“I am uncertain of why we have to go through this procedure, mother.”
Mother smiled at me, the kind of smile she gaves when she absolutly knows she is the winner.
“My vicious little thing , haven’t we go over this matter enough? With the sort of adventure you had at Nevermore, we have to make sure you are in right mind”
I rolled my eyes, when she dumped me at Nevermore, with her teenage nemesis as the headmistress, what exactly did she expect?
“ mother, I explained to you a quaderllion times, aside from the visions, a murderor on the loose, a Hide and an arrow I took to the shoulder, nothing happened. It’s the usual .”
Mother eyed me with suspicion.
“ for one you didn’t tell us about your uncle Fester visiting you, or that you found an enemy in a.. siren.”
“Mother! Binaca may have acted a little territorial, but she never messed with anyone’s head!”
“ then what about the whole evacuation process? And the fact that she and that boyfriend of yours…”
“ Xavier is not my boyfriend! How many times do I have to repeat…”
She continued, regardless, as if I was nothing but a noise at the background.
“ that boyfriend of yours were a couple right before you arrived. Her mother, and her step father have more than just a bad reputation, even among us. And what about you jumping in front of her ex-boyfriend to take that arrow? What if she did it? Tampered with your mind? With your visions, with you being a raven, any threat to your mind is a threat to your life.”
I sighed in annoyance. Absolutly no reasoning with her. When she put her mind to something, it would happen come dooms day or hell. And what exactly could I do? I was at home, at her mercy.
“ you trust this man? Not to threaten us with the things he learns from my mind? That he..”
She waived in dissmisal. “ I trust him well enough. And after all, we are cousins.”
Cousins? Interesting. She didn’t let it slip until now. Was it so I trust this cousin of her due to our relationship and family bonds?
If she thought as much, more fool she is.
Thing was not helpful at gathering info on this mysrerious cousin, it seemed as if he was wiped from existence at some point, no photo, not even evidence in paper form, was he not from England as mother informed me?
There was nothing of him in Nevermore, I checked with Eugene twice. Xavier was not helping by suggesting that I have to broaden my horizens and that Nevermore was not the only institue for the likes of us.
So I messaged him.
( just for the sack of being one step a head of my mother, if I learned anything from the whole Tyler and our Botany teacher it was not to trust easily, and to know my oponents beforehand. Not connected at all to a certain feeling I had about him)
“ what do you intend me to do with this half info? Must you be so infuriating?”
“ kettle calls the pot, isnt it?”
“ meaning?”
“infuriating? Me? I spent the whole term trying to convince you, to make you trust me, and how it ended up for me? Behind the bars!”
“ taking grudges are we?
“ grudge? You are the master of taking it! You know what? Go research on your own for all I care!”
It was radio scilence between us for an hour after that. He must have taken it to the heart that I suspected him before Tyler. Should I remind him of the arrow?
Thing poked my side, letting me know of what exactly he thought about the arrow thing, guilt tripping him or making him feel grateful would be harmful for the relationship I somehow fancied with him.
( which I DIDN’T !)
And he suggested that I appologise.
Which I DID, NOT ONE BIT BECAUSE OF ME FANCING HIM. Thought you ought to know.
And I got a word, Hogwarts.
From what I gathered, ther was a 10 years age gap between my mother and her cousin, reading Hogwarts a history and from Grindlewald to Harry Potter, the most recent important points of magical Britian, I gather they went to that school when they were eleven, and there were four houses inbuilt. I dissmissed Griffindoere and Hufflepuff at first sight , narrowing my research further. Then I removed those who were not mentioned in our fmily tree. I was down to Regulus Black, Barty Croutch and a Severus Snape.
Then I found out the three of them were long dead, what a chance!
Although I was still sceptical, our botany teacher was supposed to be dead and still…
It was then my mother appeared out of thin air. she walked into my room like she owned the place, with a rare mixture of a smile-smirk plastered on her face.
“ well, wont you tell your mother about your research into my cousin?”
“ I think you know mother, must you rub it in? wasting my time on a wild chase?”
Then a third voice joined us.
“ dear Morticia, I thought you would do much better than that waste of space Addams, but I turned out to be wrong after all. Your… daughter doesn’t seem to suffer from her less than sane of a sire’s after all.”
The man, was a tall , well built but lean figure, his face a contradiction of ugliness and beauty. He had the trade mark pale skin of our family. His eyes were a fabulous obsidin color and his sharp cheeckbones gave him an almost regal look. But the constant smirk on his thin lips and that awful hooked nose of his were too much unappealing.
He and mother locked eyes for a second, then mother spoke with a stiffness in her voice I had never seen.
“Wedsnday, this is Severus Snape, My cousin.”
“is that all you have to offer Frump?’
Mother growled.
“ you know well enough it hadnt been Frump for years!”
“maybe it should have been! You have your progeny now, why not change it back?”
“ you vengful little snake!”
The man then drawed a stick out of nowhere, turning it playfully betweenhis fingers, I saw mother flinch, for a second.
“ oh Morticia, surely you have told your kids about your better… relatives? The ones with actual magical powers?”
I couldn’t curb my toungue anymore so despite I had every reason to fear him, and the consequence of my question I asked away.
“ Who you really are Mister Snape? What do you mean by magical Powers and why my mother is afraid of you?”
He turned to me with a wicked smile which was more terrifying than his smirk.
“ you poor innocent child… I am your godfather of course.”
Then I felt a shudder run through me, it seemed mother was right again.
We were sitting in a room with dark grey walls, he was staring into nothingness, with his hands in his lap. He seemed old and yet young in a way. Younger than mother, when I knew he must have been born in 60s.
He started suddenly.
: there is a school for wiches and wizards, in fact there are several, but I went to this particular one. You must have read the book Hogwarts a history at last?”
When he saw me looking at him with a blank face and blank eyes, he chuckled.
“ your mother brought you up well, didn’t she? That was my gift to her, when you were born. You know my history if you read a set of books I gave her, so I wont trouble you with repeating it. My father was a… half Frump. This is the part where know one knows about me. The secret history of my Fathers line.You must know that all Frumps are born with magic, but not exactly wand magic, some times weaker, like your mother and my ..father , and some times stronger like us. My father, resentful of being born with such a weak magic he couldn’t even go to Nevermore, not qualified for that, left the family. Funny he married a witch and tried to beat magic out of her to absorb it himself.Me and Morticia found out about each other when he went over family tapsteries , it was late 81, and I was not in a.. good place. I was the one who proved your Fathers innocense and forced the sole witness to scilence. Then when I faked my death she was there to help me.”
I raised my left eyebrew. If they were so good of a friends then why…
He surprised me by answering my question.
“you of course!”
I found out he was going to get me a Hogwarts letter as soon as I turned 11, because he blieved me to be stronger than Nevermore and what muggles- non magical people- could manage, but my mother refused.
“ Severus, if they tortured you that much you faked your death to avoid them, why I should let them have another turn with my girl?”
It was when I had my third birthday. He had even offered tuotering me at least in what he called potions and dark arts but my mother refused, then threatened him with revealing his secret, him being alive and all.
“ and now we are here. So many years later and wasted opportunities later. At the starting point again, all because of your mother and her foolish nonesense “
Ok, maybe my mother was kind of ..silly and foolish, but it was not for him to decide. So I informed him as much.
“ you , who were the lacky of a psychpath, who wasted almost 20 years looking after a boy who hated you and called you a coward, all for the memory of a girl who had not bothered herself enough not to marry her so called best friends bully have no say in the matter!”
“ oh I don’t? and what about your mother who was damn aware of the dangers of an untrained witch, and never taught you how to deal with mind attacks or visions? Or you, who thought yourself so much better than anyone else and sentenced an innocent boy to prison instead of your guilty lover!”
How dare he! As if I knew he was a hide, a murderor..
A traturous voice said in my mind: as if he knew at 9 years old that his friend was going to betray him to James potter, as if he knew at 20 that him telling a stupid prophecy to his master would kill her…
Both of us were standing now, face to face, panting in anger.
Then he sighed.
“ how a bout a truce?”
Then he offered his hand.
I inhaled and shook his hand.
He inclined his head, and his hair fell over his eyes like a curtain. He resumed his seat.
“ now about occlumency, do you have the book name Mind Magiks written in greek and runes?”
I was confused, was he going to..
“ of course Wednsday. You are still my Goddaughter and I have been remissing my duties for a few years now. Teaching you occlumency and its counterpart legilimency is only the beginning.”
To learn how to guard my mind from scales and also reading others thoughts? Did he even needed to ask?
“ shall I fetch it now? Can we start to day?”
If our smirks matched, no one was the wiser. And if they were, well he was my Godfather after all, wasn’t he?