A/N: JK Rowling owns the HP world, not me. Chapter 11 rated T+ for language and suggested violence and drug use.
*****
Aurora remained on the roof of the tower, stunned. Her breath came fast. Her eyes darted around. She felt like sobbing, but no tears came.
So, she thought. So.
She had felt endings hovering around them. She had taken a chance and spoken the words.
I always loved you, Severus.
But he, it seemed, did not love her. She did not know a culture in the world where stalking off in silence constituted a response of "I love you, too".
Quieter than the ghosts that haunted Hogwarts, Aurora re-entered the tower, trailed down the long flight of steps, and returned to her rooms. She considered lying down to sleep, but her mind would not let her relax.
Years ago she would have done something dramatic under these circumstances, perhaps burned or slashed her skin, either with her wand or by other means. Punched walls. Drunk herself into oblivion. But now she was too tired. She felt so very old. None of these actions would remedy her situation. None of them would ease the long empty days of struggle stretching before her. There was no more hope, not for her. She was a professor of Hogwarts, and she must protect her students from the Dark Lord. And that was all there was.
She could really use a hit.
Aurora changed out of her teaching robes and pulled on an old t-shirt over her underpants. Clearing her exercise space on the floor, she began her first of nine repetitions of the sun series.
She had been clean for six years, and it was yoga, with its associated breathing and calming techniques, that had been her constant companion throughout her struggle for sobriety. Plus, it kept off what her counselor Jane had called "those extra rehab pounds".
She breathed oxygen into her tired muscles, progressing through each of the asanas in her normal routine. The repetition and familiarity soothed her. When she was sweaty and trembling with fatigue, Aurora drank a glass of orange juice with a dash of pomegranate, then lit a candle. She knelt on the floor, focusing herself on the flame, visualizing the red-orange warmth of the candle flooding her body.
At half-five Aurora stepped into the shower. She lathered her hair with jasmine-scented shampoo, scrubbed herself, and shaved everything below the neck, as was her habit. She wasted several minutes of the glorious hot water wracked with great heaving sobs. Then she cleansed her face, washing off the salt.
When she had stepped out of the shower and toweled off, she slathered herself with a generous amount of lotion. Professor Sinistra did not usually take such care over her toilette, but she had learned long ago that the surest way to calm herself was to focus on tiny details.
The first hints of daylight were creeping over the moors as Aurora wrapped herself in her bathrobe and made a cup of tea on the hearth. The kettle had not yet whistled when she heard a knock on the door. She banished the wards and cracked the door open.
Amycus Carrow.
"Professor Sinistra," Carrow wheezed, leering at her state of undress. Or perhaps at the bathrobe itself, which was bright pink and had goth Hello Kitty figures dancing all over it.
She did not open the door to admit him. Nevertheless, the filthy pervert crowded toward the opening, as if to tell her a secret. At some point in the last months, he seemed somehow to have generated the idea that, if she could be friends with Snape, she might be amenable to a romantic encounter with Amycus himself.
"The Headmaster would like to see you at your earliest convenience."
Aurora was barely able to contain her confusion. "Professor Snape?"
"Yehhhs," Carrow confirmed, inflicting on her what he must have believed to be a winning smile.
She thought quickly. It had only been a few hours since Severus had left her on the tower. Had something happened? If it was something to do with Harry or the Order, why would he send for her and not McGonagall or one of the others? And why had he issued the summons via Amycus Carrow instead of with his Patronus?
Aurora had her suspicions on this last point.
"Yes, of course," she told Carrow. "I'll be up to his office immediately."
"Er, the Headmaster is still in his rooms. He asked me to send you there."
Had the cretin winked at her? Aurora fought down a moue of disgust.
"Certainly," she responded regally, as if this development had not confused her further. Aurora nodded her head at Amycus in farewell and went to shut the door.
"Lucky bastard," she thought she heard Carrow say as the door clicked shut.
****
By the time she reached Snape's apartments, a feeling of panic had risen in her throat. What had happened? Merlin's ghost, was everything they had worked for going to fall apart in the light of a beautiful, sunny morning? She rapped on the door.
His features were inscrutable as always when he admitted her.
"Severus, what's happened?" Her eyes were wide with concern and roamed around the room for a clue. She did not know what she expected to see (blood stains? disembodied limbs?), but Snape's sitting room looked as it always did. As it had for nigh on fifteen years, in fact, since Snape never moved his rooms to the headmaster's apartments that Dumbledore had occupied. Now a fire crackled in the hearth, and the place looked...cozy.
Snape handed her a cup of tea and replaced the wards on his door.
"What is it? Is it Harry?"
"Harry's fine, Aurora, as far as I know. Everyone's fine. I haven't had any news." He paced up and down the room.
She settled on the divan, still nervous, and sipped at the tea. Black, no sugar, no lemon; just as she had always liked it. "You scared me half to death, Severus, sending Carrow like that." She strove for a joking tone. His mouth quirked as she imbued the Death Eater's name with all the distaste she felt for him. "Why didn't you just send your Patronus?"
He stopped pacing and stared out the window, clearly avoiding her gaze.
Aurora's mouth dropped open. "Still?" she groaned. "Don't tell me it's still that fucking deer!"
"It is still that fucking deer," he confirmed in his most precise tones.
"Oh, honestly, Severus."
So this was how it was, she thought, how it would be: Lily Evans, always and forever.
He pressed his forehead to the glass of the windowpane.
Aurora stared. "Sev, are you...are you angry with me?" she asked incredulously. Although Snape walked around in a near-constant state of annoyance, Aurora prided herself on being one of the few people who could gauge the fluctuations in his mood. And now he was reading as 'angry'. Furious, actually. She could practically hear his jaw grinding.
"I don't appreciate being told lies," he told the window.
She set her tea down on the coffee table. "Beg pardon?"
He whirled and came to stand over her. "I don't appreciate your sneaking out to see Lupin and then returning to tell me lies!" He clutched convulsively at the arm of the sofa.
Aurora's mouth dropped open in complete shock. "'Sneaking out to see Lupin'?" she repeated, thunderstruck. "And what lies? When have I lied to you? When have I ever lied to you?"
"You think you can use pretty words to keep me from knowing the truth about you and him. But it won't work. I won't swallow your nonsense!"
Aurora rose, the outrage flowing through her like electricity. "Of all the...you think this is about Remus?"
Snape rolled his eyes. "It's always been about Lupin, hasn't it? Bloody Lupin. Why do you bother pretending anymore?
"You are unbelievable! How is it that you are always so totally wrong?"
"Wrong, am I?" he stepped toward her menacingly.
She held out her hand. "Vial."
Snape froze in confusion.
"Come on, Potions master," she said impatiently, snapping her fingers under his beaky nose. "I want a vial."
Snape opened a drawer in his desk and produced an empty test tube. Aurora raised her wand to her temple and drew away a silvery strand, then deposited the memory in the test tube and stoppered it. His long fingers clutched the vial distractedly as a range of emotions played over his face.
"Talk to me when you've got your facts straight," she spat, turning on her heel and marching out the door.