Lilliana Snape Book One (re-written)

part 12

A chill crept up my spine when I entered dad’s rooms. Despite the fire, dancing in the grate, it was freezing and was actually grateful to Ron’s mother, a woman I’d heard about but never formally met, for knitting me this jumper. “Would it kill you to warm this place up a bit?” I asked, my teeth chattering together as I watched my breath form puffs of smoke. “Anyone would think we’re in Iceland or something!”

“Sit down” he instructed softly, ignoring my comment, as he nodded to the seat closest to the fire. I sat and waited as he took the other. He didn’t speak immediately; it looked as though he was trying to put together every thought in his head before broaching the subject with me again. I guess, the way I’d reacted before, made him wary about bringing it up again but both of us knew that this was a matter that needed to be settled if we were going to continue our father/daughter relationship as it had been prior to the knowledge of my mother. “You are an intelligent child, Lilly” he began “you’re older than your age suggests and your mind seems to process things far quicker than any adult mind can. You are unique and you are special; these aren’t the reasons why I am proud of you and why I love you. I am proud of you because you surpassed everyone’s expectations when they found out that you were raised by me; you are polite, you are kind and you are strong. You haven’t let my attitude and my behaviour mould you and, for that, I am grateful; I love you because you are my daughter, the only thing in this world that I am exceedingly proud of. You cannot understand, Lilliana, the process the heart goes through when you have a child; I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to cope, that I would ruin your chances to have an ordinary childhood just because of who I am. To love somebody, as much as I love you, hurts; every decision you make you have weigh out the good and the bad that can come from it because the decisions that I make won’t just affect me, they will also affect you. Now” he looked at me, a strange expression was hidden behind his eyes. Was is hurt? Anger? Fear? Love? I couldn’t tell but it kept me silent and listening “I’m not saying” he continued “that every decision I have made, since you came into my life, was right and I’m not saying they were wrong either but the reason I didn’t tell you about your mother before now is because I couldn’t see it ending in the kind of relationship that I knew you’d want. Narcissa Malfoy is nothing more than Lucius’ shadow; she loves Draco like only a mother could but all of the parenting and all of the decisions have come from her husband. He is controlling, he is dangerous and he is powerful; the only reason he doesn’t know about you is because Narcissa was smart by keeping the information to herself for as long as she needed and because she stayed away. She stayed away to protect you because she loves you and she wanted to keep you safe; we both agreed that she shouldn’t make contact unless you express the desire to meet her.”

“Would it have been so bad though?” I asked quietly as I stared at my shoes “if Lucius knew about me?”

“I don’t know” dad admitted with a deep sigh “but telling him about you would mean that Narcissa would have to confess her infidelity and neither of us knew how he’d react to the knowledge. I wanted to keep her safe as well. Lilliana, maybe the decision was a bad one but, at the time, it was the only way to keep everyone safe.”

I bit my lip, still avoiding his gaze as I said “so you don’t regard me as a mistake?”

“Why would you-”

I cut him off “I love you and I have for as long as I can remember; everything I’ve done was to try and impress you, to try to make you smile and to make you proud of me. I often felt like a guest in our house because you wouldn’t spend time with me.” Somehow this had become less about Narcissa and more about our relationship; I did have fond memories, of course, like that night when he read to me but they were rare moments, treasure moments and I wished that I had more to look back on. “I thought that you hated me” I muttered, my cheeks blushing as I unloaded the baggage that had been weight on my heart for a long time.