Snape and Lily's daughter

Embarrassing situations

It was a Monday. Grace got out of bed, as she always did, but this time something was different, Grace could feel it. She had a strange stomach ache and a strange feeling. Grace woke up, and when she got out of bed she saw that there was a red stain of blood on the sheet.

Snape never explained to Grace anything about the human body and the changes Grace would undergo when she reached a certain age. Neither of them felt comfortable talking about these things, especially since Snape was her father. Grace was relieved because she knew what was going on, her friends and all the girls her age always talked about it, and Andromeda even spoke to her about these things, she didn't want to let Snape have to deal with it. She was even more relieved that it didn't happen during the holidays, when she would be home alone with her father and would have no female figure to turn to.

Her friends soon got up, all going down to breakfast together. Grace told them what had happened, and said that she wasn't going down to breakfast that morning, she was going straight to the Hospital Wing to ask Madam Pomfrey for help.

Grace got dressed and went there. She walked in and soon Madam Pomfrey came up to her.

"Do you need help, dear?" Madam Pomfrey asked her.

Grace, who saw that the Hospital Wing was empty except for her and Madam Pomfrey, breathed a sigh of relief.

"Yes... I have a stomach ache... a strange, different ache..." Grace said.

"Oh dear, I know what's bothering you. Have you had your period?" Madam Pomfrey said.

"Yes..." she said quietly, her cheeks were red of embarrassment.

"Don't worry, darling. This is a natural thing. I'll provide a potion for your pain and bring you the things you need to deal with it."

"Okay."

Madam Pomfrey went to a shelf where the various healing potions and other utensils were kept. She took a glass and poured a yellowish potion into it, then sorted out some things and put them in a bag for Grace.

"Here, it will ease your pain." Madam Pomfrey said, handing Grace the glass.

Grace took the potion and it soon took effect and relieved her pain.

"And this is what you need to deal with the blood. Some girls already bring it in their suitcase when they come to Hogwarts, others prefer to come to me and get it every month, whatever you prefer." Madam Pomfrey said, handing Grace the bag.

"Thank you very much, Madam Pomfrey." Grace said, leaving the Hospital Wing and heading towards the Slytherin common room.

Grace went to the bathroom in the common room and put on what Madam Pomfrey had given her and then went up to her dormitory to put the rest in her suitcase, she didn't even go to the Great Hall for breakfast.

When she was in the dorm, alone and thinking about what had just happened, Grace inevitably began to cry. She was distressed at not being able to tell anyone in her family about what had happened. Snape had asked her to stop sending letters to Andromeda and Nymphadora, the only people who would know best how to deal with this kind of situation. Grace had never felt such a longing to have her mum around or to have a sister as she was feeling now.

Grace, crying in her dorm, didn't even feel the time go by, and when she realised she had missed her Potions lesson, she rushed off to the rest of the day's classes. At the end of the day, Grace and her four friends went to the Great Hall for dinner. Grace felt nervous because, having missed breakfast and her Potions lesson, she knew that Snape would question her later, and Grace knew that this time it would be difficult to lie. Throughout dinner, Snape tried to make eye contact with his daughter, to no avail.

At the end of dinner, as usual, Grace went to her father's office, who was already waiting for her. Grace knocked on the door, went in and sat down.

"I think you know what I'm going to ask. May I ask why you missed breakfast and my class?" Snape asked sternly, he was thinking of punishing Grace, as a father, not as a teacher.

Grace looked down, she couldn't face her father and tell him what had happened. She began to cry, she had been more emotional lately. Snape was surprised by his daughter's reaction.

"I'm sorry I missed your class..." Grace said, sobbing. "You know how much I dislike missing lessons..."

Snape, who regretted being so rigid, tried to be calmer.

"Darling, I worry about you, you know that. It's precisely because you don't like missing class that I was worried. Something happened to make you miss my lesson." Snape said.

Grace kept crying.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" Snape asked.

Grace, who was too embarrassed to tell her father in words what had happened, looked into her father's eyes with difficulty. Whenever she did this, he understood what she meant.

As soon as Snape realised what had happened, he too felt uncomfortable and turned slightly red. He didn't know what to say at a moment like that.

"H-have you dealt with that yet, sweetheart?" he asked her.

"Yes." she answered quietly. "That's why I missed breakfast."

"Why are you crying, then?" he asked.

Grace began to cry even more. Before she spoke, she hid her face between her hands so as not to see her father's reaction.

"I wanted so much for Mum to be alive... I wanted so much to have someone to tell about these things..." Grace said, her voice slightly muffled because her face was in her hands.

Snape's heart broke when he heard that. He had always done everything to make his daughter happy, to try to make up for the fact that the girl had lost her mother too soon.

"And your friends, why don't you talk to them?" Snape asked.

"It's not the same... I wish I had someone in the family to talk to about these things, a mum, an aunt, a cousin, a sister..." Grace said.

"I've already said it, and I know it's hard for you, darling. You know I'd do anything for you. Whenever you need me, I'll be available to talk to you about whatever you want. I know it's not really what you want, and that I'm not the ideal person for this kind of thing... I think I can make an exception for you today, you can write a letter to Nymphadora and Andromeda." Snape said.

"Thank you thank you thank you!" Grace said, hugging her father.

"If you want, you can sleep here tonight. I don't want to force you into anything, it's just an invitation." Snape said.

"I'll write the letter and come back to sleep here." Grace said.

She went straight to her room to write a letter.

Dear Nymphadora and Andromeda,

My father made an exception and authorised me to write this letter to you. Today something happened to me: I got my period for the first time. I really wanted to tell someone in the family, other than my father. He found out because I missed breakfast and Potions class.

P.S: I need to meet you.

Love, Grace Snape.

Grace wrote the letter, left it on the table in her dormitory, and delivered it tomorrow morning. She got her pyjamas, went downstairs to her father's room and went to sleep.