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Chapter Text

The House of Prince was one of the oldest wizarding families in Britain—ancient, dignified, and rare. Not storied, like the Blacks. Not feared, like the Lestranges. The Princes were something quieter. Sharper. Like fine steel folded a thousand times, their lineage had been honed through centuries of discipline, clarity, and brilliance.

And Augustus Prince was its last lord.

He was not a man who craved applause. He craved precision. A prodigy in Arithmancy before he was old enough to sit the full OWL exam, he had published two groundbreaking works by twenty-five—restructuring magical probability theory itself. By thirty-two, his name was cited in academic journals across the world.

And yet, such achievements barely stirred him. The excitement they brought paled beside the quiet exhilaration he felt in the presence of Elspeth Rookwood.

He knew her name, of course—but it wasn’t until he overheard her speak, when he was seventeen and she sixteen, that he felt, for the first time, the desire to know and be known by someone.

It was a quiet moment, near the edge of a Hogwarts courtyard. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but her voice cut cleanly through the noise with the kind of elegance he recognized from mathematics—clean, unflinching, precise. It didn't seek agreement; it revealed it. “She doesn’t need a bezoar,” Elspeth had said calmly to a friend. “She needs containment magic at the site of absorption. The curse is blood-borne, not potion-based. Neutralize the source, not the symptom.”

Augustus turned toward her—and never looked away.

She was a Slytherin like him, but more beloved. Not because she sought it—Elspeth neither postured nor performed—but because people trusted her. There was something deeply private and grounding about her presence. You could place your heart in her hands, and she would neither drop it nor display it. She would simply hold it, quietly, with care.

For years, he tried. Letters. Long conversations at conferences. Sudden visits, each cloaked in excuses rooted in shared research. But she was resolute. Her love, she told him, could not be given until she had proven herself in her own right—until she was her own witch, with her name carved into the field of Healing.

He understood.

He waited—confident he wouldn’t have to wait long. And he didn’t.

They married in December, in the deep hush of the solstice month—quietly, surrounded not by allies or connections, but by peers. Minds. Theirs was a gathering of the brilliant.

Their home became a sanctum. A place where thought moved like water, and love was shown in annotated margins and carefully steeped tea. Evenings were spent in quiet conversation, debating magical theory by flickering candlelight. Books lay stacked in graceful disarray. Their laboratory—meticulously organized. Their laughter—soft, exquisite.

On occasion, Elspeth hosted evenings that the best minds of their generation attended with trembling eagerness. Wizards and witches from every discipline gathered around their table to dissect questions of power, ethics, and magic. It was said you hadn’t truly mastered your field until you’d earned an invitation to a Prince dinner.

And then came Eileen.

She was, Augustus once said, the first true equation that made his heart ache. A sum so elegant it felt inevitable. A formula only love could prove: Elspeth’s gentleness and his discipline, combined in one small, precocious child.

He would rest ancient scrolls beside her crib, telling her tales of arithmantic breakthroughs as if they were fairy tales. When she was four, he introduced her to cauldron ratios. By five, she could name herbs by scent alone.

She bloomed in Potions. Her instinct unnerved even the masters. And Augustus gave her everything: access to their private collection of ingredients, a journal bound in warded leather for her observations, invitations to observe discussions with Potions Masters from as far as St. Petersburg and Alexandria.

Augustus never spoke of ambition. But in their house, the pursuit of mastery was a kind of prayer.

But Elspeth taught her how to speak to people. How to smile without fear. The world was loud, and Eileen was quiet—and Elspeth helped her navigate the noise. After gatherings, Eileen would retreat into her mother’s lap, whispering questions like, “Did she mean that kindly?” or “Was I polite enough?” And Elspeth would stroke her hair and guide her without judgment.

Years passed.

Their life unfolded like the elegant solution to a once-impossible problem.

Everything was perfect.

Until the accident.

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It was 1957. Eileen was fifteen.

The accident happened in Elspeth’s lab.

A curse sample—drawn from a centuries-old case, a bloodline that had decayed from within, its members falling to madness and bone death. Elspeth had taken the sample herself. She was always meticulous. But the blood—volatile and ancient—pierced her skin through a shattered vial.

They tried everything. Augustus tore apart libraries. He summoned every Healer in Europe. But the blood rejected every treatment. It was Elspeth who realized the truth first. “It’s too late,” she said gently, as he paced before her. “My death will be fast.”

On the second day, she could no longer stand.

On the third, she asked to see the stars.

They sat in the observatory together—her head against his shoulder, her fingers tracing constellations she could barely see.

“I won’t be with you much longer, my dearest,” she whispered. “Will you promise me something? That you’ll meet the world with gentleness, and give yourself the grace I always tried to give you. I fear you’ll forget how, when I’m no longer here to show you.”

He wept quietly.

He hadn’t cried since he was a boy.

She died with his hand in hers.

The house sounded different without her. Even the fire crackled more cautiously, as though aware it was burning in the absence of something sacred.

He did not collapse. He did not rage. But something inside him… narrowed. His days became shorter. His conversations, clipped. The warmth in his eyes dimmed. The colors drained from the world.

Eileen was the only light that remained.

But he watched her now with an intensity she did not understand.

And when their eyes met, it was like looking into a mirror too long—seeing fear not just in him, but reflected back in her.

Fear she didn’t know how to chase away.

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At fifteen, Eileen Prince was everything the House of Prince had ever hoped for.

She moved like precision incarnate—quiet, graceful, exact. Her cauldron work was flawless, her theory sound. Professors at Hogwarts often spoke of her as a marvel—talented, focused, far beyond her years.

Her fame, if it could be called that, was cold and clean. Sometimes, she caught her reflection in a cauldron’s polished side and didn’t quite recognize the girl looking back. The edges were sharper now. The quiet, heavier.

The gentle guidance that once helped her translate her gifts into connection was gone now. Since Elspeth’s death, the world had grown louder, harder to interpret. The quiet murmurs in hallways no longer had context. Invitations felt dangerous. Compliments, suspicious.

She smiled when expected. She spoke politely. But the warmth her mother taught her to wear like silk had become stiff, unnatural wool.

And Augustus Prince—her brilliant, grieving father—watched.

Not intrusively. Not unkindly. But with a constant, calculating gaze.

He loved her. She knew he did. Could feel it in the silence that followed her mistakes. In the way his eyes tracked her hands, always a breath away from correcting her. Love, yes—but honed like a blade.

It no longer lifted her.

It measured her.

And though he never said it aloud, she could feel it: she was all that remained.

She could not falter. And so, she did not.

Chapter Text

Eileen stitched herself into routine: study, brew, walk the corridors with composure. She answered questions with precision. Met expectations. Never complained. She was, in every observable way, a Prince—flawless on parchment, impeccable in craft. Though sometimes, in the early hours, she would stare at her notes and feel a pressure behind her eyes—not pain, exactly. Just… static. Like something inside her was trying to scream through parchment and ink.

And then Graham Parkinson began to notice her.

Not because of her lineage—though he was a son of a Great House, and such things were rarely far from thought. Not because of her brilliance, which had long been established. He had always respected her from a distance—like one does a masterwork on a plinth.

But that year… something changed.

The stillness around her no longer seemed like poise. It felt like grief—worn quietly, like a bruise beneath silk.

He watched her, quietly, in the spaces in between things—after class, when she lingered to clean her station a little longer than necessary. In the library, when she turned pages without truly reading them. At meals, where she sat straight-backed and silent, speaking only when spoken to.

She was flawless, yes. But not untouched.

There was something raw beneath her precision. Something vulnerable in the way her fingers hesitated—just for a heartbeat—before returning to their practiced movements. Something haunted in her eyes when she thought no one was looking.

He found himself wanting to protect her. Not because she was fragile—she wasn’t. But because she carried her pain with such dignity, it made his heart ache.

Eileen Prince, daughter of mastery, wore her sorrow like a silk robe—refined, composed, hiding every seam.

And Graham… wanted to be allowed to see the threads.

He began with quiet things. A book left near her table—on venom neutralization, with a page marked he knew she’d appreciate. An offer to walk with her to the dungeons, casually phrased. A word of praise when she answered a particularly complex question in class—spoken low, just for her.

He never pushed. Never presumed. But he stayed.

And Eileen, always at sea when it came to social interactions, didn’t know what to do with him.

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Callista Fairbourne had always been a clever girl in a room full of brilliant ones. She was neither top of her class nor bottom. She was not particularly beautiful, though she knew how to arrange herself with just enough poise and practiced softness to pass as charming. Her spell work was competent. Her handwriting, exquisite. She smiled often. Laughed easily. Listened closely. And was forgotten just as quickly.

Until she aligned herself with Eileen Prince.

It was not an accident.

Callista Fairbourne had never admired Eileen Prince.

Her poise felt like mockery. Her brilliance, like arrogance. She spoke with clarity, never hesitation—as though her words had been weighed and deemed correct long before they ever touched the air. Professors adored her. Peers whispered her name like a spell. Callista detested it. She wished never to waste another thought on dear Eileen Prince, heir to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Prince, whose golden path through life was paved long before she took her first step.

But then Graham Parkinson—who had never looked at Callista longer than a moment—began to watch her.

Not Callista.

Her.

Callista saw it all. The way his eyes lingered. The way he looked at Eileen when she didn’t notice. The way he hovered when she spoke.

And something in Callista curled inward and burned.

She had dreamed of being Lady Parkinson since she was nine, standing in satin shoes at a ball in the Parkinson family House, catching her first glimpse of Graham’s quiet kindness and poised elegance.

Eileen Prince had been handed everything—legacy, brilliance, the effortless gravity of old blood and striking features.

She would not have the only thing Callista had ever wanted for herself.

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Their first conversation was perfectly calculated—disarming, sweet, admiring.

“I’ve always wondered how you manage such precise infusion layering,” Callista said one afternoon in potions, voice low and friendly. “Mine always skims too fast. You stir like the potion listens to you.”

Eileen blinked, startled by the sudden attention, but nodded. Politely. Carefully. “It’s about base temperature,” she said. “You have to wait until the heat stabilizes before introducing a second compound.”

Callista smiled warmly. “Of course. Thank you.”

And that was all.

The next week, she sat beside her again. The next, she brought her a rare book on botanical emulsions. By winter, they were sharing tea in the common room after evening rounds.

And Eileen—who had lost her mother’s gentle guidance, who had never tried too hard to learn how to sort sincere from sly—why would she, her mother would always be there —began to think she had found something resembling friendship.

Callista became part of her days after that. Never sudden. Never too much. She sat beside her when there was space. Walked with her once or twice after class. Asked gentle questions about potionwork, brewing methods, magical theory.

And Graham Parkinson had begun to speak to Callista—polite, friendly things. The sort of things boys said to girls who were already present in the space where their attention lay.

And for the first time in her life, Callista Fairbourne was seen.

It didn’t take long for her to realize she was no more visible to Graham than the other girls around Eileen—perhaps even less.

He spoke to Celia Rosenthal after Arithmancy. Held the door for Mira Nott. Thanked Maren Burke for a book recommendation.

Callista noticed it all.

So she began, gently, to separate Eileen from the few connections she had, the girls Elspeth once helped her befriend.

Callista praised them in Eileen’s presence, then privately told them Eileen was pulling away.

“She doesn’t mean it,” she would say, eyes wide with concern. “She’s still grieving. She told me she’s trying not to care about the little things, about what isn't academic.” Always delivered in confidence. Always with a whisper of sorrow in her voice.

Callista didn’t need to lie. She only had to tilt the truth. Just enough to let doubt settle in like dust.

The girls backed away, slowly. Some with hurt glances. Others with confusion. And Callista was always there to “defend” her. To say it wasn’t meant that way. To apologize on Eileen’s behalf.

Then she turned to Eileen and said, “They’re giving you space. I think it’s kind, really. They just don’t know how to help you.”

Whispers began to shift.

"She’s brilliant, but—"

"She’s cold."

"She’s distant."

"She’s not really one of us."

Callista never started the rumours outright. That was beneath her. But she knew how to lay kindling near fire.

Meanwhile, she stayed beside Eileen. “I told them you’re not like that. They just don’t understand you.”

Eileen nodded. Believed her. Grateful for the kindness, even when it tasted faintly like ash.

She grew quieter. Smaller. More reliant on the only friend who remained.

Callista.

And when Graham Parkinson walked by and nodded at them both—just the two of them now—Callista felt a thrill coil through her like a serpent waking.

He was seeing her.

Finally.

Eileen had become a bridge.

And bridges could be trod on.

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It came like a crack in a mirror. Tiny at first. Barely visible. But it spidered outward—sharpening every reflection into something jagged.

Callista had imagined—expected, really—that Graham’s gaze would shift. That once Eileen was quieted, once the other girls faded, once she remained as the only constant, he would begin to choose her.

And he did look at her.

Sometimes.

He smiled when she greeted him. Thanked her when she passed notes in class. He even made a joke once—dry and clever, about a cauldron mishap—and Callista had laughed too hard, too quickly.

He’d blinked, startled. The moment passed.

But then came the realization.

One afternoon, after a quietly successful Potions exam, Graham lingered behind Eileen’s bench as she packed away her things. He didn’t say much. Just… stood there. A beat too long.

Callista watched from across the room, her smile carved in place.

Later, he caught up with Eileen outside the library. Handed her a book on magical counteragents.

“I thought you might enjoy this,” he said.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

Callista stood behind a column and watched her dream start to flicker.

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That night, Eileen sat curled in the common room armchair, the scent of old parchment clinging to the book Graham had given her. Her fingers lingered on the worn spine, gentle, like she was afraid of tearing something delicate. She didn’t speak, but Callista saw the shift—the subtle unfurling of her shoulders. A softness in her gaze, like a thaw.

“He’s kind,” Eileen said aloud, almost shyly, her voice barely more than breath. “I think… I think he sees me.”

Callista didn’t speak. But inside, something splintered as she recognized the truth in Eileen’s words. Graham saw her—and Callista? She was only ever reflected, and only briefly, when she stood close enough to the one who mattered.

She smiled. Sipped her tea. Set the cup down gently—so gently, it didn’t even clink. As if silence could preserve the illusion.

That was the moment. That was when it changed.

That was the moment. The turning point.

Because if he saw Eileen—not the legacy, not the reputation, but the girl—then all her precision, all her patience, all her carefully sharpened steps… meant nothing.

And that was unacceptable.

Chapter Text

By the time sixth year began, Eileen had only one friend.

Callista Fairbourne had become constant as breath—there in the corridors, beside her in lessons, across from her in the common room. She had made herself indispensable: patient, understanding, ever-present. The only one who never looked at Eileen with awe or wariness—only quiet familiarity.

Graham Parkinson still watched her. But Eileen had begun to look away.

Callista had played the long game beautifully.

The girls were gone. The whispers had settled like dust. Eileen, brilliant as ever, had become a ghost in the halls—admired, but unapproachable.

And every time Graham tried to reach across the silence, Callista was already there.

Once, Eileen had been the bridge between her and Graham. Now Callista was the one who stood between them—carefully, deliberately, always smiling.

“Graham asked about your potion today,” she would say lightly over tea. “Said it was elegant. But I don’t know. He always sounds a little… condescending, don’t you think?”

Eileen would hesitate.

“He’s charming, but not very disciplined. You could do better.”

“He thinks he’s protecting you. That’s what they always do, isn’t it? Fall in love with a tragedy.”

She never lied outright.

She nudged. Tilted the light. Cast shadows just so.

And Eileen—valuing the thoughts of her dear friend—began to question.

Graham noticed the chill, but not the cause. He didn’t understand why Eileen no longer held his gaze in conversation. Why she left before he could speak with her. Why her responses—once soft and uncertain—had turned cool and formal.

He blamed himself. Perhaps he had misread her. Perhaps he had waited too long. Perhaps she simply hadn’t realized how he felt.

Still, he tried.

Every kindness now went through Callista. He asked her what books Eileen might enjoy. What tone to strike. How best to approach her.

Callista always answered helpfully. Smiling.

Inside, her hands itched.

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Time passed.

Nothing changed. Not enough.

Graham kept waiting for the moment to be right. But it never was. As sixth year ended and seventh year began, Callista watched the clock run out.

Eileen was still lovely. Still aloof. Still in Graham’s eyes. But now they were seventeen. Soon, they would graduate. Courtship offers would be extended, expected.

And Graham, ever the gentleman, didn't disappoint.

He came to Callista first. Of course he did.

He asked her—face open, voice uncertain—how best to word a courtship proposal. Said he wanted to be respectful. Honest. That he’d waited long enough to make his feelings clear.

He was afraid, he admitted, that he’d lost her before he’d ever truly had her.

Callista smiled. Her nails dug into her palms. She said all the right things. Picked the spot. Refined the wording. Promised Eileen would come.

Callista didn’t tell Eileen a thing.

The meeting place was simple. A quiet alcove in the castle gardens. Private. Timed perfectly—after supper, when most students would be in their houses, and the air would smell faintly of lavender.

Graham waited.

Callista arrived.

“She isn’t coming,” she said softly, eyes downcast. “I tried, Graham. She said… she didn’t think it was appropriate.”

She waited for him to break.

He didn’t. He just sat down heavily on the stone bench, rubbing a hand across his face.

Callista produced a flask. “It’s only mulled cider,” she said. “You look like you need something warm.”

He took it.

Drank.

He shouldn’t have.

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She was gentle. Soft-voiced. Comforting.

He was tired. Heartsick. Clouded.

She leaned in. Whispered that she understood him. That she saw him. That she had always been there.

And he didn’t stop her.

Later, he would think it was frustration. Loneliness. Weakness.

That he hadn’t even wanted it. Not her. But perhaps he'd wanted something to fill the silence.

He hadn’t.

But he’d never know that.

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She woke alone.

The sheets still warm.

The pillow still indented.

But he was gone.

And her name had never left his lips.

Chapter Text

A week passed.

Then Eileen told her.

“He proposed to me.”

Callista blinked, slow and careful. “I thought you’d… told him you weren't interested,” she said, voice thin.

“I did,” Eileen replied. “But then he spoke to me again. Said he’d misunderstood me. That he didn’t expect an answer right away. Only a chance. That he wanted to prove he was serious.”

Callista smiled.

It cracked a little at the edges. “You’re not seriously considering it?”

“I said I’d think about it.”

Callista’s tea went cold in her hand.

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It came to her in the greenhouse, three days before they sat for their NEWT exams.

The afternoon light filtered through glass panes speckled with dust and condensation. The others were gone—off to study or flirt or laugh. Callista remained alone, pruning a cluster of withering bloodbells, their petals drooping under the weight of heat and neglect.

Her hands moved automatically.

She was not thinking of Graham.

She was thinking of Eileen.

Eileen, who had everything and guarded it so carelessly. Who had stumbled into Graham’s regard without effort. Who had no idea of the protections that kept her from ruin—and no gratitude for them. Who stood in the centre of everything Callista wanted, still too grief-slowed to recognize the shape of what she held.

It was there, pruning shears in hand, that the plan began to settle into shape—not with triumph, not with fear. But with clarity.

She felt no revulsion.

What she intended was not wicked. Not cruel.

It was correction.

Eileen had been given every advantage—blood, beauty, brilliance, birthright. She had not fought for them. Had not clawed for them.

She had merely received.

And if she could not protect what she had—well, then perhaps she had no right to keep it.

After all, Callista thought, snipping away a perfect red bloom—something that can be taken from you is something that was never truly yours.

Her heart was steady. She wiped her gloves clean.

And went to prepare.

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It was late.

The kind of late where the castle seemed to exhale—hallways emptied, torches softened, even the portraits hushed themselves.

In the Slytherin common room, Eileen sat by the hearth, a potions text open but unread in her lap. Her hair was unpinned, falling like shadow over one shoulder. The flames licked her profile in gold.

Callista entered quietly, steps unhurried. She hadn’t expected to find her here—hoped, perhaps, but not expected.

Eileen looked up and smiled. A soft, tired thing. Unpractised, but real. “I didn’t think you’d still be up,” she said.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Me neither.”

A beat passed. Callista sat beside her, folding her hands neatly in her lap.

“I wanted to say,” Eileen said after a moment, eyes still on the fire, “thank you.”

Callista tilted her head. “For what?”

“For… staying. For being here with me. I know I haven’t been easy to be around. I’ve been difficult. I didn’t mean to be. But you never made me feel like I was failing at being… normal.” Her voice faltered slightly. “You made things feel less heavy.”

Callista smiled. A perfect, practiced smile. “I stayed because I wanted to,” she said gently. “Not because I expected anything from you.”

Eileen turned to look at her. Her eyes were unguarded in a way they rarely were. Trusting. Earnest.

Callista felt nothing. Nothing but the clean click of the final piece falling into place.

“You’re a better friend than I deserve,” Eileen whispered.

And Callista reached out, took her hand, and gave it a squeeze. “No, Eileen,” she said softly.

“I’m exactly what you deserve.”

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It began, as all betrayals do, with an invitation cloaked in warmth. The exams had stripped their minds bare, and in the emptiness that followed, jubilance bloomed

“We’re about to graduate,” Callista had said that evening, voice low, conspiratorial, as they prepared their outfits for the last Hogsmeade weekend. “Everything’s about to change. This might be our last chance for something a bit… mad.”

“Mad?”

“A real adventure. Just you and me. One night before the world expects more from us.”

Eileen hesitated.

Callista pressed on, bright and knowing. “Come on. We’ve earned it. Just one evening. Nothing dangerous. I’ve found a place—a Muggle neighbourhood in the Midlands. Cokeworth. Quiet, forgettable. We’ll be back before curfew.”

“Why there?”

“My father owns a flat nearby. We can stay if we need. I thought it might be fun to see the world from the other side. No magic. No names. Just two girls disappearing for a few hours.”

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Callista's father didn't own a flat in Cokeworth.

She had spent days researching. Listening. Studying maps. Asking careful questions of half-bloods and mudbloods, never the sort to raise suspicion.

She wasn’t looking for charm. Or for danger that looked dangerous.

She was looking for decay.

She'd found it.

Eileen said yes.

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They dressed simply.

Callista wore green silk under a wool cloak. Eileen chose a muted blue. They Apparated to the edge of the district and walked in.

The buildings were brick, soot-stained and leaning. The air tasted of coal and something older—something forgotten. The sun was setting by the time they reached the pub.

It had no name. Just a rusted sign above a heavy door, and a bitter smell that clung to the brick like mildew.

Inside, the floor creaked beneath their boots. The lighting was dim. A few men hunched over pints at corner tables. A scratchy radio murmured something tuneless.

Callista scanned the room.

Middle-aged, mostly. Wrong ages. A few old. A few bent.

Then—him.

Younger than most, but not by much. Tall. Sharp-jawed. Hunched. Clothes dark as night, boots worn thin.

He looked like rage left out in the rain.

She smiled to herself.

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Eileen was uneasy.

“This isn’t a place for girls like us,” she murmured, drawing her cloak tighter.

“Nonsense,” Callista said breezily. “One drink. A toast to the end of childhood—and a welcome to everything we deserve.”

They sat. Callista ordered for both of them. When the drinks arrived, she slipped the vial from her sleeve.

Just a few drops. Clear. Odourless. Slow-spreading. Crafted for a very specific effect—not unconsciousness. Not control. Just the right alchemy of vulnerability. It dulled judgment. Blurred reluctance. Thinned hesitation until all that was left was yes.

It was the same one she’d slipped into Graham’s drink.

She had brewed it months ago.

And it had worked, hadn’t it? She’d worn his touch for a night. She’d let it break her.

And now, she’d use it again.

She watched Eileen sip.

Then raised her glass and nodded toward the man at the bar—the one she’d chosen from the start.

“Let’s have a bit of fun,” she whispered. “Go talk to him.”

Eileen hesitated. “What? Why?”

“Because you’ve never done anything reckless,” Callista said with a quiet smile. “And for once in your perfect life, you should.”

She laughed. “Don’t think. Just do.”

Eileen didn’t want to. Not really. But the thought of saying no—of watching her friend’s smile dim—felt heavier than the glass in her hand. And—drifting, dulled, caught between fading inhibition and a quiet curiosity to be someone else—she did.

She stood.

She walked toward the muggle man.

She sat next to him.

And Callista watched the beginning of the end. Her joy was a quiet, hideous thing.

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The night became a blur.

Tobias Snape, mourning a father buried that very morning, hadn't planned to speak to anyone. Least of all a girl with grace in her spine and pain in her eyes.

But she sat beside him. Smiled at him.

She smelled like winter and smoke. She spoke with hesitation—then with fire.

Their hands met. Slowly. Then suddenly.

The room grew quieter.

The rest was heat and haze and breath.

Callista left before they disappeared into the dark.

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Eileen woke to the ache of coarse, unfamiliar sheets.

To the scent of stale air and iron.

To the heat, the weight of a man breathing beside her.

Her body was sore.

Her memory, shattered glass.

She looked down.

Blood on the sheets.

Not much. Just enough to confirm what she couldn’t remember.

Her wand was still in her cloak, tossed on the floor.

And beside her—Tobias stirred.

When he opened his eyes and looked at her, it was not recognition she saw.

It was confusion.

She dressed in silence.

And fled.

Chapter Text

Eileen returned to Hogwarts with silence clinging to her skin. She washed. Changed. Sat through her morning classes like a ghost wearing her uniform. But by evening, the ache in her chest had sharpened into something else—confusion. Anger. Shame.

She found Callista in the Slytherin common room, seated by the fire, a book open but unread.

Eileen didn’t sit.

“Why did you leave me?” she asked, voice uncharacteristically sharp.

Callista looked up slowly. “Excuse me?”

“At the bar. You left without saying a word. You didn’t come back for me.”

Something flickered in Callista’s eyes. She stood, carefully. Shut the book. And then her voice, soft and wounded: “I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”

Eileen blinked.

Callista stepped closer. Not looming—hurt. Trembling just enough to make her look betrayed.

“I waited for you for an hour,” she said. “I tried to get you to leave. You told me to—Merlin, Eileen—you told me to go to hell.”

“I—I did?”

“And then you laughed. You said I was jealous. That I was silly. That I’d never be what you are.”

Callista turned away, eyes shining. “I thought… maybe it was the drink. But you meant it, didn’t you?”

“No—no, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine.” Her voice dropped. “I suppose we just needed some alcohol to finally hear what you really think of me.”

Eileen’s mouth opened. Closed.

Her memory was broken glass. All she had were splinters—and none of them sharp enough to cut through the fog. Yet, beneath the shame, something whispered it wasn't true. She'd never say such cruelty.

“I don’t remember saying that.”

Callista turned back to her. Eyes wide. Voice shaking.

“But you don’t deny that you could have.”

And there it was. The kill.

Eileen stepped back slightly, as though the accusation had winded her.

It was true—she had wanted to act out for a night. And she had.

She had shocked herself.

What if this was just another thing lurking inside her, waiting? Something sharp and selfish. Something unbecoming.

Something she hadn’t known was hers.

“I never meant to hurt you,” she whispered.

Callista folded her arms.

“You did.”

A long silence stretched between them.

Then Eileen lowered her head.

“I’m sorry.”

Callista gave a long, quiet breath.

Then—gently, forgivingly—“It’s alright.”

And just like that, the noose was back around Eileen’s neck.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Callista didn’t rush it.

She let the silence bloom. Let the shame take root.

She didn’t have to speak.

Others would.

And they did.

It started with one girl in the common room.

“Did you hear? Prince disappeared last night. Didn’t come back till morning.”

Someone else chimed in. “They say she went to a muggle bar...make of that what you will.”

“There was a muggle man, I heard.”

“No one’s seen her with anyone before, though.”

“The muggle must have approached her...though she apparently didn't complain...”

“You don’t know what happened,” someone murmured.

“Don’t need to,” another snapped. “She went. She stayed.”

“She’s always seemed a little… off since her mum died.”

“Well she's always thought she was too good for us...maybe she's finally found her people.”

The words were kindling.

Callista never lit the match.

Like always, she just handed them flint.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was three days before school ended, and Eileen sat quietly by the lake. Her fingers moved absently over the page of a well-worn book, though her eyes didn’t follow the words. The wind stirred the edges. She didn’t stop it.

Somewhere behind her, someone laughed—too loud, too sharp. She didn’t turn. She'd long grown used to the sound of her name being passed from mouth to mouth like smoke.

Graham approached like he always had—with respect, with hope.

He didn’t sit until she nodded. Didn’t speak until her eyes lifted to his.

“I know… something happened." he said, "I’m not asking what.”

She didn’t speak.

“I just wanted you to know,” he continued, voice low and shaking, “that I still see you.”

Her throat worked. Her hands stilled.

“I want the right to try,” he said. “To earn your trust, your heart. I don’t care what the world says. I never have.”

Then, softer: “Will you let me court you?”

Eileen looked at him, and for the first time in days, her eyes filled with tears.

She wanted—suddenly, desperately—to reach out and hold on. But her hands wouldn’t move. Her limbs felt heavy, as if weighted with an emotion too complex to name.

She wished for her mother. Fiercely.

But her mother was dead.

“I’ll think about it,” The words barely made it out of her throat.

They sat in silence.

And despite everything, it was warm.

------------------------------------------------------------------

She told Callista in the evening.

They were sitting by the fire, quiet among joyful faces.

“Graham renewed his offer of courtship,” Eileen said softly, her eyes fixed on the flames. The fire didn’t crackle. It murmured—low and steady, like it knew not to interrupt.

Callista’s hands clenched beneath her sleeves, tight enough to draw blood. She didn't feel it.

“You’re not seriously considering him?” she said, perfectly controlled.

Eileen turned toward her. “He was kind. Gentle. He didn’t ask for anything. Just… a chance.”

“And you think that’s enough?”

“I think,” Eileen said slowly, “it might be.”

Callista said nothing. Not with her mouth. But her mind began to build again.

I gave you the worst night of your life, she thought. And still, you get chosen. Still, he sees you. Still, you have the power to say yes.

So she did what she always did. She smiled.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eileen didn’t give Graham an answer. She tried to. Couldn’t.

The thought of him still brought to mind a warm, golden light—but it was dim, like sunlight seen through glass from far away.

Something inside her had stilled. Gone quiet. Gone dark. Like the lake at midnight.

She didn’t know what she wanted. She didn't know what to do. She didn’t know who she was. She only knew that her name no longer felt like hers.

Callista sat beside her in silence all the way home. When they parted, she embraced Eileen tightly—too tightly—drawing the breath from her chest.

“Write me,” she whispered.

Eileen nodded.

The return home was quiet.

Her father greeted her with a nod and a kiss to the forehead. He asked about her marks, which had been flawless. Asked which master she planned to apprentice under.

They talked.

And slowly, Eileen felt her spine begin to loosen, the tightness in her brow start to ease. She hadn’t even realized how tightly she’d been holding herself.

They resumed the rhythm they had shared since Elspeth’s death—an understanding built on shared grief and shared passion.

It was quiet. Heavy, at times. But stable. Steadying.

Her NEWT results arrived, along with a letter from Graham—expressing confidence in her stellar marks, and a gentle request to meet.

She hadn’t replied. Not yet.

But that afternoon, she’d sent off her final apprenticeship request. And she’d resolved—at last—to write back to Graham in the morning.

To agree. To meet. But the next morning, the nausea began.

It didn’t stop.

She brewed the confirmation herself. It was a simple potion—one every well-educated pureblood girl knew how to make. A pale elixir that would turn opalescent if conception had occurred.

She watched it shift from clear to mother-of-pearl in the light. And felt her world tilt.

She did not cry. But she stood very, very still.

Then she went to find her father.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She told him after dinner.

They’d retired to the family room.

It was quiet.

His teacup moved in perfect rhythm—lift, sip, set.

The fire behind him crackled softly, casting a low glow across the shelves.

Eileen sat across from him, hands wrapped around her own cup, though the tea had long gone cold.

She hadn’t touched it. Not really.

She opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

The words tasted like poison—but they were the truth.

And the truth had to be spoken.

She had to breathe it to life.

“I need to speak with you,” she said, voice hushed.

Augustus looked up from his glass of wine, brows faintly raised. “Of course.”

She stood. Didn’t sit. Her hands shook.

“I’m pregnant.”

There was a beat of silence. Not long. Just long enough for the words to land.

Augustus blinked.

“Come again?”

Her voice faltered, but she didn’t repeat herself. She only nodded once.

And the room changed. The temperature. The weight of the air. The rhythm of his breath.

He set his glass down, very slowly.

“Who?” he asked.

She hesitated.

His voice sharpened. “Who?”

“I don’t know his name.”

That stopped him.

He leaned back as though the words had struck him physically.

“You... don’t... know.” Fury blazed in his eyes—sudden, sharp, dangerous.

For one breathless moment, protectiveness overtook disbelief. “Did someone hurt you?” he asked, voice low and fierce.

But when she shook her head, something in him fractured. The fury faded.

In its place: disbelief. Shock bloomed like frost across his face as he listened.

“No! No, I...I met him—briefly. I went out one night. With Callista. To a Muggle neighborhood.”

He did not interrupt.

“I had something to drink. I met someone. Callista and I parted ways. I stayed. And I…”

She swallowed.

“I followed him home.”

He stared at her for a long, unblinking moment.

Then he said, quietly, as if to himself: “No. That’s not possible.”

“It happened.”

“No,” he said again, rising now. “You don’t do things like that. She—we raised you better than that.”

“I wasn’t thinking—”

“That’s the point, Eileen. You’re always thinking. Always precise. Always aware.
You are not careless. Not Reckless.
Not about things like this—about your body, your future, your life!”

She said nothing.

His voice cracked.

“You don’t vanish into some unknown corner of the world.
You don’t give yourself over to a nameless stranger—
not for nothing but base appetite.”

Her voice was very small.

“But I did.”

And that broke him.

He stared at her as if he had never seen her before.

He said, softly, like someone trying to explain the world back into sense:

“This is not you.”

She said nothing.

“Tell me there’s more. Tell me there was a reason. Tell me it was grief or rage or madness or—something. Something I can understand. Or tell me it was a mistake!”

She looked at the floor.

“I just didn’t want to be me. Not for a night.”

That was when it happened.

He stepped back.

He stepped back, like she wasn’t his daughter but a venomous snake instead—like her words had struck to kill.

And then, for the first time in her life, his voice lifted—not in violence, but in something worse: shattered control.

Shock moved through Eileen like freezing water.

“Get out!”

Her heart stilled.

“Father—”

“Out!”

She left with the echo still ringing in her chest.

And Augustus, left alone, dropped into his chair—heart pounding, breath shallow—and stared at the space where she’d stood, searching for his daughter—and finding a stranger.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eileen didn’t pack a trunk.

She left Prince Manor with a single satchel and no destination.

The world felt hollow—each footstep echoing too loudly against the weight of her choices.

She thought of Graham—his steady voice, his quiet persistence, the way he’d looked at her when everyone else had turned away.

Just last night, she’d meant to write to him.

She thought: He would take me in.

She thought: He deserves better than what I’ve become.

She thought: I can’t.

So she didn’t.

She went to the only person she had left.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Callista received her with genuine surprise—Eileen never came without writing first.

“Eileen? What—are you alright?”

Eileen looked like she’d been carved from ice. Her eyes were wide, wet but uncrying. Her hands trembled around the strap of her satchel.

“I told him,” she said.

Callista blinked from where she sat in her family’s drawing room—perched on the edge of a velvet settee, friendly correspondence still open in her lap.

“You told…?”

“My father. I’m pregnant.”

A pause.

Callista went still.

Pregnant.

Eileen Prince.

Pregnant. With a muggle's child.

“Oh, Eileen,” she said at last, rising and crossing the space with arms outstretched, “I’m so sorry.”

Callista quickly folded Eileen into her embrace.

It was the only way to hide the ecstasy glinting in her eyes—the smile already tugging at the corners of her mouth.

At last, Lady Magic had smiled upon her.

Not just rumours. This—this could be a sentence.

Callista would make sure of it.

Eileen stepped inside.

And Callista closed the drawing room door with reverence—

like the mouth of a beast sealing shut over a morsel.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They sat.

Grimmy, the house-elf, brought over a second cup. Tea was poured.

The silence stretched between them—thin, fragile, and scalding.

“What did he say?” Callista asked softly.

Eileen didn’t answer right away.

Then: “He said to get out.”

Callista’s fingers tightened just slightly around the cup.

But her voice was calm. Measured. Sympathetic.

“Oh, Eileen.”

“I thought he would .... would help me decide what to do. But he didn’t see me.
He saw someone else.
Someone disgraceful.”

Callista reached across the table, took her hand.

“You’re not disgraceful,” she said gently.

And then, with perfect calculation:

“You’re just… alone. That makes everything harder.”

Eileen looked down.

“I thought about Graham.”

Callista’s heartbeat stuttered—then resumed. But her face didn’t flicker.

Eileen didn’t realize the myriad ways her situation could be resolved—the countless doors still open to her. But Callista would ensure she saw only one: the path to utter ruin.

She steadied her voice carefully, hiding desperate resolve beneath manufactured softness.

“Of course you did. He's shown himself to be serious about you lately.” Callista tilted her head. “But would he still? After this?”

Eileen flinched. Blinked. A shadow passed through her. The words were true—but something in them felt… off. But maybe that was just her own mind, playing tricks.

“I don’t know.” she whispered.

“He’s kind,” Callista continued, voice dipped in sorrow, “but he’s a Parkinson. Their family—your family—it’s all about names. Legacies. You’re not just pregnant, Eileen. You’re carrying the child of a stranger.”

Her hand squeezed Eileen’s.

“And not even a magical one.”

Eileen’s breath caught.

“There's nothing wrong with that. But if you go to Graham now, you don’t just ruin yourself. You ruin him. His family will never accept it. They’ll blame you both.”

She leaned closer. “You’d be giving him your shame.”

Eileen was very still.

Now, Callista softened her voice. “There’s a different choice.”

Eileen looked up.

“You don’t have to go to him. You don’t have to go back to your father. You can go to… the father.”

Eileen blinked.

Callista continued, calm and steady. “Tell him. Let him make a choice. Let him offer you something. Anything. You don’t owe the world an explanation. But maybe—maybe the one who made this child with you deserves a chance.”

Eileen looked down at her cup. At her reflection in the tea. Thin. Pale. Unrecognizable.

“I don’t even know him,” she whispered.

“Then go find out. He’s a part of this… maybe he deserves to know. That’s all I’m saying.”

Callista did not smile.

Not visibly. But her hands curled, just so, around the porcelain.

Chapter Text

She stood at the doorstep in the fading evening light, with a satchel and a hollow ache in her bones.

He opened the door like a man who hadn’t been expecting anyone in a long, long time.

Tobias Snape looked older than she remembered. Or maybe just more real.

His coat was wrinkled. His shirt undone at the collar. His eyes: still as sharp, still as sad.

“You,” he said, frowning.

Eileen nodded.

“I… didn’t know where else to go.”

He hesitated. Then stepped aside. “Come in.”

She sat on the faded couch. Clutched her hands in her lap.

He didn’t offer tea. Just stood by the wall, arms crossed.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

No preamble. No hesitation.

He blinked. “Mine?”

She nodded once.

He exhaled sharply and dragged a hand down his face. “Well, shit.”

Silence settled—long and heavy.

Finally, he sat across from her. Elbows on his knees. Gaze fixed.

“Alright,” he said. “What do you want from me?”

Eileen blinked. “I just needed to tell you. I didn’t want to lie.”

He eyed her—slow, measuring. “You didn’t seem like the lying type.”

She said nothing.

“You talk weird, you know that?”

She almost smiled. Almost.

“Proper. Like you read a lot.”

“I do.”

“Didn’t figure you for a factory girl.”

She stiffened slightly. “I’m not.”

"You’re not from around here.”

“No.”

“What are you then?”

And for just a moment, Eileen froze.

A breath held. A truth not ready to be spoken.

“I’m just... alone.”

That, at least, he understood.

He leaned back. Exhaled again.

“Well. I’ve got a house. If you need a place, I can give you that.”

Her voice was quiet.

“Thank you.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was the second night.

Tobias had cooked—beans and mashed potatoes.

Eileen didn’t comment on the fare. Just ate.

They hadn’t spoken much.

She moved quietly through the house, never imposing. Always folded into corners like she was trying to disappear politely.

She washed the dishes without being asked. She slept on the edge of his old bed—he’d moved to his parents’ bedroom three days after burying his father—like she didn’t quite believe she was allowed the space.

Tobias watched her.

She was strange. She didn’t flinch when the floorboards groaned. Didn’t startle at the slam of a car door. Didn’t chatter or whimper or try to fill the silence.

She moved with an eerie, steady grace. The kind that inhabited rain-heavy woods or empty churches. When she sat at his table—back straight, eyes low, hands folded—he thought: She’d make a good wife.

Not warm. Not soft. But present. A woman who didn’t need fussing. Who didn’t waste words. Who’d keep a house like she kept herself—tightly buttoned and silent as snow.

He looked at her and thought—maybe she was sent to me. Maybe, in the middle of all this godless ruin, something decided I shouldn’t go at it alone.

Afterward, they sat across from each other at the kitchen table.

The silence wasn’t hostile. It wasn’t comfortable either.

Then Tobias set down his cup and said, voice like gravel: “I’ll marry you.”

Eileen blinked. “What?”

“You heard me.”

She stared.

“I don’t have much,” he said quietly. “But I've got two good hands and a strong back. A job that keeps the lights on, puts food on the table. I've got my name. It might not be worth gold—but it's yours.””

He met her eyes. Unflinching.

“Kids don’t pick who brings ’em into the world. But every kid deserves a name. And a home. I won’t hear talk of bastards. You’re carrying my kid—that means you’re mine too.”

Eileen opened her mouth.

Closed it.

This wasn’t the life her parents had raised her for. It wasn’t the courtship her mother once promised. It wasn’t love. And it wasn’t Graham. But it was something of worth, nonetheless.

It was a man offering what he had.

It was dignity.

She swallowed.

“You don’t have to—”

“I do.”

That silenced her.

He shifted. Rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not saying you’ll love me. But you’ll always have a roof over your head, food in your belly. And I won’t leave. Not ever.”

She looked down. She didn’t know what to say. But when she nodded, it wasn’t out of fear. It was out of exhaustion. And, in some small way, relief.

She wouldn’t have to lie. She wouldn’t have to be alone.

And that was that.

No ring. No kiss. No flowers.

Just two strangers agreeing not to be strangers anymore.

"I'm Tobias, by the way. Tobias Snape."

"Eileen."

Chapter Text

Eileen married Tobias Snape on July 20, 1959.

It was a Monday, and the rain had only just let up when the two of them said their vows. No music played. The registry office smelled faintly of disinfectant and something sweet—old roses, or overripe fruit.

Eileen's dress didn't quite fit.

It had been a gift from Callista—kind enough to lend Eileen a gown of her own: white, lacy, and unmistakably expensive. The kind of dress meant to soften Callista’s curves into elegance while still catching every eye in the room.

On Eileen’s thinner frame, it hung oddly—too much lace, too little weight. The dissonance between her solemn face and the frills produced a sense of quiet discomfort.

Callista had made a good show of trying to charm the hem so it wasn’t so obviously short, but Eileen had finally convinced her to stop—reminding her that robes of true quality repelled such charms.

Tobias looked like he’d just come off shift—hair still damp at the fringe, hands scrubbed but still lined with oil.

The only sound after the kiss was the clerk’s chair squeaking as he stood to shake their hands—and Callista’s jubilant claps.

---------------------------------------------------------------

It began with the absence of wards.

Eileen Snape—no longer part of the magical world—had no protective magics around her home. No owls trained to block tampering. No wards keyed to her name.

So when the replies began—apprenticeship acceptances, academic invitations, all the hope Eileen had scribed into parchment now returning to her in careful ink—Callista took notice.

The Prince family had always kept discreet house-elves, trained in perfect silence. Callista’s family had something similar.

And on the day of Eileen’s wedding, she re-tasked hers—quietly, without fanfare.

A little wedding gift Eileen would never know.

The elf intercepted everything.

Eileen had applied to six different Masters across Europe. All six accepted her. She never knew.

Each letter arrived. Each was opened. Each was read. Each one vanished into a discreet wooden box, tucked neatly in the centre of Callista’s bedside drawer.

Sometimes, she read them aloud—just to hear what Eileen might have become.

----------------------------------------------------

She never visited Eileen again. She didn’t need to.

But she kept the correspondence alive. “I’m abroad,” she wrote. “Still traveling. The continent is beautiful this time of year.”

When Eileen asked to meet, she responded with warmth wrapped in delay. “I miss you, too. We’ll see each other soon. For now, keep writing. I want to hear everything.”

And Eileen—who had no one else—believed her.

----------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, Callista fed the story.

She told Graham, in measured doses, of Eileen’s supposed joy.

“She’s happy, you know. Happier than I’ve ever seen her.”

“Her husband is a quiet man. Stable. Kind.”

“I think she’s really decided to focus on her marriage and her pregnancy now.”

Graham said nothing. But she saw it—the way his shoulders finally sank, the way his jaw clenched. And still, to her ragged disbelief, his eyes turned distant—like if he stared long enough, Eileen might reappear at the edge of his gaze. Like he could conjure her with longing alone.

She told the others, too—friends who had once sent congratulations, however cautiously. Friends whose letters Callista had also intercepted. “She didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but… she’s changed. She doesn’t want to come back.” And one by one, their attempts stopped.

Then, months later—just as the new year dawned, but far too soon for the baby to have arrived Eileen sent one more letter.

"The baby has arrived. A girl. She’s premature. I’ve named her Severina."

Callista stared at the letter for a long time. Then she dressed carefully. She found Graham. And she told him. “She’s had the child.”

He poured them a drink.

That night, he didn’t speak much. Didn’t ask for comfort. But he let her touch his shoulder. Let her undress him. Let her become the bridge between grief and forgetting.

And when it was over, he didn’t kiss her. But he stayed. And in the morning—in that numb hush before the light changed—he said: “Let’s marry.”

Just like that.

No ring. No promise. No fire.

It was not how she had dreamed he would propose. But Callista Fairbourne had dreamed her whole life of becoming Callista Parkinson.

She said yes.

The ashes beneath the ecstasy were easy to dispel.

They were.

But they settled.

Deep.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first time Tobias came home to a burnt kettle and a broken dish, he said nothing.

The second time, he asked if she’d ever been in a kitchen before.

The third, he shouted.

Not cruelly. Not violently. But with the exhaustion of a man who worked ten hours in smoke and steel, only to come home to cold bread and silence.

Eileen tried.

But trying meant little in Spinner’s End.

Her hands—so steady with silver blades and alchemical reagents—fumbled every domestic charm.

Household magic was beneath Prince study. And practical Muggle skills? She’d never needed them.

Meals were disasters. Laundry, wrinkled and half-dried. Dust collected in corners she couldn’t seem to master.

The neighbours whispered.

“She doesn’t even know how to make a proper stew.”

“Strange girl. Never talks. Never smiles.”

“Pretty, but soft. Look at those hands. Not a day of work in them.”

She heard it all. She just didn’t know what to do with it.

----------------------------------------------------

Tobias began to avoid the house.

He didn’t mean to. But the pub was warm. The factory, at least, was honest.

Eileen was kind. Quiet. But never present. Not really. And what he had once mistaken for grace now felt like absence.

The pregnancy only made it harder.

Eileen grew heavier. Quieter.

Callista’s letters came less frequently. And from her father—nothing.

In her deepest heart, Eileen had still hoped he might reach for her, despite everything.

No replies from the Masters she’d written.

'Why has no one answered me?'

She read her NEWT results over and over—perfect scores. A flawless alchemical essay. Professorial recommendations.

And yet… nothing. Everyone had simply… gone silent.

'Why won’t they write back?'

She thought of Graham once. Briefly. Then forced herself not to.

She thought of going to Diagon Alley. Then realized she couldn’t afford the ride there.

She pawned her last wand-polish kit for a handful of pounds. Bought potatoes and a second-hand coat.

----------------------------------------------------

One night, Tobias came home late.

She’d meant to cook. Burned the soup.

He stared at the pot for a long time.

Then said, without looking at her: “You’re not what I thought you’d be.”

She looked up from the sink.

“I thought… you were quiet. Good. Someone who needed a place. Someone who could build something with me.”

A pause.

“But you’re not building anything. You just sit here. Every day.”

Eileen felt her hands tremble.

“I’m trying.”

“You don’t even know how to sweep a floor.”

“I never needed to,” she whispered.

Tobias scoffed. “Yeah. I figured that out.”

And left the room.

----------------------------------------------------

That night, she cried in the bath.

Not loud. Not hard. Just long. Like a pipe leaking quietly behind a wall.

When she finally slept, it was with one hand on her belly and the other pressed flat against the mattress—as if seeking an anchor.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The walls of the house had learned not to echo.

They kept her secrets now—her failed spells, her quiet apologies to the kettle, her whispered conversations with the unborn child pressing steadily against her ribs.

She moved like someone inside a dream she couldn’t wake from.

Sweep the floor. Boil the water. Stir the pot.

Forget that the window doesn’t face anything worth looking at.

Forget that the name Eileen Prince once made Masters rise from their chairs.

She wrote to Callista again that week: 'I’ve grown rounder now. I can feel the baby move. I’m nervous. I wish you were here.'

The reply came three days later. 'I wish I could be, too. Paris has been a dream. You’ll be wonderful, I know it. Keep your strength up. I’m thinking of you.'

There was no warmth in the paper.

Just ink.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Eileen sat by the hearth late that night, her feet swollen, her hair unbrushed.

She hadn’t used magic in weeks. There was no point.

And there, in the hush between candle flickers, the thought came:

'How did I end up like this?'

Not as a question.

As a mantra.

As though repeating it might force the world to answer.

She turned it over in her mind like a puzzle.

'How did a girl trained in precision and power end up in a crumbling house in a Muggle town waiting for a child she didn’t know how to raise?'

She went backward.

Back to Spinner’s End.

Back to her mother's death.

Back to Hogwarts.

Back to the whispers.

Back to Callista’s eyes—wide, warm, kind.

Back to the moment her father said get out.

'But I chose to go.'

'I told him it was my fault.'

'I told Callista I was sorry.'

'I chose this.'

'Didn’t I?'

The fire cracked.

The baby kicked.

And the question sat there with her.

'How did I end up like this?'

Looping.

Endless.

Tight as a noose.

Chapter Text

It happened in the early morning, on a Saturday, in the back room of the house that always smelled faintly of coal dust and damp.

There was no midwife. No healer. No wand.

Just a girl too young, too tired, too bruised by the weight of her own name to remember who she’d once been.

And Tobias—bleary-eyed, half-dressed, panicked but present—fetching towels, boiling water, cursing the gods under his breath as she clenched her teeth and bore down through agony so ancient it needed no magic to complete itself.

The girl was born silent.

Half of Eileen expected it. The baby should have been born in March.

It was January.

She was too soon. Far too soon.

Darkness almost claimed her.

Then—the baby shrieked. And Eileen collapsed back onto the mattress, tears streaking her temples, hair plastered to her neck, the old rhyme, half-forgotten, surfacing unbidden:

Saturday’s child works hard for a living.

A hard life, then. But a life. And the only thought in her head—becoming inexplicably, irrevocably:

'It’s done now.'

Tobias held the child first.

Not because he wanted to. Because Eileen didn’t reach for her. She stared at the ceiling, unmoving. Her tears didn’t rise to sobs. Didn’t transform to laughter. Only silence.

Tobias looked down at the red-faced, furious creature in his arms and muttered:

“...Welcome to it, then.”

Hours later, she named her. “Severina.”

Not from any story.

Not from any ancestor.

But because the name felt like iron.

Like something that would survive.

----------------------------------------------

No letters were sent that day.

Callista would find out, of course—because Eileen would tell her. Because she still believed someone, somewhere, was listening.

But no owls arrived at Prince Manor. No Head of House paused to toast a prodigy born.

The world did not stir.

Only the child did—in restless little kicks. In the soft, animal sounds of sleep. And Eileen, finally, held her.

Her arms didn’t tremble. Her breath didn’t catch. She simply looked at the babe and thought:

You’re here.

Severina Snape.

Chapter Text

He did not speak her name for months.

Not to colleagues. Not to old friends. Not even in the quiet of his own mind.

To name her would be to summon what he had banished. So Augustus Prince buried himself in theory. In perfect, sterile numbers. In the cool, clear world of Arithmantic structure where no child could disappear, no daughter could falter, no love could undo itself in the dark.

But even perfection has margins.

And grief…

...has a way of seeping in through the seams.

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It was her old bedroom that undid him.

He went in to retrieve a book. Nothing more. Habit.

He should have sent a house-elf.

But the scent was still there—old parchment and elderflower. The chair was still tucked beneath the desk. Potion vials, labelled in her delicate hand, still glinting on the shelf. And the photograph— Elspeth holding a six-year-old Eileen beneath a winter tree, both laughing.

He sat on the edge of the bed.

It took hours before he could stand again.

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That night, he wrote the letter.

Not with the elegance he was known for. But with hands that trembled slightly, and ink that smudged.

Eileen,

I was wrong.

I was afraid, and I let that fear take hold of me. I judged you when I should have held you.

You are my daughter. My only child. There is nothing you can ever do that will make me turn away from you. That I did—even for a moment—is a failure I will spend
the rest of my life atoning for.

But while I do, if there is a way back—any way—for us to be a family again, show it to me.

Please. Let me see you again.

Father

He sealed it. Addressed it.

Summoned the owl.

It flew into the night.

It never reached his daughter.

Callista intercepted it—just like all the others.

She opened it. Read it once. Then, with her usual care, resealed it.

Returned it to sender—with the fold-line torn just enough to suggest it had been opened.

And read.

And discarded.

It was the last Callista ever thought of Eileen.

----------------------------------------------------------

Augustus never wrote again.

He assumed—correctly, he thought—that Eileen wanted nothing more to do with him.

That his mistake had cost him his daughter.

He closed her door to her rooms, unchanged since that day. And never reopened it.

He was honoured with medals in the following decades. His work in precision theory redefined three branches of European spell craft. His name soared.

But he could never bear to hear hers spoken.

And in the stillness of his study, long after midnight, he would sit alone and wonder if stars could ever forgive.

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It became the scandal of the century.

The girl who had it all.

Lineage. Brilliance. Poise.

The sole heir of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Prince.

A name once uttered in the same breath as Black. As Malfoy. The cream of Wizarding Britain.

A future guaranteed—courted by fine young men, praised by professors, destined for mastery.

And yet—she vanished.

Gone was the prodigy.

Gone was the legacy.

Gone was the manor that once lit its halls with intellect and wine, its rooms filled with the finest minds in Britain.

The House of Prince shuttered its doors.

Augustus—once so revered—withdrew entirely. Refused all social correspondence. Declined every invitation.

He never remarried. Never adopted.

All knew a great line would die with him.

All because of a daughter who, as the whispers went, chose ruin.

They said she married a Muggle. That she had a child in obscurity. That she gave birth in a coal-dust town and never came back.

And for pureblood society, it was the perfect cautionary tale. A most noble one.

A fall from grace—swift and absolute.

Proof that blood could be wasted.

That brilliance was no guard against disgrace.

That wild fancies—especially from daughters—had consequences beyond imagination.

They used her name as a warning:

“Do not be an Eileen.”

“Even the brightest can fall to obscurity.”

She became a fable of failed promise.

They told it with sympathy, of course. With sighs. With mourning. But never with forgiveness.

Because Eileen Prince did not just vanish.

She dismantled something great.

She left a hole where an ancient and noble house once stood.

And in a society that measured worth by name, inheritance, and legacy—she proved how fast it could all be lost.

It was a story of horror.

And it would not be forgotten anytime soon.