Father's Footsteps

Chapter Twenty

Father's Footsteps

Streaks of sombre sunlight broke though heavy, brooding rainclouds as Tess climbed a steep, cobbled street in the seaside village of Mevagissey. The December wind was brisk, the air was salty, and seagulls cried overhead, circling choppy waters which boomed like thunder as they crashed into the shore.

At the top of the hill, around the corner of the street and tucked out of sight, she found a small white-washed terrace of three houses nestled behind a row of silver birch trees. A robin warbled its flute-like song as the branches rustled and swayed in the breeze. The terrace was neatly kept and well-loved.

After the events of the last few months, Tess expected to feel nervous, but she had found Bloom's End cottage in a quiet, idyllic corner of Cornwall; she unbolted the gate of the end-terrace house and knocked on the door without a second thought.

A tabby cat curled around her legs in welcome, and after a short delay, an older lady in her early sixties opened the door. She had a kind, round face and wore a floral apron, covered in flour. Tess smiled when the aroma of baking bread drifted out of the cottage.

"Isobel Snape?" Tess enquired.

The white-haired lady wiped her hands on her apron and stepped forward to get a better look at her house-caller.

"Yes, dear," she replied, squinting in the daylight. "And who might you be?"

"Contessa Marchbanks. But please, call me 'Tess'." She held out her hand in greeting.

Isobel wiped her right hand a second time and shook Tess's. "What can I do for you, Tess?"

"I'm here to see Tobias Snape. I have news of his son, Severus."

Isobel took a step backwards and let out a surprised gasp. After she'd taken a moment to recover her composure, the older lady stepped further inside and held the door open. "You'd better come indoors."

Tess stepped inside the cottage with the cat at her heels and found a cramped yet cosy living room with a small, artificial Christmas tree adorned with baubles and tinsel, standing in the corner by the window.

Noticing Tess's interest in the early festive decorations, Isobel kneeled down and located the electricity socket, turning on the multi-coloured fairy lights. Rising onto her feet again carefully, Isobel straightened the angel on the top of the tree.

"Toby is out in the back garden, in his vegetable patch, digging up parsnips for dinner," the older lady said, making her way to the kitchen door. "I'll call him inside. I've a pot of tea brewing... Would you like a cup?"

"Yes, please, Mrs Snape."

"Make yourself at home, duck, we'll be with you shortly."

Isobel walked into the adjoining kitchen and closed the door behind her, leaving Tess on her own. The cat rubbed against her legs as though they were old friends.

The room spoke of warmth and companionship and had a lived-in feel. A wood-burning stove cast a warm amber glow around the room, and Tess found herself curious, taking in the smattering of Christmas cards on the mantelpiece, a faded photograph of a couple at their wedding, and some pictures of two children at various stages of growing up. Tess brushed past the coffee table and accidentally knocked a seasonal television magazine onto the floor. Sitting down, she replaced the guide next to the remote control on the small table. The cat narrowed its eyes and purred when Tess stroked between its ears with distrait fingers.

Eventually, Isobel returned with a tray laden with a blue and white china teapot, cups and a plate of biscuits. She placed the tray on the table and sat down next to Tess, waiting for her husband to return.

The sound of boots being removed and hands being washed drifted in through the open door. Then, wearing socks, woollen trousers and a navy-blue Cornish fisherman's jumper, Tobias Snape walked into the room, stooping to avoid knocking his head against the low beam of the doorway.

Severus's father was in his mid-sixties, long and lean in stature, and with a strikingly similar nose. His full head of hair had turned mostly grey and had been blown about in the wind; his complexion was ruddy, suggesting he'd spent a great deal of his years outdoors. Whilst he shared Severus's physique and hooked nose, Tobias's facial features were nothing like his son's. He had warm brown eyes, silvery stubble on his jaw, and his full, wide lips made his smile seem large and pronounced; Tess suspected he'd been a good-looking man in his youth.

Tobias offered a handshake, betraying both suspicion and fear.

Tess rose to standing. "Hello, Mr Snape. My name is Tess. I'm a friend of your son's."

His large, rough hand grasped hers. "Severus?"

The man's voice was sonorous, as though he were speaking from inside a cave. The sound was remarkably familiar to Tess.

"Yes," she replied.

Tobias nodded nervously and then dropped into an armchair, his hands fidgeting.

Isobel leaned towards her husband's chair and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We've been hoping someone would arrive and explain it all to us," she reminded him.

Her husband responded by patting her arm.

Isobel turned to face Tess. "We've been waiting for you to come for about six months now."

"May I ask what happened six months ago?"

Tobias bit his lip, unable to reply.

Isobel rescued him, her voice wobbling with apprehension. "We were hoping you might have an explanation... One morning, early in May, Toby woke up after a lucid dream and started to recover fragments of his memory."

"Fragments?" Tess echoed.

"Yes," Isobel replied. "You didn't know? Then, let me explain. The first time I met Toby was twenty years ago. I worked for the Salvation Army in St Austell, helping the homeless to find employment. Toby had arrived in Cornwall a year earlier with amnesia."

Tess nodded. "I was aware of that."

"He knew his name," Isobel continued, "and he had a week's wages stuffed in his pocket, along with his payslip from the mill in Cokeworth. Toby emphatically refused to return home, yet he couldn't explain why he feared going back. He just couldn't remember. It was assumed he'd suffered a trauma, and the Salvation Army helped him find his feet again. I helped him rediscover his skills for repairing machines, and he found a job maintaining engines for the fishermen of the village. Eventually we got married, but in all those years his memories never returned. Not until six months ago."

Tess turned to face Severus's father. "What do you remember, Mr Snape?"

Tobias breathed in through his nose and fixed Tess with his brown gaze. "I remember working in a cotton-weaving mill, maintaining the looms. There was a terraced house on a steep cobbled street. I was married to a woman with black hair. And we had a son."

"That's right." Tess smiled encouragingly.

Tobias, however, seemed troubled. "I remember other things, too."

"Sssh!" Isobel touched his arm in warning.

"It's alright," Tess tried to reassure them. "I think I can help. What else do you recall?"

"Being unhappy... Being angry." Tobias shuddered. "And I remember my wife and my lad... They could do impossible things." The older man's face contorted in fear, as though he expected straitjacket restraint if he elaborated further.

"Your son is a wizard, Mr Snape," Tess explained carefully, knowing she would be covered by the Statute of Secrecy under these circumstances. "And your wife was a witch."

Tobias pursed his lips and closed his eyes.

Isobel, on the other hand, raised her voice for the first time. "I'm not having any of this nonsense in our house!" She turned to Tess, her previously kind face revealing frightened abhorrence. "Look, I don't know who you are or what you're playing at, young lady, but I'm not going to sit here and let you take advantage of a vulnerable man."

Tess replied calmly. "Please, Mrs Snape, there's no need to be afraid; I'm not here to hurt anyone. I only want to help."

When Tess retrieved her wand from the sleeve of her coat, Isobel scrutinised the stick of wood in astonishment, watching as the witch swished and flicked purposefully into the air.

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

The tea tray levitated at eye-level, Tess holding her wand steadily to avoid spillage.

Isobel's eyes were wide with alarm, but as her curiosity came to the fore, she held out her hand, searching for the invisible force which held her tea service mid-air. Then, with a gasp, she leaned back into her seat, flabbergasted.

"See, I told you, Izzy. My first wife and my kid could do magic." Tobias seemed relieved to have the evidence irrefutably displayed in front of his eyes.

Tess guided the tray back down onto the table and charmed the crockery to serve the tea. Isobel watched the spectacle, enraptured, but Tobias didn't seem impressed as he watched the drinks serving themselves.

"What's the matter, Mr Snape?" Tess asked. "You look upset."

"I don't know what it is, but I feel bitter about it. What you've just done is a miracle, but it irritates me."

"Perhaps I can explain?"

"Aye. I'd appreciate that."

Helping herself to the nearest cup and saucer, Tess took a sip, indicating that it was safe to drink. Isobel looked as though she would have preferred a strong brandy, but she tentatively picked up a cup, added a spoonful of sugar, and smiled when she tasted the soothing tea.

"You were married to a witch named Eileen Prince, who came from Barley in the borough of Pendle," Tess began.

"Is that the big hill I keep dreaming about?" Tobias asked.

"Yes. You lived a few miles away in Cokeworth, owned a house on Spinner's End, and worked in the mill. You and Eileen met at a summer fête. She befriended you, posed as a local, and walked the same route home with you each night. We don't know exactly how it came about, but she fell pregnant with your child."

"I remember her telling me," Tobias said regretfully. "I didn't believe her. I'd not slept with her, see? But then her belly got bigger and bigger, and when the baby was born, I knew he was mine."

"You got married when she was six months pregnant, and you lived together at Spinner's End."

Tobias nodded. "I remember that now. The house was cramped. I worked all the hours God sent, bringing in money for the family, paying the mortgage. But I never touched anything she ever made for me – no food, no drink – and I spent lots of time down the pub." Tobias held Tess's gaze on an even plane. "I never loved her. It were a miserable life."

Tess paused, reflecting on his despair and the effect it had on his wife and son. "Severus eventually went to Hogwarts – that's a school of magic, Mrs Snape – and I'm sad to say he'd been a neglected, unhappy child who'd grown up resenting his father. When Severus was seventeen, he came home from school for the Easter holiday to discover his mother had a black eye and his father bore a bruised knuckle. He put two and two together..."

"And no doubt came up with four. I did hit her sometimes, when I were drunk." Tobias winced at his confession. "I'm not proud of it."

Isobel became tearful, lowering her eyes to the floor.

"But it's not who I am anymore, Izzy. You know that."

She withstood the denouement with courage. "I do, Toby. I do."

"The next part of the story will be hard for you to hear, Mr Snape," Tess warned.

Tobias seemed to brace himself. "Go ahead. I've wanted to hear the truth for a very long time; I might as well hear it all."

Tess admired his resolve. "Severus was angry. He'd become a very powerful wizard by then, dabbling in the darker aspects of magic, and when he discovered his mother had been beaten, he saw red. Severus did what he thought he needed to do to protect himself and his mother. I'm sorry to say that he cursed you, Mr Snape, so that you would sign divorce papers and hand over the deeds of the house. After he'd released you from all of your commitments, he gave you a Memory Potion which made you forget about seventeen years of fatherhood and marriage. Severus brought you here, to Cornwall, to live out the rest of your days."

The room fell silent for several long seconds, eventually broken by the sound of the mantel clock chiming its way into the new hour. Only the cat sitting at Tess's feet seemed unperturbed.

"That all makes sense to me now," Tobias finally replied. "The bits I remember – they fit with what you've said." He paused to contemplate the new information. "When Izzy and I got married, we discovered my first wife had died and so I was actually a widower. What can you tell me about that?"

"Two years after you'd been sent away, Eileen died from an illness which was left untreated," Tess replied solemnly.

Seeming to rouse herself, Isobel placed down her teacup, asking, "Why did Toby start to get these flashbacks six months ago?"

Tess dragged her fingertips along her legs. "That's a bit more complicated to explain. You see, it coincides with Severus's death on the second of May this year."

"Oh, dear God," Tobias muttered.

"But it wasn't a Muggle death, Mr Snape. We were able to revive him four months ago, and he's now healthy and well."

"He came back from the dead?" Isobel asked incredulously.

"You could put it like that, I suppose, but I'll explain that part later. The important thing for you, Mr Snape, is that after Severus died, his magic was undone, terminating the curse he'd placed on you. The potion and the curse had previously acted in unison, but then you were left with the effects of the Memory Potion alone. The dissolution of the curse is probably why you started to recall fragments of memory."

"That makes sense," Isobel said, surprising Tess. "Memories are laid down in all kinds of ways. Disrupt part of it and the whole system becomes erratic, like in Alzheimer's Disease."

Tess had very little idea what the lady was talking about, but she smiled and said, "I'm glad you understand... I'm so sorry I've brought you such an unhappy tale."

Tobias picked up his cup of tea and took a large gulp. "Well, as shaming as it is to be told I was a violent man who neglected his only son, at least I know how I ended up here. Severus might not have meant for it to turn out as well as it did."

He patted the back of Isobel's hand appreciatively, and his wife gave Tess an explanation. "Toby is a very determined man, Tess. He came here with little more than a hundred pounds in his pocket and no memory of his past. In the end, he became a successful engineer running his own business, and he's been a good husband to me and my two children. I'm a divorcée, you see. Toby helped raise my kids for ten years before they left home."

"I'm glad things worked out well for you both," Tess said, relieved that she would not be relating another unhappy tale when she went back home. "Severus shares your determination, Mr Snape. He's a remarkable man and a talented wizard."

"What does my lad do for a living?"

"He was a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for sixteen years, then became Headmaster and died protecting everyone from the greatest Dark wizard who ever lived. Four months ago, he was awarded a first-class Order of Merlin – that's the equivalent of a knighthood."

"Bloody hell." Tobias breathed out heavily.

"He's a son to be proud of," Tess affirmed.

"Sounds like my boy done good, Izzy. You hear that?"

"I did, Toby." Isobel smiled. "And what's your relation to Severus, Tess?"

"He and I are together; I'm his girlfriend."

Tobias grin was so wide it seemed to touch his ears. "My lad found himself a beauty."

Tess laughed, her cheeks flushing. "I don't know about that."

Isobel touched her hand conspiratorially. "Toby can be a bit shallow, Tess. He has a soft spot for pretty women."

Tobias laughed, reaching for a chocolate digestive and dunking the biscuit in his cup of tea.