Watching

Watching

Chapter 2

"Snape?" he asks disgusted.

He does not believe me. I do not look like Snape he thinks. I know that is what he thinks though I do not know how I know. I look familiar to him; a face he can't quite place.

It is true; I do not look like my father, not really.

"Do I know you?" he asks more to himself than to me.

"Maybe from a time long ago," I answer ominously.

"You remind me of someone..." he says slowly, thinking.

I know who she is, this woman I look so alike. He's seen her picture many times, more than once he saw her in a mirror.

I smile at his confusion. It makes him angry.

He demands answers. "Who are you?" Each time my answers are vague, not telling him anything but that which he already knows. I tell him my name again, I say I am my father's daughter; I tell him I am a mystery. I want him to discover the truth, as I did.

My father did not tell me he was my brother, I figured that out when I saw his picture and asked him why we had the same eyes, were we related? Did we share the same mother? He will not tell me more than that. I believe he loved my mother too much, for I hear him cry her name at night. My father's demons are so much more than Harry's or my own. No wonder he became a Death Eater.

He thinks he has no living relatives. I am the last.

His face changes as he realizes whom I look like.

"Impossible," he breaths, "it can't be--you can't be!"

"I can't be what?"

"My--no, I'm an only--but--who are you?" he shouts.

"You know who I am. You can't say it because you know your parents had only one child, you. If I were who I appear to be, then you would know about me, yet you do not. Why don't you just ask me?"

"But--no--you can't be!"

"I am."

"My sister?"

I smile. How I have longed for this very moment. How I have wanted him to know he is not alone.

His face changes; he is crushed. Again, everything he knows to be true was a lie. Again, he doubts his parents. Or at least, he doubts our mother.

Now, I wish I had not come.

And now I do not want to know him, for knowing him would mean he knew me as well. My past is too dark for his innocence. Yes, he is innocent.

I turn and flee, for the first time regretting my darkness. He can never know me. It is bad enough he now knows of me. How I wish I could take back the night!

I stop running before entering the castle. I wait until my breathing slows to a normal pace and I am presentable. The aristocrat in me would die before allowing herself to be seen the way I look, but I lurk in the shadows. No one notices my presence. Not even the Squib's cat.