Points to the Damned

Chapter Seven: Living With Wounds

SEVERUS SNAPE'S P.O.V.

I look blankly at my wall, thinking. My daughter, my beautiful and only daughter, had not cone to see me for the past three days. She didn't even come to Potions -- she skipped. Nicole said she skipped all classes in general.

I worry for May Beth. I had treated her the way I treated her mother.

...Maybe that is the problem. I treated her like her deceased mother, and she wanted to be her own person.

A voice rings inside my head. "She is different than I," it whispers like cold water down my throat. I gulp -- it was Mary's voice.

I had been overprotective the last six years. With the Harry Potter boy entering school made it worse -- he stuck his snobby little nose into anything he could. He wanted to be a hero.

May Beth wanted to be my hero, too.

May Beth, now that I understand, wants to save me from drowning in the grief of Mary. She wants me to live -- she wants me to treat her like my daughter. She wants me to treat her like May Beth Snape, not Mary Anne Miller. She wanted to be herself.

She wanted to be the person I was scared if meeting.

I stand slowly from my seat just as Umbridge arrives at my door.

"Ah, Professor Severus Snape," she says in a jolly way, prancing over with a clipboard and pink pen, "does you daughter happen to be May Beth Snape?"

I blink slowly, my voice feeling like molasses, "Yes," I answer, sitting and motioning for the old toad to sit as well, "Yes, May Beth is my daughter. Is there a problem I must see to?"

Umbridge smiled before sitting, scribbling on her clipboard feverishly. She glanced at me before straightening herself up. "I regret to inform you that May Beth has been failing my class. She barely gets an E in my class,"

I nodded slowly, "Yes, Ms. Nicole Lightwood has informed me that she hasn't attended class. Do you have any idea of where she may have gone?"

Umbridge frowned lightly, "No, I do not," she answered before scribbling on her clipboard again, "that is why I came to you, to see if you knew anything."

I frown myself. "No, I do not know of where May Beth may have gone," I look at the door as Nicole Lightwood walked in.

"Er-" she stuttered as Umbridge turned to her, "Professors, I have news about where May Beth is."

"Do you, Ms. Lightwood?" Umbridge asked, standing and walking her plump body to Nicole. She placed a hand on the young girl's shoulder, "and could you tell us where the young lady is?"

Nicole gulped like a large lump was stuck in her throat, "Well..." she sputtered softly, like a Muggle car's engine.

"Lightwood, do not be scared," I urged.

"I went to the hospital wing because of a broken ankle my friend on the Slytherin quidditch team got," Nicole said slowly, "I saw May Beth there. She's unconcious. She has been for three days now."