The Everlasting Day

13

As from the house your mother sees

You playing round the garden trees,

So you may see, if you will look

Through the windows of this book,

Another child, far, far away,

And in another garden, play.

But do not think you can at all,

By knocking on the window, call,

That child to hear you. He intent

Is all on his play - business bent,

He does not hear, he will not look,

Nor yet be lured out of this book,

For long ago, the truth to say,

He has grown up and gone away,

And it is but a child of air

That lingers in the garden there.

- 'To Any Reader', Robert Louis Stevenson

Before they had started at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Ariadne and Severus Snape had been educated by their parents at home. Although the family finances had never stood in the way of either of them being able to attend any of the most prestigious primary schools in the country, their parents had chosen to educate the twins themselves, believing that nowhere else could they have received a better or more complete education.

Perhaps they had been correct, at least as far their actual learning had been concerned. Unfortunately, their greatest mistake had been their failure to recognise a child's need to develop far more than mere academic skills. The ability to make and keep friends, to develop a social circle and develop as human beings had never been particularly high on their lists of desired qualities in a first-class witch or wizard.

Severus Snape had suffered greatly from their short-sightedness. Although he had always loved his parents and sister dearly, he had developed a stubborn, selfish, egotistical streak that had left him unable to see that sometimes, his actions and words might be misunderstood. His lack of empathy meant that more often than not, he drove people away before they began to look beneath the surface layer of cold indifference he exuded, leading him to regard others as being in possession of the worst qualities that he had always failed to see within himself.

Ariadne, on the other hand, although being subjected to the same upbringing, had still managed to develop a level of humanity that had far exceeded her brother's abilities to ever fully understand. He had always regarded her strengths as weaknesses - her generosity of spirit as an opening to manipulation; her kindness as opportunity for someone to hurt or betray her; her humour and vivacity as frivolity that could only lead to her never being taken seriously, particularly within the less glamorous and therefore far more sober field of magic she had ultimately chosen.

Nevertheless, despite their differences, they had been as close as it was possible for a brother and sister to be. Severus, always the more patient of the two, had attended to the more mundane preparations of their potions ingredients, the careful nurturing of the plants they had grown from cuttings in their greenhouse and the painstaking star-chart preparations before their astronomy lessons. Ariadne - whilst never attaining the same degree of blithe, devil-may-care, carefree attitude that Sirius and James had - had been happier keeping the fires stoked beneath the cauldron; pacing impatiently as they waited between the distinct, allotted times between the addition of ingredients and doodling all over the spaces on the star charts instead of concentrating on plotting the movements of the planets as she should have been doing.

When they hadn't been studying, Severus had preferred to spend his time reading spell books or practising charms and hexes while Ariadne had been more inclined to fall asleep on a sun-warmed patch of grass or start flicking through the latest copy of Witch Weekly. But the comfort of the silences that lay between them in such moments stood testament to the quality of the relationship they shared. Inevitably, there would come a point where Ariadne would get bored and would want to do something a little more exciting than just sit around. She would tease and coerce him into a little duelling with her, sometimes reading to her or playing hide and seek in the huge grounds of their home. He had always found time for her, no matter what he had been doing and she had never once heard him complain about it. He had patiently explained complicated herbology texts to her and helped her master most of the basic charms while she had taught him how to mount a broomstick without it trying to constantly throw him off.

Together, they had managed to achieve above and beyond the standards necessary to earn places at Hogwarts, even had their parents not been able to afford to send them there anyway.

Only then had their relationship begun to suffer.

At Hogwarts, Severus' ambition, drive and determination to prove himself - instilled in him by their parents - had superseded every other facet of his personality and had led the Sorting Hat to place him in Slytherin whilst she had been placed in Gryffindor along with Sirius, Remus and the rest of the Marauders. She remembered feeling disappointed and a little upset that she would not be with her brother for most classes, and even more so that they couldn't even spend much time together in the common room either, where he could have helped her with her homework the way he always had at home. She had always known that one of his biggest mistakes had been his refusal to make friends with the other children, but she had understood how difficult he had found it, having had so little contact with others his own age before. As always, the other children misunderstood him and targeted him for it, driving him further inwards, making him bitter and angry, compounding their hatred of him.

It had hurt her so much and she had tried to defend him, but there was very little she could have done to prevent his descent. She had tried to tell Sirius that first day that Severus hadn't mean to hit her away when she had bent down to help him after James had hexed him. He had been embarrassed and nervous, so very anxious to make sure everything went right - just as their parents had wanted. But everything hadn't gone right...they couldn't have been worse for him. Even though he still helped her with her homework in the library when she asked him to with the same patience he had always shown her, inevitably, as time wore on, they'd grown apart.

But he was still her brother, even after all that had happened to drive them apart, and she still loved him as dearly as she ever had. She just wished that he would be more prepared to show the side of himself that she had always known.

Before it became too late.

'That fire's getting a bit low,' Snape said, intruding into her thoughts as she stood in the potions classroom, absently stirring the slowly simmering mixture that was sending clouds of foul-smelling purple smoke into the air around her. 'I think another stoking should set it right - another log will lower the temperature too much.'

'Oh...yes...sorry, Severus,' she replied with an apologetic smile as she lifted the spoon from the mixture, set it onto the metal rest on the table and reached for the poker. She jabbed at the dying embers beneath the cauldron a few times, sending orange sparks curling upwards with the smoke as the mixture began to bubble again.

Snape had been sitting behind his desk, carefully grounding up some asphodel root with a pestle and mortar. He set it down in front of him, stood up and walked around to the cauldron, peering into its depths as he waved a hand over it to clear the smoke.

'That's coming on well. It needs to simmer like that for another ten minutes before we add the asphodel.'

'Yes, I know...you don't think the wormwood infusion was too weak, do you? Shouldn't the consistency be a little thicker?'

'No...the simmering time should reduce it. If it doesn't, then we will consider adding a few drops of salamander blood. You did mix exactly two-point-two grams of wormwood to ten centilitres of spring water, didn't you?'

'Of course I did, Severus,' she smiled, humouring him, 'I have made up infusions before, you know. For two months, that's all they'd let me do at Durmstrang - just to get the hang of the newly calibrated scales and cylinders they were using there. They didn't even let me near the extraction instruments before I'd passed a competency test. Can you believe that? After all those questions about the new calibrations in the N.E.W.T.'s?'

An affectionate smile touched his lips. 'Perhaps they wanted to ensure that you wouldn't break any of those expensive condenser tubes.'

'Hey now, that wasn't my fault,' she grinned, feeling the colour rising in her cheeks. 'You told me that the clamp stand was broken and that I had to twist the key twice to make sure the tube was on properly. If I'd known it was going to shatter like a frozen Chizpurfle carapace I wouldn't have twisted it so hard. And anyway,' she added wryly, 'there weren't any questions about condenser tubes in the test.'

The half smile spread a little wider, and for a moment, she even thought that she heard a gentle chuckle coming from him.

'Still, you managed to achieve a great deal there. I read all of your papers. I thought that the mixture of fermented yeast with lake water for the extraction of rosewood oil was particularly insightful.'

Ariadne stopped jabbing at the fire and turned slowly around to look at him. He stopped stirring when he eventually noticed her staring at him.

'You...you read my paper?'

Snape met her eyes for just a moment, then returned his attention back to the cauldron. He cleared his throat and blinked into the smoke.

'Clearly, as I knew what it concerned.'

'But...we'd quarrelled before it was published...I didn't think that you would have...'

Snape inclined his head slightly in a gesture of dismissal, peering deeper into the smoke until she could no longer see his black eyes. 'Then perhaps you did not know me as well as you thought.'

The cauldron continued to bubble and hiss in the ensuing silence. Ariadne turned her attention back to stoking the fire and Snape returned to his desk to begin grinding the asphodel again.

A deep, painful ache gripped her heart when she thought about what his confession meant. She was glad that his attention in those few moments was distracted enough for him not to notice the tears in her eyes that she blinked away before they'd had the chance to fall.

'Have you made a decision about Mother and Father yet?' Snape asked, never lifting his eyes from the pestle.

'No...not yet,' she replied softly.

'They would like to see you, Ariadne. If you are concerned about their acceptance of you after so much time, then you...'

'I'm not. I know they would... But they will never...they don't understand... When they find out about the mess I've gotten us all into...'

'They do not need to know of that. Besides, it is not your doing. Black should have known better than to allow you to embark on a course of action he had no control over.'

'Oh, Severus...' she sighed, 'please, please don't start that again.'

'I am merely stating a fact, Ariadne. Whether or not you choose to see it is up to you. However, the point is that Mother and Father will not consider you to be at fault.'

'No, they'll blame Sirius for everything, just as they always did,' she said bitterly. 'He's been through enough...I've been through enough. I don't understand why it's so important to you anyway.'

'Because they are our parents, Ariadne. They care about you. You obviously refuse to listen to reason from me, so I was hoping that perhaps you would listen to them. They were right all along - if you had not listened to him, my life would not be in danger now and neither would yours. Do you think the Death Eaters will stop once I am dead? These people do not waste their time killing individuals. They do not leave people behind who may later cause problems for them by seeking revenge. They wipe out whole families, Ariadne. They will kill you, Mother and Father and...'

He stopped suddenly, his mounting fury reducing to a mere slow simmer as he blinked quickly and shook his head, picking up the pestle and beginning to mash aggressively at the asphodel again.

Her own anger and everything she had been about to throw back at him dissipated away like the smoke rising from the cauldron. The strange look on his face was something that she had never seen before.

'And who, Severus? Who else would they threaten?'

'No one,' he murmured.

'Severus?'

'I have answered you, Ariadne,' he snapped. 'Let the matter rest now. The potion is almost ready for the next batch of ingredients. Could you please bring the jar of Lemon Balm pollen on the shelf behind you?'

She sighed, but did as she was asked. He joined her at the cauldron with the powdered asphodel and a small silver spatula.

'Now, four and one quarter grams exactly of the pollen to be added as soon as I have added the asphodel.'

'All right...go on.'

Snape sprinkled the powdered root into the simmering mixture and as soon as thick yellow smoke began to belch upwards, Ariadne added the pollen. For a few moments, they mixed and simmered, waiting for the smoke to die down and for the mixture to take on a slightly lilac hue.

'That looks excellent. It just needs some time to infuse properly. Another half hour and we shall add the woodruff, then we can leave it overnight to stew.'

Ariadne nodded in agreement. 'Merlin, this smells something awful, doesn't it? You need a potions laboratory up near the herbology greenhouses really. At home, I like to keep my potions equipment close to the garden - it just makes life easier when you have your ingredients close to hand. Some large windows wouldn't go amiss either. You really need some air and light for this kind of thing, Severus. Don't you get headaches?'

'Not particularly. It is quiet here. I am not constantly bothered by noise and bustle from passing students. They come here only when they have a class.'

'Oh.' She stared at the bubbling potion for a while before beginning to wander among the desks, running her fingers over the carvings that the students had made with their compasses during quieter moments during classes. There were so many names there that she didn't recognise, but she kept hoping to find the one that she herself had made a lifetime ago. 'Why do you purposely isolate yourself so much?'

He had returned to his desk and had begun scratching on a sheet of parchment again, his nose so close to the paper that she wondered how he managed to see properly to write.

'I do not understand,' he murmured.

'Coming all the way down here like this...I know the potions classroom always used to be down here, but your office too? The offices were always upstairs - it must have been moved down here for your tenure, Severus. Even Dumbledore said that you rarely emerge from the dungeons. Ergo, you have isolated yourself.'

'I have explained my reasons for choosing this room, Ariadne. I prefer to be alone.'

'Don't you ever get lonely sometimes?'

'No,' he replied flatly, 'my work keeps me occupied enough.'

'Mmm.' She picked out a copy of A Thousand And One Magical Herbs And Fungi - Revised 6^th Edition from one of the shelves lining the walls and sat down behind the nearest desk. She began flicking through it, trying to distract herself by reading the new revisions that had been made - she still had the third edition herself, resulting from the difficulty she'd had during the past few years in being served anywhere. She hoped she might be able to pass the rest of the half hour or so until the potion could be left alone, but the truth was that something he had said earlier had pierced beneath her skin and was irritating her as much as an insect bite, demanding to be acknowledged.

'Severus, you seemed about to mention someone else that the Death Eaters might be interested in, but you stopped. And you changed the subject.'

He made a breathy sound that was halfway between a sigh and a dismissive laugh. 'I am unaware of doing any such thing.'

'You did, you know you did. If there is something you'd like to tell me, you can, you know.'

The scratching stopped for a split second before starting again, even more furiously than before.

'I don't know what you're talking about,' he said, somewhat impatiently. 'Can't you find something to occupy yourself while we wait instead of continually interrupting me with inane questions?'

'What are you hiding from me, Severus? Don't you trust me?'

'You? Of course. You are my sister. Why would I have any reason to doubt you?'

'Oh...okay...then this is about Sirius again...' She sighed and closed her eyes, forcing herself to swallow the urge to start shouting at him. 'I don't tell him everything, Severus, especially if you asked me not to. You say you trust me, then trust me. There is someone else, isn't there?'

Finally, Snape lowered the quill to the desk, blinked slowly and looked up at her. That same, strange, pain-filled expression was etched into his face again; his eyes like empty black holes as they met hers.

'Yes,' he breathed softly.

She had never expected him to actually answer. A thousand images and possibilities crashed through her mind within the space of a split second and collided into oblivion again as she managed to choke out, 'Who?'

'My daughter.'

'Your...your what?'

Snape's thin tongue flicked over his lips and he looked down at the parchment for a moment as he touched a pale finger to the corner of his eye.

'What is the hardest thing for you to accept? That I have a daughter? Or that I might care for someone more than I do for myself?'

'Oh god, Severus...' she gasped, completely thrown off balance by his announcement, 'I just...I can't...I don't know what to say.'

'Do you think that I don't know what people say about me? Do you think that I am not completely aware of how cold everyone thinks I am? How everyone jokes about my being passed over for the Defence position for yet another year?' He laughed sourly, the bitterness of the years tracing through the breathy sound. 'I am human, Ariadne. I feel. I hurt...just like everyone does. Just because I don't show it, doesn't mean I don't feel. That's why I'm such a good occlumens. I've had to be.'

'I know that, Severus. I've always known that. But...I don't understand... I know that I've been, to all intents and purposes, non-existent for the past thirteen years, but I thought that you...or Mother or Father...someone would have told if you had married. Or that you'd had a child.'

Snape raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest.

'You did the leaving, from what I recall, Ariadne. Why would we have told you anything? We did not believe that you would have been very interested in my marriage when you couldn't even bring yourself to speak to me.'

The pain of being so excluded from her family was undeniably real, raw and sharp, but it was being gradually eroded away by the heat of the questions and curiosity that were burning within her.

'Who is she, Severus? When did all this happen?'

Her own pain was mirrored and magnified a thousand fold in his eyes as he began to chew on his bottom lip. She had never in her life been witness to his allowing his feelings so close to the surface. The effect it had on her was more profound than if he had spontaneously combusted in front of her eyes - she felt as though the floor was falling away from beneath her; a hollow, sickening anxiety cascaded through her and she was very grateful for the solid support of the wooden seat beneath her.

'Almost sixteen years ago. Her name was Medea...Medea Dashkov...' The effort required to mention her name seemed to drain all of his energy and will.

She pushed up from the desk and slowly approached her brother, who was now staring at the smoke curling lazily from the cauldron, his dull black eyes unfocused as though seeing something that wasn't really there. She came up behind him, tentatively resting her hands on his shoulders for a moment before giving them a gentle squeeze. He seemed to give a little beneath her grip and leaned forward onto the desk, heaving such a great sigh that his whole body shuddered as he exhaled.

'Medea? Is that your wife?' Ariadne asked hesitantly.

He nodded. 'She was. She...she died.'

'Oh, god...no...oh Severus, I'm so sorry,' she breathed, leaning closer to him, embracing him, her chin resting in the hollow of his shoulder. Her closeness was to him was just as much out of comfort for him as for herself - she felt as though she's been hit by a train. 'I wish I knew something more adequate to say to you. I'm so very sorry. Did she...did you lose her recently?'

'No...not...not recently.' He sighed deeply again. 'It's been almost thirteen years since...I don't speak of her often...not while I'm here, anyway. It feels...strange...I've been carrying her around in my heart...in my mind for so long...'

'If you don't want to, I'll understand,' she said quickly, wishing that she had never pursued the subject at all now that she could see the change she had wrought in her brother. 'I had no idea...if I had, I would never have teased you like that. I'm sorry...'

'No, no...it's not you fault, he said reassuringly, reaching up to cover her hand with his. 'It's time I did speak of her. You should know.'

Ariadne kissed his fingers and came around to the front of his desk. She grabbed a seat from the front row of student's tables and pulled it up closer to him.

'You tell me whatever you feel you want to, Severus,' she said gently, reaching across the table for his hand, 'I have no intention of pushing you.'

He looked down at her fingers as he gripped them tightly and offered her a thin, but grateful smile.

'I made many mistakes during my life, Ariadne. Some I regret, some I do not. After all, we must learn. Of all the things I've ever done, joining the Death Eaters straight out of Hogwarts was not only the most short-sighted, but also the most cowardly. And petty. I yearned for the popularity and success that Potter and Black had always enjoyed. I was never going to distinguish myself in any other way, or so I thought. I took part in many things in those days that I was far from proud of. I've done things that most people would condemn me to Azkaban for, and they would be justified.

'For a while, I believed that I had found everything I had ever looked for. I was popular for the first time in my life. I had power. People cowered before me. I was no longer the victim, but the survivor. It was a feeling that surpassed all others, but it was a hollow experience and eventually I came to realise that their world was shallow and fleeting, doomed to ultimate defeat. More than that, I had always known in my heart that the things they were doing were wrong, dangerous - resulting in so much suffering, grief and pain.

'Of all the people I met during those days, only one other gave the same signs of weakening resolve as I did. Medea.'

He paused, reaching into the folds of his robes for his wand. He waved it over the desk and two glasses of gillywater appeared. He reached for one, taking a long drink as though he had just run for a hundred miles and motioned to Ariadne that she should help herself to the other. She did, smiling gratefully.

'She was a year younger than me. She came from Krasnoyarsk in Siberia originally, but she grew up in Brasov in Romania. She attended the academy there until she was seventeen, then she came here to take a position with the IFW as a translator and mediator between the Ministry of Magic's HQ and their embassy in Romania. 'Naturally,' he said with a regretful smile, 'she found herself in an excellent position to pass information from both parties to the Dark Lord when he first arose, and, like so many young people before her, she found the glory he offered her far greater than anything she might have achieved alone.'

Snape took another sip from the glass and placed it back on the desk. Loosening his collar, he dipped his fingers beneath the starched buttons and pulled out a locket on a silver chain. He removed it from his neck and handed it to Ariadne.

It was a larger than a traditional locket, constructed of sterling silver and encrusted with diamonds around the framework of the intricate floral engraving. Ariadne slipped her fingernail beneath the catch to open it.

'I do not think that many people regarded her as a great beauty,' Snape said, watching Ariadne as she looked into the face of the sister-in-law she would now never know, 'but I always thought that she was the most handsome woman I have ever known. Her soul had such a fragile beauty, although she was taken from me before many other people had the opportunity to see.'

Ariadne looked down at the woman who was waving back at her and laughing as she struggled to keep hold of a Golden Retriever's collar who seemed determined to chase the pigeons that were calling and flapping wildly in the background. Medea's hair had been almost white blonde and it hung long, straight and glistening down her back rather than gathering around her shoulders in an untidy tangle as Ariadne's often did. Her eyes had been a startling neon blue, set deep within her thin, angular face. There seemed to be a darkness within them though; shadows of a past that, although distanced from, still haunted her. She had been thinner than Ariadne had somehow imagined her to be; her cloak almost drowned her and her long, black dress hung rather shapelessly around her delicate frame.

But Ariadne could still see something in the natural ease and brightness of her smile and the enthusiasm of her wave that captured the essence of what her brother had seen within her.

'She was very pretty, Severus,' she told him sincerely as she closed the locket and placed it back into his waiting hand.

He smiled that same sad smile as he ran his thumb over the engraving thoughtfully before putting it around his neck and slipping it back beneath his robes.

'I am sure you would have liked her very much. She didn't have the same interest in potions or defence as I had, but she dearly loved herbology. Our garden at home would have made even Professor Sprout envious.

'I often told Medea about you...how sorry I was that things had turned out between us the way they had. She wanted me to try to contact you...to mend what had happened...that was her way. But I was a stubborn man. In many ways, I suppose I still am. But she completed me...she made me question my values...it was the closest I came to trying to find you, when I met her.'

Ariadne nodded, lowering her gaze back to the stone floor. There were so many things that she regretted about that lost time; not bothering to try to contact her brother now seemed so incredibly stubborn and arrogant of her. And, evidently, she hadn't been the only one to suffer for it.

'It was at one of the Dark Lord's meetings. I could sense the weakness within her...the doubts...the fear and horror that sometimes flashed in her eyes as the others would recount their achievements. We often spoke afterwards. She would never admit her doubts to me, of course. At least, not then when she had no reason to trust me anymore than any of the others there. But there was still something...even now, I find it hard to explain. I enjoyed her company, she appeared to enjoy mine. She seemed to understand me...as no one ever has. She teased me about by stoicism and apparent indifference...the earnestness with which I approached everything... My rather dry, sometimes admittedly cruel sense of humour... She found those qualities endearing,' he smiled sadly, lost in the memory. 'It happened so gradually, I hardly noticed it, but for the first time, I began to really understand what love was...how it was such a blessing but at the same time, such a curse. I remember the warmth that flooded me the first time she touched my hand, feeling the overwhelming need to protect her as I held her in my arms, afraid of how dear she was becoming to me...all the while wishing that I had never met her for the accompanying terror for her that I carried with me constantly...the anxiety that came with the situation we had involved ourselves in...knowing that if the Dark Lord did not finally see how we were weakening in our resolve to stay with his cause, then perhaps the Ministry would discover us and we would spend the rest of our lives in Azkaban for the things we had done in the pursuit of the glory he promised us. Neither of us killed anyone...nothing so evil as that...but we lied...we misled...we used the Imperius curse...neither of us were proud of anything we did then. But I became so dependant on her presence...used to her being there...and I knew then that I would do whatever it took to keep her in my life.'

He sighed, sipping the gillywater before continuing. 'We married quietly. Mother and Father had distanced themselves from me by then, knowing of my involvement with the Dark Arts, but they still came to the ceremony, along with Medea's parents. Because of the awkward situation with you and Black, and feeling the way they did about my activities then, they did not feel it was necessary to cause themselves further anguish by inviting you both, or even so much as mentioning it to you. At the time, I was forced to agree with them.

'The wedding took place just three months before she told me that she was expecting our daughter. By then, the Dark Lord had realised that much of the work he had sent us to do had been either incomplete, or that we had allowed information to leak through that our intended victims had been targeted, giving them time to hide. We gave them time, whilst not fully understanding how limited our own had become.'

He paused again to finish what little was left of the gillywater.

'Eventually, through Medea's contacts within the IFW, we learned of the Dark Lord's escalations and of the fact that he had been growing suspicious of us for a long time. Medea became understandably terrified. Not for us, but for our daughter. We both knew that the Dark Lord would ensure our loyalty by threatening her life if he had ever learned of her existence. We were desperate to keep that knowledge from him. As long as our daughter would be safe, as long as the Dark Lord never knew about her, he would never be able to harm her. No matter what mistakes we made then, our daughter would be protected. Nothing else mattered.

'So, Medea went into hiding. I made excuses for her at the meetings and stepped up my own activities to distract attention away from her absences...as though the more people I placed under the Imperius curse, the more trouble I caused for the Muggles, the more people I threatened, the more people I tortured...the safer my own family would be. It was an impossible situation for me, Ariadne,' he sighed, shaking his head as though to dispel the dirty memories he was stirring back up to the surface after being buried for so long. 'I hurt so many people back then. And I've lived with that knowledge for all these years...and ultimately, I paid the price.

'As soon as our daughter was born, we gave her to Mother and Father. Although both Medea and I were pure-bloods, we kept desperately hoping that perhaps our child would not be magical...if she wasn't, she stood a much better chance of survival, anonymous within the Muggle world, than she ever would if the Dark Lord had discovered her. Perhaps it was the desperation of our prayers, perhaps it was fate...whatever it was, our daughter never showed any signs of being magical.

'It was at that time that we began to learn the art of occlumancy. We both became highly skilled, knowing that it was the only chance that we had of keeping our secret hidden from the Dark Lord who would have so easily been able to read our thoughts without it. Medea and I went back to the Circle, but by then it was too late. The Dark Lord appeared to have accepted my loyalty, but he no longer trusted Medea. Despite all my attempts to distract attention from her, I had failed. The Dark Lord knew that she had been away for a reason and her reticence when questioned about it did not help alleviate his concerns. After so many unsuccessful attempts to recruit new members, he came to believe that she had been passing information of his activities back to the Ministry and nothing we could say would convince him otherwise. He became furious when his attempts to penetrate our thoughts failed. He could not allow Dark Wizards who had lost his favour to be released...particularly not witches with the kinds of influence within the Ministry that Medea had.'

Snape reached across the desk again and grasped Ariadne's hand, holding it as tightly as though it were keeping him alive. For the first time, real tears were sparkling in his dark, hooded eyes. He bit his lip and stared at his sister's fingers, trying hard to suppress the emotions that were threatening to rob him of his composure.

'He tortured her for hours before he killed her...in front of me, Ariadne...all of it, in front of me...' he gasped, still trying desperately not to allow his resurgence of deeply buried grief to break through his voice. 'Without hesitation, the Dark Lord...he just killed her as though her life had never meant anything to anyone. And I had to stand there and watch him do it...knowing that if I showed so much as a flicker of pain or regret, that he would know instantly of my devotion to her rather than to the his cause and he would have killed me too. Who would have protected our daughter then? Medea's sacrifice would have been for nothing...all those people I hurt to protect my family would have suffered for nothing. You cannot ever imagine what that was like for me...I would so willingly have taken everything in her place, but I could do nothing without endangering our daughter...I was so helpless, so stupidly weak and I...I can still hear her screams...all this time later...still, when I wake at night...I can hear her...'

Abruptly, he ripped his hand away from hers and stood, retreating to the shadows between the potions-shelves at the back of the classroom where he braced both hands against the wall and lowered his head. Ariadne could see his shoulders heaving as he sobbed silently, not once allowing a single sound of grief to escape his lips.

Tears had been burning like trails of acid over her cheeks for a while, but to see her brother like this was an agony that she had never known. She felt so frightened and confused...Severus had always been strong...he had always been the dependable, sensible one...he never gave in to emotions...he never felt anything...

It had been so easy for him to cut her out of his life, or so she had thought. He could never truly have understood the way she had felt about Sirius...what had he ever known about love? What had he ever known about loss?

And all this time, he had been carrying around with him this heavy burden of incredible grief that he should never have tried for so long to bear alone. It was an experience that would have driven most men mad and he had carried it all in silence, never betraying a word of the horrors scarring his soul.

How selfish she had been. And how ashamed she felt now. What right did she have to offer him comfort now? When it had mattered, all her tears had been for herself, blinding her to the pain of everyone else that had been hurting just as deeply as she had been. And with far greater reason.

She wondered if she had ever truly known her brother at all.

Snape angrily pressed his palms to his eyes and pushed his hair back from his face. He ran his hands over his robes and sighed before turning back around and returning to the desk. His eyes were still watery, but his voice was stronger now as he spoke.

'I was filled with a breed of grief and rage that terrified me after she died. How I ever left the meeting that night and returned home, to this day I don't remember. All I remember is thinking that I wanted to destroy every single one of those filthy, soulless, twisted, evil... I wanted to eradicate even their memory from the face of the earth. But I knew that I could never take on the Death Eaters alone. No matter how I felt, I had someone else to think about...our daughter had already lost one parent and I did not want her to lose another to vengeance. So, I did the only thing I could have done. I went to the one person I knew I could trust above any other - Dumbledore. I told him what had happened, the trouble I was in. He understood. He arranged with the Ministry for me to become a spy within the Circle for them and in turn, they offered me protection. Dumbledore was the only one prepared to give me a second chance. Without his understanding, I would never have been able to obtain a place here. He would not give me the post I wanted, fearing that it lay too close to the secrets I lived with. He feared that the memories that might be stirred by practising the Dark Arts again were potentially very dangerous not just for myself, but for others too. I had always excelled at potions and he felt that I would be better suited to that post. I disagree with him on that point, but I accept his reasons. As it happened, the Dark Lord's anger developed a different channel through which to express itself not long after Medea's death. He knew about you, about your friends...he knew that if he killed you to punish me further, then your powerful friends might seek vengeance in return. He had also learned of the prophecy of his own downfall at the hands of an equal by then too - an equal he believed to have been born to the Potters the year before. He needed no further reasons to mark you, Black and the others for extermination. The mistake that he made that saved so many lives that night was the decision to go after the Potters first. The rest of what happened...well...I'm sure you already know.

'So, Ariadne,' he finished with a weary sigh, 'whatever you might think of me, I am more than aware of the difficulties you and Black have been faced with over the years...the feelings that prejudice and misunderstanding can cause. Perhaps now though, you can also appreciate my position - and the reasons for my concern for you - just a little better than you did before.'

She nodded dully, wiping her eyes. It was too much for her to accept, too much emotion for her to deal with. She felt nauseous and numb, her mind echoing with everything he had told her. How close they had all come to destruction...

How close they all still were...

And everything her brother had been through...and still, he had carried on...whilst she had retreated from life to lick her own wounds like the pathetically selfish monster she now felt that she was.

'Is that why you were so anxious for me to see Mother and Father? You wouldn't have told me any of this if I hadn't pushed you, would you? You wanted to tell me back home?'

'It is part of the reason why I wanted you to see them, yes. I wanted time alone with you so I could explain...and to give them time to explain too - why we behaved the way we did towards you, why we were so angered and hurt by your selfishness and your refusal to even listen to us. But for personal reasons too. I wanted Erytheia to meet her aunt,' Snape said, a warm, gentle smile radiating through the ghosts of his tears as he looked up at her.

'Erytheia? That's your daughter's name?'

Snape nodded, something that was almost pride brightening his eyes.

'She is almost fifteen years old now...in October. Of course, almost no one in our world knows of her existence, other than Dumbledore, Mother and Father. She attends a Muggle school not far from here. She insists on being known as Eryl though, which irritates me greatly as Medea chose her name, but I suppose I can understand that Muggles are not accustomed to the names witches and wizards give their children. I'm afraid that I have no photographs of her here to show you, but as so few people know of her existence, I cannot afford to allow my yearning to see her to compromise the security surrounding her that Medea gave her life to maintain.'

Ariadne shook her head, still not quite believing that she was hearing. She began to wonder if the fumes from the cauldron were causing her to hallucinate, making her imagine the whole thing. For so much to have happened to her own brother and for her to have been completely ignorant of it all - she could have helped him; she could have been there for him when he had needed her; she could have helped take care of her niece instead of frittering away the past twelve years feeling sorry for herself and her own losses which now seemed so unspeakably trivial by comparison.

'I wish I knew what to say, Severus,' she whispered inanely. 'Whatever I do say is going to sound hopelessly inadequate. I just wish that I'd known...I wish I could have helped you. I am so desperately sorry...I really am.'

He shrugged. Everything that needed to be said, had been.

'What is she like? Does she look like Medea?'

Snape smiled again, his eyes unfocused as though looking at something in front of him that she could not see.

'She has her mother's blonde hair, although she wears it much shorter than Medea would probably have liked. It's shoulder length at the moment, although that's liable to change frequently too. She has my dark eyes though...I think she is even more beautiful than Medea was, but then, I'm her father,' he smiled affectionately. 'She is as dear to me as Medea...but a thousand times more irritating. She has developed a taste for Muggle 'music' that sounds nothing like any description of music that I have ever heard. She refuses to dress appropriately and insists on Muggle short skirts and t-shirts and has even recently acquired a leather jacket covered in metal studs and chains that, Mother informs me, she will simply not go anywhere without. I was horrified to discover that she has, for some reason, decided to have her nose pierced last week too.' He shook his head and smiled with a warm, paternal tolerance. 'But I love her more than life and there is nothing I would not do to keep her safe.'

Ariadne reflected his smile. It was obvious how he felt about her from the light in his eyes and the joy with which he had spoken of her. It was such a contrast from the depths of his grief for his wife.

'Does she know? I mean...have you told her about her mother?'

'I had to,' he sighed, closing his eyes against the pain the memories stirred. He was looking so tired now, so thoroughly drained, but somehow lighter for having shared his secret with someone...with her... 'She has been told of the situation for her own safety more than anything else. It took a great deal of persuading on Mother and Father's part to convince me of that - I had tried so hard for so many years to protect her from everything...I wanted her to grow up without fear - but I had to acknowledge that she needed to know. She deserved the truth. I wanted her to feel as proud of Medea as I did - to know that her mother gave her life for her.'

Ariadne nodded respectfully. It must have been a difficult decision for him to make and she was glad that it had not been hers, but she believed that ultimately, he had probably done the right thing. 'Do you see her often?'

'Not nearly as often as I would like. She knows of our world, she knows what I do for a living...what I am. She understands why I can only be with her during holidays, but I contact her almost every day by owl or through the Floo network, at Mother and Father's house, of course...mostly just to ensure that she has not had another piercing, quarrelled with her grandparents and decided to move to France or had something inappropriate tattooed all over her arms,' he said with that patient, gentle forbearing smile again. 'She has something of her mother's spirit, I think. She reminds me of her in so many ways...when she smiles...the forthright way she has of expressing her opinions...the cynical way she has of looking at the world sometimes...her love of the outdoors...her changeable moods...the way her nose wrinkles when she frowns...her passionate beliefs about he way things should be...'

'You miss Medea a lot, don't you?' Ariadne said sensitively.

'Every single day,' he whispered. 'It is so hard to believe that so many years have passed. But I have Erytheia, and I have my memories. The Dark Lord nor anyone else will ever be able to take those away.'

'I wish I could have known Medea, Severus. She must have been a special woman for you to still speak of her with such feeling after so long.'

Snape nodded, his smile becoming distant again. 'She was. I loved her very much.'

Ariadne reached across the desk and took his hand in both of hers again. He closed his eyes at her touch and for a moment, they remained in silence, as though they were giving the past time to retreat back into the shadows of memory...putting the dusty album away with one last, nostalgic, bittersweet smile before returning to the present. Where they belonged.

'Merlin, that potion will be ruined if we don't add that woodruff within the next few minutes!' Ariadne exclaimed as she leapt to her feet, suddenly remembering the reason why they were there.