The Book

All characters you recognize are the creations of the brilliant J. K. Rowling from her Harry Potter book series. I make no money from the writing and sharing of this story.

I would like to thank my wonderful betas, JENGEORGE and NervousAboutAngels, once again, for all of their hard work. They really helped to make this a better story with their suggestions.

Chapter 2

The Book

Nine days after receiving the letter from Hermione Granger-Weasley, after a particularly delicious dinner in his modest dining room, Snape opened the little gold box and realized that he was down to his last Godiva chocolate truffle. He savored each tiny bite with a sip of his finest cognac and Mozart playing softly in the background, just as he had done the previous eight nights, then he let out a heavy sigh. The only way to draw out this pleasant experience any longer was to read the letter. He pushed his chair out with resolute determination.

"Stay there, Master Severus. Winky will get it." She had almost become a mind reader over the years, and he would have probably ended up in the long term psycho ward at St. Mungo's if he had not had her to talk to. With a knowing smile, Winky handed Snape the envelope.

"Thank you, Winky," he smirked as he gingerly opened the flap, trying not to tear it. His long, slender fingers withdrew the parchment and lifted it to his waiting nostrils. Thirteen long years he had hoped for another letter and hated himself for it. All of the old ones no longer smelled of her skin and perfume, as he had discovered on special occasions when he would take them out and read them over and over again. After all these years, they only smelled of must and dust.

He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. She had changed perfumes. This one smelled of some chemical concoction, not nearly as appealing as her previous choice. The old letters had held the aroma of chamomile and rose hips. It had had a soothing affect on him. At least her skin's scent had not changed. He could still detect it beneath the new perfume – if one could call it that... Probably a gift from her insignificant other.

He opened his eyes and realized that Winky was staring at him with a content "I told you so" look on her face.

"Don't you have something to do in the kitchen?" he suggested gently. He had learned a long time ago to treat Winky with respect and kindness. She always had his best interests at heart, after all. But this letter was a private matter, and he wanted to keep it that way.

Winky gladly retreated into the kitchen because she knew now that he planned to give the letter his full and undivided attention. He carefully unfolded the delicate pages and slowly raked his eyes over her graceful handwriting.

Dear Professor Snape,

As I am sure you already know, I married Ron Weasley over thirteen years ago, and the union has produced two children. Our oldest child, Rose, will soon turn twelve and started at Hogwarts last September. Her keen intellect, outgoing personality and strong determination ("Don't you mean stubbornness?" Snape quipped) will serve her well, and I am proud to announce that she ended up in Gryffindor. (Snape snorted loudly.) Although she loves to read, she's not a chatterbox as I used to be. You might even like her!

My concern is my nine-year-old son, Hugo. Since the age of three his health has been slowly declining. He shows symptoms of many different types of minor ailments in different combinations and degrees. Some days he has simply refused to get out of bed with no outward symptoms at all. The Healers at St. Mungo's have examined him and run every imaginable test. They can't find anything wrong with him ("Well, that's nothing new...idiots!"), so they have concluded that the symptoms are psychosomatic. But how can they be when I have felt his fever and watched him throw up? He's thin and pale and sickly. I'm afraid if we can't find an answer to his problem, he will not be allowed to attend Hogwarts when his time comes. That would be a crushing blow to all of us, but especially to him, since he is already counting the days until he gets on the train for the first time.

I've read every book I can find that might yield an answer. ("Of that, I have no doubt.") I've tried every potion I can think of to calm his nerves. Nothing works. He's a sweet, compassionate, sensitive boy, and from what we can already tell, he has quite a lot of magical ability. He's quiet, a bit of a loner, and also loves to read. He would rather curl up beside me on the couch with a good book than do anything else. I guess it runs in the family.

P.S. If you do reply, please send the owl during regular business hours. I would rather suffer prying eyes at work than at home.

Snape sat back in his chair and stared at the pages in disbelief. He took another sip of cognac and ran his fingers along the edges of the parchment. He reread it twice more, committing it to memory, and finally folded it back into its envelope.

"Shall Winky put the letter away for Master Severus?" she asked from the kitchen's entrance.

"No, Winky. I'll keep this one with me for a while. It has, after all, been a very long time." He knew that Winky could see into his soul, so an attempt at deception was a waste of time and energy.

"Master looks troubled. Can Winky help?"

"No... but perhaps I can."

With the first letter from Miss Granger (as he still liked to think of her) in over thirteen years nestled into his left breast pocket, Snape stalked his extensive library in search of a book he had not referred to for decades. He was quite familiar with her son's symptoms, having suffered them himself as a child. In describing Hugo's health problems, Miss Granger may as well have flat out confessed that her marriage to the wilting Mr. Weasley had deteriorated, perhaps to the point of no return. Did they actually have the lack of sensitivity to argue and fight in front of their children? Or did their private altercations leave behind such negative residue that a sensitive soul like Hugo could still feel its effects? Whatever the case, somewhere in the mass of pages lay hidden an ancient recipe that his mother had used on him. And although it wasn't a cure, it would help relieve the symptoms somewhat.

In his own case, as with many young children who fall victim to a failing marriage, he had begun to blame himself for his parents' hatred of each other. He even ran away from home once, thinking it would make them happy to be rid of him. It was at that point, finally, that his mother began to administer the potion. His feelings of guilt dissipated and with them many of his other physical symptoms. Their constant arguing with the occasional knock down drag out still had a horrible affect on his self-esteem, however. He couldn't understand why his mother stayed with such an abusive, idiotic Muggle. "A boy needs his father as much as his mother," she told him once. But he would have much preferred two separate but happier parents, even if it meant being ferried back and forth between them. He wondered if Miss Granger had ever asked Hugo his opinion.

On the bottom shelf behind the desk, in an inconveniently tight spot, he found what he had been searching for: his mother's special handwritten diary of sorts, full of potion recipes handed down from generation to generation. It broke free of the confines of the tightly packed bookcase and floated into his hands. He carefully turned its deteriorating pages to find what he was searching for. At last, about halfway through, faded, worn, and full of stains, he found the potion recipe. From the looks of the page, it had probably been referred to more than any of the others. Apparently, the Princes had a history of rocky couplings.

Snape strode back through the dining room, into the kitchen, and to the storage closet where he kept his potion ingredients. He had long ago ordered Winky never to enter and knew she would not disobey him. Ever the paranoid spy, the excessive wards and locking charms he placed on the door were meant for possible intruders. He entered with recipe in hand and flicked on the electric light. Electricity was less expensive than oil, and he needed it to play his CDs, along with various other Muggle gadgets and goodies he had become reacquainted with after his release from Azkaban. Muggles did quite a good job coping without magic, and since he had been cast out from wizarding society, he decided to learn more about the Muggle half of his blood line. He did live in a Muggle neighborhood after all. They did not know he had been to prison. They did not look down their noses at him, not that he cared one way or the other.

Snape had even gone so far as to purchase a computer some years earlier. He could see the neighbors' son playing and doing research for school on one through his bedroom window and became intrigued. Since that same boy had been employed to cut his lawn, he felt free to ask him about it. The young man helped him with his purchase and high-speed internet hook up. He even walked Snape through the steps to set up an e-mail account. To Snape's delight, with a Muggle credit card and an e-mail address, he could buy just about any Muggle item he could possibly need or want and never leave the house.

When the first computer became outdated, he ordered a new one over the web and read the tutorials and on-line help to set it up himself. The boy next door would be off to university soon, so Snape felt an urgent need to become self-sufficient in that regard. The boy's younger brother could take over lawn duty, but he would trust no one else with his computer.

Snape had found the computer to be an invaluable tool on so many levels. He had charmed the keyboard to respond to his voice, so there was no need to learn to type. And he had decided, if for no other reason than to keep busy, he would re-write all three Potions textbooks that were currently used at Hogwarts. His talent and intuition had helped him to improve almost every recipe during his time as a student, and his skills had only increased with age and experience. Snape figured that if he published the series under a pseudonym, it stood a good chance of becoming the new standard.

His kitchen had been divided in half, so Winky still had room to cook. But she knew better than to touch anything Snape left lying around, and since some potions took over a month to mature, there were usually several cauldrons going at once on his side of the room.

He tested, changed, tweaked and retested every recipe and even added some new ones that he long ago thought should have been included in the curriculum. And when he was finally satisfied, he would enter it into the computer, printing a hard copy and backing up his work on CD, just in case.

Severus Snape was nothing, if not thorough.

This blustery shivering day in February was no exception. He could have simply copied the ancient recipe onto a piece of parchment and sent Winky to the owl Post in Diagon Alley, but he had never actually brewed this potion before. Here was the perfect opportunity to tweak and make improvements and test his results on Hugo. He gathered the necessary ingredients and read the instructions. After brewing was completed it needed to sit for at least eight hours. Good. He could brew the basic recipe, then get some sleep, then send it off the next afternoon. It was 7:00 a.m. when he finished and headed for bed.

"I'll be getting up a bit earlier this afternoon, Winky. Have my breakfast ready at 2:00 p.m., would you? Then I may have you run an errand for me."

"An errand concerning Miss Granger, sir?"

"Yes, Winky," he murmured with a smirk, "Miss Granger." He let the words dance on his tongue as if he could still taste the last delectable chocolate truffle.

Snape climbed the stairs and readied himself for bed. He placed the precious peach-colored envelope on his night stand, and after his wand flicked the light out, he brought the envelope to his anxious nose and drew another deep breath.

That new perfume simply had to go.

*****

Hermione wrapped one hand in the other and squeezed. She wrung them together over and over, as if she were churning cream into butter. It had been ten days since she sent that owl to Snape. She hadn't exaggerated when she stated that she had no one else to turn to. Had he read it? Her charm told her that he hadn't destroyed it at least. But this waiting was driving her crazy. Perhaps she should try to find him. When he was on trial, she had looked up his personal information to see if there was anything Harry could use in his defense. In the course of her investigation she had learned that he owned a house on Spinner's End in what was once a horrid section of the London suburbs that was attempting a feeble renaissance of late. Did he still live there? Could she find the place? Perhaps she could pick up a map at a petrol station and find its location that way. If that didn't work she could ask one of her Muggle cousins to look it up on his computer. If Snape didn't respond to her letter, there simply must be a way to track him down.

After her parents had been killed two years ago in an auto accident, she had tried out of curiosity to use their computer, but was hopelessly inept. So she had gathered up all of their computer books and took them home to read, but without a computer in front of her to practice the tutorials, the books were useless. She would stop by there after work once every two weeks to check on the house and open the windows to air it out. All of the furniture was still there, but covered in sheets to keep the dust off. She had warded it against mice, insects, and human intruders, but she had all of the food removed and donated to charity shortly after they died.

It was so depressing to go there. Why did she keep it? She had thought about selling the house after her parents' deaths, but something deep inside told her to hold on to it, because someday she would need a place to get away, perhaps permanently. The house was paid for, so she turned off the utilities and only had to worry about paying the Muggle taxes. Her salary at the Ministry gave her plenty to spare, so the taxes were not a problem.

The Ministry. After graduating Hogwarts she had been offered a job at the Ministry in the Intelligent Magical Creatures Liaison department. She had made it her quest to fight for the rights of other intelligent magical creatures such as house-elves and centaurs. She had even tried to get better treatment for the giants. But old prejudices die hard, and even with all of her fighting and research for precedents set over the centuries, she only managed to get vacation time for house-elves and a larger section of the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts Castle preserved for the centaurs. It seemed that the wizarding world was not willing to concede anything to the giants, since they had fought on Voldemort's side during the war. The Bureaucratic backward attitudes irritated her to no end since, had the giants been treated fairly from the beginning, they would have most likely fought for the side of good.

At this point in her career, Hermione had done just about all she could do in her current job, and she was becoming restless and unsatisfied as the days went by. There had to be more to life than a lousy, boring job and a selfish, grumpy husband whose ego had grown to unmanageable proportions since he had become a war hero. He rested on his laurels so much at work that Harry had even complained to her several times over the years. It was a good thing that the war was over and the Auror department didn't have that many dark wizards to chase down any more. But if Ron hadn't been Harry's best friend, he might have fired him anyway.

Well, she still had her children. Rose was her pride and joy... so smart and beautiful. She looked just like Hermione except that her bushy hair was ginger colored like Ron's. Other than that, you couldn't tell that Ron was related to her at all. And except for the pale pallor of his skin, Hugo looked almost exactly like George, Ron's older brother. She had never cheated on Ron, but she had a feeling that, once it became obvious that their marriage was under strain, some of the family had their suspicions. It was only after George started to make jokes about it and flirted endlessly with Hermione over the fuss and insinuation, that the extended Weasley family finally gave it a rest. But she was never comfortable around her in-laws after that, especially Molly. Arthur was genial enough, but Molly radiated suspicion and contempt, especially after Hermione announced on Hugo's third birthday that she was satisfied with only two children. They had one of each, no need to procreate further.

Was that really the beginning of the end? When Hermione went against her husband's wishes to raise a huge passel of red-haired rug rats? Perhaps that was the outward perception, but Hermione knew better. After the war, when she finished up her final year at Hogwarts, she should have known that Ron was not really her type when he decided to take the Auror job without finishing his education. Harry deserved it after all he had been through, but Ron was riding on his friend's coattails. Strangely enough, he somehow always seemed to know just the right thing to say or do to sway her in his direction. He had gone from insensitive teaspoon to kind and attentive in less than a year. She couldn't quite put her finger on why or how he had changed, but he certainly managed to sweep her off her feet...

...Until right after Hugo was born. She was home on maternity leave and cleaning out all of the dressers and wardrobes in their bedroom for something to do between breast feedings when she came across a well-hidden and well-used book: Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. In their first four years together as husband and wife, Ron's true colors had begun to show through. But whenever he really wanted something from her, he could still turn on the charm. Now she knew why. Although the book offered a lot of good advice on how to be more sensitive to a woman's needs, it was also filled with subtle spells to help sway a witch into the right frame of mind. They didn't act like a Love Potion, but instead, almost seemed to be a very mild form of the Imperius Curse! How could the publishers get away with such rubbish? It wasn't just immoral, it should have been illegal! Hermione became more and more incensed as she perused the book and realized how she had been used and manipulated over the years. But rather than throw it in the fire, she copied the spells covertly over the course of her maternity leave and set about researching counter-curses for each one.

Ron never pulled the wool over her eyes again.

But now that she was no longer under Ron's spell, it seemed that all they did was argue. For the sake of the children, they kept their disagreements behind closed doors, but their outward attitudes towards each other had definitely changed for the worse. Sometimes the tension in the air was so thick she could have almost sliced it with a knife. And although Rose didn't seemed fazed by it all, Hermione couldn't help but wonder if little Hugo could sense the anger and sadness that now permeated the house. He was such a perceptive child and so sensitive. His feelings were easily hurt; something his older sister took great pleasure in doing no matter how she was punished for it. Hermione had hoped the situation would improve when Rose went off to school, and it did at first. But soon, as her relationship with Ron continued to deteriorate, her son's health followed.

With her parents gone and her best friend married to her husband's sister, she had no one she could confide in. She had never made any real friends at the Ministry. They all seemed so petty, caught up in their little lives. Although they did what she asked of them to help the house-elves and centaurs, they never showed any enthusiasm for the tasks she assigned. And St. Mungo's was no help at all. Once she had exhausted all of her research on Hugo's behalf, she was left with no one else to ask and nowhere else to turn. And so she turned to Snape.

Please, please, Merlin, she thought to herself. He simply must help me.