Author's note: This chapter is for Andrew.
When I awoke a few hours later the room was dark, and I was alone. Physically, I felt fine, better than most nights in fact since my muscles had been reduced to butter, but I knew Madame Pomfrey was famous for mothering. That, and the look she gave earlier, that You-Will-Soon-Be-Receiving-A-Piece-Of-My-Mind glance did not give me much reason to stay there if I could escape. Which I could.
I pulled my legs out from the sheets and the bare pads touched the tiled floor with bursts of nerves telling me it was frigid. Oh well, they'll survive. She'd stolen my socks and shoes, there was no doubt about it, but at least I had my robes intact. I crept to the still-open window and checked the moon. It told me I had missed my class, but the night was still young.
Moving as quietly as possible, I gathered my robes in one hand, and peeked around the corners of the curtains surrounding my bed. No one. I tip-toed out, biting my lip in concentration. No Madame Pomfrey. No Snape. No Dumbledore. Perfect.
I followed the hall around and around until I came to the base of the astronomy tower. My feet were numb, but I had managed to avoid all students and teachers. The stairs up grew even colder, until I had to sit down on a step part way up and rub them warm. No regrets for running from the hospital wing, but this wasn't fun.
When I got to my room it was with a great feeling of relief. The hardwood was refreshing, and I skipped over to my dresser and pulled out my warmest, tallest, bright red socks. Then, as I sat on my bed to pull them on I saw him.
He sat in the shadow of the corner, the one furthest from the bed. He made no move to stand up, and I knew I looked a fright, having just woken up and left, long hair rumpled and one sock still hanging from my hand.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, a curious catch in my voice. Professors just didn't show up in other professor's rooms in the middle of the night.
His behaviour was coarse, but gentlemenly, and he came out of the shadows holding a metal cup. He didn't say anything, he just took my chin in his hand, and tipped the frigid liquid over my lips in a professional and efficient manner. I felt numbness spread throughout my body, through the cracks in my mind and my last desperate thought had been that there was work to be done tonight.
He took his leave of me and departed. In the blissful solitude I crawled onto my bed and was asleep until mid-morning light burst through the window.
"Honestly, Dumbledore, it was just a headache. I'm perfectly capable of teaching tonight." I was getting annoyed at the old man, and annoyed at his opulent office, and even annoyed at the primping Fawkes. Stupid bird's so darned good looking it makes me feel like I just crawled out of a garbage dump. He appraised me soberly, and the silence made me itch. "If I had just gotten all the way upstairs it never would have been such a fuss."
"Oh? And how long have these migraines been going on unchecked? From what we experienced yesterday these things are incapacitating, and I cannot have one my teachers clumsily trying to treat their own problems when we have a professional medi-witch on staff."
I firmly kept my eyes from going to the floor like a child reprimanded.
"Years." It came out in a whisper.
"Pardon me?" Dumbledore was not amused.
"I said- I said years."
"Professor Sinistra, that is the most foolish thing I have ever heard. I had no idea I had employed someone so irresponsible that they would ignore their health out of pride, compromising the quality of the education of the students."
I felt wretched. There was no point defending myself, because he had just laid the truth flat out on the table. A papery hand touched my cheek and I met his eyes, his unwavering in their criticism, but gentle.
"Promise me you'll see Poppy about it? No more suffering alone?" I shook my head in a agreement. "Good, that's the woman I hired." He sounded satisfied, and sat back down on the other side of his desk, clasping his hands firmly. "That brings me to the second reason I wanted to speak with you." He gave me a moment to calm down, and wipe the glisten from the corner of my eyes.
"Sir?"
"It's time for your skills to come into the sunlight, Sophelia. We need it for the war effort, and no one else will do." He gazed at me gravely. Thoughts choked in my head.
"But- oh- no- you couldn't mean? But- but, Sir!" Tears that had been threatening before spilled freely down my cheeks with the horror of what he was suggesting. Of course he knew of my talent, it was what made me so good at her job, but what he was suggesting was terrifying.
"Yes. Go to dinner, eat something, go upstairs and think it over. You know it's the only way we can do it, the only way to win this war before it claims the wizarding world's children. I know it has been heavy on your mind. I know you have thinking, planning for months now, I can see it in your eyes."
Oh no, I couldn't. Too many lives, too much responsibility. He stood, and I mournfully rose as well, and wandered blindly into his bathroom. Shutting the door softly behind me, I heard Dumbledore's foot steps lead away, probably back to his desk. I looked at myself in the mirror. It told me a looked like hell, and I was inclined to agree.
There she was. The girl who was supposed to save Hogwarts. I had to give Harry Potter the chance to defeat Voldemort, and protect the school and the children's lives at the same time. My eyes were dark under the lashes, too dark to reveal their ice grey colour, and my long hair tangled unbecomingly where anguished hands had grasped. But I looked young, young and naïve. I was only in my late twenties, not even a touch of grey streaking my hair as a sign of experience and wisdom. And I was going to save Hogwarts.
Dinner was the usual affair of students and teachers, delicious smells and tastes and of course, noise. I slipped in early, and found a seat on the end of the table. Snape sat beside me, since Minerva was giving him dark glances from the other end that suggested he was not welcome there, or anywhere near her tonight.
"Feeling better, Professor?" He made an effort to be polite, and I found his rich voice soothing in my ears, covering the shrill voices of excited children.
"Yes, though I was very surprised to find a certain potion's master in my private bedroom last night." I kept the statement low, to avoid scandalous rumours.
"Madame Pomfrey has a large numbers of escapees among the faculty, so after brewing your potions I waited for you to sneak back to your rooms. It saved me a great deal of searching." A smile touched his face. Let it never be said that Severus Snape never smiled, for he did, just never around those who might mock him.
"Well, thank you, since I was in no shape to thank you at the time." In the moment of the conversation, I grew unaware of the pounding chaos of noise around me, and was in a world of peace and soft caresses of sound.
"Forgotten, Sinistra. Just doing my job." We continued to talk amiably the rest of the meal.
When the pudding appeared on the tables, I absently poured my heavy clay mug half full of coffee and half full of hot chocolate and Snape watched the procedure with amusement. He continued to smirk as he reached into his robes, and unscrewed the lid of a silver flask.
"I'm afraid I'm starting to look like Moody." He joked darkly, glancing in Dumbledore's direction, who was looking the other way. Lowering his own coffee mug, he poured a splash of smooth liquid in, and gave it a swish to mix.
I offered mine to him in an uncharacteristic display of rule-breaking. It had been an odd day, and he administered the same dose to my mingled mixture.
"Anti-dunderhead potion." He mumbled, taking a sip of his coffee and sighing. I chuckled, feeling better than I had in a long time, even before I drank deeply of the spiked dessert coffee.