Chapter Nineteen: Snape's End


Winter 1980

Severus was in the Potions and Physics Department, casting a Standard Stabiliser over a cauldron of Eyebright Wash, when a green flash lit the walls of the room. He turned to see the emerald flames of a Floo call leaping in the fireplace.

A female head took form in the grate, and for a second Severus thought of Lily Potter. Was she calling from A&E with a potions order? Had she returned from medical leave; was everything back to normal?

No. With a brief pang of disappointment, Severus saw that his caller was Apothecary Morgan. She looked both sombre and uncomfortable.

"I've just received a call from Narcissa Malfoy." That, perhaps, was the source of Apothecary Morgan's discomfort--she had still not accustomed herself to the fact that Severus was living with the Malfoys. "She'd like you to return to the Manor. She says your mother needs you."

"My mother?"

"Of course you'll go. I'll be down to the department in a few minutes to cover the rest of your shift."

"Is she ill?"

"Madam Malfoy didn't say. I'll be right there, Severus."

Apothecary Morgan's head disappeared, and the flames turned from green to yellow. A lump swelled in Severus's throat. He swallowed hard against it. What had happened that Narcissa Malfoy did not want to reveal to Apothecary Morgan? Or in protecting Mother's privacy was she simply employing a bit of pure-blood discretion?

Apothecary Morgan arrived. Severus gave her a quick, distracted report, then went to the hospital lobby and Flooed to the drawing room of Malfoy Manor.

Narcissa and Mother were there. Narcissa sat in a chair near the hearth, but although other chairs around the room were empty, Mother stood. Beside her, wearing an Auror's sash and badge, was Rufus Scrimgeour.

Narcissa rose when Severus stepped from the fireplace. She kept her eyes on Mother, looking at her with a strange mixture of tension and concern. Mother's face was pale and blankly composed.

"I'll let you carry on from here, Auror Scrimgeour," said Narcissa. "Severus. Eileen." She quietly withdrew, leaving Severus and his mother alone with Scrimgeour.

"Would you like to tell him, Mrs Snape?" Scrimgeour asked. "Or shall I?"

Mother looked at him, but said nothing.

"I'll do it," said Scrimgeour. "Mr Snape. I'm sorry to have to tell you that your father has been murdered."

Now Severus looked at him too.

"I'm very sorry," said Scrimgeour.

"How?" asked Severus softly.

"A fight in a pub in King's Cross, not far from his rooming-house in Grimmauld Place. He was drinking and playing cards with a friend of his, one Will Paxton. Paxton accused him of cheating; your father grew angry. They started with fists. Then Paxton drew a knife and stabbed your father to death."

"Stabbed...in a Muggle pub?"

"Yes."

"How did you find out? Didn't they call the police?"

"Yes, they did, and if it had remained a fistfight, that's where it would have ended. But when a Muggle with ties to the wizarding world meets a violent end, especially in these times.... Well, we take an interest, you understand."

"'We?'" said Severus.

"The Auror Office."

"The Auror Office? Why? From what you've said, it doesn't seem as though Dark magic was involved."

"No, it doesn't seem so," said Scrimgeour. "But there's always the possibility, isn't there, when a Muggle murder victim has wizarding connections? After all, Paxton appears to have been a close friend of Mr Snape's."

"My husband had boon companions, not close friends," said Mother, so clearly and calmly that she startled Severus. "Tobias would have quarrelled with anyone when he was drunk."

"And he certainly was drunk," said Scrimgeour. "The witnesses attest to that." His voice took on a soothing note. "The case does look pretty much cut and dried, Mrs Snape. But one has to go through the motions, you know, adhere to the proper routine. Your wands, for instance. They haven't been out of your possession for the past twenty-four hours?"

Both Severus and his mother said that they had not.

"You'll allow me to examine them?" asked Scrimgeour. "Purely an investigative routine, of course."

"Er--of course," said Severus, who hadn't the foggiest idea what the proper investigative routine might be. But it sounded reasonable enough. Mother nodded silently, and they handed their wands to Scrimgeour. He touched the tip of his wand to each of theirs in turn and drew out the ghosts of ordinary spells: grooming and tidying spells from Mother's wand and, from Severus's, the compounding and stabilising charms he had used on his potions that morning.

"Well, well, not too sinister, eh?" said Scrimgeour. He dissipated the spell-ghosts and returned the wands. Then he said delicately, "Might I ask which of you would prefer to identify the body?"

"I will," said Severus quickly.

Scrimgeour nodded. "Good."

****

After taking Severus's measure with a quick and apparently practised eye, Scrimgeour conjured Muggle outfits for them both. They donned the Muggle clothing and Flooed to the public stop nearest the morgue.

"Wouldn't do to Apparate," said Scrimgeour when they stepped out of the fireplace at the Floo stop. "The morgue's a busy place. Someone would surely notice a couple of wizards popping in."

Severus didn't answer. How many times had he dreamed his father dead? Now that it had happened, now that the realisation kept striking him anew--he's gone, he's dead--he was shaken to the core. And he hadn't expected to be shaken. He had expected to be glad.

They left the Floo stop, a small brick building with a sign in the window which said Office to let, and walked down the damp, misty street.

"You needn't worry about your mother, you know," said Scrimgeour.

"She didn't need to do this," said Severus. "I can identify Tobias's body."

"Very gallant of you to step up to the task, though it can't be any easier for a son than it is for a wife."

Scrimgeour waited, but Severus had no answer for him. "That's only partly what I meant, though," Scrimgeour went on. "You needn't worry about your mother or yourself. Paxton killed your father at around eleven last night, just before the pub's closing time. You and your mother were in bed at the Malfoys.' Both Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy attest to that. So there was no chance of Polyjuice or the Imperius Curse or other such goings-on: not from your end, anyway. Accusations, a row, Paxton pulled a knife. That was it."

"If the Malfoys had already told you my mother and I were asleep in their house at the time of the murder, then you needn't have gone to the trouble of examining our wands," said Severus. "Unless you didn't believe the Malfoys."

Scrimgeour shrugged. "Just a matter of routine."

Severus didn't answer. Ordinarily, Scrimgeour would have angered him by now. But the knowledge that he would soon see Tobias's dead body had reduced Scrimgeour to insignificance.

****

The display of Scrimgeour's identification at the door, to a quiet man who introduced himself as Detective Inspector Shaw, gained Severus and Scrimgeour entrance into the morgue.

"Good of you to give us a hand in the case, Rufus," said Shaw as he led them down a chilly and featureless institutional corridor. "Our Wizarding Liaison chap was immensely relieved when I told him that none of your people were involved this time."

Scrimgeour nodded toward Severus. "Except as relatives of the victim."

"Oh, ah--yes. Allow me to offer my condolences, Mr Snape."

"Thank you," Severus replied mechanically.

They entered a room so cold that Severus could see his breath. Shaw headed toward a row of cabinets lining one wall of the room. "Right this way, Mr Snape."

Nobody had invited Scrimgeour, but he followed too. Let him. Severus was innocent, far more innocent than he had been the last time he and Scrimgeour had talked.

The cabinets weren't cabinets, but drawers, Severus saw when Shaw pulled one open.

No one spoke: neither Shaw nor Scrimgeour, who watched Severus, nor Severus, who looked at his father.

He should have felt something, perhaps. He should have been glad that Tobias would never mock him or torment Mother again, glad that he would never again hear that drunken voice bellowing or singing past midnight. He should have been relieved that calls from Mother, mournful and desperate, would never again distract him at work. He should have been revolted by the mottled face, the stubbled chin, the dried spittle at the corner of Tobias's blue-lipped mouth, the dark blood clotted at his chest.

Perhaps he should have felt pity. Tobias seemed smaller somehow, shrivelled-up, less in death than he'd been in life.

But he felt nothing. Nothing occurred to him but the awareness that a normal man would have wept to see his father like this.

"Mr Snape?" Shaw urged gently.

"That's him," muttered Severus. He turned away, and there was Scrimgeour, facing him, looking into his eyes. Was he trying Legilimency again, as he'd done at St Mungo's? Severus felt a spurt of anger, but none of the telltale pressure against his forehead. His anger faded in the next moment, for Scrimgeour's eyes wielded none of their usual keen edge. He looked almost sympathetic.

"No need to trouble you further, then, Mr Snape," said Scrimgeour. "As long as we can reach you at the Malfoys' if needed?"

"Yes."

"And if you change your address, you'll be sure to let us know?"

Scrimgeour didn't let you feel charitable toward him for long. "Of course," said Severus irritably.

"Thank you. You've been very helpful. Would you like me to accompany you--"

"No," said Severus. "I can find my own way home."

****

When he arrived at the Malfoys' house, Severus looked immediately for his mother. He found her sitting next to Narcissa Malfoy on the drawing-room sofa. Narcissa was holding Mother's hands. Her eyes, fixed on Mother's face, were kind yet intent.

Narcissa rose when Severus entered, came to him and did something she had never done before. She took his hand and looked into his eyes. "I'm very sorry," she said.

Severus stiffened and looked away before he realised that, like Shaw and Scrimgeour, she was simply offering her condolences. "Thank you," he muttered, embarrassed.

"I'll give you and your mother some privacy."

Mother still sat after Narcissa had left, looking down at the hands Narcissa had just released. Seeing her calm face, Severus didn't know what he felt, whether he felt. What he had left behind at the morgue had drained him dry.

Then he realised that he had left it behind. Tobias Snape was dead. He and his mother were free.

Mother looked up. "Severus."

"I've just come from the morgue. It's--it is Father." For the first time in years, Severus called him Father. "He's dead."

"Oh, yes, of course. I know that." Mother's eyes held neither grief nor glee, but amazement. She took her wand out of her pocket. "Watch."

Severus watched. Mother pointed her wand at a vase on a side-table which held a couple of dried pussy willow branches. In a few moments, the brown willow stems turned green and sprouted leaves. The silvery catkins swelled into buds, which then unfurled into brilliant pink blooms. Sprays of tiny white flowers sprang up from the bottom of the vase and curled gracefully over the sides. The wintry willow sprigs were transformed into a spring bouquet of roses and baby's breath.

Severus went to the bouquet and examined it. Each rose bloom was perfect, as if sculpted in stone, yet the rose petals when he touched them felt soft, silken, real. The rose leaves were glossy and veined, the thorns sharp. Each tiny flower and diminutive leaf of baby's breath was so perfectly detailed that, like the roses, it seemed created by nature, not magic.

Mother had not performed such a complex and unerring Transfiguration since Severus had started at Hogwarts.

He turned. Mother's face was transfigured too, with quiet joy. "My magic's returned," she said. "It will never leave me again."

Severus couldn't speak. He could only think, only remember.

"Tell the truth, Severus: what do you really want?"

"Freedom. Freedom from Tobias Snape.... Freedom from my father for my mother and me."

They were free.

"Auror Scrimgeour called just before you arrived," said Mother. "He said the morgue needed the name of an undertaker to whom they could release Tobias's body."

"I can--"

"But you don't have to. I've taken care of everything. I know what your father wanted: to be buried in the churchyard at home with the rest of his family. I was his wife, after all."

"Oh, er--yes."

Mother stood up. With a wave of her wand, she turned the flower bouquet back into pussy willow branches. She slipped her wand into the folds of her robe and turned toward the door. "It's odd, though," she said. "I told Auror Scrimgeour Tobias would have quarrelled with anybody, because he would. But I never did know him to row with Will Paxton. And never, in all the years I knew him, did anybody ever accuse your father of cheating at cards."

She didn't wait for Severus's answer. Closing the door softly behind her, she left him alone in the Malfoys' drawing-room.