His Muggle Wife (A Severus Snape Love Tale)

Chapter 4: His Past Friends

"My office," Snape said to the people who had finally released him off their embrace. "Could you bring us some tea, please?" he requested to Meredith who still had not moved from her original position. She nodded.

"What was that?" Soledad, her employee, a second-year university student, asked in her heavy Spanish accent.

"Sev didn't seem happy," Bruce added, "Do you know those people, Mer?"

"I've worked here for almost three years and I thought I knew you and Sev enough, Mer. Was that his family?" her other employee, Katalina from Slovakia, another university student doing her final year, added.

The three employees had gathered around her as the door to the office closed and their customers went back to what they were doing before the deafening silence caused by the slapping incident involving their boss. Having worked together before Snape and Meredith became the owners of the café, all of them became a small family of their own; they treated each other as friends rather than dwelling in the employee-employer status gap.

Meredith shook her head as a response to Katalina's question. "What?" she asked when she saw Soledad's eyes grow big, as if she had figured something out.

"I'm sorry, Mer, but I think Katalina is right. They could be his family. There was a Spanish telenovela with a story like that. The old senora could be his madre. That was why she dared to slap him in public. And los dos chicos y la chica could be his children. That was why they hugged Sev. I swear I saw that boy with the glasses cry. Maybe he had missed his padre so much. Ay, Mer... I'm sorry you had to meet your stepchildren this way. But it's very possible that he had a family before. After all, he is like more than 10 years older than you. You're 26. How old is he? 40? Even the chicos and the chica just now look like they are 20. Maybe his previous esposa died or ran away, leaving the children with his madre. Ay, Mer... I can't believe mi amiga's life is like a telenovela," Soledad presented her theory dramatically, which everyone responded to with stifled laughter so as not to draw their customers' attention. They had always enjoyed listening to her rants on telenovelas. Above all, they loved the way she spoke English in her heavy Spanish accent. Judging by the look on her face, they knew she was not offended.

However, Meredith could not help thinking if what Katalina and Soledad had said was true. Could it be his family? Could the Ron boy who flirted with her earlier be one of her husband's sons from a previous marriage he never told her about? She remembered him telling her that he was an orphan and that he had lived the life a spy, and that he decided to start a new life, away from his past, after accomplishing a very big mission which almost took his life. He told her it was a bitter life and that he wished to forget about it at all and start anew. Meredith did not feel the same bitterness growing up because the nuns at the convent made sure she did not by showering her and her fellow orphans with unending love and care, but she understood the bitterness of being lonely, of being without a real family. The day he proposed and she said yes, they had promised to never talk about their lonely pasts because they would start a life together, no longer dwelling in their own solitary life, with no one to come home to. If Katalina and Soledad were proven true, Meredith would find herself coming home to a husband, a mother-in-law, and a trio of stepchildren who were young enough to be her siblings. She would not mind that at all, but what disturbed her was, if Katalina and Soledad were correct in their assumption, she would feel betrayed, for her significant other had deemed her unworthy of knowing his past, perhaps a previous marriage or a family which she had the right to know about.

"I'd feel really offended by Sev if that was the truth," Bruce said, breaking Meredith's thought.

"Why?" Katalina inquired.

"Because I'm his best friend... though I'm young enough to be his son, or little brother. And guys never keep secrets from each other! And I was his best man! I believed so much in the solidity of our friendship that I believed if he didn't come to Mer when he had problems, he would come to me to talk about it," Bruce let his sudden frustration out.

"Easy there, tiger," Meredith told Bruce as she patted his back soothingly. "We don't know anything yet, so I suggest that we leave this matter here. I'm going in to send them some tea and scones, and see if... I don't know. I'll cross the bridge when I get there," she added as she left the trio to go into the kitchen to prepare her guests' refreshments.

"Hey, Bruce, suppose it's true, do you think Meredith is going to ask for divorce?" Katalina asked.

"Nope. She's Catholic. She doesn't believe in divorce," Bruce replied as if he knew Meredith more than his two friends did.

"Ay, my parents are Catholic too, and they had a messy divorce," Soledad offered her opinion.

"Nope. Not Meredith. Even if it's not her religious belief, she still won't go down the divorce path. Severus is her world. And I know Severus values and loves her so much he would never let her go," Bruce defended his opinion.

The trio dispersed from their gossiping as their friend-cum-boss appeared from the kitchen holding a tray of refreshments. Meredith knew her steps were accompanied by their looks of sympathy for her, for they know how fragile she could be despite her excellent ability in concealing her worries and sadness.