A Merciless Affection

Chapter 27: Uptown Girl

The Snapes lived above a little shop without a proper sign, but with a yellowing placard in the window that said 'Finest Ingredients--Wholesale.' No samples of said ingredients were visible from the street. Indeed, the shop appeared to have been abandoned.

They were met at the door by a man who looked enough like Devin that they must be brothers, although his hair was a mousy brown and his face broader and less handsome. Nicholas Crabbe, he introduced himself to Sarah as she took off her veil. He went ahead of them up the stairs to the flat on the first floor.

She was not expecting much, but the place was surprisingly cozy. A feminine hand with a sense of taste had arranged these rooms. The female in question emerged from the kitchen at that moment with a large platter of ham.

"Come in, come in," she beckoned, then set herself about easing the platter into place on the generously loaded table. When she was satisfied with the arrangement, she turned, wiping her hands on her large white apron. "Caius!" she called into the next room, "our guests are here. It's good to see you, Severus. And Miss...?"

"Sarah," Sarah supplied quickly. Severus had warned her to not volunteer her surname (past or present) to anyone.

The woman's steel-grey eyes studied her sharply, though not unkindly.

"Miriam Snape," she said, extending a hand to the younger woman. She was a little past middle life, with greying hair wound around her head in a braid which peeked from under the edges of a sensibly short hat. She had a face that was pleasant rather than fair, and the beginnings her wrinkles hinted that they would fall into graceful lines in her old age. "Do sit down," she requested. "We're ready to eat. No sense in letting the food go cold. It never tastes the same, charmed warm again. Caius!"

"I'm here, woman," said Caius, lumbering into the room, as Severus pulled out a chair for Sarah. She sat quickly, wondering how her appetite would fare with this man at the table. "Well, Severus, I see you brought the little moll."

Miriam laughed, a sound that was at once hearty and musical.

"A moll? Have you misplaced your eyes, Caius Snape? Or maybe you don't do business enough these days with the right sorts of people." Miriam sat at end of the table nearest the kitchen. "Look at how she sits. How she holds herself."

Sarah squirmed inwardly as every eye in the room turn toward her.

"That's never a street girl. That's quality."

Caius grunted as he pulled out his own chair at the other end of the table. "Well," he allowed, "Severus said she was his apprentice."

"She is my apprentice," Severus said, with a hint of sullenness.

With the two Crabbes seated opposite her and Severus, and Miriam on her left hand, Sarah felt rather overwhelmed. Caius started passing the serving dishes around the table.

"You've met Miriam, my wife," he said, nodding in her direction. "These are her boys, Nick and Devin Crabbe." Each man bobbed his head as his step-father introduced him.

The ham was very good, but Sarah could only pick at it, with the constant barrage of stares that came her way as everyone began silently to eat. She was definitely not accustomed to this sort of attention.

"She must be something special, eh, Sev?" Devin said. She felt the man's boot touch her ankle under the table, and she drew her feet back hastily. "How long's it been since you took an apprentice?"

Nick snorted, almost losing a mouthful of food.

"Nicholas!" Miriam cautioned. But she was studying Sarah herself, with a shrewd expression.

Caius said, "Severus's never had a girl apprentice, what I've heard tell of." The look in his eyes, a combination of envy and disdain, told her that he plainly believed that his nephew was bedding her, apprentice or no.

"Severus has never brought anyone to dinner here before, moll or apprentice," Miriam said. She took a sip from her goblet. "I do believe that he intends to marry her. If he hasn't already," she added, as she saw Sarah startle.

Sarah turned an anxious look on Severus. But he remained bent intently over his plate, his hair effectively concealing his expression.

"Trust Mum to get to the heart of things," said Devin.

Nick was gaping. "What kind of potion did you have to give her?"

"You couldn't even afford the ingredients," Severus said silkily, lifting his head; his smirk was now clearly visible.

"She's a child!" Caius spluttered.

"Hmmm," said Miriam. "Such a crime, is it, for a man to marry a woman some fifteen years his junior?"

Devin and Nick hooted with sudden laughter. From the way Caius was glaring, it was obvious the joke was at his expense.

"She can't be more than twenty." He glowered. Sarah schooled her expression to show nothing. What the man would say if he knew she was still a student was something she did not care to know.

"You're just envious, Pop," Devin said.

Miriam was smirking intently at him down the length of the table, swirling her goblet with an air that was almost comically menacing.

Caius subsided for moment, devouring his food as if he were imagining that it was his disrespectful family.

"You won't have my blessing on bestowing her with the family name, if that's what you mean to do," he commented after a few bites.

"I have not asked your blessing for anything."

"Severus..." Miriam warned quietly.

"And what's her family say to this?" Caius went on, lower and more threatening. "If she is quality, they'll not like her taking up with the likes of you. You've been real slow to tell her family name, Severus. What're you playing at?"

"Her family name is Darkglass." Severus dropped that information like a heavy stone into a pond; it did not fail to set off ripples.

Devin whistled low. Nick stopped chewing with his mouth partway open. A smile played around Miriam lips, and she murmured, "Quality indeed."

"I thought most of them'ed died out," Nick commented, upon hastily swallowing.

"They had," Caius said warily. "Last one I knew of went to Azkaban, I thought, some ten years ago. But I don't recall that he was among the ones as broke out this winter." He studied her calculatingly, as if she knew some secret he would like to hear.

"He didn't go to Azkaban," Sarah said grimly. "The Aurors killed him."

"Well, well." Caius Snape's beetle-black eyes glittered, and he turned them on Severus. "That's a cat of a different color, isn't it? I suppose he gave her to you?"

From the sudden dead silence in the room, it was clear that not one person at the table had any doubts to whom Caius was referring. Nor, as Sarah took in the looks on the others' faces, was there any question that every one of them knew that Severus was a Death Eater.

"No," he replied bluntly.

"He is back though, isn't he? We've heard...things." Caius's voice was low and hoarse.

As she watched Severus's eyes sweep over his family, she felt a sudden chill. For all their jibes and jokes and pettiness, they had just been reminded who held the most power in this room.

"Yes." He stabbed another piece of ham with his fork.

Sarah happened to glance over at Miriam. The woman's lips were a thin line, not unlike McGonagall's when she was angry, although Miriam did not seem angry, exactly. Worried was closer, perhaps.

"Y'think things'll get better 'round here?" Nick asked.

Sarah wondered what it meant that not a single person answered.

* * *

"Come help me with the pudding, Sarah," Miriam said, after this silence had dragged on a while, broken only by the clink of silverware. Grateful for the least reprieve, Sarah followed her hostess into the kitchen.

"There now, let's have a proper look at you." The woman turned and held her at arm's length; her astute eyes went from Sarah's hair to her toes and back again. "Tell me, has he married you?"

"Yes," Sarah said, then felt compelled to add hastily, "But I am his apprentice."

"Why should I doubt that?" Miriam asked. "Masters do marry their apprentices from time to time. I suppose that might be discouraged at Hogwarts, though, might'nt it? I confess I never thought I'd see Severus marry." She was still studying Sarah carefully. She caught the lower corners of Sarah's blouse, spread them out and pushed them back. "What are you, four months gone?"

Sarah's heart did a terrific flip-flop. "Does it show so much?" she gasped, smoothing her hands down her blouse. She had planned to go to Madame Pomfrey for the magical girdle after the holiday, but now it appeared that her caution was too late. "No one is supposed to know."

"Hmm, then you'll be taking Carry-Close, won't you? Five months then?"

Sarah's mouth gaped open. "Yes. Is it horribly obvious?" she asked, distraught. The subtle curve of her stomach seemed suddenly enormous.

"Never fear, girl." Miriam laid a hand on the anxious arm with which Sarah was measuring herself. "I do what I can for the girls around here, so I know what to look for. Only someone with the eyes to see it or a reason to think it would guess about you yet. But let me warn you, if you're trying to keep this a secret," her smile turned solemn, "your eyes will betray you before your belly ever will. I've seen already how you look at him--a woman only looks like that at the father of her child."

Sarah found a chair and sat down trembling, while Miriam bent to take a pitcher from the cold cupboard. She watched the older woman pour cream into a stone bowl and set a whisk to beating it. Then she drew up a tall stool and perched on it to keep one eye on the whisk and the other on Sarah.

"If you're willing to tell me, I'd like to know the truth. Did he marry you before or after he found out about that?" She pointed.

Sarah felt her face flush. "After," she admitted. "But I didn't make him, if that's what you're thinking." She sensed that somehow this aunt-by-marriage felt more protective of Severus than his uncle did. "He insisted on it. I didn't even want to..."

"Well, you have brought your family rather down in the world by it, haven't you?" It was first truly sharp thing that Miriam had said to her.

Sarah found herself almost desperate to regain the woman's goodwill. "I never even thought of that! I didn't..."

"You didn't know," Miriam concluded, with half a sigh, the edge going off her voice, to be replaced with resignation. "Not until he brought you here."

"He's a teacher," Sarah said lamely. "No one would expect..."

"No, they wouldn't. He's worked hard for that, you know. A respectable profession. More than most lads here could ever aspire to, much less the grandson of a supplier. Born on the wrong side of the blankets to boot." She fixed Sarah with a hard look, as if to ascertain whether she had told the young woman something else she did not know. "He wanted out of here, more than most can even imagine. Enough to break with Caius and side with the old man. As if Marcus Snape ever had anything but a coarse word for the boy until he discovered he might be worth something to him."

"He sent him to Hogwarts," Sarah said, still wanting to believe that someone had once been kind to him.

Miriam shrugged. "Severus was bright. Everybody knew it. Too bright to waste his talents keeping ledgers and hiding things from Ministry inspectors, the way Caius wanted. The Malfoys had become Marcus's chief patrons. Old Mister Malfoy offered to sponsor Severus to Hogwarts, when his letter came. It was understood, of course, that a good part of the extra profits he'd bring, once he was trained, would spill over into the Malfoys' hands."

Sarah stiffened slightly. She had dismissed Draco's assertions of Professor Snape's obligations to the Malfoy family as simply more of the brat's arrogant bluster. Apparently not.

"I don't know if he ever really believed that would content him," Miriam went on. "But at school he found bigger fish to fry. Malfoy's son was already there, and a prefect in Slytherin, and he drew Severus into his circle, probably almost as a slave to start with, from what I could make out at the time. But even after Lucius left Hogwarts, Severus was mixed up with the same crowd, all of them eager to find a place under the new power that was rising." Miriam was frowning slightly now.

"And he found one," Sarah murmured, trying to hide a shudder.

"Yes. You knew about that?" Miriam raised her eyebrows.

"I...found out."

"That wasn't what drew you in, then?" She seemed to be asking something more than her words. Then she jumped. "Laws, that'll be butter soon!" She stopped the whisk and tasted the whipped cream. "Whew, just in time. Suppose you get the cake; it's there in the right-hand cupboard."

Sarah brought the tall sponge cake to the table where Miriam was working, and watched as the woman spooned the stiff cream over it.

"He found a good position, there at Hogwarts, in the end," Miriam commented as she worked, still the hint of a hidden meaning in her voice. She glanced warily at Sarah. "Don't you think?"

"Yes," Sarah said, "it is." She was not sure how Miriam could possibly know that Severus's loyalties had changed. Perhaps she didn't. Perhaps she only meant that teaching at Hogwarts was preferable to a career of torture and murder. And if she did know where Severus's loyalties truly lay.... "If it is the end."

"Does anything ever really end?" Miriam puffed out a sigh. "We all just muddle along the best we can, don't we?"

Sarah nodded, not entirely set at ease by that response. She wondered if she had only imagined Miriam's subtle hints.

There was a shout from the other room. Caius. "It's been long enough, had'nit?"

Miriam picked up the plate with the cake. "If you're ever in trouble, Sarah, come to me. Understand?"

"Thank you," Sarah said. She moved to hold open the door into the dining room.

* * *

The talk appeared to have turned to Quidditch while they were in the kitchen. Devin and Nick were debating the relative merits of the Wimbourne Wasps' new and former Keepers. The new Keeper, Ian Pritchard, had been on the Slytherin team (Sarah vaguely remembered him from her first couple of years), and Severus kept taking Nick's side in the debate, pointing out the young man's favored tactics and describing incidents in Hogswarts games of years gone by. Caius, fortified by the cake, started in on the differences between amateur and professional players, seeming bent on proving that Pritchard's record at Hogwarts meant nothing in the real sporting world. It was a side of Severus she had not seen since the afternoon of their wedding (and, under the circumstances, she had not taken it seriously), and she was a little disconcerted. She was thankful that he talked potions to her.

"You must have seen him play," Nick appealed to her. "What do you think?"

"I..." Sarah stammered. Well, the truth? "I honestly never cared that much for Quidditch." She was met with blank stares from the Crabbes, a superior look from Caius, and an amused smirk from Miriam. She didn't dare glance at Severus. "But really," she went on, "Slytherin won the House Cup every year he was on the team, didn't they? That ought to count for something."

"Codswallop," Caius said, around a mouthful of cake. "Whad'ya ask her for?"

"Oh, and can you tell me how many League players have not played first at Hogwarts?" Severus asked.

"Danny O'Hearn," Devin popped up.

Sarah sank lower in her chair, feeling foolish, while the debate raged on. Her eyes were glazing over by the time Miriam rescued her: "Help me with the wash-up."

* * *

Sarah felt even more foolish as she found herself almost useless in facing the task. Miriam had to teach her the appropriate dishwashing charms for dealing with an entire sinkful of dishes.

"I'm so sorry," Sarah said, as a couple of the plates bumped together a bit too hard and one broke. "Reparo!" The broken bits came together again, to her relief. "I feel so stupid."

"What, because you've never washed dishes? That's spoiled, not stupid." Miriam favored her with a sardonic smile. "And you didn't spoil yourself, now did you?"

"I've never known any different," Sarah said sheepishly.

"Course not. But so long as you're willing to learn...."

"Well, I don't imagine I'll have house-elves to look after me my whole life. I mean, I never thought that, exactly." Although, really, she had never thought much about it. Her fantasies of meeting some nice young wizard and settling down to run a Potions shop together had never gone into such nitty-gritty details as who would wash the dishes.

"You never had any reason to think about it," Miriam said pragmatically, with a shrug.

Sarah was not sure what to reply--no, I haven't, felt redundant--and so they lapsed into silence for the moment.

"Can I ask you something?" Sarah said, after a bit.

"Certainly," Miriam said, sending the dried dishes, one by one, to rest in the cupboard.

"It's kind of..." Sarah blushed and grimaced at once. "Why would a witch...sell herself? To wizards, I mean? Are people that poor here?"

Miriam studied her. "Terrible to think of, is it? And for the most part, a woman does have to be very desperate to consider earning her bread that way. But a lot of the girls down there are Squibs, with no other way to make a living in this world, nor perhaps in the Muggle world, if they felt able to leave this one. But you...why the disguise? Caius couldn't help noticing," she shot a derisive glance in the direction of the other room, "that you're trying to dress the part. Though as I said before, you aren't especially convincing at it."

"Well..." Sarah said, "Severus didn't think I could walk through Knockturn Alley as myself without attracting attention." Even with my mother's spell.

"Hmmm, I suppose he was right about that," Miriam conceded.

"And like you also said, these sorts of things are frowned on at Hogwarts. If anyone carried tales...."

"I see," Miriam said, and the way she raised her eyebrows made Sarah wonder if, in fact, she had just given away the whole truth to this woman.

"Ought I to stay inside the whole week?" she asked, reluctant to accept that advice, even if it were given. "I do wear a veil when we go out, so as not to be recognized."

Miriam spent a moment in thought. "Well, you're not likely to be questioned with Severus there to protect you. Still, you might try to look a little more beaten down, if you can."

Sarah let her shoulders droop, more in frustration than as an experiment. But Miriam laughed. "Keep working on it. And come back again before you leave."

"What about Caius?" Sarah asked, lowering her voice. As she did so, the already half-noticed sound of an increase in volume in the other room became very apparent. She winced. "I don't think Severus will come back here again, and I don't think he'll let me go anywhere without him. Especially if Caius is here."

"Why--can't you come when Caius isn't here?" Miriam said, as if it were obvious. "This may be the first time in five years that Severus has been in the same room with his uncle, but he knows how to show up here for a decent meal now and again."

"I'll try," Sarah said, wishing she could promise.

"We're going," Severus announced from the doorway into the dining room. The arguing had stopped, but his face was sour.

"Thank you, Miriam," Sarah bid farewell, adding, "Aunt Miriam."

The elder Mrs. Snape returned the smile. "I enjoyed it, Sarah. Fare you well. And you, Severus."

"Goodbye, Miriam," he said, with only a hint of gruffness. "Now, Sarah."

He led her out, while Caius glowered. "One of these days, Severus, somebody'll notice just how far you've got above yourself," he barked. He came to the upstairs door as they went down the stairs. "Don't say I didn't warn you when you get lopped off at the neck." He made a hissing sound that finished with a click. "Don't say I didn't..." the rest of his advice was cut off as Severus closed the door that had let them out into the street.

* * *

They made their way back toward the flat in the growing twilight. The daylight denizens of Knockturn Alley were fading indoors, while the nighttime dwellers oozed slowly out and about their own business. Sarah clung closer to Severus's side.

Almost everyone still on the street had their wands out, as if they expected to be attacked at any moment. Those who didn't display wands gave off the impression that you wouldn't want to mess with them, regardless. Severus did not have his wand out, although she noticed, as they started back, that he had slipped it into his sleeve for quick retrieval. She took a similar precaution.

"You let him intimidate you," Severus murmured harshly under his breath.

It took her a moment to realize that he was referring to Caius.

"He must have given you lessons in that," Sarah quipped softly, not willing to be criticized for her failure to do whatever it was he had expected.

"I didn't think it worked on you any longer."

"I don't know him as well as I know you. Besides, you said to be nice. Did you count on me behaving like a Gryffindor?"

"Shhh," he silenced her.

Of course, that was not a good name to utter here.

Sarah glanced around, wondering who might have heard, but the veil was becoming almost impossible to see through in the increasing darkness. The street lamps were few and far between, and only a little light spilled out of a very few windows. Deciding that her face was safe enough from recognition in the dimness, she slipped the veil down. A sudden movement caught the corner of her eye and she peered in alarm over her shoulder. A shape with a seemingly odd limb configuration under its cloak was crossing the street behind them. She watched, half in horrified curiosity, half in fear of sudden attack.

It was not from behind that the danger came, however. Sarah's arm was jolted when her guide abruptly stopped, just as a smooth, cultured voice said, "Why, good evening, Severus."