The flat was full of people. People eating and drinking, talking and laughing, people listening to the music. Some were already leaving and on their way to the door accompagnied by their hostess when the bell rang once again.
"Happy birthday, Susanna," the tall man cried and hugged his sister affectionately. His wife was next and pecked her sister-in-law on the cheek while their two teenage sons smiled at their aunt and kept their distance, they certainly didn't want to be hugged. "Happy birthday!" they shouted in unison and handed Susanna a large parcel gift-wrapped in green and silver paper. Susanna led the way into the living-room. She had decided to celebrate her 50th birthday with a large drinks party for her friends and a family dinner afterwards.
"Where's Dad," her brother asked, scanning the room for the tall,white-haired figure of his father.
"In his room, I suppose. He doesn't like parties very much, but he promised to come out for dinner. Help yourself to a drink, I'm going to tell him you're here."
She went to the door at the end of the hall and knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again and opened he door cautiously. Still there was no response, perhaps he was asleep. The room was dark. She entered noiselessly and saw her father stand at the large window. The outside world had darkened to various shades of grey and blue, with the occasional twinkling of the city lights coming to life. The view was breathtaking and one of the reasons Susanna had bought this flat, but her father's back looked as if he was lost in thought rather than admiring London at nightfall. He hadn't noticed his daughter.
"Dad?" Susanna approached him. "Albus is here. Don't you want to come and join us?"
He turned his head and looked at her. She gasped. His face seemed to have aged during the last two hours, it was deathly pale in the twilight of the room and in his eyes there was a weariness that had not been there before.
"What's the matter?" she asked, her voice full of concern, stepping closer to him and putting her hand on his arm. "Are you alright, Dad?"
"Have you seen the papers?" he asked hoarsely. Susanna shook her head. With all the preparations for her party there had been no time for reading newspapers.
"Look at this!"
He limped over to his desk, where the Daily Prophet, the Times and the Guardian were spread. His shaking hand pointed to two articles in the Muggle papers that told about a series of vicious assaults on people walking their dogs in deserted country lanes. Two victims who had survived the attacks by sheer luck had told the police about cloaked and masked men, who first had brutally killed the dogs in front of their owners' eyes and then had started attacking the men with fists and knives and some mysterious weapons resembling wooden sticks..
Susanna felt the bile rise in her throat and swallowed hard. When she folded the paper her hands were shaking, too.
"This is horrible, do you think…?" she stopped, unable to pronounce what was in her mind.
Her father was leaning on the desk now, his shoulders hunched. Slowly he raised his eyes and shrugged resignedly.
"I don't know, but it sounds so familiar," he said gravely. "And look at the leading article in the Daily Prophet. Everything fits so well."
He let out a shuddering breath.
"Oh, Susanna, I cannot believe it, I will not believe it! After all we have been through!"
He sank on his chair and put his head in his hands. His daughter picked up the Daily Prophet and scanned the article. "Are we becoming a society of Half-bloods?" "Mudbloods gaining control!" "Too much leniency towards mixed marriages." The sentences were screaming in her face. She looked up and met her father's desperate eyes.
"This is just one article, it doesn't represent the general opinion," she said, but even to her ears she didn't sound very convincing and from his expression she could see that he thought so, too.
She sighed.
"Anyway, I have to say good-bye to my friends," she said, "dinner will be ready in about half an hour. Do come and join us, will you?"
She smiled at him, but did not receive an answer.
"Dad? Please come and have dinner with us," she pleaded. Their eyes met and he nodded and tried to smile back, a weak little excuse of a smile.
"How is he?" her brother Albus asked when she reappeared in the living-room.
She shrugged. "He's very old and he has never got over Mum's death."
They were interrupted by a group of laughing people who came to say good-bye with many hugs and air-kisses.
"Yes, he and Mum, it was something special," her brother continued when she returned to him and looked thoughtfully over at his own wife, a plump woman with brown curly hair. Susanna bit back a sarcastic remark. There was not much sympathy between her sister-in-law and herself, they had nothing in common. Nelly certainly was a good woman and adored her husband and her sons, but she was only interested in household duties, cooking, decorating and clothes. Susanna had experienced her parents' marriage as perfect, so perfect that taking it as an example she had never been able to find a suitable husband and had perferred to stay single. She had made a successful carreer as a healer and was now working at the Ministry as head of the department supervising St. Mungo's and other wizarding healing institutions. She had bought the spacious flat in the Docklands and when her mother had died six months ago and Severus had been disconsolate and so overwhelmed with grief that he had not been able to cope with the necessities of daily life, she had offered her father to move in with her. Their relationship had always been a special one, neverthless it had taken some time to convince him of giving up his independence; but now he was living with his daughter, surrounded by his books. She made sure he had regular meals and took care of himself while he divided his days between his wife's grave and his reading and studying, careful not to intrude on his daughter's privacy and to stay out of the way when she entertained friends at her flat.
"He has just come across articles telling about brutal attacks on Muggles and read the Daily Prophet's editorial on the superiority of purebloods. Naturally he's shocked. What do you think, must we take this seriously, is there a second Voldemort behind these ideas?"
Her brother snorted contemptiously.
"I've heard rumours, but I didn't pay much attention to them. I mean, it's just, what? less than 50 years since the destruction of Voldemort, one should think that people wouldn't fall for this nonsense again."
Susanne frowned doubtfully.
"People never learn…Well, anyway, I must get dinner ready."
When all the other guests had gone and the family was assembled around the dinner table at last, the atmosphere remained subdued. Only Nelly apparently had not noticed that something was wrong and did her best to keep a conversation going. Susanna and Albus were monosyllabic and kept casting surreptitious glances at their father, who remained silent, pushing the food around on his plate. And as for the two boys - they were not very keen on familiy dinners anyway, as much as they liked their aunt, they would have preferred spending the evening with their friends.
Suddenly in the middle of the main course Severus put down his knife and fork, ending his pretence of eating. He addressed his grandsons.
"You both are in Slytherin, aren't you?"
The boys stared at him open-mouthed. Why did he ask, he certainly knew that they had been sorted into his house! They exchanged a quick apprehensive look – they liked their grandfather, but they also were afraid of his fierce temper and sarcastic tongue - and then nodded obediently.
"Tell me," he was leaning across the table and fixing his intense black eyes on the boys' faces, "have there been stories about the superiority of pureblood wizards recently?"
Albus and Susanna stopped talking and eating and listened apprehensively. Nelly, who had no clue of what was going on, was looking from Severus to the boys and back again, her face a picture of utter incomprehension.
The boys exchanged an uncomfortable look.
"Well,…" the eldest started hestitantly.
"Tell the truth, boy!" Severus cried.
"Yes, it - it has been said that there are too many mudbloods at Hogwarts and – and that purebloods are outnumbered and disadvantaged," his grandson replied, speaking very fast and in a voice barely audible.
"Who said so?"
"I don't know – everybody. It's – it's the general opinion in Slytherin."
"Do you think so, too?"
The boys fidgeted in their chairs and exchanged another look.
"Honestly, Severus, why are you asking them things like that in such a way? You are no longer a teacher. Besides, everybody knows that purebloods are superior. So stop intimidating the boys," Nelly said angrily, her face an unbecoming shade of crimson as she turned from staring angrily at her father-in-law to looking at her sons with an expression of motherly concern.
"Julian, Harry, are you alright?"
Severus gave his daughter-in-law one of the looks once reserved for the most stupid among his students and she blushed an even angrier shade of red.
"Do you think so, too?" he insisted calmly, his eyes back on the boys' faces.
"We – I mean – it's true, isn't it? There are much more mudbloods and half-blood wizards of dubious origin…"
"Like me, like your father and your aunt, like you," Severus interrupted.
The boy swallowed hard.
"Do you consider us inferior? Do you consider yourselves inferior?"
"N-no," the boys answered, avoiding their grandfather's eyes.
"Your grandma was a Muggle. Does that make her inferior to the ones called Malfoy and Black?"
The boys shook their heads helplessly. It was obvious that they wished themselves far away from this table and their grandfather's merciless interrogation.
"Have there been rumours of a secret society that wants to support pureblood rule?" Severus went on.
The boys looked more and more uncomfortable, they virtually squirmed in their chairs.
"Severus, stop it, you terrify them. Julian is only 16, he…", Nelly said.
"Only 16? I was only 16 when I – when I made the worst mistake in my life."
Furiously he got up and limped around the table. He stood behind the boys and rested his hands on their shoulders.
"Look at me!" he commanded. The boys complied. He took a deep breath.
"Promise me never to join any group that believes in the superiority of one part of the population over another. Don't let yourselves be lured into such a group by the promises of power and influence. Never repeat or believe any opinions, any prejudices, just because they have become a secret creed in the Slytherin common room. You must have inherited some intelligence," he paused briefly, casting a sidelong glance at Nelly, "use it, for Merlin's sake! If you are in doubt, contact your father, your headmaster, any of your teachers before you commit something you are going to regret for the rest of your lives."
His voice had become a fierce whisper, his grip on the boys' shoulders painfully hard. The boys winced.
"Promise!"
They met his eyes and nodded.
"I want to hear you say it!" he demanded.
"We promise."
"Good." Severus' grip relaxed. His hands were shaking. "I want to be alone now, excuse me."
The old man limped out of the living-room. The others listened to his footsteps until they heard a door close. They looked at each other in embarrassed silence.
"What on earth has got into him? He's ruining your birthday, Susanna." Nelly was all indignation.
"He's just worried," Susanna replied. "Excuse me, I'd better look after him."
She put her napkin on the table and left he room.
At her father's door she knocked and entered. Night had fallen outside, but he had not bothered to put the lights on. He was sitting in his armchair and looked up when she came in. Susanna lit the lamps with a flick of her wand.
"I'm sorry, I spoiled your party, Susanna," he said wearily.
"It's ok, Dad. I don't mind.You must be tired."
He snorted. "Oh, yes, I am. Tired of this stupid world and these stupid wizards."
He got up and went over to her.
"Susanna, I'm too old for this. I don't want to see our world in danger of going to pieces once again."
His daughter frowned. What did he mean by this?
"I'll visit Claire."
"Now? In the middle of the night?"
"Yes, now."
There was a strange expression in his eyes and suddenly Susanna understood.
"Dad,…" she said helplessly, stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.
He stroked her hair. "Don't cry, my child. I am very old, it's time for me to join Claire.
Say good-bye to Albus from me, will you?"
She nodded and hugged him even closer.
He bent down and gently kissed her cheek. "Good-bye, Susanna."
Reluctantly she let him go.
He picked up his travelling cloak from a chair and fastened it around his shoulders.
"Dad…!"
He went over to her and kissed her again. Their eyes met and they remained standing next to the window, looking at each other, communicating without words. Finally Severus broke the eye-contact and smiled at his daughter, and she answered the smile, tears in her eyes. Then with a sigh he took his walking-stick and left the room. Without pausing he passed the living-room door and was out of the flat.
It was a beautiful golden afternoon. The late winter sun was already warming and filled with the promise of spring, illuminating the first small, green and yellow buds on the trees and shrubs. The soft breeze played with the brown, dry leaves left over from autumn, driving them across the ground, forming them into small piles in corners and hedges.
Under a large willow tree at the edge of the cemetery a very old man was sitting on a wooden bench, looking at the headstone on the grave in front of him.The man had a thin, pale face with a large nose, white hair that was hanging on his shoulders and he wore a heavy black cloak. He held a walking stick between his knees and seemed to be deeply lost in his thoughts, oblivious of the sunshine around him.
He had been sitting there all night and all day, nearly motionless, his mind wandering in a world of his own.
Later, when the sun was low, the shadows deepened and the air was getting colder, he stirred as if he finally had reached a decision. Levering himself from the bench, he limped over to the grave and touched the polished black granite of the headstone with his free hand. 'Claire Saunders-Snape', it said, '1964 -2050'. The man's skeletal fingers caressed the polished surface. "I'll see you soon," he whispered. And he wrapped his cloak closer around his thin, stooped body and lowered himself to the ground. He drew his hood up for more warmth and privacy and leaned his head against the smooth stone. The sun was sinking and night fell, but the old man didn't move…
A gardener intend on his job of planting the first flowers of spring on the graves found him the following morning still upright, but slumped against the headstone. After several minutes of staring in shock at the cloaked figure, the man fumbled with his mobile with trembling fingers and called the police, who arrived shortly afterwards together with an ambulance. The doctor ran towards the still figure, removed the hood and opened the cloak. But after a quick examination he shook his head sadly. There was nothing they could do, the man was dead. Further examinations for traces of violence or outside influence produced nothing, the old heart simply had stopped beating. The police took care of his wallet with his name and address and a young officer went to break the sad news to the relatives.
Five days later Severus Snape was buried next to his wife…
- The End -
Thanks to J.K.Rowling for the inspiring characters