Written in Blood

And now, we find out what on earth was going on with Severus for the last two chapters!


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\"Mother,\" Severus hissed, \"If you think that I would leave my wife alone in your presence for even a moment, you are vastly mista—\"

His mother snapped her fingers, and he found himself caught in a whirlwind of color and sound. Abruptly, the world righted itself again, and he found himself in his childhood bedroom, sprawled on his old bed. She would send me here, he thought, irate at his mother\'s duplicity. No, not duplicity. That was far too subtle for her. The only virtue he could grant her, albeit grudgingly, was a sense of honesty. She would stab you in the back or feed you poison, but she would tell you about it while doing it. He didn\'t know why he had come, and stood up, intending to grab his wife and wish the old bood ood riddance, when he was tackled.

\"Oomph!\"

\"Severus!\" he heard a delighted shriek from about three inches from his ear, and winced. He knew that voice, all right. \"Yenorra,\" he said coldly. \"What are you doing here?\"

The woman sat back on her heels (and his legs), and pouted at him in a way that she really should have grown out of several years ago. It wasn\'t even becoming on a five-year-old, he mused. She whined, in her annoyingly high-pitched voice that always seemed more suited to cackling than laughing, and shrieking than cooing, \"Aren\'t you happy to see me?\"

He attempted to push her off, but she sat firm. Giving it up for a moment, he replied, \"No, I am not. I am married, and find you abhorrent. Get off me at once.\"

Instead of wailing, as he had come to expect from his previous association with Yenorra, the woman smiled, in a way that could only be described as sinister. \"Oh, yes,\" she said, smirking, \"your little mudblood wife. Severus, I thought you were above such things. You could do…\" he dimly became conscious of Yenorra unbuttoning her blouse, still sitting on top of him, \"sooo much better. Especially after your little wifey dies in childbirth of your mother\'s curse. She told me all about it.\"

Snape sat up sharply. \"My mother\'s WHAT?\"

Yenorra, blouse barely hanging on, covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide. \"Oops,\" she whimpered, \"I wasn\'t supposed to mention that. Your mother said…\"

Snape launched himself to his feet, dumping Yenorra on the ground unceremoniously. He yanked the door open, and tore down the hallway, pursued by the shrieking woman behind him.

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\"What was that,\" his wife pressed, \"some sort of family curse? Following in your mother\'s footsteps after all, are you, Severus?\"

His mother. A family curse. Hermione!

In the death of his mother and their subsequent escape from the flying knives, his mother\'s curse on Hermione had momentarily slipped his mind. Was it already upon her? Had his mother had a chance to place it before she died? The only person who would know an answer to that, and how to counteract it, was…

He stumbled backwards, an image of his Hermione lying on a bloody deathbed hovering menacingly over him, and tore off into the corridors. He heard Hermione call after him, \"Where are you going?\" and yelled back, hell-bent, \"To find Yenorra!\"

He ran through the maze of giant kitchens, left over from the days when Snape\'s held social functions, and weren\'t reclusive old hags without friends. He called Yenorra\'s name over and over again, as he dashed at breakneck speed through a labyrinth that only a native Snape could navigate easily, twisting and turning through invisible passages and jumping over Disorienting patches placed at random. For the first time in twenty or so years, he wondered just how hated his ancestors must have been to feel that all these precautions were really necessary. Then he remembered the looks he frequently got in Potions class, and stopped wondering. The Snapes weren\'t the most beloved family, as families went.

His legs were shaky, and his lungs were burning, but he couldn\'t stop, couldn\'t stop looking for Yenorra, because he would lose Hermione, and he couldn\'t lose her, because she was the only good thing in his life, and if he lost her he might as well just die, so he had to find Yenorra even if it killed him, because without her he would die anyway. He had stopped forming coherent thoughts long ago, and merely ran, yelling Yenorra\'s name over and over, peering into tunnels and crevices, hoping he wasn\'t too late, wishing he hadn\'t abandoned her to die, praying she had escaped the knives.

As he grew more and more frantic, he became less careful in his weakened state, as he was already wobbly from the curse that had glanced off his shield. Before long, as his voice grew hoarse, he stumbled on a hidden stair, and pitched forward to land sprawled on the floor, fighting for air.

It\'s no use, he thought despairingly, she\'s dead. Mother got her, the old bitch, and she\'s dead. Dead, and now Hermione will die, too. And it\'s my fault for not going back for her.

He lay there, in darkest gloom, continually seeing Hermione, torn and bleeding, lying dead on a bed in the Hospital Wing. He screamed, a scream borne of mingled frustration, anger, and despair.

Then, he fell silent. He could have sworn he had heard something answer his cry. He yelled again, testing the water. \"Aaaah!\"

\"Sir?\" he heard above his head. Severus solt olt upright, and spun around as quickly as he could while sitting down, and saw---

\"Zeggy!\" Never in his entire life had Severus been as glad to see a house-elf as he was at this moment. \"Zeggy,\" he pressed urgently, \"where is Yenorra Lestrange?\"

The elf\'s large eyes opened even wider, if that was possible. He wrung his hands, cringing from his master, and Severus at once felt a wave of pity for the creature, living with his mother all these years. If he hadn\'t known Zeggy personally, he was sure he would have contemplated joining S.P.E.W. at that moment. The elf squeaked, \"She is in your room, sir. Zeggy helped her, sir, so she wasn\'t killed, sir. Zeggy knows he isn\'t supposed to do magic, sir, but he will punish himself later, he promises!\"

\"No, Zeggy, don\'t!\" Snape said, alarmed. \"You were right to help her. I forbid you to punish yourself. And is my wife all right?\" It never occurred to him that Zeggy wouldn\'t know---Zeggy knew everything that happened in the Manor, always.

The elf looked torn between servility and---was that laughter? He squeaked, \"Sir, since she had news you were all right, sir, and Mistress Lestrange was all right, sir, she has been eating in the kitchens.\"

Snape smiled to himself. Pregnant women.



I know, I know, it\'s another short one, but what can I say? If you want chapters on weekdays, they will probably be short!

And I\'m still taking suggestions for the baby\'s name, so feel free to put in your six and a half cents (adjusted for inflation)!


Coming next chapter: Hermione meets Yenorra!