En Memoriam

Chapter 26

"Hey Marabelle, how's things?" Harry grinned charmingly as he leaned on the counter though his eyes reflected the turmoil just barely hidden beneath the surface.

The woman smiled and shook her head, " Shame, I'm already taken. Your charms won't work on me."

Harry chuckled, "Worth a try, wasn't it? Thankfully I have this." He set his badge on the counter knowing she needed it for authorization, "Could I have the Prince family archives, please?"

Marabelle raised a small brow, "Hermione send you did she?"

"What?" Harry's grin fell into a much more serious tone.

Marabelle clicked her tongue thinking that perhaps she'd said too much, deciding not to allow herself to be questioned she turned from her desk to get the requested file.

Harry straightened up, a thousand possibilities running through his mind. Did she know? Had she been searching for a cure all along? Had she been hiding this from him, from everyone? No, he didn't want to believe it to be true, the very thought almost too painful to bear.

"Here you are." She set down the rather thick and rather old-looking book, her normal smile fading slightly from the look on Harry's face.

"Thank you..." Harry managed before taking both his badge and the book. He turned before she could question him and he was back in his office in no time. The walk was almost like a blur as so many thoughts clouded his sight.

He sat down with a heavy sigh and ran his hand through his hair. This was his last chance to find anything, even if Hermione had looked into things she didn't have the clearance for the book he now possessed. It was possible, slimly possible, she had missed something.

He pushed open the heavy book moving towards the back. There were all sorts of information laid in the pages, on the ones he paused he found all sorts of records on their magical achievements, academic and political success. He kept moving through minding the dates written on the top right of the page. When he got to the year 1960 he slowed down, thumbing through until he saw a muggle certificate of birth copied into the book's pages.

"Severus Tobias Snape..." There was an annotation underneath the copy and his frown grew, "Disowned, disinherited...reasons... half-blood..." Harry shook his head a bit and turned to the next page finding an 'updated' family tree of the last three generations. Neither, he nor his mother appeared on the tree. Just her brother, his wife, and their daughter. He turned the pages back, looking for another family tree though all he found was one with Eileen still in place, no other siblings aside from her brother present. Still, he went back further thinking perhaps she hadn't been the only one removed but when he came to her parents he found that the pair of them had been single children.

A low growl left his throat as he pushed forward again, his only hope that Elsa, his cousin, would have still been alive. As he neared the back of the book his heart sank down into his feet, the certificate of death bearing Elsa's name staring back at him. He turned to the next page, for what he didn't know but when he saw the front page of an Auror case file his interest was peaked. He grabbed a pen and paper and hastily scribbled down the case number.

Pushing himself up and trying desperately to ignore the pain in his stomach over his apparent dead end, he made his way to their records room. He looked down at the number again before raising his wand. There was a slight jostling of drawers before an old battered file came soaring towards him. With a snap, it came into his hands and he immediately opened it.

He skimmed past the dates and straight to the officer's report, the house-elves were the only witnesses to the crime, but only one of the many that served the house survived. It was described as a brutal and ruthless attack. The elf however had been too traumatized to give any statement on who may have done it. All that had been written was the word, Black. Though the officer had his suspicions as to what that referred to or rather to whom it referred to, there was not enough evidence to bring Bellatrix in on the charges. The case had been labeled cold and written off as a pureblood dispute.