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Deep Roots	By : FemmeBono Category: HP Canon Characters paired with Original Characters > Het - Male/Female Views: 3186 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: No I'm not making money off JK Rowling's work, this is pure (free) fanfic and I own nothing to do wif Harry Potter stuffs.

Chapter List
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A sort of homecoming
By the time the plane touched down, Alyssa was peering blearily out of the
tiny glass at her first view of London. Delta's excuse for coffee had done
nothing to keep her eyes from closing on the lengthy flight, and she had already
seen and not been amused by the cheesy comedy of the in-flight movie. As a
result, she nodded off halfway through her much worn copy of The Bends,
only to sit bolt upright hours later when the customary ding sounded and
their descent was announced. The sight did nothing in particular to inspire
hope. The sun had risen moments before and harried skycaps now rushed around
through a misty fog loading the luggage onto trolleys and ferreting it away
to the inner depths of Heathrow. Alyssa groaned and yawned widely, stretching as
much as was humanly possible in the cramped space, which had long since been
filled by a ruddy-faced man who had finally given up trying to impress her with
the success of his latest business interest.
Taking a deep breath after making her way through the morass of security
points, luggage reclaim, and so forth, Alyssa hesitated only a moment when the
russet-haired customs agent asked, "how long is your stay, miss?"
"Eh, only two weeks, I hope."
"Very well." Shrugging noncommittally, the agent simply stamped the
passport and waved her through. With that, she hitched her carry-on securely
onto her shoulder and streamed through the automatic doors, trailing her
suitcase behind her. Alyssa snagged a cab at the curb, gave the driver the name
of her hotel and settled back in the seat. It was only when she had checked in,
gotten the key, and shut the door of her room behind her that Alyssa gave in to
desire and swept open the curtains to a view of the full London cityscape.
Dropping the carry-on to the floor, she clenched her fists and wiggled her hips
in a happy dance, squealing excitedly. "I'm in London!" she laughed
breathlessly to herself.
***
Later that morning, Alyssa snagged a hot croissant and coffee at a
corner shop and hopped a train on the London-Edinburgh line headed for
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, not wanting to waste a minute finding her family. While her research had shown that Petunia Evans, likely her
only surviving sibling, had married one Vernon Dursley, she was unable to find
out where they were living nowadays. So in her never-ending quest to return to
her roots, she thought it best to start at the beginning--in a word, at her
family's old home. Through the British press covering the Evans' accident, she
had discovered that they used to live in the northern town near old Ridley Mill.
Her drive to find her origins increasing every moment, she hopped into a cab
after the three-hour train ride and with nary a glance as they passed the
university, leaned forward over the seat back and watched as they crossed the
river and headed west to check into her hotel and find her childhood home. The
driver barely raised a brow as he dropped her on one end of Old Mill Walk. Lucky
it's a short street, she thought as she slung her purse over her shoulder and
headed for the first person she found out of doors, an elderly woman hunched
over and muttering as she picked up trash that had blown into her sparse yard.
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, aye," said the old woman loudly, shuffling around to face
Alyssa. Taking one look at her, the woman sized her up. "I'll not be buyin'
nothin' today, so be gone with ye."
Assuming the woman
was hard of hearing by her tone and wanting to carry the conversation across the
street where another older lady looked questioningly at them as she ambled out
to check the mail, Alyssa raised her voice and beamed a smile at both ladies.
"I'm not selling. I'm here to track down my family and I understand that
they used to live hereabouts. I'm not sure if you've been here long enough to
know them; they would have lived here in the seventies."
"Oi! Would you hear that, must be the littlest o' them Evans girls back
to find her sisters," the lady from across the street piped up. "I
told ye they took the baby wi' them as they left from 'ere, Mildred, I did. See
and she's got that Yank accent from growin' up 'cross the pond. I say, she mus'
not a died in the crash after all then."
Mildred waved a hand at her companion as she clutched her bag of trash.
"Can' say as I know what happened to them Evans girls after their parents
died. They was bundled off ter live wi' an aunt." Her creased face wrinkled
even more in thought. "Tho' that Snape boy may well know. Lives down
Spinner's End, he does, there," she said, indicating a side street further
up toward the old mill. "Not much more'n trash, he was, and I'd not be
knowin' what those girls thought, havin' any truck wi' that one. He was the kind
what kicked cats, he was." At that, she spat vehemently on the ground and
shrugged her shoulders, "but if you'd be wantin' ter find yer family, he
might be the one what could take you to 'em. Jes' be careful, he's a strange one
he is and up to no good most of the time. Gone more months of the year than he's
home and dresses in black like the devil himself, swoopin' around like a great
bat and pale as death."
"That he does," wheezed the other woman. "I'd lay odds he's
het up into drugs and devil worship and no tellin' what all else," she
said, with a nod for emphasis.
She made a sign against evil and Alyssa barely suppressed a derisive snort
before cutting into what she was sure would be a unfounded gossipy tirade.
Deciding she'd heard enough, Alyssa thanked the old women and made her way
through an alley to the next small street, more an offshoot to Old Mill than
anything else and decidedly drearier. Loathe as she was to stay in that
conversation, Alyssa had not even bothered to ask which house. Having lived in
the Bible belt, she had had more than her fair share of talk about devil worship
and superstitious, supercilious behavior from assuming minds. In fact, she was
more concerned that he might not be home, given what the woman had said about
being gone so often. Taking that as a reference, she looked for the home that
looked the least lived-in as she wrapped her calf-length cardigan more tightly
around her body. Mildred had said nothing about his having married, and Alyssa
deduced that if his personality was true to its reputation he probably wouldn't
be. But then, he was supposed to be a devil-worshipping drug dealer, so who
knew. She sidestepped tricycles, boots scuffling as she crossed the cracked
pavement, nodded to the old men sitting on their stoops whiling the day away.
Putting on her best plastic Southern belle smile, she asked as she neared them,
"do either of you know which is the Snapes' house?"
The smiles dropped abruptly from the men's faces to be replaced by
questioning, somewhat apprehensive looks as they spared a glance at each other.
Saying nothing, they simply pointed to the last house on the left before the
street dead-ended at a dilapidated playground. Taking that as confirmation of
his reputation, an uneasy feeling roiled in her gut as Alyssa stepped up
tentatively to ring the bell.
From what she could tell of the person who answered the door, her first
impression had her tossing the devil worshipping drug dealer rep and forming her
own assumptions. She had sat in on too many court proceedings to peg him as a
druggie, but judging by the state of his unkempt hair and nineteenth century
garb she placed him as someone who simply read and watched entirely too much Poe
and Tim Burton. The hair hanging over his sallow face looked as though it had
not been washed in weeks, and yet his Victorian-inspired suit was impeccably
clean and buttoned right up to his chin. Despite the appearance, a wave of
recognition passed over her for a moment, engulfing her in a sense of belonging
she had not felt for as long as she could remember. So overwhelming was the
emotion that she felt a lump rise up in her throat and had to swallow hard
before she could speak properly. She felt strongly that she was on the verge of
remembering something and at the same time knew that this was someone she could
trust. For the first time, Alyssa knew she was on the right track, but just why,
she could not say.
"Yes? What is it?"
"Ah...you must be..." What in the world is his first name, she
thought. "Your name is Snape, right? I'm ah...Alyssa," she said,
struggling for composure through the feelings that still rocked her.
"Alyssa Newland. I was told by a couple of your neighbors that you may be
able to help me find the Evanses, or at least a Petunia Evans. I think she may
have been my sister."
At this, he swung the door open fully and looked her up and down, narrowing
his gaze. She knew she flushed straight up to her hairline at his wordless
perusal. He took in her willowy form, the cobalt eyes in a delicate porcelain
face, the full mouth and fine features, hair of burnished oak spilling in curls
from her cabbie hat. "You look nothing like them," was his assessment.
"I think that would be left up to the test results though, whether we
are related or not," Alyssa answered, attempting a laugh as her insides
dipped a little. So much for feeling like I fit right in right down to the
looks, she thought. And where in the world were his manners? Couldn't he ask her
in?
"Do you know where I could find Petunia at least?" she asked,
abandoning all hope of a civilized conversation. "I do know that she
married a guy named--"
"They are now living a full five hours from here," he cut in, then
tipped his gaze directly into her eyes. Feeling as though he were peering into
her very soul, Alyssa saw any number of memories surface into her mind, of
foster homes and college days, finding Jamie and Dorsey together, and even one
she wasn't sure she had known was there. A red-haired girl laughing as a baby
clung to a morose looking boy in an oversized coat. "You're best off taking
the rail back to London and from there to Guildford. From there, Little Whinging
is a short ride. You'll want number 4 Privet Drive."
"Thank--"
"Do not thank me, quite yet. You have not met her. Or her poor excuse
for a nephew." And on that note, he shut the door smartly. Alyssa stood
there speechless for only a moment when she heard a loud crack, which she would
have taken for a car backfiring except that it seemed to have come from inside
the house. Shaking her head, Alyssa made her way back down Old Mill Walk to a
phone booth and once she secured a cab and returned to her room, began to make
plans for yet another train ride the next day and allowed herself to replay the
day's events, lingering over the strangeness of Mr. Snape. In her dreams that
night, she again saw the laughing girl and the dark lanky boy and knew, as one
knows in dreams, that she was the baby.
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Deep Roots