𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 || Severus Snape x OC ||

32. LOOSE ENDS & SILK THREADS

*.·:·.☽ ✧ ☾.·:·.*

It took three days.

Three long days until The Daily Prophet landed upon the long table in front of him, amidst the Great Hall. Umbridge's moving image plastered upon the front page under the bold titles.

"UMBRIDGE SUSPENDED – INVESTIGATION PENDING"

His lips curled ever slightly. Severus knew already about Umbridge's suspension, and his dark pools had swirled with satisfaction when he saw her looking dreadful the evening before.

Good riddance, he thought, and for once his feelings were the same for all students presents in the Great Hall, cheering that the pink toad was finally sacked, and Dumbledore was reinstated as headmaster. The Minister had no choice but to admit Voldemort's return after the Dark Lord, bold in his growing power, infiltrated the Ministry to attack the boy who lived. But Harry's willpower and the Occlumency lessons proved strong enough to overcome Voldemort's possession of the boy and the wizard of malice escaped with his most faithful and manic follower, Bellatrix.

But not all loose ends had been tied for there was still a letter left upon the Minister's old desk, resting near a pile of information and correspondence on the matter of the Dark Lord, bearing Umbridge's seal. Still unopened, but carrying in its black ink, paper pink and fragrance sweet, words about a woman young, of raven hair and past obscured, still escaping arrest. An alleged Death Eater who had found refuge in Hogwarts unbeknownst to the Ministry...

Umbridge's final card hadn't left her sleeve yet and had remained unnoticed by the onyx eyes of the Potions Master when he watched her leave the castle that noon, up where he stood near the ravens of the tower.

*.·:·.☽ ✧ ☾.·:·.*

Medieval, it seemed. Threads old and colours dipped in copper arsenic. Muggles would find their health deteriorate before the tapestry that covered the wall from the floor to the ceiling, but the house of the Black never offered refuge to those in whose veins magic never flowed. And paints of ages old and gone, had no effect on the pureblood family.

Dark eyes roamed the centuries-old tapestry. Golden embroidered threads still glinting in the scarce light of a house without master. Slender fingers followed the lines, the curves and shapes of a sprawling family tree dating back, as far back as its threads. Words calligraphic, large, at the very top of the tapestry:

'The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black'

But as the eyes of the witch traveled from one tree branch to the next, she found faces lost, threads burned, and black holes left instead. Family members blasted, obscured. A shame hidden and denied, the discarded rotten fruits of a tree.

"Sirius Black," she read the name under the pitch-black void upon the wall.

"Shame," a voice old and raspy came from the door. "My mistress did well, Kreacher remembers," the crouched and bent house elf mattered as if reading Alice's question that lingered in her gaze.

"What was that shame, Kreacher?" Alice spoke softly. The elf frowned; his long pointy ears moved ever slightly in his expression of disdain. But the witch before him didn't change her tone, nor raised her voice. Sirius' death was a mule's kick in her stomach. She knew little of him, had only spent a few days in the same house. This old, neglected house, of mold and dust and ghosts of painful memories and lost eminence. But it pained her still.

She turned to face him and lowered her height down to his. Kreacher clenched his bony fists, not in threat but in confusion and defense.

"Speak to me of the shame he brought to this family's house," she prompted again, and the house elf glanced upon the tapestry. The carvings of time upon his face turned deeper, harsher.