Forgiveness

This story is a continuation of the Slytherin Redemption. I decided not to upload it in the SR files because it begins before the start of Penance. It will eventually catch up with those stories. It is a WIP.


This chapter was beta'ed by Drusilla of Perfect Imagination.


Forgiveness

Prologue

Severus Snape, over the past three years, had found that he had a fascination with strange place-names. He had drifted around in the new, vast country that he had adopted, from Cummaquid, Massachusetts, to Yellow Jacket, Colorado. He sought variety in the name. Of course, he had to drift from tired, old town to tired, old town, and it was his own damned fault. Albus Dumbledore had followed his directions implicitly when he did not leave a record of Severus' service to the Light. Severus had asked for that when he thought his inevitable outcome in that bloody and preposterous war was death. Now that he was very much alive, thanks to Providence, or spite, or any number of unforeseen circumstances that had left him clinging to the edge of life in a small shack on the outskirts of Hogwarts, he had no choice but to drift from apothecary shop to potions manufacturers to whatever job he could land as he wended his way across the New World.

His name changed, but the desultory locales remained depressingly the same.

This country would never be home. The people inhabiting it, both Muggles and wizards, were brash, irritating, and lacking in subtlety. They grated on his nerves at every turn. Admittedly, the people of Great Britain had done the same to him, but at least that had been his birthplace.

He sat at the bar in a small honky-tonk on the outskirts of this latest place-name, nursing the Yank version of beer. It was horrid; it lacked body and fullness, much like himself. He smirked into the obligatory mirror over the back of the bar. He hadn't changed. He was still bitter, ugly, and an utter bastard.

A movement in the mirror, festooned with fairy-lights and fake pine garland in deference to the season, caught his eye. It was a young Lakota man, who was in his teens-going-on-one-hundred. Snape could not tell if he was one of the special class of natives that were magical. All he could see, in the hazy backwards-world cast by the mirror, was that the boy was angry and very probably drunk.

The young-old man sauntered towards the seat next to Snape. He sat down awkwardly, leaned on the bar, and stared directly into Snape's black eyes. The man said, his tone belligerant, “What tribe are you, old man?”

Severus graced him with the slightest of sneers, and disdainfully turned his attention back to the tasteless beer he had been nursing all evening. The native continued, “I know what tribe you are. You're from the Wanna-be tribe.”

Several other patrons of the establishment laughed derisively.

Snape had come to Rosebud, South Dakota because he liked the name. He had known nothing of the town's history. The Lakota tribe that inhabited the wasteland had much to be angry about and, unfortunately, Severus was of the right type of skin-tone for this pup to direct his anger towards. He would be leaving tomorrow, but tonight he just wanted a beer. Severus moved to go to a less conspicuous spot, keeping his expression neutral.

The young man jibed, “Hey, lookee here, it's Custer's last stand.”

The young man followed Snape's flowing movement, grabbing at Severus' sleeve. Snape paused, looking down at the brown hand on his black jumper. He lifted an eyebrow and knew it was a mistake as he made the motion. The young man smirked and drew back to hit him. The wizard's reflexes were still finely honed from the war, even though it had been over these last three years. Of course, he had been fighting since he was seventeen and some reflexes he never would lose, unfortunately. He had the young man down on the ground with his wand pressed to his throat in an instant. Severus stared into the bleak, black eyes of the young man. They could have been his own twenty years ago, or today for that matter. The wizard gritted his teeth and said thickly, “Don't make me.”

The boy laughed, his white teeth flashing unpleasantly in the dimness of the bar. “Ai, you gonna hit me with that stick, wasicu?”

Severus let go of the boy's shirt, a little more roughly than strictly necessary. The boy's head hit the floor with a thud. Snape unbent, and drew himself to his full height. With a contemptuous sneer, he stated, “You're pissed.”

Severus was an expert on alcohol and idiocy. His father had taught him well on the subject. He turned back to his beer, sitting, shoulders hunched against the glare of the patrons behind him. The bartender, a Cheyenne man in his mid-fifties, said, to the general amusement of those gathered, “Hey, Joseph Pony, you need to get home. Don't be like your uncle and pick fights with dangerous white men. Didn't your kun si' teach you not to bother a powerful wichihmunge?”

Severus knew, without translation, that some words of import had been exchanged about him between the two natives. The only sound in the honky-tonk came from the wheezing jukebox, which whispered a tired, old song about love gone wrong. The young man scrambled to his feet, throwing a nervous glance at the wizard. He left the bar, his arrogant saunter more a scramble. Severus settled back into his perusal of the beer. Tomorrow he would have to find another strangely-named place to which to drift.

&*&*&

Two in the morning was a bitter time, no matter what the season. Severus knew this from past experience. He had closed the bar, along with the bartender. The former Potions Master of Hogwarts had no place to be, so he was already at his destination.

He waved goodbye to the barkeep, who had inexplicably taken a liking to him after the incident with the young man. Severus had never had that happen before, and so he had stayed at the bar, trading stories with the grizzled Cheyenne, and eating fry-bread, covered with mildly spiced meat, beans and cheddar cheese, made by the man's Lakota wife earlier that day. He hadn't finished his beer.

The barkeeper, whose name Severus couldn't recall, Horse-something, probably, waved farewell to him from the cab of his pick-up truck, and spun his tires in the gravel parking lot before they gained traction, and he was able to pull out. Severus waited until the tail-lights of the man's truck were distant red dots on the flat landscape before he pulled his Shrunken broom from his pocket and restored it to normal size.

A brutally cold, December wind snapped at his robe's collar, wreaking havoc on the warming spell he had surreptitiously cast before leaving the bar. An involuntary shiver shook his slim frame as he mounted. He was ready to kick off when a soft footfall caught his attention.

“So, wasicu, you're a wizard, ennit?” With a start, Severus recognised the voice of the young man with whom he had nearly fought.

Snape turned slowly, slipping his wand to his palm as he prepared for a battle. The young man stood erect, his posture meant to convey strength, but only served to show the youthful angles of his body. Severus suddenly felt very old.

He said softly, “Young man, I have no argument with you.”

The Lakota man smirked. “And I ain't here for one. My kun 'si, she sent me back to get you. She told me to ask you to stay at our house for Christmas 'cause I was rude to you.”

Severus looked at the boy dubiously. His innate sense of self-preservation would not allow him to accept, no matter who sent the putative invitation. “No, thank you, I must be off.”

“Nana said you'd say that. She told me to do this.” The boy raised his hand, a flash of light shot from his palm, and Severus was bound tightly in soft leather bonds. He toppled to the ground. The lad cast another silent spell and Snape's words of outrage were cut off. Black eyes peered at him as he stared up in the clear winter sky. “Sorry, Mister. The Old Woman wants to talk to you.”

The last thing the formerly, most-feared Potions Master felt was the warmth of another spell, and then heavy blackness enveloped him.

&*&*&

Severus woke to feel a small hand upon his brow. He struggled to open his eyes as a girl's voice said excitedly, “Nana! He's awake.”

“No need to holler. I may be old, but I can hear you fine,” came an answering voice, creaking with age. “Give me a minute. I'll be there.”

Severus felt his eyelid being pulled up by the imp with a girl's voice. “Hey, Mister, you still awake?”

His eye focused on a young, female version of the man from the night before. Her cheekbones were broadly-angled under eloquent black eyes, and her mouth was mobile. She was not more than ten years old by the innocent look in her probing gaze. Severus opened his mouth, trying to speak over the pounding of his blood and the pain forming at the base of his skull. He moaned, “Bloody hell.”

“Ooh! Hey, Nana, he's English,” the imp shouted. Turning to him she said with an air of self-importance, “I know you are because I watch PBS, and not just for school. Why don't you open your other eye? Did that damned Joseph Pony hit you? Do you need some ice?”

“No, he just abducted me.” Severus painfully forced the other eye open. “And your language is quite unbecoming for a young lady. I should wash your mouth out with soap.”

“You said 'hell.'” the girl countered, folding her arms across her sparse chest.

“I am not a young lady.” Severus struggled to sit up. “Now, please fetch my captor so that I might find out why you have been inflicted upon me.”

The girl laughed and flounced from the room, her black hair swinging saucily against her hips as she left.

Severus moved his legs over the side of the bed, gingerly so as not to make his headache worse, and frowned at the sad state of his clothing. He sat for a moment and tried to remember how the boy had cast such powerful spells. He had never seen a binding spell cast without a wand. And the last spell, the one that had rendered him unconscious, was completely unfamiliar to him. He supposed the native wizards worked with a different system of magic, and therefore different spells and methods of administration. His long-underused sense of curiosity was roused.

A wizened figure entered the room, leaning heavily on a cane. If Severus couldn't see the outline of shrivelled dugs in her mannish shirt, he could not have assigned a sex to the person. The imp capered about her, shooting looks of superiority at him. The old woman said something sharply to the girl that Severus couldn't understand, and the imp retreated to the room from whence the pair had just come.

The old woman settled onto the bed beside him. Severus fought the urge to shift uncomfortably under the scrutiny of her rheumy eyes. She pulled a pipe out of her shirt pocket, making a great show of cleaning it. She worked a pouch of tobacco from her other pocket and meticulously filled the pipe. After a few moments of regard, she lit it, puffing to first get it lit, and then to draw the noxious smoke into her mouth. All the while she observed Severus peripherally. Severus held himself still, a practice he had learned early under the rough tutelage of his father, and later more brutally under the beast he had willingly served. He Occluded his mind, unsure just what the old woman's powers were and how they were employed.

She coughed once, and Severus almost looked at her in anticipation, but held himself rigid. Whatever her game, he could wait her out. She continued puffing, occasionally blowing rings of smoke from her mouth. Finally the old woman said, “I bet you have a nice headache. Fool boy wasn't supposed to use the last spell unless the other two didn't work on you.”

“How comforting, Madam, that you are concerned for my welfare.” Severus couldn't keep the acid from his tone.

The old woman's wheeze of laughter spilled through the room, spreading like the smoke from her pipe. She resumed her silent contemplation of him, still puffing. After loading another bit of tobacco into it, she stood from the bed. “It's Christmas today. I got a turkey in the oven, and potatoes to peel yet. Come help. Joseph Pony should be back soon with the willow bark for your potion, and I've got the other ingredients laid out on the cabinet. You can brew it on the stove while the potatoes cook.”

Severus slowly got to his feet, reluctant to follow, but curious all the same.

&*&*&

Severus did not leave Rosebud for a year. And when he did, he brought with him a misanthropic, eighteen-year-old Joseph Red Horse, called Joseph Pony to distinguish him from his deceased and brutal father, and his impish eleven-year-old cousin, Stella Cadeaux.

They left the day after the Old Woman's funeral, in an ancient Jet Stream caravan, resurrected from its junkyard grave along with a rusty, green,1969 Chevy pick-up truck. Both had been purchased for less than three hundred dollars.

The three had spent weeks repairing the vehicle and the interior of the caravan. Weeks that Severus had spent getting to better know his new charges and relearning the lot of the poor. In the evenings he fashioned makeshift wands for the children, who had been using their traditional eagle claws and feather to effect their magic. He had also cared for the dying woman as carefully as he had Albus the year he had murdered him.

During the darkest hours when her pain was the greatest, the Old Woman called him her son. He wasn't sure if the words were said in the delirium of her illness or with true feeling, but he accepted the latter sentiment in silent gratitude as he sadly smoothed her brow and administered the potions he had made just for this event. For a time, sitting in the quiet room, he could forget his sins, and he could let himself love her as if she were his mother.

He had wept bitterly when she had died three nights previously. The emission of his tears shocked him. He hadn't known he had any left after Albus and Lily.

He assumed his usual cool facade when he told the boy of the Old Woman's death. But the girl... The girl had him wrapped around her finger, and so he had held her, letting her sob her way through his white shirt and muss his robes with her clenched hands.

He could not push her away; she had lost so much already.

He had promised the Old Woman he would care for the children after her inevitable decline. Severus Snape never shirked his duties once saddled with them.

As they left the reservation behind and ventured out into the larger world, he realised he did so with more hope than he had possessed in years.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's notes:

Wasicu: Lakota. White man. From the Sweetgrass Lakota language website.

Kun si': Lakota. Grandmother.

Wichihmunge: Lakota. Wizard. From Paul Morrison, Sweetgrass Lakota language website.

Thanks to Paul Morrison, from the Sweetgrass Lakota language website, for all his help and research. Sorry for the incorrect dialectical marks, my computer can only do so much.


Thank you for reading. Please leave a review and let me know what you think.