Chapter Text
Sevs,
To be honest, I don't even know why I'm doing this. She said it would help, she said that one day I would be glad for it, one day I would want you to know, but I can't imagine that ever happening. Nevertheless, here I am, writing to you like a freaking lunatic.
I have lost my mind, you, we , you have lost your mind as well, Sevs. But what's new about that?
Nevermind, I'm rambling. Again. Can't even talk to you now, can I? How am I ever to survive this war? One wouldn't know…
Anyways, you are probably wondering what is happening and why you are receiving this letter now. Well, to clear things up a little: That you receive this letter now can only mean one of two things. Either the war is finally, completely over and you have won, or something dire has happened to the one person in your life you will die for in a heartbeat.
Either way: this letter will change your life, and I apologise for it.
Sevs lowered the parchment and ran her hand through her hair. By Merlin, what the fuck was this? She recognised the handwriting, but it couldn't be, could it? She took out her wand and cast a detection spell on it only to flinch back as soon as she saw the results. The spell fit the handwriting. But how? How could that be?
Throwing the parchment down onto her desktop she stood and started pacing her office. All this made no sense!
“Aaaahh!” The scream echoed off the damp and unforgiving dungeon walls as she stood alone in the middle of the room, feeling as lost as she never had before. And she had yet to finish this blasted letter. Whoever had pranked her with this, she would find the transgressors and would bring hell down on them for playing with her like that.
Pulling herself together she stepped back to the desk and took up the parchment again. Where had she left off? Right, there…
Either way: this letter will change your life, and I apologise for it.
Do you remember when we were young how we would sit together and play for hours at a time, just the two of us and nothing else? We didn’t need anything else at that time, just joy, laughter, and our imagination would be enough. I hope that one day it can be like this again, that one day, we can return to our home, and it will be quiet, and calm, and just as wonderful as it used to be then.
I can picture it in front of my eyes even though it is only in my head now: sitting in the living room, the sunlight filtering in through the windows in front of me, the cobblestone street noisy as ever – I’m holding him, his tiny body, oh so warm and soft in my too-thin arms. They always said I was too thin, even you thought so at times. But those arms are strong enough now, strong enough to hold him tight as I rock him to sleep.
This is the first time he will sleep here. His first ever time. There are tears in my eyes as I try to commit his face to memory, as I take in every small detail, every lock of raven hair, and every crease in his scrunched-up face. I watch his breaths even out and his tiny hands that try to hold onto something, but nothing is there. Only me, and I am falling apart.
He sleeps peacefully and I pray.
I have never prayed, you know that. Even when we had to go to church on Sundays, I had never seen a reason to pray. But I pray now, pray for him to be happy, to be good, to be. I pray for him, and a tear falls onto his face, glittering like diamonds on his still-red skin.
When the sun sets, the fog comes back – it always does at this time of year. There will be fog and it will cloud my vision and my brain until I can see no more. And she will take him and put him down. I have asked her to, she offered, I know she will do what is best; that much I trust her to do.
And I will remain, and the silver fog will leave. She will take it with her, take the mist with her as she promised, and leave me here to see clearly again. But a part of me will mourn him, my little light, I know it and it already breaks my heart.
Always yours
Snowflakes, sharp as needles whipped into her face but Sevs didn't care, didn't even feel it as she ran to the gates, her legs burning from the strain. No! This could not be happening! This was… no! NOOOOO!
As soon as the wards washed over her, she spun around and apparated away without looking back.
Spinner’s End stood just as she remembered it: dark, doomy, uninviting. The flickering street lights added to the doomy atmosphere, as Sevs hurried up towards her childhood home. A heavy feeling of doom and sadness settled into her stomach, a feeling she never managed to shake whenever she was here. The front door squeaked when she opened it, the sound echoing through the empty hallways.
“Stupid, old rattrap,” she cursed, stepping through the door. The inside of the house was even less inviting than the outside, a thick layer of dust and dirt had gathered on top of the old furniture, prompting her to sneeze.
Stepping further into the house, she turned on the lights and shivered at the sight in front of her. Too much pain and suffering, too many bad memories, haunted this place – there was a reason she had not been here since the war.
Shaking her head to rid herself of the unwanted trip down memory lane, she made her way through the house swiftly, there was no need to spend more time here than necessary. Crossing the living room, she stepped in front of the empty bookshelf. The books had been one of the few things she had taken with her when she had left this place behind.
Her gaze was pulled to the left where the wood of the shelf was splintered, the lowest shelf cracked in two, the pieces hanging down sadly. It had been like this for years; there was a dark stain on the wooden board and the floor in front of it. Sevs squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.
She pulled out her wand and turned back towards the wall in front of her, slowly stroking the tip over the boards of the shelf, tracing an invisible pattern. The wood flickered, losing its colour, and then vanished altogether. Sevs stepped through the secret doorway and down the spiral staircase right behind it.
This was the only reason she had not gotten rid of this blasted property, the only reason she held onto it, and returned once a year to reinforce the wards around it – even in these times of peace a secret safe space like this was way too valuable to give up. The fact that she was not living here anymore made this property even more perfect as a safe house. Maybe she should ask Albus about putting it under Fidelius, one never knew.
The room at the bottom of the staircase looked as if she had just stepped out for a second to fetch ingredients: cauldrons were neatly stacked against the wall, one of them sitting above the fire, ready to start brewing, ingredients lined the walls, jars in all shapes and sizes filled the shelves that occupied the length of the room.
This was her realm, her first ever private lab, and before that her mother’s, who had built the secret room before Sevs was born.
She took her time, walking through the room, soaking up the familiar smell and atmosphere. This was home, her actual home. Not this hellhole filled with bad memories upstairs, but this. Here she had invented her first potion, had studied for her mastery, had snuck down at night when her father was asleep to tend to an experiment. This was where she was at home and this was also what she had missed dearly over the years.
She stepped up to the desk that was sitting in the corner. It was laden with books, scrolls, and notes. A single picture frame stood in between them. She picked it up, tracing the face with her fingertip.
“Hello, Mum,” she whispered, a sad smile stealing itself onto her face.
The woman in the picture looked back at her with the same unreadable smile as always. Not for the first time, Sevs wished that this was a magical portrait; that there was a way she could converse with her mother, see her reactions and thoughts. But it wasn’t. The woman smiled on, watching her with unreadable eyes, unmoved by the world around her.
She was beautiful, frozen in time as she was. Sevs was older now than Eileen had been when this picture was taken on the Snape’s fifth wedding anniversary.
“You should have been here,” she whispered, her words just as much a wish as an accusation. This was the one thing she couldn’t shake: the dreadful feeling of unfairness that she had been subjected to all of this, and that her mother had failed to protect her, failed to be with her.
Eileen looked on, unmoved, a still, eternal beauty.
Deciding that it was not helpful to raise the memories of her past tonight, she was agitated enough as it was, Sevs set the picture back down and pulled out her wand. There was a reason she was here after all.
Stepping back into the middle of the room, she cast the first spell over the area. She felt ridiculous, casting revealing spells and charms over her own furniture, but how else was she supposed to find answers to the thousands of questions that were racing through her head? She worked slowly, tracing surface after surface with the tip of her wand, dismantling her wards, trying to find the slightest change, something to indicate that there was something hidden, something there to be found.
But the room stood still and unmoved, the wards untouched, the ingredients and books, cauldrons, and parchments unchanged. Nothing in here had been touched in years, not since she had last been here. This was fruitless!
Annoyed, she ran her fingers through her hair, tugging on the roots. Of course, it would not be this easy, would it?
She pulled the parchment out of her pocket and unfolded it. Maybe she had missed something, maybe she was wrong, and she did not have to look here? But reading through the letter again gave her no new clues, it only made her even more sure that she had to start here.
“I hate this! I hate all of this! There is a fucking reason I have left this stupid place behind,” she ranted while she made her way back over to the desk. She had just looked over it with the spell so far, not keen on going through the drawers individually, but when had her life ever been easy? Of course, this had to hurt.
With an annoyed scream, she let herself slump down into the chair and took a deep breath before opening the first desk drawer. No time like the present.
After half an hour she started emptying out the third drawer. This one, just like the ones before it, was filled with clutter – notebooks, parchments, broken quills – she had thrown everything in here whenever she needed a clean surface to work on. It all got piled on top of the desk now as she emptied it out, trying to look at the stuff as little as possible. She could not remember ever emptying out her desk like that and it showed. This quill had to be from her school days!
Finally, the drawer was empty, and she took up her wand again. This time she cast a different spell, not so much a detection spell, it was more of a gentle flow of magic. Slowly she directed the magic over the wood. The tiniest change made her tilt her head. There was a pull, it was faint, but it was there, something was hidden in that drawer, and it pulled on her magic, syphoning it away, taking some.
Sevs frowned, feeling for the wood with her left hand while keeping the flow of the magic constant with her right. Her fingers encountered a little nub on the end of the drawer. She smiled and flicked the switch.
The bottom of the drawer sprung up, revealing a secret compartment underneath. An envelope lay in it. Sevs pulled it out, carefully blowing away the thin layer of dust that covered it.
Her hands were shaking as she carefully deposited the envelope onto the desk. Why were her stupid hands shaking? To calm herself down she spelled all the clutter she had previously pulled from the drawer back into it and closed it, giving her room to work.
She laid the letter down next to the envelope. They were the same colour, clearly the same age and origin. The residual magic was the same as well, explaining why her detection spells had not found the contents before: it was her own. Sevs’ own magic tinted the parchment making it feel warm and pleasant to her touch. And wrong.
It felt so wrong to feel her own magic on something she had no recollection whatsoever of touching, let alone writing.
She was a master Occlumens! Her mind was organised on the highest level, her memories shelved away for easy and quick access. She could remember every moment of her life with a clarity most people didn’t even experience the present with. How could it be that she had no recollection of ever writing this letter?
How?!
Eileen’s black eyes watched as her daughter took up the envelope, opened it up, and pulled out the parchment that sat folded inside it. Something slipped out from between the pages of what seemed to be another letter. Long, elegant fingers grabbed the small thing, turning it over; black eyes filled with tears as a scream left the thin, red lips.
“NOOOOOOOO!”
Staring up at her from the photograph she was holding was Sevs herself, sitting in the armchair in the living room, clad in only a long nightshirt, her long hair unruly, falling over her shoulders in unkempt locks. In the picture her head was tilted downwards, looking at the little bundle that lay in her arms. Sunrays fell through the window, reflecting in the single tear on her cheek as she rocked her son to sleep.
