A Little Bit of Love and Laughter

I knocked on the door of the Weasley home, hoping that they would be there. It had been so long, too long. I had been living in France for a few years now, and I hadn't seen any of them since I had transferred to Beauxbatons for my final year of Wizarding School. Fred and I had never officially ended our relationship – in retrospect, we hadn't officially started it either – and I wondered whether or not he would be excited to see me again, after all this time.

"Emily?" George answered the door, looking essentially the same as I had remembered, except that he was missing an ear. I did not want to draw any attention to it and so pretended that I had not noticed.

"George!" I cried happily, as I gave him a hug. "It's been so long. I just had to come back to see you and Fred. Speaking of Fred, where is he? Is he here?"

George's face fell, looking graver than I had ever seen before. "Em, I think you really ought to know..."

"Know what?"

"Come in and have a seat," he said.

I did, and as I sat down, I repeated, "Know what?"

"Well, the last... and Fred... I – I..." He was stuttering, like he didn't know exactly what to say or how to say it.

"Spit it out, George!"

He began to shake as he forced the words from his lips. "He's... d-dead. He was killed in the final battle... against He-Who... against Voldemort."

A gasp was my subconscious response. I had not had time to even process the information; I was stoic and merely replied, almost as a defensive reflex, "What?"

It was almost as if I hoped that the question could change what George had said. As my mind slowly began to comprehend the words that had been uttered, I felt tears burning my eyes, and as I struggled to sustain my poise, my entire body began to convulse. I fought against the hysterical, uncontrollable sobs that were trying to fight their way through my lips.

George, with a glassy look in his eyes, ultimately demanded in almost a growl, "How did you not know about everything that was going on?"

I scoffed. "I'm sorry the kid he was looking for wasn't in France! How was I supposed to have heard?"

"Before you left, he had just come back. You were there; you heard Harry say it."

"And why do you think I was forced to transfer?"

He looked at me, and I could clearly see the anguish and the anger in his eyes. "So you knew..."

"Of course I knew! Of course I had some hint, some inkling that there was something going on, something bigger than me, but—"

"Then why didn't you come back?" he cut me off angrily.

I snapped back, "I couldn't!" Then I broke down. "I just couldn't. I couldn't bear to see what was going on or even listen to the names being announced and hear yours or Fred's or your parents'! Do you honestly think that if I had known that I would hear his name that I wouldn't have turned on the radio and marked each day he was alive? Of course, I would have, George, but I couldn't. It's not that simple. I've already lost people I love, and even though I can't remember it very well, it still made an impact, and I couldn't go through that again. I just couldn't do that to myself."

There had more than likely been too much passion, too much emotion in my voice for him to have fully comprehended my words. I knew it was distracting to me, the sound of my voice straining against the guilt, trying to justify why I hadn't put in the effort to come back, to keep in better touch, when, in truth, there wasn't much I could say to justify it, and I knew.

George had been silent for a while, so when he spoke again, it caught me a bit off-guard. "You know, Fred and I had been talking at Bill and Fleur's wedding, and he had mentioned that if he was ever going to get married, he'd want it to be to you."

"George?" Molly Weasley's familiar voice called from upstairs as she came down. "Who's there?"

"It's Emily, Mum," he replied, and at the sound of my name, the footsteps descending down the stairs became much, much faster.

"Emily, dear!" she exclaimed, upon seeing me. "We've missed you so. Things haven't been the same without you, without..."

As she dropped her sentence, a somber darkness fell over the room. Trying to maintain her composure, she continued with a somewhat forced smile, "It's lovely to see you, dear."

She looked so much more aged than when I had seen her last. Her face was paler than I remembered, her ginger hair graying. Her eyes were darker, almost empty, incessantly plagued by the memory of her son's death, the sound of his last breath, the look of life leaving his eyes.

I smiled back at her, and she sighed before beginning again, "Well, Emily, can we ask you to stay for supper, at the very least?"

"I'd love to," I replied. "Thank you, Mrs. Weasley."

"Molly," she corrected, and with a flick of her hand, the night's meal was being prepared in the kitchen. Her face grew somber again and she struggled to say, "I take it George has... caught you up."

I nodded solemnly, turning again to look at her with tear-filled eyes before finally asking the question that had been burning in the back of my throat since first walking through the door. "And... Severus?"

Molly took a deep breath. "Dead, as well."

"Snape?" George asked, obviously thrown off by the exchange. "Why?"

It was the knowledge I had fought so hard to keep a secret for the majority of my school life. But he was dead now; what did it matter? So I said it. Without another thought, I revealed the secret that had haunted me for so long.

"He was my uncle... sort of. He looked over me while I was at Hogwarts, as sort of an unspoken promise to my father."

George looked as if he was going to interrupt with a question, but I continued. "He was there on the night my father and brother were killed, and out of regret and guilt, he promised my mother that he would take care of me, to do everything that my father would never get the chance to do."

I had not noticed that Molly had left the room until she returned, with a sealed envelope in hand. "Here," she said, handing the thing to me. "He had written this for you and told me to pass it along when I got the chance. I was going to send it via owl, but you're here now."

My fingers were trembling ever so slightly as I tore open the envelope and pulled out the handwritten letter that way inside.

Dear Emily,
This final battle is pushing on, and I feel that I do not have much time left. Before it is all over, there are some things that you need to know.

First of all, I have always cared about you, more than I was ever capable of showing. Even though it may not have seemed as such, I truly loved you as if you were my own daughter, and perhaps that is why I was often so strict with you. During your time at Hogwarts, you were essentially my main priority. I was so focused on keeping you safe that I made myself cold to you, and for that, I am truly sorry.

Furthermore, you were partially right when you said that I only agreed to serve as your guardian to remove some of my guilt regarding Rupert's death. However, I feel that there is so much more that you need to understand about that night.

The Death Eaters had all been called together, given the orders, and expected to follow them without question. No matter how badly I wanted to leave to warn Rupert and Oliver, I needed to keep my cover intact. (I promise you, Emily, that I am not the villain here; I have not been since I gave up being a Death Eater to serve as a double-agent for Dumbledore.) And once the troops had assembled, I tried to stay as little involved in the action and the killing as possible, mainly just following the others.

We walked into the department where your father and brother worked, and spells began to fly immediately. I could not bring myself to fight for either side.

There are no words that can aptly express what I felt when I saw them, Rupert and Oliver, slumped over on the floor, their wands lying mere inches from their hands. At that moment, I wished I could go back to protect them, but it was too late.

I was a coward and a murderer. You were right.

I am the reason that you have neither a father nor a brother, and I hope that one day you will find it in your heart to forgive me.

Yet, there is more that I have to tell you.

You have often led yourself to believe that I liked Oliver better than you. I can tell you now, with full confidence, that this is, and has always been, false. You must understand that as a child, as a student at Hogwarts, I was not at all like Oliver. I was not popular or a Quidditch captain or a Head Boy, as was he. I was more like you – working hard in school, discovering my own knack for potions, trying not to be too preoccupied with winning the love of someone to whom I was once so close, hopefully not making too many enemies along the way. You see, while Oliver's life at Hogwarts revealed what I had wanted to be all along, yours was more a blatant reflection of what I had been, and I almost loathed that. And I loathed it even more when your successes changed the mold of your school life so that it was no longer like mine but was better. I envied that. I envied your newfound relationship with Fred Weasley because it was everything that I had longed for and failed to have with Lily Evans. Again, I am sorry.

The handwriting now was rushed, as if something else was hurrying him, but he wanted – no, needed – to get his thoughts out onto the paper.

You are brilliant in mind, Emily, a true Ravenclaw, and I am so proud of the young woman you have become. I wish you and Fred Weasley (please send the boy my dearest apologies for having acted so cruelly toward him when he was a student) the best of luck for a strong and healthy relationship, and when you see your mother again, please give her my best.

Remember that I will always protect you, no matter what.

Love always,
Severus Snape

As I looked back at Molly and folded the letter, I felt the tears welling up in my eyes, but I didn't want to cry. She understood without me needing to say a word and got up to give me a hug.

"There, there, dear," she whispered, gently patting my back. And I bit my bottom lip, trying not to let tears slip out.