‘All right I don’t know what’s happening, I am all torn inside, people say I’m heavy, they don’t know what I hide.’
Black Sabbath
‘Cornucopia’
Ruth awoke later than she usually would and stretched out inside the cave. The bed was warm and comfy, but her mother wasn’t there and it made her feel strange. She looked about at the inside of the cave and at the levitating candles her father had conjured up with his wand the night before.
She didn’t hate her father, but she didn’t like him either and in her childish innocence, she would have no qualms in letting that fact slip. What he thought had no relevance to her.
She peered out to the entrance of her cave, where brisk, bright sunlight was shining through. It looked warm and she wanted to find her mother to ask what was going to happen now. But she didn’t want to go near her father.
Her mum had filled her head from a young age with stories about how kind her father was and what a great wizard he was but even at the age of five and a half, Elizabeth was a good judge of character and didn’t think her father seemed that perfect. Her mother obviously approved, but Ruth was a very intelligent girl and mature for her years and she thought her father was scary and a little too normal to be the man her mother had taught her all about.
To a child, that was understandable after all. Snape was a tall man with strong features and he always dressed in black and scowled so much it was his equivalent of a relaxed facial expression. To a child, that was no easy thing to accept. Elizabeth had never really seen the need to describe Severus physically, so Ruth had built up a mental image that far surpassed the real one. She had always pictured him to be like a prince. With black hair yes, and those dark eyes that her mother had so much affection for, but just different. The hair was shorter for a start and the eyes had a certain kind glitter to them in her mind, but the reality was hollow eyes in a fixed stare and lank hair, with no shine. Whenever Elizabeth read her stories she always put the hero in it into her fathers image, but the man who had brought them back into the forest last night was no prince and as a five year old girl, Ruth would recognize that fact more than anyone else.
She wanted to go home. The home she shared with her mother; the shabby, messy, small, cluttered little home she loved so well. It was just off Diagon Alley and Elizabeths mother Bertha paid the rent. Elizabeth couldn’t work because of the Hit Wizards and Aurors and spent all of her time at home with Ruth, teaching her all the magic she knew, all she could remember from school. Ruth liked magic. She learned quickly. Ruth worshipped her mother, though Elizabeth was far from being the perfect mother. She was impatient, often quite ignorant, she smoked and had a temper. But she loved Ruth dearly, from the first time she ever held her, when she was nothing but a screaming, blood streaked infant to now, when she was a forlorn child with no interest in anyone else but her mother. They only had each other and suited Ruth fine.
Bertha helped out a lot, but Elizabeth didn’t get on with her and the arguments between them were frequent and often verging on violent. Ruth had lost count of the amount of times she had had to beg her mother to stop shouting and for them both to just leave each other alone.
She got out of the bed and went to find Elizabeth.
Snape and Elizabeth were sat in the same place, beneath the tree. She was looking down at him and had one hand rested on the side of his face, his head was still rested on her lap and it looked as though she was whispering to him.
"Mummy?" she said. It was the first time Snape had heard her speak. Ruth yawned and rubbed her eye with a fist. One of her socks had disappeared in the night.
"Morning Ruth, come here."
Snape sat up and rested back against the same tree that Elizabeth was leant against, unwinding sore muscles. His was so tired but couldn’t sleep, though she had tried to talk him into it with her whispery, feathery voice. Instead he had kind of slipped into a similar dream state that he went into when riddled with insomnia. Aware of her voice and nothing else except the smell of the sweetness on the air and residual paranoia in his brain.
Ruth came over and stood in front of them.
"Did you sleep well, darling?" Elizabeth asked, reaching out to take her hand.
"Yes." Was the quiet reply. She came over and sat on her mothers lap, putting a thumb in her mouth and resting her head on her breasts.
Snape watched the maternal interaction taking place at his side and found himself, much to his inner surprise, wanting to be part of it. But the part of him that was still very rigid and cold was whispering in his ear, feeding him insecurities like large indigestible chunks of cotton wool. Reminding him how he was useless at maintaining a relationship even on a platonic basis with his fellow staff at the school, so how did he ever expect to be able to interact in a family? Telling him he was going to mess it up and that they would run away and leave him, that they would reject no matter how hard he tried. He was a buffoon. He absent-mindedly fingered a lock of hair and tried to look icy, like nothing was bothering him, though it was, tried to look as though everything was normal and he was used to being so close to people. Elizabeth was taking in the silence, finally taking a rest from the chain smoking and just holding her daughter in the tranquil quiet of the Forest morning. The Forbidden Forest didn’t look so bad in the daytime, it was surprisingly quite dark though, like the canopy of the Forest should have been complete with intertwining branches and dense foliage, but when you looked up, the blue sky above was bright and clear. It was very likely that it was magic, the Forest was a legendarily evil and dark place, though it did have its fair share of good creatures, the bad ones outweighed them by about a thousand. Shadows darkened every spare patch of land and made even the random beds of wild flowers look dark.
Snape shifted his weight a little and stifled a cough, feeling so awkward he could have died. He would have rather have been substituting a Fourth Year sex education class than sitting there not knowing how to act, feeling helpless.
Elizabeth looked at him with a puzzled look on her face.
"Are you all right?" she asked. He nodded without smiling and tried to relax again. She got the feeling something was very wrong with the situation and she was a bit upset. In her mind she had always pictured them getting on, the three of them as a nice little family, but that was never the way it was going to be. She had always just wanted a normal life with a normal man and a normal family with a normal child, but her life had never been anything even remotely close to normal and it never would be, as life rarely is. She looked at Snape and held the side of Ruth’s head, frowning to herself at his obvious discomfort.
Suddenly there was a loud, yet unmistakable sound of a twig snapping, like a loud whip-crack.
Snape looked over at Elizabeth, whose eyes were wide with fear. They didn’t need to speak, they just rose quickly and took Ruth back into the cave. Once in there, Snape got his wand and sealed the entrance again.
"Do you think its those bad men again?" Ruth asked.
"Yes, so be quiet or they’ll hear us." He snapped, instantly regretting it when he turned to see the child’s face set in anger and yet more disappointment.
"We have to be quiet Ruthie. Won’t they see us?" Elizabeth whispered as the three of them settled down on the bed.
"No, I’ve put a charm on the entrance so that when others come close to it they will see nothing but what the inside of what a cave should look like, even if they come in. There’s a similar charm on Hogwarts actually; one which makes Muggles think the school is nothing but a ruined old castle from the outside with signs surrounding it saying the place is dangerous. This is a very toned down version of that charm. We should be safe for the time being." He looked at the little red face at Elizabeth’s side and felt a pang of guilt.
"I’m sorry I snapped at you Ruth." He said, cursing himself internally a thousand million times. Like trying to get her to like him wasn’t a big enough task in itself. Ruth glared at him and he settled back against the cave wall feeling defeated, watching the entrance like a hawk.
"If anyone was to walk past the entrance, would we be able to see them?" Elizabeth asked.
"Of course."
They sat in silence and waited for an hour or so, but there were no more noises. Snape conjured up some breakfast for them all and they ate quietly. He watched Ruth out of the corner of his eye. She was chewing on a piece of toast and marmalade and staring out of the cave entrance. Elizabeth was also eating the same thing and combing her daughters hair with her fingers. Separating the knots and tangles. Ruths hair was identical to Snapes. He didn’t bother with his however, he was naturally black-haired and he just let it grow. He only cut it when it got in his way. He’d had exactly the same length and cut of hair since he was fifteen and had no intention in changing it now. It served no purpose to him except as something to hide behind, so cutting it would only defeat that object.
"Is there any source of water in this Forest?" Elizabeth asked.
"Yes, I should think so but I don’t know where exactly. Why? I can make water with my wand if you need it."
"Well, I need running water so I can get a wash, maybe wash my hair. You can’t do that can you?"
"Not without getting it all over the cave floor. Can’t you leave it?"
"I’m coming with you Mummy, if you’re going somewhere." Ruth piped up.
Elizabeth looked at Ruth and felt cross that she was being so deliberately awkward about being around her father.
"I’ll decide that, thank you."
Snape couldn’t believe how tired he was, he felt like a zombie. He yawned and tried not to let her comment upset him, though he couldn’t deny even to himself that it had made his heart sink a little.
"I’m going out to have a look and see if I can I find a stream. You, Miss Ignorant can stay here with your father and stop being so rude." Elizabeth got up and began to get ready to leave, but Ruth wouldn’t let go of her hand. Snape could hardly believe the look of desperation in Ruth’s eyes.
"Mummy." She pleaded, dragged her back.
"Ruth Snape, get yourself back over there now. Do you want me to force you? Get over there! Now!"
Ruth shook her head, looking over at Snape in terror and then back up at her mother.
"Mummy, please, I’ll be good!" she wrapped her arms around Elizabeth’s legs. Snape was in shock. It was also fair to say he felt a considerable amount of heartbreak. He was also surprised that Elizabeth had elected to give the girl his surname instead of hers. He stood and came over to where they struggled.
"Take her with you, Elizabeth, or we’ll all go."
"No, she’s got to learn. She’s just been used to it being the two of us for so long. Ruth, get off me, now, you will stay here." She flung the girl off her legs with a push and she bounced off against Snape. He instinctively put his arms out to catch her, but she shrugged him off and ran over to sit on the bed, looking mortified that she couldn’t get her own way, sobbing and insulting her mother.
Elizabeth went over to the cave entrance with him in tow.
"Don’t leave me with her like this, Elizabeth, what the hell am I supposed to do with her?" he hissed, closing a fist around her wrist. She looked up at his eyes and instead of the usual emptiness, she saw a streak of fear in them, making the creases around them more prominent. His grip was vice like.
"Severus, you need to do this, you need to spend some time alone with her. You’ve handled children for years, you managed all right with me, didn’t you?" she smiled. He did not.
"She’s not a child, she’s an infant. An infant who hates me no less! Don’t leave me with this!"
"Sev, can I just point out how unfair you are being? I have been a single mother for five and a half years, I think the father of my child might want to give me a ten minute break while I wash my hair and get some fresh air. Go and sit with her, please. I’ll be back before you know it."
He scowled at her with his meanest, most horrible stare, but she shook her head and kissed him lightly on the cheek, before leaving.
"Be careful!" he shouted after her in a sharp tone. She didn’t turn round but waved a hand idly over her shoulder in acknowledgment.
Snape turned back into the cave and noticed that Ruth was silent now but was staring at him with a familiar piercing stare from the bed. He rubbed the side of his face and tried desperately to think of something, anything you could converse about to a five year old. Quidditch? No, she probably couldn’t even pronounce that. Magic? No, where would you start with a subject like that? Potions? Ridiculous.
He went over to the bed and slumped down on the end, putting his aching head in his hands.
"Look," he said, to the loudly sniffing girl. "You don’t want to be here alone with me I know, but your mother thinks it would be for the best, so we might as well try and get along for her sake."
Ruth frowned at him when he looked over.
"What shall I call you?" she asked, eventually.
"What would you feel comfortable calling me?" he asked.
"Jasper." She said.
He raised his eyebrows. He was expecting ‘Dad’ or ‘Daddy’ or something like that.
"That’s not my name Ruth." He said.
"I know, your name is Severus Snape. But Jasper is the name of my cat."
Such strange childish logic. He didn’t understand but thought that if it would make life easier when on the run from Hit Wizards, then surely it would be worth it.
"I miss him." She explained, though still looking at him like he were a dangerous animal.
"What kind of cat is he?" he asked, moving back to sit closer to her. As he moved back, she moved away from him a little so they were still a good four feet apart. But the fact they were talking was something at least, even if she couldn’t bear to be near him.
"A fat cat." She said.
"Fat cats are the best kind of cat. I have a fat cat." He said.
"What’s his name?" she said in a tone that sounded like she was very interested indeed but didn’t want him to know that.
"Sabbath. Your mother gave him to me before you were born. He was a little black kitten then. But he’s big and black now, a lump who never does anything except sit about or sleep." He said.
They looked at one another.
"My cat is ginger. I feed him all the time but mum doesn’t know, so don’t tell her. She doesn’t know why he’s fat!" she said. She wiped some snot from her nose with the back of one hand and then the tears from her eyes with the other.
"Here." He said and passed her his handkerchief. She took it gingerly and used it, but kept her eye on him all the time as though he might do something when she wasn’t looking. They sat in silence for a while.
"You’re my dad aren’t you?" she asked after a while.
"Yes." He said. She nodded to herself and bit her lip in concentration.
"Do you want me to call you dad instead of Jasper?" she asked.
"Why don’t you call me whatever feels right?" he asked. She passed the handkerchief back, but it was soggy now.
"Can I call you Jasper then? For now?"
"Of course Ruth."
She smiled a weak and timid smile.
Elizabeth found a narrow stream and washed herself in it. The water was pleasantly warmed from the sunlight shining down upon it. She kept her wits about her however and listened intently to all noises around her. All seemed tranquil enough, but she was not a stupid woman and kept her guard up, looking over her shoulder constantly. On the way back to the cave, with her hair in dripping rat tails down her back she enjoyed the walk immensely. She had never really had a great appreciation for nature, but found it pleasant in the silence and sweetness of the warm spring/summer.
She knew she must go back though as all hell would probably be breaking loose and she could not be doing with both a sulking child and a sulking man on top of her many other problems.
In the cave when she returned, things didn’t seem right however. It was too quiet when she approached and she found herself breaking into a run. On the cave entrance there was a piece of parchment stuck there with a dagger stabbing it into the moss. She snatched the paper down and ran inside.
Severus was laying on his side on the makeshift bed, looking asleep but Ruth was nowhere to be seen, his head rested against the wall.
"Severus!" she screamed. He didn’t move.
"Severus!" she went and knelt at his side, shaking him, dropping the parchment in the process, shoving him about to wake him up.
"Ruth?!" she called out into the recesses of the cave, but she was not there. She shook him again and rolled him over onto her. Slowly he regained consciousness and opened his heavy lidded eyes. There was a graze on the top left side of his forehead. She hugged him close to her and kissed him hard, relieved he was alive.
"Sev, where is Ruth? Where is she? What happened?"
He squinted at her and then sat up.
"Hit Wizards." He said. He got up and went over to the cave entrance, though staggering a bit as he did it.
"Ruth!! Ruth!! Are you out there!?!" he called. He returned to where she was shaking on the bed.
"There was this outside." She remembered suddenly, picking up the parchment and handing it too him. He squinted through the pain in his head and looked at the note.
"Elizabeth Short, we know where you are and you’re daughter is with is. She will be quite safe and cared for well we assure you, but she will not be returned to you unless you hand yourself in. Being a murderer we realize you are a little twisted and might not want to comply with this offer. We’ll give you three days in which you can make up your mind. When those days are over we will return to the cave with the girl and we can make a decision. If you decide to leave the girl with us permanently for your own escape, we will be sending her to a Muggle orphanage for adoption.
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement."
Elizabeth howled into her arms and he knelt by her side and covered her with his arms, holding her tight.
"Get off!" she cried, shrugging him away. He caught a glimpse of her eyes, filled with tears in an expression of complete fear and anguish.
"Elizabeth, please, come here." He stayed knelt by her and watched, palm of one hand resting lightly between her shoulders.
"This is all my fault!" she sobbed, lowering her head into her arms again.
It happened quickly and it had happened violently. They had just been sat there talking quietly, getting acquainted with one another and then they were in there. Four Hit Wizards. Two grabbed the girl as the other two pinned him down. Ruth had screamed and cried as they lifted her, displaying emotion he didn’t think she had in her, especially in front of him. She actually reached out to him as they walked her outside, her tear streaked face came back to him and he shook his head.
The other two had laughed at him. Surely they weren’t supposed to do that? Hardly a professional kidnap job if ever there were one….. They didn’t knock him out with a spell either, one of them had simply grabbed a fistful of his raven hair and smacked his head against the wall. He rubbed the graze that marked the spot as he remembered the blinding pain. The Ministry had obviously relaxed with its methods of persuasion a little. Those Hit Wizards had blatantly enjoyed what they had done. Snape wasn’t like most men and never approved of such inappropriate butchness. They must have hit him hard to make him black out; he could vaguely recall seeing stars as he went. He knew the graze was going to form into a lump. But for now he had more important matters to attend to, he had to comfort Elizabeth with what he already knew.
"Look, for a start I can tell you that they won’t hurt Ruth. They can’t, its against their principles. I’ve heard of this before. They often take something as an act of persuasion, an incentive to get a criminal to turn themselves in. It is usually a relative the wanted person is closest too. Its supposed to be the non violent alternative, but they knocked me out physically. It wasn’t magic, they smacked my head against the wall. However, within the Ministry there are extremely strict rules against cruelty or force on children, so Ruth will be safe. Don’t worry, please."
She sat back up and glared at him.
"Don’t worry?" she snapped, slapping away the hand that rested on her back. "Don’t worry? Severus, I am going to have to turn myself in!! And then what? I’ll be serving a life’s worth at Azkaban! I can’t turn myself in! But then what about Ruth? What can I do about her? I want my little girl back! I can’t win!!"
Fresh tears spilled down her face. He gazed at the distraught woman before him and felt pangs inside him, hating of the fact she was sad. He hated himself for screwing up her life so badly. He knew she had been responsible for the murder herself, he had no part in that, but if they had never been separated in the first place then she wouldn’t have had to seek her revenge for it. And they would never have been together in the first place if it weren’t for him and his weakness of character. He cursed himself every time he thought of her crying, all the pain he had caused her. Why could he not have waited and then just have approached her after she graduated and told her then? Told her he had loved her for so long it had burned him internally to just think of her face or lithe teenage body. All this pain could have been avoided. She was a woman now and she was his, but he found he could not enjoy it properly yet. It struck him when he realized that in total their relationship had lasted little more than a fortnight. Their sexual relationship at Hogwarts had been stretched out for over a month because he insisted on keeping her waiting to see if he stood a chance, to see if she came back or lost interest. But their actual relationship time had only consisted of a few days at Hogwarts five and a half years ago, their week down Knockturn Alley through to their one reunion night at the school and then now; their night against the tree outside. He rationalized that was probably how the Hit Wizards found them, they must have guessed they’d be in the Forest, looked and then seen them outside the cave. He bit his lip painfully hard in an act of self punishment for letting them see them, for being so stupid as to actually sit outside the cave where they were supposed to be hiding, for exposing Elizabeth to the danger of being caught. He bit it until he tasted the hot salt of blood. It was something he did at times when he felt he deserved a personal retribution. He had well trained himself to not show any emotion externally and this was one of his few allowances, to punish himself when he did something very wrong. It was a habit that could be traced back to his childhood behavior, but something he had never wanted to correct. If he couldn’t apologize for his behavior, then he would balance the cosmic scales of justice some other way.
"You won’t have to give yourself up, I promise." He said to her.
"Oh? Got some fantastic plan to save us have we?" she sneered.
"Not yet no, but everything will be fine, I promise. I have a lot to think about. We don’t have to hide for the next few days anyway, we know that for certain. The note said they’d meet us back at the cave. We can go back to Hogwarts if you want to."
"We can’t risk that, that’s probably what they want. They want us to go back there so they can trap us."
"Why would they do that? They know the exact whereabouts of the cave…."
She grew silent and nodded.
"Yeas, I suppose they do. They could just come back and get us here couldn’t they, if they wanted to?"
He tried to comfort her again, coming close and thankfully this time she didn’t push him away, she put her arms about his neck and held him close. He stroked the wet curls of her hair and tried to shush her as she cried.
"What are we going to do?" she sobbed.
He didn’t know for sure, but there was in idea suggesting itself to him right at the back of the furthest recesses of his mind. He bit his lip again, head buried in her shoulder so she couldn’t see and bit it hard, forcing the thought away.
He insisted that she go to sleep for a while before they left the cave. She argued but the continual yawns between her protestations gave away how tired she was and defeated her argument. He tucked her into the bed with promises of Ruth’s return and she kissed him lazily before drifting into a much needed sleep.
He needed the sleep just as much as she did but knew there wouldn’t be time for that. He sat at the lip of the cave, conjuring up a cup of strong black coffee and sat with it steaming between his hands. He had removed his billowing robes to sit on and tried to relax himself. How was he going to deal with this? He forced himself not to think about Albus Dumbledore, the poor old man who had given him so much of his time over the years. Snape could imagine him finding out that he had left the school and all the children in it unattended when he returned with the others from the pub and the look of disappointment on his face his imagination conjured up made his heart sink.
He sipped the bitter black coffee and looked out across the trees and the dark paths that lay between them. He could hear hooves in the distance; either that of a unicorn playing in the sweet spring/summer breeze or maybe centaurs chasing one another through the glades. It was pleasant enough, considering the hopeless situation. He knew they couldn’t return to Hogwarts. He was a brave man and he knew it, but he simply could not face Dumbledore. His disappointment in himself was filtered out of his body through a sharp sigh. He was acting so out of character he barely recognized himself. The dark mood he was in actually offered a comfort, reminding how easy it used to be just being the old Snape; sardonic Snape, bitter, cruel, lonely Snape. Now he was Snape who had to care about two other people. It didn’t annoy him as such, but it was a shock to the system to realize how much his life had changed already.
They would have to go back to Elizabeth and Ruth’s house, there was no other alternative as far as he could see. The place he thought he had heard her mention when she first arrived at his chambers. She had said they were going home from her mothers house when the Hit Wizards had attacked them. He would ask her when she awoke where abouts it was and then they would Apparate, they could do that from the Forbidden Forest, it was the school grounds you couldn’t Apparate or Disapparate to or from. He wondered about Ruth, where she was. He did in fact believe that she would be safe with them. He knew first hand from working for the Ministry and with children at Hogwarts school that children were very important in all aspects and were protected in every possible way by both places. Many of his spy missions had involved him keeping an eye on certain children whom the Ministry believed were extra important. He knew the Ministry wouldn’t want anything to do with Ruth long term, it was not simply a plan to get her away from her mother, it was in fact, as they had said, an incentive for Elizabeth to turn herself in. In honesty, he was surprised they hadn’t captured her before then. He had long since prepared himself for that day when he would open the Daily Prophet and see her face inside with some flashy caption pronouncing her capture and imprisonment at Azkaban. That day never came, though he was greatful it still lead to others worries. Though she was so hurt by that terrible scratching curse, he was so glad to see she was alive and that Ruth was alright. He had often suspected a worse fate had occurred for them in his occasional fits of paranoia.
When night fell, he woke Elizabeth with a cup of tea and they sat for while in the stony silence of the cave. She drank the tea quickly and then rose, offering him her hand.
"Come on, we’d better get out of here."
"Yes, we’ll go back to the place you’ve been staying at. The one near your mothers."
"I thought we were going to go to Hogwarts." She said.
"I can’t go back there. I left the school completely unattended when we left. Dumbledore will be furious with me and I hardly think we need anymore problems or pressure at the moment."
She nodded numbly and he noticed with a slight pang of worry that she looked terrible. Her face looked void, empty of all emotion. Her grip on his hand was loose and her eyes were dark and full of sorrow.
"We have three days to sort this out and then were going to get Ruth back. Everything will be fine. I promise. I have a few ideas as to what we can do already."
She nodded again, staring at the dusty floor.
When they reached Elizabeth’s house, after clearing away the makeshift bed and candles back at the cave, Snape needed to sleep so badly he found he could hardly stand up. Everything had started to look a little vague and he couldn’t concentrate on anything except trying to keep his eyes open. Which turned out to be okay actually because Elizabeth was not in the mood for conversation at all.
All he noticed as they trundled up a narrow staircase was that it had white walls and there were toys and clothes everywhere. She guided him into her bedroom at the top of the stairs and there he fell asleep, on her bed, fully clothed with her sitting by his side, lighting up a cigarette.
If it were possible, Snape woke the next day feeling more tired than he had when he went to sleep. Elizabeth was laid next to him in her underwear, breathing softly on top of the covers. He rubbed his face, realizing he needed to get a shave very badly and tried to sit up straight. His head pounded. He looked at a clock on the wall at the end of the bed and realized it was nearly 5:00. They had wasted a day in bed when he needed to be deciding what to do about Ruth and the Hit Wizards. He shook his head, feeling as useless as usual and stumbled out of the room to try and find a bathroom.
In the hallway he stood on a plastic toy dragon and it squeaked loudly under his foot. Heart racing from the shock, he found the bathroom and went straight to the sink.
He gazed into the large square mirror above the sink at his haggard expression. There was a razor and some soap so he shaved himself and then washed himself thoroughly, leaving his robes, trousers and boots neatly folded on a pink ottoman. He hadn’t seen himself looking so exhausted in years. His eyes were shadowy and the lines around them looked even deeper. Today he really did look his age. He glanced around at the many jars and bottles on the shelves, this was unmistakably a young woman’s bathroom. There were also many bath toys no doubt for Ruth in and around the bath; plastic mermaids and sea horses. He looked in the mirror again and asked himself what he was doing in a twenty three year old woman’s bathroom. What on earth did she see in him? Right there at that moment, looking in the mirror, he looked old enough to be her grandfather. He was in fact old enough to be her father, not her grandfather, but he felt it so painfully at times.
He looked at his black eyes and the strong, prominent line of his nose in the looking glass. His face displeased him, he always looked sour even when he was not feeling that way. The cruelness in his mouth had certainly not softened over the years, even since they had been together. If anything after their bitter separations, his mouth looked even more downturned. His lank hair hung in his eyes and he raked it away, leaning over the sink to get a closer inspection. He rubbed a hand over his neck, across the front and round to the back, where he massaged aching muscles that were knotted and solid. He guessed he must have been that tired the night before he had fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position. His eyes met the gaze in the reflection and he looked into them. They appeared matt in colour; no glint of glassy reflection from any other light source in the bright bathroom, just a set and toneless shade with no variation, like set paint with no gloss finish. He could hardly distinguish between iris and pupil. It was just black, black and more black.
He looked away again and decided to go downstairs and see what kind of place Elizabeth was bringing up their child in.
It was messy. Not unhygienic or dirty, but messy. There were a lot of toys, so it was evident Ruth was being spoiled by her mother. He guessed they hadn’t lived there very long because there wasn’t a lot of furniture, just the basics. A tatty old sofa covered with old throw-overs and cushions. There were paintings on the walls of scenery, something he approved of. If by some strange turn of events they were to ever end up living together as a family, he would have to make some changes. He liked things a lot darker for a start and most of this place was painted white. He was a tidy man as well and had no understanding of those who weren’t, of those who had no simple place for day to day objects that often needed to be found quickly. Elizabeth had no sense of order, but then again her life had moved very quickly and she had never had the time to learn to be domesticated. He had had all his life for that. He moved through to the kitchen and put some water on to boil on the stove. There was a bowl of red apples on one counter and a mountainous pile of newspapers. The kitchen was alive with plants, most of which were going brown and dying through lack of water. He watered them as he waited for the water to boil and then found two cups. He put some coffee and milk into them and waited, looking idly out of the window. He also noticed with a large frown and internal nosedive of confidence that Elizabeth was just like every other woman he knew; in that she had a large collection of spell books by Gilderoy Lockhart. He took one down from the shelf with a grunt to himself; it was the first time he had actually bothered to give one his time. Lockhart’s grinning image waved at him from the front cover and blew him a kiss. He went over to the bin and threw it straight in there, closing the lid sharply.
He made the two cups of coffee and took them back upstairs and placed them down on the bedside table. He noticed that in the bed, just next to where Elizabeth slept on peacefully, there was one of Ruth’s dolls. It had raggy red woolen hair and black buttons for eyes. He picked it up and placed it on the floor, thoug just as gently as if it were the missing child herself.
"Wake up, Elizabeth." He whispered to her, giving her a soft nudge. She stirred eventually and gave him a nasty look, turning over into the pillows.
"Come on, it’s past supper time already." He said. Soon she opened her eyes and lay there for a while taking in the feeling of being awake after such a long sleep. He handed her a coffee and she sipped it greatfully, pulling herself up to sit upright against the pillows. He pulled the duvet on top of her and got in by her side.
"I expected Ruthie to wake me up." She said.
"Sorry, waking you up myself is the best I can do for now." he said.
"I didn’t mean it like that, you fool." She rested her head on his shoulder but didn’t smile. He kissed her head lovingly and took a sip of his coffee. It was bitter and sugarless, just the way he liked it. Hers was toxic with sugar and with way too much milk.
She sighed.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked.
"I suppose so….. considering…." She sounded utterly depressed, though it served as something of a comforting notion for him to realize how much Elizabeth truly missed and doted on their daughter.
They finished their coffee and then Elizabeth drew a bath, sighing as she went about it. Snape felt useless. He tidied up a bit for her, collecting armfuls of Ruth’s toys and putting them in the girls bedroom. He only spent a brief amount of time in there, he found it hurt too much to linger. He felt like a stranger in there. He only noticed through peripheral vision that the walls were pink and blue and that there were more toys than he ever thought possible to fit in such a small room, and then he left to find some more things to do.
By the time he had finished making the bed and drawing the curtains and putting lamps on, Elizabeth was in the bath and calling for him to come and sit with her. She was half submerged in pearlised froth, smelling of sandalwood and feminine musk. Her hair was wet and it collected around her collarbones and breasts in wispy locks.
He knelt down by the side of the bath and traipsed a few fingers through the soft, scented water. She watched him as he flirted with the bubbles, so silent and deep in thought.
"Severus, are you alright?" she asked, lifting her own wet fingers to the side of his head, where she smoothed down the raven hair with warm water. He nodded and rested his cheek against her palm.
"There’s always so many problems for us to deal with. Life is never easy, I know that probably better than anyone else I know, but I just wish for once something would go right for us."
She smoothed her thumb over his thick eyebrow.
"So many obstacles one has to constantly face, never with a sense of hope. The only hope I have now is that we will get Ruth back and you will not go to Azkaban. I know that will be all right, I can sense all will go well in that circumstance. But when it comes to you and I; our eternally complicated situations together, there never seems to be any light at the end of the tunnel. Fate intervenes at the most inopportune of instances. Those ones which are the only things I crave."
"The only ones?"
"The termination of my loneliness. Listen to me, I sound so pathetic in my twilight years."
"You are not in your twilight years, Sev, why do you always think you are so old when you’re not? You are so negative, aren’t you?"
"When you have known nothing else throughout your life, you get accustomed to that way of thinking, my dear heart."
His eyes penetrated the water, roughly to where about her belly was, but her eyes focused on him.
