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Why He Hates Muggles	By : OddDoll Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female Views: 2848 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Why He Hates Muggles

Chapter 3

By Odd Doll
Tuesday, June 8, 1976
The next day, playing very cool, Severus spent the morning in the cellar,
and refused to make thip uip upstairs to ask his mother if she had seen
Charity while working in the garden. By noon he had cleaned the room
and made a list of things that were missing. At lunch he ate in sullen
silence, which really wasn�t that unusual since he had reached his teen
years.
�I�m glad she hasn�t shown up yet,� his mother said, as if reading his
mind. �There are some things we need to discuss about her.�
Severus groaned. �Mu-um, I just met her for chrisakes.�
�And look where your mind is already going,� she said with mock severity.
It occurred to Brenda Snape that her son was fifteen, and she had never
had the need to talk to him about girnbspnbsp; The thought made her very
sad. �I just wanted to talk about the things we should and should
not tell her.�
�Oh.� Severus blushed to the roots of his hair. �Can I tell
her I�m a wizard?�
�Yes, I think that would be all right. If she doesn�t know any
other wizards, it might be good for her to get to know one.�
�If she wants to get to know me,� he said gloomily.
His mother reached out and patted his forearm as if he were still a
little boy. �Severus,� she said, �can you imagine how isolated this
girl must feel?�
Yes, actually, I can, he thought. �We don�t know anything about
her. She might have tons of friends and not care about witchcraft.�
�But she said her sisters hated her because she was a witch,� his mother
replied. �We�ll just have to get to know her. That means me,
and maybe your father, too.�
�Oh, Mum, do we have to?� His father was scary, and difficult
to please. Making new friends was next to impossible for Severus
as it was. He did not need his father forbidding the friendship,
or worse, scaring her off.
�Sev, don�t whine like a five-year-old. If we screw this up, and
too much information gets out, your father will pay for it, too.
He should be involved in this.�
Severus nodded, and scowled at the floor. Just because his mother
was right did not mean he had to be magnanimous about it.
�Now, we can probably let her into the house. The parlor to start
with, I think. There aren�t many magical devices there. Definitely
not the kitchen.�
Sev looked around, as if seeing the kitchen through fresh eyes.
It was one of the nicest rooms in the house, with big, multi-paned windows
that looked out on the immense back garden and his mother�s small orchards.
In many ways, it resembled an old-fashioned muggle kitchen, with an enormous
black stove, granite counter tops, and a huge oak table upon which house
elves had once prepared meals for the Snape household. However, upon
the stove sat a copper cauldron of soup with a wooden spoon sticking upright
in the center. Every two-and-one-half minutes the spoon stirred the
soup once clockwise and once counter-clockwise. Close inspection
would reveal that the stove had no flame and the heat regulated itself.
At the opposite end of the table from where Severus sat with his mother,
lemons were bouncing onto an upturned blade. Each sed had half would
then bounce onto a juicer that spun atop a pitcher already filled with
water and sugar for lemonade. Aside the lemons sat a vat of bread
dough. It had risen to top top of the container, and any moment it
would punch itself down, knead for a few minutes and then separate into
four loaves while the vat transformed itself into four bread pans.
And then there was the long table under the window with the the cauldrons
his mother used to make the lotions and soaps she sold in the muggle gift
shops in town.
�You�re right,� he said. �This might freak her out.�
�You can talk about some of the things magic can do, but not how to
do them just yet. Understand?�
�Okay.�
�And whatever you do, don�t tell her about places like Diagon Alley,
or the Ministry, or St. Mungo�s. The fewer people who know that they
exist, the fewer people will be trying to find them.�
�All right, I get it,� he said with typical teenage impatience.
�It probably won�t matter anyway.�
As if to prove him wrong, a silver hand bell, which rested on a shelf
by the door, shook itself. Its peal could be heard in tntirntire
fifteen-room house.
�What was that?� Severus asked.
�The doorbell, silly. I guess it�s been a while since we have
had guests.� In fact, she realized that, while Severus used to visit
one or two muggle friends before he left for Hogwarts, no wizard child
had ever come to the Snape home to visit him. On the rare occasion dis distant relative, acquaintance or old school friend would come with their
children. Severus enjoyed those visits, she remembered. She
wondered why he never asked to bring friends home from Hogwarts on the
breaks.
Brenda Snape answered the door and found that, up close, Charity was
every bit as lovely as her son had described. She wore a pink oxford
shirt and a maroon skirt, with leather sandals. Her hair was pinned
back with a wooden stick in a leather thong. The skirt came to just
below her knees, a length far out of date. In fact, her apparel was
similar to Brenda�s own denim skirt and plain white blouse. The effect
struck Brenda as odd � hippie goes conservative, or maybe the other way
around.
�Hello,� Charity said with a tentative smile. �I�m Charity.�
�Well, of course you are. Why don�t you come in?�
Charity looked startled at the suggestion. She glanced behind
her, toward the road, but said, �All right.�
The Snape house qualified as a mansion, and the entry was designed to
impress. Two staircases curved up from the black marble floor to
meet in the center of the hall at the upper landing. Each step, formed
from a thin strip of black marble, was suspended in mid-air, as were think ink marble banisters. Brenda saw Charity stare at them, and realized
how much witches took for granted.
�Here,� she said, taking Charity�s elbow. �Why don�t we step into
the parlor?� She guided the bemused girl to the double doors on the
left of the hall. She waved a hand toward the mahogany l dol doors
and they slid apart with a squeak. One of them stuck partway.
Like everything else in the house, it needed repair. Brenda shoved
her shoulder into it with a grunt, and the door screeched open.
�We don�t use this room much,� she said. Severus walked up behind
them and she was treated to an example of the icy, neutral expression he
had been perfecting in the years since he left for Hogwarts.
�Severus said I could come back, but I wasn�t sure if I should let you
know when I take a walk,� Charity said.
�I hadn�t thought about that,� Brenda said, �but I wanted it meet you,
anyway. Why don�t you talk for a bit while I get some lemonade?
Severus has something he wants to tell you.�
She looked up at him, her expression expectant.
�Hello,� he said.
�Hi,� she said with a bit of a laugh. �Did you have somethino teo tell me?�
�Yes,� he said with an embarrassed shrug. �I�m a wizard.�
�What?� her smile was tentative, as if she wanted to believe him, but
didn�t dare.
a w a wizard. I couldn�t tell you yesterday, because I never
heard of your school and I needed to be sure. There�re rules about
secrecy.�
�Oh!� Her face lit with joy. �That�s�that�s�wonderful!�
She sprang at him and wrapped her arms around him in a fierce hug.
Even without his arms pinned to his sides he was too stunned to move.
He got a quick whiff of wcitrcitrus from her hair before she backed away.
�I�m sorry. My mother always says I�m too affectionate.�
She laughed, but tears rolled down her cheeks. He watched, astonished,
as she burst into tears.
�Um. What�s the matter?�
She laughed again, sending him into a state of complete confusion.
She wiped her face with the back of her left hand and fumbled in her skirt
pocket with her right.
�Ask her to sit down and give her a handkerchief, you dunderhead,� a
male voice called out.
She looked around, startled. �Who was that?� She shook with
either fear or strong emotions. Severus couldn�t tell.
�Why don�t you have a seat?� he said. He pointed to a deep, Victorian
armchair upholstered in dark green velvet. Dainty crocheted doilies
hid the worn patches on the arms and upper back.
�Handkerchief,� the voice demanded.
�I don�t have a clean one,� Severus snapped. She looked around
the room, trying to find the source of the voice. Her eyes registered
alarm, and he could see the situation spinning out of his control.
�Shut up, Grandpa, you�re scaring her.�
�Is that painting talking?� she asked, staring at it in awe. Somehow,
her wonderment calmed her. Her hand found her handkerchief and drew
it out, pulling her pocket inside out, and she sank back into the chair
with it clutched in one hand. �It�s moving, too.� She smiled
now, bemused, and stared at the painting of his grandfather, in his foppish
�20�s clothing. Severus hovered by her chair, his discomfort acute.
He couldn�t recall the girls at school acting this bizarre. Maybe
it was a muggle thing.
�How do you do, young lady? Now be a good girl and wipe your nose.�
She laughed a little and obeyed.
�Yeah,� he said, trying to pull off nonchalant and failing. �Magical
portraits do talk and move. The real challenge,� he said, shooting
a glare at his grandfather�s painting, �is getting them to shut up.�
�He looks a lot like you.�
He looked up at the portrait, but felt her eyes on his face. �Right.
Just part of the Snape family fortune. A wealth of good looks.�
�You sound like your father,� his mother said. She carried a tray
with glasses and a pitcher of lemonade into the room, and set them on the
massive mahogany coffee table. Charity stared at her while she poured.
�Are you�?� she asked.
�Yes, I�m a witch, too. And my husband is a wizard.� She
sat on a sofa of the same vintage as the chair, and also in worn green
velvet. �Sit, Severus. If you keep hovering like a dementor,
you�re going to scare the girl into fits.�
He lowered himself onto one end of the sofa. �Grandpa already
did that.�
�Father Snape,� his mother said. �Leave the poor girl alone.
She�s had enough shocks for one day.�
�Is he a wizard, too?�
�Yes. The Snape family has a very long history of wizardry,� his
mother said.
Severus sat back and drank his lemonade, happy to let his mother do
the talking.
�I thought you might,� Charity said. �The first day we drove by
here, I pointed out the house and my sisters didn�t know what I was talking
about. I finally figured out that, to them, the woods came all the
way up to the road and there was no house or clearing.�
�That�s right,� his mother said. �It is an illusion we created
to keep muggles from wandering onto the property and seeing things they
shouldn�t.�
�Muggles?�
�Non-magical people.�
�How do you keep them from taking a walk in the woods?�
�There is a host of spells covering every inch of the perimeter of the
Snape estate.�
�To scare people away?�
His mother laughed. �No. People are perverse that way.
The scarier you make it, the more interested they are in seeing it.
Someone really fearless could get past a spell like that. We use
spells to make them remember something urgent they forgot to do back home,
or a sudden desire to walk by the river.�
�But I got past it,� Charity said with a smile.
�And that�s because the spells can sense that you are a witch.�
The three of them sat quietly for a moment, while Charity took in her
surroundings. The room was spacious, but the Victorian furniture
divided it into two intimate spaces. Father Snape�s portrait hung
in a place of honor above a fieldstone fireplace. More portraits
hung on the walls, some smiling and some scowling at Charity. In
a painting made during the Goblin Rebellion, goblins and wizards battled
over the roof of the Ministry building, killing each other over and over.
The roof of the front porch was high, but the porch it was was so deep
that little daylight penetrated into the room. Lamps were lit at
midday. At night, with the drapes drawn, the room was snug and cozy,
but during the daytime the effect was dreary. The rooms at the back
of the house were much more pleasant, Severus thought.
�Charity,� his mother said, �I imagine this is a lot for you to take
in.�
Charity nodded, bringing her focus back to his mother.
�Severus has told me a little bit of your situation. I think we
would enjoy showing you more of the magical world. Would you like
that?�
�Oh, yes. Very much.� She glanced at Severus. �If
it isn�t a bother, or anything. I wouldn�t want to be a pest, but�.�
She chewed her lower lip and looked off toward the window.
�I don�t mind,� Severus said. �It could be fun.� Severus
thought about the last four long, boring summers and decided that teaching
a prettrl arl all about magic was a vast improvement. He tried not
to let it show, though. He didn�t want to scare her off by looking
too eager.
�There are some things you need to understand, though,� his mother told
her. �There are strict rules about secrecy and keeping the magical
world and the muggle world strictly separate. Our whole family could
get into serious trouble if it got out that you went home and told your
parents about the things you saw or heard here. Do you understand
what I�m saying?�
�Yes. I�d never tell them.� She looked at his mother, her
big eyes solemn. In a very soft voice she said, �I think they�d kill
me if they knew. To them, just sitting here in your house would be
a terrible sin. And I�m very good at keeping secrets.�
�Oh, Honey,� his mother said. �It must be so hard for you to be
a witch in a household like that.�
Once again, Charity�s eyes filled with tears, and her lower lip trembled.
Severus stared, as spellbound as if she were working magic upon him.
It frustrated and humiliated him that he could not think of one word to
say to her. She glanced at him, blanched in horror and turned away.
His mother got his attention by poking his upper arm, hard, and giving
him a disapproving look. It dawned on him that his inner turmoil
had expressed itself as a scowl. �Say something,� she
mouthed to him. He shrugged with upturned palms. She poked
him again and glared.
�Charity,� he said. When she looked at him he said, �Do you still
want to go for a walk today?�
Charity opened her mouth to speak, but his mother jumped in to say,
�That might be a good idea. Some exercise would make you feel better
and clear your head so you can think.�
She glanced at her watch and said, �I would really like to, but I didn�t
have much time to begin with.� She looked at Severus again, doubt
in her eyes. �I should get going.�
His mother stood and they all followed suit. �Charity,� she said,
�you are welcome to drop by any time. Could you come by on Saturday?
I would like my husband to meet you, too.�
Severus rolled his eyes, but neither of them saw it.
�Yes, I might be able to. I can�t say for sure when I can go out.
I don�t always know from day to day. I�ll try, though.�
At the door she turned to them, saying, �Thank you so much. You
have no idea how much this means to me.�
�Don�t worry about it, dear. You just be careful and don�t let
anything slip.�
�I won�t,� she promised and stepped out onto the porch.
When she was out of hearing, his mother said, �That is the most exquisite
beauty I�ve ever seen. And she�s so�unspoiled. Most girls these
days are so brazen and loud. Your father must meet her.�
�Mom, does he really have to? She�s so timid. He�ll scare
her away.�
�Sev, you have nothing to worry about. She�s meek, submissive,
and gorgeous. Your father will love her. Now go
out there and walk her to the road, and be nice.�
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Why He Hates Muggles