breath misting the air. When he pulled his scarf up over his nose, his glasses fogged up, and he was made to choose between his vision and his poor nose, which was beginning to run.
With a sniff, he chose his eyesight. At least then he could try to read.
Of course, he realised the futility of that as soon as he withdrew his book from the inside of his bag. The light was too low to permit such a thing. Even straining his eyes as hard as he could, the words on the page were impossible to see.
With an oath he'd learnt from either Severus or Nicky he threw the battered copy of Watership Down back in his bag.
He didn't even like that bloody book anyway.
Severus didn't keep the tape deck in the car anymore unless he knew he was going to Penrith or Carlisle. He had the one for Spinner's End, and the other was kept permanently in the garage. Of course Tobias hadn't bothered to bring it, and who knew how long he was going to be yammering to Gammy.
Slumping down in his seat, Harry curled up basically in two, so that his knees and shins were wedged against the back of the passenger-side seat and his chin was pressed into his chest.
He was entitled to a good sulk by this point, he figured.
Only, he nearly suffocated with his coat pressing into his nose when he was startled by the urgent banging sound of someone's insistent fist against the top of the Marina.
Using his elbows, hands, and an absolute dearth of elegance, he flipped himself until he was kneeling in the bottom of the car, using the back bench to push himself up so he was again seated properly. When he leaned forward through the passenger and driver seats he saw Snowdrop's silhouette bearing down on him through the window.
"What do you want!?" He called out, not expecting her to hear or answer. Indeed, she didn't, until he squeezed into the front seat and began using the hand crank to lower the window pane.
"What're you pounding on the car for—!?"
"DID YOU KNOW!?" Snowdrop screamed in his face, her words emerging with such force that they might've blown his hair back against his temples.
"What—!?"
"I BET YOU KNEW! YOU ALL BLOODY WELL KNEW! F—" she choked on a sob and banged her fist against the roof of the car again, struggling to produce the word. "F-ff—"
"Snow—?"
"Fuck you, Potter!" she finally managed, bracing her two palms against the frame and kicking her foot out to slam into the hubcap. She did it over and over, screaming in rage or in pain with each kick.
Each blow rattled the car and after five such kicks, Harry decided to put an end to it. He rolled up the window, which temporarily blunted the tenor of her cries, and then pushed open the door, knocking Snowdrop down into the dormant grass in the process.
Her tantrum didn't cease, however, and she howled all the louder. On her back, like a turtle whose been flipped by the capricious winds of fate, she aimed her flailing legs at Harry's own when he stepped out of the car and stood over her.
"Don't! Do! That!" He grunted, falling to his knees and holding her legs still with his hands on her ankles.
"LET ME GO! I HATE YOU! I H-HATE Y-YOU!" She sobbed, finally scrambling over and pulling away until there were a few feet of space between them.
"What's wrong with you?" Harry asked, falling back onto his bottom with his back against the car door. As Snowdrop worked her way to standing again, he held his hands up in case he needed to fend her off. "I don't know what you're talking about—"
"You all knew! You had to!"
"Shut up! I have no clue what you're talking about!" He yelled back, glaring up at the girl. "I don't know anything—!"
"Duh-hhhh!" She snarled, stomping her foot so violently into the ground that Harry wasn't sure how she'd avoided injuring herself.
"Well then stop saying I knew! What are you even talking about, you little psycho!?" Harry demanded, using one of the insults he'd heard lobbed about recently in the school yard.
The scream Snowdrop Hill emitted after that was ear-piercing, and successfully disoriented Harry for long enough that he was too stunned to defend himself when she fell on him with her fists raining down against him.
It was lucky he was so well bundled up. And that she was too angry to successfully aim for his face.
They tumbled together, like two dwarves made up of marshmallow in their winter coats, until both were out of breath. They were a dozen or more paces from the car.
With rocks and dirt in his hair, Harry finally succeeded in pushing the girl off of himself, using his new freedom to scuttle away, looking closer to a crustacean than a boy as he did so. He panted for air, and Snowdrop did too. Her anger must have been exhausted, at least for the nonce, as she lay prone on in the weed-infested gravel of the driveway, her arms and legs spreadeagle.
Harry peered at her from a few meters away now, cautiously observing as her fit of histrionics broke into heart-wrenching sobs. Fat tears ran down her fleshy cheeks as her face screwed up until it resembled a newly birthed baby's. That is to say: squashed, red, and rather ugly.
As if to expel the last bits of energy she had, her hands clenched around fistfuls of gravel and threw them away from herself with a listless sort of motion. Then, she lay there. Motionless except for her chest heaving.
Once it became clear that Snowdrop no longer had a mind to attack him, Harry's adrenaline faded enough that he began to grow concerned for her. He crawled to her side on his hands and knees and knelt by her, studying the girl whose eyes were screwed up shut, as though she didn't want to face the world.
"What's wrong?"
"It c-can't be h-him—"
Harry frowned, confused. "Who?"
"H-him. In t-there," she moaned.
"Toby?" he asked, with a dubious shake of his head. "Is that who you mean?"
"Y-yeah..."
"What can't be Toby?" Harry asked, experimentally plugging the man's name into Snowdrop's strange pronouncement.
"M-my..." Snowdrop couldn't seem to finish for a renewed bout of blubbering, and having had enough by that point, Harry sighed and pulled with all his might on her coat at the shoulders, forcing the girl to sit up.
"What did he do? Huh? I'll tell Kuya, and he'll knock him a new one. Even though Toby's his dad—"
"K-kuya!" She spat, finally forcing her eyes open through her tears and glaring full-force at Harry. "I know what that means!"
"You do?" Harry asked, sarcastically. It was as though she thought this should be news to him, given her big show of acting as though she'd not understood only a week or more before. He'd never tried to obscure the meaning of the nickname to anyone.
Hell. He remembered explaining it once or twice to people, including Snowdrop.
"Only he's not yours! He's not your brother! He's mine!"
"I—what?!"
"He's my brother, Potter! The same way Nicky's my brother, 'cause my mam's a clarty hoor—!"
The words finally registering, Harry reeled back, his eyes wide behind his spectacles. "Toby's your... your dad!?"
"Yes, you idiot!"
Well. When Snowdrop was insulting him and his intelligence, Harry had to admit that the familial resemblance became uncanny.
"Well, I didn't know that! You kept saying I did, but I didn't!"
"I bet your kuya did!"
"I... I don't think he did?"
"Well it can't have just been... been him who knew!" Snowdrop cried, her voice rising. She brought her hands up a bit hysterically and began waving them about in front of herself, the fingers spread in her distress. Wide-eyed, she stared at the ground out in front of her outstretched legs, but didn't seem to see it.
Harry shrugged, his face scrunching up a bit against the cold. "I mean, really it could be. Toby doesn't tell us much of anything. Severus hadn't even seen him in years before this autumn. He was..."
"What? He was what?"
"He... er... he was living rough under the bridge. Like your mum."
"And you didn't think that was strange?" Snowdrop pressed him, training her gaze on Harry. "After you met her there, you didn't think they probably knew one another?"
"Er... no? I guess I never thought about it. It seemed like all of the tramps in Backbarrow ended up beneath the bridge. Toby was rounded up by the police when they took the encampment down for the winter and wound up in jail for being drunk in public or something.
"I guess around Christmas I thought it was weird that he hid behind the car when your mum started yelling after the Nativity concert..." Harry admitted. "Maybe I should have thought something of it at the time..."
"He hid?"
"Yeah. He saw your mum and ducked behind our car. But maybe because they had a falling out or something. She's... er... she's pretty scary like that."
Snowdrop shrugged as she glared around the desolate surroundings, fingering another pile of gravel. "She's loud, but she's not that scary."
"Not to you, maybe," the boy granted, not wanting to admit again that he'd found the woman rather frightening. "Anyway, if he had something going on with her, I would've thought he'd have gone back to the river by now. Instead he's been going to twelve-step meetings and doing his best to help the business," Harry said. It felt like pulling teeth to say such a thing, mostly because he didn't think Tobias was doing his part whatsoever, but that was for Severus and his father to hash out. If Snape was satisfied with Toby's engagement, then Harry could hardly complain. Or at the very least, he shouldn't, as it only made more trouble for his kuya.
"I think if Severus thought you were his sister he'd have said something, anyway," he continued on, pulling at a loose bit of yarn in the palm of his mittens. One patch over the meaty part of his thumb had been repaired once upon a time with a complimentary bit of yarn, but the end hadn't been properly woven in. It was beginning to unravel. "He has a thing about that sort of stuff."
"A thing? What do you mean by 'a thing?'" Snowdrop snorted, kicking a bit with frustration. She crossed her arms over her chest and had begun to shiver just a bit.
"Come on, let's go sit in the car. At least then we'll be out of the wind," Harry bade her, using his arms to push to his feet and offering her a hand up. She took it after a moment of hesitation and he led her back to the car, crawling into the back himself while he allowed Snowdrop to sit in the front passenger side. It was still freezing inside, but at least the blisteringly cold air was off of them for the moment.
Harry covered his mouth and nose with his mittened hand and blew, allowing the misting from his warm breath to warm up his nostrils a bit. Even if it did fog up his glasses, it was worth it for the momentary relief.
Snowdrop was also breathing on her hands and rubbing them together. She pushed her warmed palms up against her cheeks and sighed as she thawed a bit.
"What did you mean by a thing? What sort of thing?"
"Huh?" Harry asked, having forgotten how they'd gotten to that point in the conversation after they'd moved to the car.
"You said that... that... oh, I don't know what to call him! Snape! Mr. Snape. Sev-er-us," she tried out, the name sounding odd from her lips, "you said he had a thing about stuff like sisters and brothers—"
"O-ooh!" Harry nodded. "It's not about like, sisters and brothers, 'cause he didn't know he had any. It's about... erm, what's he say, again? Responsibility. That's it."
Snowdrop turned in her seat and peered between the front and passenger, her face illuminated only barely by the distant lights from Gammy's windows. "Responsibility? Why's that matter? What do they have to do with each other?"
"Well, Severus took responsibility for me, see? 'Cause he applied for custodianship back in July. He and my mum were best friends when they were growing up," Harry explained, "that's how we know one another, I guess. And since he said he'd be not a very good dad to me—he and my dad hated each other... er... because of my mum, and also he said he was too young to want to be a dad—he said it'd be alright if I called him my brother. Only, he didn't say it quite like that, did he? 'Cause he wouldn't. But he let me get away with calling him 'kuya,' which is what Lola said we were: brothers—Lola is like... his grandmother, but not—and he sort of always treated me like that... or I thought so, even though I don't have a brother—"
"Potter," Snowdrop rolled her eyes before she screwed them up, shut. She looked like she was facing down a monstrous headache. "Shut up."
"—but since you're really his sister and he thinks his dad is really dunderheaded," Harry slapped a hand over his running mouth, shaking his head. "Forget I said that last bit... anyway, he'll probably feel like he ought to be a brother to you too, or... well... you for real, because I... we... we're not—"
"Shut. Up."
"—but I'm sorry, 'cause I'm not gonna stop calling him 'kuya' just because he's your real brother! You don't even know him that well! I've lived with him for almost a year now, and he's the only family I've got, and he's still my... well, he's my custodian, but he's more than that!"
"Potter!" Snowdrop dropped her forehead against the seat, her shoulders shaking. "Shut. Up!"
"What?"
He was answered only by her hysterical sobbing... or wait... it wasn't sobbing! She was laughing at him!
Harry glared at her and pushed her a bit on the shoulder. "You shut up! Stop laughing!"
She couldn't respond for lack of air, and Harry felt his face turn beet red. It was a good thing it was so dark out, and so cold, for she'd not be able to tell he was blushing. Even if she did see it, she'd think it was because of the temperature.
"Don't laugh, Hill—"
At that she descended into a round of giggles once more, her face pressed into the leather of the seat. He supposed that it beat her crying and her anger, but not by much.
"That's enough, stop it," he tried again. When that didn't work, he attempted a diversion.
It was what Severus would have done, after all.
"How did you hear about Toby being your dad, anyway? Did he come right out and say so?"
Gulping now, and sounding a bit like a braying donkey as she did so, Snowdrop attempted to recover herself. She held one finger up to him to forestall the question as she brought herself under orders, closing her eyes and breathing deeply through her nose, even as the stray giggle or two still escaped her lips.
"I... Gammy sent me to bed, but I stayed near the loo at the end of the hall, and then I heard them talking. Gammy... I guess she didn't know. He came right out and told her that he thought I was his, and that he'd carried on with Mam back in the spring of '80."
"Carried on?"
"The dance, Potter. Remember the dance I told you about?"
"Oh... er... right."
"Now I wonder if they... if they kept carrying on after." She admitted with a contemptuous snort. "They were by the river together. I don't know how long she's been there, 'cause she'd come home to stay with us sometimes a few years back, and then before she left when I was real small she'd stayed with Gammy the whole time..."
"Toby never talked about a girl," Harry told her. "But one time, after he came to live with us, he told us he wanted his dog back from where he'd been—you remember Cur Dog—and later on I saw your mum with Curry down by the river. It looked like she was looking after him while Toby was gone."
Snowdrop shrugged. "Mam likes animals. She grew up with enough of them. She'd leave me or Nick with other people before she left a dog to starve," she spat out, looking disgusted.
"Er... yeah. I'm sorry."
Snowdrop grunted once and then scowled at where her hand had curled into the leather of the seat.
"My... my aunt and uncle left me to starve, you know? Back in July. They went on holiday, and I was alone for days before Severus showed up and took me home with him." Harry's mouth twisted with discomfort. He didn't like to remember that week. At least not the first part of it. "I don't think they would've taken care of a dog though."
"It makes it worse that she takes care of the dog," Snowdrop remarked with a sigh. "She thinks that makes her a good enough person. 'Cause at least she'd not leave a dog on his own. And Curry seems like he could take care of himself."
"Probably," Harry agreed. "I didn't know anything about the tramps when I moved here this summer, but when I started at Rowky I used to watch them sometimes from the bridge. I saw him catch a fish once or twice. I don't think he'd of starved."
"You saw them down there?"
"Yeah, loads of times."
Snowdrop's eyebrows fell as she gave a dispirited little sigh. "What were they like together? Mam and... and my D-Dad?"
"Er... well there were scads more of them back then. Tramps, I mean. Probably like ten. I saw her spend time with a lot of them, and I'm not sure if I remember how Toby used to look before he cleaned up a bit. I'm not sure I ever saw them spend time together or anything." Harry gnawed his lip. "Probably it'd be best if you just asked him."
She turned back in her seat so that she was facing forward and fell against the seatback with a heavy thump. "I don't know what to do," she breathed, her voice emerging in a sigh.
"He was telling Gammy that he came because he didn't know he had a daughter, and that when he heard me telling about Bertie back a week or so ago, that it made sense that it would be him. From the timing of it, and all."
"Mmmm," Harry mused aloud, crossing his arms over his chest. "Then why did he hide from your mum on Christmas?
"Maybe they had a row," Harry guessed, answering his own question. "Or, you know how I said about Severus and responsibility? Well... Toby is... he's like the opposite. He's..."
"Not responsible?"
"Yeah." Harry scratched at a cowlick. "I guess it's good of him to come and say so to your Gammy, but the other day when I asked Severus again about why Toby comes 'round and wants to call the shop 'Snape & Son' and why he wants everyone to know that he opened a shop, even though it was Severus that opened it, Kuya told me that he 'likes to claim things as his own, but doesn't mind a whit about taking care of them.'"
Snowdrop grunted again from the front seat. "Great."
An uncomfortable silence settled over them. Harry wasn't sure what to say, as there seemed to be nothing good or right that could possibly make the girl sitting in front of him feel better about an all-around bad situation, and Snowdrop was either deep in her own thoughts, or wasn't inclined to help him out.
"He... he said he wanted to be around for me." She finally whispered. "He said he knew that... knew that Mam wasn't around for me."
"Do you... er... do you want him around?" Harry asked.
"I don't know," she admitted, sotto voce. "What's he like? You know him better."
"Well... I er... I like Severus better, you know? Which is probably easy to tell. But Toby's alright, I guess. He likes to watch telly with me while Severus is cooking, and he can be really funny when you figure out what he's saying. By the way, how did you know what he was saying?" He asked, his brow creasing in thought.
"I grew up here," she explained. "Gammy doesn't talk like that, and neither does Mam, but Grandad did. I never met him, but I know some of his mates from way back. They come to check on Gammy now and again. Lots of the farmers around here talk in the old way."
"Oh. I usually have to think really hard to know what he's saying," Harry chuckled. "I guess it'll make it easier to get to know him if you already know what he's trying to say. Anyway, he's not terrible. Severus has a chip on his shoulder about him from way back, and I can't say I blame him, but he also seems to think that Toby's making an effort. He's stopped drinking, at least."
He saw Snowdrop's profile bob in a slow nod. "That's more than Mam ever did. Whenever she comes to stay, she and Gammy get into giant rows about drink in the house, and usually a day or so later she leaves."
"So, what do you think? Do you want him as your dad?"
Snowdrop didn't answer, and before she caved this time, they heard the crunch of gravel underneath someone's boots as they approached the car. The driver's side door was wrenched open and Tobias Snape's greying head of brown, tufty hair stooped to peer into the interior. He squinted his rheumy eyes at the two of them in the low lighting.
"Whatn're yeh 'ere for? Aa thowt yer Gran told yeh ees time for bed."
Harry waited with bated breath for her response but was sorely disappointed when she only glared at her father and opened her own door with a violent push. She walked back to the house without a word to the man, disappearing into the darkness of the early spring night.
A/N: Apologies for the late upload, guys. FFN was on the fritz last night when I went to upload, but I am grateful to hear from those of you who also like to read on P&S (heart heart!)