The Potions Master's Daughter Part 2

CHAPTER 4 Snape Confesses

Alice lay in bed, motionless. Violent rain poured outside, wreaking havoc in Aunt Honora's vegetable garden. Alice watched Uncle Ernest frantically run around the patches setting up a canopy to protect some smaller seedlings from the heavy downpour. The ground had turned into mud and his boots sunk deep into the wet dirt. She could see him mouthing curses under his breath.

Alice flipped to the side and looked the other way, hugging her knees to her chest. She could feel tears begin to form in the corners of her eyes and the lump in her throat grow bigger and bigger.

She and Aunt Honora came back from the Diagon Alley almost two weeks ago but Alice hadn't stopped thinking about her encounter with Ollivander ever since. She couldn't let go of the image of his sad eyes and the deep lines in his forehead when she asked him the question that had been eating her up inside ever since she found the red wand in Aunt Honora's bedroom. She wanted so desperately to grab him by the shoulders and yell: 'Is it my mother's? Did the red wand belong to my mother? Answer me, please!'

'Answer me...' she mouthed silently and felt a tear stream down her cheek. 'Why won't you answer me...'

She wiped away the tears angrily and sat up on the bed. 'It was Snape's mother's wand,' she said to herself firmly. 'He told you it was his mother's, why would he lie to you, Alice. Stop being silly and start packing already.'

She went to the bathroom to splash some water in her face and went back to her room to start packing. She carefully folded her new set of formal robes (she had tried them on again yesterday evening and was looking to finally wear them at school) and placed them on the bottom of the trunk. Aunt Honora had placed a pile of fresh laundry on her bed and Alice put it in the school trunk along with a large set of books, Potions ingredients, notebooks, and – of course – her diary.

She opened it and flicked through the pages nostalgically. The pages bore all of her feelings and emotions from the past three years at Hogwarts. She stopped at a random page and looked at the carefully handwritten note before her.

13 March 1992

Today Severus showed us how to make a Fire-Protecting potion and I was the first to get it right. Then, Draco made fun of Harry because Severus told him to clean the whole classroom for no reason. Honestly, I feel sorry for Harry. But I understand why Severus hates him so much. Harry is exactly the kind of person Severus would hate. Anyway, Draco is annoying. And I think Pansy has a crush on him.

By the way - a Fire-Protecting potion works better when you fry the valerian root instead of boiling it.

Alice smiled to herself. The page brought back so many memories. She had spoken to Severus a few times asking him why exactly he hated Harry so much but Severus always responded with "He's a spoiled brat who thinks he can get away with doing the least amount of work possible". Alice understood. Severus was hard to please anyway and most students annoyed him. When Alice thought about it, there weren't many people Severus was nice to anyway. Harry wasn't treated exceptionally badly, she thought. His presence, his whole persona - being a Gryffindor and "The Boy Who Lived" - irked Severus and Alice was aware of it. It almost made her laugh the way Severus tensed up as soon as the poor and skinny Harry Potter entered his classroom.

She flipped a couple of pages and found another interesting note.

17 November 1993

Daphne, Blaise and I went on a nice walk today and sat by the lake. It's getting cold outside but the Forbidden Forest looks gorgeous in Autumn. Blaise said he overheard the Ravenclaw boys talk about girls in the bathroom. He claims they mentioned our names but I don't believe him. We saw Gemma and Jake Flinton, the Hufflepuff Prefect, walk back to the castle together after Herbology. Daphne swears she saw them hold hands.