The ballad of Serapes The hospital was quiet save the occasional beeping of a patient’s monitor, a couple moans from the ill, and the clack of Sophie’s heels against the tile hallway floor. She tried not to look into the rooms, but when she could not avoid it, she found them mostly empty. And that was good, she supposed; less patients meant that, overall, people were currently healthy. That was a positive. But less patients meant less guests, which meant less people in the hallway. Being the only living soul in an unsettlingly white and narrow hall, winding with turns as the numbers kept increasing while none were her destination, was more than a little disconcerting.
After a final turn, the hallway was less empty; ahead of her she could see another visitor, and a tall, familiar one at that. “Dad!” she called, her steps accelerating to reach her soon. Jacob Jamison’s head popped up, and he met her a few steps away from the door deemed 283, the one they sought, currently shut. She hugged him quickly. “What’s going on? Is he okay?”
“He had a stroke,” her father answered, an arm remaining on her shoulder, guiding her closer to the door. “The Healers said he’s extremely young for that, so they wanted to run more tests. There’s one in there with him now, and she needed to have him alone for a bit. But I have to get going anyway, I was just waiting for you to get here. Didn’t want him to be alone.” Jacob kissed the top of his daughter’s head. “Think you can manage?”
“Yeah, go,” she said, waving him away. She gave him another quick hug before he was off, disappearing into the same winding white hallway from which she had just arrived. Now alone save for the Healer’s station ahead, Sophie leaned against the wall, waiting for the door to open.
***
A month before Sophie’s fifth birthday, a very bad thing happened.
She didn’t really understand what was going on, but she could tell that something was wrong. Mum had a weird look in her eye. It was a look Sophie had seen before, and in ever-increasing frequency in the last few months, ever since the baby went away. But it had never been like this before. It was like her mum wasn’t quite… there.
Mum asked Sophie to go into the kitchen for a minute, her voice as soft as always but somehow less melodic. It wasn’t good to backtalk parents, so she went. But it was just them in the house, with Daddy working late, so even there, she could hear what was happening. She thought she heard Mum say something about needing someone to pick Sophie up. Which was strange, since Mum was here with her. It was not as if she needed an adult. Then Sophie heard another voice, that of her godfather, Serapes. Excited for his company, she hurried back toward the living room.
But when she got there, it was just Mum. And Mum was not right. There was a powdery mess before the fireplace suggesting Floo had been hastily and messily used, and Mum stood beside it. Sophie leaned nervously in the doorway. Mum raised her wand, murmuring something.There was a flash so bright it hurt her eyes, so she squeezed them shut.
When she opened her eyes, Mum was on the ground.
“...Mum?” called Sophie quietly. “Mummy?!” Something told her that things were very, very bad, and she ran to her mother’s side. She tugged and shook and cried, but nothing made her mum wake up.
Just then, the fireplace swirled a bright green, and Serapes was there, narrowly avoiding stepping on Sophie. There was an urgent look on his pale face, his dark eyebrows knit together. He didn’t seem to notice her or Mum, so Sophie tugged on his pant leg, looking up at him through teary blue eyes. “Mum fell down!” she exclaimed. Serapes fell quickly to Mum’s other side. “I can’t wake her up! There was a light and then she fell down!”
Serapes looked slowly between the two blondes. He put a bony finger to Mum’s throat, but he looked like he knew what he would find. Then he stood, and he scooped Sophie up in his long arms and tried to take her somewhere else. At first she held on to her mum’s arm, pulling it with her, making her mum lift slightly until Serapes noticed. “You have to let go, Sophia,” he said with gentle firmness. “I will take care of this, I promise you, but you need to let go of her.”
Her little fingers released her mum’s arm, and even as he carried her out the front door, she wailed and wailed. She curled into his chest, confused, afraid, and in desperate need of her mum.
***
As far as she was concerned, Serapes was her dad. Jacob Jamison, of course, was her father, but she had been blessed enough to have multiple dads in her life. Ileum, her father, and Serapes had all filled that role for her, and in fact at times had to fill the role of mother as well. She loved them all with every inch of her heart, but it was for Serapes whom she mostly worried lately. Her father had Tabby and Tommy now, and Ileum had Liz and their son Theo. But Serapes was alone. He had always been alone.
The door opened, and the Healer immerged. “How is he?” Sophie asked immediately, the words springing from her before she had a chance to prepare herself for the myriad of possible responses. Serapes could be fine. Or he could be dying. She was not ready to lose him.
“We don’t know anything definitive yet,” the Healer answered, patting her shoulder. “But you can see him now. I have a feeling you’re the one he’s been waiting on.” With that, the Healer went on with her day, headed off to her next patient.
Sophie swallowed, afraid of both the idea of seeing him and not seeing him. He was not very old, only in his mid-forties, and wizards were supposed to age more slowly than Muggles. So why was he so damaged? What would become of him now?
***
“Serapes, play tea-party with me!” demanded the recently-christened five year old. She poured her plastic tea set into the floor and began to sort through the various items it involved. “Play with me pleaaaase!”
“If I must,” he answered with a small nod. Serapes was a tall, leggy man, but he managed to fit himself in one of Sophie’s little chairs, his long legs crammed between him and the small table. Sophie pulled up two more chairs, sitting in one and leaving the other unoccupied.
Then she set out three plates and began to pour into three teacups. “For whom is the third place?” Serapes inquired good-naturedly. He did not mean to criticize her, merely to discover her thought-process. He always asked her questions. It was fun.
“That’s for Mum,” she said happily, although something in her tone suggested that he should have known the answer. “When she wakes up, I want her tea to be ready too. When is Mum going to wake up?”
Serapes returned his plastic cup to the table before gently taking the pot out of Sophie’s hand and putting it down as well. Then he wrapped his large hands around her tiny ones and looked at her very seriously. “Sophia, your mother…” There was a pause. “She is not going to wake back up.”
“Wh-what do you mean?” She was visibly taken aback by this suggestion, her hands slipping out of his as she stole them back to her. “But you said you would take care of it! You promised!”
She was crying, and there was a clear thread of her getting up and running somewhere, anywhere, to get away from not only the suggestion but also its contributor. But before she could move, Serapes enveloped her, holding her tightly to his chest. “Shhhh.” His hand lightly slid across her, its movement limited by the fact that it was nearly as big as the whole of her back. “I will take care of you, Sophia. Your mother is not coming back, but you will be okay.”
“I want my Mummy,” she cried, muffled by his jacket.
“I know.”
***
She had never seen him look so weakened. Serapes was a bony man to begin with, but he seemed so slender that he poked out in entirely new ways. His face was somewhat hollowed, and, she noticed for the first time, at the top of his head, much of his hair was now growing in grey, as opposed to the jet blackness of the ends against his neck and shoulders.
“Hey,” she called gently, stepping closer to him. Sophie positioned herself on the edge of his bed. His hand reached for hers, and she gladly took it, although its coldness overwhelmed her. Though many considered Serapes a cold man in a variety of ways, he had always been warm with her. This applied both physically and emotionally.
His grey eyes looked up at her, desperate for something. She could not say what. His mouth twitched as if he wanted to speak, but no noise came out. Sophie knew that sometimes after a stroke, speech and communication could be challenging if not impossible, so she hushed him softly. “You don’t have to say anything,” she smiled weakly. “I’m here, okay? I’ll take care of you.”
He gazed fixedly into her eyes, a bright blue that used to decorate her mother, before he caught on the necklace she wore. His free hand pointed shakily at the locket. Sophie clasped it nervously. “It was Mum’s,” she stated, but she got the feeling that he knew that. “I just got it from Liz the other day. She said Mum asked her to give it to me when I was old enough. I guess she’d forgotten she had it until recently.”
“Saralynn….” He said her name very slowly and with clear effort. Sophie released the locket, allowing him to touch it as it seemed to mean so much to him. When he tapped it just right, it opened, and a small vial fell onto the bed beside him.
“...I couldn’t get it to open before,” she stated, dumbfounded, as she picked up the vial. Serapes gazed at her with his mouth slightly ajar, although he did not seem to notice anything beside the locket itself. She slid the vial into her pocket unnoticed.
Sophie took back her other hand for just long enough to take off the necklace. “Here, you can hold onto it,” she said. “And I’ll be right here beside you.” He took up most of his bed, but Sophie was gifted with overall tininess, so she laid beside him, curled up against his chest. She closed her eyes and tried to enjoy his warm presence in her life, but above her, Serapes stared at the locket the way one might stare at a loved one lost by time.
***
When she was fifteen, her father had vanished. Jacob Jamison had, the November before her birthday, gone and disappeared without a trace. And when she came home over the summer, he had not yet resurfaced. And while she was old enough to attend herself for hours or even perhaps days at a time, she could not be without a guardian for any extended amount of time.
Thus Serapes had moved in. It was kind of him to volunteer to reside in the Jamison estate as opposed to Sophie moving in with him. Not to say that she had any problem with his home, but given his profession kept him away from it nine months of the year, his home was a compilation of minimums, whereas the Jamison home was luxurious and overstocked. Plus it was her home. At such a strange and frightening time, it was good to have some shred of normalcy in her life.
Ileum picked her up from the wagon and brought her home, and then, until he returned toward the end of the summer, she was with Serapes. He was so different than the man the rest of the world assumed he was. He was incredibly different from what even her father or Ileum thought of him. Serapes and Ileum had never been friends, really, only co-godfathers. so his opinion was unfavorable. And while Jacob and Serapes were clearly good friends, Sophie could tell that he did not know him as deeply. Not the way Sophie knew him.
Serapes was good to her. He was attentive and kind. And while she was easily the chattier of the two, sometimes she didn’t even have to speak for him to understand her. When she was frightened or confused, he kept her calm. He always had, because he knew her too. And until that summer, she had, to an extent, taken him for granted. After it, she knew for certain just how lucky she was to have a man like Serapes in her life.
***
With the promise of tomorrow’s return, Sophie went home. She spent time with her husband and their boys, and she tried to appreciate the little things. Sometimes when she looked at Ryan, she was terrified she would lose him, that the Jamison curse (each generation, a spouse and parent lost, taken by their own wand) would stretch onto them and she would be alone. But not alone, because she would have two little boys without a dad. Two little boys she dearly loved and could not stand to watch grow up that way.
After the boys were in bed, Sophie paid thought to the small vial in her pocket. She had left the necklace itself with Serapes, unsure of his connection to it but convinced it could help with his recovery. But the vial was with her, in her pocket, now in her fingers, silver-blue something swirling behind the glass.
It came to her all at once. What was inside the vial. Its significance. The locket. It all made sense. She just had to be sure.
Sophie rushed to find her Pensieve. It was buried beneath a few other items in her potions supply area, but it was there, clean and unoccupied by thoughts. She did not use it, preferring to keep her memories in her head where they were useful. But she owned a Pensieve. It was her mother’s.
She uncorked the vial and directed its contents with the tip of her wand, her mother’s wand, dragging the swirl into the Pensieve. Briefly, she was incapacitated by the thought that this exact moment with these exact tools had to have occurred in the past, the only variable the person who held the strings.
When something tangible formed in the mists, she chased it.
***
Saralynn White and Serapes Nevus were nine and ten years old, respectively. They were playing, smiling, laughing. Happy children with bright futures.
The children laughing were replaced quickly by teenagers, the boy clad in green and grey, the girl in blue and copper, tokens of their Houses at Hogwarts. They were a year apart, but Serapes towered over the tiny blonde beside him. There was a look in his eye that Sophie did not recall ever seeing, except perhaps in passing when she was too young to notice.
Everything was a blur until suddenly it wasn’t, and the screeching halt almost rocked her off of her feet. Sara sat on a park bench, with Serapes standing behind, leaning on the back. “It’s beautiful,” she marveled, holding up a golden locket. “But it isn’t my birthday. What’s it for?”
“Just… because,” he answered. But something was wrong. Even in his teenage days, Serapes had the same body language, and Sophie could tell. He was holding something back. Something big.
Sara turned and looked up at him. “Serapes…” she began, her voice as soft and melodic as Sophie always remembered. It was strange to see her so young, so alive. Sara placed her hand on top of Serapes’s, and he seemed affected by her soft skin, but in a moment, something changed on his face.
He saw a ring.
“Is that….?”
“Jacob and I are getting married,” Sara stated. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. “After I graduate.” Serapes pulled away, walking in front of her. “I love him, Serapes. And he loves me.”
“I know,” he returned, a forced coldness to his voice. “I just wish you did not.” He spun on his heels, collapsing to his knees once he faced her. “You know how I feel about you, Sara. I’ve loved you since we were children! I want you and Jacob to happy, but I wish that could be separately. I always hoped… that you might love me. One day.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t.” Sara was incredibly blunt, but it somehow sounded sweet coming from her. She seemed like the type of person it was difficult to ever be angry with, her beauty and gentility too overwhelming to maintain any disgruntlement against her. “You have been kind to me, Serapes, and I care about you deeply. I really do. It simply is not… in that way.”
“I want you to be in our lives,” she added, reaching out and taking his hands. “You’re easily one of Jacob’s best friends. And you’re mine as well. We need you.”
“But what about me?” he demanded, pulling his hands away. “You expect me to watch the two of you live out your fairy-tale while I smile and throw rose pedals on the sidewalks? You’ll kill me!”
He stood and began to walk away. “Do you want this back?” she called timidly.
“Keep it,” he said, and he was gone.
Except he wasn’t; there were more memories. The wedding. Sophie’s birth. Her christening. Her childhood. Saxon’s birth. His christening. His death. But that was the last entry before Sophie was tossed back into the real world.
***
“He loved her,” she gasped to herself when she came out. And she saw him try to walk away, but he loved her so deeply that he could not leave. Sophie glanced back down at the swirling memories in the Pensieve, her own face reflected back at her by the topmost waves. Beneath it, lined up almost precisely, she saw her mother. The resemblance was striking.
Sophie honestly felt a bit guilty for toting around her mother’s appearance, waving it in the face of all of her loved ones for this many years. But she felt a deeper understanding of and connection to her godfather. It was no accident how deeply he loved her, she could now see; she was the daughter that, in another universe, may well have been his.