Written by Mierzeja, translated from Polish by Andromeda Mirtle, proof-read by Alchomik.
…
AMNESIA
Bellatrix coughed. She felt a taste of plaster in her mouth.
She opened her eyes, not sure what she was going to see.
Cold floorboards were covered with a thick layer of grayish dust. Rests of furniture were lying all around.
For a moment she contemplated the game of solar beams in broken fragments of a laboratory set, accompanied by a strangely high-pitched sound which seemed to be drilling into her brain. She tightened a grip on her wand. The memory of the last couple of minutes emerged from a pale blue mist, and that didn't make her feel better. She shoved her hair from her forehead and lifted herself on her elbows, analyzing the stimuli that were reaching her with some delay. She coughed again and swept her mouth with a sleeve, hoping to get rid of the disgusting taste. The sleeve was almost as dirty as the floor and Lestrange managed only to get a grayish line reaching from the corner of her mouth to her left ear.
And everything had seemed to be going like clockwork, but that alone should have alarmed her. Usually every plan of the Lord needed some modifications during its implementation. Bellatrix didn't mind some unexpected trouble – she could get a considerable amount of pleasure from solving it.
This time there hadn't been any member of the Order of the Phoenix to be seen, when they apparated in front of the door. The alchemist answered the door, hearing a familiar voice. He was surprised that there were two people instead of one on his straw doormat.
She was faster. Before he managed to put two and two together, she casted the Imperius Curse on him. He struggled, but not much. She was feeling great – she could tell him to do anything; the moment of power was more satisfying than the whole married life.
Snape rudely pushed her inside, commenting loudly on her "display of recklessness", he locked the door carefully, and sat comfortably on a couch, smiling indulgently. She couldn't stand him. He treated her like a child and in addition he twisted his thin lips, as if he knew that she hated it. She felt a strong urge to ignore the Lord's orders for a moment and try something Unforgivable on a hateful physiognomy of Severus Snape.
As if she had a bad feeling about it, she made the alchemist give both vials that he had taken from a hiding place to the Hogwart's Potion Master. As soon as they got to Snape's hand, the hell broke out. An unidentified spell threw people and furniture all around the room. Severus flew over the back of the couch, was raised up, and he finished his voyage near a heavy commode on the opposite side of the room.
'Serves you right' thought Bella a moment before she hit the wall and the world went out.
She rose up a bit shakily and looked around. The alchemist was dead. She didn't ever have to come closer and check – living people usually have more blood inside.
She spotted one foot of Severus, sticking out from underneath the rests of the commode.
'Wingardium Leviosa' she murmured.
Kilogrammes of wooden splinters and metal ferrules rose, revealing a shabby Death Eater. For a moment she hoped that Snape had got what he undoubtedly deserved. A cursory examination showed though, that he was still alive. Bella sighed. He got out of it with minimal damage – over the left ear he had a plum-size bump and a small stream of blood was flowing from between his clenched fingers.
Lestrange was undoubtedly disappointed – not only did he survive, but also he seemed to have avoided any serious injury. She opened the fingers of his left palm. One of the vials was broken and a glass splinter was sticking deep in the flesh. The second one was untouched. Bellatrix raised it to the light. The liquid inside was turbidly green. She wiped the vial carefully and put it into her pocket. For a moment she wondered, if she should leave Snape alone, but the Dark Lord seemed to have had some plans concerning his Potion Master. Although he hadn't even mentioned it.
'Snape' she snapped, hearing footsteps outside. The prospect of teleporting Severus didn't appeal to her.
…
Bella thought that bringing Snape to a usable condition was going to take a couple of minutes at most. The cuts on the inside of his palm only looked nasty – to do away with them you need just one spell, and a compress of a murtlap is going to help get rid of the bump.
She couldn't be more wrong.
And the Dark Lord was angry, that his sharp hawk had suffered. He hid the vial into a jewel case, locked it and put a spell on it. Lestrange didn't know, what spell it was, because the Lord just touched the lid with his wand, and the lock glittered for a moment. In addition, she was told to let Him know immediately, if Snape awoke.
She hated this kind of situations. She hated not knowing things. The Dark Lord had a plan concerning Severus and this vial, and she had no idea, what it was! But she was His most faithful servant! It was her, not Snape, who had spent these years in Azkaban, while his service gained him a noble position of the Head of the House!
She was boiling with anger, and additionally she was disturbed by a thought that the Dark Lord apparently trusted Snape and entrusted him with a mission she had no idea about.
She sat down on a chair, which she had moved away from a bed. Maybe the Lord had told her to take care of Snape, but nobody could force her to show any warm feelings. Especially that at the moment this unwanted guest was lying in a four-posted bed in one of the guest apartments in Malfoy Manor.
She hated Snape both at school and in adulthood. At school he seemed to be a person who knew more than others and who didn't intend to share his knowledge, what surely would provoke Potter and his gang. As a graduate of Hogwart's he would only smile with indulgence – he wouldn't comment on nonsense pronounced by other people and would be extremely polite. For some unknown reasons, in his presence she felt as if she was a child at school examined in front of the whole class.
His professional habits must have been influencing his private life as well – he would watch his interlocutor very carefully, as if he was looking for inconsistencies in everything they said; he wouldn't interrupt to ask a question, instead he would wait to the end of (usually rather dubious) argument. He wouldn't be a very active disputant, and that usually confused his potential opponents and almost gave them neurosis.
And he wouldn't show any excessive enthusiasm. He wouldn't show any feelings at all. Sometimes Bella had an impression that it wasn't just a usual self-control, rationality or cold blood. Snape was like a glacial erratic covered with frost – there was almost nothing that could get on his nerves. Bella wished she could relieve herself, but calling Severus names wouldn't do the trick even if he was conscious.
What's worse, he would react unlike other people – the more angry he was, the colder he became. Of course, this rule didn't apply to young Potter. The Boy Who Lived was well capable of pissing off a saint, and you would never call Snape a saint.
She looked up and met with an inquiring gaze of his black eyes. Snape looked as if he was a victim of an accident, who still was in a state of complete shock. A wound dressing had moved slightly from the injury, and his face was as pale as the bandage.
'Finally!' Bella started up from the chair, inspired by a thought of not having to babysit the Potion Master any more. 'You are to meet the Dark Lord. He's waiting for you.'
Severus blinked, as if his eyes were adapting to new lightning conditions.
'Joking aside, please. Playing a poor orphan doesn't impress me and it's not like you, Snape.'
'Snape?' he asked, as if tasting the word.
'His lordship Snape, if you wish' Bella wasn't going to be polite. 'Get up. The longer the Dark Lord waits, the angrier he gets.' So do I, she added in her thought.
Snape blinked once more, rose on his elbows and asked with a slightly hoarse voice:
'Who the hell are you?'
…
Narcissa was sitting in an armchair and pretending that her full attention was devoted to reading a book in a brown leather cover. The fact that she was holding it upside down was just a meaningless detail. As well as her bleary eyes.
Really! She expected something better from her sister! A long marriage with a Death Eater should have made her ready for every situation. And she, instead of being happy that her husband is not around, was sobbing like a donkey. She devoted whole days to this fascinating hobby. Fortunately, Draco couldn't see this. Sending the "heir" away for a two-week holiday at the sea was a perfect solution. In her mind, Bella congratulated herself on this idea.
Fortunately, she didn't mention that the Dark Lord wanted to meet Draco. 'Tit for tat' he said. Bella thought that the exchange wasn't very fair. But she didn't tell Narcissa about the Lord's intentions – especially that an outburst of hysteria was in the air.
'Cissy, look at you.' She tried to make her voice sound soft. 'You have to bring him to St. Mungo's.'
'Why me, not you?' Malfoy slammed the book shut.
'Because, my dear, I'm not going to go back to Azkaban.'
She said the forbidden word. Narcissa burst out crying. Bella, without further ado, jerked her out of the armchair, pushed her into the bathroom, slammed the door shut and leaned against the cold wood.
'Get ready. You are to look like a Black girl.'
After a while, she heard the noise of running water. She wasn't going to let her sister totally fall into pieces. The allergy to the word 'Azkaban' was beginning to bore her. Narcissa reacted, as if in a moment she was going to be put there herself, and when she was asked, why she was behaving like that, she answered, that it was because of the suffering of the prisoners, especially her husband.
What suffering? After all, since dementors left the island, there was nothing frightening out there. Lestrange yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. Her sister sometimes showed some inexplicable and unhealthy empathy.
She didn't dare to say it out loud, that Lucius hadn't yet got what he deserved.
After a quarter she opened the door. Narcissa, with a resentful face, was leaning against a wall, which was paved with some undoubtedly expensive and antique tiles. Strands of her wet hair were stuck, reaching her waist. She seemed not to be aware that the dampness was slowly overcoming the layer of her soft white dressing-gown.
'Don't be moody' she advised coldly. Malfoy passed her by in silence and sat down at the dressing table. 'I don't want you to do something that exceeds your capabilities. Yes, I could send him with your house elf, but that would also be suspicious…'
'And maybe you will also cast Imperius on me.' Narcissa knocked over a bottle of perfume, trying to reach for a hairbrush.
'I'd rather you didn't make me to do it.' Bella pushed her sister's hand aside and, having gripped the hairbrush, she stood behind her back. 'I would then be very sorry.'
Narcissa mumbled something incomprehensible.
Lestrange ignored this explicit provocation and started to comb the wet cloak of blond hair. Her sister was moody, and on the floor underneath, behind a door secured with three different spells, there was Severus Snape with a massive hole in his memory. The hole with all his memories inside.
The noon had just passed, and it seemed that the rest of the day was going to be equally full of interesting events.
…
Bellatrix put another pile of books on a table in the library. Her internal voice was telling her, that she wouldn't find anything useful about the green potion here. Probably it was right. If the potion had been invented, and its formula published, the Dark Lord wouldn't have plotted to steal it, he would have told Snape to prepare it.
But it wouldn't do any harm to check. After all, she didn't have anything to do while Narcissa was absent. Maybe it's one of the "987 Forbidden Potions" – she reached for the tome and started leafing through it. She didn't have a clue, what the greenish liquid could be used for. The Lord had already achieved the state of immortality, so what else could he wish for? Children? Bella shook her head. No. That was a very stupid idea. Children mean heirs, who are needless, if you are going to live forever. Additionally, the will to have children would be an evidence of having some feelings, and the Lord didn't have any. She leaned back on her chair, wondering, if she hadn't hit her head too hard as well.
Children.
Where had actually that ridiculous idea come from? Children… Little monsters that keep screaming, crying, running around, not letting you sleep and they demand that you should buy them a new broomstick servicing mini-kit. You have to take care of them, buy them clothes, play gobstones with them, and teach them the unbelievable number of things. It's actually surprising, that some people can handle it… And they do it voluntarily… and they have more than one brat! For instance, let's take this horde of Weasleys…
Bella stood up and decided to drink something. Preferably something with a lot of ice. A sudden awakening of her maternal instinct made her even more angry.
In the kitchen, she dived into the depths of the fridge, having sent the house elf away. To make things worse, she didn't find any strong liquors. There was only a bottle of milk on a middle shelf. Getting more and more angry, Lestrange slammed the door shut.
…
Narcissa was surprised by the impertinence of the healer. A twenty-five-year-old with tousled hair had just told her that because of her tardiness the patient might have irrevocably lost his memories.
'That's impertinence!' she thought.
'I'm not asking how the trauma happened, but you should have come to us instantly. Sometimes the symptoms show up only after two or three hours.'
'But…'
'I know that you will take it as a proof that all the healers are paranoid, but I would immediately take my friend to the emergency department, if she had an accident of that kind.'
'So what am I supposed to do?' she asked with a shaky voice. She didn't even have to put much effort into achieving such a result – she just had to think about Lucius for a moment.
'I'd recommend patience.' The young man apparently didn't expect such a reaction from a proud Mrs. Malfoy. 'In half of the cases the lost memories come back quite quickly, during the first three weeks. In 87% cases practically everything comes back. The next 10% get back enough memories to live in a normal way.' He paused. 'That leaves us with 3% whose state doesn't improve.'
'Is Severus…'
'Your friend, madam…' Narcissa didn't have any doubts that the word 'friend' was used in this second meaning. 'At the moment, your friend doesn't remember anything. The following three weeks will tell us, if the problem solves itself or if we have to use the methods used in cases of a badly casted Obliviate. But now we have to wait. I know you are worried. So am I. When Professor Snape came in, mumbling "Good afternoon", I was very surprised and I simultaneously got a proof, that he is really suffering from amnesia. I was "the Most Hated Hufflepuff", he used to call me that since my fourth year at Hogwart's' He answered an unasked question.
…
'A friend… Friend!'
'Oh, Cissy, calm down.' Bella kicked a house elf who got under her feet, and took her sister by the arm and pulled her to the drawing room.
'It's easy for you to say so, but it's not you who is going to get a first page in tomorrow's "Prophet"! I can imagine this headline: "Narcissa Malfoy gripped by passion". And guess, what is going to follow. Let me think: "Narcissa Malfoy, the wife of a Death Eater who has recently been sentenced to life imprisonment, was seen yesterday in St. Mungo's hospital, accompanied by Severus Snape, the Hogwart's Potion Master. London has been buzzing with rumors about this couple for a long time, but yesterday we finally managed to get a solid proof. Off the record we found out that Mrs. Malfoy is expecting a baby, due in the beginning of January. For more information see page 4"!'
'Maybe you should write this article yourself?' suggested Bella coldly. 'Not only would you stop worrying unnecessarily, but also you would earn a lot of galleons. Not to mention how much the "Prophet" would pay for your statement for these vultures – the journalists.'
'You must be joking' hissed Malfoy.
'It's the only possibility left.' Lestrange shrugged and fell gracefully on the sofa. 'You get mad with every little thing, and Snape has no idea who he is. The Dark Lord expects me to give him daily reports, and you worry about an article that hasn't even been published yet.'
To be honest, she was glad that Narcissa stopped self-pitying. Her behaviour was boring and Bella wondered, if she shouldn't give her sister some kind of potion, or at least a strong liquor.
'I apologise.'
'Don't apologise. You'd better tell me what exactly happened during the appointment.'
Narcissa reluctantly recounted the time they spent in the hospital, including a long search for a healer and a made-up story about Snape unfortunately stumbling on a trappy step in Malfoy Manor's staircase. Bellatrix just kept nodding. A young healer invented the rest himself, observing Malfoy's behaviour and her swollen eyelids. He was probably thinking that Narcissa had been crying her eyes out over unconscious Snape. Yes. He was imagining either this or an equally ridiculously romantic scene. She shuddered internally. She hated sugar love stories. They made her sick and she felt like hurting someone.
'He only gave me a prescription for a sedative, in case Severus was too agitated. We have to wait until he gets better.'
'So we will wait.'
'Here?'
'Where else?' snapped Bella. 'Do you want me to apparate in his house and risk an aurors' intervention? You've got a better secured place here, right?'
…
The same ritual has been being repeated for two weeks now.
Bella knocked.
'Severus?'
'I'm coming.' A clearly unfriendly voice was coming from behind the door.
Snape wasn't ready again. She had no idea why. Could there be some other effects of amnesia, like the habit of being late or changes in one's character?
'You are going to come to breakfast last? No way. Get out or I'm going to open the door and drag you out. We're going to have a guest today. Have you forgotten?'
'I haven't.'
He finally left his room. Most people wouldn't probably spot a difference between the Potion Master from before and after the unlucky appointment with the alchemist. He was wearing the same clothes – Hogwart's house elves delivered his trunk, the hair was also the same – shoulder-length and greasy. Only the eyes…
'Is there something on my face?' he asked angrily.
It wasn't his normal anger, he was angry at himself, and at the hole in his memory that made him unable to tell, if somebody was lying or telling the truth.
'Great, as always.' She brushed some dust from his shoulder. If Snape had been himself, he wouldn't have let her touch him, but now he was standing still, waiting for her to finish removing the imaginary dust from the sleeve of his robes.
He was afraid. Even now he was eying her with distrust, still holding a hand on a door-handle. Yes. This Severus Snape was apparently afraid of everything and everyone. He tried not to show it, but for Bella his behaviour wasn't hard to interpret – he wanted to be as invisible as possible. Narcissa's presence made him uneasy, and he seemed to have allergy to house-elves. She was fully aware, that he would preferably just sit in his room, in an armchair at the window, and stay there.
But she couldn't allow such whims, and every morning he brought him to breakfast, then to dinner and in the evening to a library for a glass of wine. He tolerated her presence quite well. In spite of Narcissa's protests, she told him who he was for the Death Eaters. He didn't seem to like it, because for the next three days he spoke even less, that is practically not at all.
Bella didn't suspect that she would ever be a babysitter. In her opinion, she lacked the basic skills needed in this profession – patience and forbearance. So she was even more surprised that the Lord had given her this task – she was supposed to guard Severus Snape and at any cost help him get his memory back. In the first week Malfoy Manor had seen more healers, specialists and charlatans than during the last two hundred years.
Apparently the Dark Lord needed to have a fully functioning Potions Master. The question was: why was he so precious?
They went downstairs – she ran down, enjoying the thought of the upcoming meeting; he did it slowly, looking around, as if the was expecting an attack. He was behaving this way everyday – he didn't let the explanations (and even jokes) convince him, that nothing was going to change here and nobody was going to attack him. Severus preferred to check himself, if there wasn't anything suspicious behind the sofa, and he checked it every time he was entering the drawing room. He had been a little less thorough since Narcissa had gone to Paris on Friday.
The crack of apparition.
Bella kneeled. Do did Severus. She had given him precise advice how to behave. She looked at him. He was staring at the Dark Lord with his mouth open and undisguised terror.
Oh. In her stories about the Lord she hadn't mention the look.
'Rise." The voice was ice-cold as always.
Lestrange was silently hoping that the spindle-shaped pupils and red irises would awaken some memories. She rose from her knees, observing Snape doing the same. His hands were shaking so he put them into the pockets of his robes.
'It's nice to see you in good health, Severus." The Dark Lord curved his lips in a half-smile.
'It's nice to see you too, my lord.' Snape bowed slightly.
'Have you heard from Dumbledore?'
'He's feeling good too.'
Bella, who managed to relax after greeting formulas, flinched, expecting to be attacked. Snape had reacted quite well, but apparently he had heard this name for a first time. But he really had heard it for a first time!
'Bella, are you putting any effort at all?' There was a threat in the Lord's voice.
She knew exactly what was going to happen. The curse didn't surprise her, but it didn't mean, that it was less painful.
She felt the pain radiating from every part of her body. Muscles whirled underneath her skin like snakes. She didn't know, if she was standing or lying, and at the moment she didn't care. The Dark Lord was showing dissatisfaction. Nay! He was incredibly furious. A long time had passed since she experienced such a powerful Cruciatus on her skin.
The pain stopped suddenly. For a moment she was lying on the carpet, breathing heavily. She raised her head and tried to see, what diverted the Lord's attention from her. She didn't delude herself – she hadn't been punished for the failure in healing Snape yet.
Severus was kneeling in front of the Dark Lord, his head lowered. The whisper of the Potion Master didn't reach her ears, but the Lord's answer was foreseeable.
'Yes, Severus. You are right, but she is to blame too.'
'It's me, I'm not trying hard enough.'
"Fool" thought Bella, rising. "He is behaving like a fucking Gryffindor hero." Yes, she had expected that this characteristic might manifest some day, but she hadn't thought that she was going to witness it and, what's worse, today. Snape before the "accident" hadn't abhorred the tormenting curses. He had felt a clear disgust towards the fondness of using the muggle forms of violence, shown by some of the Lord's servants.
Now he apparently couldn't handle a simple Cruciatus either… All right, maybe not a simple one, but it hadn't even been casted on him.
Bella was fully aware that pain was something that accompanied her in her life, and the curses casted by the Dark Lord should be treated as a personal honor. She deserved his Cruciatus. Maybe she shouldn't have listened to this healer and apply a shock therapy. Right. It's easy to say, but how was she supposed to do it? For many people just meeting the Dark Lord was a very traumatic experience. But Snape didn't seem to react in any way. All right. He did. He made a fool of himself, almost Harry Potter style.
'You've got three days' hissed the Lord.
A crack of disapparition.
Severus rose a bit shakily.
What was he actually thinking? He dared to interrupt the Dark Lord! And the Lord didn't punish him! So what was actually going on? Why did he go away with it?
'I never thought I was going to say it one day, but you're immensely stupid' she snarled.
Snape looked at her, surprised.
'Never, never ever do that again.' She approached him. He took a step back. 'Never interrupt the Dark Lord, no matter what he is going. Understood? And don't protest' she added, seeing him open his mouth to say something.
He turned away and went upstairs.
'And where are you going?' She started feeling the post-Cruciatus reaction in her muscles.
'My room.' He didn't even look back. Nay! He didn't even stop!
'And what about breakfast?'
'I'm not hungry.' A moment after this statement the door were slammed shut.
'Great. Won-der-ful.' She sat carefully in an armchair. In her right arm she felt a muscle spasm which was pulsating with pain. Life was mad enough anyway, even without Snape's moods.
…
She didn't know, when he had crawled from the guest room, but now he was sitting in an armchair in the darkest corner of the library. The fire was cracking in the fireplace and it was the only source of the light in the room. She stopped in the doorway for a while.
'What do you want?' asked he. Something in his voice was telling her that he'd rather be left alone, but she couldn't let him keep sulking.
'What are you doing?' She closed the door, pretending not to have heard the question.
He sighed, probably realizing, that he was not going to get rid of her quickly and they were about to have the Conversation.
She knew Snape thought the Evening Conversations to be a completely pointless, but necessary evil. One thing they managed to settle was that the Potion Master was still able to read, write and swear really badly.
'And what do you think?'
Oh! He spoke! She'd expected rather a snort or a concise "fuck off"; but she had been treated with a question which was absolutely grammatically correct, but – what's most important – was pronounced with a typically Snape-like negative attitude.
'Are you reading something interesting?' She sat on a couch. She hoped he would reply.
She threw the think tome at her. She didn't catch it and a ferrule hit her in a foot. She hissed and picked up the volume. The cover was worn-out, and the pages – yellowed. The faded letters said: "The Memory of Identity".
'Interesting?' She leafed through several pages, watching him closely.
'And what do you think?' he snarled. He was clearly angry. His eyes were sending lightnings, and the whole body was emanating with hostility.
'I think it's horribly boring.' Lestrange shrugged. 'What were you looking for?'
'And what do you think?' he repeated.
Wonderful. Severus Snape was acting like an offended prince. Nay! It was in addition a prince from Gryffindor, peevish to an astonishing degree. One more minute and he was going to throw her out of the room and demand a passion fruit flavoured ice-cream dessert with whipped cream and a red cherry decorating this outstanding creation of confectionery.
She closed her eyes, silently counting to ten. She shouldn't shout at him.
The say that composure is the key to success. The healer claimed that every case was different and needed an individual approach. And patience. But in this very moment she didn't even have enough time.
She counted once more, this time from ten to zero. She didn't feel less anxious, but at least she was trying.
'It was a stupid question' she admitted reluctantly.
'You noticed, how nice!' he grumbled. 'Do you want to say something else? If not, piss off, please. I would like to be left alone. Without your raving… As if you have drunk a potion of fool's parsley. Leave, please. I hope you can handle finding the door without my help.'
'What did you say?' she asked, surprised, taking a step forward.
He bristled even more and he drawled through the clenched teeth:
'Out.'
She shook her head. He didn't understand what she was asking about, so she had to reformulate the question.
'As if I have drunk what?' She stepped even closer. Now she was standing not farther than a step from the armchair in which Snape was sitting. 'The potion of what?'
'I don't know what you mean.' He stood up suddenly and positioned himself in a place where he could protect himself with the armchair like with a shield. 'Have you gone mad?'
Bella decided not to push – it could only worsen the situation that was not the best anyway. She took a step back. Severus was looking at her all the time, but he wasn't clenching his fingers at the back of the armchair anymore, as if it would save his life.
'Never mind' she said, smoothing her robes and approaching the door slowly. She even smiled, as if nothing had happened a while ago. Only after leaving the room she sighed with relief – he finally started remembering things. This characteristic phrase couldn't be attributed to anybody else – and the expression, reserved especially for taking points from Gryffindor, made the image of a Terror of Hogwart's complete. Yes! Finally! Now she must only not let him get frightened! Snape was behaving like a wild unicorn that any moment may run off to his room and hide in the bathroom. Yes, Bella was a woman, but she didn't feel strong enough to drag a black favourite of the Dark Lord from a bush. She had never liked Care of Magical Creatures, because she had always lacked patience, and the creatures she had been supposed to take care of had run away very quickly… or died – not necessarily from being excessively hugged. After all, she was not a monster… She simply sometimes wanted to check for example what a puffskein looked like on the inside.
To be honest, she didn't at all feel like checking what Snape looked like on the inside. Especially she didn't feel like digging in his head and making him externalize his feelings.
She marched straight to her room. Tormenting the unfortunate Potion Master wasn't the thing she wanted to do today.
…
'Bloody hell!'
Now he shows concern, but a moment ago he didn't seem to notice anything except for the goal – that is to knock his opponent down. Well – she really had it coming, but she hadn't thought that by giving Severus his wand she was exposing herself to injury. To the list with Snape's memory content she immediately had to add a dozen or so dangerous spells. Last time when she let him use magic, he only looked at her with suspicion, but didn't cast any spells. Today he didn't look at the wand as if it was a stick with which you could only pick the eye of your opponent – today he calmly and systematically tried to break her defense. He finally succeeded. Bella herself felt the last of a series of sinister spells; it hit her directly into solar plexus.
She didn't even notice when she landed on the floor, disarmed. The brilliant idea to have a duel didn't seem that good, when the tentacles of pain unexpectedly quickly crawled underneath her skin, jerking her muscles, maltreated with the yesterday's Cruciatus. She instantly felt sick, and her stomach was performing breakneck stunts, accompanied by a rising headache radiating from the left ear. She wasn't sure what had hit her, because she had never heard this incantation before. Probably the spell had been created by Severus recently. But even the thought that her unfortunate patient had remembered something, didn't make her feel better, because the after-effects of the curse turned out to be extremely painful and started depriving her of the ability to breathe freely. Black dots whirled in front of her eyes, and the headache seemed to fill the whole scull with a squelching slime, dense like a jelly. One more moment and her breakfast is going to break free, decorate the oak planks of the floor of the exercise room, and the consciousness is going to switch off…
She was most terrified of the thought that she was going to be left completely unconscious on Snape's mercy. Certainly he won't be able to…
She heard only "Finite Incantatem", pronounced almost hysterically – as if with terror. The pain stopped flowing with new waves. She carefully rose on her elbows – she was still feeling sick. To be honest, a lot of time had passed since the last time she had a serious duel. She shook her head, rising to her knees – the nausea didn't want to stop.
One shouldn't pity himself – she rose up energetically, defying a strange weakness at her knees, and she straightened up. In her head, the world was spinning.
'What was that?' she asked, trying to focus her eyes at something. She felt the jelly under her skull congeal almost instantly, overfilling her head. Her ears in one moment became useless – she felt, as if she had a ball of cotton wool in each of them which made her unable to hear anything properly.
Snape-fish was probably talking about something, because his mouth was moving, but Bella wasn't interested. When she finally managed to focus her eyes, she saw a silver brooch with a snake forming a shapely S, which Snape's robes were pinned with. The reptile kept flashing with its convex eyes and seemed to be slowly filling her field of vision.
The world swung and started running forward – for a while she saw a strangely mobile coffers of the ceiling, decorated with excessively happy images of Greek nymphs flirting with fauns, and then the world switched off after all. Dammit!
…
With difficulty she raised her unexpectedly heavy eyelids and looked around. A window was open and the draft was jerking a curtain, blowing it on and on like a balloon. On a branch of an oak, just next to the windowsill a white peacock was sitting and staring at her with its imbecile poppy little eyes.
She was lying on the sofa in a room directly next to the exercise room, covered with a checked blanket. On the table, next to the lamp with a shepherdess was a 3/4-emptied vial with a pale pink potion. She couldn't see Snape anywhere, so he probably wasn't in the room, unless he was hiding behind a curtain.
Where might he have gone? She sat up slowly, checking, if her stomach was going to start protesting – fortunately, everything seemed to be all right, so she rose. The Potion Master had to be found straight away. She hoped she hadn't scared the troublesome patient. She knew perfectly well that she had probably compromised herself in his eyes. She was comforted only by a thought that suddenly emerged to the surface – there was a chance for wiping this memory, in case he gets his memory back. It was little, but that was better than nothing.
Barefoot, she walked through a hairy carpet and jerked the door open. She didn't know when – or even more notably where – her shoes had disappeared, but surely they were not in the room. With every step bringing her closer to the room occupied by Severus, she was becoming more and more angry with herself. She had never used to faint. A sudden loss of consciousness was a part of an image of a weak woman, and Bella didn't feel she was one. After all she was a Lord's Servant, and the Followers of the Dark Lord never show anything so… so… Uh! She was really feeling like grinding her teeth. She wished a house elf would come out of a dark corner; she didn't have any object to vent her frustration on. She could perfectly recall the last time she had fainted. After that, there had seemed to be no end to jokes about the event for almost three months. Gryffindors almost rolled on the floor with laughter, when James Potter pretended to be the "Distressed Damsel of the Black Family" and, having screeched like a soprano, fell on the floor, pretending to be completely unconscious. Yes, she paid the third-year child of the Gryffindor House back, even with interest, and she didn't have to resort to any trick – she just waited until the flatulent Gryffindor broke the rules after the curfew. As a prefect, she was known for her spitefulness – after a brief chase through corridors she caught the talented actor and his companion, who turned out to be Sirius. She delivered both of them to Dumbledore, and he – surprisingly – gave them a one-month detention with Filch. Afterwards it turned out that it wasn't the first excursion of this twonity, what apparently convinced Dumble completely that these nighttime escapades needed to be suppressed. After several evenings of scrubbing cups, Potter limited himself to pretended falling into Sirius's arms due to fainting, and after two weeks she stopped picking at the prefect, moving his attention to Snape. But it didn't mean, that everyone forgot about the "accident". For a long time she had been welcomed by shouts like: "Watch out, Black, I have a niffler and I won't hesitate to use it". As if there hadn't been any more interesting subjects. Was that her fault, that this stupid creature climbed into her bag during the Care? It's not like she put it there herself – this abominable creature probably scented an easy prey i.e. her bracelet which she hid in her bag, in order not to lose the first gift from Rodolphus by accident. Anyway… it wasn't actually about the niffler – the furry kleptomaniac turned out to be just the straw that broke the camel's back. Yes, she got scared, but the main cause was that stupid slimming treatment she was applying at the moment. The diet made a slim girl look almost like a skeleton, but the prefect was finally noticed by Lestrange. By Madam Pomfrey too – when Black was delivered to her in a state of complete unconsciousness.
That was the only time she let herself faint. Until today. Climbing the stairs she thought that she had never lost her consciousness because of a spell before – even when the Lord had punished her for a willful operation. Interesting, what kind of "invention" it was. She needed to find out immediately, what she had been hit with, of course if it wasn't a terrible secret.
…
She opened the door, having knocked beforehand. But she didn't wait for invitation, she pressed the door handle and pushed the oak leaf of the door. After all, she was in her sister's house.
The room was decorated perfectly like other ones – expensive rugs, furniture that remembered X goblins' rebellion, and trinkets, sometimes beautiful, but usually dangerous. The room was twilit – closed grass-coloured heavy curtains successfully cut the light away.
'Severus?'
The door to the bathroom opened almost at once, showing the resident of the guest room wearing only a navy blue dressing-gown. He must have just taken a shower – the pale skin on his chest was slightly coloured, and water was dripping from his hair. He didn't actually look that bad… Hm… To be honest… to be honest… if it wasn't for this nose and the always greasy haircut, Snape would be a very handsome man – tall, black-eyed, intelligent and in addition – a Death Eater. Undeniably, he fulfilled the initial criteria of selection.
Bella thought that a common sense was leaving her. Some part of her mind noticed, not without dismay, that Snape in this dressing-gown seems to be… attractive. Very attractive. Hm… For a long time she hadn't felt as if her head was filled with an image… Oh! It's bad, really bad. Among the blind, the one-eyed man is king. You could always hope that it was just a reaction to an abnormal situation. But you should stop yourself, and not get so close to him, and surely not put your hands around his neck with a radiant smile. Some little voice under her skull was timidly suggesting that she must have hit her head during the duel. Hard.
But whatever… She couldn't count on Rodolphus – being in Azkaban didn't strengthen him, and besides he let them lock him there again.
She could almost feel his breath on her lips… One more inch…
'What are you doing?'
It would be nice, if he didn't pretend to be such an unavailable person.
'Bellatrix, explain to me, and do it slowly, what you are actually doing. And why you are hanging from my neck.'
The spell broke. In her mind, she cursed both Merlin and the unfortunate healer. Snape was looking at her as if she was a candidate for the title of the "Lunatic of the Month", and in this look there was this coldness that was characteristic only for him. On his lips there was a half-smile full of doubt. Oh damn! Not now. Not in this very moment. Doesn't the malice of both fate and this wizard know no boundaries? Couldn't he have waited thirty seconds? Only thirty seconds, is it that much?
She decided to talk seriously with the healer at the earliest opportunity. Last time this ignorant sawbones mentioned beneficial results of a shock that for some patients opened the snapped door of the memory. He also faintly suggested to make Snape face a horrifying situation. In her mind, she was grinding her teeth thinking about the fact that a paranoid mind of the Potion Master had interpreted the prospect of a kiss as extremely dangerous.
A complete humiliation. Only the audience and thunderous applause were missing.
'It doesn't happen very often that you are so silent. Would you deign to answer my question?… And of course, if it doesn't exceed your abilities, take your hands off me, please. I would be grateful.'
Dammit. Tremble, Gryffindors – the Main Bat rose from the dead.
'You had a pixie on your collar.' A lie. Poor, but still better than…
'So if you have scared him away yet…' He raised his eyebrows, the expression was full of meaning. 'Anything else?'
'You are to report to the Lord. Immediately…' She moved back in a hurry and left after a few seconds. She really tried to make it look as if she wasn't running away in panic.
Did he notice? Of course he did, even now the treacherous colours were perfectly visible. She'd better not think, what she looked like a quarter ago, standing face to face with him.
Bella really wanted to stay in the bathroom and put her head under a tap in order to cool down.
Bloody amnesia!
And how was she supposed to work with him now?
Dammit…
THE END