Not a Mistake

Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction, written because the author has an abiding love for the works of Joanne K. Rowling. Any characters, settings, objects, or creatures from the Harry Potter books and movies used in this work are the property of Joanne K. Rowling, and Warner Brothers. Original characters, settings and concepts belong to the author of this work. The author will not receive any money or other remuneration for presenting the work on this archive site. The work is the intellectual property of the author, is available on this website solely for the private enjoyment of readers, and may not be copied or redistributed by any means without the explicit written consent of the author.

All characters, places and events in this story are either the products of the relevant author’s imagination or they are used entirely fictiously.

oooOooo

This was written in response to the following prompt by Nocturnus33 for the LiveJournal community Portus Envy:

A widow HG and a well alive SS meet 30 years after the war, to their utter annoyance Hugo, Hermione’s son and XX, Snape’s daughter has fallen in love and decided to wed.
What could happen?

I didn’t manage to get the story to fit the prompt perfectly, but I hope you’ll enjoy it nevertheless!

---

oooOooo

Not a Mistake

“Mum, you really need to get out more,” Hugo complained.

And if he’d said it once, he’d said it a thousand times. And his mother’s reaction was always the same. She’d crack a joke and change the topic. And when she thought he wasn’t looking, she’d glance at the family picture above the piano.

The family picture showed him, his mother, his father, and his sister. It was the only picture with all of them. It had been taken two days before an attack of rogue Death Eaters had killed his father and his baby sister in the big explosion that had destroyed St Mungo’s.

“We are out now, aren’t we?” Hermione raised a reproachful eyebrow.

And indeed, they were out—they’d spent a day out and about in Muggle London, celebrating Hugo’s last Easter hols before leaving Hogwarts. They’d nipped into Diagon Alley, then they’d gone to the Tate and for a walk. Now they were seated in a nice tearoom and waiting…

His mother shook her head, making the curls that had escaped her chignon bob ridiculously around ears. “In fact,” she muttered, “I’d say it’s difficult to be out-er, you sly Slytherin, you. Not only a date, but a double date.” She cocked her head, curiosity sparkling in her brown eyes. “You’ve never gone to so much trouble before.”

Hugo chewed on his lower lip, adjusted his ponytail and tried not to look at the clock for the fourth time in as many minutes.

“Rose is special,” he admitted. “She’s only been at Hogwarts since last September, but somehow it feels as if I’ve known her forever. She’s a really good friend.”

His mother’s eyebrow crept higher. “I gathered as much. Just how good a friend is that girl?”

Hugo winced and wanted to squirm like a little boy under his mother’s stern scrutiny.

Damned if he knew. He’d never had such a close friend before. Never. Not even Teddy Lupin or Victoire Weasley meant as much to him as Rose, and he’d known them all of his life. Sometimes it felt as if Rose could read his mind. Yet whenever he considered making a move that would turn their friendship into something more, he just…He shook his head. For some reason he just couldn’t do it. It was weird.

On the other hand, he hadn’t been able to stand the thought of not seeing Rose for two whole weeks. He’d invited her to spend the holidays with him, or at least to come and spend a day in Diagon Alley. But she’d refused. Her father was a Muggle. And he was handicapped. She wouldn’t leave him along for longer than absolutely necessary.

In the end Hugo had come up with one of his famous plans. Fine: Rose’s father was a Muggle, so they couldn’t meet in the wizarding world. But that posed no real problem. His mother was Muggle-born, and they’d spent lots of time in the Muggle world over the years, visiting his grandparents and other Muggle relations.

He’d spent two weeks whining and nagging. Then Rose had finally given in, and they’d arranged for an afternoon tea at the Tea Palace in Kensington.

“Rose is special,” Hugo said. “She’s beautiful and smart. She’s tall and graceful, and she has this glossy black hair and brown eyes just like you.”

In fact, he was a whole inch smaller than Rose. But since he was also quite a bit sturdier (and as a Quidditch Player and chairman of the Duelling Club, he’d better be), he didn’t mind.

“She’s an ace in Potions. She wants to become a Healer when she’s done with school.”

He contemplated what kind of things his mother would like to know about Rose. “Oh, and they’ve been living in America. Her dad was in some kind of accident when she was a baby. Probably a car crash, I guess. Anyway, he needed to have surgery on his brain. Get some bone splinters removed or something. That was done in America. And he needed lots of therapy to recover, so they ended up staying there. She went to school in Salem. But they always wanted to return to Britain someday, and since she wants to become a Healer, they figured that she’d be better off taking her NEWTs at Hogwarts before starting at St Mungo’s. That’s why she only came to Hogwarts last year. She’s in Sixth Year now, but she’s as old as I am.”

oooOooo

“She sounds like a wonderful girl,” Hermione smiled.

Hugo grinned happily and winked. “I bet her dad is nice, too!”

Hermione just shook her head and rolled her eyes at her son. Hugo always wanted her to go out and date. He simply couldn’t understand that for her there could never be another man. She looked at her son, once again trying to find his father in his face.

Yes, of course there was a hint of her husband. A hint of the eyes she’d loved. A shadow of the smirk that had caused butterflies to swirl about in her stomach. But mainly, her son looked like his grandfather—like her father—only with her curls. Hermione sighed and glanced out of the window—

Just in time to catch sight of a slender girl with straight black hair who was helping a tall man climb out of a cab. The man hunched heavily over a cane. Hermione’s stomach twisted. She didn’t like canes—they reminded her of Lucius Malfoy. She shook herself. That must be Rose and her father. Their progress was incredibly slow, even though it was just a few feet from the curb to the entrance of the tearoom.

The poor man, Hermione thought. To suffer so, after so many years.

Involuntarily, her hand went to her left elbow. In the explosion that had killed her husband and her daughter, her left arm had been shattered. And although magic had healed her, she’d been able to feel the weather in her bones ever since then. The next shower was due in approximately thirty minutes, she guessed. Hermione grimaced, trying to ignore the other ache that always welled up in the wake of her weather-pains. The bitter agony of grief that told her in no uncertain terms that there were some hurts not even time could heal.

Now Rose and her father were coming towards them, a painful progress, inch by inch. A helpful waiter was leading the way and obscuring the view of the newcomers.

Hermione rose to her feet. She would welcome their guests and then join her son on the bench. No doubt it would be easier for Rose’s father to sit in a chair.

“Hullo, Hugo,” Rose called and raised her hand in greeting. A graceful gesture. Her eyes were warm and brown, brightening a face that would otherwise have been sallow. Hermione’s throat constricted as it always did when she saw girls of her son’s age—she couldn’t help wondering about what her daughter might have looked like, had she lived…

The waiter stepped aside.

Rose supported her father’s left arm, quickly securing the cane that was threatening to fall from a shaking hand. Slowly the man straightened up, as if every movement was agony.

Hermione gasped.

For a second the world faded around her in dizzying circles of white and black. Her heartbeat was faltering, hurtling, racing. For a second the sense of vertigo was so strong that she almost fell down where she stood.

Abruptly, her vision slid into focus.

Black hair, like his daughter’s, but interspersed with silver. A hooked nose that must have been horribly broken once. Something was wrong with the right side of his face—while his left side appeared almost contorted with pain, the right side was slack, expressionless. He dabbed at his mouth, wiping away a thread of drool escaping at the dropping right corner of his mouth. Thin, sensitive lips. Then he raised his eyes. Black eyes. Intense. Piercing.

Their gaze met.

“But you are dead!” she cried. “You are dead!”

His knees gave out. If Rose and Hugo hadn’t been so quick, he would have ended up in a heap on the floor. Between them, they got him settled on a chair.

Then, exchanging bewildered glances, the two teenagers turned to Hermione, with identical looks of confusion in very different, yet so similar faces.

But Hermione ignored them, as well as the nonplussed waiter and the curious glances of the other customers. She sank to her knees next to her husband and reached for his hands. They were stiff; cold, fingers curling into fists, fighting against the agony of a broken body. But they were undeniably the beautiful hands and the slender, graceful fingers Hermione remembered. From many days working together in the potions lab, from many nights spent not working…

“But you are dead,” she whispered, her throat tight with tears.

He blinked slowly, as if he was trying to make sense of what he saw. “Who are you? Do I know you?”

“I am Hermione Snape,” she whispered. “Your wife. And that young man over there, that is Hugo Snape. Your son.”

A shudder gripped Hermione when she finished that sentence. Without releasing Severus’ hands, she turned to look at Rose. Rose. Severus’ hair. Severus’ hands.

…and her eyes!

oooOooo

Rose stared at Hermione, at her father, at Hugo. Her father’s confused gaze, the way his left eye narrowed in futile concentration, trying to make sense of what was happening.

Hugo was simply gaping at them, his thin lips rounded into an ‘O’. Now she finally understood why something about him, and especially about his mouth had always seemed familiar.

And Hugo’s mother. Hermione Snape.

Rose’s stomach twisted. She knew those huge brown eyes. Everything else was different—Hermione was a small woman, and a bit dumpy, with Hugo’s curly hair—no, of course it was the other way round, Hugo got that horrible hair from his mother—but the eyes. They were just like her own.

Her lips were quivering so hard that she couldn’t make a sound. Rose swallowed hard and tried again. “M-m-mom?”

“What?” Hugo exclaimed, jumping from the bench on which he had slumped.

But then her father spoke again, his voice reduced to a painful rasp. “I—I am sorry. But I think this must be a mistake. I am not one of—of your kind. Not like Rose here. And I—I cannot remember you. Are you sure—” He shook his head awkwardly, just a feeble twitch to the left. “But you must be,” he murmured. He kept staring at Hugo’s mother as if he could almost remember her. As if there was…at least something about her that seemed familiar. Even after all those years. “Who would—who in their right mind would mistake—me—for their husband.”

Hugo’s mother raised a shaky hand to her lips and dashed at eyes that were brimming with tears. “That’s what Harry and Ron always said. That something must be wrong with my mind. That it was a mistake. And I always told them the same. That my mind is just fine. And that it’s not a mistake. That you are just right for me.”

“But my name is Prince,” he insisted petulantly.

Rose winced when she saw Hugo’s— no, their—her!—mother recoil as if struck.

“Mrs—Her—” Rose cleared her throat.

“Mom.”

She had to swallow hard, before she could continue. “It’s the only name he remembers,” Rose explained softly. She drew a shuddering breath. “I don’t know how much Hugo told you. But Daddy’s brain was injured in that—that gas explosion.” Suddenly Rose wondered if it really had been a gas explosion. Or if it had been something else. Something magical. Even in America the names Hermione and Severus Snape were well-known.

“Daddy has never really recovered from that accident, you know,” she whispered.

oooOooo

“Oh God.” Hermione closed her eyes. Then she took a deep breath, fighting down the queasiness, the sense of having just woken in a dream. She was shattered, floating. But then she noticed Rose’s pallor. Hugo’s huge eyes. For all that they were sixteen, and possibly thought they were adult enough to take on everything that life threw at them, they were not.

And Severus…

Slowly she looked back at Severus. Severus.

He was alive.

Even if he did not remember her. He was alive. He was alive. In pain. But alive. Alive. Although he didn’t remember her. He didn’t remember his name. He didn’t even remember that he was a wizard.

Hermione frowned. Slowly, she let go off his hands and sat down on the chair next to him. The confused agony in his eyes cut through her like a knife. At the same time, she thought she would burst with joy.

He didn’t remember that he was a wizard. Had the brain injury destroyed his magic? Or just suppressed it, along with his memory?

“Rose—” She inhaled and hesitated. Her daughter’s name had been Calla. But he must have remembered that it was a flower. “Am I correct if I assume that S— that your father never received magical treatment for his injuries?”

Rose nodded. “He’s a—I—we thought that he’s a Muggle.” Suddenly she realised what Hermione was thinking of and her whole face lit up. “Do you—do you think that—”

Hermione shook her head. “I don’t know if magical healing can do anything after sixteen years. But we can try.”

Turning back to Severus, it took all her strength to remain calm and to keep her distance. “Seve—” She shuddered and tried again. “Mr Prince. I am certain that you are my husband, and Hugo’s and Rose’s father. And that you are one of our kind. A wizard. I would very much like to take you to a wizarding hospital. Maybe one of our Healers can help you remember.”

Or at least make the pain go away that she could see carved into every line of his face.

“Please, Daddy,” Rose begged. “At the very least they can do blood tests or something and we can see if Mrs Snape is right or if you just look like her husband.”

Hermione looked from her husband to her daughter. Her daughter. Such a beautiful, level-headed girl.

She expected Severus to refuse. He’d always been so stubborn. Too damn stubborn for his own good. From the moment she’d saved him from dying at the bite of that blasted snake to the day of their wedding. Always doubting, never certain. Forever inclined to believe everyone who claimed that his life and their love was a mistake.

But now he tilted his head slightly and smiled crookedly at his daughter. “If it makes you happy, Rosie, then by all means, take me to be poked and prodded some more.”

Then his gaze flickered to Hugo, and he frowned, as if he were looking at a puzzle. In a way it was, Hermione thought, looking once more, stunned, at the faces of her son, her daughter (her daughter!) and her husband, noting similarities and differences.

Awkwardly Severus turned his head back to face Hermione and automatically dabbed his kerchief against the drooping corner of his mouth again. “If you are sure that this is not a mistake, Mrs—” He hesitated, as if he was tasting the name. “Snape.”

“As I said before,” Hermione replied, “I am sure. Very sure. It’s not a mistake. You are not a mistake. It’s a miracle.” Helplessly she dashed at her overflowing eyes.

“You are a miracle,” she insisted. “My very own miracle”

---

oooOooo
Finite Incantatem
oooOooo

---