In Search of a Son

In Search of a Son-

'He is not my son!'

I whirl around at these dreaded words. My husband is standing there, his fists clenched, his eyes dancing with hate. I have been waiting for five years now, waking up each morning with this secret burning within my soul, but I have always been so careful not to let him know. I have heard him say the same thing so many times before, but only in my nightmares...

But I am not asleep. Now my nightmares are coming true.

'How... how could you even say that!' I say, fighting and losing the struggle to keep my voice under control. I must make him think he is mistaken, that he is wrong, otherwise everything will be lost. Everything I have worked for... everything I have risked...

He laughs at me, a dangerous, low laugh. In the corner, my son sits, sobbing. The left side of his face is already bruising and he cradles his arm. He is in pain. My son is in so much pain...

'You thought you were so clever, didn't you? You thought that you could bring this filth into my house, and pretend that he was my son? I know everything!'

'No... you can't...you're making a mistake! You're wrong!' I scream back at him. No, this is not happening, no, no, no... I will not let this happen... I will not let it end this way...I will not have him know the awful truth...

*

When we first got married, my husband was kind. He was understanding. I was scared of this strange man who I barely knew, this strange man whom I was supposed to share a bed with for the rest of my life. Father had thought he would make a fine son-in-law, even if he was a little - fourteen years - older than me.

But he won me over. He said I had no reason to be afraid, that he would give me time to get used to him. He cared for me when I fell ill, and when Father died suddenly he was there beside me at the funeral.

I trusted him; I thought he was a good man. He wasn't handsome, but he was genuine, sincere and hardworking, and that made up for everything.

He said that he didn't want children just yet; he wanted to get a better job, have more money. His family's wealth had been left behind in France when they had to flee, and three generations hadn't been able to get the family back on their feet.

He was determined, though, to change all that. I loved his determination, his kindness; I suppose I may have actually loved him.

'You'll see,' he would say. 'You just wait and watch, pet.'

We decided to try for a child after our second anniversary. Nothing happened. He would laugh, uneasily, and declare that maybe some of these things couldn't be rushed; I would get pregnant eventually. I believed that it would. I truly did.

Three years passed. Nothing seemed to be forthcoming. The amount of work he had was overwhelming and he had barely any time to see me, barely any time that was not spent staring at the ceiling in darkness.

Four years. Five. Things changed. My husband changed; he started to beat me, sometimes with no real excuse. A short slap when I answered back to him, like Father had always done when I was a little girl. A rough push when I ignored him. Forcing me into bed when I didn't want to, once even punching me in the stomach and throwing me down onto the carpet while I was still winded. I woke up the next day with scratches on my face and arms, and him still inside me. I blamed the change on his job, stress, anger; I hoped for it to be a phase that would eventually pass.

Six. He began drinking heavily, going straight to the pub after work, only coming home to fall into bed fully clothed. I found strange numbers in his pocket, but didn't dare ask him about who they belonged to for fear of him finding another reason to lash out at me.

Seven years into our marriage. Eight. My husband lost his job at the Ministry, failing to meet performance standards. That night he threw me down the stairs, knocking me unconscious. It would become a regular staple of my life.

Nine. My marriage was falling apart. My husband grew even more violent. He would come home, firewhiskey on his breath and some other woman's perfume lingering over his skin. Every time I would reach for him, he would turn away, muttering how useless I was.

Ten years after I had married him, I was back to having a stranger in my house. My husband was constantly drunk and unshaven, smelling of alcohol and rage. We had almost nothing to live on, our savings dwindling to absolutely nothing. He began to sell our possessions to fuel his alcoholism, buying cheap Muggle beer because he couldn't afford Firewhiskey.

By now, he hated me more than ever, blaming me for all his problems. Every time I tried to talk to him, his answer was a belted fist. Most times I kept quiet and took the beating, refusing to move or cry out at all. Any small sound would drive him into a frenzy. He would lose all control over himself, lashing out, throwing whatever he could find at me.

'You useless woman! You're no good for anything! You can't even give me a child!'

And there lay the root of all our difficulties, the reason why he had turned against me.

I was barren.

I knew that the problem was with me, and not with him; I had gone for the test one day when I felt I could not take it any longer, wanting to know what was happening and why our house was still empty and sad. The healer had tried his best to let me down gently, but it hadn't softened the news. I could never, ever conceive.

So, it really was my fault.

After I had told him, my husband had simply laughed before punching me in the face, breaking my nose. It was simply more fuel for him, another reason why he couldn't stand me. Every argument we had, he reminded me of this little fact.

'You can't give me an heir, what are you doing here? Get out!'

The words always hurt worse than any punch he could have thrown. Tell a woman that she cannot be a mother, and you take away everything that defines her as a woman. Tell a woman that she cannot be a mother, and you are left with nothing but a shell-shocked excuse, a woman who has no use in this world.

Ten years went by, and I was broken completely.

*

My husband was not the only one to torture me. It seemed as if Life itself was determined to remind me of how worthless I was. Every day, I would see so many women in the street, all carrying babies or holding small children by the hand. They all stared back at me, seeming to mock me for my plight. When I slept, I saw the children I could never have encircling me, their giddy laughter enveloping me and filling me with a hunger so deep, nothing could satisfy it.

I tried everything I could. Traditional remedies did not help at all, and most new cures were out of my reach for I had no money to pay for them. I begged and borrowed, even stole a few Galleons from wherever I could, just to pay the Healers.

I was convinced that if I could just have a child, everything would work out all right. Everything would return to normal, and my husband would revert to the calm and quiet man I had once known. All I wanted was a child, to show him that I was not completely useless, to prove to him- and myself- that I was truly a woman.

*

St. Mungo's maternity wing. Silent and serene, the pale blue walls and portraits of giggling children were meant to reflect the happiness and relief the birth of a child might bring to a woman. I took refuge there, only to avoid my husband's constant beatings, to avoid facing the awful reality of my existence.

For a few blessed hours, I was able to forget everything that was wrong. I took comfort in my surroundings, looking through the windows into the wards where babies lay in cribs, swaddled in blankets, sleeping, stretching their tiny limbs, bawling their little heads off. I could pretend that one of those babies were mine, just for a while. I could pretend, if only for a little while, that I was ordinary and that in a few days I would go home, proud and smiling, with a little girl or boy tucked safely away against my breast.

Unfortunately, the daydreams had to end some time. And that time was usually the end of each day, when I would make my way home, my arms empty, my body tensed and waiting for the next round of violence. A few nights, I toyed with the idea of not returning home at all, but in the end I was unable to follow it through.

After all, I would still have to leave, and then where would I go? Father was dead, my own mother gone long before. I knew no one, I had nothing.

I had no choice, then, other than to go back to the house I shared with the man who was my husband only by name; my regular life was too difficult to break away from. In the mornings, I would cast my glamour carefully so that no one could see the new set of bruises.

At first, no one paid attention to me. I could have been a relative of a new mother, a friend. Maybe even a woman in for a post-natal check. But as I spent more and more time there, people were bound to notice. Patients thought that I worked there, sweeping the floors or boiling the linen. They often passed orders to me, thinking I would get them that better room, those extra clothes. The mediwitches clucked, pity in their eyes as they saw the longing in mine. They guessed my problem and offered advice when I didn't ask for it, but still tightened the ward security when I was around.

They would not turn me away, and I was grateful for that. But I was a desperate woman, and their petty security would not thwart me from following the plan I had so carefully put together. I was desperate; I was ready to go ahead and claim what I wanted- what should have rightly been mine but had been denied to me for so long.

My months at the maternity ward had not been without purpose, after all. The long hours I spent there had helped me familiarize myself with the structure of the wards, the location of the nurseries; I was able to plan an escape route, a disguise, a way to get myself in and out before anyone could catch me.

The only thing missing from my plan was the child. And even that problem would be solved soon enough.

*

Tucked away into the corner of the maternity wing was a small room, seemingly forgotten and abandoned when the patients were moved into the new extension of the wing. I had stumbled across it one day, turning a wrong corner and pushing open a door that I thought led to an emergency exit.

Instead, I found myself in a dimly lit room. Cots lined the far wall, and two beds with dirty, bloodstained linen occupied the central space. There were no windows. The stale air had been temporarily disturbed by my entrance, and I could actually see the dust rise, unsettled from its rest on everything in the room.

My first thought was that I had stumbled into a storeroom. I had already turned to leave when I heard a baby give out a small, weak wail. It was soft- so soft, that I thought for a moment it must have been from some other place, probably the nursery down the hall.

But the silencing charm would have made sure that no cries penetrated beyond the nursery. The sound had to be coming from within the room itself...

I crept towards the cots, suddenly too aware of what might be going on. Each breath I took was loaded with anticipation. My hopes, as dusty as the room itself, shook free of the stupor they had been in for so long as I peered over the edge of the nearest cot and saw the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

A squalling little girl lay on an old blanket in the cot. The little hair on her head was matted, and the blanket was soiled. A slight stench rose above the dust, tickling my nose. The child looked weak, and I wondered what it was doing there.

When it opened its eyes, though, I realized why it had been left here, in this quiet, deadly room. The milky haze that floated over her eyes blocked out all light, all vision. She was blind. I reached into the cot and touched the soft little cheek, my own eyes blurring over when she grabbed at my finger and pressed it into her mouth, sucking furiously.

This was not a storeroom.

This was where they left the unwanted babies... to be disposed of. To die.

I wanted to scream. Here I was, unable to have a child, even one such as this girl. And yet, someone had been able to conceive, had given birth to her, and simply left her here because she did not want a blind daughter. Not only that, the mediwitches had helped in all this... they must have made this room for such women, so they could get rid of their unwanted burdens and forget about them completely. The beds, the cots, the room itself... the children who were born here and never left because they had no place in the world...

The next cot held a boy who was sleeping peacefully. I watched him, his perfect little face in all its stillness, the downy blond hair on his head. There was nothing wrong with him, as far as I could see. He was absolutely perfect, the image of an angel. He was facing up, lips dusky, skin pale... so quiet... I placed my finger against his cheek and found it stone cold.

I turned and retched, snatching my finger away. I could feel the dust rising from the floor, reproaching me for coming here without anyone's permission, the girl's plaintive cries begging me to return to her, the deathly silence from the cot behind me. My own breathing sounded horrible... how many children had come here, had breathed their first and last in this room? It was almost as if the ghost of the boy I had just seen came and settled on my shoulders, wrapping his baby fingers around my throat so that I couldn't breathe. I choked on the dust and my own horror at finding this terrible place.

Was there no one who wanted these children?

No, there is

Who?

Me.

*

I returned to the main nursery every day, but merely for the sake of keeping up appearances. It would have been almost impossible for me to steal away a child from there, but in the quiet, abandoned nursery, no one would even know that they had a child missing.

I watched the mediwitches as they went about their rounds, paying even more attention to those who had duty near the dusty old room. I began to notice their shared looks, the little signs they made when another case was to be taken in there. The women were admitted easily enough, taken to the normal pre-natal ward... but when the labor pains began, the women were wheeled away, past the regular delivery room, and into the privacy of that horrible little place where they would deliver their children and then walk away from them, usually pressing a small 'thank you' gift into the hand of the mediwitch on duty there.

The forms always indicated miscarriages or still births, and the death certificates were duly issued. No one ever knew that the child had lived, save the mother and the mediwitch who had helped her, and even then the whole incident was too easily forgotten.

This last detail cemented my plan. If the child was officially written off as dead, then there was no one who would come looking for it, no one who would miss one empty cot in a dingy old nursery.

Such deliveries were few and far between... most of the time, the cots remained empty, the room dust-ridden, the ghost of a cry sounding in mid-echo. The layers of grime and old souls accumulated until another woman came along, whispering something to the mediwitch who wheeled her in, and for a few days I would try my best to smuggle milk and clothes into the unfortunate child who had been left there.

But I wasn't able to save those children. They withered away, despite my efforts. It was difficult to keep them alive, especially with the mediwitches watching my every move and forcing me to avoid the room, even when I knew there was a little boy or girl wailing behind that closed door, howling for milk and pining for a loving touch.

Then there was the fact that none of the children could ever be passed off as my own. One month passed from my discovery of the abandoned nursery... two... three. I had watched helplessly as a red-haired boy and a blue-eyed girl died in that terrible room, but there had been no way to help them. I could not keep them, and I dared not share my secret with anyone for fear of being reported.

I cried on the mornings I managed to sneak into the room only to find a cold body lying in one of the cots. But I steeled myself, calmed down, forced myself to wait. I would not let such a chance pass from me so easily.

And in the meantime, I began to masquerade as an expecting mother, confounding everyone who had written me off as useless. There was no use in getting a child without the proof that I had ever been pregnant, so every morning I began to add the wearing of a padded belt to my daily glamour regime.

*

It was only a matter of time before my husband noticed the bump under my clothes and demanded to know what was going on. He was shocked when I told him I was expecting, and instinctively I drew away from him, fully anticipating another round of pummeling.

Instead, I felt him wrap his arms around me in a hug, the first in years, his motions unsteady but gentle. I was so unused to this sort of contact that I began to weep, right then and there, on his shoulder. His other hand caressed my belly, resting over the belt. I felt only slightly guilty about deceiving him about the child, but I couldn't help ignore the guilt and the pain from his most recent beating when I felt his lips brush against my cheek.

'Thank you,' he whispered.

The next night, he threw out all the old firewhiskey and beer bottles that had accumulated over the years. I heard them smash on the hard ground and allowed myself a small smile.

For a few glorious months, the wasted years of our marriage ceased to exist. The change was so abrupt that sometimes I was convinced that I was simply dreaming and that I would wake up one day to find him over me, his fist buried in my stomach and his mouth stinking of cheap beer. But it was not a dream, and I had no need to wake up.

I had been right; a child did solve all our problems. It didn't matter that this child was not growing inside me, but instead would come from somewhere else... as long as my husband didn't know, then there was no cause for worry.

During the day, I kept up my regime at the hospital, but now I no longer walked the wing with slow, unhappy steps. I patted my visibly growing belly whenever I saw a mediwitch, smiling, letting them coo over me. I talked with the other women, listening carefully to all they had to say so as to add details to my act. I had to convince people, to make them believe that I was with child, if my plan was ever to succeed.

And I managed now to spend more time in the dirty old ward than ever. Thanks to my fake pregnancy, I was no longer under the watchful eye of all who worked on the maternity wing. Instead, I could easily slip into the ward, looking out for any babies who bore a resemblance to me or my husband. I even smuggled a child out once, a brown-haired boy who had no defects whatsoever, but whose mother simply didn't want him. He was a wonderful little boy, quiet as ever when I picked him up and walked out of the room. He fit snugly in my arms, and for a second I was tempted to just run home with him.

Unfortunately, I would have never been able to explain it.

I took him around London instead, spending the entire afternoon savoring the feel of a child in my arms. I kept on telling myself it would only be a short while before I could have my own child in my arms, safe and sound, and without the fear that someone would discover him gone and take him away from me. For a few blissful hours, though, all my longing faded away, replaced by bright smiles and the tiniest of gurgles and the wonderful feeling of having a child nestled in my arms.

But only for a few hours. Only until I had to go back home.

At the end of the day, I deposited him in a basket on the steps of a Muggle orphanage. I felt terrible about leaving him there, but I felt even worse about taking him back to St. Mungo's. In the orphanage, he might not have learnt about our world, but he was safer than if I had simply taken him back to the hospital to die by the end of the week. I had seen the children of the institution playing happily in the little patch of garden outside, and I prayed he would be looked after just the same. Nobody needed to know where he came from, after all... just that he needed a home.

I waited, skulking in the shadows of the next building, carefully watching the door of the orphanage until I saw it open and a kind-looking woman jump in surprise at finding a child there. She picked him up, kissed him, looking around for whoever had left him there. I kept well hidden until she gave up and went back into the orphanage, the boy asleep in her arms.

The next day, there was no mention of a missing child. No one, not even the one mediwitch who had performed the delivery, looked even remotely concerned that a child had seemingly disappeared from the hospital.

Perfect. The stage was set. Now all I had to do was wait, and watch, and pray that everything worked out.

*

Nine months. Nine months of pretending, of lying, all coming down to this. I had perfected the act of being pregnant, waddling about, my padded belly difficult to balance with but rounded and soft like any expectant mother's. I was ready to have my child.

I even had a due date set, fabricating a healer's report on some stationery I had stolen from an open office a while back. My husband had wanted to come for the appointment but I had insisted on going alone, not wanting to be discovered when I was so close to achieving my goal.

But time was running out. I waited, but there weren't any unwanted births. I cursed my luck... there had to be someone out there who didn't want their child! I was already feeling guilty about lying to everyone and planning to steal a child, but I was so desperate that I felt nothing of praying for a mother's heart to turn hard, just so that my heart might be satisfied.

Finally, it happened: in one week, three mothers came- one who had discovered her baby was deformed and didn't want to raise such a child, a woman who had been raped by her own uncle and simply couldn't face having to see the consequence of that rape, and a prostitute who had made the terrible mistake of getting pregnant but hadn't wanted to abort for fear of damaging her body.

All three women had black hair and black eyes. One, the prostitute, even had a hooked nose similar to that of my husband. There was no telling what their children would look like, though, since I had not seen the fathers. I could only hope that one, just one of them, might look like my husband or me.

*

The room had been cleaned, or else the number of births taking place in the ward had ensured that the dust had not been allowed to settle. I crept across the room quietly. The padding I wore had been discarded earlier, stuffed away and transfigured into scrap paper.

I prayed that no one would decide to come in while I was there, or everything would go to waste. My stomach clenched when I thought about what might happen if my husband ever discovered I had been faking, or if I was caught stealing a child, albeit an unwanted one. These were thoughts that had plagued me ever since I had come up with the plan, but now they threatened to overwhelm me, right when I needed my wits to be at their sharpest.

I forced them away. No time for them, no time to think. I was almost there... yes...

The first cot held disappointment. The child had a curly mop of black hair, black eyes wide open. But it lay too still, its skin too pale. It was already too late for that one. And it had been a boy. My husband had always wanted a boy, a perfect heir for an old pureblood family. Silently, I cursed myself.

The second and the third looked promising, though. In these, the children lay awake, their dark eyes staring at me. I reached for one, then drew back and placed my hand on the other's head.

Both would have done. I could actually take the two of them, claim them as twins. My heart began to beat faster at the prospect. Two children! That would surely make up for all my years of suffering, of thinking I wasn't good enough. Two children to love and raise as my own.

Then one child shifted slightly to the light, and I saw what the mother had not been willing to face: the stump of an arm, resting on the dirty blanket. I hated myself then, because I recoiled from the deformed child, went immediately to the perfect, whole one. I hated myself for having to choose, and then abandon this boy for the same reason his real mother had. But I would not have been able to look after such a child, I knew. My husband would never have accepted it.

I could almost sense the reproach and disappointment, both within myself and on the part of the boy I had decided to leave. I bent down, planted a kiss on his forehead.

'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,' I whispered. I knew he would not understand. I knew he would not live to understand, to remember this night. But perhaps, for such a boy, it was better that way.

I turned my attention to the one I had decided to take. He was deathly quiet and for a second I feared he had also died. But then, just as I reached into the cot to touch him, he let out a soft sigh. I felt myself weaken. For a minute, I stood there, my arms in the cot, the child staring at me, my breaths coming loud and fast in the room.

There was no time.

Pull yourself together, woman!

I gingerly picked him up, wrapped him in the blanket I had bought a few days before in anticipation of this moment. He was so light in my arms, such a small, light boy.

But he was mine, now. He was all mine. I smiled at him, taking in his beautiful little face, the pale skin, the dark clumps of hair that stuck to his forehead. He was terribly delicate and I was even afraid to touch him in case this moment stopped being real.

'Let's go home,' I said softly to him. Almost as if he understood, he closed his eyes, nuzzling deeper into the blanket.

There was just one last thing to do. I pulled out the copy of the birth certificate I had prepared, reluctantly placing my child down for a few precious seconds while I filled in the last missing detail. I would file the certificate the next day, and after that, no one would ever know that I had not given birth to my little boy. No one would ever be able to take him away from me after that.

Name: Snape, Severus.

*

'... you stole a child!'

'I...' I cannot say anything. It is already too late. My mind shuts down, my body tenses as he comes towards me. 'I... please... let me explain...'

My only answer is a sharp slap across the face. I stumble sideways from the force. I hear myself cry out before I realize that I have done so.

'You deceitful bitch! How dare you... how dare you...'

I am unable to say anything. I can barely see, the tears gathering in my eyes from both pain and the shame of being found out. I try to pull myself together but it is almost impossible. He comes for me again, and I cower from him, step back, arms raised. He brings down his fists, one hand easily breaking through my weak defenses, the other catching me square in the nose. I can hear the crack, feel the blood gushing as I fall.

'You truly are worthless! You are nothing, nothing...'

His boots catch me in the ribs. For a second, I feel as if I am soaring, almost flying away like a balloon that has been set free. Then I crash, feeling the edge of the step disappear beneath my back. I try to hold on, but there is nothing left to hold on to, and I find myself falling backwards, unable to stop, the blackout looming overhead even as I tumble to the bottom of the staircase, bruised and battered and broken once more.

Severus screams, his voice breaking through the terrible pounding of blood in my head before it, too, is swallowed up by the threatening darkness.

'Mummy!'

*

fin

*