Silvanna Snape {Marauders}

Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Four

Late again lol. Don't drink, folks. Seriously, it was a terrible idea :)

 Silvanna's birthday fell the following week, unfortunate as the timing was. The Gryffindor's took great pride in chorusing happy birthday at breakfast, and presenting her with a silver pendant on a dainty chain. It had irises engraved on it, and opened like a locket to reveal a small clock face. At the press of a button it shimmered into the moon phases, planetary alignments, and star charts to help with Alchemy. A very thoughtful gift, and one that she was forced to politely play down. Something like this no doubt took months of preparation from the group, and she felt terrible to not act as excited as she felt. But a quiet, grateful smile would have to do.

 That week, she tried to keep to herself. Marlene had approached McGonagall about the tutoring, and she had responded with surprising enthusiasm. "She was all for it, actually," Marlene said as she sat down on Tuesday night, "Said she thought it would be good for both of us."

 Now, what did that mean? McGonagall certainly knew about her arrangement with Dumbledore, so why would she encourage further consorting with Gryffindors? Possibly she didn't know Silvanna had agreed. That made things more difficult with Marlene. She'd been hoping McGonagall would say no, ban it entirely maybe. Now she had to think up another way out.

 "Sirius told us all about that prank by the way," she said lowering her voice.

 "Oh yeah," said Silvanna. She smiled, a genuine one for the first time since her meeting with Dumbledore. "Brilliant wasn't it?"

 "Definitely," she agreed. "So does that mean you didn't sleep with him?"

 "For the sake of the prank don't you dare repeat this, but no we didn't." The conversation was then turned to Charms.

*****

 Silvanna had tried sitting alone in lessons. It was starting to work, especially as when Marlene sat with Dorcas there were an odd number of Gryffindors. But today she just couldn't seem to get away.

 Remus sat next to her, not even unpacking his things before whispering, "Whatever it is, say no."

 Silvanna almost jumped. She hadn't expected him to say anything like that. "What?"

 "Dumbledore asked you to do something," he insisted. "Or told you something. I know, you've been acting oddly. Lily thinks so to, we spoke last night."

 "Don't be ridiculous, Rem," she said, "I'm a sixth year, not an accomplished auror." Lies, lies, lies.

 "Oddly defensive," he muttered as their Defence professor for the year, Professor Fishwick, proceeded to the front.

 "You flatter me, really."

 "I mean it."

 "Right!" called Fishwick, clasping her hands together. "An exciting lesson for you all today folks - Boggarts! I've managed to procure one for us to practice on..." After recounting the incantation for a few minutes, and practicing the wand movement, there was a scraping of chairs as the group formed a circle around the small wooden box.

 In the flurry, Fishwick pulled her aside. "You're exempt from this, Snape."

 Silvanna's first thought was because of her dad, then her mum. Either way, both cases had already been highly publicised. "Oh, thanks but that's alright, professor."

 "Headmaster's orders," Fishwick explained. Everybody was rather insistent today, weren't they? Odd that Dumbledore would expose her like that to a relatively new teacher. But then again, maybe he'd used her family life as an excuse.

 "I'm fine," she insisted right back. What was the worst that could happen? "And my brother's allowed? Why not me?"

 "I suppose so."

 Silvanna pushed her way inbetween two Ravenclaws. The box opened. And out crawled her mother.

 Her mother was very much dead. Her skin was pale, her eyes lifeless. The only indication that she had once been alive was the gooey, red gash across her neck. She crawled, like a predator stalking, towards Severus.

 "Riddikulus," he drawled. Silvanna wanted to watch him, but she was transfixed by the creature that spun and turned to face another student.

 Her mother had drowned.

 Her mother had not had her throat slit.

 Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of dead bodies, a lot of Death Eaters, and a lot of Dark Marks. Some students actually cried, but most got on with the incantation.

 Lily's was her Petunia's body, although Silvanna didn't think it would be much of a loss. Effie and Monty. The moon. James. Another Death Eater. David McKinnon. And then it faced Silvanna.

 It was Dumbledore.

 "I'm sorry, Miss Snape. There's nothing I can do."

 A horrid feeling came over Silvanna and she knew what the boggart was referring to. They were all gone. They didn't want her.

 There must be something, said the voice in her head.

 "This is in your hands."

 You did this to me!

"And you will have to undo it."

 "Riddikulus!" A silly feathered hat appeared on Dumbledore's head, and he waved it around while everyone laughed, before transforming into yet another body.

 As the bell rang for lunch and everyone packed away, there was a rather depressing mood over the sixth years. That was a lot of death to unpack for two hours. And there'd been some really odd ones.

 "Was it a white quaffle or something?"

 "She was like a zombie!"

 "Imagine being an adult and being afraid of a teacher."

 Silvanna desperately wanted to go and question her brother on their mum, on why he imagined her like that of all things. She had expected his biggest fear to be their dad. But she couldn't. Her answers would come in time, she was sure.