It Had To Be Her

14: Tea Time And Dinner

Hermione

The personal chambers of Madam Pince, i.e., my mother in law were both spartan and feminine in design at the same time. Unlike McGonagall, she kept no cats, nor any other pets for that matter. But bookshelves were placed all along the walls of her rooms stuffed to the brim with all manner of books, not all of them magical related, although many of the magical books were potions related.

She had the school house elves bring us a full tea service, and she served me the first course as etiquette demanded. "Thank you," I sipped my sweetened jasmine tea.

"I can see it now, you know," Eileen remarked after a time. "What Severus sees in you beyond what I suppose men see in women."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your compassion and bravery. Some would call those qualities childish, but I disagree. You see into people their better qualities, and try your best to bring them to the fore. You are obviously highly intellectual, a trait all Princes seem to possess, and that girl my son carried a torch for was hardly that in the way that is respectable."

I nearly choked on my blueberry muffin at the heady praise. "I...I don't know whether to be happy or suspicious about that, Mrs--"

"Eileen in private, dear. I wouldn't dream of you calling me mum any time soon. In any case, my false death rid me legally of the horrid surname I was forced to carry."

I swallowed my muffin and wiped up my lips on my cloth napkin on my lap. "I suppose you couldn't just use your maiden name in the 50s. May I ask why you didn't marry a wizard?"

Eileen buttered her crumpet and ate a bit of it before answering, her expression sad, "My family the Princes have gone back as far as the Malfoys and Black's, and the interbred marriages of all of the Sacred 28 are proof of that in the family tree. We prided ourselves on our pureblood lineage of producing successful Potioneers. It was almost mandatory that I become a Potions Mistress, and it was fortunate for me that I genuinely enjoyed the work. However, my family openly supported Gellert Grindlewald's cause, and it left us with sizable debts after his fall from grace. Many of my relatives perished in that war, and so by the time I was born, the Prince family was not as in favor politically as we once were.

"My mother had terrible luck in producing children. She lost four babies to miscarriage or extreme illness due to pregnancy issues, and two of those pregnancies were girls, the other two boys. I was a miracle child, and so she doted on me, but my father saw me as a failure on my mother's part. Pureblood witches are mere marriage pawns to their fathers and wizards as well, but at least they have some semblance of choice in their spouse for the simple convenience of their genitalia.

"My father's choice of spouse for me was Cygnus Black," Eileen winced at that, "And while he was handsome, he was both arrogant and a bore at the same time. He seemed to believe witches existed simply to further the continuance of the Sacred 28 families. He did not consider me 'pretty,' enough, but rather than be a gentleman about his opinions and keep them to himself, he made an ass of himself by making it abundantly clear I would only be his brood mare. I couldn't marry him, I refused during the presentation ceremony. Father did not like that. Not one bit."

Dread pooled in the pit of my stomach. "Please tell me he didn't torture you or anything."

Eileen sighed, "No, he wouldn't have dared in public with the whole of pureblood society in our ballroom. He did something far worse later on that evening: he disowned me privately in the tapestry room. My mother pleaded with my father to reconsider that I was their only child, their daughter. He was adamant, and so I was to leave the very next evening. Enter Cygnus Black because he plays a key role in this tale and why I had to marry quickly."

"Wait... You mean to tell me that Severus is a pureblood?"

The older witch's black eyes widened in astonishment for a moment before smiling. "Well, no, not in the way you're implying, Hermione. You see, a first pureblood marriage requires a witch to be a virgin upon her wedding day. Cygnus made certain of that. But let me get to that part of the story."

"I'm listening."

"The night of my disownment, my intended came to my room. He acted very contrite and kind, and in my frame of mind, my judgment was greatly impaired. He held me, dried my tears the whole bit, and he coerced his way into my knickers. Of course, the family tapestry recorded the loss of my purity as it were the next day, and father kicked me out and denounced me as a whore. I lived on the streets, working and living where I could. I did not like men. In fact, they scared me for a long time. If truth be told, sex frightened me not because of the act, but because of the power men have over our bodies in those intimate moments. It was in a pub I met Tobias Snape.

"He wasn't handsome, but he seemed to be kind and tipped well, and I didn't mind that he was a big flirt. I told him nothing about my magical past, and he spun this story of how mistreated he was in his broken family life, and I fell for it hook line and sinker. I never fell in love with him, but I thought I could do much worse, so after we began dating a mere two months, he proposed marriage and that was after I found out I was pregnant. I thought it was so responsible of him, and like the foolish girl I was, I gave him carte Blanche to have control of the household, the bank accounts, all of it.

"Things went swimmingly until the coal plant Tobias worked for, laid off half their workforce, and he was one of the unlucky ones. He retreated into alcohol to drugs, and things went from emotionally abusive to physical and sexual assault. I tried to leave him so many times, but of course, women had few rights and resources in those days. I even tried to get Dumbledore to keep my son in Hogwarts during the holiday breaks for his protection from Tobias, and he refused.

"When Severus turned sixteen, I had had enough of being abused, and I finally got Dumbledore to listen to reason. He would employ me as the school librarian if I did not interfere with Severus's life outside of being on the staff. I agreed, and he helped me in faking my death legally. There, that is my story, take it or leave it..."

✨️✨️✨️✨️

I couldn't speak for a long time, I was so stunned. "How much of this does he know?"

Eileen shrugged. "Bits and pieces, only enough as to my reasoning for how I faked my death." She checked her pocket watch, "Hm, it looks to be getting late. Do you want to dine with your fellow students or with me?"

I smiled. "May I eat with you? I'd like that very much."

"I would like that as well. Very well, I will have my son join us."

She quickly wrote out a brief note and had a school house elf deliver it. While we waited, she cast a summon charm, and five large leather books floated over to us. Many of them were school and family pictures of Eileen and her family. The Manor was gorgeous but Gothic in design, nestled on the English Channel, and Eileen kept up a running commentary on her school achievements.

"Most of my friends think Gobstones is dumb."

"My mother got me interested in the game myself," Eileen replied, "It tends to focus the mind, and I got very good at it, enough to be President of the Gobstones League in my school year. I loved Drama and Art Club as well. It's a pity the school is run by Gryffindors, we had many more extracurricular clubs to join in my school years when Headmaster Dippet ran things. Do you draw or paint much?"

I blushed. "Well...no, but I do like to dance, and I wrote silly little stories about cartoon characters I liked when I was little."

"Lovely. Well, these next books are baby albums and--"

The door knocked, interrupting Eileen, and we both knew that Severus had arrived for dinner and to get embarrassed by moving childhood pictures at the same time....