The Beginning of the End

The Evans Girl - September 1970

"Severus!"

The scene changed, and Snape was again watching from a corner of his old bedroom, where the desk had become more cluttered and the wallpaper seemed to be more dingy than before. Persephone stood in his doorway, a little older now, but not much, dressed in a plain sack-like black dress that almost reached her ankles, her dark hair in two braids that she'd stuck little leaves into. He walked toward her and bent down toward the child, looking at her closely and noticing that the leaves were actually spreading slowly, gradually twisting through his sister's hair. A slow smile spread over his face and he resisted the urge to laugh. As he reached out to touch her, she stepped into the room past him and said to his younger counterpart, "There's ..." she stopped abruptly and looked around before lowering her voice conspiratorially and whispering, "another witch in our neighborhood!"

From behind him near the window a young voice asked, "What?"

"Another witch!" she mouthed, not wanting anyone to overhear her. He crossed the room and shut the door quietly behind them. "She's ... I think she's muggleborn. There are two of them, two girls, I mean, she has a sister, I think, but she seems to be useless."

Young Severus tilted his head as he listened to his sister. "The witch?"

"No, the sister!"

"Oh. Where did you see her?"

Persephone hesitated. "Well, I saw her, I didn't see her."

Severus raised one eyebrow and tilted his head slightly to one side. "I never know what that means."

The girl sighed. "Of course you do. I mean, I saw her in my head."

He sighed in response, rolling his eyes for effect and sitting down at his desk. "Then how do you know she's in our neighborhood?"

Persephone smiled serenely, the look of utter, blind confidence. "They were at the playground."

He snorted. "Well, how do you know it's our playground?"

Finally irritated, she snapped, "I don't know, I just know! How do you know which of those leaves are bad and which aren't? You know!"

With infinite smugness he replied, "I know because they all have different identifying marks, you goof."

"Well, our playground has four swings and a slide and tires to run through and bars, and a cluster of bushes and a patch of trees with a little hole at the top that you can see the sun through. And the sisters, they were swinging. They are swinging."

"Okay, that sounds like our playground, but ..."

Persephone sighed heavily and took his hand. "Come on! It's important that you meet that witch."

"Why?"

Persephone shrugged in a way that was at once amused with and totally exasperated by her brother. "I don't know why, maybe you're going to marry her and become Minister of Magic."

Severus glanced at his sister uneasily. "Am I?"

Persephone laughed. "I don't think so! I'm six, what do you want?"

"You are extremely annoying," he said, patting her on the head absent-mindedly and standing to his feet. "I'm going to go check it out, then."

"No, no, no!"

Severus stopped before he reached the door. "What now?"

"Muggle clothes!"

"You said she was a witch!"

"Well, she is, but ... her sister isn't, and I don't think she's used to us. Muggle born?"

He nodded briefly and stared through the older Snape, at a small dresser in the corner. "What do muggles wear?"

Persephone squinted and looked around the room, deep in thought. "Father wears suits."

"I don't have a suit."

They sat in silence, each glancing around the room as if someone were going to walk in with a new set of clothes, completely suitable for the occasion.

"What do the children wear in your class?"

"Oh. We all wear the same thing, you know what I wear. But boys don't wear skirts. They wear pants, of course. And ties! And ... blouses!"

"That sounds ... complicated. I'm going like this."

Persephone scowled and seemed to consider his apparel. "Just go."

"You aren't coming?"

"Mother put that tracking charm on me, remember? Can't."

The tracking charm had been implemented after Persephone had gone missing one recent afternoon on her way home from school. Their furious mother had spent three hours scouring the neighborhood for her, alongside a terrified Severus. When they had found her, at home eating a scone with pomegranate jelly, she would not satisfactorily answer their mother on where she had been, or with whom. Severus tried to ask her when they were alone but she only told him that she had things to do, and that she had been perfectly safe, and didn't pomegranate jelly taste especially good? Severus had been reading through all of the books he could find on how to get around that particular piece of their mother's magic but had not yet found it. He was going alone.

The adult Snape walked through memories, passing by Lily on the playground, and his mother's furious nightly inquisitions of Persephone, who was completely unmovable, to a day about a year later. As he approached the small hill closeted by a grove of trees, he immediately recognized the red hair of Lily Evans, and noted with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment that his younger self was leaning extremely close to her without actually touching her. A book was in front of them, and Lily was turning the pages while Severus watched her, smiling as she exclaimed over each illustration, marveling over the moving figures. From out of another cluster of trees he heard Persephone laughing, chattering, and as she walked into the clearing where he and Lily sat he noticed that she was alone.

"Hello, Severus!" she said cheerfully, sitting down across from her brother and his friend and offering her hand in greeting to Lily. As Lily glanced at Severus and grinned at him, she shook Persephone's hand and did not catch the slight crease of the girl's brow as their hands met.

"Lily, this annoying creature is my sister."

Persephone pulled her hand away discretely, recovering her smile and saying with certainty, "You're Lily Evans, of course. Severus ..." she paused, glancing at her brother, who was shaking his head in a very subtle but clear manner, "has mentioned you. "

Lily smiled and nodded. "And you're Persephone, right? Like the goddess of the underworld?"

Both Snape siblings said together, "The who?"

"You didn't know? Oh, yes. Persephone was the queen of the underworld. She ruled ghosts and carried out curses. She was picking flowers one day and Hades, he was the King of the Underworld, he took her away to live with him and to rule with him. Her mother was the goddess of the harvest and when her daughter was taken, she was so sad that crops stopped growing and the whole world would've died if Zeus hadn't stepped in. He made Hades give Persephone back to her mother, but he tricked her into eating a pomegranate and she had to spend part of the year with him, and that's why things don't grow in the winter - because her mother is sad and Persephone is in the underworld."

The two dark haired Snapes each tilted their heads at almost identical angles and spoke at the same time.

"Ruling the ghosts," Persephone said, disbelievingly.

"Pomegranate?" asked Severus, as if a heavy realization was dawning on him.

Persephone visibly shuddered. "Don't know that I'd like that much," she said, disdain clearly evident in her voice. "Ghosts aren't very interesting."

Forgetting his train of thought for a moment, Severus asked, "And you've met a lot of ghosts, have you?" It was difficult to tell from his tone if he was teasing her or asking an earnest question.

"Oh, a couple, here or there, not ghosts so much as ...." Suddenly she stopped and grinned at them both. "The curses, though, that might be interesting. Think people go around cursing each other all the time, or just once in a while? I wonder if that would keep you very busy, or if you'd have time for a hobby?"

Severus rolled his eyes. "Are you thinking of applying for the job?"

Persephone laughed. "I'm seven, too young to be queen!"

Lily smiled, pleased that her story seemed to interest both of her conversation partners at the same time.

Persephone glanced at Severus. "Seems sort of daft, really. Why would they name me after someone who got carted off to the underworld? Mother would be perfectly happy if someone carted me off, I think. As long as they left a note. "Took your daughter. See you in spring. Sincerely, King of the Underworld."

Lily grinned again. "Does seem a little strange. But why would my parents name me after a flower?"

"Well, flowers are pretty, and you're pretty. I like your hair."

Severus leaned closer to Lily, daring to take a lock of her long red hair in his hand, lifting it to his nose and inhaling. "It smells like flowers, too. Muggles bathe in flowers, apparently."

Lily nudged him, grinning, and said to Persephone, "You're pretty, too. I wish I had curls like you, they're so perfect and springy looking."

Persephone glanced down at her dark hair and took a curl in her hand, bouncing it against the palm of her other hand. "Springy! I like my curls. But red is much better."

Persephone turned suddenly, looking back toward the trees she'd emerged from. "I have to go, but it was nice meeting you." She stood and offered her hand to her brother, who took it for a moment and released it in a strange, mutual show of affection, and then ran off again toward the trees, leaving Severus and Lily sitting alone together once again.

"I like your sister. She's very odd, for a little girl, isn't she? I mean, she doesn't really talk like a little girl."

Severus shrugged his shoulders. "She is. Odd, I mean. She's ... a seer. I don't think she really spends all her time in this world, if you know what I mean. She has her own world, in her head."

Lily smiled and patted his hand, causing his cheeks to redden slightly. "You really like her, though. You seem happier when she's around."

"Is that weird?"

Lily shook her head solemnly. "No. I think it's wonderful, actually. I worry about you, about your father and mother. I'm glad you have her as a sister. I wish my sister loved me. It would be nice to have a friend living in your house with you."

"It helps. But your sister had better leave her alone, though. I won't have her hurting Persephone."

Lily frowned. "I won't let her do anything to her. Like I said, I like your sister."

Severus nodded, relaxing. "Don't say anything about her, please. Our father - well, our mother, too, they'd be frightened of her."

Lily laughed uncertainly. "Afraid, of your sister? But why?"

"Just promise."

The scene faded, and the adult Severus glanced around, watching as the small dining room of their home came into focus, and the sounds of screaming began to clarify into more than an unidentifiable jumble of words. Resisting the urge to turn away, he made himself utterly still as he watched the members of his family engage in a flurry of activity.

Tobias Snape had cornered their mother and was yelling at her, Severus in a chokehold against his chest. He was pointing vaguely at Persephone, who was standing silently with shorn locks of her hair in her hands. Severus was grasping wildly at his father's arm, trying to break free. Their mother was crying, screaming back at her husband, trying to say that it was for the girl's own good, she spent too much time looking at herself in the mirror, she was vain and had to be taught humility, and she was answered harshly with a slap across the face than made her crumple onto the floor, sobbing. Tobias whirled Severus around, taking his shoulders in his hands and shaking him violently, asking, "Why didn't you stop her, damn you? You little bastard, why didn't you stop that woman from maiming your sister?"

He raised his hand to strike Severus across the face and suddenly Persephone sprang to life, leaping toward him and pulling at his hand, shouting, "Father! Look, I can make it come back, I can make it long again, Papa, look!"

Severus leapt at her, pushing her aside harshly and getting between her and their father, "No, Father, she's lying, she can't make it grow back, it's my fault, it's my fault!"
Their father knocked Severus to the floor where he landed close to his sister, and they made eye contact. As the man proceeded to pick up a cane and hit his son across the back and legs, the two siblings held their eye contact. Suddenly, instead of the dingy room, they were on a cliff, overlooking the ocean, and dolphins were playing in the water below them, skipping on their tails over the waves. "Do you know why they do that, Sev?" he could hear her whispering to him faintly, and he heard his whispered answer to her, "No, why?"

"Because they can."

They exchanged smiles and linked hands, watching the dolphins together for a few moments more, before the water faded and all was quiet except for the sound of their mother sobbing, and the sound of a slamming door. Slowly the room came back into view and Severus got onto his hands and knees, pulled his sister to him and stood stiffly, carrying her to her room and collapsing beside her on her tiny bed. She looked up just long enough to wave her hand at the door, ensuring that they would not be bothered again that night.
The scene faded again, and Severus was sitting beside his sister, watching her hair as it lengthened to its prior state. His voice was strained when he spoke. "Seph. Where were we?"

"Far."

He winced and stretched his legs out. "How?"

Persephone leaned against her brother and rested her head on his shoulder. "It's ... hard to explain. I've been there, though, with the skeleton man, and that's how I was able to take you with me, in my mind."

Severus sat perfectly still while he listened to her, and for a long while after. "I've read about it. It's called occulmency, but it's very advanced."

"The skeleton man taught me, and how to shield my thoughts, if I have to. To keep people out of my mind, I mean. I can teach you."

"Does the skeleton man, what does he think about ..."

Persephone glanced up at him. "About dark arts? What are dark arts?"

Severus frowned. "Curses, hexes. Some potions, I suppose, would be dark. And don't do that, don't look into my mind if I don't know. Please."

Persephone raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "I don't think he thinks in dark or light. I think he thinks mostly about what will get the job done."

Severus smiled. "He sounds like a Slytherin."

"He says that no one is all good, or all bad, and that there is no justice, in the end, only him." She raised her head and stared off into space, "In the end, the choices you make determine your worth. Choices are never good or bad, they just are. It's the reason behind the choices that tell you what a man is made of." That's what he said once. I don't know what it means. Only, make good choices." She paused, then pointed out, just to clarify, "And I asked him about girls, and he said girls, too."

Severus chuckled and grimaced again. Even when she was being extremely smart, she was, at heart, a seven year old girl, and it made him glad. "What sorts of things do you do with him, Persephone?"

"Oh, we talk, mostly, and sometimes he teaches me things, like blocking my thoughts, or looking into someone else's, and he helps me learn how to control things. If I'm not careful, I can make everything bloom, or everything wilt. And I can see, if I try, but I don't understand what is real, and what is now, and what isn't. He's trying to help me to learn how."

"Why?"

"Because he says I could go mad if I don't know how to control my powers, long before I have a chance to get to Hogwarts. "

Severus considered this and decided to let it go. "Could he do something about Father?"

"I don't know. He just says that I mustn't."

Severus frowned and nodded, trying to make sense of these new bits of information, before drifting off to sleep and out of sight of the grown Snape.