SUMMARY:

1995, Hogwarts. Intimate conversation leads to intimate encounters, but can they help each other heal?

Written for QUILLS & PARCHMENT'S 2018 Healers & Mediwizards competition.

PROMPT: Fics must be one-shots between 1000-10,000 words and Healer, Mediwizard/Mediwitch, or Hospital-centric

WINNER: BEST DRAMA

RUNNER UP: BEST ANGST, BEST WORKPLACE SMUT, BEST PAIRING I DIDN'T KNOW I NEEDED

A/N:

Thank you to everyone who read fest entries on A03 and commented there or on FB's Q&P page, and thanks especially to everyone who voted for Come to Dust, my first Snape/Pomfrey fic. To those who read it here, please let me know your thoughts! Thanks!

-AL

COME TO DUST

24 JUNE 1995

Fear no more the heat o' th' sun
Nor the furious winters' rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
- Shakespeare

For the first time in over a decade, he was seeking her out without pretense. He'd had a difficult night, that was an understatement, but he knew for him it would not compare to what it must have been like for her.

He wondered if she would turn him away. Surely, considering the circumstances, she would look upon him as the enemy. But he owed it to her to pay a visit, to ensure she was... alright. Not that anything could possibly be alright.

The hospital wing was eerily silent. Not a sick student in any of the beds, not a worried friend making inquiries, not even a nervous teenage girl asking for the emergency contraceptive potion she so frequently handed out at the end of term, as no student seemed keen on leaving school for the summer with a souvenir in tow. Not a soul. Strange, considering the circumstances. He supposed those who were scared or heartsick or making themselves ill with worry were still confined to their common rooms, perhaps seeking reassurances from their Heads of Houses. That's where he should be, now. In the Slytherin Common Room. Word was already spreading that Hufflepuff hero Cedric Diggory had been murdered by the Dark Lord himself, that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had returned, and that Potter had somehow thwarted him again.

Any worried Slytherin students would have to forgive him (not that he'd beg their forgiveness) but he had somewhere more important to be tonight. She'd healed him in so many ways over the years, no questions asked even when they perhaps should have been, and he owed it to her to attempt to repay the favor.

He entered her office without announcing himself. She was not present. Had Dumbledore called her down to his office? Could she be giving a statement? Had she been required to come to the boy's aid? But why? He was dead, dead before he returned to Hogwarts, that much was certain. Potter had disappeared by way of illegal portkey and reappeared shortly thereafter, clutching the teen boy's limp body and saying something about Voldemort. The boy was in some need of attention, but nothing that would take her away from the office for the entire evening.

He glanced at the calendar over her desk and swore. In all the craziness over the Triwizard Tournament coming to a close and the worry over his darkening Dark Mark, he'd completely neglected to note the date.

Fuck.

He now knew precisely where she was and what she was doing.

Few professors or staff members knew the passwords to the personal chambers of other staff members and professors (save for Dumbledore, who knew everyone's and wanted all to know his) but he'd heard her speak hers - slur it, sometimes - on numerous occasions, and knew it had not changed in twenty years, nor would it ever.

He rapped his knuckles against the door to her private chambers. She did not respond.

"Clover May," he said softly. The door swung open to grant him entrance. Her sitting room was dark, but the faint red tip of a burning cigarette let him know he was not alone.

"I thought you'd quit smoking," he said, shutting the door behind him.

"I did," she said. She was sitting in a leather armchair facing the cold fireplace. There was a full glass of red wine on the small round table beside her, but it did not appear she'd taken a sip yet. The hand holding the cigarette was shaking, making ash drop down to the rug in front of her. He vanished it with his wand before it could burn a hole.

"I didn't know." He summoned over a second chair and sat opposite her, so close their knees were nearly touching. "I didn't know he was back. I wouldn't have let that boy die."

"You would have done whatever you needed to do," she said simply. She took a long drag before reaching into the pocket of her nurse's uniform for the pack, which she held out toward him.

"No, thank you. I value my lungs."

"Wine, then? Or do you value your liver?"

"I'll drink with you." He rarely drank alone, and since he spent most of his time in selective solitude, this meant he rarely drank.

"Help yourself." She waved a hand toward the back of the room. "I'll not play hostess."

He nodded, rose, and went to the small cabinet in the wall where she kept her alcohol. There wasn't much of it - nicotine, not alcohol, was her vice these days - but she had a bottle of elf made red wine that happened to be his favorite, he assumed this was what she had poured herself, so he filled a glass and returned to his seat across from her.

"It's been twenty years."

Her nose twitched like she might cry, but she held back. "Yes. Twenty."

He inched forward. This time their knees did touch, and he was surprised when she did not pull away.

"Twenty years ago tonight," he added.

"Yes," she whispered. "And now, another. Five dead students in just over half a century. Dragon Pox and Mumblemumps, two murders, and a suicide. Now, if we're at war, if You-Know-Who really is back, Merlin only knows how many more we may lose. It was a miracle not one perished during the first, though the McKinnon girls weren't the same after their family was tortured and killed. Marlene's daughters, did you know them?"

"I knew them." Their mother, father, grandparents, a young aunt, and two toddler cousins had been murdered by members of Voldemort's inner circle while the twins were at school, all because Marlene was revealed to be member of the Order of the Phoenix. "Travers, Bellatrix, and the Lestrange brothers were sent to eliminate them."

"Not you?" asked Poppy. Severus breathed in sharply. She'd never directly asked him before whether he was responsible for anyone's death during that first war.

"No," he said, glad he could be honest but knowing he'd have said no even if it were untrue. "No, I had nothing to do with it. The Dark Lord did not utilize me for such tasks. I don't believe he viewed me as one with the disposition necessary to murder small children."

"A child was murdered tonight." She sniffled as her lower lip trembled. He knew it was only a matter of time before she dissolved into tears. He'd seen it before. "I realize he was of-age, but he was still a child. He was a child under our care, his parents trusted us to keep him safe while here at school, and we failed."

"You couldn't have saved him." He placed his hand on her knee. Again, he was surprised when she did not pull away. Perhaps that glass of wine on her table was not the first she'd poured tonight. "And you couldn't have saved her."

She snorted, a look of bitterness overtaking that of despondence on her face.

"I most certainly could have saved her, were I a better mother. Had I realized there was something wrong with her that went beyond the normal melancholy of teenagers. Had I checked on her that night instead of sitting here in my office, filling out paperwork to get a jump on the end of the year, to avoid having to worry about it before beginning the summer holiday. I had a feeling there was something wrong, but what did I do about it? Nothing. Not a bloody thing. I thought, 'the school year is almost over. We both need a break. We'll go away, enjoy a few weeks of relaxation far from these walls, and she'll feel better again.' I failed her as we all failed Amos and Lucille Diggory."

Severus sighed. He'd spent a lot of time over the last dozen years telling her the exact same thing, but he was willing to tell her again: "It was not your fault, Madam Pomfrey. Your daughter's death was not your fault."

"And now? Cedric? Is his death not my fault, either?" She chuckled, and the sound made his stomach clench. "I didn't think this Triwizard Tournament was a good idea. I told Dumbledore so, and I wrote the Minister about it. I was worried. Too dangerous. All day today, I had that same bad feeling, but I suppressed it, telling myself I was merely reacting to the anniversary of Clover's..." She sniffled as a fat tear escaped from the corner of her eye. "His mother wants to believe he died happy, from having just won the tournament. That he was not afraid, that he felt no pain. Perhaps that's true. But she'll feel that pain for the rest of her life. It'll eat away at her. Some days, she'll almost feel normal again. She might enjoy a meal with her husband or share a laugh with a friend, and then his face will flash before her, and she'll realize he'll never again enjoy a meal or share a laugh, and she'll want to die, to be buried beside him, to close her eyes and never wake up."

"That is her pain to bear, not yours."

"It is the pain of every parent who's lost a child, Severus." She placed her hand on top of his and squeezed. With her opposite hand, she flicked ashes into a silver tray then took another drag. "You cannot imagine."

"I do not intend to ever have children."

She smiled, but it was a sad smile. "You're smart. Once you have a child, that child becomes your world, and when that child hurts, you hurt, and when that child is gone, you're gone."

"You are not gone, Poppy."

Her eyes met his. He rarely used her first name. She attributed this to the fact that he'd been only eleven when they met, on his third day at Hogwarts. She was Madam Pomfrey to him then and Madam Pomfrey she'd always remain, save for those few random occasions on which they'd found comfort in each other's pain, times neither saw fit to talk about (with each other or anyone else). On those evenings he'd call her Poppy, whisper her name into her ear, moan it into her mouth, as she closed her eyes and arched her back and let him take from her whatever he needed.

"You fell off your broom," she whispered. She wiped her eye, spreading a little black liner to her temple.

He cocked an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"On your third day of your first year. You fell off your broom during your very first flying lesson..."

"And broke my overlarge nose." He sneered. "I remember. Potter and Black thought that was nothing short of hilarious and teased me mercilessly for it."

He'd been to see her more than once in his youth as a result of pranks those two pulled. She'd brought it up to both McGonagall and Dumbledore on numerous occasions, but as Severus refused to name them as his attackers, little was done beyond the occasional word of warning from their Head of House.

"My first impression of you was that you were too pale. It was as if you'd never been outside. I worried about rickets. And there was so much blood - anemia was a concern as well. You had an unpleasant childhood, no?"

He shrugged. "My parents loved wine and whiskey more than they did me, but I ventured outside as often as I was able. Better than being cooped up in that decrepit Muggle hovel in which we lived. There was little food in our cupboards, no running water, mice in the walls... my mother gave up her magic because my jealous father hated her for having it." He shrugged again. "It was fine."

"Doesn't sound fine."

"Could have been worse. How was yours?"

"My what?"

"Childhood."

"Oh." She waved a hand dismissively. He noticed her nails were painted white. He wondered if this meant she was seeing someone, as polish and makeup were rarely part of her everyday look. "It was idyllic, really."

"Really?"

"Really. I was blessed with doting and supportive parents who tried not to let on how badly I disappointed them by falling pregnant midway through my sixth year."

"But they loved you?" Severus tried not to sound too interested in the answer, but the truth was, he was fascinated by loving families, never having known one himself. As a boy, he would lay awake at night and wonder what it would be like to be adopted by people like Lily and Petunia Evans' parents. They both worked but were home in time for dinner every night. They weren't rich, but they ensured their daughters were well-fed and adequately clothed and that their health was a priority, whereas when he was eight and came down with Dragon Pox, his father acted as though he'd done it on purpose to annoy him, and his mother refused to seek care from a St. Mungo's Healer until his skin had turned a nasty shade of green - but that was likely because she worried going out in public would prompt people to inquire about her many maladies: the limp from that broken ankle that wouldn't quite heal, the dark circles under her eyes, the sallow skin and brittle nails... the bruises... she always had bruises...

Poppy coughed and Severus' eyes flickered toward the lit end of the cigarette. She'd given it up because her lungs were bad. According to the Healer she'd seen last fall, this habit was slowly killing her.

"You know, Severus, I feel guilty, sometimes, when I remember that I knew you when you were a student."

"Why? I'm not your student now."

"Why? Perhaps because you and my Clover were the same age." She sucked down the last of the cigarette and stubbed the filter into the ashtray.

"A seventeen year age difference is a lifetime when two people are eleven and twenty-eight. I'm over thirty. It's nothing now."

"It's something."

"You shouldn't feel guilty for having known me then. I was an entirely different person."

"A child."

"An entirely different person." He slid the hand above her knee higher up her leg, to the top of her thigh. "Let me take you to bed."

She laughed, a genuine laugh, and he couldn't help smiling in response.

"Do you think that will make me feel better? On the anniversary of my only child's suicide, a student has been killed. Twenty years to the day that my fourth year Hufflepuff daughter threw herself off the astronomy tower, a seventeen-year-old Hufflepuff is dead right here on school grounds. And you think the best way to deal with my depression over this is to take a potions professor to my bed?"

"It probably won't make you feel any better," he conceded. "But it would be a decent distraction for me. Dumbledore wants to know why I did not know the Dark Lord was back. My Dark Mark has been getting steadily darker." He shoved up his sleeve to show her. "But I had no indication anything would happen tonight, until I was summoned, at which time it was too late."

"Why didn't you go?"

"Would you have gone?"

"No, but then, I would never bear that Dark Mark."

He pulled his sleeve back down, covering it.

"You remember the first time I visited the hospital wing as a student. Do you know what I remember?"

She shook her head.

"I remember the first time I visited as a professor. The war had been over some eight months and I was at the end of my first year teaching. I'd been attacked on my way back to the castle from Hogsmeade by unidentified former Death Eaters who pegged me for a traitor. I was staggering, bleeding..."

"Your nose was bleeding. A lot of blood."

"You were not in the hospital wing or in your office."

"It was on this night in 1982. Dumbledore knew I would be in no fit state to care for students that night and had put the word out that I was ill. Thankfully, no one needed me. Except you."

"I entered your sitting room without permission."

"You guessed my password."

"Thirteen years ago and you've yet to change it."

She shrugged one shoulder, pulled a second cigarette from the pack, stuck it in her mouth, and lit it with the tip of her wand. He continued.

"I made it into your sitting room - here - unable to stand up straight, with a broken nose, split lip, and bruised eye, having suffered the effects of the Cruciatus Curse. I came to you for help..."

"I was not capable of helping you."

"But you did. You helped me."

"I was pissed. We're both lucky I didn't permanently disfigure you with my Episkey."

"It was my nose. Had you permanently damaged it, who could tell?"

She chuckled. He moved closer, so that one of his knees was between hers with one of hers between his. She brushed her thumb against his pale cheek.

"I was not in a good way, then," she whispered. "I'd been drinking for hours."

"I came to you a broken man. I left the next morning in far better spirits."

"Because I shagged you. I shouldn't have. You were twenty-two; I was a month shy of thirty-nine. I was too old for you, and we were colleagues. We are colleagues. It was unprofessional at best."

"I had no complaints. Nor regrets." He sipped the wine. It had been too long since his last drink. "Do you?"

"You first time should have been with someone you love."

"The only woman I've ever loved is gone."

She hadn't been the only one to drink too much that night. He'd done the same, gotten wasted for the first time in his entire life, and she'd tearfully told him about her daughter - a girl he'd known at Hogwarts, but did not know was her daughter - after he'd broken down and confessed his unrequited love for the tragically deceased Lily Potter. He'd regretted this upon sobering the following day, but the damage was done. This brought the total number of people who knew how he felt about Harry Potter's mother up to three: Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Nurse Pomfrey. And in the years that had passed since, three was the total that remained.

"Tell me about yours."

"My what?" She tapped the end of the cigarette against the silver. Ash fell into the bowl.

"Your first time."

Poppy half-smiled. "Not much to tell. I was young, naive, foolish. He was older, married, manipulative." She swatted at his knee so he sat back in his chair, giving her space. She tucked her legs up so she was sitting on her feet. "Why are you asking? You've never asked before."

"You and I are only seventeen years apart in age. Your daughter and I were the same age. I'm curious."

"You've never been curious before."

"On the contrary, I've always been curious," he said smoothly, before bringing the wine glass back to his lips. He sipped. "I've simply never asked before."

FLASHBACK

24 JUNE 1982

"Madam... Pomfrey? Madam... Mad..." Severus Snape groaned and staggered toward the door to the Hogwarts nurse's private chambers, off her office. Where was she? He was in need of assistance, too badly injured to heal himself. "Pom... Pomfrey!"

He knocked at her door twice, three times, four. No answer. He swore under his breath. He'd been ambushed on the walk back from Hogsmeade. Cursed, beaten, spat on. That was the worst, as far as his dignity was concerned, being spat on. The ultimate disrespect from former allies.

He was relatively certain Yaxley was one of them, by his intimidating height and boxy build. Another was slender, shapely, clearly female, but aside from Bellatrix (in prison), Narcissa (non-violent), Alecto Carrow (too large), and Hortensia Higgenbottom (pregnant, last he heard) he couldn't think of a single woman it might be. There were at least three other men, but he didn't get a good look at any of them. He blamed himself for this attack. A year ago, he was so on edge all the fucking time, he'd have sensed them before they'd even revealed themselves. But most Death Eaters had been killed, gone to Azkaban, or were behaving like ideal citizens desperate for the world to believe they'd been Imperiused, they'd never dare attack a fellow former follower. He'd felt safe, stupidly, for the first time in his life.

He'd never felt safe before.

At home, as a child, he'd never been safe. His father beat him, his father beat his mother, and his mother... aside from holding him and crying and filling his head with empty promises that it would never happen again because she knew his father was so very sorry, she did little to make him feel protected.

At Hogwarts, he hadn't been safe. Sure, he'd made friends - friends beyond Lily, friends Lily hated - but even with Mucliber and Malfoy and Avery and Rosier on his side, he wasn't safe from the constant torment suffered at the hands of James Potter and Sirius Black and, on occasion, their friends Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Sure, he'd managed to hit back a few times, invented a couple of spells that he then tried out on them first, but ultimately it was always two-on-one (or four-on-one) and he couldn't win. Even Mulciber and Avery thought "Snivellus" was a nickname worth repeating.

After Hogwarts, he'd been anything but safe. At war, on the wrong side - it wasn't long before he saw it was the wrong side, but by then it was too late to change... until the Dark Lord aimed his arrow at Lily, so to speak. Then Severus did the unthinkable, turned double-agent for Dumbledore, which made him even less safe as he was now the enemy of both sides.

In the immediate aftermath of the Dark Lord's fall, he'd been jumpy, anxious, ever-vigilant. He knew the Lestranges weren't the only former followers fanatic enough to seek vengeance and he did not wish to be on the receiving end of a permanently mind-altering Cruciatus Curse. But one by one they were rounded up and tried, and he resumed friendship with Lucius (albeit a rocky one) and he tried to get along with his co-professors despite his lack of social skills (or intent). Things seemed to be getting better, if he could only suppress the pain that came from living on after Lily's death, which he caused.

He wondered, sometimes, how her son was faring. Dumbledore said they'd placed the boy with her sister, Petunia, as their parents had passed away. He had gone white at that. He hadn't heard of her parents' passing; he should liked to have paid his respects in some small way. He also worried to Dumbledore that the boy's aunt would do a shite job raising him, especially if he turned out to have magic, as he presumably would. Dumbledore had told him it wasn't his place to worry and left it at that.

"Madam Pomfrey!" Severus choked out, banging on her door, unable to keep on his feet. He was going to fall, to black out, to fucking die here on the floor outside her chambers if he couldn't reach her. No, he couldn't. This would not be how it ended, not for him. What was her bloody password? He'd heard her say it once, when she had to duck into the sitting room to grab a potion he needed.

"Clover May," he said. That was it. Clover May, the name of the girl who'd offed herself when they were fourth years. She was a Hufflepuff.

The door swung open.

He stumbled in. It closed behind him. The room was dark save for a dwindling fire.

"Who'sss there?" her voice asked. She moved from the shadows. He could just make out her form as she stepped opposite the fireplace. She had a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

Great, she was probably a drunk. Like his parents. He swore under his breath again.

"Severus Sdape," he answered. The taste of blood nearly made him retch.

"Whah you doin' in my chamberrrs?" she slurred. Her hair, usually pulled back into a near braid or bun, was down and wavy, blonde with streaks of gray, longer than he'd realized. Even in the dim of the firelight, her blue eyes glimmered with tears.

"Broked dose," he said, still clutching his stomach, half-bent. The pain in his torso was intense, but he could handle that if only she could stop the bleeding from his busted nose. He'd tried unsuccessfully, even though it wasn't that difficult a spell. The Cruciatus had that effect on people - able to rob them of their ability to do simple tasks like basic spellwork... or breathing.

"I can fixxxx it." She tossed the wine bottle to a chair and what was left of its contents spilled into the fabric. She pulled her wand and aimed unsteadily for his face.

"Dod't!" He tried to back away but the pain was truly unbearable. "You're pissed."

"Stop it, Sevrusss Sssnape. I could do thiss sspell in my ssleep."

Had he been in full form, he'd have snarkily quipped that he'd have more faith in her doing it in her sleep than he did in this moment, but she stick her cigarette in her mouth, grabbed his chin with one hand, and tapped her wand to the bridge of his nose with the other. "Epissskey."

There was a sickening crack and the bone righted itself. The break was fixed, the bleeding ceased. A second spell fixed his lip. He wiped what was left of the blood from his mouth and chin with his sleeve.

"Thah won' work," she said, swaying slightly, holding the cigarette in place with her teeth. "Some'ss dried." She pointed the wand at the apron of her uniform. "Aquamenti." With the fabric wet, she ran over his face, wiping away what was left of the blood. She released the apron, released his face, and flicked hot cigarette ash onto the floor. He stubbed it out with the toe of his boot.

"Why... are you... drunk?" he asked, struggling to force out each word.

"Why you holdin' your sside?"

"Cruciatus."

"Ssit down." She gestured toward the couch by the opposite wall. "I'll fixxx you."

"I'm fine."

"Ssit, Ssnape."

He hobbled to the couch and did as commanded. She - somewhat unsteadily - made her way to a table in the corner by the window on which she had a number of potions, salves, and other necessities. She selected several, pulled two Chocolate Frogs from inside a wooden box, and hurried to him. She knelt on the floor between his knees, urging him to sit back, and placed a hand over his abdomen. She drew her wand across his midsection, performing what he knew to be some sort of diagnostic spell, the cigarette hanging from her lips the entire time. After the tip of her wand lit up blue, she nodded knowingly, plucked the smoke from her lips, and handed it to him.

"Hold thisss."

Unsure of what to do with it, he took a drag and immediately coughed, which amplified the pain in his stomach and sides.

"I didn't tell you to ssmoke it."

"Sorry."

"Cruciatus, multiple times. Merlin'sss beard." She reached for the smallest of the vials. "A ssobering potion," she explained. He cocked an eyebrow. He hadn't known such a potion existed. As far as his research had taught him, such a thing had been in development multiple times over two centuries but never perfected. He'd thought about creating his own as a young man, slipping it to his father on occasion, but he had the feeling he'd hate the man as much sober as he did drunk thus he used his experimentation time to do other things.

"Developed it mysself," she explained upon catching his expression. She downed the entire bottle. "It's hard to be a functioning alcoholic without one."

"Are you... an... alcoholic?" he asked, still struggling to get the words out.

"No," she said quietly, but even without utilizing Legilimency he was certain this was a lie. She closed her eyes for several seconds, seemingly to let the liquid take effect, before addressing him again. When she did, she sounded her usual self, albeit drained.

"Professor Snape, what happened? I can heal you better if I know the details."

"I don't... know. Drifted in and... out of... consciousness. Definite... Cruciatus... kicking... punched..." (Spat on.) "Not sure... what else."

"You have some internal injury. I can fix that. Your face will be sore for awhile. I have a good bruise salve. Let me look at you." Without asking permission, she knelt higher and began unbuttoning his frock coat. He squirmed. Though he knew this was purely for medical purposes, he'd never had a woman undress him before. When his chest was exposed, she helped him out of the coat and shirt underneath. The chill of the room caused his nipples to harden most painfully and he nearly jumped when her shoulder brushed the front of his knee.

"What's wrong?" she asked, looking up at him with concern. This was clearly nothing but another exam to her, she was not only completely comfortable but clearly uncertain about the source of his discomfort. Unwilling to admit this was the closest to intimate he'd ever been with a woman, he grunted, "Cold."

"Sorry." She waved her wand at the fireplace, making the dying flames roar back to life. "I prefer the dark when I'm drinking."

"Why... are you... drinking?"

"Story for another time, Professor Snape." Suddenly sobered, she was all business now. She even pulled her hair back into a low ponytail and straightened her uniform apron. For the next hour or so she fussed over him, using a combination of spells and potions to bring him back to health while he ate both Chocolate Frogs and drank gillywater. Eventually he either passed out or fell asleep and when he woke, he was aware only that time had passed because the fire had dimmed again, the logs were almost completely burnt to ash. She was asleep in an armchair, facing him, a cigarette positioned precariously between her index and middle fingers. He was surprised she hadn't dropped it. There was a bottle of wine - not the same as before, as this one was white and that was red - on the chair beside her. He thought she looked lovely this way, like the sad subject of a portrait pretty enough to be hung in one's home, but too depressing for a bedroom or informal sitting room. Thanks to the shadows cast by the dying fire, he imagined her as something a modern Artemisia Gentileschi might have painted. His shirt was still off but she'd covered him with a thick blanket at some point. He wrapped it around his upper body and looked for the rest of his clothing. His body was sore and stiff but already the bruising on his chest felt a bit better and he could breathe easily. He couldn't find his clothing - perhaps house elves had taken it to wash the blood out? - so he considered transfiguring the blanket into a tunic and sneaking out without waking her, but something in the way her face twitched in her sleep stopped him.

She was having a nightmare, of that he was reasonably certain.

She'd saved his life but she hadn't answered his question about why she'd been drinking. Did she do this every night? Was she like his father, stumbling through life pissed out of her mind, but hiding it thanks to this potion she'd developed? Or was she in her own pain this evening and trying to hide it the way his mother used to, by keeping herself too sick with wine and spirits to face her own reality?

It didn't matter, he decided. It wasn't his business. He turned toward the door, still debating whether to make a shirt out of the blanket (clothing transfiguration was not one of his many talents) when she whimpered in her sleep, halting him. She sounded so small, so wounded. He couldn't help wondering why.

He knelt before her as she had him early and gingerly removed the cigarette from between her fingers. He crushed it into the ashtray, grabbed the wine, and stole a sip before setting it on the table. Then he gently stroked her cheek.

"Madam Pomfrey," he said softly, not wanting to frighten her. "Can you hear me?"

She flinched but did not wake. He touched her again and said her name a little louder. "Madam Pomfrey, are you alright?"

This time she startled, her eyes flew open, and she reached instinctively for her wand before recognizing him.

"Oh, Professor Snape. Are you feeling better?"

"Yes," he said. "Thank you."

"Good. House elves took your shirt and frock coat."

Ah, just as he'd suspected.

"Who attacked you?"

Though he could smell the wine on her breath even from a distance, she wasn't slurring her words this time.

"Madam Pomfrey..." He wasn't sure how to ask, or even if he should, or - hell - even if he cared, but the words came tumbling out. "Your password is Clover May. That's the name of a student who died here in seventy-five. Why... that was tonight, wasn't it? The twenty-fourth of June? She was a relative?"

He remembered it had been the end of the school year, that exams were nearly over and that it had been Dumbledore who informed the entire student body of her passing, but without much information, though rumor had it she'd thrown herself from the top of the astronomy tower because she'd been dumped by an older boy. Severus had never cared for gossip, so while he acknowledged that it was sad a student committed suicide and would never say anything negative about the girl in front of Lily, he secretly thought Clover May Pomfrey must have been weak to have offed herself and therefore saw it as no great loss.

"She was my daughter," said Poppy, her eyes avoiding his. "And yes, it was seven years ago tonight."

"Your daughter?" He'd always assumed they were cousins or something, given they had the same last name, but she seemed too old to be the girl's sister and too young to have birthed her. He'd assumed - wrongly, he hoped - that there was only about a dozen years between them.

"Does it matter?" she asked, her tone suddenly harsh. "Why do you care?"

"Is that why you're drinking?" He took another swig from the wine bottle, though he loathed the taste of the liquid inside.

"I could have saved her," she said. "I could have, but I didn't. As a girl, I wanted to be a healer. I wanted to save people. But I couldn't. I couldn't be a healer, so I became a nurse. I couldn't save people, so I-"

"You saved me," he interrupted. "Tonight. I very well could have died without your intervention, your assistance. And how could you have saved her? She wasn't sick, was she? She-"

"She was sick," said Poppy. "Healthy people don't jump."

"I'm sorry," he said softly. And he meant it.

"Why did you turn your back on your fellow Death Eaters?" she whispered, pushing a lock of his long hair back behind his ear so she could better see his face. "Why did they turn on you tonight?"

"Why did your daughter jump?" he whispered, reaching up to stroke her cheek again, this time wiping away a tear. There was something inexplicably beautiful about the way she looked when she cried. "Was it unrequited love, like they said?"

"Would unrequited love make a person do something like that?"

"It might," he answered, thinking, of course, of Lily. "It can make people do a lot of things they otherwise wouldn't."

"That wasn't it for her. It was something else - rejection. Rejected by her unrequited love. There were other factors. Depression, loneliness, self-loathing, fear... but, ultimately, rejection was the last straw."

"Rejection is worse than unrequited love." His thumb brushed her cheek again but this time there was no tear there. Her skin was soft. His skin, exposed to the cold now that the blanket lay pooled at the floor behind him, was covered in gooseflesh. "I know firsthand."

"Who rejected you, Severus?" Her dark blue eyes met his nearly black ones. With a hand at the back of his neck, she drew him closer. "Was that what pushed you into You-Know-Who's ranks?"

"I wish I'd never counted myself among his followers," he confessed. "I wanted to earn her back, but she wasn't a trophy to be won. She was a former friend, one I pushed away, one I can never..." He released her face to reach for the bottle and drank down what was left. The effects hit him almost immediately. Despite being over twenty-two years and six months old, this was the first time alcohol had passed through his lips. Having grown up with his father, he lived with the fear that any drinking would lead to over drinking, but tonight, it didn't seem to matter. "I only had one friend prior to Hogwarts, and the Death Eaters... they gave me a sense of belonging, I suppose. Of importance. Sounds pathetic to say it out loud."

"Not pathetic. Everyone wants someplace to belong, friends to feel at home with. My friends abandoned me when I became pregnant." She summoned over a second bottle of white. "My daughter's father didn't want me either. I gave birth between sixth year and seventh. If I hadn't had my parents for support..." She tapped her wand to the neck of the bottle to pop out the cork and took a long sip. "I wish they had healers for the heart, for the head. There's only so much a Mediwitch like me can do and there are so many ways to be sick or hurt that have nothing to do with one's physical health."

Before either of them stopped to consider what they were doing, they'd finished the entire second bottle of white wine between them and ended up on the couch, commiserating.

"I got Lily killed," he lamented, fighting back tears. "It's my fault he targeted her."

"It's not your fault, Severus," she assured him, cupping his face and making eye contact. "You didn't know she'd end up his target. You tried to keep her safe. It's not your fault."

And, later...

"I knew my daughter was unwell," she confessed, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I knew she'd been hurting herself. But I never thought she'd do anything so... final."

"It's not your fault, Poppy," he assured her, gently wiping those tears from her cheeks. "You couldn't have known what she would do. You couldn't have stopped it. It's not your fault."

Neither was quite sure how it happened, but they'd ended up touching each other, and then kissing each other, and then clumsily fondling each other on her sitting room couch, and eventually they ended up in her bedroom, both pissed and desperate and depressed, aching to feel anything that wasn't so hollow and horrible as guilt and self-loathing.

It was clear he was inexperienced, but the truth was, she wasn't terribly adept at this either despite having more than a two decade head start. He was erratic with his kisses and clumsy in his caress, and she was slightly intimidated by both his size and his forcefulness, especially considering how long it had been since she last did this, but she guided him inside her and breathed into his neck and raked her nails down his back, and he bruised her thighs with his fingertips and groaned into her hair and thrust deeply into her as if he could fuck away their mutual pain.

He spent the night in her bed and left upon sunrise in better spirits, for though a part of him hated himself for having told her about Lily, a part of him felt relieved to have spoken of it to someone who seemed to understand, who didn't judge him for it or use the information to manipulate him as both of his masters had. And she was grateful for the distraction, glad she'd survived through that date for yet another year, even though every 24th of June she waged an internal battle over whether she should drink herself into a stupor to escape the memory or simply do as her daughter did and launch herself from that astronomy tower window. One more year.

Two days later, over breakfast in the Great Hall, she received a note via Hogwarts owl. Curiously, she unfurled the parchment.

Thank you for healing me.

If I were capable, I'd do the same for you.

-SS

She saved the note, but they never spoke of it.

Not once.

Not even when they fell into bed again four months later. Or a few months after that. Or a year later, or ten years later.

They hadn't spoken of it once in thirteen years.

THE PRESENT

24 JUNE 1995

"I met him at St. Mungo's." Poppy paced the room, cigarette in hand. Severus' eyes followed her back and forth from his place in the chair by the fire. Thanks to his wandwork, it was now burning sufficiently enough to warm the room, but they did not bother to light the candles in the wall sconces in search of more light.

"The summer between my fifth and sixth years, I volunteered there every day. My father and mother were Healers and it had always been my dream to follow in their footsteps. Mum worked on the Janus Thickey Ward, the closed one for long-term patients, and Dad specialized in identifying potions and plant-poisoning, but I volunteered on the fifth floor, which was, at the time, the children's ward - this was before they developed preventative potions that protected children from common ailments like Dragon Pox and Scrofungulus. Now it houses a tea room and gift shop."

Severus bristled at the mention of Dragon Pox. The disease had nearly been eradicated in children when he came down with it, but his parents hadn't bothered with preventative potions as his father deemed them unnecessary for a half-blood child. He'd been moved from that ward to the fourth floor shortly before it was closed to make room for the shop.

"There was a little boy with Dragon Pox, his son, four or five years old. The family was a prominent old pureblood one and the boy was their only heir, so they wanted it kept quiet. I was assigned to him. Most of my duties revolved around keeping him calm and comfortable, as I learned the basics from his assigned Healer. The mother rarely came in to see her son, which I thought was near criminal as the boy cried out for her often, but his father was always there. He noticed me. He told me I was talented, beautiful. He flattered me and I fell in love - first love, puppy love." She chuckled darkly. "I was young and foolish."

"He seduced you? Did he take advantage?"

"At the time, I would have called it consensual." She threw herself down on the couch, facing the ceiling, one leg straight against the back and the other dangling down off the side. Severus, having finished his glass of elf-made red wine, took a sip from hers. "Working here, you must know how teenagers are. I thought myself very grown up, precocious, mature beyond my years. I also thought myself special for falling for a man like him, for appealing to a man like him, for having him as in love with me as he claimed to be. It took years for me to fully understand that I'd been groomed and manipulated and used. He liked very young women - girls, really - and he knew how to get them."

Severus felt a bit of bile rise up from his stomach. A prominent pureblood with a penchant for bedding teenage girls, one who had a young heir with Dragon Pox around age five? He had a feeling he knew to whom she was referring, a man he never would have pegged for Clover May's father, but now... he could see the resemblance.

"He told me we couldn't be together until I was sixteen, which meant late July, one month into... into knowing each other. He said it was because he respected me but in retrospect, it's clear he only worried about the possibility of getting arrested if caught having sex with an underage witch. Sixteen was the age of consent, then."

Only recently had the Wizengamot passed a law that consent could only take place between a witch or wizard under seventeen and one over if the two were no more than three years apart in age.

"We spent the rest of the summer sneaking away to be together while he peppered me with promises to leave his wife once his son got well. I returned to school for my sixth year in September and he wrote me weekly. We met up during Hogsmeade visits and he took me away for three days over the Christmas holiday; I told my parents I was with a Muggle girlfriend's family so they wouldn't wonder or worry."

"How old was he?" Severus took another sip of her wine. Over the years, he'd developed a taste for the red.

"Nearly twenty-five years older than I. He's dead now." She smirked, turning her face toward Severus. "Dragon Pox. Seems the immunity he'd built up in his younger days wasn't enough to protect him in his golden years."

That was as good as confirmation of Severus' suspicions regarding the man's identity. He sighed and shook his head. He knew of the man's affinity for young women through his son, one of Severus' few remaining friends, and he also knew the man had sired more than one bastard, all kept very hush-hushed. Poppy Pomfrey wasn't the only teenage girl the man had gotten in a certain way through the years, much to the furious chagrin of his wife.

"How did your parents react when you told them you were...?"

"I told him first, in a letter. He replied, 'The fetus isn't mine. Never contact me again.' I told my parents over the Easter holiday, everything, even his name. They brought me to his home and insisted he speak with us, or they'd go to the press - it was an empty threat, they'd never hurt me like that, but it worked. He let us in. He told them I was a..." She turned her face toward the ceiling. "A seductress and a slag, that I'd thrown myself at him, that I was easy and the baby might not even be his. He said my reputation preceded me. He called me a whore." Her face went red from the humiliation of it, even though some thirty-four years had passed since that conversation. She'd never forget the way her mother held her hand, the way her father couldn't look at her.

"He said he'd pay us to get rid of it. I refused. He said 'then we have nothing left to discuss. If I were you, I'd away her to the nunnery.' Whether he meant a convent or a whorehouse, I can't say, but I got the impression he meant the latter. My father was, understandably, livid, but my mother was afraid. Abraxas Malfoy had a reputation for cruelty and for making his enemies disappear; I'd had no idea. The person I knew and the person he was said to be were very different, and it wasn't until that afternoon I realized the one I knew was the fake."

She puffed her cigarette, blowing smoke rings in the air. Severus closed his eyes, picturing the Malfoy patriarch, Lucius' father.

"He handed me a leather pouch filled with galleons and told us to get out. I left the pouch on a shelf in his drawing room. I didn't want his money."

Severus rose and moved to the couch, her wineglass in his hand. He nonverbally prompted her to lift her legs and settled himself under them, so her bum was by his thigh and her legs were draped across his lap. She did not look at him, nor did she react when he placed his free hand on her leg.

"My parents were practical. They said I couldn't be a Healer. It took too much schooling and they wanted me to balance my education with motherhood, but they also went to Headmaster Dippet and begged him to allow me to finish sixth year and return for seventh after the baby was born. Hogwarts policy then was that a girl should leave soon as she started to show and never return. They appealed to Dumbledore and to my Head of House, Professor Beery, Hufflepuff, and to the school nurse at the time, Madam Clearfoot, who thought I showed potential. It took quite a bit of convincing and - if I'm being perfectly honest - I believe my father made a considerable donation to the school in exchange, but they agreed to let me stay through June and return in October."

"Why didn't you use contraceptive potions?" asked Severus, unconsciously massaging her thigh as he spoke. "Surely you could have brewed one yourself."

"They were illegal." She propped herself on her elbows to look at him. "I fought for them to be legalized and it was I who insisted to Dumbledore and the Heads of House that Hogwarts provide it to any witch asking, though if they had their way, we'd write home to the parents of every girl seeking it. I brew it myself. They don't like to advertise, but I don't want any girl... my daughter... It's not fair. When a male student impregnates a female one, he's not asked to leave, but she's deemed a distraction and denied further education. it's archaic. Sexist."

"It's not at all fair," agreed Severus, who'd never given it much thought before.

"I always assured my daughter she was loved, but I also made it a point to tell her she should wait until she was older, that she should avoid teen pregnancy at all costs, because having a baby before you're ready could ruin your life, or, at the very least, derail the life you wanted. I wanted her to be aware, not to internalize it... My parents were so disappointed in me..." Her voice cracked and the tears came. "I wanted better for her than what I had, but had I known..."

"Known what?" He pulled her into his lap so she was sitting sideways and wrapped his arms around her. Though he had no desire to date her and would never love her as he did Lily, he took comfort in their odd relationship, whatever it was, and it wounded him to see her in such pain. She took the wineglass from his hand and downed what was left before discarding it on couch beside them.

"Known what?" he prodded.

"If I'd known she was pregnant, that the boy she loved so much, the one who rejected her, that he'd gotten her in that way, I would have helped her, I would have reassured her that I love her and that she'd never be a disappointment to me. In her note - she left a note - she said she didn't want to disappoint me as I did my own parents, and that she couldn't live with knowing she'd be bringing into the world a child who'd have to live knowing she'd ruined her mother's life. I never intended... It is my fault, Severus. What happened to her, what she did..."

"It's not your fault." He kissed her shoulder and did not pull away when she twisted her body to cry into his hair. "It's not your fault."

"And now, here we are, twenty years later, and we've got a dead child at school, and another marked for death, and there was nothing we could do for the first, and I'm not convinced there's anything we can do for the second."

"He won't kill Potter." Severus guided her into a new position, straddling him, facing each other. As he had thirteen years before, he gently wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. "I won't let him. I owe it to Lily... For what I did to her."

"That wasn't your fault."

"Agree to disagree."

She sniffled as two more fat tears made their way down her cheeks. "I always wanted to be a Healer. I wanted to heal people. But I can't... I don't know how... I can't help a mother whose child was alive this morning and dead tonight. I can't save a boy who's been targeted by the most evil wizard to ever walk the earth. I can't... I can't... I couldn't even save my own daughter..."

"Shhh." Without being able to articulate why he was doing it, he pulled her close for a kiss. She responded despite her tears, and it wasn't long before her nimble fingers were making quick work of the buttons on his frock coat, same as they'd done all those years ago when he was reeling from an unexpected attack.

"Let me take you to bed," he murmured as her icy hands ghosted across his bare chest. "Let me heal you."

"You can't heal me," she whispered against his neck, her warm breath tickling his skin. "I'm too broken."

"I can make you feel good," he argued. "If only for the night, to get us through until tomorrow."

"Yes." Her lips met his, this time in a searing kiss that conveyed nothing but need. He groaned into her mouth, knocked the wineglass to the floor, where it shattered, and had her on her back in seconds, her skirt shoved up around her waist.

"Not here," she moaned as he jerked his pelvis between her legs. Her hand found his erection through his trousers and she began to rub him, but she reiterated, "Not here."

He stood, stretched, and took her hand, leading her into her bedroom. It had been over a year since he'd last been in here, a year ago Halloween in fact, when he'd sought her out claiming a headache but actually suffering heartache over the reminder of Lily's death, exasperated by having to see her son - Potter's son - and Remus Lupin every bloody day. That was the night Sirius Black infiltrated the castle and slashed the portrait of the Fat Lady, leading to all students sleeping in the Great Hall. As soon as his patrol shift ended, he hurried from the room to her chambers, where he took her to bed, vanished her dress, and fucked her harder than ever before, leaving her trembling and sore (but sated).

Tonight he undressed her without magic, enjoying the popping of every button, the unclasping of her bra, the slow lowering of her stockings... She unfastened his trousers and shimmied his pants down over his hips and took him in her hand.

"Too long," he murmured as she squeezed and stroked him. He brought one hand to her breast and drew the pad of his thumb across her nipple before laving it with his tongue.

"You were the most recent for me," she admitted. "You've been it for the past four years."

"Same," he confessed. His mouth met hers before either could say anything stupid.

Both thought - though they'd not divulge it to the other - that they wouldn't mind this being a more regular thing, but both also feared physical intimacy, if engaged in too often, would lead to an emotional intimacy neither was ready for. He loved Lily and always would, or, at the very least, he'd always be committed to her memory, until such time the Dark Lord was truly gone, her son was safe, and he could consider himself absolved of that lingering guilt, whereas she learned at a young age she couldn't trust herself to fall in love, falling in love made people foolish, and it wasn't as if she wanted more children - there would be no replacing Clover May, and, at nearly fifty-two, she had no desire to try to move on. Not now.

Severus rolled onto his back, pulling her naked body with him so that she was on top. He palmed her arse with one hand and undid her braid with the other. There was more gray than blonde in her hair these days, but he loved how silky her wavy locks were, how delicious her coconut shampoo smelled, how well her slim body fit with his angular one.

Her lips traveled down the center of his chest to his groin, where his cock jutted out proudly, eager for her touch. She flicked her tongue against the tip and he hissed. It had indeed been too damn long. He stopped her before he was spent, flipped them again, and toyed with her sensitive clit until she was slick and ready for him. He eased into her - gone were the days when he needed her to guide him - and they moved with a familiarity and passion that would lead anyone spying to believe they were a longtime couple, still in love. Couldn't be further from the truth... and yet...

"You healed me that night, Poppy," he groaned into her sweet-smelling hair. "And you've been healing me ever since."

"You make me forget, if only for the moment." She pressed her breasts against his chest and lifted her hips to take him more deeply. "You make me forget how empty I am."

"He's back." Severus nipped her shoulder. "To maintain my cover, I'll have to serve him again."

"I don't want another parent to have to bury their child, Severus." She cupped his face and kissed him tenderly. "I need you to promise me..."

"I can't promise no one will die, Poppy."

"Promise me you won't kill unless you have to. Promise me you'll protect the students of Hogwarts... Promise you'll keep Harry alive..."

"I will. I will... uh... yes..." His thrusts were becoming erratic. He was close. Fuck, how good it felt to be with her again, how he wished he could bring himself to ask her for more. How he wished he could help her.

"I know you will." She hugged her arms around him tightly. His body stilled and jerked as he emptied himself inside her. He hoped it was true, this promise he'd made. He did not want to kill. He wanted to protect the students of Hogwarts. He wanted to keep Harry alive, not only for Lily, but for Poppy, too. For all of them.

But he had a cover to maintain. He had two masters to serve. He had a life that was not his own, and he had no idea what was to come, but had a feeling he wouldn't make it out of this one alive. He hoped she would. The students needed her to heal them, to keep them safe and healthy, to care as much about their emotional well-being as their physical health.

The second war started with the murder of a boy guilty only of having been there. Of having been 'the spare.'

Where would it go from here?

She smoked a cigarette while he stared at the ceiling, feeling the burn of the Dark Mark forever marring his left forearm. She invited him to spend the remainder of the night in her bed and he accepted, dangerously content to wrap his arms around her in the dark and drift off into uneasy sleep with the scent of coconuts infiltrating his overlarge, twice-broken nose.

There would be no healing either of them, not ever, of this he was certain, but if being together could make them feel better - if only for the night - why deny themselves that?

There would be plenty of time for self-flagellation in the morning.

When Dumbledore would tell the student body what really happened to Cedric Diggory.

And just like that, they were at war.

Again.