Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recongnize. I do however own Sylvia and the plot. So don't take them. Please.

A\N: This is a companion piece to 'Haunting Irony," but you do not need to have read it to understand the story.

Some Viscious Mole Of Nature

I cannot transfer the blame I feel at causing her misery. Though I, no doubt, have effectively rerranged my motives so that the blame lies with either someone else, or my favorite, fate, I cannot do so here. No, now, I feel emotions which I have surpressed for so long: too long it seems like. For my trade and my life requires such; and yet for so long I believed that line of reasoning. But now, as I see her back to the door, stirring a potion, I realise how naive I have been.

"Close the door," I hear her mutter. I do so, and with a gentle click of the door the room is engulfed in familiar darkness of the night. She works by moonlight, letting the darkness tint and distort her procedure. From here, next to the door, where the shapes are fuzzy and indistinct, this seems like a mistake. But to her, everything is crystal clear. She can see everything in the room--from her labels on the potion ingrediants to her manuscripts, to the bedcover which lays only haphazardly on her bed.

I step into the room and try to see her darkness. I notice that she has opened all of her windows, so that the silver moonlight cascades in slants, and it is so bright` I can almost distinguish the green from her school trunk. She is too deep into her darkness; too deep I fear that she may never come out. That she will descend into this gloom forever.

"Sylvia."

I take another step closer. She remains dedicated, back turned to me, still stirring one of her projects, completely absorbed in the task. I knew not how far her mind has gone, what imaginative procedures and experiments it has created for her mind to experience.

I take another step, and my figure enters a pool of light. For a moment, an artistic moment, I see the form of my shadow on the floor--and am confronted with my image. Cold, haunting, impersonal-- piercing into the minds of my students. I wonder not for the first time if she also sees me in that manner.

My eyes are attracted to a sudden movement on the floor--but it is merely her shadow, raising the stirring rod from the potion to clean it. I watch her in admiration: so precise, so sensible, yet overly critical at such a young age. It is my fault she is this way, I cannot deny it. If it were not for my trade...my double life...

"Sylvia," I say again.

"I would rather you go away, please," she says to me, cold, informal. Merlin, how much she reminds me of myself!

"Sylvia." My voice is harsher, more cutting now. For a moment the shadow stops cleaning--it poises in midair. Her chest rises a great height, then slowly lowers, filling the room with her low, desperate sigh.

"I cannot stop right now, father." Her arms rise and I see her scoop something from a vial and throw it into the cauldron.

"Turn around, Sylvia. Now!"

Instantly I regret my brashness. It came all too easily nowadays. Old habits die hard, and when confronted with a disobedient child, I resort to tradition.

But she does not turn around. She was always a strong-willed one. And yet, I knew of no other way of eliciting a response.

And so I tried something that I had not done for years -- plain questions. It felt alien to me, this process of asking for information, admitting ignorance. Lowering my being to a level which I swore to myself many years ago that I would never return to. But I did. For her.

"What is wrong, Sylvia?"

I see the shadow dip a spoon into the potion, and then stop. She gently puts down the spoon and slowly leans both hands on her table with a weariness of one tired of life. What was so startling to my so-called cold heart was that it was like seeing myself bend over my cauldron, my long hair blocking my senses, hiding my vunerable self from the world, much as hers did now. She even hung her head, again so shockingly familiar, but did not say a word.

I merely stood there, reciprocating the silence, watching her, trying to keep out my guilty feelings with logic and rationality. This is my fault. No matter how much I deny it, this is my fault.

"It is nothing," I hear her say, still strongly, clear of tears, but still tinged with depression. Depression. A horrid experience, that for the worst part can never go away. She has enough to deal with. Academic pressures. Priding her father. She didn't need...she should not have been told....

But she needed to know. What would happen if some of your associates got a hold of her? As they could do--

They will not--

--they are perfectly capable of doing so, even without your help.

The shadow removes one of the hands from the table and starts to massage the bridge of the nose. Headache. She does work too hard. Physical illness. She had those even before...

"No, Sylvia. Tell me what is wrong."

They were strong throughout her school years; I have had to make countless headache remedies for her as she grew up, at least, until she learned to make them herself. Maybe that's what she's making now. It certainly has the right color and consitancy, at least, from what I can glean when I look over her shoulder and see the potion boiling, bubbling, creating its harmonic music which had comforted myself many lonely nights.

"Don't you know already?" she says, full of my trademark sarcasm, she took it as a virtue even at toddler age, without knowing why. Or why not. Now, she is beyond repair. The sarcasm is deeply rooted within her being, taken as one of the irreversible behaviors learned from the parent.

"No," I say plainly. I see the figure start at my response, and I hope she can tell my sincerity.

"What?" she chuckles sadly. "I thought you were clarivoyant."

"I am merely observant."

I see the shadow shake her head sadly, she relates, she has taken my life and personified it. I look out to the yard, where the moon is flirting behind little whisps of clouds. I am taken back to a time in my own youth, when I suffered under that of a full moon. I wait to see the ungodly familiar forms of rat, dog and stag, frolicking in the moonlight....

"They think I'm clairvoyant," she mutters. "The others. They see me as a mere shade. A spectre of the past, only familiar with the past, or the future, but never the present."

I am taken away from my reminencence by her poetic words. The hunched back I see has not been given a chance to be a whole person--instead she was taught by shades, mere shadows of a human, and she has taken my behavior as human. Now she realizes, and she regrets that she can never be true flesh. And it is my fault. I must keep saying that to myself.

"To be," she mutters, "or not to be. That--is the question."

My heart, the same organ that so many believe to be either nonexistant or hard, did break. She was talking about my deepest fears, my worst fantasy. If I had known...

She is muttering to herself now--probably oblivious to my presence as she cleans the table, wiping off instruments, capping vials. I watch her shadow match her movements, and perhaps am disillusioned, for judging by the shadow itself she seems to be creating rather than calling it quits. But her words chilled me to the bone--poetic, potent, they struck me as I have not been struck in a long time:

"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep --
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to -- 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep --
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enerprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action?"

She stopped-- as she progressed the monologue, her speech becomes more halting; and by the end she merely broke into tired tears. And yet, she felt what I had felt on so many lonely nights: the futility of life, the choice between this hell or an unknown one.

I have not felt this strongly over someone in a long time--this new feeling of literal heartache for her position tortured me like I had never been before. She understood so much at such a young age....and it is my fault. My fault. My fault. Enough repetitions and I might believe it.

I see her shoulders heave up and down in grief, racking sobs she's still trying desperately to hide from me, yet she fails. As I approach her, I hear her mutter--

"Oh Shakespeare! How can you explain my feelings so well?"

I swallow a lump in my throat and speak again.

"Sylvia." The moment I touched her shoulder she rebounded and whirled as if she was posessed. For a moment her eyes catch the light, and I am faced with the tear-stained glitter of my offspring's sorrow.

"Please. I can't stand it anymore."

"Yes you can," I said softly.

"No I can't! I tried, I tried, but today--" She turned toward the window and blinked away a tear.

"You can. You will."

I took her by the shoulders and braced her. She felt like a ball of energy, swirling like an gyre underneath my hands.

"You can prepare yourself. You can defend yourself. You are not powerless. There are ways to fight them."

"But why try?" she proclaimed with hopelessness. "They're everywhere nowadays! If they can get into Hogwarts, what can't they do?"

"The Headmaster is working to change that," I said. "We have increased security--"

"Then what? Look-- you're putting all this energy into protecting me!"

She hung her head.

"Sylvia--"

"I am no one. I do not deserve to have my own security."

"You are in danger--"

"So?" She said, and waved her hand, breaking my brace and standing alone. Again I am so stubbornly reminded of myself.

"Dad--I am nobody. I am not destined for anything great, like Potter--"

"Do not compare yourself to him. You are better--"

"No I am not."

She has learned the lessons too well, I think. It is my fault. I am too good a teacher.

"Dad," she said, quieting her voice with a finality that seemed unnatural for a 18 year-old. "The Headmaster has more important matters to attend to, more important matters to spend his resourses on. The
battle--"

"You are important to the Headmaster--"

"No I'm not. I am merely your daughter, just the daughter of someone who happens to be on the Order. That's it. I am not important enough to waste Order resources being kept alive!"

Rantionality. My best weapon. Now cruelly used against me by my own daughter. I see her tear-stained cheeks, puffy eyes of someone who has not slept for 48 hours, and curse myself. Because I know on some level she is right.

"You are important to me," I confessed, low, quiet, matching the tone. For a moment my daughter's eyes open wide in shock, but I did not take back the statement. I see her take a deep breath, stand up straight, and look out the window. She slowly gripped the edge of her robes and drew them tight, just now noticing the coldness of the room.

"Perhaps to you," she said, searching for something outside the house. "But what am I to the Order? Nothing. Merely...a member's daughter."

Again, I curse myself for creating a near-duplicate of myself, so steeped in praticality, so ingrained with duty, the sense of survival of the group rather than the self. A duplicate shade. And like the shade I have sucked out the life of one so young. And for what? Nothing. One day she might have taught: she had once expressed a desire to write, perhaps research. But that was before. Now...all she thought was the now. And the finality.

"Sylvia--" I start, but do not know where to begin. It is not everyday that I am to convince young people not to kill themselves.

"Sylvia. The Headmaster has insisted upon your protection. They are merely precautions--"

"Over what? If I can't even defend myself, then I don't deserve to live!"

"This afternoon was not your fault--"

"It was! It was! If I can't survive on my own, then what use am I? Living in fear of shadows attacking me while I sleep? Having classmates strangle me on the way to class? I can't be paranoid for the rest of my life! Please!"

She turned back to the potion, and took a tankard, dipped it into the concoction. She swirled the potion with the tankard, watching the smooth green and black mix and blend, blossom and diminish. After a moment, she sets the tankard down and faced me again.

Though I had seen many looks of sorrow, of pity, of utter and complete sadness, and I had not been moved by any of them, the sight of her wretched my heart again and caused me to damn myself to hell for the creature I had brought upon this earth.

She fell to the floor, kneeling but not weeping. Still restraining herself even now. Merlin, what have I done?

Without thinking, I joined her on the floor.

"I can't do it." I hear her state to the floor. The long pause stretched before us, irritated my senses,
wore out my knees. I knew I would have a hard time when I got up. If I got up. She looked like she would stay prosterated before the moonlight forever.

"I'm so weak." she stated, as if commentation on the weather.

She suddenly beat a fist savagely on the floor, drawing energy from an unknown source, shocking my ears and for a moment looked so theatrical that I almost believed her performance--if it wasn't so familiar. She demanded perfection, and could not even attain that.

I touched her hand--cold, bare, ice. She looked up, taken out of her lament for a lost life by my unnatural touch.

"This is the coward's way out." I explained. She wiped her eyes with the hem of her robe and looked at me. I knew not how I got her audience, but I made my way across the barren unknown land of comforting her slowly.

"Life is suffering. This is a fact you must learn. Everyone goes though such a period thinking that the world is out to get them, and they natually contemplate suicide. It is normal among people your age."

"Yes," she sniffed, "but not many people my age have death threats against them, do they?"

"No, they do not. But they do suffer. Whether it be a real physical threat, or an emotional one, or even a fabricated one, they realize how hopeless life can be."

She hung her head down. I lifted her head up, beholding those glittering eyes once again, but seeing how the light shone against her hair. For a moment I wonder if anyone saw her as beautiful.

"But there is something else that experience teaches, Sylvia. That what you feel, as horrid and cancerous it is, it will.diminish. But only if you let it. Dwelling on the problem only makes things worse. You cloud your mind with emotion and raw feelings, and the mind remains in a chaotic mess, not allowing for any normal interaction with society."

"Society! Ha!" Her laughter cut into the stillness of the night. "They don't even know I exist!"

"Someone does. You exist for a reason. Something--" I paused for a moment, trying to gather words. "Something that the Headmaster has tried to teach me is that everyone has their own strengths, their own purpose. But this is what the headmaster believes. Though you are 'just someone's daughter', you are important to the Headmaster, because he values every life."

She stared at her fist for a moment. Then she looked at me disbelievingly. "You mean...there are actually people who think that way?"

"Yes," I said.

She paused. "I don't see how."

"Not yet. But you will."

"Have you?"

"No."

I stood up slowly and dusted off my robes. She followed, and though she was no happier, nor more
content, she was not despondent.

She walked over to her cauldron, picked up her wand, and with a whisper, clears the potion. She turns to me, and I don't know whether I see a little relief in her visage or merely fatigue.

"Now, go to bed." I said. She nods once, and after slipping off her shoes, climbs into bed fully clothed. I went to close her windows, one by one, and by the time I was done she was asleep.

What have I created? I pondered as I looked at her slumbering body. Unnecessary hardness, who knew if she was going to be popular, friendly, without her lifelong training courtesy of me? As much as I lamented a loss of her humanity, I wondered if it was too late for her. She's only eighteen-- after this...threat, then maybe? I did not know. But as I left her room, I felt hopeless for myself-- her idealism was as much the cause of her grief as was my idealism for mine.

Without another word, I left the room.

So it oft chances in particular men
That for some viscious mole of nature in them...
His virtues else, be they pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault.
--Hamlet

Fin.

Questions? Answers? The point? Any comments are fine. Please tell me most of all if Snape seems believable to you. That is what I'm mainly striving for in this piece.
And: I am in need of some beta readers. Please have a good command of the English language, some experience writing, and a love for an in-character Snape. Any offers, please email [email protected]

Note:
The speech Sylvia quotes, is, of course, Hamlet's famous 'to be or not to be speech'. How a wizard pureblood would know an ancient Muggle playwright is up to imagination. Maybe Shakespeare was a bit magical himself....