Eileen made her way towards the Potions classroom as if she was a prisoner trudging to her own execution. Dragging her feet, she knew that time was being wasted but who wished to be early for detention?

Still dejected from the lesson earlier, Eileen was tempted to just not go and head back towards the Gryffindor tower, but she knew that skipping would just make the matter worse and even more drawn out. She just needed to get this over as soon as possible. Gathering her courage, she knocked on the classroom door.

Professor Snape quickly appeared, gesturing her inside. "Follow me."

Eileen was surprised to hear his calm tone and quickly began walking behind him towards the door behind his teacher's desk. She was surprised she hadn't seen it earlier, although she supposed she had been distracted in class. Eileen almost tripped when Snape began talking to her.

"I am brewing a sensitive potion at the moment, so you will be serving your detention in my personal lab. Be careful and do not touch anything," he said curtly, before casting an incantation that opened the door. Then, Snape grasped her shoulder and guided her inside ahead of him.

Eileen was in awe. "This is your potions lab? It's beautiful," she exclaimed, staring at the pristine counters with several cauldrons and test tubes, and the shelves stocked with all sorts of colorful and odd potions ingredients. She saw a school desk in the corner, where she expected she would be sitting, as well as a cauldron mid brew, with steam coming out of the top. It seemed as if the brew was a solid orange color.

Snape ignored her, as he curtly stated, "At the desk, there is a parchment with the sentence 'I will not talk back to my Professors and always treat them with respect'. You will write lines for the duration of your detention. Get started."

"How many times?"

Snape had already moved back towards his potion, "What did you not understand about for the duration of your detention? The more time you waste, the more time you have to spend here Miss Snape. I would highly recommend getting started. If I find the quality of your work not to my satisfaction, then I may make you repeat this exercise tomorrow as well."

Eileen rolled her eyes, before making her way towards the desk. At least she had already finished her homework for today and could just go to bed after this.

Thirty minutes passed where the scratching of Eileen's quill and the stirring of Snape's potion were the only noise breaking the silence. Writing slowly, Eileen hated that she didn't know for how long or even how many times she would have to keep writing. She looked up to see Snape pause his stirring to grab a small beaker which he filled halfway with the orange potion. Pulling a hair from his head, Snape dropped the strand into the beaker, and Eileen observed the liquid turn into a colorless liquid with the consistency of water.

"Miss Snape, I don't hear writing."

Eileen quickly looked down at her parchment and continued from where she had stopped. She was aware that Snape was moving around with the beaker still in his hand. She heard him put something away, before making his way towards her. Looking up, she saw that he was only a foot away.

A little intimidated, but gathering up her courage, Eileen asked brassly, "May I help you?"

"Don't be cheeky," Snape responded. "I'm going pull out a strand of your hair."

Eileen wasn't sure she heard correctly. "Exscuse meOOOh? That hurt!" she exclaimed, while rubbing the back of her head from where he pulled out a stray strand.

"It was barely a pinch."

"That is so, so," Eileen didn't know how to finish her sentence. "How can you treat students this way? This behavior must be against the rules! That's physical abuse!"

Snape ignored her as he straightened out the strand and hovered it above the potion.

Eileen wanted to continue her tirade, but her curiosity got the better of her. "What is that? Why did you need a strand of my hair?"

Snape dropped it in. They both watched as the color shifted from clear to light blue. Snape gave a slight shake of his head before putting the beaker down on the counter.

"You are dismissed Miss Snape."

Eileen ignored him and instead asked, "What does light blue mean? What is this potion?"

Snape looked at her without blinking, as if contemplating whether he should answer or not.

"I have a right to know. You used my hair, for goodness sakes!"

"It is a relationship determiner. It evaluates the exact relationship between two persons."

The words sunk in slowly. Eileen sucked in a breath before slowly releasing, "And what does this color mean?"

Silence followed her question, and she dreaded what he would respond.

"Once the second strand of hair is added, the color either stays the same or changes to blue or red. Clear, obviously, means no relation at all," Severus lectured. "Blue signifies siblings, and the lighter intensity here indicates we are most likely half-siblings."

"Most likely?" she asked, hoping that what she was hearing wasn't true. This man who had just tormented her earlier today could not possibly be her brother.

"We are definitely half-siblings. The potion is highly accurate. I developed it myself."

"Oh." Eileen didn't know what else to say. She tried to wrap her head around this new information, but couldn't.

Looking to fill in the silence with something, anything, she ended up asking, "What would red have meant?"

Severus looked at her calmly, studying her, before responding simply "It would have meant that one of the persons is the parent and the other their child."

Eileen nodded, in shock and only half listening. Her mind couldn't seem to accept that they were related. And siblings! She looked at the Professor. Did they look alike? Studying his face, she realized that he looked like her father. The thought had occurred to her before as well, but she hadn't taken it seriously. Now, however, she saw clearly that they had the same nose. Her Da, however, would never have let his hair grow to this shoulder length, and he had worked outside most of the day, so his skin had never looked this pale.

She supposed that she had briefly thought that they could've been related at the Sorting Ceremony, but she had quickly put that out of her mind after the horrible potions lesson. Even if she had thought that it was possible that they were related, she would never have guessed siblings. Wouldn't her father have told her?

Where do we go from here?

Perhaps, Professor Snape had the same thought because he asked, "You are an orphan, Miss Snape?" Without waiting for her to respond, "I would be willing to be your guardian and offer my home as part of my familial duty."

Familial duty? What an odd phrase. Eileen didn't respond. She didn't even know what to say. Some family must be better than having no one, right?

Her silence didn't deter the Professor, who continued talking, "Did Tobias kick you out when he realized your magic potential?"

Eileen realized he had asked a question and tried replaying it in her head. Did she hear him correctly? "Excuse me?" she asked, unsure what he was implying.

Professor Snape elaborated, "I realize we don't know each other, but I'm sure I can offer you a more peaceful home than the orphanage and what Tobias provided. He hated my magic, and I"

Enraged and finally understanding what he was saying, Eileen shook her head. Cutting him off, she responded angrily, "I don't want to live with a horrible bully like yourself. My father was the nicest, kindest man I know. He would've never treated Harry like you did today. He was the best part of my life until he passed away, and I miss him every day. It disgusts me to know that you're related to me and my father. Who are you?"

Professor Snape looked at her, confused. "Tobias was my father as well, and he was nothing like you just described. He made my life a living hell until"

"STOP! I don't want to hear you talk! Stop it! I won't believe anything you say and I definitely don't believe this random liquid and its different colors!" Eileen interjected, unable to hear him talk ill of her father.

Here was her supposed half-brother, a connection to the father she had loved so much. A relative who was offering a home away from the orphanage, but he was nothing she wanted. This man was a brute, a monster, who was tarnishing the memories of the short time she had had with her father. Eileen felt the anger boiling inside her, rising and rising up. It felt so powerful, and she didn't believe she could control it.

Eileen heard the glass shattering before she felt it.

"Calm down, Miss Snape. No need to work yourself u"

"DON'T talk to me! I HATE you!" she yelled, stepping away from him before looking towards the door and quickly deciding to run away.

"Miss Snape! Eileen," Severus called after her as he watched her speed out of his laboratory. He looked towards where the beaker with the relationship potion, Veras Sanguis, had once stood before Eileen's accidental magic had destroyed it. He wasn't sure what happened; he supposed the last half hour had been a shock for both of them. He probably shouldn't have spoken ill of Tobias until he had heard her opinion of him, but it was hard for Severus to take the image of his father and imagine him as anything other than an alcoholic who hated magic.

Looking around the lab, Severus silently waved his wand to clean up the shattered glass. He went to move the student desk where Eileen had done her work back outside into the classroom, when he noticed that her bag with her books was still there. He knew he should return that to her; it would give them another opportunity to talk as well.

What would I even say to her? I apologize that you couldn't accept the truth? Severus knew that wouldn't go over well.

He would just take her things back to his quarters, and if he ran into any students, then he'd ask them to return it to Eileen.

Eileen had been sobbing for the last fifteen minutes and and didn't know how to stop. The tears just kept coming and the emotions inside left her feeling raw, full to the brim with useless anger and despair. She hadn't even made it out of the dungeons; she didn't want to go through the Great Hall towards the Gryffindor Tower, looking like this. Luckily, while she was running, she saw this dead-end corridor, tangent to the main hallway in the dungeons. It wasn't lit very well, making it the perfect place for her to cry her heart out. A bunch of Slytherins had already walked by down the main hallway, but no one could really see her and so they just kept walking by, which was great. The last thing she needed was for someone to bother her now.

"Snape."

Eileen closed her eyes and refused to look up at the person, hoping he'd just go away.

"Snape, you don't have to talk to me, but here's your stuff. Professor Snape told me to find you and give you your bookbag."

Eileen heard her things drop next to her feet.

"You know, crying doesn't ever really solve anything. You have to stop sooner or later, and then after you pull yourself together, you still have to deal with whatever made you cry in the first place."

Eileen considered what he said. Taking a minute to just breathe in and out, she wiped away her tears before looking up at him from her spot on the ground.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Draco Malfoy," he smirked. "No need to ask who you are. Miss Eileen Snape - a recklessly brave Gryffindor, who stood up to the scariest Professor of Hogwarts just this morning, but is now crying as meekly as a mouse in the dungeons. You might want to hurry up and make your way back to your tower. The Slytherins down here can be quite mean when they want to be."

She watched him leave, absorbing everything he had said. Eileen sat there another minute, before getting up and gathering her bag.