Fic: The Strongest Conjuration (DH spoilers, PG-13 rating), Part One
Title: The Strongest Conjuration
Author: themoreyouclean
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Severus Snape, Hermione Granger, Eileen Prince Snape, Tobias Snape, and other Snape and Prince family members.
Challenge: Originally conceived for the Pure-blood Prince Fest, but, well, it’s late.
Warnings: DH Spoilers, character death, verbal and physical abuse, angst, family dysfunction, and gender politics. Your author apologizes for the fact that you will find only a tiny bit of romance and no actual nookie here, though some is implied.
Summary: Home, family, mother: these are complex issues that don’t go away even during several years at a wizarding boarding school. Harry always had to go back to the Dursleys’ during summer hols, and Severus always had to go back to Spinner’s End.
Note: I began writing this story months before DH was released, but it could still be considered (mostly) DH-compliant, with two notable exceptions. First, a certain important Potions Master-Spy did not, in fact, die. Second, the book’s epilogue was really Ron Weasley’s fevered imaginings in the tragic aftermath of his brother’s death. Poor lad. Also, while DH elevates the importance of the relationship between Severus Snape and Lily Evans, going so far as to make them childhood friends even before Hogwarts, I’ve made Lily sit this one out. I’m convinced that there is more to Snape’s past than an unsuccessful attempt to woo Lily, despite JKR’s choice to emphasize it over the earlier books’ clues to his family life. Many thanks to my beta editor littlelizzyann, who encouraged me and pushed me and writes really good smut, a piece of which she promises me will be posted soon. Thanks also to shiv5468, who graciously britpicked after I not-so-subtly hinted that I would really be grateful if she did so and who has recently posted a hilarious story that you should read. Anything untidy or awkwardly written or just plain wrong that remains is entirely my fault.
“And though home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.” - Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit
February 25, 1996
Damn Potter. Severus sat in the comfortable chair in his sitting room, cradling his aching head. He could have said “damn Umbridge” and “damn Trelawney,” too, but Dumbledore would never let anything happen to poor, muddled Sybil, and “dear” Dolores would certainly reap what she had sown, probably quite soon. But, Potter was more worrisome. And more annoying. Severus seriously doubted the boy’s ability to learn anything from him, and Potter consistently challenged the self-control Severus had worked to maintain for the last twenty years. The boy needed these lessons in Occlumency. Hell, they all needed him to succeed at them. Potter had finally pushed back today, finally thought to use a fraction of his own magic to try to block Severus’ invasion. So, he wasn’t completely hopeless. Thank Merlin.
Let’s see. Headache potion or firewhiskey? Not firewhiskey, tempting as that is. I can’t afford it.
Harry Potter, like most hapless teenagers, was too self-centered to try and make sense of anything of Severus’ that wasn’t directly related to his own Boy-Who-Lived self. Severus was just thankful Potter hadn’t had a chance to see any memories of his school days. He shuddered. He thought of the flashes Potter had seen, of his childhood. Revisiting those memories roused the sleeping emotions associated with them, and Severus felt them again: horror, despair, anger, sadness, desperation, and shame. It was childish of him, he knew, to hold so tightly to old hurts so far into adulthood, but they continued to wound him all the same. Severus hoped that Potter found these closely guarded, personal pains of his of too little significance to share with his foolish Gryffindor comrades. Weasley, with his large, disgustingly cheerful family and the empathy of a flea would see in them yet another means to mock the Greasy Git. Self-righteous, overly empathetic Granger would frown and make him her next cause, and he had no desire for her pity or to be grouped together with house elves and werewolves.
Severus rose determinedly from his chair. He needed that headache potion now, and he needed to immerse himself in something productive lest he dwell too long on old pains. Marking papers, reading Ars Alchemica, just about anything would be better. He wanted to forget about it all. His unfaithful friend. His violent, drunken father. His weak, apathetic mother. Especially her. Mother. Mum. Eileen Prince Snape. Severus downed the potion, stoked the fire, and pulled out the journal to read. He would not think about his past. He had other things - lesson plans, dunderheads, Malfoys - to focus on now. Opening the journal with a snap! Severus poked his considerable nose into the first article of the issue and forced his thoughts to ethical considerations of the Draught of Living Death. Yes, that will do nicely.
July 1998
He lived. Voldemort died, and he, Severus Snape, lived. He had always vaguely wanted to outlive that insane bastard, but he never believed he would deserve it and thought it would be unlikely to happen. A combination of his own (shocking) forethought, unlooked-for compassion from others, and the considerable combined powers of Poppy Pomfrey and two of her colleagues had, however, ensured that he would live to snark well into old age, provided he did not, as Poppy put it, “do something so monumentally stupid ever, ever again, you idiot boy!” He had replied, in all seriousness, that he would certainly give more thought to his future actions than he had as a teenager and that he appreciated everything she had ever done for him. Then he grinned slightly. Poppy had blinked at him, narrowed her eyes, and then walked off, calling out to Minerva McGonagall that Snape was doing well, but might be a little addled. He next thoroughly spooked all of the hospital wing’s remaining patients by fully and heartily laughing.
After his release, Severus agreed to Minerva’s stunning request that he remain at Hogwarts. He stepped down as Headmaster, agreeing to work as Minerva’s Deputy, teach Potions, and work with the next Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher to establish a consistent and challenging theoretical and practical curriculum. He would commit to a one-year contract only, however. Much depended on the shape of his own desires and public opinion. He resolved to confer with Albus Dumbledore’s portrait as little as possible over the next year. Before returning to work, he had personal matters to attend.
Having kept his visit to his old neighborhood as short as magically possible, Severus locked and warded the house at Spinner’s End. He gave it one last look, grimaced, walked around to a secluded corner, and Disapparated. His one family inheritance, the house was his to use as he saw fit. All that had happened in the house during Tom Marvolo Riddle’s second rise to power, though, overrode Severus’ childhood attachments to it, and he could no longer bring himself to sleep there or eat there, let alone live there. He did not have the inclination, need, or patience to make the effort to sell it, either, so he left it to sit, locked and empty.
Many of the other houses on Spinner’s End presented similar, shuttered faces, so Snape’s house did not stand out. At least half the other houses had already been abandoned by residents long before Severus had first gone to teach at Hogwarts. The closing of the nearby mills had put many people out of work, which eventually meant that local shopkeepers couldn’t make enough money to stay in business. Empty and boarded-up store windows testified to the area’s decline. On the whole, the neighborhood was well past its prime, beyond down-at-the-heel; it had slid into the status of slum. So, when Severus left, no one commented on the closing up of yet another house, and there was no one remaining in the neighborhood that he would miss.
One Morning in Late November 2008
Hermione Granger shivered in the cold, damp air and looked around the street, taking in the low brick houses laid out end-to-end, each with narrow chimneys and a few small windows. Reflecting the creeping gentrification of the neighborhood, some of the houses had new, miniscule driveways. Cobblestones, though, still paved the narrow passage that was barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. It’s such a modest little passageway, she thought, is it even big enough properly to be called a street? Hermione had no idea who had named it, but an “end” seemed appropriate to her. Spinner’s End. She wondered how many of the factory workers had actually been skilled spinners. Roused from her thoughts by Severus’ announcement that he had dismantled the wards to the house, she followed him inside.
With a flick of a wand and a murmured Lumos, lights flickered on in the sitting room of the house in which Severus Snape had grown up. Years ago, someone had charmed Muggle floor and table lamps to illuminate magically, though the house was still dark. The shades on the small windows were drawn, and Hermione guessed that even with the windows open and the lamps all lit, the room would be shadowy. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered every bit of wall space, even above and below the windows, and books filled every shelf. Some kind of stasis spell is protecting those shelves, Hermione thought, because none of the books were covered in the thick dust that coated the floor and the sheets covering the furniture.
While Hermione ventured further into the house to check the condition of the other rooms, Severus pulled aside the sheet covering an overstuffed armchair, moved the stack of papers he found there to the coffee table in the middle of the room, and sat down. Surveying the room, he scowled; its dusty appearance and stale smell called up memories. Memories of his mother had been haunting him for the past couple of years. The house on Spinner’s End had not felt like a home to Severus for years, but it had been her home, Eileen’s, and he suspected that something here might answer his niggling questions.
He still wasn’t sure how Hermione managed to do it. They had only really been together for a couple of years, but she read him well. Noticing this particular bout of his brooding, she had persuaded him to talk about his mother and convinced him that it might do him some good to come up and take a look around. She would even come with him. He rolled his eyes thinking about that conversation. Had he not come to know her better, and ultimately agreed with her, he would accuse her of machinations of the Dumbledorean variety. She had the skill, but her intent differed, and it was her intent that endeared her to him. He supposed it couldn’t hurt to return, but he wasn’t sure what “going home” held for him, especially since this house hadn’t felt like a home in decades.
Sinking into the chair, Severus sat with his head leaned back and eyes closed. He pushed away the thoughts of the war, which plagued him when he actually stopped to ruminate. He would not think of Wormtail nosing about the place. He would not dwell on what had happened in this room when Bellatrix and Narcissa came to ensnare him into taking the blasted Unbreakable Vow. He would not recall the image of where they sat in the room, how they invaded his space and his life. Instead he called to mind earlier memories of being in this house with his mother.
The last time Severus had seen his mother had been the day he left home for his final year as a Hogwarts student. Living at the house the summer before, he’d felt trapped. The atmosphere was deadening; he felt penned in. He and Eileen barely spoke. He was angry, and it seemed that she could never say the right thing to him. To him, she was weak and useless. The neighborhood was dilapidated, a far cry from the Hogwarts, let alone the luxuries of his wealthier classmates. And it was Muggle, something he had grown to resent over the years. On the first of September, he rose before his mother woke, left her a brief note, and Apparated to Diagon Alley. There he stocked up on potions ingredients and pored over new books at Flourish and Blott’s before making his way to King’s Cross to catch the Express to school. That year, Severus purposely remained at school over the Christmas and Easter holidays, and after graduating he never spoke to Eileen Snape again, although she never stopped writing to him.
Severus didn’t return to Manchester again until after his mother’s death. By that time, his life had changed irrevocably several times over. He had taken the Dark Mark. He had rejected his Death Eater affiliation and turned to Albus Dumbledore to expiate his guilt. He had become a Potions Master and begun teaching at his alma mater. He had turned away from the cause that he had turned to when he had turned from his family. But, his journey had not yet brought him full circle. He moved through the tasks associated with settling his mother’s estate (such as it was) still angry and resentful. He dealt stonily with the few of her remaining relatives and friends who came round. His mother’s death did not soften Severus.
He kept the house, though. Packing away her personal effects and storing them in the second bedroom left him with access to the resources he valued and allowed him to avoid painful associations. Depersonalized, the house became a place for him to escape his multiple duties over the years. Neither master came here, and until he was forced to put up with Pettigrew the year before the final ending, the house was Severus’ solitary refuge.
A Little Later That Morning
Opening his eyes, Severus stirred when he heard Hermione call from the next room.
“Severus,” Hermione called out, “I thought you said you had a laboratory here.” Shaking himself out of his reverie, Severus joined her in the kitchen.
“Not every brewer works in a top-level research facility, Hermione,” Severus commented, a half-smile on his lips. “Hogwarts and St. Mungo’s have spoiled you. My mother and grandmother magically enlarged the kitchen when they lived here. A larger hearth and more counter space gave them plenty of room to cook and to brew. Their specifications suited my own purposes, so I saw no reason to change the room. But by the time the war ended, I had little of my own equipment here anymore, so it seemed suitable to reverse the enlargement charms.”
“Your grandmother lived here? Was she a Potions Mistress, too?”
“This was my Grandfather and Grandmother Prince’s house; my mother and her sisters grew up here. My mother moved us back here when I was about seven, after my father… left. Other witches and wizards lived in the neighborhood, too. I don’t think that our Muggle neighbors ever suspected it, aside from my Grandmother Snape, of course. They would never have believed it. My mother and Grandmother Prince were never members of the Society of Potioneers. They both excelled in Potions at school, but they never attained the rank of Potions Mistress. To be honest, neither of them really wanted it. They were true experts in their field, though. Muggles around here used to call them ‘wise women,’ or ‘cunning women,’ or ‘healers.’ Some of the more suspicious called them ‘witches,’ but in a derogatory way without any real understanding of the magical world.”
“Like Muggle herbalists, then?”
“Close enough. The Prince women’s brews had properties that no Muggle herbalist could produce. Grandmother Snape, though, was a Muggle herbalist. My grandmothers knew each other long before my parents met. They had garden allotments next to each other in the fields that used to be nearby. Grandmother Snape knew that Grandmother Prince was a witch, but it was never an issue between them. Somehow they took it completely for granted. And none of Grandmother Snape’s Muggle friends ever suspected that Maggie’s friend Brigid wasn’t a “regular person” like they were. Both women were quite wise. They had learned the traditions passed down by their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. I used to listen to their stories and talk for hours as a little boy…”
“Funny, I never thought of you as following in any kind of family tradition.” Hermione smiled up at him.
“What?! Me, part of a ‘family tradition’? Perhaps.” Severus scowled back at her, then turned his head to look across the room. “I certainly never thought of it that way during my years as a student. The potions I favored were far different than those made by my mother and grandmother. I wanted a more… significant audience than housewives looking for a love potion or a salve to ease their aching backs.”
“More significant,” Hermione bit out. “Significant, like Slughorn’s little toadying club? Or significant like Voldemort and his band of killers?!”
Severus’ face reddened. He glowered at Hermione, closed and screwed up his eyes, and took a deep breath. “I was…ambitious and very angry as a teenager, Hermione. I had intelligence and talent and determination. It’s what got me into Slytherin, the house I wanted to be in. I certainly did not have the proper bloodline to recommend me. Nor did I have money with which to buy influence, as did some of my wealthier classmates. I did… eventually… realize that serving a madman served only madness. But… knowledge, wisdom: crafting perfect potions, improving their effectiveness, research, innovation, creating something new, reclaiming ancient magics, questioning the taboos. I thirsted for it. I still do, you know.”
“And being recognized for it.”
“Yes, yes. Hermione, must we have this conversation again? I wanted to make a name for myself as a Master in my field. And, in my youthful, hubristic stupidity, I believed that Voldemort could guarantee that. But, you know I never sought fame. Believe me, my dear, had I wanted that, I could have out-Lockharted Lockhart.”
“Albeit without the wavy golden locks and colorful robes.”
“Ha ha.” Severus rolled his eyes at her.
“Severus, I, of all people, know about your struggles and the changes you’ve made in your life over the years. You talk to me more about yourself than you ever used to do. But you still won’t talk much about your family. Getting you to talk about your mother the first time was like pulling teeth! You’ve told me more about her in the last few minutes than you have since we first became close. They influenced you more than you seem willing to admit, Severus, and not all in a bad way.”
“My childhood was no idyll. I may have learned the rudiments of my craft here, as well as…erm… other things, but I consciously chose a different path than my mother.”
“OK, whatever you say, my love. But there is something that has brought you here, something to do with your mum. Don’t write it off without considering it. You’re not 18 anymore, Severus. You’re a different man than you were as a student or as a novice Death Eater. You’re avoiding something important.”
Leaning against the doorjamb, Severus closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and exhaled. I know, I know, he thought, and the avoidance wasn’t accidental! It had been rather easy to push away childhood memories during the years of turbulence, when there were more immediate problems to deal with. Now, these thoughts upset and irritated him. Unlike Dumbledore or Voldemort, Hermione actually encouraged him to think about his own life. There was no great cause anymore to which to subsume his personal obsessions. This was painful. And, yet, compelling. Damn her. No. Damn myself, but not her.
Hermione touched his arm and said to him softly, “I’m going to look around upstairs. Spend some more time here, and I’ll come back down in a bit,” and she left Severus alone in the kitchen.
Severus scanned the room. He frowned at the few rusty cauldrons, dusty alembics, and dirty vials that remained of the once active lab. He turned to a set of shelves built into the wall. They held his mother and grandmothers’ collection of magical and Muggle herbaries, collections of illuminated materia medica in several languages, grimoires, recipe and spell books, other manuscripts, and notebooks. There were dozens of them, all well used, with cracked spines, frayed edges or faded covers. He had not looked through them for decades. Taking a stack to the kitchen table, he leafed through several volumes. Well, he snickered, I certainly learned this from them, if nothing else. Blocks of text and illustrations were ringed by commentary written in the margins in Eileen’s tiny, spidery letters, Brigid’s flowing script, Maggie’s choppy lettering, and other, less familiar hands. He remembered the women jotting the occasional note while chopping or brewing. The words swam before his eyes. Sitting in what had been the heart of the house, he half-expected to hear the women speaking.
Severus found himself unable to concentrate long enough to read through any one text and its annotations. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Notes on a salve recipe or description of the magical properties of ordinary foxglove brought in bits of autobiography, gossip about the neighbors, comments on the local economy, or news from a traveler. Severus had absented himself from much of the daily life of his mother and grandmothers years ago. The texts reflected camaraderie among the three of them that was wholly different from the solitary existence Severus had, until the last few years, lived. It was foreign. He felt a bit envious. Severus looked up when Hermione came back into the kitchen.
“There were some rather suspicious odors upstairs, so I did some basic cleaning spells,” she informed him. “Other than that, though, there isn’t much up there.”
“I made sure to burn whatever remained of Wormtail’s before leaving last time,” Severus commented. “I couldn’t stand the thought of anything belonging to that rodent lingering here.”
Hermione grinned. “It was probably just ‘old house’ smell, then.”
Severus nodded absently. “I don’t remember leaving much up there. I took what I needed from the bedrooms and got rid of the rest. I think what I’m looking for is right here in the kitchen. Help me box these things up, won’t you. I’d rather go through them at home. At our home.”
“What about the sitting room? There are loads of books there to investigate as well.” Hermione looked at him expectantly.
Severus smirked at her eager expression. “Another time, my fellow bibliophile. I…I can’t stay here any longer.”
The Following Friday Afternoon
Severus gingerly removed books from one of the boxes neatly stacked against the wall behind the desk in his office. He had set aside this Friday afternoon, after he’d finished teaching for the week, to begin research into his mother’s library. He was, in truth, reluctant to begin sorting through the books. He still felt uneasy.
Severus was midway through a grimoire, having successfully deciphered the handwritten comments of both his mother and his Grandmother Brigid and hypothesized that a third, unfamiliar hand may have belonged to his Great-Grandmother Eileen White, when Hermione came in. With an exaggerated sigh, she planted herself in the chair on the opposite side of the table. “I think the first-years are getting better at understanding basic arithmantic formulae, but somehow that doesn’t make grading their quizzes any easier.”
Severus smirked. “Ah, poor, dear Hermione.” She narrowed her eyes at that. “My lot is still the more arduous one. Not only do I have to contend with the little beasties’ perilous attempts at potion brewing, but also the yet more abominable grammar and writing skills of eleven-year olds; and twelve-year olds, and thirteen-year olds, etc., etc. How the Board of Governors can dismiss the need for a course in basic English grammar and composition is quite beyond me.”
“Why, Severus, surely you aren’t suggesting that magical education is in some way inferior to that of Muggle schools? That’s just shocking!”
They grinned at each other over the familiar exchange. (Hogwarts teachers carried out a mock competition over pedagogical woes throughout the year, and only Professor Binns disagreed with the rest of the faculty’s assessment of their students’ literary deficiency. Of course, his being dead did somewhat diminish his standing on this issue in his colleagues’ eyes.) Hermione looked expectantly at the volumes on the table near him. Noting her gaze, Severus, in his best imitation of Madam Pince, said, “Why, yes, Miss Granger, you may look at these books.” Giggling, she plucked a couple of tomes from the stack and settled in the chair to lose herself in an afternoon of reading.
Several hours later, Severus was absorbed in a first edition of John Goodyear’s 1655 translation of Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica when he faintly heard Hermione trying to get his attention. “Severus? Severus, I think you should take a look at this letterbook. I think this is what you’ve been searching for.”
Severus took the book Hermione passed to him across the table. The leather-bound folio had worn corners and the feel of a much-handled volume. No title appeared on the front cover or spine, but when Severus opened it, he saw, inscribed on the inside of the front cover, in a version of his mother’s hand, Eileen Prince, Her Letterbook, September 1942 - 19__. Flipping through the book, Severus saw page after page of neatly printed letters, copies of those she had owled to others - “She must have Zerocsoed them in,” he muttered - along with other notes and letters casually stuck in between pages.
Before he could become too engrossed in his new find, Hermione placed her hand on his own and said, “Leave this for tomorrow, Severus. Let’s go get some fresh air.”
He looked up and narrowed his eyes at her. “You, Hermione Granger, are a tease of the most disgraceful kind. What would you do if suggested the same thing just after you’d opened a new text? Hmmm?” Hermione did her best to look abashed. “Merlin, woman, what have done to me? Fine. I will allow you to buy me dinner and a drink at the Three Broomsticks.”
Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled, “Thank you for the honor, kind sir.”
Later that night, Severus jolted awake. Dinner had been delicious. With the rest of the faculty and student body dining in the Great Hall, the atmosphere in the pub had been pleasant. The whole evening with Hermione had been extremely pleasant, but curiosity about his mother’s letterbook had been waiting patiently in his subconscious ready to pounce when his conscious mind settled down. After making a pot of tea, Severus stoked the fire and sat down to read Eileen Prince’s book. It had been the Princes’ present to their youngest daughter at the beginning of her first year at Hogwarts. Flipping through it, he noted that Eileen had turned to it constantly throughout her life, as record keeper, scrapbook, and diary, from her childhood until the year following Severus’ own school graduation. The entries stopped suddenly, leaving several blank pages at the end. He read several pages into the book, but before he could get too far in, he fell asleep in the chair, the events of his mother’s school years running through his head.
Eileen Prince, Hogwarts School, Scotland, to Brigid and Alexander Prince, Manchester, England
2 September 1942
Dear Mum and Dad,
I just finished my first day of school. Hogwarts is BEAUTIFUL, even better than you said it would be! It was so much fun to ride the train yesterday! I met a whole bunch of other children. I had the right robes, and all the others were wearing them, too, so I didn’t feel as strange as I thought I would. And, just like you thought, I was sorted into Ravenclaw. Some of the others in my house are: Adam Clearwater, Clarissa Davies, Anthony Boot, and Sunam Patil. There’s also another girl from Manchester, Kristen Simmons, who’s Muggleborn. Her family doesn’t live near us, but maybe Mrs. Snape knows them?
Kristen and I met on the train. Abraxas Malfoy, a really tall 7th year, said that Clarissa and I shouldn’t sit with her because she was a Mudblood! We couldn’t believe he used that word! I just don’t understand why he thinks that being a Pureblood is so important anyway. He was furious and scared all of us. I think we’ll be staying as far away from him as we can.
I know how much you like Headmaster Dippet, Daddy, but he’s awfully cold. I don’t think he actually likes children all that much. The Transfigurations Master is just the opposite. Professor Dumbledore is very merry and thinks we’ll all do well. He must be at least as powerful a wizard as the headmaster. One of the prefects told us some of his adventures in fighting against Grindelwald. She also said that the Head Girl, Minerva McGonagall, who’s a Gryffindor, has been in the fight alongside Professor Dumbledore; she must be very brave. Our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Merrythought, is active in the fight, too, and some of the second years told us that we’d get plenty of practice in her class. I wonder if that will be anything like we talked about at home this past summer.
Potions looks like it will be my favorite class, of course. Professor Slughorn seems to know you, Mum, and Nanny White, too, and was glad to have me in class. I never heard about him before, though. Do you know him? Is he family or one of Nanny’s friends? Anyway, all the potions we’re making in the next few weeks are ones that I’ve already made at home, but it will be good review.
There’s a Gobstones Club here! I’m going to its first meeting now.
I love you both.
Your daughter,
Eileen
Eileen Prince, Hogwarts School, Scotland, to Brigid and Alexander Prince, Manchester, England
13 June 1943
Dear Mum and Dad,
I’m sure that the headmaster has sent letters home, but I just wanted to send a note to let you know that I’m OK.
I don’t understand how it happened really, but a Basilisk was set loose in the castle! Most students were in classes, but one girl was killed by it when she looked it in the eye. Isn’t it terrible! Some of the faculty was able to get it before any other students were hurt.
I didn’t know it was happening until after it was over, so I wasn’t scared then. But, I knew the girl who died, and I can’t believe she’s gone! Her name was Myrtle, and she was in Hufflepuff. She was a couple years ahead of me, but we talked in the library a few times about Gobstones and herbology. Olive, this Slytherin girl in her year, teased her a lot for being Muggleborn. I’ve gotten teased here about other things (like how I look), and I know how sad it made Myrtle feel. Olive hangs out with a bunch of older Slytherins who are friends with a fifth-year prefect named Tom Riddle. He’s really smart and can sometimes be nice, but his whole group is full of nasty kids. Lots of us are sure they had something to do with the Basilisk because of Myrtle, but Headmaster Dippet blamed a Gryffindor named Rubeus Hagrid and expelled him. Rubeus does keep some scary magical creatures as pets that I’m sure he shouldn’t, and he can be a little careless, but he’s really very kind and gentle. I can’t imagine him doing it. Gwen thinks he’s an oaf and must be guilty, but she’s in Slytherin, so what can you expect?
I’m looking forward to seeing you soon.
Much love,
Your daughter,
Eileen
Eileen Prince, Hogwarts School, Scotland, to Brigid Prince and Maggie Snape, Manchester, England
5 October 1948
Dear Mum and Mrs. S.,
I knew you both would be happy to learn that Professor Slughorn approved my seventh-year potions project! I think he’s a bit disappointed that I’m not focusing on one of the more complex potions, but he does think that my project could be developed into a book after I leave Hogwarts. It’s a beginning anyway. I’m just so pleased that he’s approved it. All the time we spent talking and all the times I spent in our and Mrs. S’s gardens this summer inspired me, and I know that this is the kind of thing that I really want to do.
So, I’ve chosen three potions from the standard collections that we talked about at home. First I’m going to research their histories, uses, and variations. I’ll do all I can in the library here at school. I think that talking to you both during the holiday and looking through all your books and notebooks will be better, though. Mrs. S., I want to talk to some of the friends you told me about. I think there are Muggle versions of a couple of these potions, but I need your help figuring out how to talk to your friends so I won’t give away too much about magic. You’ve known us for so long, but I don’t want to mess around more with the Muggle Protection Act. Mum, I’m going to write to Nanny White, too. I want to get suggestions from her and you as to which other witches (and wizards?) I should speak to. Professor Slughorn offered to send out a survey to members of the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers. They’re all professionals, though, and a small group of academics at that, so I’m not sure how useful that would be.
In the New Year, I’m planning on brewing the standard version of the potions and some of the variations, too, in order to analyze and evaluate them. It should be interesting! I’m guessing that some of the variations are more useful than the standard published versions.
I’m feeling confident about my Potions N.E.W.T. now, though I will still have to work at my usual capacity for class, as well as on my project. Professor Slughorn thinks that I should apply for an apprenticeship with Potions Master Arsenius Jigger. He thinks that Master Jigger would be interested in me and that I could live up to his high standards. I’m truly flattered by the professor’s confidence in me. I’m not really sure, though, if that’s what I want to do. I want to continue to work in potions, but I’m not sure that I want to tie myself down to an apprenticeship, let alone to a Master as demanding as Master Jigger. I would be grateful for your advice.
Much love,
Eileen
Saturday Morning
Severus woke up feeling crabby after sleeping in the chair. A hot bath and an analgesic potion removed his muscle cramps. Strong tea cleared his foggy head. By the time each of them had finished two cups, Severus and Hermione were both ready for civilized conversation and her question “so, what was she like?” elicited a fairly straightforward, if subdued, response.
He told her about Eileen’s school days and then grinned. “I seem to recall, though, that you already know some of this from your - what shall we call it? - “independent research project” during your sixth year.”
Hermione blushed. “Yes. Your mum excelled at Gobstones and potions,” she murmured. “Severus, do you think Lucius Malfoy’s father carried a grudge against your mum?”
“I don’t know if what he felt was strong enough for a grudge. When I met Abraxas Malfoy, though, he remembered her. He called her a blood traitor. I imagine that Lucius was a bit embarrassed to find out that he had befriended a half-blood. I believe they had ‘forgiven me’ for my unfortunate parentage by the end of the visit.”
“Forgiven you? Pompous, bigoted…”
“Arrogant purebloods? Yes, they were, and by that point, I wanted what they had. I had hardly forgiven my mother for her unfortunate choice of a father for her son, so I thought Abraxas magnanimous in his attitude toward me.”
“Severus, that’s awful.”
Severus nodded at the queasy look on Hermione’s face. “I hated the Muggle part of me, the part that came from my father. Lots of half bloods who joined the Death Eaters did.”
“But you’ve changed since then.”
“Yes… and no. It’s still a challenge. Even with you around to remind of the folly of pureblood thinking.”
Conversation lagged, and the pair settled into their school-year routine for a quiet Saturday. Severus carefully read through another segment of Eileen Prince’s letterbook, taking notes and raising questions, his frown deepening the further along he got. Hermione quietly marked N.E.W.T.-level arithmancy assignments and made some progress on her own research. The couple barely looked up when house-elves brought sandwiches for lunch and later cleaned up their dirty plates.
In the late afternoon, Severus abruptly pushed himself away from the table, pulled on his wool cloak and, leaving Hermione by the fireplace with Crookshanks sleeping on her lap, walked out the concealed doorway near the Slytherins’ domain for a walk around the grounds. Wrapped up in his own thoughts, Severus barely noticed the students using the cover of nearby shrubbery to practice their snogging techniques.
Eileen Prince, Hogsmeade, Scotland, to Brigid Prince and Maggie Snape, Manchester, England
31 October 1949
Dear Mum and Mrs. S.,
Happy Halloween!
I’ve just come back from the Halloween party at Hogwarts. Professor Flitwick invited me to join the Ravenclaws tonight. It was great fun seeing my former housemates once more before I leave Hogsmeade. I picked up my last pay packet from the apothecary yesterday; I’ve saved enough from working here to last me about six months in the field. I thought the summer would be fairly slow, but I never realized how much owl-order business they did. Witches all over Scotland and northern England order ingredients and basic brews from this shop. My boss even allowed me to ask some of his owl-order customers if I could interview them for my research. He’s been very cordial to me, and several of the ladies I contacted were curious enough to invite me to come speak with them. Most of them learned basic brewing skills from their mothers, so it should prove interesting to talk with them. The first two witches I’m interviewing have agreed to give me room and board for a few days in exchange for some help with their household brewing. They both seem friendly, and I have high hopes.
Adam, Clarissa, Tony, Sunam, and Kristen went in on a spelled tent and sleeping bag for me as a graduation gift. They also gave me an extra-large roll of parchment and a supply of owl treats. My friends know me well!
Professor Slughorn approached me at last night’s party to tell me, again, how disappointed he was in my chosen vocation. According to him, I’m a “silly, misguided girl studying curiosities with hags” when I could become so much more if I apprenticed with Master Jigger. I think his greatest regret is that he won’t be able to brag about his student studying with a famous master. My research doesn’t enhance his reputation. After what Nanny told me about Old Sluggy’s reputation, I can’t bring myself to sympathize. The witches and Muggle herbalists I’m hoping to meet may not get me elected to the Society, but I’m quite sure that my studies with them will prove exciting and useful.
I’ll write again next week.
Much love,
Eileen
Eileen White, from Portballintrae, Northern Ireland, to Eileen Prince, MacDougal’s Apothecary, Edinburgh, Scotland
25 June 1952
My Dear Namesake,
I was thrilled to receive your package the other day. Your owl was absolutely exhausted from carrying it all the way up here, however, so I insisted he stay, feed, and rest up in our owlery overnight before returning to you. I hope his late return won’t be an inconvenience.
I’ve been engrossed with brewing recently. Some of the fruits of my labor are enclosed for you: a new scent for your birthday and some salves you may find useful in your travels. The writings you sent me made for a wonderful change of pace when I finished my work. I sat outside and read all afternoon. I was so captivated that your grandfather was forced to make his own tea. He brought me a cup outside, grumbling and complaining the whole way, scowling at me; I just know he was glaring daggers at me from beneath that black curtain of hair in his face. Poor, dear man! But I digress.
Some of the witches’ stories you sent me are very like those my own mother and grandmother told me about their lives. It is a wonder to know how many elderly witches live in Scotland. Many of the medicinal receipts seem similar to those in my collections. I will have to compare them more closely and Zerocso some to owl to you. In addition to my gift of potions, you’ll find in my package three manuscripts from my little library that I think you’ll find of use. When you’re ready to travel again, let me know. There are several acquaintances of mine in northern England you should speak with. If nothing else, they can at least provide my granddaughter with a hearty tea. You should especially make sure to befriend Eugenia Borage; she is just as smart as, and with a far sharper sense of humor than, her better-known relative Libatius.
Your grandfather and I will be visiting with your parents in Manchester later this summer. (I know how much you love it there, my dear, but I still cannot bring myself to understand why your father’s family decided to remain in such a large city, of all places.) I do hope you will be there. I would enjoy spending time in the kitchen with my daughter and all my granddaughters.
Please give my kindest regards to Master and Madam MacDougal.
With great love,
Your Nanny
Eileen Prince, parts unknown, England, to Alexander Prince, Manchester, England
30 October 1953
Dear Dad,
I met up with Your Friend the other day and gave him the message you asked me to. He was relieved to get the information and said it would be quite useful. It seems that you were correct in your suspicions about strange magic near Salisbury. The gentleman expressed his thanks, sent his kind regards to you and Mum, and Disapparated to London immediately following.
This does not bode well, Dad, does it? It does have something to do with you-know-who, that Slytherin prefect chap I once wrote you about, doesn’t it? This can’t be simply politics as usual; I’m thinking that his intent is something more. Am I right in deducing that your friend was not merely an ordinary Ministry worker, but an Unspeakable?
I know it must sound a bit simple coming from me, your nearly novice daughter, to you, who has been researching Dark Magic for decades, but please, please be careful, you and Mum. From what I hear on the grapevine, this one has more interest in power than ethics.
Much love,
Eileen
Alexander Prince, Manchester, England, to Eileen Prince, parts unknown, England
1 November 1953
Daughter,
Thank you for your letter of the 30th. Friends in London and Hogsmeade sent further confirmation.
Yes, my dear, this is about That Chap. I have no illusions about his ambitions or about his powers. He’s not become a danger. Yet. You are right to be concerned. I have no doubt, considering his attraction to the Dark, that he learned somehow of your mother’s and my own foolish flirtation with such magic in our youth. He seeks such knowledge. He seeks supporters with such knowledge. Your mother and I escaped enthrallment with the Dark many, many years ago. Yet he may believe us knowledgeable and “worthy” enough for alliance. Unwanted by us, of course.
I have endeavored since I was a youth to lower my profile while making sure that my knowledge was useful for those who, to paraphrase your own words, held ethics to be a higher goal than pure power. I shall keep doing so as long as I am able. Please do not seek to further identify my ministry friend; his successes depend upon his relative anonymity.
Do not disparage yourself, Eileen; you know more than you think. Certainly more than the average witch. Bear that in mind as you listen to news you hear on the witches’ grapevine. If you like, we can talk more when next you are at home. I may need to call upon you again. In the meantime, enjoy your travels and research.
Love to you,
Dad
Tobias Snape, Manchester, England, to Eileen Prince, Bellingham, England
1 March 1955
Dear Eileen,
I was unsure of the correct address to use to reach you. My mother, who will post this for me, assures me, though, that your mail always seems to reach you wherever you are. I hope that you are well.
I enjoyed talking with you when your family gathered at my mother’s home at Christmas time. I remember seeing you as a young girl out gardening with my mum and yours. You always seemed to be so intent and helpful. At our holiday celebration, I was charmed by the way you were able to transform my mother’s humble home with your breathtaking decorations and lights. Such an appealing atmosphere for our celebration! It was like magic!
As you may remember, I was under consideration for a management position at one of the nearby mills. I am happy to report that I accepted the job, which include a rise in pay. I’m also happy that it brings me back to my boyhood home of Manchester. Coming from our humble neighborhood, I am pleased to be able to return home in this way. My daughter, Betty - who you must also remember from that wonderful holiday gathering - and I moved into a very comfortable flat. I expect, though, to be on my own soon. Betty is in a cosmetology course and is going with a nice young man, a clerk at the bank. I think she’ll be moving out soon. It will be strange to be a bachelor again after all these years.
My mother told me that you might be home for the Easter holiday. I hope that you will come visit. It would be a pleasure to take you to lunch while you are in town. I would enjoy continuing our conversation. Please say you will agree.
Fondly,
Toby Snape
Saturday Evening
While he walked, Severus contemplated what he’d read of his mother, the parts of her earlier life that had been completely unknown to him. He’d never considered talking to the colleagues who had once taught Eileen. He wondered if Filius, her former head of house, or Minerva, in fact, had ever been tempted to raise the subject with him. He silently thanked them for their restraint over the many years they had known each other. He was grateful for their friendship and imagined that they knew that any discussion of Eileen Prince would not have been well received earlier in his life. He made a mental note to approach them soon.
Slughorn was a different story altogether. When Severus began Hogwarts, the man could not stop trying to get the young boy to talk about Eileen. In their first one-on-one meeting, his new potions teacher and head of house spent the entire 20 minutes singing the praises of his Grandmother White and his mum. Slughorn waxed grandiloquently about Eileen Prince’s abilities in potions and bemoaned the loss of her great talent when she decided against an apprenticeship. The potions teacher expressed his high hopes for her only son and urged Severus not to let Eileen’s “unfortunate life choices” get in his way in potions or in life. Severus had refused to speak to Slughorn for the rest of the year, and it was only with Lily’s persuasion that he participated in the “Slug Club.” Aside from that, Severus shunned any meaningful conversation with his head of house from that time on; he certainly wasn’t going to start now.
Besides, it seemed that Slughorn was dead wrong in his negative judgment of Eileen. Severus felt a bit of pride in his mother for disappointing Sluggy’s expectations of her. He couldn’t remember ever talking with his mum about their potions teacher, but now he imagined that they would commiserate in a comradely way about the old goat’s appalling manner. This version of his mum had opinions. She had friends, interests, goals. She had traveled. He hoped that Eileen’s manuscripts were among the boxes he had yet to unpack. He wanted to read her research. He wanted to talk with her, learn from her. He had never known this Eileen. She had never talked about this part of her life with him! Why? Then again, he had never thought to ask. And Nanny White had corresponded with Eileen about her work. He had never talked to Nanny about anything beyond her neighbors’ gossip or the Christmas presents she’d sent. As a boy, he’d watched the brewing that went on at the house and thought nothing of it. It was too ordinary to catch his interest. Clearly, though, his mother, growing up in the same kind of environment, felt much differently. Those ordinary, seemingly simple potions were her métier and her inspiration.
By the time Severus came into the world, Eileen had put her research, or at least her travels, aside. He couldn’t remember his mother, or anyone else, talking about it when he was growing up. He still didn’t understand why his parents married. What did Eileen, an intelligent witch in her twenties, find appealing about Tobias Snape, an older Muggle with a nearly grown daughter and a middle-management job at a mill? Even having read their correspondence, he still didn’t understand what Eileen found so extraordinary about Tobias Snape that she changed her life to stay in Manchester with him. Maybe this was another aspect of the perfectly ordinary that appealed to her? He didn’t understand. Eileen was dead, and no one would have known her heart better than she. He certainly didn’t remember his father being as polite or happy or eager as the Toby in his mother’s letterbook. He didn’t really want to think about his father. Perhaps he should deal with his memories of his father, but not now. Now, he wanted to focus just on Eileen.
It was after dark when Severus returned to the quarters he and Hermione shared. She was dozing on the settee in front of the fire, the latest issue of Ars Alchemica having replaced her familiar in her lap sometime while he was out. He sat down facing her in a chair in front of the fire, with his elbows perched on the armrests and index fingers on his lips, and gazed at her. Eileen as a girl was so much like Hermione. The Sorting Hat had considered placing Hermione in Ravenclaw when she first entered Hogwarts. She was remarkably intelligent, a fact that had annoyed the Ravenclaws in her year and had been part of what drew him to her. As his student, her persistent questions had annoyed him, but he had also admired her drive, albeit quite secretly. Now, he could not imagine anything in their relationship that was not colored by her intellect: her investment in their academic conversations, her clever sense of humor, her subtle observations about the behavior of their friends and family, and even her over-intellectualized approach to sex. He smiled to himself. And then frowned again. He didn’t want to compare his mother and Hermione too much. He really didn’t want to think about Eileen and any approach to sex.
Hermione stirred and smiled up at Severus blearily. He kissed her gently. Stepping over to the fireplace, Severus Flooed the kitchen and requested dinner (comfort food: Irish stew, hot bread, fresh fruit, and coffee), then stoked the fire.
“Any disturbances while I was gone?”
“No. I think your Slytherins must have noticed you out prowling the castle grounds and judiciously retreated. All the other students simply stay away out of habit.”
“The students never really see us as people, do they?”
“Beyond us giving homework, deducting House points, and occasionally offering some mentoring?” Hermione chuckled. “No, not many see beyond that educational role, I should think. That’s hardly a surprise to you, though, is it, Severus?”
“Not at all. It takes will to see people beyond the very specific roles they play in our lives, and most people just don’t have that will.”
A house elf appeared with their dinner, and the couple moved their work away from the dining table, laid out the meal, and sat down to eat. As neither was given much to small talk, the first part of the meal passed in relative silence. After eating a first serving of stew, Severus looked up at Hermione and spoke quietly.
“My mother spent several years after leaving school doing potions research. Apparently it started as a seventh-year independent project for Slughorn on ordinary witches’ variations on basic medicinal brews. She traveled through Scotland and northern England interviewing witches and collecting stories they’d learnt from their female predecessors. My grandmothers and great-grandmother all approved and helped her. She loved it. I never knew that about her.”
“She gave it up?”
Severus hesitated. “I don’t know. I assume so. She certainly didn’t travel anywhere while I was around. Nowhere except to escort me to King’s Cross, that is.”
“So,” Hermione said slowly, “you’ve learned that Eileen had a childhood and, now, that she also had something in life that she loved in addition to her family. Something that appeals to the potions master in you. She wasn’t just your mum.”
Severus raised an eyebrow at her. “Psychological theory?”
“One of my cousins was a clinical therapist,” she answered. “I talked with her a lot one summer, and she gave me some interesting things to read.”
“After the battle at the Department of Mysteries at the end of your fifth year? I imagine that traumatized you quite a lot. Oh, don’t look so shocked that I have figured out a little piece of your psyche, Hermione.” He gave her a smug look. “You’re not the only great reader in this relationship, and I can be very observant. Of you, anyway.”
“I’m trying to be helpful, Severus!”
Severus sighed in annoyance. “Yes, my mum was more than just my mum. She was interesting. I would have liked to talk with this Eileen Prince. How on earth did she become the appalling woman who raised me? And there’s more about her life. Here. Read these.”
Hermione took the folio Severus passed across the table and spent the rest of the meal catching herself up on Eileen Prince’s childhood, potions research, and courtship. Severus watched her read, wondering what she would make of his mother’s decisions.
Meanwhile, Severus looked through the issue of Ars Alchemica Hermione had left on the settee. “Further Ethical Considerations of the Draught of Living Death”? I swear I’ve read this before. Who wrote this? Merlin, this chap certainly has a very focused research agenda.
When Hermione finished reading, she looked up and gazed thoughtfully at Severus for a moment before asking him if he was willing to talk about Eileen for a bit. Deciphering an affirmative response from the slight bob of his head, she set about adding some Bailey’s Irish Cream to their coffee and distributing squares of fine dark chocolate.
“You could probably find a copy of her seventh-year project report in the school library; they keep them all, you know.”
“Yes, I suppose I could.”
“And, perhaps there are some of her manuscripts of her research from after graduation in the boxes we brought back from Manchester. I bet those would be interesting to read.”
“I’ve thought of that, yes. There’s a great deal I don’t know about my mum. Her research could be interesting.”
Severus fell quiet for a moment. She was telling him what she thought he wanted to hear, but interesting as he found his mother’s research, it left him unmoved tonight. He looked away from Hermione; his face took on a more closed expression; and, he tried formulating what he wanted to say about his parents’ relationship prior to his birth.
Before he could speak, however, Hermione spoke up hesitantly. “Severus, you’re not going to like this very much. But…ah… the letters between Eileen and her father reminded me of something Sirius once told Harry, Ron, and me. He said that you already knew quite a bit about the Dark Arts by the time you came to Hogwarts. Is that true?”
Severus snorted, and Hermione quickly looked up. “I believe Black let out that little tidbit for his own self-aggrandizement. If I was already a Dark Arts user as an eleven- or twelve-year old, then, of course, he must have been justified in his constant harassment of me.”
“Of course he wasn’t, Severus! Sirius was clearly an arrogant boy in his youth, though I don’t think that all those years in Azkaban did anything to improve him in any way. Look, you know how I feel about him. I only ask because…”
“The letters, yes; I understand. Look, I did know quite a bit about Dark Magic by the time I arrived at Hogwarts. With my grandfather’s studies and his enormous Dark Arts library at the house, how could I not know something, or a bit more than something? But, I was hardly the only one. Most of my housemates in Slytherin, and the children of old families in other houses, had at least some prior exposure to the Dark Arts before coming to school; some had a good deal more. Sirius must have had at least as much exposure as his younger brother Regulus, and Regulus was capable of some rather frightening stuff.”
“Sirius did engage in a bit of revisionist history, didn’t he? He tried hard to overcome his association with the Black family, but he was too powerful a wizard to simply forget some of the magic he’d learned. Still, Severus, some of the spells you recorded in your old sixth-year potions text…”
“Merlin, Hermione!” Severus stood quickly, turned away from Hermione, and stepped toward the fireplace. “I wasn’t using Dark Magic regularly, although my boundaries then were a bit hazier than I would find appropriate now.”
“Um…Sectumsempra?”
“Well, yes, that was…not exactly… Light. I’m sure that Mr. Longbottom would tell you, though,” he said as he turned back toward her, “that he found that curse most useful in killing Nagini and getting rid of that Horcrux. In that case, the end certainly justified using a not-quite-Light means.”
“No, it did not!” Hermione flew up from her own seat and stood directly in front of Severus, glaring up at him. “Neville could have used a more clearly Light weapon. We… he… had Godric Gryffindor’s sword, if you’ll remember, which you, former Headmaster Snape, made sure Harry received. Neville meant to use that to kill Nagini, but it was lost in the shuffle before he could use it.
“Dark Magic involves the intent to do harm, Severus. You, of all people, know that! To use Sectumsempra, Neville had to intend to harm Nagini. But he had nothing specific against the bloody snake, for heaven’s sake! He had to invoke enough hatred not just to slice it, but also to kill. If anything, that required more ill intent than when you originally created that spell. If he’d been able to use the sword, like he’d wanted, he could have focused his intention on nobler thoughts, like overcoming the evil of the Horcrux.”
“Now you’re mincing words, Hermione. Spell or artifact, killing or ‘overcoming evil,’ the action would have been the same, and in the situation, what could actually have been the difference in intent? In order to ‘overcome evil,’ Longbottom had to kill. Regardless of how he did it.”
“Would you say the same thing had he used Avada Kedavra?”
“Sectumsempra is hardly the same thing as an Unforgivable. One must pay attention to distinctions. We both know that lumping every spell that might kill into one category of ‘Dark’ is simplistic. But, neither is intent the only factor in determining magical ethics, Hermione!”
“Severus, I am neither hard of hearing nor a complete simpleton!” Hermione sat back down with a huff. “Save your ire for someone who deserves it. Merlin… We’re not going to resolve this argument tonight.”
“That is correct.” Severus turned back toward the fire and leaned forward with a growl until his forehead touched the mantelpiece.”
“Did you know… about your grandfather’s Dark past, Severus?”
“When I knew him, Grandfather Prince was a noted scholar of the Dark Arts, not a practitioner. I didn’t know anything about his and Grandmother’s Dark past. It does explain his fervor, I suppose. My mother knew.”
“She did. She also identified Tom Riddle as a dangerous Dark wizard pretty early on. Do you think she coined the term ‘You-Know-Who’? Maybe if everyone had simply called him “That Prefect Chap,” he would have been taken down earlier?”
“Cheeky woman.” He relented, turning from the fire and displaying the bare hint of a smirk.
“Yes,” Hermione cooed, approaching him and resting her hands on his upper arms, “and you love it.”
Severus closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. Done in yet again, he thought.
“Dumbledore must have known Alexander Prince,” Hermione continued, “he must have known that your grandfather was working to stop Riddle from attaining power.”
“Albus never spoke of them to me, but you’re right; he must have. Damn him! He never even hinted that he knew my family. Voldemort never said a thing about them to me, either. I would have expected him to throw it in my face at some point. The Dark Lord always made use of the skeletons in his Death Eaters’ closets. It’s not possible that he never put the relationship together. No, he was arrogant and mad, but never a fool. Not until the end, anyway…”
He fell silent, and Hermione sent up a small prayer of thanks that during all of Severus’ years spying on the Death Eaters, Tom Riddle had never used his grandfather’s rejection of the Dark against him.
Hermione guided Severus over to the sofa and, with some effort, managed to steer the conversation to the Ars Alchemica article he had read earlier. The irony of the fact that it analyzed magical ethics did not elude her. They talked late into the night, until the fire died in the grate and then wearily headed for the bedroom.
Part Two This Way
Author: themoreyouclean
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Severus Snape, Hermione Granger, Eileen Prince Snape, Tobias Snape, and other Snape and Prince family members.
Challenge: Originally conceived for the Pure-blood Prince Fest, but, well, it’s late.
Warnings: DH Spoilers, character death, verbal and physical abuse, angst, family dysfunction, and gender politics. Your author apologizes for the fact that you will find only a tiny bit of romance and no actual nookie here, though some is implied.
Summary: Home, family, mother: these are complex issues that don’t go away even during several years at a wizarding boarding school. Harry always had to go back to the Dursleys’ during summer hols, and Severus always had to go back to Spinner’s End.
Note: I began writing this story months before DH was released, but it could still be considered (mostly) DH-compliant, with two notable exceptions. First, a certain important Potions Master-Spy did not, in fact, die. Second, the book’s epilogue was really Ron Weasley’s fevered imaginings in the tragic aftermath of his brother’s death. Poor lad. Also, while DH elevates the importance of the relationship between Severus Snape and Lily Evans, going so far as to make them childhood friends even before Hogwarts, I’ve made Lily sit this one out. I’m convinced that there is more to Snape’s past than an unsuccessful attempt to woo Lily, despite JKR’s choice to emphasize it over the earlier books’ clues to his family life. Many thanks to my beta editor littlelizzyann, who encouraged me and pushed me and writes really good smut, a piece of which she promises me will be posted soon. Thanks also to shiv5468, who graciously britpicked after I not-so-subtly hinted that I would really be grateful if she did so and who has recently posted a hilarious story that you should read. Anything untidy or awkwardly written or just plain wrong that remains is entirely my fault.
“And though home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.” - Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit
February 25, 1996
Damn Potter. Severus sat in the comfortable chair in his sitting room, cradling his aching head. He could have said “damn Umbridge” and “damn Trelawney,” too, but Dumbledore would never let anything happen to poor, muddled Sybil, and “dear” Dolores would certainly reap what she had sown, probably quite soon. But, Potter was more worrisome. And more annoying. Severus seriously doubted the boy’s ability to learn anything from him, and Potter consistently challenged the self-control Severus had worked to maintain for the last twenty years. The boy needed these lessons in Occlumency. Hell, they all needed him to succeed at them. Potter had finally pushed back today, finally thought to use a fraction of his own magic to try to block Severus’ invasion. So, he wasn’t completely hopeless. Thank Merlin.
Let’s see. Headache potion or firewhiskey? Not firewhiskey, tempting as that is. I can’t afford it.
Harry Potter, like most hapless teenagers, was too self-centered to try and make sense of anything of Severus’ that wasn’t directly related to his own Boy-Who-Lived self. Severus was just thankful Potter hadn’t had a chance to see any memories of his school days. He shuddered. He thought of the flashes Potter had seen, of his childhood. Revisiting those memories roused the sleeping emotions associated with them, and Severus felt them again: horror, despair, anger, sadness, desperation, and shame. It was childish of him, he knew, to hold so tightly to old hurts so far into adulthood, but they continued to wound him all the same. Severus hoped that Potter found these closely guarded, personal pains of his of too little significance to share with his foolish Gryffindor comrades. Weasley, with his large, disgustingly cheerful family and the empathy of a flea would see in them yet another means to mock the Greasy Git. Self-righteous, overly empathetic Granger would frown and make him her next cause, and he had no desire for her pity or to be grouped together with house elves and werewolves.
Severus rose determinedly from his chair. He needed that headache potion now, and he needed to immerse himself in something productive lest he dwell too long on old pains. Marking papers, reading Ars Alchemica, just about anything would be better. He wanted to forget about it all. His unfaithful friend. His violent, drunken father. His weak, apathetic mother. Especially her. Mother. Mum. Eileen Prince Snape. Severus downed the potion, stoked the fire, and pulled out the journal to read. He would not think about his past. He had other things - lesson plans, dunderheads, Malfoys - to focus on now. Opening the journal with a snap! Severus poked his considerable nose into the first article of the issue and forced his thoughts to ethical considerations of the Draught of Living Death. Yes, that will do nicely.
July 1998
He lived. Voldemort died, and he, Severus Snape, lived. He had always vaguely wanted to outlive that insane bastard, but he never believed he would deserve it and thought it would be unlikely to happen. A combination of his own (shocking) forethought, unlooked-for compassion from others, and the considerable combined powers of Poppy Pomfrey and two of her colleagues had, however, ensured that he would live to snark well into old age, provided he did not, as Poppy put it, “do something so monumentally stupid ever, ever again, you idiot boy!” He had replied, in all seriousness, that he would certainly give more thought to his future actions than he had as a teenager and that he appreciated everything she had ever done for him. Then he grinned slightly. Poppy had blinked at him, narrowed her eyes, and then walked off, calling out to Minerva McGonagall that Snape was doing well, but might be a little addled. He next thoroughly spooked all of the hospital wing’s remaining patients by fully and heartily laughing.
After his release, Severus agreed to Minerva’s stunning request that he remain at Hogwarts. He stepped down as Headmaster, agreeing to work as Minerva’s Deputy, teach Potions, and work with the next Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher to establish a consistent and challenging theoretical and practical curriculum. He would commit to a one-year contract only, however. Much depended on the shape of his own desires and public opinion. He resolved to confer with Albus Dumbledore’s portrait as little as possible over the next year. Before returning to work, he had personal matters to attend.
Having kept his visit to his old neighborhood as short as magically possible, Severus locked and warded the house at Spinner’s End. He gave it one last look, grimaced, walked around to a secluded corner, and Disapparated. His one family inheritance, the house was his to use as he saw fit. All that had happened in the house during Tom Marvolo Riddle’s second rise to power, though, overrode Severus’ childhood attachments to it, and he could no longer bring himself to sleep there or eat there, let alone live there. He did not have the inclination, need, or patience to make the effort to sell it, either, so he left it to sit, locked and empty.
Many of the other houses on Spinner’s End presented similar, shuttered faces, so Snape’s house did not stand out. At least half the other houses had already been abandoned by residents long before Severus had first gone to teach at Hogwarts. The closing of the nearby mills had put many people out of work, which eventually meant that local shopkeepers couldn’t make enough money to stay in business. Empty and boarded-up store windows testified to the area’s decline. On the whole, the neighborhood was well past its prime, beyond down-at-the-heel; it had slid into the status of slum. So, when Severus left, no one commented on the closing up of yet another house, and there was no one remaining in the neighborhood that he would miss.
One Morning in Late November 2008
Hermione Granger shivered in the cold, damp air and looked around the street, taking in the low brick houses laid out end-to-end, each with narrow chimneys and a few small windows. Reflecting the creeping gentrification of the neighborhood, some of the houses had new, miniscule driveways. Cobblestones, though, still paved the narrow passage that was barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. It’s such a modest little passageway, she thought, is it even big enough properly to be called a street? Hermione had no idea who had named it, but an “end” seemed appropriate to her. Spinner’s End. She wondered how many of the factory workers had actually been skilled spinners. Roused from her thoughts by Severus’ announcement that he had dismantled the wards to the house, she followed him inside.
With a flick of a wand and a murmured Lumos, lights flickered on in the sitting room of the house in which Severus Snape had grown up. Years ago, someone had charmed Muggle floor and table lamps to illuminate magically, though the house was still dark. The shades on the small windows were drawn, and Hermione guessed that even with the windows open and the lamps all lit, the room would be shadowy. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered every bit of wall space, even above and below the windows, and books filled every shelf. Some kind of stasis spell is protecting those shelves, Hermione thought, because none of the books were covered in the thick dust that coated the floor and the sheets covering the furniture.
While Hermione ventured further into the house to check the condition of the other rooms, Severus pulled aside the sheet covering an overstuffed armchair, moved the stack of papers he found there to the coffee table in the middle of the room, and sat down. Surveying the room, he scowled; its dusty appearance and stale smell called up memories. Memories of his mother had been haunting him for the past couple of years. The house on Spinner’s End had not felt like a home to Severus for years, but it had been her home, Eileen’s, and he suspected that something here might answer his niggling questions.
He still wasn’t sure how Hermione managed to do it. They had only really been together for a couple of years, but she read him well. Noticing this particular bout of his brooding, she had persuaded him to talk about his mother and convinced him that it might do him some good to come up and take a look around. She would even come with him. He rolled his eyes thinking about that conversation. Had he not come to know her better, and ultimately agreed with her, he would accuse her of machinations of the Dumbledorean variety. She had the skill, but her intent differed, and it was her intent that endeared her to him. He supposed it couldn’t hurt to return, but he wasn’t sure what “going home” held for him, especially since this house hadn’t felt like a home in decades.
Sinking into the chair, Severus sat with his head leaned back and eyes closed. He pushed away the thoughts of the war, which plagued him when he actually stopped to ruminate. He would not think of Wormtail nosing about the place. He would not dwell on what had happened in this room when Bellatrix and Narcissa came to ensnare him into taking the blasted Unbreakable Vow. He would not recall the image of where they sat in the room, how they invaded his space and his life. Instead he called to mind earlier memories of being in this house with his mother.
The last time Severus had seen his mother had been the day he left home for his final year as a Hogwarts student. Living at the house the summer before, he’d felt trapped. The atmosphere was deadening; he felt penned in. He and Eileen barely spoke. He was angry, and it seemed that she could never say the right thing to him. To him, she was weak and useless. The neighborhood was dilapidated, a far cry from the Hogwarts, let alone the luxuries of his wealthier classmates. And it was Muggle, something he had grown to resent over the years. On the first of September, he rose before his mother woke, left her a brief note, and Apparated to Diagon Alley. There he stocked up on potions ingredients and pored over new books at Flourish and Blott’s before making his way to King’s Cross to catch the Express to school. That year, Severus purposely remained at school over the Christmas and Easter holidays, and after graduating he never spoke to Eileen Snape again, although she never stopped writing to him.
Severus didn’t return to Manchester again until after his mother’s death. By that time, his life had changed irrevocably several times over. He had taken the Dark Mark. He had rejected his Death Eater affiliation and turned to Albus Dumbledore to expiate his guilt. He had become a Potions Master and begun teaching at his alma mater. He had turned away from the cause that he had turned to when he had turned from his family. But, his journey had not yet brought him full circle. He moved through the tasks associated with settling his mother’s estate (such as it was) still angry and resentful. He dealt stonily with the few of her remaining relatives and friends who came round. His mother’s death did not soften Severus.
He kept the house, though. Packing away her personal effects and storing them in the second bedroom left him with access to the resources he valued and allowed him to avoid painful associations. Depersonalized, the house became a place for him to escape his multiple duties over the years. Neither master came here, and until he was forced to put up with Pettigrew the year before the final ending, the house was Severus’ solitary refuge.
A Little Later That Morning
Opening his eyes, Severus stirred when he heard Hermione call from the next room.
“Severus,” Hermione called out, “I thought you said you had a laboratory here.” Shaking himself out of his reverie, Severus joined her in the kitchen.
“Not every brewer works in a top-level research facility, Hermione,” Severus commented, a half-smile on his lips. “Hogwarts and St. Mungo’s have spoiled you. My mother and grandmother magically enlarged the kitchen when they lived here. A larger hearth and more counter space gave them plenty of room to cook and to brew. Their specifications suited my own purposes, so I saw no reason to change the room. But by the time the war ended, I had little of my own equipment here anymore, so it seemed suitable to reverse the enlargement charms.”
“Your grandmother lived here? Was she a Potions Mistress, too?”
“This was my Grandfather and Grandmother Prince’s house; my mother and her sisters grew up here. My mother moved us back here when I was about seven, after my father… left. Other witches and wizards lived in the neighborhood, too. I don’t think that our Muggle neighbors ever suspected it, aside from my Grandmother Snape, of course. They would never have believed it. My mother and Grandmother Prince were never members of the Society of Potioneers. They both excelled in Potions at school, but they never attained the rank of Potions Mistress. To be honest, neither of them really wanted it. They were true experts in their field, though. Muggles around here used to call them ‘wise women,’ or ‘cunning women,’ or ‘healers.’ Some of the more suspicious called them ‘witches,’ but in a derogatory way without any real understanding of the magical world.”
“Like Muggle herbalists, then?”
“Close enough. The Prince women’s brews had properties that no Muggle herbalist could produce. Grandmother Snape, though, was a Muggle herbalist. My grandmothers knew each other long before my parents met. They had garden allotments next to each other in the fields that used to be nearby. Grandmother Snape knew that Grandmother Prince was a witch, but it was never an issue between them. Somehow they took it completely for granted. And none of Grandmother Snape’s Muggle friends ever suspected that Maggie’s friend Brigid wasn’t a “regular person” like they were. Both women were quite wise. They had learned the traditions passed down by their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. I used to listen to their stories and talk for hours as a little boy…”
“Funny, I never thought of you as following in any kind of family tradition.” Hermione smiled up at him.
“What?! Me, part of a ‘family tradition’? Perhaps.” Severus scowled back at her, then turned his head to look across the room. “I certainly never thought of it that way during my years as a student. The potions I favored were far different than those made by my mother and grandmother. I wanted a more… significant audience than housewives looking for a love potion or a salve to ease their aching backs.”
“More significant,” Hermione bit out. “Significant, like Slughorn’s little toadying club? Or significant like Voldemort and his band of killers?!”
Severus’ face reddened. He glowered at Hermione, closed and screwed up his eyes, and took a deep breath. “I was…ambitious and very angry as a teenager, Hermione. I had intelligence and talent and determination. It’s what got me into Slytherin, the house I wanted to be in. I certainly did not have the proper bloodline to recommend me. Nor did I have money with which to buy influence, as did some of my wealthier classmates. I did… eventually… realize that serving a madman served only madness. But… knowledge, wisdom: crafting perfect potions, improving their effectiveness, research, innovation, creating something new, reclaiming ancient magics, questioning the taboos. I thirsted for it. I still do, you know.”
“And being recognized for it.”
“Yes, yes. Hermione, must we have this conversation again? I wanted to make a name for myself as a Master in my field. And, in my youthful, hubristic stupidity, I believed that Voldemort could guarantee that. But, you know I never sought fame. Believe me, my dear, had I wanted that, I could have out-Lockharted Lockhart.”
“Albeit without the wavy golden locks and colorful robes.”
“Ha ha.” Severus rolled his eyes at her.
“Severus, I, of all people, know about your struggles and the changes you’ve made in your life over the years. You talk to me more about yourself than you ever used to do. But you still won’t talk much about your family. Getting you to talk about your mother the first time was like pulling teeth! You’ve told me more about her in the last few minutes than you have since we first became close. They influenced you more than you seem willing to admit, Severus, and not all in a bad way.”
“My childhood was no idyll. I may have learned the rudiments of my craft here, as well as…erm… other things, but I consciously chose a different path than my mother.”
“OK, whatever you say, my love. But there is something that has brought you here, something to do with your mum. Don’t write it off without considering it. You’re not 18 anymore, Severus. You’re a different man than you were as a student or as a novice Death Eater. You’re avoiding something important.”
Leaning against the doorjamb, Severus closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and exhaled. I know, I know, he thought, and the avoidance wasn’t accidental! It had been rather easy to push away childhood memories during the years of turbulence, when there were more immediate problems to deal with. Now, these thoughts upset and irritated him. Unlike Dumbledore or Voldemort, Hermione actually encouraged him to think about his own life. There was no great cause anymore to which to subsume his personal obsessions. This was painful. And, yet, compelling. Damn her. No. Damn myself, but not her.
Hermione touched his arm and said to him softly, “I’m going to look around upstairs. Spend some more time here, and I’ll come back down in a bit,” and she left Severus alone in the kitchen.
Severus scanned the room. He frowned at the few rusty cauldrons, dusty alembics, and dirty vials that remained of the once active lab. He turned to a set of shelves built into the wall. They held his mother and grandmothers’ collection of magical and Muggle herbaries, collections of illuminated materia medica in several languages, grimoires, recipe and spell books, other manuscripts, and notebooks. There were dozens of them, all well used, with cracked spines, frayed edges or faded covers. He had not looked through them for decades. Taking a stack to the kitchen table, he leafed through several volumes. Well, he snickered, I certainly learned this from them, if nothing else. Blocks of text and illustrations were ringed by commentary written in the margins in Eileen’s tiny, spidery letters, Brigid’s flowing script, Maggie’s choppy lettering, and other, less familiar hands. He remembered the women jotting the occasional note while chopping or brewing. The words swam before his eyes. Sitting in what had been the heart of the house, he half-expected to hear the women speaking.
Severus found himself unable to concentrate long enough to read through any one text and its annotations. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Notes on a salve recipe or description of the magical properties of ordinary foxglove brought in bits of autobiography, gossip about the neighbors, comments on the local economy, or news from a traveler. Severus had absented himself from much of the daily life of his mother and grandmothers years ago. The texts reflected camaraderie among the three of them that was wholly different from the solitary existence Severus had, until the last few years, lived. It was foreign. He felt a bit envious. Severus looked up when Hermione came back into the kitchen.
“There were some rather suspicious odors upstairs, so I did some basic cleaning spells,” she informed him. “Other than that, though, there isn’t much up there.”
“I made sure to burn whatever remained of Wormtail’s before leaving last time,” Severus commented. “I couldn’t stand the thought of anything belonging to that rodent lingering here.”
Hermione grinned. “It was probably just ‘old house’ smell, then.”
Severus nodded absently. “I don’t remember leaving much up there. I took what I needed from the bedrooms and got rid of the rest. I think what I’m looking for is right here in the kitchen. Help me box these things up, won’t you. I’d rather go through them at home. At our home.”
“What about the sitting room? There are loads of books there to investigate as well.” Hermione looked at him expectantly.
Severus smirked at her eager expression. “Another time, my fellow bibliophile. I…I can’t stay here any longer.”
The Following Friday Afternoon
Severus gingerly removed books from one of the boxes neatly stacked against the wall behind the desk in his office. He had set aside this Friday afternoon, after he’d finished teaching for the week, to begin research into his mother’s library. He was, in truth, reluctant to begin sorting through the books. He still felt uneasy.
Severus was midway through a grimoire, having successfully deciphered the handwritten comments of both his mother and his Grandmother Brigid and hypothesized that a third, unfamiliar hand may have belonged to his Great-Grandmother Eileen White, when Hermione came in. With an exaggerated sigh, she planted herself in the chair on the opposite side of the table. “I think the first-years are getting better at understanding basic arithmantic formulae, but somehow that doesn’t make grading their quizzes any easier.”
Severus smirked. “Ah, poor, dear Hermione.” She narrowed her eyes at that. “My lot is still the more arduous one. Not only do I have to contend with the little beasties’ perilous attempts at potion brewing, but also the yet more abominable grammar and writing skills of eleven-year olds; and twelve-year olds, and thirteen-year olds, etc., etc. How the Board of Governors can dismiss the need for a course in basic English grammar and composition is quite beyond me.”
“Why, Severus, surely you aren’t suggesting that magical education is in some way inferior to that of Muggle schools? That’s just shocking!”
They grinned at each other over the familiar exchange. (Hogwarts teachers carried out a mock competition over pedagogical woes throughout the year, and only Professor Binns disagreed with the rest of the faculty’s assessment of their students’ literary deficiency. Of course, his being dead did somewhat diminish his standing on this issue in his colleagues’ eyes.) Hermione looked expectantly at the volumes on the table near him. Noting her gaze, Severus, in his best imitation of Madam Pince, said, “Why, yes, Miss Granger, you may look at these books.” Giggling, she plucked a couple of tomes from the stack and settled in the chair to lose herself in an afternoon of reading.
Several hours later, Severus was absorbed in a first edition of John Goodyear’s 1655 translation of Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica when he faintly heard Hermione trying to get his attention. “Severus? Severus, I think you should take a look at this letterbook. I think this is what you’ve been searching for.”
Severus took the book Hermione passed to him across the table. The leather-bound folio had worn corners and the feel of a much-handled volume. No title appeared on the front cover or spine, but when Severus opened it, he saw, inscribed on the inside of the front cover, in a version of his mother’s hand, Eileen Prince, Her Letterbook, September 1942 - 19__. Flipping through the book, Severus saw page after page of neatly printed letters, copies of those she had owled to others - “She must have Zerocsoed them in,” he muttered - along with other notes and letters casually stuck in between pages.
Before he could become too engrossed in his new find, Hermione placed her hand on his own and said, “Leave this for tomorrow, Severus. Let’s go get some fresh air.”
He looked up and narrowed his eyes at her. “You, Hermione Granger, are a tease of the most disgraceful kind. What would you do if suggested the same thing just after you’d opened a new text? Hmmm?” Hermione did her best to look abashed. “Merlin, woman, what have done to me? Fine. I will allow you to buy me dinner and a drink at the Three Broomsticks.”
Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled, “Thank you for the honor, kind sir.”
Later that night, Severus jolted awake. Dinner had been delicious. With the rest of the faculty and student body dining in the Great Hall, the atmosphere in the pub had been pleasant. The whole evening with Hermione had been extremely pleasant, but curiosity about his mother’s letterbook had been waiting patiently in his subconscious ready to pounce when his conscious mind settled down. After making a pot of tea, Severus stoked the fire and sat down to read Eileen Prince’s book. It had been the Princes’ present to their youngest daughter at the beginning of her first year at Hogwarts. Flipping through it, he noted that Eileen had turned to it constantly throughout her life, as record keeper, scrapbook, and diary, from her childhood until the year following Severus’ own school graduation. The entries stopped suddenly, leaving several blank pages at the end. He read several pages into the book, but before he could get too far in, he fell asleep in the chair, the events of his mother’s school years running through his head.
Eileen Prince, Hogwarts School, Scotland, to Brigid and Alexander Prince, Manchester, England
2 September 1942
Dear Mum and Dad,
I just finished my first day of school. Hogwarts is BEAUTIFUL, even better than you said it would be! It was so much fun to ride the train yesterday! I met a whole bunch of other children. I had the right robes, and all the others were wearing them, too, so I didn’t feel as strange as I thought I would. And, just like you thought, I was sorted into Ravenclaw. Some of the others in my house are: Adam Clearwater, Clarissa Davies, Anthony Boot, and Sunam Patil. There’s also another girl from Manchester, Kristen Simmons, who’s Muggleborn. Her family doesn’t live near us, but maybe Mrs. Snape knows them?
Kristen and I met on the train. Abraxas Malfoy, a really tall 7th year, said that Clarissa and I shouldn’t sit with her because she was a Mudblood! We couldn’t believe he used that word! I just don’t understand why he thinks that being a Pureblood is so important anyway. He was furious and scared all of us. I think we’ll be staying as far away from him as we can.
I know how much you like Headmaster Dippet, Daddy, but he’s awfully cold. I don’t think he actually likes children all that much. The Transfigurations Master is just the opposite. Professor Dumbledore is very merry and thinks we’ll all do well. He must be at least as powerful a wizard as the headmaster. One of the prefects told us some of his adventures in fighting against Grindelwald. She also said that the Head Girl, Minerva McGonagall, who’s a Gryffindor, has been in the fight alongside Professor Dumbledore; she must be very brave. Our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Merrythought, is active in the fight, too, and some of the second years told us that we’d get plenty of practice in her class. I wonder if that will be anything like we talked about at home this past summer.
Potions looks like it will be my favorite class, of course. Professor Slughorn seems to know you, Mum, and Nanny White, too, and was glad to have me in class. I never heard about him before, though. Do you know him? Is he family or one of Nanny’s friends? Anyway, all the potions we’re making in the next few weeks are ones that I’ve already made at home, but it will be good review.
There’s a Gobstones Club here! I’m going to its first meeting now.
I love you both.
Your daughter,
Eileen
Eileen Prince, Hogwarts School, Scotland, to Brigid and Alexander Prince, Manchester, England
13 June 1943
Dear Mum and Dad,
I’m sure that the headmaster has sent letters home, but I just wanted to send a note to let you know that I’m OK.
I don’t understand how it happened really, but a Basilisk was set loose in the castle! Most students were in classes, but one girl was killed by it when she looked it in the eye. Isn’t it terrible! Some of the faculty was able to get it before any other students were hurt.
I didn’t know it was happening until after it was over, so I wasn’t scared then. But, I knew the girl who died, and I can’t believe she’s gone! Her name was Myrtle, and she was in Hufflepuff. She was a couple years ahead of me, but we talked in the library a few times about Gobstones and herbology. Olive, this Slytherin girl in her year, teased her a lot for being Muggleborn. I’ve gotten teased here about other things (like how I look), and I know how sad it made Myrtle feel. Olive hangs out with a bunch of older Slytherins who are friends with a fifth-year prefect named Tom Riddle. He’s really smart and can sometimes be nice, but his whole group is full of nasty kids. Lots of us are sure they had something to do with the Basilisk because of Myrtle, but Headmaster Dippet blamed a Gryffindor named Rubeus Hagrid and expelled him. Rubeus does keep some scary magical creatures as pets that I’m sure he shouldn’t, and he can be a little careless, but he’s really very kind and gentle. I can’t imagine him doing it. Gwen thinks he’s an oaf and must be guilty, but she’s in Slytherin, so what can you expect?
I’m looking forward to seeing you soon.
Much love,
Your daughter,
Eileen
Eileen Prince, Hogwarts School, Scotland, to Brigid Prince and Maggie Snape, Manchester, England
5 October 1948
Dear Mum and Mrs. S.,
I knew you both would be happy to learn that Professor Slughorn approved my seventh-year potions project! I think he’s a bit disappointed that I’m not focusing on one of the more complex potions, but he does think that my project could be developed into a book after I leave Hogwarts. It’s a beginning anyway. I’m just so pleased that he’s approved it. All the time we spent talking and all the times I spent in our and Mrs. S’s gardens this summer inspired me, and I know that this is the kind of thing that I really want to do.
So, I’ve chosen three potions from the standard collections that we talked about at home. First I’m going to research their histories, uses, and variations. I’ll do all I can in the library here at school. I think that talking to you both during the holiday and looking through all your books and notebooks will be better, though. Mrs. S., I want to talk to some of the friends you told me about. I think there are Muggle versions of a couple of these potions, but I need your help figuring out how to talk to your friends so I won’t give away too much about magic. You’ve known us for so long, but I don’t want to mess around more with the Muggle Protection Act. Mum, I’m going to write to Nanny White, too. I want to get suggestions from her and you as to which other witches (and wizards?) I should speak to. Professor Slughorn offered to send out a survey to members of the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers. They’re all professionals, though, and a small group of academics at that, so I’m not sure how useful that would be.
In the New Year, I’m planning on brewing the standard version of the potions and some of the variations, too, in order to analyze and evaluate them. It should be interesting! I’m guessing that some of the variations are more useful than the standard published versions.
I’m feeling confident about my Potions N.E.W.T. now, though I will still have to work at my usual capacity for class, as well as on my project. Professor Slughorn thinks that I should apply for an apprenticeship with Potions Master Arsenius Jigger. He thinks that Master Jigger would be interested in me and that I could live up to his high standards. I’m truly flattered by the professor’s confidence in me. I’m not really sure, though, if that’s what I want to do. I want to continue to work in potions, but I’m not sure that I want to tie myself down to an apprenticeship, let alone to a Master as demanding as Master Jigger. I would be grateful for your advice.
Much love,
Eileen
Saturday Morning
Severus woke up feeling crabby after sleeping in the chair. A hot bath and an analgesic potion removed his muscle cramps. Strong tea cleared his foggy head. By the time each of them had finished two cups, Severus and Hermione were both ready for civilized conversation and her question “so, what was she like?” elicited a fairly straightforward, if subdued, response.
He told her about Eileen’s school days and then grinned. “I seem to recall, though, that you already know some of this from your - what shall we call it? - “independent research project” during your sixth year.”
Hermione blushed. “Yes. Your mum excelled at Gobstones and potions,” she murmured. “Severus, do you think Lucius Malfoy’s father carried a grudge against your mum?”
“I don’t know if what he felt was strong enough for a grudge. When I met Abraxas Malfoy, though, he remembered her. He called her a blood traitor. I imagine that Lucius was a bit embarrassed to find out that he had befriended a half-blood. I believe they had ‘forgiven me’ for my unfortunate parentage by the end of the visit.”
“Forgiven you? Pompous, bigoted…”
“Arrogant purebloods? Yes, they were, and by that point, I wanted what they had. I had hardly forgiven my mother for her unfortunate choice of a father for her son, so I thought Abraxas magnanimous in his attitude toward me.”
“Severus, that’s awful.”
Severus nodded at the queasy look on Hermione’s face. “I hated the Muggle part of me, the part that came from my father. Lots of half bloods who joined the Death Eaters did.”
“But you’ve changed since then.”
“Yes… and no. It’s still a challenge. Even with you around to remind of the folly of pureblood thinking.”
Conversation lagged, and the pair settled into their school-year routine for a quiet Saturday. Severus carefully read through another segment of Eileen Prince’s letterbook, taking notes and raising questions, his frown deepening the further along he got. Hermione quietly marked N.E.W.T.-level arithmancy assignments and made some progress on her own research. The couple barely looked up when house-elves brought sandwiches for lunch and later cleaned up their dirty plates.
In the late afternoon, Severus abruptly pushed himself away from the table, pulled on his wool cloak and, leaving Hermione by the fireplace with Crookshanks sleeping on her lap, walked out the concealed doorway near the Slytherins’ domain for a walk around the grounds. Wrapped up in his own thoughts, Severus barely noticed the students using the cover of nearby shrubbery to practice their snogging techniques.
Eileen Prince, Hogsmeade, Scotland, to Brigid Prince and Maggie Snape, Manchester, England
31 October 1949
Dear Mum and Mrs. S.,
Happy Halloween!
I’ve just come back from the Halloween party at Hogwarts. Professor Flitwick invited me to join the Ravenclaws tonight. It was great fun seeing my former housemates once more before I leave Hogsmeade. I picked up my last pay packet from the apothecary yesterday; I’ve saved enough from working here to last me about six months in the field. I thought the summer would be fairly slow, but I never realized how much owl-order business they did. Witches all over Scotland and northern England order ingredients and basic brews from this shop. My boss even allowed me to ask some of his owl-order customers if I could interview them for my research. He’s been very cordial to me, and several of the ladies I contacted were curious enough to invite me to come speak with them. Most of them learned basic brewing skills from their mothers, so it should prove interesting to talk with them. The first two witches I’m interviewing have agreed to give me room and board for a few days in exchange for some help with their household brewing. They both seem friendly, and I have high hopes.
Adam, Clarissa, Tony, Sunam, and Kristen went in on a spelled tent and sleeping bag for me as a graduation gift. They also gave me an extra-large roll of parchment and a supply of owl treats. My friends know me well!
Professor Slughorn approached me at last night’s party to tell me, again, how disappointed he was in my chosen vocation. According to him, I’m a “silly, misguided girl studying curiosities with hags” when I could become so much more if I apprenticed with Master Jigger. I think his greatest regret is that he won’t be able to brag about his student studying with a famous master. My research doesn’t enhance his reputation. After what Nanny told me about Old Sluggy’s reputation, I can’t bring myself to sympathize. The witches and Muggle herbalists I’m hoping to meet may not get me elected to the Society, but I’m quite sure that my studies with them will prove exciting and useful.
I’ll write again next week.
Much love,
Eileen
Eileen White, from Portballintrae, Northern Ireland, to Eileen Prince, MacDougal’s Apothecary, Edinburgh, Scotland
25 June 1952
My Dear Namesake,
I was thrilled to receive your package the other day. Your owl was absolutely exhausted from carrying it all the way up here, however, so I insisted he stay, feed, and rest up in our owlery overnight before returning to you. I hope his late return won’t be an inconvenience.
I’ve been engrossed with brewing recently. Some of the fruits of my labor are enclosed for you: a new scent for your birthday and some salves you may find useful in your travels. The writings you sent me made for a wonderful change of pace when I finished my work. I sat outside and read all afternoon. I was so captivated that your grandfather was forced to make his own tea. He brought me a cup outside, grumbling and complaining the whole way, scowling at me; I just know he was glaring daggers at me from beneath that black curtain of hair in his face. Poor, dear man! But I digress.
Some of the witches’ stories you sent me are very like those my own mother and grandmother told me about their lives. It is a wonder to know how many elderly witches live in Scotland. Many of the medicinal receipts seem similar to those in my collections. I will have to compare them more closely and Zerocso some to owl to you. In addition to my gift of potions, you’ll find in my package three manuscripts from my little library that I think you’ll find of use. When you’re ready to travel again, let me know. There are several acquaintances of mine in northern England you should speak with. If nothing else, they can at least provide my granddaughter with a hearty tea. You should especially make sure to befriend Eugenia Borage; she is just as smart as, and with a far sharper sense of humor than, her better-known relative Libatius.
Your grandfather and I will be visiting with your parents in Manchester later this summer. (I know how much you love it there, my dear, but I still cannot bring myself to understand why your father’s family decided to remain in such a large city, of all places.) I do hope you will be there. I would enjoy spending time in the kitchen with my daughter and all my granddaughters.
Please give my kindest regards to Master and Madam MacDougal.
With great love,
Your Nanny
Eileen Prince, parts unknown, England, to Alexander Prince, Manchester, England
30 October 1953
Dear Dad,
I met up with Your Friend the other day and gave him the message you asked me to. He was relieved to get the information and said it would be quite useful. It seems that you were correct in your suspicions about strange magic near Salisbury. The gentleman expressed his thanks, sent his kind regards to you and Mum, and Disapparated to London immediately following.
This does not bode well, Dad, does it? It does have something to do with you-know-who, that Slytherin prefect chap I once wrote you about, doesn’t it? This can’t be simply politics as usual; I’m thinking that his intent is something more. Am I right in deducing that your friend was not merely an ordinary Ministry worker, but an Unspeakable?
I know it must sound a bit simple coming from me, your nearly novice daughter, to you, who has been researching Dark Magic for decades, but please, please be careful, you and Mum. From what I hear on the grapevine, this one has more interest in power than ethics.
Much love,
Eileen
Alexander Prince, Manchester, England, to Eileen Prince, parts unknown, England
1 November 1953
Daughter,
Thank you for your letter of the 30th. Friends in London and Hogsmeade sent further confirmation.
Yes, my dear, this is about That Chap. I have no illusions about his ambitions or about his powers. He’s not become a danger. Yet. You are right to be concerned. I have no doubt, considering his attraction to the Dark, that he learned somehow of your mother’s and my own foolish flirtation with such magic in our youth. He seeks such knowledge. He seeks supporters with such knowledge. Your mother and I escaped enthrallment with the Dark many, many years ago. Yet he may believe us knowledgeable and “worthy” enough for alliance. Unwanted by us, of course.
I have endeavored since I was a youth to lower my profile while making sure that my knowledge was useful for those who, to paraphrase your own words, held ethics to be a higher goal than pure power. I shall keep doing so as long as I am able. Please do not seek to further identify my ministry friend; his successes depend upon his relative anonymity.
Do not disparage yourself, Eileen; you know more than you think. Certainly more than the average witch. Bear that in mind as you listen to news you hear on the witches’ grapevine. If you like, we can talk more when next you are at home. I may need to call upon you again. In the meantime, enjoy your travels and research.
Love to you,
Dad
Tobias Snape, Manchester, England, to Eileen Prince, Bellingham, England
1 March 1955
Dear Eileen,
I was unsure of the correct address to use to reach you. My mother, who will post this for me, assures me, though, that your mail always seems to reach you wherever you are. I hope that you are well.
I enjoyed talking with you when your family gathered at my mother’s home at Christmas time. I remember seeing you as a young girl out gardening with my mum and yours. You always seemed to be so intent and helpful. At our holiday celebration, I was charmed by the way you were able to transform my mother’s humble home with your breathtaking decorations and lights. Such an appealing atmosphere for our celebration! It was like magic!
As you may remember, I was under consideration for a management position at one of the nearby mills. I am happy to report that I accepted the job, which include a rise in pay. I’m also happy that it brings me back to my boyhood home of Manchester. Coming from our humble neighborhood, I am pleased to be able to return home in this way. My daughter, Betty - who you must also remember from that wonderful holiday gathering - and I moved into a very comfortable flat. I expect, though, to be on my own soon. Betty is in a cosmetology course and is going with a nice young man, a clerk at the bank. I think she’ll be moving out soon. It will be strange to be a bachelor again after all these years.
My mother told me that you might be home for the Easter holiday. I hope that you will come visit. It would be a pleasure to take you to lunch while you are in town. I would enjoy continuing our conversation. Please say you will agree.
Fondly,
Toby Snape
Saturday Evening
While he walked, Severus contemplated what he’d read of his mother, the parts of her earlier life that had been completely unknown to him. He’d never considered talking to the colleagues who had once taught Eileen. He wondered if Filius, her former head of house, or Minerva, in fact, had ever been tempted to raise the subject with him. He silently thanked them for their restraint over the many years they had known each other. He was grateful for their friendship and imagined that they knew that any discussion of Eileen Prince would not have been well received earlier in his life. He made a mental note to approach them soon.
Slughorn was a different story altogether. When Severus began Hogwarts, the man could not stop trying to get the young boy to talk about Eileen. In their first one-on-one meeting, his new potions teacher and head of house spent the entire 20 minutes singing the praises of his Grandmother White and his mum. Slughorn waxed grandiloquently about Eileen Prince’s abilities in potions and bemoaned the loss of her great talent when she decided against an apprenticeship. The potions teacher expressed his high hopes for her only son and urged Severus not to let Eileen’s “unfortunate life choices” get in his way in potions or in life. Severus had refused to speak to Slughorn for the rest of the year, and it was only with Lily’s persuasion that he participated in the “Slug Club.” Aside from that, Severus shunned any meaningful conversation with his head of house from that time on; he certainly wasn’t going to start now.
Besides, it seemed that Slughorn was dead wrong in his negative judgment of Eileen. Severus felt a bit of pride in his mother for disappointing Sluggy’s expectations of her. He couldn’t remember ever talking with his mum about their potions teacher, but now he imagined that they would commiserate in a comradely way about the old goat’s appalling manner. This version of his mum had opinions. She had friends, interests, goals. She had traveled. He hoped that Eileen’s manuscripts were among the boxes he had yet to unpack. He wanted to read her research. He wanted to talk with her, learn from her. He had never known this Eileen. She had never talked about this part of her life with him! Why? Then again, he had never thought to ask. And Nanny White had corresponded with Eileen about her work. He had never talked to Nanny about anything beyond her neighbors’ gossip or the Christmas presents she’d sent. As a boy, he’d watched the brewing that went on at the house and thought nothing of it. It was too ordinary to catch his interest. Clearly, though, his mother, growing up in the same kind of environment, felt much differently. Those ordinary, seemingly simple potions were her métier and her inspiration.
By the time Severus came into the world, Eileen had put her research, or at least her travels, aside. He couldn’t remember his mother, or anyone else, talking about it when he was growing up. He still didn’t understand why his parents married. What did Eileen, an intelligent witch in her twenties, find appealing about Tobias Snape, an older Muggle with a nearly grown daughter and a middle-management job at a mill? Even having read their correspondence, he still didn’t understand what Eileen found so extraordinary about Tobias Snape that she changed her life to stay in Manchester with him. Maybe this was another aspect of the perfectly ordinary that appealed to her? He didn’t understand. Eileen was dead, and no one would have known her heart better than she. He certainly didn’t remember his father being as polite or happy or eager as the Toby in his mother’s letterbook. He didn’t really want to think about his father. Perhaps he should deal with his memories of his father, but not now. Now, he wanted to focus just on Eileen.
It was after dark when Severus returned to the quarters he and Hermione shared. She was dozing on the settee in front of the fire, the latest issue of Ars Alchemica having replaced her familiar in her lap sometime while he was out. He sat down facing her in a chair in front of the fire, with his elbows perched on the armrests and index fingers on his lips, and gazed at her. Eileen as a girl was so much like Hermione. The Sorting Hat had considered placing Hermione in Ravenclaw when she first entered Hogwarts. She was remarkably intelligent, a fact that had annoyed the Ravenclaws in her year and had been part of what drew him to her. As his student, her persistent questions had annoyed him, but he had also admired her drive, albeit quite secretly. Now, he could not imagine anything in their relationship that was not colored by her intellect: her investment in their academic conversations, her clever sense of humor, her subtle observations about the behavior of their friends and family, and even her over-intellectualized approach to sex. He smiled to himself. And then frowned again. He didn’t want to compare his mother and Hermione too much. He really didn’t want to think about Eileen and any approach to sex.
Hermione stirred and smiled up at Severus blearily. He kissed her gently. Stepping over to the fireplace, Severus Flooed the kitchen and requested dinner (comfort food: Irish stew, hot bread, fresh fruit, and coffee), then stoked the fire.
“Any disturbances while I was gone?”
“No. I think your Slytherins must have noticed you out prowling the castle grounds and judiciously retreated. All the other students simply stay away out of habit.”
“The students never really see us as people, do they?”
“Beyond us giving homework, deducting House points, and occasionally offering some mentoring?” Hermione chuckled. “No, not many see beyond that educational role, I should think. That’s hardly a surprise to you, though, is it, Severus?”
“Not at all. It takes will to see people beyond the very specific roles they play in our lives, and most people just don’t have that will.”
A house elf appeared with their dinner, and the couple moved their work away from the dining table, laid out the meal, and sat down to eat. As neither was given much to small talk, the first part of the meal passed in relative silence. After eating a first serving of stew, Severus looked up at Hermione and spoke quietly.
“My mother spent several years after leaving school doing potions research. Apparently it started as a seventh-year independent project for Slughorn on ordinary witches’ variations on basic medicinal brews. She traveled through Scotland and northern England interviewing witches and collecting stories they’d learnt from their female predecessors. My grandmothers and great-grandmother all approved and helped her. She loved it. I never knew that about her.”
“She gave it up?”
Severus hesitated. “I don’t know. I assume so. She certainly didn’t travel anywhere while I was around. Nowhere except to escort me to King’s Cross, that is.”
“So,” Hermione said slowly, “you’ve learned that Eileen had a childhood and, now, that she also had something in life that she loved in addition to her family. Something that appeals to the potions master in you. She wasn’t just your mum.”
Severus raised an eyebrow at her. “Psychological theory?”
“One of my cousins was a clinical therapist,” she answered. “I talked with her a lot one summer, and she gave me some interesting things to read.”
“After the battle at the Department of Mysteries at the end of your fifth year? I imagine that traumatized you quite a lot. Oh, don’t look so shocked that I have figured out a little piece of your psyche, Hermione.” He gave her a smug look. “You’re not the only great reader in this relationship, and I can be very observant. Of you, anyway.”
“I’m trying to be helpful, Severus!”
Severus sighed in annoyance. “Yes, my mum was more than just my mum. She was interesting. I would have liked to talk with this Eileen Prince. How on earth did she become the appalling woman who raised me? And there’s more about her life. Here. Read these.”
Hermione took the folio Severus passed across the table and spent the rest of the meal catching herself up on Eileen Prince’s childhood, potions research, and courtship. Severus watched her read, wondering what she would make of his mother’s decisions.
Meanwhile, Severus looked through the issue of Ars Alchemica Hermione had left on the settee. “Further Ethical Considerations of the Draught of Living Death”? I swear I’ve read this before. Who wrote this? Merlin, this chap certainly has a very focused research agenda.
When Hermione finished reading, she looked up and gazed thoughtfully at Severus for a moment before asking him if he was willing to talk about Eileen for a bit. Deciphering an affirmative response from the slight bob of his head, she set about adding some Bailey’s Irish Cream to their coffee and distributing squares of fine dark chocolate.
“You could probably find a copy of her seventh-year project report in the school library; they keep them all, you know.”
“Yes, I suppose I could.”
“And, perhaps there are some of her manuscripts of her research from after graduation in the boxes we brought back from Manchester. I bet those would be interesting to read.”
“I’ve thought of that, yes. There’s a great deal I don’t know about my mum. Her research could be interesting.”
Severus fell quiet for a moment. She was telling him what she thought he wanted to hear, but interesting as he found his mother’s research, it left him unmoved tonight. He looked away from Hermione; his face took on a more closed expression; and, he tried formulating what he wanted to say about his parents’ relationship prior to his birth.
Before he could speak, however, Hermione spoke up hesitantly. “Severus, you’re not going to like this very much. But…ah… the letters between Eileen and her father reminded me of something Sirius once told Harry, Ron, and me. He said that you already knew quite a bit about the Dark Arts by the time you came to Hogwarts. Is that true?”
Severus snorted, and Hermione quickly looked up. “I believe Black let out that little tidbit for his own self-aggrandizement. If I was already a Dark Arts user as an eleven- or twelve-year old, then, of course, he must have been justified in his constant harassment of me.”
“Of course he wasn’t, Severus! Sirius was clearly an arrogant boy in his youth, though I don’t think that all those years in Azkaban did anything to improve him in any way. Look, you know how I feel about him. I only ask because…”
“The letters, yes; I understand. Look, I did know quite a bit about Dark Magic by the time I arrived at Hogwarts. With my grandfather’s studies and his enormous Dark Arts library at the house, how could I not know something, or a bit more than something? But, I was hardly the only one. Most of my housemates in Slytherin, and the children of old families in other houses, had at least some prior exposure to the Dark Arts before coming to school; some had a good deal more. Sirius must have had at least as much exposure as his younger brother Regulus, and Regulus was capable of some rather frightening stuff.”
“Sirius did engage in a bit of revisionist history, didn’t he? He tried hard to overcome his association with the Black family, but he was too powerful a wizard to simply forget some of the magic he’d learned. Still, Severus, some of the spells you recorded in your old sixth-year potions text…”
“Merlin, Hermione!” Severus stood quickly, turned away from Hermione, and stepped toward the fireplace. “I wasn’t using Dark Magic regularly, although my boundaries then were a bit hazier than I would find appropriate now.”
“Um…Sectumsempra?”
“Well, yes, that was…not exactly… Light. I’m sure that Mr. Longbottom would tell you, though,” he said as he turned back toward her, “that he found that curse most useful in killing Nagini and getting rid of that Horcrux. In that case, the end certainly justified using a not-quite-Light means.”
“No, it did not!” Hermione flew up from her own seat and stood directly in front of Severus, glaring up at him. “Neville could have used a more clearly Light weapon. We… he… had Godric Gryffindor’s sword, if you’ll remember, which you, former Headmaster Snape, made sure Harry received. Neville meant to use that to kill Nagini, but it was lost in the shuffle before he could use it.
“Dark Magic involves the intent to do harm, Severus. You, of all people, know that! To use Sectumsempra, Neville had to intend to harm Nagini. But he had nothing specific against the bloody snake, for heaven’s sake! He had to invoke enough hatred not just to slice it, but also to kill. If anything, that required more ill intent than when you originally created that spell. If he’d been able to use the sword, like he’d wanted, he could have focused his intention on nobler thoughts, like overcoming the evil of the Horcrux.”
“Now you’re mincing words, Hermione. Spell or artifact, killing or ‘overcoming evil,’ the action would have been the same, and in the situation, what could actually have been the difference in intent? In order to ‘overcome evil,’ Longbottom had to kill. Regardless of how he did it.”
“Would you say the same thing had he used Avada Kedavra?”
“Sectumsempra is hardly the same thing as an Unforgivable. One must pay attention to distinctions. We both know that lumping every spell that might kill into one category of ‘Dark’ is simplistic. But, neither is intent the only factor in determining magical ethics, Hermione!”
“Severus, I am neither hard of hearing nor a complete simpleton!” Hermione sat back down with a huff. “Save your ire for someone who deserves it. Merlin… We’re not going to resolve this argument tonight.”
“That is correct.” Severus turned back toward the fire and leaned forward with a growl until his forehead touched the mantelpiece.”
“Did you know… about your grandfather’s Dark past, Severus?”
“When I knew him, Grandfather Prince was a noted scholar of the Dark Arts, not a practitioner. I didn’t know anything about his and Grandmother’s Dark past. It does explain his fervor, I suppose. My mother knew.”
“She did. She also identified Tom Riddle as a dangerous Dark wizard pretty early on. Do you think she coined the term ‘You-Know-Who’? Maybe if everyone had simply called him “That Prefect Chap,” he would have been taken down earlier?”
“Cheeky woman.” He relented, turning from the fire and displaying the bare hint of a smirk.
“Yes,” Hermione cooed, approaching him and resting her hands on his upper arms, “and you love it.”
Severus closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. Done in yet again, he thought.
“Dumbledore must have known Alexander Prince,” Hermione continued, “he must have known that your grandfather was working to stop Riddle from attaining power.”
“Albus never spoke of them to me, but you’re right; he must have. Damn him! He never even hinted that he knew my family. Voldemort never said a thing about them to me, either. I would have expected him to throw it in my face at some point. The Dark Lord always made use of the skeletons in his Death Eaters’ closets. It’s not possible that he never put the relationship together. No, he was arrogant and mad, but never a fool. Not until the end, anyway…”
He fell silent, and Hermione sent up a small prayer of thanks that during all of Severus’ years spying on the Death Eaters, Tom Riddle had never used his grandfather’s rejection of the Dark against him.
Hermione guided Severus over to the sofa and, with some effort, managed to steer the conversation to the Ars Alchemica article he had read earlier. The irony of the fact that it analyzed magical ethics did not elude her. They talked late into the night, until the fire died in the grate and then wearily headed for the bedroom.
Part Two This Way