Soul of Ice

38. Heartbreak

July went by at a snail's pace. After Dumbledore's funeral, the Weasleys piled back into the Burrow, along with Hermione, and the few short days of peace that Abbie had known were suddenly at an end.

Having read one of Snape's letters, Abbie was determined now to read them all. As it turned out, only some of the parchments were unsent letters to Persephone - some of them were actually from her, but predating Abbie's birthday. As far as she could tell, Persephone had written to Snape consistently before she got pregnant - then afterwards, no more letters came. Or maybe Snape just didn't keep them.

A large portion of the parchments were copies of Abbie's Potions essays, dating right back to her first year. Even when avoiding her, it seemed Snape had some semblance of pride in her abilities. But what was the point in keeping all of these? Did he read them back for fun, or did he have some final purpose for them? Maybe he was keeping them as proof of her talents so that he could get her into the Death Eaters after she finished school.

As well as her stolen box, Abbie also had Snape's old textbook that Harry had been using. She'd retrieved it from where Harry had hidden it, and thankfully he never tried to go back and get it, so nobody knew she had it.

She pored through it all as often as she could, desperately searching for clues, but even in his personal writings Snape kept his cards close to his chest. The most she managed to learn from the book was that cinnamon was his favourite flavour of Every Flavour Bean, but she could have guessed that considering he put cinnamon in everything.

The letters gave the most clues - he always seemed to be asking Persephone to talk to him again, to confirm if "the child" was his. He never, she noticed, seemed to call her by name. She was always "the child" or "the girl." He definitely knew her name - he'd written it a few times and then crossed it out - but he seemed hesitant to use it. There was one letter actually asking for supervised contact - but he'd crossed a line through the entire thing, and it was crumpled in a way that suggested he might have screwed it up at one point.

As far as Abbie could glean, what she understood from her parents was true - they had conceived her at a party, Persephone had cut off contact, and Snape had seen her as a toddler once but stayed away without asking if she was his.

In some of the letters, he swore he wasn't loyal to Voldemort anymore and hadn't been for a long time before his fall. In others, he admitted he was dangerous and not fit to be a father. The contradictions piled up, and none of them pointed to any sort of explanation as to why Snape would lie about his loyalties. Although he'd never been pleased with Abbie going along with Harry's antics, he'd always expressed a concern about her safety over her choosing the wrong side. He had even actively encouraged her to stay away from the path he had gone down.

Why would he do that? Why would he actively encourage his daughter to stay away from his way of life? She was a fairly decent witch, surely he'd want her on his side?

It wasn't until a few weeks later that Abbie figured it out.

She was sitting in the back garden of the Burrow with Hermione under the shade of a tree, watching Ginny and the boys playing a makeshift game of Quidditch in the warm and sunny afternoon. Even though they shared a room, neither Hermione nor Ginny had questioned her about Snape. Abbie had thought Ginny would at least have some questions, considering she was Harry's girlfriend, but they both acted like everything was normal. Even Ron kept his mouth shut, although Abbie strongly suspected that was at Hermione's insistence. So it took Abbie slightly by surprise when Hermione finally did ask a question - whether she'd known Snape was the Half-Blood Prince.

"You should have actually looked at the book," Abbie replied. "You'd have recognised Snape's handwriting. I reckon the only reason Harry didn't is 'cus he hasn't had new glasses since he was ten."