January 9, 1991
The muddy river, surrounded by tall, overgrown grass, and seemingly abandoned dirty banks, meandered between the spooky shores. Its route took it beneath the ominous shadow of a massive chimney that seemed to have been abandoned from an old mill. Even if it weren't the middle of the night, the atmosphere wouldn't be any less eeire. This had to be the most cursed and sinister street in Northern England. One should beware even of an ant if it emerged from this street. It was the place of the downtrodden, the abandoned, the drunkards – in short, the hub of "dirty deeds."
With a soft 'pop' sound, an elegant figure appeared out of nowhere at the beginning of this wicked street. The woman was dressed entirely in black from head to toe. Her face was concealed by a hood. She wore a thick traveling cloak that rustled gently in the falling snow. The hood of the cloak covered her long, jet-black hair. The woman hastened along the filthy river, all the while rubbing her hands, which had turned almost entirely white in the night's cold.
She hurriedly ascended the slope that separated the river from a narrow, cobblestone-paved street, passing through a row of old railings. From her inner pocket, she pulled out a slim, long wand with hurried hands and directed her gaze towards the other side of the road, where rows of dilapidated brick houses stood in the dark, appearing gloomy and old. Although her face remained hidden beneath her hood, her posture betrayed her hesitation, a telltale sign that someone observant could decipher. Then, as if she had made a sudden decision, she started walking. Passing through a gap in the rusty railings, she walked quickly to the other side of the street. Her cloak fluttered behind her, and she proceeded through a narrow alley between the houses. Her posture was the only indicator of her indecision, as her face remained hidden. She passed through a gap between rusty railings and quickly moved to the other side of the street. Her cloak fluttered behind her as she navigated through a narrow alley between the houses. Finally, she reached the last house, where a dim light shimmered between the curtains of the ground floor. Before knocking on the door, the woman held her breath in astonishment. She appeared to be expecting no one to be inside, as though she hadn't anticipated it. She gently knocked on the door, took light breaths, inhaled the scent carried on the night breeze from the foul river, and started to wait.
At first, some soft footsteps was heard, and then a man with curtains of black hair on both sides of his pale face with even darker eyes opened the door. The woman, dressed in black, slowly lowered her hood. The man with long black hair had opened the door all the way, using his slender fingers to gesture for her to come inside.
They entered a tiny living room that immediately gave off the feeling of being a cell with its black cushioned walls. The walls were adorned with dark-covered books from top to bottom. In the pale light of a hanging lamp filled with candles that cast a dim glow, a deflated couch, an old armchair, and a rocking table were huddled together. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. It was hard to believe that someone lives here.
The woman gathered her black hair on her right shoulder with her hands and sat on the couch without waiting for an invitation. The pale-skinned man, either in his late twenties, or early thirties, took a seat in the armchair across from her. For quite some time, they looked at each other without saying a word. The man, through his gaze, seemed to be penetrating the other's eyes.
This woman appeared to be twenty-five years old at most. Her skin was incredibly fair, and her eyes were baby blue, not the sea or the sky, but a perfect description for the innocence held in a child's eyes, baby blue. She had a bony face, a very small perfect nose, and a mouth that could be considered rather large. Her lips were deeply red from the cold. She was beautiful, very beautiful. Not sexy, not feminine, and not fitting any other description, just beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful. As fitting as this man seemed for this gloomy place, the woman didn't. It was as if she had been plucked from the middle of spring and flowery meadows and carelessly thrown into this horrible place.
"You've surprised me. What do I owe this visit to?" he broke the silence with a soft, dangerous, and strangely provocative voice.
The woman blinked her eyes. She was annoyed. She was curious about the answer to the question herself. A few more long minutes passed in the irritating silence.
"You still live here, I see." she finally said.
The young man didn't reply. He continued to scrutinize the girl with assessing eyes. He had a tired face. There was such a look in his black eyes that didn't belong to a thirty-year-old. These looks could only belong to someone old, someone who had endured the hardships of the years, someone who had gone through the vicissitudes of life. As if justifying the whiskey bottle that was half-empty on the table, he smelled like whiskey. He didn't seem drunk or tipsy, but he probably wanted to be.
"Would you like a drink?"
"Why not," the woman said, breathing heavily. She hadn't taken her eyes off the other's cold face. It was such a cold face... Believing it belonged to a living person was almost impossible... Despite the woman's request, the man didn't move from his place.
"Did you really come to sit here?"
"I wanted to see you."
"You wanted to see me?"
"I missed you."
The man's face darkened. He closed his black eyes and waited for a while. When he opened them again, his expression had turned into an indifference that would astonish anyone. With an icy artificial smile, he said,
"That's the greatest compliment I've ever heard in my life."
"I always thought you hated this place."
"You thought correctly."
"Why are you here, Severus? You're worrying me."
"Why are YOU here? Do you really miss me? Or do you need something?"
The woman looked at him as if something had been thrown at her.
"You're terrible! You're always looking for a reason for everything."
"Because everything has a reason, Liv."
"Some things are done without a reason, Severus, like love or hate..."
"Hate has a reason."
"Love?"
"Undoubtedly," the man replied, tilting his head slightly to the side. Then he got up and passed through a hidden door. The sound of a few glasses clinking could be heard. Then Severus Snape reappeared with a dusty tray carrying two glasses and a bottle of blood-red wine.
"If you want whiskey, I have that too. But this homemade wine is the best. Allow me to serve it."
Liv Griffiths merely nodded. Her fingers were interlocked, struggling to keep them warm. The inside of the house was not as cold as the outside, but it couldn't exactly be called warm. When the man offered her a glass filled with red wine, his lips curled with a hint of disdain.
"Drink. It will warm you up. This is how I keep warm here."
Liv cast a disgusted look at the table with the split whiskey bottle. To some extent, she had a point; the table was a mess.
"It's obvious," she said.
"Well? Apart from longing, am I not indebted this lovely visit to something else, my dear Liv?"
The woman didn't respond right away. First, she took a sip of her drink, then she observed the man who sat stiffly across from her. Afterward, she spoke.
"Worry. I worry about you."
"Why?"
"You're thirty-one. You're a professor of potions at Hogwarts. But here, in this cursed place, you seem very eager to rot away all by yourself. You know what I think? I think you're a masochist. You enjoy tormenting yourself!"
Snape laughed heartily. He placed his glass on the table with a loud clink. Rising from his seat, he circled the table and sat down on the couch next to Liv. He took hold of her chin, aligning her beautiful eyes with his dark ones. They were very close now, as close as a breath.
"Let's say I am. Why does it concern you? Why would you care what happens to me? Who are you to meddle with my life? Who gives you the right to interfere? I told you years ago. I said, 'You're not valuable to me.' I said, 'It won't work.' Why do you keep insisting? Beautiful..." He closed his eyes, like it is paining him. "You're very beautiful. Why me?"
"Today is your birthday, Severus," the woman said with teary eyes. "It's your birthday! Can't you give yourself a present?"
Snape's forehead furrowed. He knew today was his birthday, but he didn't remember, and he wasn't pleased to recall it now.
"I should be at school. I rarely come home during the Christmas holidays."
"I know. Every time I came, you weren't here."
"Were you here every birthday of mine?" he asked, his astonishment impossible to hide. He was looking at her with different eyes now.
"Yes, I was. I wanted to see you, I wanted to see you happy."
"You shouldn't have come. Liv, please, for your own good, don't come again. It won't work between us. I – I can't be with anyone. You don't understand."
"Then explain. Tell me why it won't work. Why aren't you giving us a chance? I love you so much, so much. I know there's no one else in your life. Why don't you give me a chance? Why don't you give yourself a chance? Everything would be beautiful; we'd have a home, children. Just like other people... I can't stand you living in this cursed place. I know you don't like it here. You said it yourself. 'I don't have any good memories here,' you told me. What changed? We were going to get married; we were going to be happy. What happened? Why did you leave?"
Severus reached out and wiped away Liv Griffiths' teary eyes. He looked utterly disheveled, as if every word she spoke pierced his heart.
"Don't dwell on these thoughts. Forget me... I'm not good for you. I'm a selfish man; I played with you. I was never in love with you, I felt no sympathy for you, just as I felt for no one else. But now – now I understand you, and I'm begging you to leave. Please go, for your own sake. I can't make you happy. I don't even know the meaning of the word. I can't console myself. What can I give you?"
"I love you. I think of you all the time. Let me at least know that you are happy; I know you're eating yourself alive here. I don't know the reason. At least tell me the reason!"
The Hogwarts Potion Master sat down on the couch. He held his head in his hands for a while. Then he lifted his head and looked at Liv's sad face.
"I must emphasize that I never wanted to hurt you. I didn't want to hurt you. Back then, back then, I wasn't in love with you. But you were a good girl, a nice girl, a pretty girl. You seemed to understand me. I said to myself, 'This should be my wife!' I know it's selfish, but what can I do? That's who I am. I loved someone else. But she had left, for someone else... I needed to console myself, you were the only one there. You were the only one who wanted me, who could tolerate me. As beautiful as you were, as good as you were. I didn't have an alternative. I wonder what you saw in me."
"What changed?" the woman asked. She was listening intently, her former lover had finally spoken.
"You know, it was years ago. And your friends who advised me not to hang out with you were right. I was a Death Eater."
Liv hold in her breath. She hadn't expected this.
"The rumors - the rumors were true."
"Every single of them..." he confirmed. "When the Dark Lord fell, the only thing that got me out of Azkaban was Dumbledore's protection. I had kept my identity secret, actually. I might never have come out. But the usefulness of Dumbledore's support became apparent when Igor spoke about me in the court to save his ass. You might know him, Igor Karkaroff, he's someone important abroad. He was the headmaster at Durmstrang Institute last time I've heard. I don't know how he managed."
The woman impatiently nodded her head. Igor Karkaroff didn't interest her at all.
"When we broke up, I was no longer a Death Eater. Dumbledore protected me for this reason. Because I had spied and leaked information in favor of the Fellowship before Lord Voldemort fell. The Fellowship, the Phoenix Fellowship; it's a society founded by Dumbledore. And I secretly provided information to them for a year."
"What changed your mind? Why did you quit being a Death Eater? And why did we break up? What's my relationship with you being a Death Eater?"
"What changed my mind? Let's say I realized I'd made a mistake. My eyes were opened. They were so open that I realized I couldn't do this to you. And I realized I didn't deserve you. Liv, look at us! First at me, then at yourself! Am I worthy of you?"
"I don't even know what I saw in you, Snape," the woman said coldly. "Don't you know what love is? I loved you, that's it, I love you. Does there have to be a reason? Let's say I don't Have a good taste in man..." she said ruthlessly.
"You think I never understood you."
"I know you never understood me."
"And you think I never loved you."
"I'm sure you never loved me."
A smirk formed on the man's lips. There was such a dark mockery in his expression that Liv started to cry.
"I'm not asking anything from you." she screamed. "I don't want your love either. I'm just thinking of you. If not me, let it be someone else. Be happy with someone else, or be happy on your own. You have money, I know. If you want, you can leave this place behind. If you wish, you can pursue a different profession from teaching. You're smart and talented. Everyone would hire you. I know you don't like teaching. You're not even given the class you want. You don't like your students, and they don't like you."
"Nor the teachers..." Snape reminded.
"Yes, that's right... Your reputation has spread beyond the school. Every graduate curses you behind your back. How do you manage to gather all that hatred on yourself, I wonder!"
"What can we do? That's my special talent!"
"Severus! You're doing it out of sheer stubbornness!"
"It's not in my hands!"
"You're only a psychopath, Severus Snape. You're doing your best to make everyone hate you, and then you sit here in the dark, drinking and crying, don't you?"
"What?! I'm not crying!!"
"Oh, yes! Of course! You were just telling me you loved me."
"I did! Of course, I did! Maybe not as a lover, but I loved you as a human being. Can't I love?"
"Please, please don't do this! Don't make me believe you! Please! Don't play with me!"
"I didn't want to hurt you. I protected you from myself. When I was a Death Eater, when I was young, when I was more ruthless, when I was so angry about everything, I didn't think of anyone but myself. I wanted all the happiness, all the goodness for myself. I wanted you too. I wanted you in order to make myself happy, to satisfy myself. While tormenting others, I thought I should be happy. While others were unhappy... It would be ironic. It would be just like when I was unhappy, and I was sad, and they were fine. I would reverse the situation. But it didn't happen, I couldn't do it. I messed up. I did something. A- a sin... A big sin... I wanted too much. This year, do you know why I came here? Why am I here during the Christmas holidays for the first time in years?"
Liv was just listening. She couldn't even respond.
"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, Potter's son, he started the school this year. He's my student now. He looks so much like his father, but not his eyes, except his eyes..."
"I know you don't like his father, but what does that have to do with it?"
"I can't change! I'm always the same. Whatever I touch, I ruin it. I have to keep my distance, you don't understand."
"Yes, I don't understand!"
"Let me tell you a story."
"A story?"
"There was a bird. When I say 'bird,' don't immediately think of brightly colored, fancy birds. This was an ordinary bird, simple. Its feathers were black and gray. There's a tower at Hogwarts. One of the tallest towers at school... Nobody visits there. Except me... I used to go up there every night. To clear my head. An old place. There's a single room at the very top. Dark, I used to light a candle and read a book, or just sit there to think... Then it came - the bird. An ordinary, simple bird... It was keep coming, night after night.Every ingle night, it was there watching me, while I was watching it. It was as if the bird knew I was there. Every time it came, it sang a song. Its voice was rough, but it was singing to me, I knew."
"Now I started going to the tower for my bird. It seemed to understand my troubles. It was my only friend. It came to calm me, singing a song. Its voice seemed to get more beautiful every day. Its presence became even more comforting. I had started to set it apart from the others; it was different, I knew."
"Then one day, it was last year, I said, 'It should be mine.' It should stay with me forever. Why sing from a distance? It should stay with me. I had to touch it, I said. When night fell, I went up to the tower. My bird had come; it was waiting for me. When I came, it started to sing. It thought it could share my loneliness, how would it know I didn't deserve it..."
"I approached and approached. I could have caught it with a spell. But I wanted to catch it myself. I took out my wand and threw it, then I reached out to the bird from the window. When it saw me reaching out, it got scared and flew away, perched even farther away. It tried to sing again. I didn't understand. I went out of the window and started crawling towards the bird. No matter what, I wanted it. Then..."
Severus Snape stopped at this point. He swallowed as if something had stuck in his throat. His face took on a wild look. Liv asked with curiosity and concern.
"Then?"
"Then..." he chuckled bitterly. "Then it flew away, and never came back. That's how it goes. Some beauties should be admired afar... There's no rule that says everyone must have what others possess. Some have those beauties, and some don't. You should watch from a distance, be content, not be greedy, know your limits. Unfortunately, I'm in the second group. I should be in the group that knows how to be content..."
"But that's so absurd!" She objected.
"No, it's not. I had a friend before that bird. She understood me too. She was with me when I was alone. She shared my troubles and sorrows. She listened to me. She comforted me. Then, I tried to have her. I wanted her to be mine and mine only. And I lost her. Forever... And now, I'm paying for it. With my life. Do you understand? And I will pay it to the end, I owe it to her. Please understand me. I have no right to be happy, nor to make you unhappy... This will be our last conversation. We won't see each other again. Promise me..."
"Severus-"
"Promise!"
"Severus, please..."
"Please!"
"Alright. So be it. Can you kiss me one last time, please?"
"Liv!"
"One last time, please! A farewell kiss..."
Snape seemed like he was about to argue for a moment. But then he bent down and covered the beautiful woman's lips. With closed eyes, he kissed her for a long time. When he withdrew, he was cursing himself inwardly. Liv Griffiths was crying and her whole body was shaking when she stood up...
"Goodbye, Severus..."
And she ran out... The last thing she heard from the Hogwarts Potion Master was the noise of his door closing.
"Goodbye, my only hope," he said to the emptiness.
From that night on, Severus Snape truly never saw Liv Griffith again. He would hear that she got married in 1996. But he would not be fortunate enough to see her or her baby blue eyes with his own eyes ever again.
***
May 17, 1990
A small bird with black-tinted feathers perched on the open window of one of the tall towers of the majestic castle. It was looking into a vacant, narrow, dark, damp room, and the bird itself seemed to be transfixed there, peering inside through the window... Then, the only door of the room swung open. A tall, thin man dressed in a long black robe entered. His hair and eyes were darker than the night. He had a prominent nose, and his determined gaze was fixed on the bird, which continued to sing while perched on the windowsill. He licked his thin lips nervousy.
When the tiny bird saw the man, it didn't flee; it seemed to recognize him. It began to sing. It sang and sang... Then the man approached closer. The bird kept singing. The man drew nearer, and it continued to sing. He reached out his hand. At that moment, the bird recoiled, looking at the man as if he did something very wrong, then flew away to a distant spot on the rooftop. It didn't sing anymore, but stared.
The black-haired man looked puzzled. First, he examined his empty palms. Then he drew his wand and placed it on the floor. Next, he climbed onto the windowsill. With a reckless gesture, he jumped onto the frighteningly high roof. He was determined to catch the bird. Once again, he approached, attempting to capture it, but the bird eluded him.
The bird flew, flew, and landed in a distant place further on the rooftop. It was no longer singing. Severus Snape muttered to himself, "Why don't you come to me? You're mine!" Then he stood up and began to walk. Anyone observing him there would undoubtedly think he was insane. His wand was not with him, and the roof was very uneven. He was walking unsteadily, swaying, and could fall at any moment. Yet he paid no attention to all of this. The only thing he thought about was the bird. It was his bird. He had to capture it. He had to keep it by his side, talk to it, explain his loneliness, his helplessness... He understood the little creature, and it understood him. It was so sweet, so adorable, so beautiful; it had to be his.
He had come close to it now. It was right in front of him. He reached out with his hand, and the bird didn't fly away. It stared at him. Severus was dumbfounded by the disdainful gaze. Then he shook his head, as if coming to his senses. What was he doing? He was going to catch the bird. It was right in front of him, and he could have grabbed it as soon as he reached out his hand. The bird hadn't made any attempt to fly away. It must have recognized him, and it knew he wouldn't harm it. He reached out and captured it. He held it delicately in his hand. He stood up, and he could feel the warmth of the bird's feathers in his palm, along with its heartbeats, pitter-pattering... He started walking towards the tower window.
But then, his foot slipped, and he was falling... He tried not to scream, making one last effort to hold onto the window ledge with his free hand. When he pulled himself inside, he was breathless. He quickly turned his gaze to the bird he was holding. The instant he did, time seemed to stopped.
To prevent himself from falling, he had unconsciously squeezed the bird in his left hand. The little bird was still warm, but its heart was no longer beating. It was not singing, nor looking at him in an accusing manner. It was dead...
Snape placed the bird on the floor next to his wand. He also knelt down beside it. And then, he began to cry.
***
September 1, 1998
Liv Gudgean rose from the bed where she had been lying. Her husband, Davey Gudgean, was right by her side. Liv needed to take it easy. She was eight months pregnant, and the delivery was considered risky. Her bed had been her sanctuary for almost two months, and Davey gently guided her back to a reclining position.
"What did the healer say?" Davey inquired.
"She did not tell me not to move, I'm sure of it."
"Tell me what you need, and I'll take care of it."
"Hand me the Daily Mail, please!"
"No! Stress is forbidden! You keep reading and crying. What's bothering you? If only I knew. You Know Who is gone, you should be happy..."
"We've suffered a great loss!" Liv said, her eyes fixed on the fire burning right beside her. "Did we win now?"
Davey, understandingly, patted his wife's back.
"You're quite emotional during these times, and that's normal. But we need to keep living. Everything will get better with time."
Liv Gudgean repeated, "It will get better with time..."