Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Tale of Ebenezer Snape	By : CryingCinderella Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 2912 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and do not make any money from my scribblings about it.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
A/N: So I found the proper inspiration to get moving with this again. Turns out when you're blocked with one project- go back and revisit another!

The thunderous sound had settled but the black smoke still obscured his vision. He felt himself gliding forward, just barely able to keep sight of the billowing black robes before him. Her voice had sounded strange, familiar yet different. He could not see her face; it had been shrouded in a heavy hooded cloak. But soon enough he felt the cobblestones under his feet and the city scene unfolded before him.

            It was the same public street as before; only darker, drearier. Rain was splattering down from the sky, slickening the street as they walked. He frowned. “Spirit…is this the future of Christmas?” he asked.

            She said nothing, only continued to walk. Severus followed slowly, careful to take in his surroundings. They did not slow as they passed the door he now knew to be his nephew’s. The rundown house was falling down around itself, the windows busted and a large wooden bar against the door. A tattered scrap of paper was nailed to the door; yellowing and curling in the rain. He leaned close to the door, keeping an eye on the spirit as she floated forward, but took only a moment to read that the note read ‘foreclosure.’

            He saw no merry making; heard not the melodious sounds of the buskers busking nor the carolers caroling. It was dreary; gray above him and gray below as the moved along, meandering through the city streets until they came to the door of Arthur Weasley’s house. Severus frowned. “Spirit, I believe I know why you have brought me here…” he said, his voice wavering for just a moment. He did not wish to appear a simpering ninny but did not cherish the idea of sitting through watching the family commiserate over the girl’s tragic death.

            The spirit turned to face him and without a word she pointed her finger forward; signaling him to enter the household. The scene before him was the same as he had seen before. A tiny table overcrowded with plates; two freckle-faced boys turning a tiny goose over the spit, and the same careworn woman tending to a loaf of bread. Only it was different. The careworn woman looked older, and she limped as she walked, as if her bones were stiff with arthritis. And her messy red hair was hardly red anymore, many streaks of gray working their way through her locks. She coughed a bit as she set the bread on the tiny stove top. The twins somehow looked different, not as eager and jovial. They turned the crank on the spit in silence, neither looking at each other. And the table, as he had expected, held only eight place settings.

            “Father will be home soon,” Percy Weasley said as he came down the stairs. He was followed by Bill, Ron, and Charlie though they remained silent as they took their seats around the table.

            “Yes, service should have just ended,” Molly said and sat the loaf in the middle next to the serving tray deigned for the goose. “Fred, George, bring that goose over here,” she muttered and then turned her back on her children, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve.

            “Mum?” Ron asked.

            “It’s nothing, dear, just a bit of crusting from the bread caught up in my eye,” she sniffled and then moved to the sink. She ran some water and splashed it against her face as the door lock clicked. “Arthur,” she cried and did her best to smile.

            “Happy Christmas, Weasleys,” he said just as he had said before. Only this time he seemed deflated, his voice somber, as if it were a chore to wish them a pleasant holiday.

            “Happy Christmas,” his sons muttered.

            Arthur kissed Molly on the cheek before taking his seat at the head of the table.

            “How was the service, dear?” she asked.

            “Spirit,” Severus said turning to face the cloaked woman. “Must I see more of this? The child has died, I get the point,” he muttered and cast a sad and longing glance toward the sullen family. But the spirit remained hovering near the door, her finger pointed toward the family.

            “The service was lovely, the preacher spoke of kindness and forgiving at this time of year…” he hiccupped to cover a sniffle. “Ginny would have understood it best,” he said and then bowed his head.

            “And the churchyard?” asked Bill, he too was blinking back tears.

            “It was beautiful. Covered in snow, Ginny’s stone was nearly covered,” he tried his best to smile.

            They had hardly been able to afford a coffin let alone a proper stone when the girl had passed. They had buried her on the hill at the back of the churchyard, the place reserved for paupers and the unclaimed dead. With no money for a proper headstone they had gathered the biggest rock they could find; it had been a foundation rock beneath the very house in which they had sat; and with some careful spells they had managed to make it look nice. Arthur grabbed Molly and Ron’s hands, signaling the pre-meal prayer.

            “Thankful that you lot remain strong,” Arthur muttered, he squeezed Molly’s hand, but so faintly that she almost didn’t feel it.

            “Thankful that my boys are still healthy,” she was crying full as she squeezed Bill’s hand.

            The scene began to grow dim as Bill Weasley spoke his thanks and in a moment they had faded completely to black and Severus Snape found himself once again standing on the street. It had grown darker and the rain had not relented. He frowned. “Must the future of Christmas hold so much misery and suffering?” he asked.

            But the spirit did not speak. She simply began to glide forward, moving down the street. They passed the tiny churchyard and as they did Severus slowed his footsteps. A tiny black rock, no higher than his knee stood just beneath a tree, nearly buried in the snow. He floated easily through the iron gates guarding the yard and knelt for a moment at meager tombstone. “Forgive me,” he muttered, and brushed the snow from her rock until it was clear. He had no offering to give, no coin or flower to lay upon her grave, so instead he reached up and snapped a branch from the tree. A simple muttered spell had twisted the branch into the shape of a cross; he laid it across the headstone before floating back through the iron fence to follow the spirit.

            She stopped once more on a street he did not recognize. It was not in front of a house, neither his nor any relative nor person he knew otherwise. The street was empty save for him and the spirit, the rain continuing to pour down from above. He was puzzled as to why she had brought him to the desolate little street, but waited patiently in silence for her to proceed. The spirit remained silent as she pointed over his shoulder.

            Severus slowly turned around and gazed at the building before him. It was a tiny brick building; only slightly bigger than the rundown shack that served as a home to the Weasleys. The tiny sign in front of the building had come off of its hinges and was lying in the snow, despite the puddles of rain trickling down from the sky. He stepped toward it and cleared a snow clump from it with his boot. He frowned once more. The sign read, “Hogsmeade Library.” Turning his head to the spirit he found that she was still pointing toward the building.

            He sighed. He didn’t know anyone that was employed or would otherwise take interest in the library, especially on Christmas, but having little choice he walked toward the building and floated inside. The books were dusty; covered in cobwebs as if they hadn’t been touched in years. It was a one room building except for the tiny door on the far wall; the caretaker’s office no doubt. He noticed the tiny glow coming from the slightly ajar door on the far wall and he drifted toward it.

            Severus gasped in surprise, but quickly remembered that he could not be heard as he glanced inside. It nearly brought tears to his eyes, to see her there; seated on the edge of a tiny fold-up cot. Her hair was shorter than when he’d seen her last, and mostly grey, dull without the life it normally had. Her face was sunken in; eyes listless with heavy dark circles beneath them. And her frame was so frail she looked as if she might collapse at any moment.

            “Happy Christmas,” she muttered.

            Severus was started, and then cleared his throat. “Happy Christmas,” he said and carefully moved toward him. But he realized, as he sat beside her on the edge of the cot, that it was not to him that she had spoken. Hermione Granger slowly rose from the bed and crossed the four steps to the other side of the tiny office that she had turned into her home. A picture was taped to the wall, and he held his breath as he watched her pull it gently down.

            The picture was all too familiar. A photograph taken of the two of them, their first ball together. He was dressed rather handsome and she gorgeous. They smiled and waved gaily from the photo as she held it in her trembling hands.

            Severus slowly stood from his seat on the cot and floated toward her. Though she could not feel him; he wrapped his arms around her. Hermione stood there for a moment, a shiver passing through her, before she crossed slowly back to her tiny cot and allowed the tears to tumble down her cheeks. “No more Christmases…” she whimpered and placed the photo underneath her threadbare pillow. He watched disbelieving as she pulled a tiny vial from beneath her pillow. It was a potion he recognized all too well; but knowing that he was merely a shade he floated silently toward the door. “Happy Christmas,” she muttered and downed the vial of Drought of the Living Dead.

            He had floated out of the office and was moving toward the outside when he heard the soft but heavy thump of her body collapse against the hardwood floor. Severus closed his eyes and did his best not to cry.

            The spirit was hovering just near the entrance of the library building as he drifted through the wall. “Spirit,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “I have seen what I need to see. Please, show me no more, I wish to return…”

            But the spirit ignored his plea and floated on forward. With reluctance he followed. They moved slowly back up the street, passing once more by the churchyard. Only this time the spirit began to drift through the iron fencing and meander between the gravestones. He heard voices as he followed.

            “Well if it were up to me, I’d say we just burn ‘im,” one of the voices said. It came from a grubby stout little fellow, standing with a shovel in hand. “Not like anyone’s goin’ ta throw flowers at ‘im, now are they?” he snickered and leaned heavy against his shovel.

            “Well ‘tain’t up ta you,” the other said. He was taller and much thinner, though he was standing hip deep in a hole, shoveling a mound of dirt over his shoulder. “So shut your yap and hop in this hole and help me dig.”

            The rounded man rolled his eyes. “What for? You’re nearly finished.”

            “Because,” the taller man said. “If you don’t, I’m going to finish you and this can be your hole!”

            The two men fell into silence, the sound of their shovels trenching through the wet dirt the only sound to fill the churchyard.

            “Spirit,” Severus said, slowly moving in front of the cloaked figure. She stopped as he stood before her. “Please…” he said. “Is the man, that poor ill wretch they speak of…they speak of me, do they not?”

            The cloaked figure drew her hand once more and pointed to the hole that the men had been digging. But the men had vanished and a proper open grave stood in their wake. Severus felt a shiver slide down his spine as he approached the grave. A tiny polished rock was at the head of the grave. He squinted his eyes and then felt his heart skip a beat. It was his name etched in the stone. He turned to face the cloaked figure once more. “Spirit, please,” he caught his breath, and felt his whole body go nearly numb. “Please, these are only things that could be, not things that truly must be? As the future can change by any number of actions taken in the present?” he felt his lip tremble as he spoke once more. “Spirit, please…I can change these things…I can…change…”

            She bowed her head slightly and with a slow fluid motion, she drew back the hood of the cloak. A grotesque decaying face of a once beautiful girl appeared before him. “Severus Snape you are doomed!” she shrieked, her voice unearthly, echoing around her as if many snakes had hissed his name. Her eyes were glassy, sunken in against her rotting flesh, her cheekbone showing through. “Your fate is sealed if you cannot change your ways!”

            “But I can change!” he cried. The spirit surged forward, her face practically decaying before him and at once a flaming skull appeared in its place. She burst into maniacal demonic laughter. Severus stumbled backward, loosing h footing against the edge of the open grave and tumbled into the earthy darkness. He screamed, and struggled, flailing his arms about. “I can change! I can change!” he cried as he landed hard against the surface beneath him; the echoes of her demonic maniacal laughter filling his ears until everything went black.

Thank you for reading! Please leave a review!
- 5
- 6
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Tale of Ebenezer Snape