Chapter 68

Nagini looked at Severus and then at the unknown man in bewilderment, not understanding what was happening at all and how they knew each other. 

"Yes, Me," Severus nodded with a smile, removing his hood. "Glad to see me?" 

"Khee! Hee-hee-hee... and I offered to kill you too, but they didn't wake up... Ahem! ... took my words seriously …" the wizard drawled out with a chuckle, in a hoarse voice, because he nevertheless turned out to be right, while regretting that he could not now look into the eyes of a dead family.

"Severus…?"

 Nagini at this moment questioned silently but Severus ignored the snake's questioning tone and, taking out a mirror, threw it right under the slightly surprised man's feet. 

"You know, my mother never succumbed to these charms," ​​Snape snorted contemptuously, going to the closet and taking the statuette of the crown in his hand. "You didn't last even two months, and I only slightly strengthened these spells …"

"Eileen has always been distinguished for her good mind protection…."

"This is just an excuse, you were weaker than her ... you always envied her, you were afraid that she could take the place of the head of the family, although in the depths of your soul you understood that it was impossible …" the figurine in Snape's hand burned out in an instant, and in his hand only ashes were left ".... but you were afraid, that's why you got rid of her, using a potion or some kind of charm, which forced her to fall in love with a Muggle or strengthened some already existing feelings …" Severus again turned to the nervously smiling Prince, "... and this seemed not enough to you, so you decided to go to the very end, getting rid of the problem at the root ... this is a good idea, I even support your choice, I would have done the same myself, but …"a second later Severus appeared right in front of the startled man, "... I would have done it with my own hands, to be sure that the enemy is dead... you are an ordinary nonentity who imagines himself to be a behind-the-scenes puppeteer, tell me, was it nice to torture your own sister, huh, "uncle"?" 

"That…~Ahem! ... get down!" 

"Does it prick your eyes, Alan Prince?" Severus asked, looking directly into his eyes.

"I…!" the man was going to say something but in the next moment he vomited blood, staining the top of his shirt. 

"What did you feel when you killed your own father? Were you sad, or were you happy?" with a mocking smile, Snape continued to put pressure on the sore callus of the wizard, whose face was contorted with anger. "Okay, don't answer. To be honest, I just came to taunt you and I won't let you go for rebirth, unless, of course, there is one …"

"What do you mean by this …?"

"Nothing special, it's just someone who wants to talk to you," stepping aside, Severus pointed towards the door, where a pale-faced woman in a light dress stood in the aisle, whose face was colder than any iceberg, and real hellish flames burned in her eyes. , threatening to break out at any second. 

At the sight of her, a real horror appeared on Alan's face. "Eileen…?" he croaked in disbelief, staring at the young woman as if she were a ghost(pun intended). 

"Close, this is actually her magic …" Severus calmly explained, heading towards the exit, ".. to which I gave the image of my mother, but she experiences the same emotions as the real one, you can even call her a personality print preserved on the canvas, from which she once wanted to create a living portrait, well, I will not distract your family moment any more."

"ooyyyeee! Don't leave me…" but seeing that Severus had simply left, he shifted his trembling gaze to the pale-faced woman still standing at the door. 

"S-sister…" But as soon as that word left his mouth, her face contorted, and the next moment it(she) appeared right in front of him…

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As soon as Severus left the building, he heard a heartbreaking cry, from which Nagini trembled like an aspen leaf, but as soon as she felt overflowing calmness through the connection, fear slowly began to recede, and Severusdid not forget to cast a silencing spell on the house, so as not to draw too much attention.

"What do you think of me?" he asked her with a smile, while looking at the beautiful sunset, which looked especially magnificent in winter.

"I ... I don't know, I thought I understood you perfectly, but ... I don't blame you, you had every right to take revenge," that short exchange of words was enough for her to understand why he did this to them, even though it seemed too cruel to Nagini, but the anger for the man was much stronger, and if it(she)was not there, she would have bitten that bastard herself. "Are you afraid of me?"

"Hmph! You still haven't closed your mind, so I can still feel your emotions, but…" Nagaina hesitated for a moment, but still she quickly pulled herself together and asked, "…we should have everyone…" ?

"Each of them has blood on his hands, and all of them knew what really happened to my mother. You can even say that they all made such a decision together, but he was the one who came up with it and who embodied everything in life under the tacit consent of the rest …"

"I see, I'm sorry that I doubted you for a moment …"

"Don't mind. In this family of "true aristocrats" there was only one person who may have loved my mother, but he had been dead for three years when he was attacked during his return from one of the balls, and only his son survived with a few scratches. For a nominal fee, the Ministry turned a blind eye to this."

"Was that your grandfather?" The snake immediately guessed, because just recently she heard Severus's conversation with the unknown man about the Princes, that the last head of the clan died three years ago. 

"It is true."

"Severus."

"Hmm?" Severus looked at Nagini.

"Tell me about your past!" 'standing' right in front of his face, she said in a firm voice, causing a smile to appear on the face of the young man, the situation looked too comical.

"Okay, I don't mind telling you the story of the Half-Blood Prince: it started in a rather dirty Muggle town. On January 9, 1960, a boy was born, who was named Severus in honour of one Roman Emperor, Septimius Severus …"

"Your mother was a pureblood which, so why did she name you after a Muggle?"

"How should I know, I don't want to get into female logic, or maybe it was my father's idea in general? So, don't distract, come on …" poking her in the nose, he added sternly, which made the snake snort with displeasure, but she still decided to remain silent. 

"And he got his last name from his father – Snape, the boy's childhood itself could not be called the worst before he turned one year old…" 

An hour later, Severus finished telling the story of the real Snape, of course, omitting the moment of suicide and "torture" of Tobias, and also slightly softening her, but even that was enough to make Nagini emit bile towards Severus' father, Potter, his company, Lily and the Prince family. 

She even regretted that she had stopped him that day when he wanted to punish the marauders, and she no longer felt a single ounce of sympathy for the bodies in the house. 

During these almost six months, Severus has become the closest person to her, and listening to how he suffered was like showing a bull a red rag. 

She herself would not have been averse to biting them, but at the same time, Nagini also had respect for him, because not everyone could endure all this and truly change, not everyone could leave everything in the past. 

And just at the moment when he finished the story, Eileen floated out of the house, almost immediately fixing a cold look on Severus sitting on the bench. 

"I'm glad you finished," he said calmly, looking up at the former witch  who remained in front of him and examining her with interest. "Not bad, you were able to evolve from a disembodied vengeful phantom into a semi-material dark essence, maybe a couple more years, and you can become a real undead…" 

At the same time, Nagini looked at the beautiful woman in embarrassment, hiding behind Severus's head, even though she was only a particle from his real mother, she was still his mother. 

The snake was simply not ready for such an acquaintance. 

"You…"

"Hmm? You can speak?" He looked at her with surprise, because there were a huge number of such creatures in the magistrate, but this was the first time he saw one that could talk.

"Apparently, I underestimated the emotions invested in that small amount of magic…" But still, Severus roughly understood what Eileen wanted to ask. 

"No," Touching his temple, he pulled out the "something" between gas and liquid, which is the memories that Severus held out to her. 

The spirit looked at him with an unblinking gaze, and then, pointing her palm at the "something", she swallowed them, and after a few seconds a tear rolled down her cheek, at the same time, there was still not a single emotion on his face, only a small ripple in his eyes. 

[A/N: "Unique Something/ Something" Mentioned here are the memories.]

"You can't blame me, I have nothing to do with it at all," Severuscalmly explained, watching with interest the "unique something", which aroused genuine interest in him, but not to the limit that he would like to open the creature standing in front of him, because Severus was not fond of necromancy, but quite the contrary, he disliked her very much. 

This is a kind of natural dislike, because fire is one of the main weaknesses of any undead, in addition to light magic. And he took advantage of her only in order to give Eileen the opportunity to commit revenge, nothing more. 

Although the "Vengeful Phantom" could only be said to be attributed to necromancy, because she was only an echo of her former personality, mainly built on negative emotions. 

But, apparently, those emotions that she put into the portrait were good ones, yet they were completely different now. Not even any curse could not turn them completely into good ones again.

But Snape still decided to attribute this to the magic of this world, because although they were almost identical, there might still be a difference unknown to Severus himself, so the spell worked in a similar way, but all this was just his speculation, which still required research. 

"I helped you get revenge, it's time for you to return to your mistress," and when he was about to dispel the phantom, she suddenly put out her hand and shook her head, causing Severus to frown. 

"I… see… see… I want…" she gave out a message with some difficulty, forcing Severus' eyes to bulge out in surprise for the second time in the last few minutes. 

"Want to see…?" 

"You are an idiot! Although she is, as you put it earlier, a "personal imprint", she is still your mother! Do you think she does not want to be near you, to see what you grow up to be, to protect you?" At this time Nagini hissed from his side.

 From such accusations, Severus was slightly saddened, because Eileen knew that he was not her son, but the one who "captured" his body after death, and the young man doubted that everything was so not so simple. 

He wouldn't even be surprised if she wanted to kill him for it. And yet he didn't want to bother himself with these thoughts even more today. 

Concentrating on their bond, after a few seconds Snape stared at her in shock. After all, the expected wave of negative emotions and bloodlust was not there at all, instead what assaulted him was sadness from the realization that her son had committed suicide, among which warmer or, even to say, tender feelings for him already made their way. It was too weird... 

"What's going on?!" clutching his head, he fell on the bench and began to think, while studying the "body" of the woman with the help of the connection and wondering where he could have screwed up, which caused such an effect, because it was very difficult to write off the "magic" itself. "I guess I'll be going to bed late tonight, merry Christmas, damn it…"

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