Changing Destiny

Sixty-Seven: Tea With Mother

Severus

The library was quiet this time at night as it always was. But then again, his mother had always run a tight ship when it came to her precious books. He hated interacting with her in any case, and the feeling was mutual, because he had found out she was still alive when he was hired at twenty one to be the new Potions Professor a year after his graduation from Luteins Apothecary Academy. She had explained that it was necessary for her to fake her death, and Dumbledore, of course, vowed to keep his silence in exchange for her to live in obscurity. But if Tobias Snape wasn't his father, and this vampire was telling the truth, then what else was Eileen Prince hiding from him.

She was cataloguing her last bit of books in the Restricted Section when he found her. Unlike most people, she wasn't startled easily, and she simply asked without turning around to face him. "What do you want, Severus?"

"Answers. Angel Tepes, what do you know of him?" He asked.

Eileen froze in the middle of putting a book of creating horcruxes back on to its shelf. She guided it with her wand on to the shelf, and faced him, her obsidian eyes fearful.

"Oh, gods. I...I don't know much, son. Just that...that you and him share a father," She spat out, nearly stammering her words. "Let's talk over tea. Have you eaten yet?"

"I did. But, tea would be nice."

"Good. Let's get out of here."

Her chambers were small, Spartan in design, but clean. She set up her silver tea set, which was the same one he remembered from when he was young. They sat across from one another as they drank tea together.

Eileen set her tea in its saucer, and looked remorseful. "I was only eighteen when it happened, you have to understand. And," She unbuttoned part of the high necked robe she wore to reveal two healed over puncture wounds on the right side of her neck, "...I never intended for you to know that a high vampire Lord fathered you on me. Our family is old, son, and we used to be one of the premiere pureblood families, but our roots go deeper than England. You see, we came from Romania initially, and centuries ago, we were of the Order of the Dragon. Every witch of the Prince line has to be available to the clan Prince for a ready supply of blood for the Dracanes...and for their other base needs. I didn't want to be Lord Vlad's whore. I didn't care how handsome he was, how much his influence could carry the Prince line in the Ministry of Magic. It went against my beliefs to have this ancient vampire Lord use my body for his base lusts. But, when I turned eighteen, that was it for me, and I had no choice but to service him. We spent one month together, and while he was charming, and everything a witch could want I didn't like the end of the evenings when I had to be his bed slave. After the month, I never told a soul of my condition, and I saved what money I could, and ran away from home."

Severus listened to all of this intently, and knew that she was being absolutely truthful. But still, he had to ask the one question that rankled in his mind: why Tobias Snape?

"So, why this muggle, mum?" He dared to ask. "Even before the coal factory shut down, and he was laid off, why would you marry such a derelict? I understand you running away from a lifestyle you didn't agree to beforehand but he was a nobody. If I was a distant bastard offspring to this vampire Lord, why not send me to him?"

His mother chuckled, "Would you really have wanted to be trained as his heir has been? You would have been just as neglected as one of Lord Vlad's many, many children in his court. He was only given such power to breed because the Imperial Queen herself favored him at the time. From what I was told in my brief studies of the Imperial Court, is that it is a place of lies and deceit, and siblings are constantly jockeying for position to be favored by the Elders, or even the Queen herself."