Wizard's House

WIZARD'S HOUSE - 3

A loud roll of thunder washed over the land and hid the sharp crack! of Apparition under its booming voice. Overhead, dark clouds were rolling across the sky, and the first few drops of rain began to fall, a promise of the storm to come. Snape, appearing suddenly on a desolate bluff above the ocean, glanced down at the breakers below and then began walking toward the top of the rise, which was crowned by a set of bleak ruins that were charmed to be totally uninteresting to Muggle eyes, and were warded as invisible to all but a select few magical folk.

As he walked closer, focusing his thoughts on what was really there, the ruins shimmered, coalesced, and transformed. By the time he reached the wrought iron gates in the surrounding rock wall, he was looking at an ancient black stone keep with crenelated towers and tall, narrow, lancet windows. A dim light shown out from one of the tower windows, but the rest of the building was dark and impersonal, as if it were disassociated from human needs or concerns.

Snape drew his wand out of his sleeve and tapped the closed gates, which were fancifully wrought in iron and showed a large letter "P" intertwined with winged creatures. The gates swung slowly open. He walked through them, the sound of his boots echoing loudly on the crushed gravel of the drive. From somewhere to his left came the sound of hasty footsteps, talons scrabbling on the rocky ground, and a sharp hissing sound. He stopped and waited calmly, as the gates swung shut noiselessly behind him.

A shaft of orange lantern light glowed in the darkness and came rapidly closer, until he could see a gaunt wizard in dark clothing with two young griffins pulling ahead of him on a tandem lead. The man came to a halt and held the lantern higher.

"Ah, Master Severus!" the newcomer said, wrapping the leash tighter around his hand and pulling back the two eagle-headed beasts, which had lifted their hooked beaks and were breathing in Severus's scent, which floated to their nostrils on the damp night air. "I was told that you would be coming, sir, but not when."

"Regardless, I am here now," Snape said. "There's no need to loose your pets." He glanced down at the two griffins, which were nosing at the toes of his boots, huffing slightly as they affirmed the family scent that clung to him, and the charm which said that he had the right to be there.

"Very good, sir," the watchman said, as Snape turned away and started toward the front entrance of the ancient building, his black cloak furling around him in the freshening breeze.

The massive front doors, dark and hardened with age, opened to the touch of his hand and he stepped into a large flagstone-floored entry hall, lit by a few flickering lamps.

A house-elf wrapped in a piece of old linen scurried forward from out of the shadows and took the cloak which Snape unfastened and dropped into its hands.

"Master Severus's rooms are ready," the elf said, dipping its head. It was an elderly creature, so wrinkled and its skin so yellowed and blotted with age, that one could not tell if it were male or female. "Would Master Severus like a meal, or tea, or anything?"

"No, nothing," Snape said, and started up the long winding stone staircase that led to the upper floors. He paused at the first landing and looked down at the elf, his lank dark hair falling forward to frame his long sallow face.

"Is my grandfather awake?"

The elf bobbed its head again. "Master Prince is reading, sir."

As Snape proceeded up the stairs the darkened family portraits on the walls shifted uneasily in their frames, fled to other canvases, and whispered softly, "Severus... Severus."

The transverse corridor on the second floor ended at double doors with silver fittings. Snape rapped lightly on one of the doors and, at the sound of a voice, opened it and walked inside.

The room beyond the doors was large and well furnished, although the furnishings were old. It was lit by the dancing flames in the grate and a few candles in fancy silver-wrought holders that were placed on a long refectory table so that they cast a pool of light over some books and rolls of parchment. A tall oaken chair with a tapestry-covered back stood on the floor near the center of the table, and the hunched figure sitting in it stared fixedly at Snape.

"Well?" he said. He was a very old man with lank white hair and was wrapped in a dark brocade dressing gown. The hands which lay in front of him, on the open pages of a thick book, were gnarled and their skin was the soft yellow-cream of old paper.

"I have come to pay my respects, Grandfather," Snape said smoothly. "I believe that is proper behavior."

"A travesty of propriety, in your case. When were you last here?"

"Three years ago."

"You are not a very devoted grandson, are you?"

"As you never displayed love or devotion, I never felt obligated to give you back either," Snape said.

"At least you are honest in that... if not in other things. I have heard some rumors that I do not intend to discuss." The old man held up one age-spotted hand. "Never mind. You are here, and I understand that you have sent along your books and clothes, so I assume that you intend to stay. I do not care why you are here, nor do I care what you do while you are here--as long as it does not inconvenience me."

"I expected no more nor less," Snape said. "I suppose I should thank you for the indulgence."

"I require no thanks. You are a member of the Prince family, despite your mother's unfortunate choice of a mate, and the wards recognize you. You have a right to be here, within limits. Your mother, by the way, still absorbs herself with her endless divination. She may be pleased to see you. I do not know."

He picked up a large magnifying glass and went back to studying the war memoirs of his great-great-grandfather.

Snape nodded to his grandfather and turned to leave the room. The old man did not look up as the younger went out and closed the door quietly behind him.

Snape's own rooms, which he had occupied first as a child and then as a young man, were in one of the crenelated towers; three corridors and two staircases away from his grandfather's chambers. The house-elves had lit a fire in the study, which was lined with shelves and the books that he had sent from the house on Spinner's End. The inner chamber, with its massive four-poster bed, was dark. Snape took a single candle from the pair on the mantel in the study and carried it to his bedroom, undressing by its softly flickering light. Having warded the doors and windows from the inside, he put his wand under his pillow, slid under the covers, and slept. Outside, the wind-whipped rain lashed against the windows, as the storm finally broke.

* * *

Snape woke shortly after dawn, accustomed as he was to early hours at Hogwarts School. For a while he lay there in bed, arms folded under his head, staring at the ceiling and considering the options available to him. He reached no conclusion, so he got up, bathed, dressed in his usual black, and tucked his wand into his sleeve. The rain was still coming down outside. He could hear the storm against the windows as he walked down to the large dining room on the first floor.

There was only one other person in the room at this early hour, a middle-aged witch with soft brown hair pulled back in a knot, who was wrapped about with gray robes and oatmeal-colored shawls. She looked around at the sound of his footsteps on the stone floor, arrested in motion with her latest forkful of scrambled eggs suspended in front of her face.

"Severus! No one told me that you were coming home." She looked surprised and not particularly pleased.

"That's because very few people knew it, Aunt Justina."

She sighed with exasperation. "I don't know why you have to be so secretive, particularly around family."

"Especially around family," Snape corrected her, pouring himself a cup of black coffee from the urn on the sideboard, and carelessly using his wand to toast two pieces of bread. He brought his coffee and toast to the table, spread some ginger marmalade onto the toast, and ate slowly, looking out through the streaked windows at the rainy landscape beyond.

"Why did you come back?" Justina asked abruptly.

"Why do you care?" he murmured, lifting one eyebrow.

"You're quite impossible!" His aunt said. She finished her eggs and patted her lips with a linen napkin, then said with a bit of malice, "Jovian will not be happy to see you."

Snape said coolly, "I don't care whether he is happy or not."

"What about Sabina? Sabina always claims to be fond of you; why I do not know."

"Jovian and Sabina may be my cousins... "

"Second cousins," his aunt reminded him.

"But that is an accident of birth," Snape said, letting his annoyance show. "I had nothing to do with our relationship, and what they like or do not like is a matter of indifference to me."

"Yes, you're well-known for your family feeling--or lack of it," she said dryly. "Are you going to stay here for long?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Severus!" She flung her napkin down on the table. "No one has seen you for three years. Three years, and not a word to anyone. I think that some explanation is due!"

"Then you are wrong," he said. He finished his coffee and pushed back his chair. "If you are quite finished, there is someone I want to talk with this morning."

"Your mother, I suppose?"

"No, someone with a firmer grip on reality than that," he said, standing up and heading for the door.

Leaving the dining room, Snape walked toward the rear of the building, where a set of steps led to the kitchens. He went down those, noting the soft clatter of pans and the piping voices of the house-elves, and took a short hall to the left, which led to the lower reaches of the great stone keep. It was closed off at the end by an old age-stained door.

Snape pulled open the door and held his wand aloft.

"Lumos!"

The pale light flooded over stone walls and a curving stone staircase which led downward into the darkness. At the bottom, there was a long corridor with unlit lanterns fixed to the walls. Doors on either side stood open, showing barrels of wine neatly stacked against the walls, and foodstuffs in crates and jars or hanging from the ceiling. There was no dirt or dust; no scrabbling vermin. The house-elves did their jobs too well for that.

The single door at the far end of the corridor was closed. It had no handle and no lock. There was only a small square opening at eye level with an iron grate covering it that would not allow even a finger to pass through. Snape stood there for a moment, listening. After a while there was a jangle of metal that might be chains or manacles, and a soft rasping whisper breathed, "Severus... "

"Gustave," Snape said in acknowledgment.

The voice chuckled; a breathy inhuman sound. "I wondered when you would come back."

"And I wondered if you were still alive," Snape countered.

"Oh yes, still alive, still alive. The house-elves take care of me, as they have always done. I sit here in my chains and I think. Sometimes I offer the occasional prophecy, but there is seldom anyone here to listen to it, or to care what it might mean."

"The atmosphere down here is hardly conducive to a friendly chat," Snape said dryly.

There was another rattle of chains and then the voice asked curiously, "Why have you come back?"

"Interesting that you should ask," Snape answered. "My Aunt Justina wanted to know the same thing."

"Don't tell me what you told her," the voice said, with a hint of amusement. "Tell me the real reason."

Snape brushed back his lank dark hair, frowning. "Very well. I came back because I am at a crossroads in life, where there is nothing for me to do but wait. I may as well wait here as anywhere else. Besides," he added with harsh honesty, "I might wind up in Azkaban if I were to go anywhere else."

"So it has come to that," the voice mused. "Have you read the fire, as I taught you to do?"

Snape hesitated, then answered, "Yes," and lowered himself to sit on the cold stone floor, leaning back against the wall and staring fixedly at the glowing tip of his wand.

"And what did you see in the coals?"

"Blood and destruction; the screams of the dying."

"Ahhh. When your mother came home, after her ill-advised liaison with that Muggle, you were nine years old. You found your way down here, and what did I tell you?"

"To beware of snakes."

"Did you heed me?"

"No."

"You were ever a stubborn child. If there is destruction and death in your future, you have most likely caused it."

"Possibly so, but I plead extenuating circumstances," Snape said, considering. "For many years I served two masters, and they were always in direct opposition to one another."

"A difficult balancing act," the voice agreed. "Have you seen your mother, since you came home?"

"No."

"Speak to her," the voice behind the cell door said, with a restless jangle of chains. "She has the Gift, although she tried to crush it while she was married to your Muggle father."

"I have no interest in foolish attempts to read the future," Snape said wearily, wondering if there was really any point in coming down here to listen to this madman in his perpetual darkness.

"But you cared enough to read the fire," the voice said slyly. "And was it not a prophecy--a foolish attempt to read the future--which brought you to this crossroads? I feel the slither of serpents behind your words. You should have listened to me, Severus Snape."

Snape bowed his head. He had no response.

Irena Candy Wizard's House - 3 2