Casting Shadows

Casting Shadows

By Rickfan37

Chapter 1

A Birthday

"Give it back!"

"Not until you say sorry!"

"Sor-ry, sor-ry!"

"You've got to mean it, idiot!"

"Mum! Mum! Seffie called me an idiot and she won't give me back my Wicked Warlocks comic!"

A small boy with unruly brown hair and dark eyes jumped down from the high stool at the long oak table and made a run for the door, punching his sister in the side as he went. A tall, forbidding presence filled the opening, appearing silently as if from nowhere.

"And where do you think you're going, young man?"

The boy stopped in his tracks. "Hello, Dad! Er...you're home early!" he ventured.

Severus Snape arched one coldly expressive eyebrow and his son quaked. "On the contrary, Celsus. I would say that I arrived at precisely the right time."

The girl sitting at the kitchen table lifted the cause of their dispute to hide her face but could not stifle her snigger. Snape turned to her appraisingly. "Please explain yourselves, Persephone?"

"Uh-oh, you're in trouble!" Celsus said, sticking out his tongue in response to the angry glare from his elder sister.

"Hello, Father. Celsus left a toad in my bed and now there's slime everywhere."

"Hagrid told me to keep it safe!"

"Not in my bed!"

Snape shook his head in irritation and strode to the window, looking out into the orchard beyond.

"Where is your mother?"

Just then, Ella stepped in to the kitchen, flushed and smiling and carrying a large basket of apples, which she set down on the counter beside her husband.

"Severus!" she exclaimed, putting her hand on his arm and standing on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. "Love, what is it? Bad day?"

He grimaced and let her slip her arms around his waist, returning the gesture as her cheek rubbed against the row of buttons that decorated his otherwise plain black frock coat.

"Every day is a bad day," he rumbled. "My one consolation is that the year is nearly over and the dunderheads will soon leave me be for a few short, blissful weeks!"

Ella lifted her head and smiled, and he bent down to kiss her. It had been a long, eventful day and he had missed her.

"Eww, gross!" Persephone muttered in disgust, scraping back her chair and tossing the comic on to the table. "I'm going to my room."

"And I'm going next door!" announced Celsus importantly. "Auntie Hermione says she'll teach me all about swishing and flicking!"

"What? Oh, very well. Try not to make a nuisance of yourself, boy, or she might send you home early."

"Severus!" Ella said reproachfully, but she saw the amused look that he shared with his son and the boy scampered off happily. "Must you really bring your work home with you?" she said in mock annoyance. "Seffie and Celsus aren't your students, you know!"

"They will be, one day," Snape said, "And very soon, in Seffie's case. Besides, they know me well enough to see beyond any...sharpness of tone. Much as you do, love..."

He began to suck at the soft skin below Ella's ear and smirked as he felt her shiver in his arms. Eleven years of marriage and still he craved her taste. Now that the boy had gone to the Know-it-all's house and Seffie was in her room, no doubt engrossed in a book, he was assured at least an hour of time alone with his beloved wife before dinner.

"So...er...mm...oh, Severus, stop it!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Seffie might - "

He interrupted, speaking rapidly and low. "Persephone will not emerge from her room until called. She has several books still to read from the latest consignment from Flourish and Blotts. I have never known such an avid reader."

Ella's robe was now off one shoulder and her head fell back, eyes closed, as he pressed her lower back and pulled her closer, trailing kisses along every inch of newly exposed flesh.

"So you see," he continued, "We might as well be all alone..."

Ella withdrew her wand from the folds of her robe and with a languid flick of her wrists cast Silencing and Warding charms on the kitchen before wrapping her arms around her husband's neck and her legs around his waist, making him chuckle in amusement as he shifted her on to the table.

***

Upstairs in her room, Persephone Snape lay on her bed with her chin propped in her hands and pored over the latest acquisitions for her personal library while she wondered when her Hogwarts letter would arrive. She supposed it would be on her birthday, and that was still almost three weeks away. She sighed. It couldn't come soon enough, as far as she was concerned. Miss Lovegood was nice enough but had some very strange ideas for a teacher, and the curriculum was not what she would call taxing. Her father told her as much on a regular basis and she had to agree. She was so looking forward to studying under him properly, and not just watching him in his own personal lab at home.

She liked Hogwarts very much. It was their second home, after all, and some of her earliest memories were of playing with her doll in the Silent Quadrangle while her mother rocked Celsus in his pram and her father told them all about his day. She had belonged there all her life, even though she had not lived within its walls since she was small. Soon she would be going there as a student and only coming home for the holidays, and for the odd weekend.

Weekends were a compromise she had had to make. Her mother had wanted her to attend school as a day student, coming home with her father each night. Persephone had objected most strongly and had needed to enlist the help of her father before Ella had seen sense. Even his notorious powers of persuasion had almost failed him when Mum's eyes had filled with tears, but eventually a compromise plan had been drawn and, on the whole, both parties were content.

Now all she had to do was wait for her Hogwarts letter and wonder which House she would be sorted to. Slytherin would please her father, she suspected; but at the same time, Ravenclaw would be equally acceptable, for it was her mother's house and it was nauseatingly obvious that his love for her transcended house rivalries. Her mother, on the other hand, would probably worry if she was sorted into Slytherin. The old prejudices were still hard to overcome, even if you were married to an honourable man. Too many other alumni of that house were dark wizards for Ella to feel happy about her daughter being counted among their number.

Persephone sighed and rolled over on to her back, staring at the centre ceiling rose and counting the small flowers that circled its perimeter. There were always thirty two. It was quite comforting to know that every time she returned home, there would still be thirty two flowers around her ceiling rose, her parents would still be embarrassingly affectionate and her little brother would still be a complete pain in the neck.

Her eyes narrowed. There were a few hexes she had learned and not yet had the chance to practice. All that would change, when she got her first wand. Celsus wouldn't be putting any more toads in her bed, she'd make sure he suffered the consequences if he did. She reached behind her head, felt for her book and began to read.

***

Hours later, Ella lay awake and listened to the sound of her husband's breathing while she watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. Normally a foolproof soporific, tonight it failed to soothe her and she ached to reach for him and lose herself in his strength.

Their love had never faltered, not once, in the years since their joining. Not even on the night of their wedding when she had channelled her love for him into an outburst of power that had banished the Dark Mark from his flesh forever and so stripped from him a part of himself. Oh, it had been a part of him that he had yearned to shed, it was true, but even so he had felt the loss keenly. It had been as if every facet of his psyche had turned on that one small part, and when it was gone he was unbalanced and unsure. The first few days after their wedding had been spent comforting him, listening to him, even drying his tears of joy. Afterwards, when he had confessed to her that no-one had ever been allowed to see such vulnerability, himself included, she had vowed that no-one else ever would. She had been, and always would be, his rock, his safe haven. And he was, and always would be, hers.

She smiled to herself ruefully in the dark, and closed her eyes. He would miss Seffie more than he knew once she was at Hogwarts.

At last the day of Persephone's eleventh birthday dawned. Ella had spent the previous day whispering and plotting with Hermione, concealing Zonko's Singing Streamers and Everfloat balloons inside all available cupboards and making sure that Celsus refrained from peeking inside the carefully wrapped gifts she and Severus had chosen over the preceding weeks. Now, as she lay awake with her still-sleeping husband at her side and with no more left to do save to enjoy the day, she remembered circumstances of her daughter's birth.

She had gone into labour knowing neither where her beloved was, nor whether he would be able to return to her side to see his daughter born. She had been terrified, exhilarated, worried and excited all at the same time, and when he had appeared in the delivery room her heart had almost burst. He had stayed with her then and never left her side until their baby had been born.

She shifted on to her side, the better to watch him sleep. His face was unlined in repose, the deep crease between his brows almost ironed out, the wrinkles around his eyes, deeper with each passing year, mere feather light strokes on the canvas of his face. His hair had begun to grey at the temples, concealed from general view by the curtain of hair that habitually covered half his face. A secret known only to her, she thought, and one of many they shared.

As if roused into wakefulness by her scrutiny, his eyes snapped open and he turned his head, frown lines deepening in a silent demand for an explanation.

"What?" he said, after her unwavering gaze had held his for long moments. Ella smiled, and reached out to caress his cheek.

"It's our daughter's birthday today," she announced.

"As if I could forget," he countered. "I suspected my bureau of housing a boggart the other day, and wondered why my deepest fear was manifesting itself as a length of foil singing 'Happy Birthday Little Witch."

"Oh, that! You can blame Celsus for that, he insisted we surprise her with a selection of Zonko's finest party decorations!"

"Well, I have found over the years that I can blame Celsus for many minor misdemeanours. I hesitate to say it, but I almost hope he is not sorted into Slytherin, when his time comes. My duties as his Head of House would surely conflict with my role as a loving father!"

Ella laughed and hugged him, burying her face in his chest as he embraced her. "Speaking of Sorting," she said in a muffled voice, "Seffie's letter should come today."

"Indeed. We should rouse her, shouldn't we? In fact, I am quite surprised she hasn't graced us with her presence before now.

"She's growing up, love. She'd like us to think that she's far too mature to wake us at the crack of dawn so that she can open her presents."

"Perhaps so...but Celsus isn't, where's he? And don't tell me he's sleeping the sleep of the innocent because I know that's inherently improbable!"

Ella lifted her head and propped herself up on one elbow. "Hmm. I hope he isn't setting any more traps for her. He wouldn't, would he? Not after last year!"

"One would hope not...Come on. We'd better get up."

Ella knocked on her daughter's bedroom door and, hearing nothing, went inside. What she saw there froze her to the spot, horror seizing her cries and trapping them in the constriction of her throat.

Celsus stood in the middle of the room, white as death with tears running down his cheeks, frightened eyes searching hers and pleading with her to understand.

"It wasn't me, Mummy, it was a bad man! A bad man came and he took her away, and I was only hiding, that's all, only to surprise her! It wasn't me, Mummy, it was the bad man, he did it!"

The window was open, the shutters flapping and banging in the wind. Persephone's bed was empty. She was gone.

"Where is she? What happened?" Snape's voice was rasped with fear and the boy turned to run to him, shuddering in arms that held him fiercely before strong hands gripped his shoulders and pushed him away a little. "Celsus, tell me. Tell me everything you saw."

Celsus looked into Snape's eyes, the father now hunkered down to the son's height, and allowed him into his mind before swooning dead away.

Scooping the insensate boy up in his arms, Snape turned to Ella, ashen-faced.

"Death eaters!" he said incredulously.