Chapter 6

Snape landed hard on his feet, panting, taking only the time to look around him and judge his surroundings as safe before closing his eyes tightly and letting the panic and confusion rush through him. Dobby had deposited them back into his rooms at Hogwarts, and the small elf was now skittering around at Snape's feet, banging his head against every available surface.

"Desist, Dobby," Snape ground out through clenched teeth. The elf paused his self-destructive behaviour to stare up at the wizard with wide eyes.

"Master Professor Snape is not displeased with Dobby?" he asked tentatively.

"No. You have done quite well, tonight."

The elf flushed a bright green in pleasure, then bowed deeply. "Dobby must thank Master, sir, for he brought Dobby to Miss Hydra again."

"Yes, yes," Snape said dismissively, waving a hand at him. "Away with you, and do not speak a word of this to anyone, do you hear me?"

"Yes, Master Professor Snape, sir!" Dobby chirped cheerfully. He winked away, leaving Snape in the blissful quiet of his own sitting room.

In the frustrating manner that is known to researchers everywhere, the answering of one question had opened up a host of new questions that Snape was not able to answer. The girl was Bellatrix's daughter and had been hidden from the world. But she claimed that she would be experiencing an introduction to the wizarding world; had it been a lie on Bellatrix's part to quell the demands of a teenage girl who wanted to see beyond the walls of her own house, or was it a truthful statement? And if so, what sort of debut was Bellatrix planning for a girl who appeared to have little education and less common sense?

It was enough to give him a throbbing headache.

He let his body fall into a wingback chair, stretching his booted feet before him, staring blindly at the scuffed toes as he considered what little he did know.

Despite being Bellatrix's daughter, the girl appeared not to hold her mother's greatest and most dangerous trait, ruthlessness. In fact, she had been downright congenial and quite the hostess, once she had decided that Snape was not a threat. Perhaps she was being groomed to become a doting, dutiful pureblood wife? But if the girl was a pureblood, why would Bellatrix have hidden her from sight?

There were simply too many variables that could change the situation. It was hardly worth spending the time puzzling over, but despite trying to fix his attention to a new potions journal, Snape found his mind creeping back to the enigma that was Hydra Black.

Was that even her last name? It was simply too frustrating to be borne.

There was nothing to be done, other than take the girl's advice, and return.

***TSoH***

Classes and a summons from the Dark Lord commandeered most of his attention for the next week, but Thursday night was blessedly uninterrupted. Snape Apparated at the corner of Kingham Close, not daring to land too closely to a house that he knew held members of the Black family. He had forgone his typical teaching robes in favour of black trousers and a matching turtleneck, and in his hand he held a folder of essays from his fifth-year Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw class. He turned away from the Fideliused house, striding down the street and peering both ways once he reached the corner. It had been a long time since he had lived in a Muggle neighbourhood, but two things had not escaped his memory: beware of speeding motorcars, and a park is never far away.

As a child, he had spent much of his time in the park near Spinner's End, hiding from his drunken father and the dark corners of the cramped house. It was at that park where he had met Lily Evans and befriended her as an scrawny eight year old, and he had held a fondness for the small patches of green space ever since. There was little doubt in his mind that Hydra used her local park for much the same purpose, although she was altogether too cheerful to have ever been at the hard end of a slap.

It took a mere five minutes of walking to find the park, a tiny square of land where grass strained to grow. There was one bench and a set of two rusted swings, where two teenagers leaned against the metal poles and attached themselves at the mouth. Snape sneered in their direction, but they took no notice of him.

He seated himself at the bench and crossed one leg over the other, using his knee as a desk on which to scribble scathing comments onto the essays. It was strange, doing this activity out in the daylight, when he was so used to completing it behind his massive desk in the dim lighting of the dungeons. The breeze nibbled at the edges of the parchment, and Snape wondered if he could be charged under the Statute of Secrecy for bringing papers describing intrinsically magical processes out into the Muggle world.

No matter. The Wizengamot would be more likely to put him into Azkaban for association with a terrorist group and treason before breaking the Statute.

The Muggle couple had long been gone when Snape next looked up from his marking, an uneasy feeling prickling the hairs at the back of his neck. The sun was setting low on the horizon, warm red rays fanning out across the sky for the last few moments of the day. He pocketed his quill and stacked the essays neatly, absently considering the fact that he had spent all afternoon in a Muggle park on the slim chance that a certain witch might walk past. He certainly was getting ridiculous in his old age.

He moved to stand, stretching out the stiffness in his knees and hearing them pop loudly in succession. Snape turned to leave - he couldn't Apparate from the park directly, there was too large a chance someone might see him – when he caught sight of it.

Or rather, her.

Two large, dark eyes, hidden amongst the three lone trees at the edge of the park, set into a pale face. He paused mid-step, unsure what she meant by hiding in the distance instead of approaching him. When she didn't turn and run, he raised a slender hand and beckoned to her, curling a single finger towards himself in an unmistakeable gesture.

Like a wary fawn stepping out of the woods, Hydra moved away from the safety of the tree trunks and towards the bench. Snape reclaimed his seat on the wooden slats, watching as she tentatively made her way over to him.

"And how long have you been crouching amongst the trees?" he asked, forcing his voice into a drawl rather than a demand. Hydra slipped onto the bench next to him, folding her hands neatly into her lap and crossing her ankles delicately beneath the seat.

"Not long," she answered, smoothing her hands over her skirt.

They sat in silence, Snape unwilling to frighten her away with a barrage of questions, hoping that she might speak first so that he wouldn't have to.

She made a soft noise that he belatedly recognized as her clearing her throat. "I had a feeling that today would be a good day to visit the park, but Grandmother refused to let me leave before now. I think mostly because she was feeling particularly... spiteful, today." He had a feeling that 'spiteful' was not necessarily the word she would have preferred to use, but a polite young lady did not swear in public. "And I was right."

He hummed his agreement. They sat in silence a little while longer.

"You're not frightened of me, are you?" he asked, feeling inane even as the words left his mouth. What child wasn't? But she gave her head an immediate shake.

"It's not often I get to watch a real wizard doing wizard things," she said.

Snape blinked. "I was simply grading the most impossible essays I have ever had the misfortune to look upon."

"But you have a quill. How does it not run out of ink?"

"A simple charm that... well, never mind that for now." It would be too easy to get into an endless stream of questions, and then he would never get the opportunity to ask his own. "I believe we were having a conversation," he began slowly, "the last time you and I met."

"The first time we met, you mean," she said, and when Snape glanced over, her eyes were sparkling with mirth.

"A technicality," he dismissed with a wave of his hand. "You said that Bellatrix is preparing you for something."

Hydra hummed softly. "Marriage. Of a sort."

"Ah, I see." The appropriate roles for women never went out of style. "To whom?"

Hydra gave a little half-shrug, looking down at her feet as she kicked at the ground. "A man."

It was like trying to cut a sopophorous bean without it flying across the room. "Is there a specific one in mind yet?"

"Mother says that he's very important, and is going to be even more so shortly, and that I will have to be prepared to become an essential part of his life and legacy," she announced, sounding much like Hermione Granger reciting a textbook word-for-word. "I've never met him," she confessed.

Snape racked his brain; who could she mean? There were few men that Bellatrix would consider to be important, and fewer to whom she would willing give part of herself.

"Surely you can't be expected to marry quite yet, you hardly look fifteen."

Hydra snickered. "I'll be eighteen in April," she replied. "Which is apparently plenty old enough to get married to a complete stranger."

"And your father?" he asked, trying a different tack. "What does he say to all this?"

"I've never met him, either," Hydra said. "Mother calls him the 'Potions master', but she's never said a name. I think she thinks I'll try to find him, if I know who he is, and she doesn't want that."

"Why ever not?" Snape asked, his voice sounding strangled even to his own ears.

"Because he might want to take me back, I suppose. I think that he told Mother he didn't want anything to do with me, when she became pregnant, and that's why I have to live away from everyone else. It would be shameful, see, for Mother to bring me home, because Mr. Lestrange isn't my father, and everyone would know I was born out of wedlock, from an affair." Her nose wrinkled. "I'm not sure how she's going to cover that up to the man I'm supposed to wed, but maybe she's already told him and he doesn't mind."

She peered at the horizon, where the sun was sinking so low that the few rays of sunlight left were dim and weak. "Time to go home, I think. Will I see you here next week?"

The only thing Snape could do was nod.