Breeding Lilacs out of Dead Land.

Please read the following note before continuing any further into the story.

If you find attempts to emphasize the similarity between JKR's Wizarding World and the twentieth century's thirties Nazi Germany, unnecessary or unpleasant, then please do not continue. If the notion of the Holocaust being portrayed in any way on fanfiction revolts you- please, do not go on reading - this fic isn't for you either.

If you still wish to continue to chapter 4, I will state now that the concept of Snape's mother being a Holocaust survivor is an idea burrowed from Ramos's wonderful "Hinge of Fate". All of you who have read Ramos's story will also recognize the circumstances which led to Snape's parents' marriage.

Chapter 4 - Your Golden Hair Margarete, Your Ashen hair Shulamith.


He woke with a splitting headache. No wonder, after turning straight to the vodka. In normal circumstances, Severus Snape was a whiskey drinker. Drink that was refined and precise; a sharp stab of taste and smell. An intellectual stimulation of the senses, if you liked. Vodka was a bad habit he had picked up from a Russian fellow-student at university. Snape often found that it suited his darker moods. Vodka, especially the cheap types, was strong, brutal and mean. It knocked out the senses, burned the throat and diffused itself from one's pores leaving a heady scent of alcohol-absorbed sweat and bitter defilement. Not to mention a bloody hangover. He was now entertaining one.

Last night, which began with Baudeliare and a Jameson, ended up with vodka and Bukowski. What degradation. The book lay abandoned on the floor, face down, with few of the pages crushed under its weight. Snape could blurrily remember himself throwing away the book, ridiculously pained by the words. He returned to Hogwarts, already slightly drunk, and skipped dinner. Alone in his rooms, he could drown peacefully in the wavering abyss of his self-conjured despair. Bukowski too. An intoxicating dive under the collective skin of sweating humanity, fighting to breathe as the beautifully spun words wound around his windpipe, suffocating him. He came back to his senses smelly, sweating alcohol and poetry, and hung over. Of course.

Snape rose slowly, fighting a wave of nausea as he pushed his bed covers aside. The stench of Vodka was everywhere. He closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids were the words. The young Dolores Haze – Bloody hell. He really had to stop reading Muggle literature – then the young Granger child. And her mother. The insinuation made him slightly sick. Damn Muggle authors. Damn the Muggle born. Wand… on the night table. Lucky he was so meticulous. Spying made it necessary, though he was already a neat person by nature. Snape grasped his wand. “Accio hangover potion!”

The vial landed on his bedcovers. He uncorked it, gulping the bitter liquid. The substance had magically flooded his system with H2O, melting away the residues of the alcohol. The room still smelled of Vodka, and Snape was still somewhat dizzy, but the awful headache was gone, and so was the dryness in his mouth. He rose to his feet, shedding whatever clothes he still wore, and walked straight to the bathroom. The suite of rooms he had in the dungeons was equipped with an impressive bathtub, which Snape kept ignoring. Today was no exception. He stepped into the shower; turned on the hot water and let it scorch him back to sanity. Hot. Boiling water. Agony. Pain blossomed where the heat met his skin. This was reality. This was sanity.

Out of the shower, he stared at his blurred reflection in the mirror. Vicious stains of black and white against the glass. He found himself reaching for the mist-covered surface, fingers trailing along the coagulated vapour.

the blackbirds are rough today
like
ingrown toenails
in an overnight
---<---

Now it was him through the words. Ugly. Unchanged as ever. Looking more and more like the father he hated, as the years went by. How sweet a revenge that he should be moulded in the vile form of Justin Snape. The sins of the fathers… Looked like they were both black-hearted bastards. No matter how far or how hard he ran, it was always Justin’s face that stared back at him from the mirror. Justin was his son’s atonement. He would have probably appreciated the tribute, had he been alive. He wasn’t. Had the courtesy to die almost twenty years ago, hardly eighty years old. Maybe the Snapes’ infamous health (or the lack of it, to be more accurate) accounted for it. He hoped his mother had several years of happiness before she passed away as well. Disgusted with himself, Snape turned away from the mirror.

...The blackbirds kept eating his heart with small bites, looking at him with crimson blood pouring down their dark eyeballs.

Taking a brief look at the ancient horologe, he noted it was already time for lunch. Snape was never very fond of eating, but he knew he had to replenish his energy reservoir in order to keep his normal functioning. Sometimes, it seemed to him that the basic actions, which comprised his daily routine, became automated. He was the sum of all his mundane occupations, a being defined by the operational instructions of the activity called living. Breath, eat, sleep, and then the secondary functions: move, talk, interact, and integrate in the great web that is the humanity that surrounds you.

With cold resolution, Snape got dressed, and made his way to the great hall.

The green, red and silver of Christmas already adorned the hall. The Christmas decorations somehow clashed with the temperate silence that filled the room. Few voices interlaced the stillness, soft echoes that mingled in the corners and dissolved a little before they could make themselves understood. Several students who remained during the Christmas break sat at their house tables: the additional table, back in the of end of the hall, accommodated its usual diners; Aurors, wanderers, widowed mothers and their children, orphaned and homeless by the hands of the Death Eaters; all sort of people who were fighting for the cause and who had made Hogwarts castle their temporary home. Their presence was a nuisance he was used to. An itch you forgot to scratch because you were so used to it, it became a part of your existence.

Moving along, he heard a rapid rumble coming from the staff table. The voice was suspiciously sweet and childish, and Snape scanned the table with mild annoyance. That reshaped into something darker when he recognized the two additional diners. Great. Absolutely great. For nine out of twelve months he was forced to eat while listening to the constant noise of the student body. Now, when school had finally emptied to some degree, he had to suffer nothing less than a young girl attending the staff table. And he didn’t even want to begin analyzing his feelings concerning the presence of one, Hermione Granger. Wouldn’t Albus eligelighted? The thought of Albus being overjoyed by his own misery was the last straw. Snape decided to beat a strategic retreat back to his rooms.

“Severus! I was hoping you would join us today!”

Fuck. He was caught. “Good afternoon, Albus.”

Yes, the Headmaster was delighted. “Come and sit with us, dear boy!” he invited the acerbic Potions Master. “I am sure you will have noticed we have guests- in fact, Miss Granger told me two met by chance yesterday.”

“Indeed, we did,” Snape confirmed, taking his regular place three seats to the right from the headmaster. Knowing Dumbledore, he had very little doubt that the little girl’s being seated right next him was a coincidence. The child immediately lifted her gaze from her plate, at which she had been staring with painfully familiar despondency, and gave Snape a measuring glance. “You are the nasty man we met yesterday,” she told him.

He sneered. “I’m delighted to know I made such a good impression.”

“No, you didn’t,” she answered with an air of the utmost seriousness.

He ignored her, and with grim determination, began heaping food on his plate.

“Making a new acquaintance, Severus?” Minerva, who was seated to his right, teased him.

“Already jealous, Minerva?”

“Oh, not at all, my dear. You enjoy your new friend.”

Snape snorted, focusing his attention on his plate. There was considerable amount of food to be dealt with. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much appetite. Back in his adolescence, Snape learned that his appetite and his body’s requirements were hardly ever synchronized. His mother, because of her lurid past, never once allowed him to skis mis meals or to have food left on his plate. Therefore, at the time he arrived at Hogwarts, Severus Snape was more than happy to eat as much as he pleased. Soon enough, though, he found that eating only as much as he pleased meant he began to suffer the consequences of malnutrition. Consequently, Snape learned how to supply himself with the precise amount of food that would enable him to keep going.

The memory made him think of his mother. Aniko used to hide dried slices of bread underneath the mattress –in the pillowcase, canned goods in the closet. Food could be found, hidden in the most unexpected places, stolen from the house-elves, who never stopped suspecting the stuttering Muggle their master had inflicted upon them. Justin used to hit his wife whenever he discovered another hidden stash of rotting food. He was a violent person, and therefore believed he could beat the habit out of Aniko. Or perhaps he simply enjoyed the beating.

Snape turned his gaze back to his food with even less appetite.

“You don’t like to eat,” a mellow, childish voice informed him.

He immediately glared at the child.

To Snape’s astonishment, she smiled. “It’s okay,” said the girl in a reassuring manner. “I don’t like to eat, either.”

“And how is that supposed to console me?” He shot at once.

She shrugged, not the least insulted. “Just thought you’d like to know.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

Minerva, who had been keeping track of their short conversation, gave Snape a wicked smile. The woman definitely earned her Animagus form.

Snape finished his lunch, ignoring the low hum of conversations all around him. Once or twice, he thought he heardngernger urging her child to eat. It made him think of his mother, but he forcefully pushed the memories away. Anikostedsted in a dark cranny of his mind. A pale, golden haired Shulamith, that extended her arms to enfold all the cremated ghosts of his childhood and youth, and stare back at him with accusing eyes. She never forgave him for joining the Death Eaters.

He left the hall, haunted by his private ghost, and missed Hermione’s attempt to catch his attention.

* * *

Fire was swirling in the hearth. The warm glow was licking the edge of Snape’s wooden desk, softly whispering along the brim of the paper he was grading. Fifth years’ essays. Those were the worst. Especially those students that could already see the end to their Potions days approaching and let themselves slip. Those he treated with vengeance. Not that Snape could be blamed of being nice or even civil to any of his students. By the multitude, he found that they were a bunch of dunderheads, lacking both the will and the talent required of Potions students. There were several exceptions during the years – Miss Granger came to mind, though he would never admit it willingly – but the lots of them were nothing more than incapable fools. Of course, the fact he hated his position wasn’t helping.

Severus Snape had never pretended to be a good teacher. The job had been inflicted upon him by Dumble, we, who saw it as a means to save Snape from the Death Eaters’ round-ups that followed Voldemort’s fall, whilst filling in a worrying gape in Hogwarts’ staff. Hogwarts’ last Potions Master had been one of the war’s many victims, and the young Literature and Chemistry student, formerly one of the best Potions students Hogwarts had ever known, seemed to be a likely, though slim substitute. Nonetheless, appointing Severus Snape as Hogwarts Potions instructor suited Dumbledore’s purposes, and thus he ignored the obstacles and made his involvement in the fight against Voldemort a platform from which to enable Snape’s appointment.

Over the years, Snape’s teaching became a matter of gratitude. Dumbledore wished him to continue teaching Potions, and so he did. It was also a matter of caution. As long as he didn’t see Voldemort’s corpse with his own eyes, Severus Snape was not going to count him as dead. There hadn’t been enough humanity left in the creature for him to die. Snape had been right of course, and when Voldemort regained his power, Snape slipped back to his former position among the Dark Lord's servants once again taking the role of a double spy. Thus, he retained the position he wa unq unqualified to fulfill, scaring another generation of incapable witches and wizards.

At forty-eight, an age that was supposed to be a wizard’s prime, he was bitter, unhealthy and overwrought. Justin Snape died at seventy-two. Severus expected it to be even earlier for him. Not that he minded. If truth were told, Snape’s personal indifference concerning his possible death seemed to amuse him from time to time. Again, he found himself surrendering to the firm grip of the narrative – the tragic story of his life rather than the reality of it. An inevitable retreat for a man who reflected his life through a filter of carefully composed words.

A soft knock on the door cut off his reverie. Snape straightened at once, pushing aside a clutter of fifth years’ essays. “Enter!” His voice left no doubt as to the reception expecting the misfortunate intruder.

Annoyed, he watched a pudgy figure slip into the room. She closed the door behind her with a quiet tap, and turned to face him.

“Miss Granger….” He drawled in his silkiest voice, satisfied to note she has shivered. “To what do I owe the honour of this unexpected visit?”

Hermione Granger moistened her lips. Pink tongriefriefly applying spit to her childishly swollen mouth. Completely innocent gesture, of course, so he was amused to be reminded of Anna, her pupils dilated with arousal, rippling and damp in front of him. The sound of Granger’s breathy, somewhat girlish voice obliterated his memory of Anna at once. “My apologies for the interruption, Professor-“ she said, “I tried to catch your attention at lunch, so I could settle on a time when we’re both free… but you left so swiftly- anyway,“ she took a calming breath, “we need to talk.”

“Well, unfortunately for, I happen to be busy at this time-“

“It’s important,” she blurted.

.

Snape glared at her. “I’m sure you think it’s important.”

Granger clenched her jaws. “Yes, I do. And I believe you’ll find it important too, if you’d only listen. Now,” she said, taking a seat in front of the large oak desk, “please forgive me my rudeness.”

He knew there was no actual reason for him to avoid talking to her- no on oon othern hin his own relentless ghosts, and the confusing, intimidating sense of unreality that her presence caused him. The blackbirds were hovering above Hermione Granger, ready to tear her heart, ready to poke her eyeballs; the blackbirds were ready to feast on his sanity. There was something about her that made him feel almost afraid – from the moment hd sed seen her until this very moment; a sense of unreality: as if she was a piece of destiny about to fall into place, and safe as long as she was dislocated. Being terrorized made him defensive, and he hated himself for reacting this way to a woman that was about twenty years younger than he. “What do you want, Miss Granger?” Snape asked at last. “It rather be good, as you’re already wasting my precious time.”

“As I already said, I’m sorry for the interruption-“

“Please, spare me.”

She nodded. Her expression was grave and restrained, and yet she reminded him of a nervous, jumpy schoolgirl. Hermione Granger still made an impression of eagerness. Maybe those were himorimories misleading him; maybe her skin, that seemed to glow with water, so soft it looked mellow and trembling. “Very well,” she said, crossing her arms. “You may not like what I’m going to tell-“

“Miss Granger!” he barked. “Would you please just get to the point?”

“Iryinrying!” There was a streak of genuine despair in her voice that made him want to run away. Or soothe her, if he only knew how.

“Why do you have to make it so difficult?” she asked him. Her voice was trembling and she buried her face in her hands.

He swore inwardly. Knowing she was close to breaking down, he felt a certain urge, merely a curiosity, to drive her over the edge. Snape wondered how this new Hermione Granger would look when broken. Then she looked at him and he knew he could not, would not, hurt her deliberately. Not now. “Please continue, Miss Granger,” Snape encouraged her gently.

She lifted her gaze. Her eyes were big and sad. “Well-“ Granger raised a hand to shift a wild lock that escaped the loose bundle at her nape. “As I… well… The day I was gone… It had been a Hogsmeade weekend. I believe the rumor went that I’d been kidnapped by Death Eaters. Some sort of a Death Eaters attack. But there was no attack, was there?”

Her eyes clung to his, questioning, almost pleading. For she already knew the answer. There hndeendeed been no attack. None that he knew of. The knowledge had maddened him at the time. Was there was an attack planned that he didn’t know of? That he had never even heard of? Weeks later he had still been trying to draw information from his fellow Death Eaters, yet there hadn’t been a single clue to hint something ever happened at all. Snape shook his head. “No, there was no attack.”

Hermione smiled unhappily. “But you see, there was. Only not then. The attack in which I was involved occurred twenty years earlier, during the summer of 1978.”

“Miss Granger, what are you trying to tell me?”

“When I went to Hogsmeade, I had a time turner with me. I'd had it since the beginning of the year, in fact. I used it to cover up for the extra hours I did for my graduation project. That day, something went wrong. Something went terribly wrong.”

He heard fingernails slowly notching along a blackboard, into black flesh, into human flesh, rotten by time; he could see legs swinging underneath the escritoires. The sweet rumble of his mother, half English half Hungarian; singing him lullabies, crying softly in the corner after she’d been beaten black and blue.

Hermione Granger continued. “At first it seemed as if nothing had happened. Only when I went looking for Harry and Ron, I finally understood something wasn’t right: I didn’t know anyone. I went to look for one of the teachers, then… then it didn’t matter anymore.” Her voice held a certain note of unhappy finality. “I heard a scream, and people were running everywhere, frenzied- it was sheer craziness. I didn’t know what to do. The next moment, a Death Eater was coming at me. I hit him with the first curse I could think of. He fell, but then there was another one. I couldn’t turn my back on them without being hit with something. Everything happened so fast. At last, I was hit by a cruciatus and I stumbled- somebody, a Death Eater, grabbed me and dragged me over a racing broom.”

Granger stopped speaking. He realized that she wouldn’t look at hSnapSnape had the most disturbing notion he had already knew what she was going to tell him. Yet he needed to hear it from her own lips.

“We landed in a meadow. I have no idea where. It was already dark –the moon was a thin scrap. Barely any light at all. Weird what things you notice in these situations. I think the Death Eaters circled me. There was some interchange. Laughing. I was hit with another crucio. Then they urged a…” her voice broke slightly, forming two different cords that dissonance, then dissolved back into each other, as she calmed herself. “They urged a man to play with me- when I saw your face I knew it was… before. You were-“ she closed her eyes for a moment, “so young. Maybe it gave me an impression of innocence. Amidst the horror, I felt sorry for you. I told you I forgave you, and you laughed at me. But it didn’t matter, you see. I needed to forgive you. Then… I… there were others, after you…” Hermione Granger breathed deeply. “I was weak and bruised –I remember fainting several times. When another Death Eater came to finish me, as he believed I had no longer use to them, you stopped him, claiming I’m already dead. I think – I knew, you saved my life. Then, at the end, apprapproached me, and stroked my hair… and you called me you-“

“Margaret… my ashen haired Margaret…” he whispered. “I never knew…”

“Well, you know now…” she was whispering, too. She was serene and sad, tears pouring quietly down her cheeks. Long ribbons of salty, liquid sorrow, skimming along the edges of the horror that was impossible to contain.

Snape’s head was whirling. His nerves were throbbing with echoes of long buried memories. He could never, ever forget her. It was true that he never tried, but while other memories had slowly faded, the memory of her remained vivid and bleeding in his mind. He couldn’t remember her face, but he remembered the taste of the night, the exact shade of her voice, crying, sobbing, her words wrapping around his soul. Her pain. She was trying to keep her voice down, but when he thrust into her virgin body, she couldn’t repress a scream. Plunging in, he felt delicate tissues tear underneath him. Behind, Snape could hear his fellow Death Eaters cheering.

A wave of nausea had taken over him. He had felt sickness at his colleagues' perverted enthusiasm, at his own arousal. The concept of taking a woman against her will was repulsive and fascinating at once. Taking such pleasure out of her writhing body, out of knowing she was writhing in agony underneath him, was something he despised himself for. He told himself he had been forced to do so, but deep inside lurked the knowledge that this craving for violence was a part of him.

Growing in a home where pain was a silent promise, he became blunted. Indifferent. Violence was comprehensible. In a way, Snape couldn’t imagine himself living without it. It was a need – part of whatever idea of twisted normality he would ever be able to conjure. He knew he was stained, long before he ever laid his hand on a victim. Later, he turned aside, staring into the bleak darkness of the moor. Stained. Black and blue, and now: also deep, viscous red. Snape shrugged away the thought, and rising to his feet, rejoined the Death Eaters.

Indifference seemed to be the most logical reaction. He couldn’t afford to care, so he didn’t care. It was to be the same with her – she was just aer ter toy to pleasure a mindless child, and then be thrown away, crushed and broken. He fucked her mindlessly, barely hearing the quiet sobs that played along the unfolding scene. Then she spoke, lisping through her bruised lips.

“It…d…doesn’t mat-ter….”

“What?” he nearly stopped amazed to hear her talking. Some of the victims cried or pledged, but she had simply lain there from the beginning. Limp, dumbstruck and hopeless.

“I-I said… it doesn’t m-matter…I f..f-forgive you.”

He laughed. Laughed so loudly that his lungs hurt. Then he hit her across the face, never even slowing his rhythm. “Stupid… girl.” A thrust, deep, and fierce. She cried. “Stupid… stupid… girl.” He plunged himself deep, wishing to hurt her.

She raised her hand, fingertips brushing along his cheekbones before he caught her. The force of the grip almost broke her fingers. “You… know… nothing… of… me,” he said.

She gaped, crying, and then raised her eyes to look at him. “Yess, I d-do, Severus S-snape, a-and I f-forgi-ve you.”

His last thought as he came, spilling his seed inside her, was that the girl was insane and that her hair had the weirdest colour in the weak moonlight. It looked like ashes.

“Professor…?”

There again. The stupid girl couldn’t keep her mouth shut. He leaned forward, not looking at her, hands shaking with suppressed violence. “Don’t talk to me.”

She tried to reach him, stretching her hand to touch his shoulder. His fingers closed around hers’ in an instance, nearly crushing them. “Don’t. You. Dare. Touch. Me.” He released her hand, satisfied to note that she cringed away from him.

Hermione Granger sighed. His sudden violence seemed to knock her back into some composure. Perhaps she remembered that when dealing with a dangerous monster you had to be alert. “I’m sorry, Professor, I should perhaps leave alone now, unless…”

Her voice was drilling into his brain. He wanted her to shut up. To go away and let him be. What else could she possibly want from him? A bloody apology? Crawl on his knees asking for forgiveness? Did she want him to acknowledge the iniquity he did to her? Revenge was a dish better served cold. Did she seek revenge? No. She forgave him. Even back then, she forgave him, though Merlin knows he didn’t deserve it. Every saint needed a demon to fight. Well, St. Granger, look what a beaten, worn dragon you found yourself. Snape closed his eyes, letting the tiredness override him. “What is it, Miss Granger? Not for a moment I am fooled to think you believe I enjoy your presence.” He clenched his fists. “Please finish whatever it is you came here to do and go.”

“It’s all about you, isn’t it?” she spoke quietly, her voice calm and angry at once. “Isn’t it? All about your guilt, and your suffering. Did you ever consider the possibility that I didn’t come here to torture you?”

“So what did you come here to do?”

She breathed deeply. “What I came here to do, Professor, is tell you that you have a daughter. I believe Aubrey is your child.”

“What??” His weary demeanor snapped at once.

“Aubrey- my daughter; remember, the little, fluffy, blond chatterbox? I believe she’s yours.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Is it?” She sounded tired, unhappy and hurt.

“How can you possibly tell?”

“Just take a second look at her,” Hermione explained tiredly. “Aubrey has your eyes, your hands… your frame – she certainly doesn’t have mine,” she snorted. “Aubrey even has your temper and some of your defiance, for want of a better word.”

Snape forced himself to conjure up the image of the chatty, annoying little girl. Black, defiant gaze. Milky skin tinged with olive. Fine, thin, blond strands. He didn’t doubt it would darken with time, to the shade of ripe wheat. Aniko’s golden hair. She looked so much like Aniko… Yes, the circumstances were absurd, but the little child could be his daughter.

Hermione interpreted the hesitation on his face as skepticism. “There were many men, and I could never quite tell where did the blond hair came from-“

“My mother,” he cut her short. “She seems to have taken after her. I wonder how I didn’t see the resemblance in the first place. Wait a minute; I believe I have a picture of her somewhere…” He was now rummaging through his drawers, looking for the picture, maybe looking for distraction. “There,” he said at last, offering Granger a black and white photograph. “My mother. Aniko Goldstein Snape.”

She frowned at the name. “I always figured you came from a pure blooded family-“

“I do, Miss Grangehe She Snape line is an ancient dynasty stretching back to Mediaeval times. My mother, however, was a Muggle. She was about fifteen when my father claimed her… One could say she was something of a pet project to him. Due to rather obscure circumstances, he happened to be in Europe at the end of the Muggles’ World War Two. He found her in a refugee camp. She was alone in the world, barely more then a child – not in much of a state to resist. As it happened, she was very beautiful – enough for the Germans to ignore her race and make her their whore instead of sending her directly to the Gas Chambers. My father was also fascinated with her beauty. So he took her to England. Married her, to my grandparents’ utter disappointment, produced several offspring, me included, and made her life as miserable as possible until he had the kindness to die.”

Hermione stared at him with puzzlement, grief written all over her face. Snape responded with a glare.

“Your mother is a very beautiful woman.”

“Was,” he corrected her coldly. “She died almost twenty years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

Snape didn’t bother to acknowledge the courtesy.

“I can see what you mean… about the resemblance. They are indeed, very much alike.” Granger was looking at the picture, at the woman who answered her exploring eyes, with a blank, empty gaze.

Aniko. Dead, fair Aniko. And now there was this little girl, starring at him with his own eyes of Anf Aniko’s heart shaped face. Aubrey… Snape examined the name in his mind. Her features had verily bore an elfin quality. It was a slight transformation from Aniko’s doll-like face into something that was less beautiful but much more potent. A Pixie. A magical creature. How could she possibly be… his daughter? Snapeead ead was throbbing with the knowledge. Having children was one thing he never planned on doing. There was no way he was ever going to produce another Justin Snape. This – and the knowledge that being the last male Snape alive, he was going to let the Snape bloodline vanish with him – gave him a certain amount of serenity. He had never entertained the thought that a child of his could turn out to be nothing but another twisted image of his father. Of himself. But this girl... Unafraid to speak her mind, babbling away like a magpie. Bright. Untouched. She looked… happy. Snape raised his head, and found himself drawn to the deep pools of Hermione Granger’s eyes.

“I hope you didn’t come here expecting me to be overjoyed?” he snapped nastily. “Because I’m not.”

“Oh, please rest assured, Professor. I never expected anything of that sort from you.” For the first time during their conversation, Granger's voice was tinged with a faint hue of cynicism.

“So what do you expect of me?”

“Nothing, really. I simply thought… that you had the right to know.”

“And what the hell am I supposed to do with that piece of information?”

“That, Professor, is completely up to you.”

“What do you mean?”

She smoothened her messy hair, hands dropping to rest about her full bosom. “I mean, that if you’d like to get to know Aubrey, I won’t deny her from you. I don’t, on the other hand, have any demands from you. Whether you chose to acknowledge her as your daughter is your decision and yours alone, but I must warn you though, that sooner or later I’m going to tell her who her fa is. is. Therefore, I hoped you would have… some interest in her.” She quieted, lowering her eyes, slowly withdrawing into herself like the empty peel of an orange.

Snape watched her with disbelief. The damn woman had just offered him a part in her child’s life. Didn’t she know he was bound to destroy everything he had ever laid his hands on? Cruel, joyless laughter bubbled inside him. Did he want anything to do with the girl? The mere idea was pointless, not to mention the fact he never liked children to begin with. “Well,” he said eventually, “what good can possibly come from any relationship I and your daughter might establish? Surely even you can’t be foolish enough to hope I might change my skin and begin to play daddy?” His dripped sarcasm.

Granger's eyes, still reddened and sore from crying, flashed with anger. To Snape’s amusement, she remained calm and composed as she answered him. “No, Professor, I never thought you would change your skin, or even be delighted with the thought you might be a father to a wonderful, charming, beautiful girl such as Aubrey. Unexpected as it will probably sound to you; I didn’t even make the offer for your own benefit. Nevertheless, I believe both you and Aubrey can benefit from getting to know each other. But- that is not the point. The point is that sooner or later, Aubrey will find out you are her father. I don’t want to present her with the person she learned to know as the acerbic Potions Master as her father. I rather let her know you as…” she bit her lower lip, “as the person you are, whatever you may be, than let her undergo the shock of adjusting, once again, to new circumstances. I won’t force her on you, and it will be her choice whether to approach you once I tell her who her father is, but I think it will be much, much better, if you get to know each other as you ly aly are, in the first place.” Her words had finally faded as Snape broke into ridiculing applause.

“What an impressive speech, Miss Granger.”

“I wouldn’t honour that last remark with a reference. Now, to the actual issue- would you be kind enough to… allow me to tell Aubrey you are her father, and spend some time with her-“ she sighed. “Would you please give her a place in your life?”

“Do you have any idea what you’re asking for?” His baritone was low and soft, and threatening- whisper of silk against sharp metal.

“Are you waiting me to redeem you from whatever evil you blame yourself for?” she asked mockingly. “Does the idea of being evil make you feel omnipotent? Is it a certain kind of compensation? Or perhaps, telling yourself you are evil is simply an excuse to shut the world away?”

Her words hit him like a sharp blow. Or better to say – pain coming out of sheer darkness, being beaten by someone you had trusted never to throw those words in your face. So he had trusted Hermione Granger to be someone she wasn’t. Too bad. Snape clenched his teeth. “Very observant on your side,” he reflected. “I trust that this will be all?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“What question?”

It finally occurred to him that she was beautiful when Hermione Granger eventually cracked. Not in the superficial sense, as he preferred his woman trim and shapely. But that she was vivacious, and furious and so very much alive that she was breathtaking.

“Oh, you black hearted, evil, wicked –“

“Careful now, Miss Granger, or you might not be pleased with the consequences.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Threatening? It wouldn’t be a very subtle form of persuasion, would it?”

“For Christ's sake,” she cried, “why can’t you just be civil to me?”

“Maybe I’m not a civil person.”“No,“No,” she replied, fatigue creeping into her voice. “You are quite insufferable.”

“I suppose I am.” Snape felt surprisingly placated when he answered her. “And as to your request- I assume it is reasonable enough to accept. Nevertheless, I believe I should warn you not to develop any expectations- raise the child’s. Though seems to me that your daughter has a much more accurate perception of me than you do.”

“Possibly. And she is your daughter too. Perhaps you should start referring to her by her given name.”

“Perhaps I should.”

Granger rose to her feet, wrapping her arms around her body. “Well then… Professor. It was a… productive conversation.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “It was?”

“I believe we will discuss this further?” She looked at him with her large expressive, brown, eyes as if looking for reassurance. This mannerism irritated him, and therefore Snape refrained from addressing her fears. For the sheer malice of it. “Goodn, Mi, Miss Granger.”

“Goodnight, Professor.”

And with Hermione Granger finally gone, Severus Snape, sickened with guilt, stumbled to the basin at the corner of the room, and threw up.

* The poem Snape is reminded of standing in front of the mirror is "The Blackbirds are Rough Today", by Charles Bukowski.

* The chapter's title is taken from Paul Celan's “Fugue of Death”.