Chapter 7

How could he have been so stupid?

A booted foot smashed into the small table that sat beside his fireside chair, sending it toppling arse over teakettle into the wall. Snape clenched his fists together tightly, feeling the nails dig ruthlessly into his palms and his knuckles go numb from lack of blood. His hands unfolded only long enough to grab hold of the chair and send it flying after the little table, leaving them both crumpled and pitiful in the corner.

Surveying the damage was much more satisfying and infinitely easier to deal with than trying to make all the puzzle pieces fit together inside his head. Snape sagged against the far wall, feeling the fight go out of him as quickly as it had come. His knees buckled, and he slid to the floor where he stopped with an audible thump.

The back of his head rested uncomfortably against the stone wall, but it was no matter. The whirling sense of unease in his stomach was far more unsettling. With a sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh, Snape finally let his head fall into his hands and closed his eyes.

A daughter.

There was nothing for it; she simply had to be his. Oh, how could he have been so utterly blind and stupid? Memories from long ago that had been forgotten over time were dredged up with little difficulty, now that he had ample reason to remember. Conceived in 1979, of course, when he had been foolish enough to engage in a tryst with a Slytherin, a Black, a woman who was above him both in years and carnal knowledge. Oh, if only he had known! Born in 1980, making the slight girl a grand total of seventeen years old.

He squeezed his eyes so tightly shut that he was nearly certain his eyelids would bruise from the abuse.

A daughter. With Bellatrix.

Of all the harpies to have unwittingly tied himself to. He briefly considered himself lucky to have escaped her affections, since it would have been all too easy for her to demand marriage when she carried his child. Snape gave his head a rough shake; no sense going down that dead-end road.

But then, why hadn't she chosen to pursue that path? Had it been his half-blood status that dissuaded her? Or was there a more sinister plot in her mind that was slowly growing and hatching beneath him, ready to erupt when he least expected it?

He was going to drive himself batty with all these unanswered thoughts roaming through his head.

The girl was too sweet, too gentle, to be the product of a liaison between a Black and a Snape. He must be wrong, there was another Potions master, maybe one from South America! No, of course not, it was useless to think that way.

He had expected to die childless, the end of the illustrious Snape line, such as it was. And yet, a girl from nowhere, hidden away in a townhouse under the Fidelius Charm, waiting...

But not for him. Her husband.

Instinct told him she could have only meant one person, even if she didn't quite know it, but his brain refused to look facts in the eyes. It would be too devastating, finding the girl now and then knowing the fate she was resigned to. It was better not to know; he would find it unbearable and then try to rashly fix it, and that could only leave him dead. Oh, yes, Bellatrix would have to answer for that, make no mistake.

She could have bled the baby out. She must have known that Snape would brew her a potion to do so, better than anything she could have make or purchased herself. And to keep the girl hidden from Rodolphus for all those years... it was unthinkable. Snape straightened slightly, pressing his back more firmly against the wall that held him upright.

Rodolphus.

He imagined shaking his hand, offering him a whisky, then handing him a slap in the face alongside the drink. "I know you've wished for an heir these many years," he imagined saying, "but I'm afraid I impregnated your wife already. Perhaps she only had one good use in her and I used it up?"

He'd end up flat on his back under a wash of green light. Rodolphus might seem harmless and even timid in comparison to Bellatrix, but the first person who forgot that a less fearsome creature than Bellatrix was still mightily fearsome indeed would quickly receive a demonstration to correct their thinking.

With an outstretched hand, Snape wordlessly summoned his bottle of Firewhisky from a cabinet that had escaped his wrath. He uncorked it with his thumb and drank directly from the bottle, not caring that he was being hopelessly déclassé.

Hydra.

An unusual name, to be sure. There was likely a meaning behind it, the most simple being that the Blacks enjoyed naming their children after constellations, and Hydra was one of the largest constellations in the sky, stretching her length over the horizon.

The water serpent.

A snake, of course, to honour Slytherin House and the Dark Lord's heritage. There was no mistaking that. And a significant part of mythology, a beast who could not be defeated since its heads grew back as quickly as they could be cut off, and always two heads where there once was one. It had poison in spades, making it deadly and dangerous. It did, however, have a weakness; only a single of its head was immortal, and if this head could be removed permanently, the monster would die.

Herakles, of course, had solved this problem with the simple matter of cauterizing the neck stump immediately after he had delivered the beheading blow, but the monster had wreaked havoc across Lerna long before that moment.

He shivered at the thought of the smiling girl beheaded with only a smoking wound where her slender neck had once been.

Snape had half a mind to find Bellatrix, grab her by the shoulders and shake her until all the answers he desired spilled out of her and tumbled to the ground around her feet, where he could pick them up and peruse them at his leisure. It was just like her to put him through all this trouble, even if she didn't realize she was doing it.

What was he going to tell Lestrange?

Rodolphus would not be satisfied with a simple dismissal, a declaration that there was nothing interesting to be found. For God's sake, Snape had promised him information! And Snape was nothing if not a good listener, especially if the listening had to be done secretly and from behind closed doors. Lestrange would never believe that he hadn't discovered anything.

His arse protested at his choice to sit on the cold stone floor, and his knees felt a moment's strain as he heaved himself to his feet, sloshing a bit of the Firewhisky over his hand. Pushing the dark hair away from where it hung in his face, Snape strode to the fireplace and stared into its depths, wishing that the flames could consume this knowledge like they consumed the logs piled high in the hearth. The bottle dangled loosely in his hand, a little too close to the fire. His knuckles warmed uncomfortably, and the bottle heated in his grasp. The next swig he took was too hot to stand, and Snape spat it out into the fireplace, which heaved momentarily with the alcohol.

Snape looked at the drink in his hand, for a moment at a loss as to where it had come from. He propped the bottle back onto the shelf it had come from, unsure where the cork had vanished to. A quick Summoning charm sent it flying out of a corner and into his hand, and he stoppered the whisky again. It would do him no good to get absolutely smashed before the job he had to do. No, best to have his wits around him.

His bedroom lay through a door on the opposite side of the room from the hearth, and Snape passed through the doorway on a mission. His robes, first, followed by a cloak, both drawn out from the towering wardrobe. His fingers manoeuvred easily over the many buttons, long since accustomed to performing this task twice a day. Once he was clad from head to foot in black, he gathered his courage around him like another layer of clothing and walked purposefully to his fireplace.

The little urn on his mantle appeared as if it should hold ashes, perhaps those of a family member, but instead it contained a heap of glittering green powder, which he scooped up and tossed into the orange flames, turning them emerald instead. Drawing his cloak closer to his body in an effort to keep them clean, he stepped into the fireplace and called out his destination.

"Lestrange Lane!"

It seemed too innocent a name, considering who occupied it. The manor, for indeed it was not merely a house, was not even located on a lane, but Snape imagined that some long-deceased Lestrange had liked alliteration just a little too much. He stepped out, amid a small puff of smoke, into the same study that Rodolphus had last entertained him in. His feet had barely touched the ground when Rodolphus came through the doorway, hand in his pocket and face hard.

There was a tense moment when Snape was certain that Lestrange already knew, that he was going to be struck down in the most ridiculous way possible for anyone named Snape: in the heat of a lovers' quarrel. How appropriate that the affair in question had long since passed and retribution was only now being delivered.

But then Rodolphus removed his hand from his pocket, no wand in sight, and his face lightened into a more pleasant grimace. "Snape, what are you doing here?"

'I have word, Lestrange," he said smoothly. "Word of your wife."

"Oh?" The other man seemed hesitant to ask. "Well, you might as well have a seat. She's off with our Lord, and I don't expect her back for some time."

Snape accepted the chair and the cigar that Rodolphus held out, lighting the tip with a flick of his wand. He enjoyed two large puffs, wondering if he would die with the smell of smoke still in his mouth.

Lestrange settled in the other chair, lighting his own cigar and tapping off the ashes into the tray that sat between them. "What have you discovered? It doesn't have anything to do with this secret plot that Bella has to raise us up in the eyes of our Lord, does it?" he asked without preamble.

Oh, he wouldn't be surprised if he knew just what that particularly plan entailed, and who was meant to be the sacrificial lamb for the cause. Snape rolled the cigar between his long fingers, then set it down on the edge of the ashtray, where it balanced and burned slowly at the end. Lestrange watched it all with calculating eyes.

"I'm afraid I don't yet have all the details I wish to gather, but your wife... she appears to be visiting a child."

Rodolphus coughed, thumping his chest hard. "A child? I suppose you don't mean that nephew of hers?"

"Draco? No, decidedly not. A young girl. Well, a teenage girl. Seventeen years old." Snape folded his hands across his lap, presenting himself as innocently and non-threateningly as possible before delivering the news. "She is Bellatrix's daughter."

Lestrange leapt to his feet with a shout; he had dropped his cigar in shock, and the lit end had burnt his robes through to the flesh of his leg. He swatted angrily at the smouldering hole in his clothes, then shifted his gaze back to Snape. "Bella can't have children."

"I assure you, she may not be able to now, but she has in the past."

Rodolphus cursed, either at his ruined clothes or his wife, and sat back down again heavily. "Seventeen, you say?" Snape nodded. "So not mine." He had done the math easily enough, that was for certain. "And where is this girl?"

"At the house of Druella Black. I believe she has not been introduced to the wizarding world beyond her grandmother's house, and so it is little wonder we have never heard of such a girl before."

"Her name?"

"Hydra."

"Ah," Rodolphus said knowingly, as that particular piece of the puzzle fell into place for him. "Yes. I had wondered what she meant by that name."

He seemed to be taking the news surprisingly well, considering he had just learned that his wife was hiding a bastard child who belonged to another man from him. Speaking of which, was it entirely necessary to divulge the paternity of the child? Perhaps it would be safer if he simply left the matter for now...

"Her father?" Rodolphus asked quietly. Snape paused, and Lestrange looked up at him. "Her father," he repeated, more forcefully. "Don't tell me you have come to me without that gem of information."

"Her father," Snape echoed, "I am afraid to say... well, she's mine."