"The Phoenix and the Raven"
a post-final battle fanfic by Seventia Snape
Chapter One, "Awakening"
He opened his eyes. Pain, and more pain. Cruciatus curse. Sectumsempra. Rictumsempra. He could identify each and every curse that had touched his body. Finally, his vision cleared, and he found himself laying in a bed in a sumptously decorated room decorated with scarlet and gold.
Gryffindor, he mentally groaned, staring at the bed hangings and the banners on the walls. Was this what the Gryffindor common room looked like? But no, how could that be? He'd never seen a common room so well decorated, ever.
Oh gods, is it over? Am I in hell? But once again, no. Even with the pain he was in, both from his wounds and from the colors on the walls, he knew that he must really be alive.
What happened to me? He thought frantically. What happened to everyone else? As he gazed from one photograph to the next one halfhazardly scattered on the wall, there were no faces he recognized, save for one portrait of a tall, very elderly man with a long white beard. Dumbledore. But he's gone. He can't help me now.
He tried to move his limbs, to start working out a way of escape, but they wouldn't obey his orders. He then tried to use his voice, but that also failed. As a test, he performed a quick non-verbal spell in the direction of the scattered photographs. Alignate, he willed the wall of annoyingly crooked portraits. The smaller ones wiggled almost unnoticeably, but the wall remained in it's crooked state. Groaning once again, this time managing to force a small sound from the back of his throat, he dropped his head back onto the pillow.
Suddenly, his vision was filled by a small pointed face that was host to a rather strong freckled nose and a small pair of pursed lips. But it was the eyes that caught his attention. Large, lushly lashed red-brown eyes with a merry twinkle in them. And then a curl of her hair fell onto his face. Fiery golden red curls that smelled of flowers and herbs and fresh tilled earth fell all around her face as she bent over him, gazing into his eyes with a look of wonder and concern on her face. She was a startling looking woman, no denying that, but so obviously the sort of Gryffindor princess that he heartily despised with all of his heart. As she stood up, he noticed the red and gold scarf coiled around her throat, and the long black robes that she was removing were lined with scarlet silk. Obviously a woman of taste and means, despite the crooked portraits, which by now he was holding a rather intense grudge against.
"Well, if he hasn't come around finally. Not like taking care of you for the past three years was particularly difficult for me, but I'll be relieved when I'm not changing bedpans for you anymore", she sang out as she performed a quick spell, removing an intravenous needle from his left hand, "now that you're awake, let's get you sitting up perhaps." The woman continued scurrying around the bed with an efficiency that he couldn't help but notice even while he was panicking. Three years?!? What's happened to me? Are they going to kill me now that they've captured me?
Not yet, a voice suddenly sang inside his head. I generally prefer to torture my prisoners a little bit before I finish them off.
He let out a yell of startlement and fury as the voice hit his consciousness. He quickly built mental wards around every part of his mind and hid behind them, feeling no remorse even as a wary look creeped into the large eyes that stared at him curiously.
"Where am I? Why can't I move? What's happened?" His voice suddenly croaked at her, breaking out from the shock of the moment. "Who the hell are you?"
"Nice to meet you too, good sir," she snapped, "You're in the sitting room of my home, which is located in Hogwarts Castle. You can't move because you've been cursed right down to your fingernails, and what's happened will have to wait until you've eaten something. My name is Siobheann, and if it weren't for me you'd be lying face down in a mass grave in the forbidden forest, so I'd be a little more courteous if I were you, especially considering that I saved your sorry life." Her eyes blazed and her skin had gone pale as the moon. Gods, but the little Gryffindor is fierce, he found himself thinking. A real tigress. And very fiesty for such a small tigress. Now that his shields were up, the tigress in question had no reason to sink her claws into him for his impertinent thoughts thankfully, as she looked fully capable of doing so.
"Alright, I'm going to help you sit up, then I'm going to try to unbind your joints. I'll try not to hurt you," she said, with a malicious twinkle in her eyes, "here we go, then."
She was suddenly behind him, and her arms were wrapped around his torso, closer than a woman had ever been to him in longer than he cared to remember, plus the three years lost. After five minutes' struggle, he was sitting up, and she was pulling a serviceable looking wand out of her sleeve, skimming it over his body while seeming to almost sing out the spells in a low, soothing voice. He felt a bit of pain and then a healing warmth spreading through every joint, and before he could flex his fingers she had one of his legs in a strong grip. He let out a yell of surprise and pulled the limb out of her hands, glaring at her with all the ferocity he could muster in his weakened state.
"Oh for merlin's sake, man, I was just trying to get your limbs used to movement again, nothing else, " she snarled, "but go ahead and do it yourself, you big ninny!"
Feeling a little foolish, he massaged each joint slowly, and then very haltingly rose from the bed, and followed the retreating tigress as she stalked to the kitchen, his hands grasping every piece of furniture along the way for support.
"I do apologize for bellowing at you like that, but I have seen worse than you could ever imagine and the experience has left me a little jumpy, not to mention the fact that all I know about you is your name and the house you belong to here." He slumped into a chair and gratefully recieved the bowl of thin porridge that she slid towards him, having used Leglimency on her and finding that she hadn't poisoned it.
"You know nothing of what I have experienced, sir, and you won't be scolding me in my own home. And by the way, I've decided that I don't particularly want to be on first-name basis with you, so you can call me Professor Dewar or just Dewar, for short. Now, to answer your question, the year of the final battle, I was a sixth year in Gryffindor, and I fought in the last battle too. Have a peek at this!" And at that statement, she lifted her arm and turned it over so he could see the white scars and a Dark Mark curling around the dainty wrist. He jumped in shock, staring at her in fear as his worst nightmares came to the surface again, along with images of killing, and rape, and deadly evil. Evil that he'd tried to escape for the past 20, no, 23 years. He backed up against one of the stone walls, expecting any moment to be struck down...
"Relax," she said in a weary grumble, "that sign wasn't placed there willingly. Bellatrix Lestrange gave me that by force. Can't remove it no matter what I do," she sighed, her voice seeming to break a little, "I hate it with all my heart, and it's a cross I've been bearing for the past four years. Thankfully, Headmistess McGonagall hired me on and gave me a home after the Ministry used Veritaserum and discovered the truth about it. Even with that proof nobody else would. So I teach here during the days and when I'm not teaching, I'm here trying to get this damn mark off my wrist and taking care of you. They thought you were dead, you know. But I found you, two days after the battle, when I was looking for my father."
Her eyes seemed to take on a hard gleam, and she grimaced as she held her head in her hands. "They decided to let me try to revive you when I proved that your heart was still beating. They've been hoping that I would succeed. I was beginning to think that I wouldn't. The IV drip was Wakeless Night, a little concoction of my own devising that allows me to work on patients without them regaining consciousness. I charmed the drip to stop when your heart rate sped up to that of a conscious man. You see, unlike Dreamless Sleep, Wakeless Night will allow you to awaken once your body is ready to take the remaining pain. It was Harry, really, who convinced them to let me try."
"Potter lives?" he asked, surprise radiating from his features, along with relief, "but what about Vol-"
" Oh , taken care of. Harry finally took him down. But he wouldn't have been able to do it if it hadn't been for Neville," she suddenly sang, dreamily, "he beheaded that ghastly snake of the Dark Lord's, using Gryffindor's own sword!" The fervour in her eyes was quite something to behold, and despite this tale of daring Gryffindor bravery, he had a hard time picturing Neville Longbottom being so heroic, and then finding himself trailed by females as glorious as this one, for even as he found himself mistrusting her, he had to admit that she was stunning. If only she'd get that sappy look out of her eyes though, damn it. She looked like a bloody cat in heat.
Finally snapping out of her trance, she recounted the rest of the facts to him as he ate, and then explained that she would wait 'till he had regained enough strength before summoning the headmistress and the rest of the staff to come and see him.
"So what exactly do you teach, and why do you still wear student robes if you're a professor?" He found himself impatient with her youthful appearance, the slim legs stemming from under the perilously short skirt...
"I teach potions, and I handle all of the potionwork for the hospital wing. I passed my N.E.W.T.s and then went on to an apprenticeship under Slughorn, and he ended up passing me his job so that he could finally retire in peace. Good riddance, the man was such a baffoon." She tucked a loose curl behind her ear as she sat down with her cup of tea, "I wear my students robes because they still fit, and it's Saturday, so I'm not teaching today."
This creature taught potions??? She couldn't be anywhere near old enough to teach, especially since he'd never seen her in his life!"
"You've probably never seen me. I was at Durmstrang before my sixth year. My guardians sent me there because they thought I'd be safer if I were further away from the Dark Lord. It wasn't that safe, really, but I learnt to fight there."
He could only imagine. He had visited Durmstrang once, and he'd never seen such a raucous bunch in his life. He was surprised that such a beauty even survived among those barbarians. Even with her fierce demeanor, she seemed so small and delicate. Not the type of girl you would send to Durmstrang, no matter how far away from the Dark Lord it may take her.
"I know who you are, you know," she suddenly stated, her eyes gazing levelly into his.
"How long until you give me up to the headmistress, princess?" He suddenly demanded, glaring into her calm eyes.
"I was thinking a few weeks should do it. Get you eating normally so you can stomach all the attention. She and the other teachers are the only ones who know that you're alive. I don't know what you intend to do, but if I were you, I'd stay here, get all the fuss over with, then retire somewhere where it's quiet. You look a bit worn."
"I'll have you know that I'm nearly forty-five, and I have earned my worn appearance, let me tell you. Besides that, what's a mere girl of 19 to tell me what to do?"
"I'm twenty, you great lug!"
"I don't care. You're a bossy little thing and I'll be glad to be out of your care. Now, am I to continue hiding away until you're ready to release me?"
"Yes. And the sooner the better!"
"That's enough, girl, you should show a little more respect to your betters. Please be so kind as to remember that."
"Respecting the ancient, more like."
"I'll have no more of your saucy tone, Miss Dewar. Be so kind as to fetch me all the old copies of the Daily Prophet as you can get your hands on. I intend to speak to you as little as possible while I catch up on current events."
"You can't order me around!"
"If you don't do as I say, I will make your life even more miserable than it already is."
"Impossible!" she suddenly screamed, throwing her empty teacup at him. "It's bad enough that I've tended you for three years with no thanks at all, and now you're treating me like an errand boy! You aren't even worth all the effort! And to think that I'd been anxiously looking forward to meeting you too!" She then burst into tears and ran out of the room.
He stood up and within three long strides was in the sitting room again. He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him. "Yes, you are completely right, I haven't thanked you yet. My deepest apologies. Allow me to thank you now." She looked up at him defiantly, her eyes still blazing with tears and fire. "Thank you for saving my life. You now own a life debt from me. But I must ask you another favour, and I will ask more gently this time. I have been unconscious for three years. I need to know all that has happened so that I can rejoin the world a little more easily and safely. Can you help me with that?"
She nodded, wiping tears away from her eyes quietly. He suddently felt an unbelievable urge to pull her into his arms and shelter her. She seemed so small and vulnerable at the moment, every bit as much in need as he was. But then he shook himself mentally. What's gotten into you? Thinking of such a thing! She's just a girl, and obviously a very silly one, to be infatuated with Mr. Longbottom. Just get your information and get the hell out of here!
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" He heard himself asking, for while he'd been berating himself, he's slightly heard her ask something.
"I said, what am I to call you, sir?" She was being far more respectful now, and he felt himself soften a little bit, but then he whipped himself up straight, and said, "Why you should call me Professor of course, ridiculous girl. Professor Severus Snape."