Jehane Desrosiers

Although Severus’ Headmastership had been difficult to navigate, it was the birth of our daughter that nearly sank us. Nothing had prepared me for the grinding mixture of exhaustion, elation and anxiety that came with a baby. I was used to a quiet, regular, autonomous life, a companion who respected my solitude, a sense of mastery over my domain. Albia took over our household and swept all that away.

She was colicky. She cried inconsolably for hours. I held her for the first six months of her life because the moment I put her down she screamed. She nursed for an hour at a time, while I fretted, longing to be outside. Beside me, only Severus could handle her and he had little time away from the school. In the evening when he came home to the Headmaster’s House -- his innovation, now that the Headmaster had a family -- he found me in a state of agitated depletion, desperate to get away from the baby I loved so fiercely. In my mind no one but he could protect her and his inability to spend more time with us amounted to neglect.

At one time I had understood that it was imperative for him to make a success of the Headmastership. Now I felt that he had deserted me for the school in my most needful hour, and this withdrawal of understanding hurt and alienated him.

At the time, of course, I could not have laid it out so clearly. I only knew that Severus and I had become antagonists and that I was too drained to give the problem my attention.

Then at six months Albia began to sit up, her enormous head pivoting as she gravely took in her surroundings. She no longer needed constant holding; in fact, with the ability to visually explore the world, she seemed content to sit for long periods. She was not a smiley baby, but she reserved a special grin of delight for Severus when he came home to levitate her into his arms.

Sometimes the fog cleared for a while, and Severus and I recognized each other as lovers and friends. It seemed to give us just enough comfort and connection to scrape through the next dry patch, but I feared that someday it wouldn’t come and we would be irreversibly separated.

“Look,” I said softly, beckoning Severus to the doorway. He stepped up and wrapped his arms around me, looking over my shoulder.

Albia had hold of the open drawer of our dining room sideboard and was trying to stand, grunting with effort. She got to her feet for a moment and stood swaying like a drunk before plopping onto her bottom. Her face wrinkled for a moment but she focused again, gripping the edge of the drawer with whitened fingers.

“She’s trying to pull the sideboard down,” I said.

“Baby or sideboard,” he said. “A fight to the death.”

Concentrating intently, she heaved herself up again.

“Strong-willed,” I said. “Wonder where she gets that.”

Severus snorted. “Persistent. Wonder where she gets that.” He nuzzled my neck and I leaned back.

“Isn’t she gorgeous?” I cooed.

“No,” he said flatly. “She’s not. She’s beaky. But she’s intelligent and that’s more important.”

I considered fussing, but it was utterly like him to value accuracy over sentiment, and I had to admit that the gift fairies had not entirely granted Severus’ wish. She certainly was intelligent, so verbal that she jabbered like a demented parrot from dawn till dark. But she was not going to be a beauty and if the fairies were required to work within the laws of genetics it was no wonder. Her hair was raven black but very fine and limp. Her sallow skin, a compromise between my blotchy whiteness and Severus’ colorless pelt, showed dark shadows beneath indeterminate greenish gray eyes; her cheeks pinkened only when she howled in rage. Even in toddlerhood, when every child sports a little nostriled button, the beginnings of a truly impressive nose could be discerned. I found her uniquely lovely and could never get enough of looking at her.

As Albia grew, Hogwarts was her entire world, and her playmates were the students, Hagrid, hippogriffs and me. Once I began teaching again, her babysitters -- of whom we had an endless supply among the older students -- often brought her down to watch, so that by the age of two she was making her squatty little bow and practicing her seat on Protecteur’s back.

Protecteur was no longer a young hippogriff. Like all magical creatures he might live to be seventy or eighty years old, but the arthritis in his hips and dull color of his beak and talons suggested the approach of old age. I rarely used him for teaching, but in his role of dominant male and Grand Old Man of the stables he was as important as ever. For his part, he seemed to recognize Albia as my foal and treated her with special care and tolerance.

+++++

Folding back a page of The Daily Prophet I looked at Severus in the brilliant Saturday morning sunlight. He was forty-four years old, just entering the long period of slowed aging that differentiates wizards from Muggles.

“Do you know, your hair is completely salt and pepper. And gray around your temples. Very distinguished. You could darken it if you wanted to retain your youthful glamor.”

“Please do not joke. Every one of these gray hairs represents a student misdemeanor and I wear them as badges of honor.”

“Mmm. It’s sexy as well.”

“Do you really think so?” He looked up from his omelette.

“Yes.”

“Remind me to wave my distinguished locks at you later, or however you wish to enjoy them.”

“Severus,” I said, putting down my toast and holding out the paper. “Look at this beautiful hotel. Let’s go to Paris over the spring hols. We could visit Thalia and Spuddy.”

“I don’t care for Spuddy,” Severus answered, peering at the page I offered. He took it from me, held it at arms’ length and grunted. “Accio glasses.” Settling them on his nose, he examined the photo. “Victorian. Bad plumbing and drafty rooms.”

“Spuddy likes you. He thinks you’re brilliant. Anyway, you’d only get one night of him, probably.”

“What would Albia do in a late Victorian hotel?”

“I wasn’t thinking of taking Albia.” He looked at me, surprised. “She’s three and a half years old and I can’t imagine anything that would make two people happier than to have her stay at Hagrid’s for a few nights. No, make that that four people. Well, at least three.”

Severus hiked his chair closer to mine and slid his hand inside my tee shirt. “Four.”

“You’ll go?”

“If you’ll make the arrangements. I’ll have some work to do here, first, so we’ll need to go by Portkey midweek. Are you sure Hagrid can cope with her?”

“Sweetheart, is she more challenging than a Norwegian dragon or a Blast-Ended Screwt?”

“Not since she’s out of nappies,” he said slyly.

Hearing her name, Albia trotted into the room. As usual, she went right to Severus and took up her spot in his lap. As usual, he made room for her without hesitation, laying The Prophet on top of The Chronicle of Magical Education. She helped herself to a piece of bacon, then made an attempt on his mug.

“No, Albia,” he said. “No coffee for little girls.” She gave up without a struggle; it had only been a test anyway.

“Where you go-nin?” she asked.

“Your mother and I are going to Paris, which is the capital city of France. You will get to stay with Hagrid. At his house.”

“I want to go to Pawis.”

“If you went to Paris, you would have to go to boring museums and be very quiet. You would have to go to restaurants and use restaurant manners. If you stay with Hagrid, he will throw you and catch you and you can eat stew and porridge with sugar at his table and help him feed the animals.”

“Den I will stay wis ‘Tecter.”

“You may visit Protecteur many times every day. But you will sleep in a big-girl bed at Hagrid’s house.”

“I want to go wis you.” Her little mouth turned down, lip trembling.

“That is out of the question.” Despite his firm tone, I knew that this troubled him quite a bit. “But we will bring you a present.”

“Is it a toy?”

“Yes. We will only be away for three sleeps and then we will come back.” She leaned away and examined his face, checking for sincerity or a new angle of approach.

“Otay.” She nestled into his chest and he gently removed the bacon she was about to press against his coat.

“Albia?” he asked.

“’Es?”

“What is the capital city of France?”

“Pawis.”

“Excellent. Ten points to Slytherin.” She grinned, showing a row of tiny pearls.

But we did not go to Paris. A deferred maintenance crisis which promised to resolve itself the very next day for five days running ate up our spring holidays in a dreary slog of rusted pipes and dirty puddles.

+++++

At three-and-a-half, Albia passed through an especially contrary stage. Every request for cooperation provoked resistance, and I’d fairly well given up trying to get her washed or appropriately dressed. She went around with blackened pancake syrup on her face, nails packed with dirt, dressed in snow boots and a bathing suit or a tutu and a Chocolate Frogs tee shirt, until Severus arrived home to apply a firm word and a wet flannel. Despite my many opportunities to yield, she managed to be in a screaming rage with me several times a day.

“Hello,” I said as Severus came in the door. Wednesday was my free day, and I’d been with Albia for ten hours in a state of mutual hostility. “When you are ready, would you mind putting your child in the bath and getting the manure out of her hair? She won’t let me.”

“Do you mind if I put down my parchments?”

“I did say when you are ready.”

“Yes you did. ‘Hello, Severus, how was your day? Do you have a nasty headache? I suspected so by looking at your drawn face,’ might also have been appropriate.”

“Sorry, Love. It’s been bad between us. She wouldn’t eat her lunch, then she nagged me about being hungry and only wanted Fudgies. She’s been driving me wild all day, and knowing she’ll light up like a bonfire when you get home is damned annoying.”

“Isn’t that the correct psychology? Aren’t little girls supposed to worship their fathers? I thought it was developmentally appropriate.”

“Perhaps so. The worship gets a bit thin over here when she’s been treating me like a House-Elf all day.”

“All right.” He leaned into a little kiss. “I’ll get a headache potion, then I’ll give her a bath.”

“I’m going for a walk before dinner. An hour, tops.”

“We’ll wait for you.” He was already going up the stairs. “Albia --”

I heard a tumble of dolls thrown to the floor. “Daddy!” I pulled on my boots and winter cloak and slipped out the door.

Passing through the Hogwarts gates, I relaxed. The rhythm of walking and the emptiness of the moors calmed me. My mind wandered freely. Tonight the February landscape -- it would rain later -- suited my somber mood.

Did I love my daughter? Of course, passionately. Sometimes her charm and spirit broke my heart with love. I would do anything to protect and nurture her. But I did not love motherhood, with its relentless intrusions and demands. I worried that my ambivalence would harm her. Then again our moments of fun and snugly closeness reassured me, and she seemed to be thriving.

The rocks where Severus and I had courted loomed against the darkening sky. We hadn’t seen much of each other lately. His mind was on the upcoming Board of Governors meeting and his annual presentation. He disliked the public relations aspect of his job more than any other and over prepared in a state of ill-grace. In the evenings he was drained and preoccupied, and I was more than willing to hand Albia over to him and escape. Sometimes he stayed at school past her bedtime; later we might sit together over a glass of wine and chat, but I hadn’t much to say. More often, he read a book and I went down to the stables. Whatever each of us needed, he didn’t seem to find it in the other.

The first time we had come to these rocks, I’d wished he would take my hand and help me up. I had longed to touch him and wondered if I ever would. Now he was just the person in bed next to me, no more interesting than the pillows. Was this the inevitable destination of marriage? I couldn’t remember my own parents’ marriage. My mother was only a few years older than me when she died, and my parents’ relationship had been so private that I had little idea of what they were like together.

I tried to recall if Guy and I ever felt this distant. In memory we seemed more like playmates and comrades than husband and wife. Severus’ and my marriage was so much more complex, compelling yet difficult and sometimes dismaying.

I climbed up and stood looking out over the moors, reinforcing the Warming Spell on my cloak to compensate for the cold wind. The bare stunted trees twisted up from islands of vegetation black as fungus. I didn’t know what to do. Would this bad time resolve itself? I envied those Muggles with their marriage advisors or whatever they were called. Who could I ask? For the first time, it struck me that I didn’t know a single married couple. Thalia and Spuddy lived together, unmarried, childless and carefree. Of course many of the children’s parents were married, but there were none with whom I could discuss such a personal matter, especially one involving the Headmaster. I wanted my mother, and for the first in a long time I felt her absence.

It was in this distressed and alienated condition that we entered the third crisis of our marriage.

Notes
For valuable and original ideas about the mixed feelings of parents for their children, I am indebted to “Mother Love, Mother Hate: The Power of Maternal Ambivalence,” by Rozika Parker.