Prolouge
Prologue
Seraphina was young when her mother died. Young enough that she can barely remember her loving touch or soothing words. She does remember one thing though: Her mother fiercely loved her and her father.
So much so that she died for them.
Seraphina has always known that her father was a typical father. He wasn’t conventionally nurturing or warm, he wasn't even particularly nice. And yet her mother loved him and Seraphina too loved him. Her father was complex, to the point that he ended up on the wrong side of the war. During the First Wizarding War her father was a Deatheater, one of Voldemort’s most trusted. He even had the Dark Mark to prove it.
While Seraphina’s mother loved her father with the entire essence of her being, her father didn’t. His heart and affections belonged to another woman, another married woman. In fact, her father loved the only woman that mattered during the War.
Seraphina’s father is Severus Snape. And he was unconditionally in love with Lily Potter, always.
Once Severus realised that his Love was a target during the War his loyalty to her won over, and he became a spy, a double agent, a traitor depending on who you ask. He worked closely with Dumbledore, feeding him information he’d acquired about the Deatheater’s plans. His role as an informant was crucial for the defeat of Voldemort’s loyalists, and continued after the ‘Dark Lord’ had fallen. He gave away locations, names, the crimes they committed. All for Lily.
And the cost was Evelyn Snape.
One night there was a bang. A light. A scream. So violent that it awoke little Seraphina. Her childhood innocence didn’t register the activity as anything dangerous or suspicious, she just assumed her parents were playing without her. And so she wanted to join them. Her little legs carried her out of her bed, through her door and down towards the stairs.
Until her foot became wet.
Even her infantile mind registered that as strange. She did what any person would do when they encounter an unknown source of wetness on the bottom of their foot, she looked and she saw red. Seraphina looked up from her foot and down the stairs in front of her and she saw her father holding her mother- no, not her mother. Her mother’s body.
The bang she heard was a Deatheater looking for her father. Regardless of how careful he was, this Deatheater still suspected his lack of loyalty to their ‘Dark Lord’ and came to eliminate him with a swift Avada Kedavra. However, as their wand pointed towards Severus’ chest, Evelyn could not stand idle and instead jumped between the curse and the man that she loved wholly and without demand. Evelyn was struck in the chest and died with a singular scream on her lips, “I’m sorry”. The Deatheater fled and left the devastation they caused behind them.
From that moment on Seraphina and her father lived on with the memory of Evelyn and her sacrifice: It became a constant reminder of the cost of war, the dangers of love.
Again, Seraphina’s father wasn’t nurturing or warm, he raised her with expectations and intense calculation. They never hugged, they never exchanged ‘I love you’s. Instead they brewed. Seraphina inherited her fathers potioneering skills and became his little prodigy, her hard work rewarded with silent gifts of rare ingredients on her workspace. Over time she became familiar with his mannerisms, the slight flickering of his gaze when she’d made him proud- and she never sought his approval in conventional ways. For that was not the man her father was, and she loved him as he was.
Their relationship wasn’t without its troubles. Seraphina inherited Severus’ sharp tongue and Evelyn's wit, but what she lacked was their restraint. She was constantly engaging in intense, intellectual arguments, both emotionally charged with no way of properly expressing those emotions. But despite their clashes and Serpahina’s ability to challenge her father in ways no one else can, they were allies in a quiet war. Bound by blood, loss and loyalty.
And that was what made it so complicated when Seraphina fell for the man who represented everything she should stay away from. George Weasley.