Custody Battle

“You told me he was dead.”

“Well he was dead— to me…”

“There’s a very big difference there, Hermione.”

“I know, Blake! I know!”

The sound of their muffled argument could be heard through the door. Severus had been left immediately in the kitchen, his eyes fixated on little Emma, watching her smash the green doughy bits with the red ones, mushing her elbow into the mixture and plastering it over a giant slab of blue. He could hear their voices again, rising in anger.

“He was just better left out of our lives, Blake, you don’t understand!”

“I understand that for nine years my wife has been lying to me.”

“He’s not a good man.”

“What does it matter? He’s supposed to be a dead man.”

Then there was silence, and more muffled arguing but his attention had once again been garnered to the girl at the table. She was practically the spitting image of Hermione, only her hair was a mop of sandy tangles rather than chocolate brown ones. She seemed very determined to get the pile of play dough as high as she possibly could before it would topple over and she would start building it up again.

“—that’s impossible, I’m certain he’s only just found out about her when she arrived at Hogwarts!”

“But how do you know? What if he wants to take her? I don’t think I rank against your kind.”

“Oh we’re back to that again,” Hermione huffed. “Honestly, Blake, I don’t know what he wants, I mean I’m sure that he’s just— just—”

“And you knew that he was teaching there!”

“I didn’t know, per say, I mean he wasn’t teaching there when it happened…”

“Gods, Hermione you had to have been— Christ! Were you still his student?”

“No! I just— we sort of— it was an old school crush.”

Severus nearly fell from his chair. He’d expected her to relay the evening in full detail at which point he then expected Hermione’s husband to come stomping through the door and start with a punch, finish with an arrest and the friendly promise of a restraining order.

“And he just took you?” his attention was pulled back to the conversation.

“Yes, he said it didn’t matter, I was of age, he was no longer teaching. I was young, I was foolish, what can I say?”

“You could have told me the truth! You told me you didn’t even know the man!”

“Do you really think you would have wanted to be with me, knowing that I had a daughter by a Dark Wizard who I’d refused to involve in her life?”

“I don’t know, Hermione, you never gave me that chance to find out!”

More grumbling and whispers carried through the air, mostly Hermione’s exasperated attempts at trying to explain herself to her husband. But Severus’ attentions were drawn away by the older girl that had walked into the room. “I’ve seen you before,” she smiled, her two front teeth missing.

Severus quirked a brow high on his forehead, “Is that so?” he asked, rather intrigued by the younger girl’s sudden interest in him. She took looked like Hermione, only a much skinnier and toothless version of the girl. He imagined that the girl probably looked just like the one that stood before him when she was seven.

“Uh-huh, in Mummy’s picture book, but she said I’m not supposed to look at it.” She flashed him her awkward smile. “But I know where she hides it and sometimes when she’s not looking, I look anyway.”

“May I see this picture book?” The little girl nodded with an excited look in her eyes. Children at that age were like small dogs, eager to please and listened to everything you told them. She had practically bounded out of the room and was halfway up the stairs by the time Severus caught up to her. Into her parents’ bedroom, Jocelyn raced and then jumped into the walk-in closet.

“She moved it again, I can’t reach!” the girl whined, pointing to a large pile of books that sat stacked atop a funny looking hat box on one of the shelves. He recognized several of the titles to be old textbooks from her years at Hogwarts.

“Which one is it?” he asked.

“It’s the little blue one,” she pointed. Reaching easily up to the middle of the stack of books, he pulled the book down and knelt down on the floor next to the bouncing girl. “Yay! You got mummy’s picture book!”

“Indeed,” he said and opened the book. The first few pages seemed to be filled with pictures of her and friends, or her and her family. It wasn’t until several pages in that he began to see newspaper clippings where he had appeared, and group photos of Order Members, but the thing that surprised him the most was the picture at the back of the book. It was the very last page, and it wasn’t a newspaper article or even a photo that he had remembered posing for, but there he was, standing there looking years younger, his nose not quite so overgrown, and he smirked in the photo, waving his hand a bit before turning away.

“Mummy says you’re a teacher.”

“Mummy is quite right,” he said and replaced the book back in its pile before leaving her closet. After settling himself back down in the chair in the kitchen, it wasn’t but a moment later that Hermione and Blake came out from the pantry, both of their faces red, Hermione’s hands on her hips. “Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Davonshire,” he rose from his seat.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Mr. Snape, though I suppose it’s perfectly alright to call you Professor these days,” she nodded curtly. “I believe this matter should be discussed away from…” she let her voice trail off and moved over to Emma for a moment. “What are you doing, sweety?”

“Pay-dough cake for you!” she squealed.

“That looks delicious! When will it be ready?”

“In seventy six-hundred hours.”

“Oh my!” Hermione smiled and kissed the girl on the forehead. “Would you like to go to the park with Daddy while you wait for your cake to bake?”

“No.”

“Okay then,” she smiled at the girl and then turned back to look at him. “I shall meet you in the Hogshead in an hour then,” she nodded to him. “Kindly see yourself to the door, Professor.”

Her mannerisms had been a bit rough, abrupt and almost rude, however he was transfixed with the way she coddled the girl. A swift nod and a rather calculating gaze in Blake’s direction had him turned on his heel and stalking out the door. He didn’t wait a moment before he disapparated with a loud pop.