Memories of a death eater (Severus x OC)

4. Day 3

Dumbledore, sitting in his office, stared into space.

Just when he finally thought he had found something that could have been used to excuse Snape, he discovered that he was guilty of a new crime. And against his own father, no less!

Even if it was fully justified (and Dumbledore shuddered as he remembered the terror and anguish on the poor girl's face) that murder only made things worse.

He wondered if he should give up. What were the chances that Snape was really innocent? No matter how much Mary-Anne had been his childhood friend, who could assure him that Snape hadn't lost his cool and killed her too?

However, the arrival of an owl made Dumbledore get back to work. Arthur Weasley informed him that Glenda Collins had been found.

***

Dumbledore found without problem the nursing home where Glenda now lived. When he saw the woman, he was surprised at the deterioration she showed: the muggle had aged considerably compared to the image in Snape's memories. She looked much smaller and wrinkled and curled on herself. Her sparse hair was no longer copper, but white, and her pale, brittle-looking skin showed the fine veins in her trembling hands.

When the headmaster sat down opposite her, Glenda looked at him with half-blind gray eyes and cocked her head to one side. She drooled a little, and when Dumbledore gently scanned her mind using Legilimency, he realized that she was suffering from dementia.

After introducing himself and receiving a weak smile in response, Dumbledore decided to get to the point.

"Mrs. Collins, I am very sorry about what happened to your daughter, Mary-Anne," he said, slowly and very clearly.

"Who?" she stammered.

"Mary-Anne, your daughter Mary-Anne," he repeated.

"Ah! Mary-Anne is making tea. She will join us soon," the woman smiled. "She's a good girl, you know? Very sensible–"

"Mrs. Collins... your daughter has died," he corrected her gently. The woman's face expressed stupefaction.

"Oh!" but she immediately recovered her insecure smile. "No, my Mary-Anne will be back soon with tea. She takes so long sometimes!"

Dumbledore was trying to use Legilimency on her, but the poor lady's mind seemed to be full of smoke. He couldn't see anything clearly, only small unimportant sketches, and sometimes, her daughter's face, but in an imprecise way, as if she didn't remember her well.

He couldn't find any trace of spells or curses, so he deduced that her memory loss was due to the cruel progression of her illness.

"Mrs. Collins Do you remember when your daughter was a little girl?" asked the headmaster. As he did so he saw that Glenda's mind became a little clearer, and he was able to see sharper images, like that of normal memories.

"She was a beautiful girl," she smiled, with motherly pride.

"Do you remember your neighbors? The Snapes," he probed, carefully. He didn't want to break the woman's concentration. In her mind he saw images very similar to the death eater's memories. Yes, Glenda still remembered. "What can you tell me about them?"

Glenda stared into space, but after a few minutes, she began to speak very slowly, as if she was having trouble remembering.

"It was a very unfortunate family," memories of Mrs. Snape with her bruised face, and distant screams on the other side of the garden, flashed through her mind. "The father... the father was a tyrant, you know? He hit them. He hated them for being... different."