Chapter Eleven.
Make Amends

The next day was a Saturday. As a result of previous study, Maggie knew that George and Fred would probably be in the courtyard with Lee Jordan, discussing pranks for the future. It was with this knowledge that Maggie avoided going outside at all costs. She had acted despicably towards him; she was not about to show her face to him and cause him further disdain.

That's what she told herself, anyway--that she was avoiding him so as not to make him uncomfortable. The truth was that she felt horribly guilty, and even thinking about being near the one she'd hurt made her feel all sick inside.

Unfortunately for her, the day was beautiful, and in order to get to the grounds she needed to pass his courtyard. But, rather than make him uncomfortable, she sacrificed her day in the grass and decided that one of the castle's parapets would do just fine.

Solemnly, she mosied along the third floor coridor towards the parapet she knew best.

Too late did she notice familiar voices. Too late did she recognize the tones of Fred, George, and Lee.

"Look at what it's saying on the map."

"What is that? I can't read this sc--"

"It says--"

"Maggen!"

They all whirled about to look at her.

She was too flustered to notice Fred stowing a bit of parchment behind his back.

"H-hi--"

"What are you doing here? It's a beautiful day. Shouldn't you be outside?" Lee sputtered.

"Y-yeah. I guess so--"

"Yeah!" cried Fred. "George, why don't you show dear Maggie how lovely the blooming Mandrakes in the greenhouse look."

With one shove from Fred, George was practically in Maggie's arms. Consequently, Maggie's breath caught in her throat, and her blood rushed to her face. Heart pounding uncomfortably, she choked, "Uhh...hi George."

He pressed his lips together awkwardly and said, "Hi, Maggie."

Then they headed off, simple as that. They just did what Fred had told them to do. George was a little in front, leading the way to the greenhouses. Maggie was in the back. And there was a good-sized elephant trailing them. Maggie suspected she would have been more comfortable if the walls had grown fingers with which to poke and strangle her, than she felt as she walked down the hall with George Weasley at a perfectly leisurely pace. Guilt, as you may know, is far more distressing than physical pain.

Of course, she had not the luck of a guiltless stroll plagued with stony pinches from animated walls. Instead, she was suffocated by a mix her former wrongdoings and a strangely real illusion of gaseous guilt being pumped into the halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with the lone goal of seeping into and shrivelling up Maggen Black's lungs.

This was, naturally, a trick of her imagination, and she knew it. But that didn't hide the fact that her conscience was killing her--figuratively, at least. So, as soon as they were out onto the grounds, Maggie made her decision.

Taking a massive gulp of fresh air to clear her head, and preparing the words all at once, Maggie blurted out, "I'm so sorry for the way I acted. I had no excuse."

"Sorry?" said George, examining her carefully.

This is not usually the reaction one seeks when one makes a fool of oneself in order to gain forgiveness. But you see, unfortunately for Maggie, her discomfort wasn't quite finished. I tricked you right there with that nicely formed apology, but what Maggie really said was something more like, "Eyesore-y furtherway a-tid and no Q's." She had no idea how incoherant she had sounded, so she was left in suspense for three whole seconds of thinking that George's "sorry" had meant that he was in angered disbelief, before she finally caught on to the fact that he really needed her to repeat herself, and he was just being sorry for not understanding her.

When she got her nerves back, she repeated, "I'm sorry. I acted shamefully yesterday. Will you forgive me?"

His mouth twitched, and it was a smile-y twitch rather than a frown-y twitch. Maggie had to let out a laugh of relief, and then Fred had to laugh, too, and they hosted a festival of laughter about how Fred had thought she was trying to tell him about some ugly "Q's" in some far-off land that had been doused into a tidbit acid. Needless to say, she was forgiven.

Meanwhile, in the darkness of the Hogwarts dungeons, stood Severus Snape toiling over a cauldron with an eerie green glow. It was a green that glimmered like an emerald, and it cast strange shadows over his face. Yet, the shadows were not sinister. They instead revealed a gentle mourning, that looked something like the morning of the first snow over acres and acres of rolling green hills when the earth laments the blanketing of the vibrant grass and the pale grey sky does nothing to improve the mood. So, as Severus stirred the draught, wearing the expression of the lamenting earth and the pale grey sky on the first snow, it could be deduced that he thought about a certain Lily Evans--I mean, Potter. You see, this particular color--the color of the potion, that is--happened to be precisely the color of Lily Potter's eyes (and Harry Potter--a student that Severus felt deeply aggrieved to teach--'s eyes, incidentally). And unfortunately, the pewter of the cauldron was precisely the color of the hair of another one of his pupils, one Miss Black, who happened to have precisely the shape of face and precisely the smile of another important and deceased woman in Severus Snape's life--naturally, I speak of Elizabeth (Bitty) Cavenhaugh, the curly-haired, pure-hearted school-day friend that stood by him and was killed for it.

For the terrible constricting feeling he had in his stomach, the hair-colored cauldron could have been twisting its way into his nostrils, down his nasal cavity, and through his esophogus, and for his splitting headache, the blinding green could have been scorching his retinas in a painfully exact lazer point. Neither of these fantasies were actually occurring. Rather, Severus Snape was suffering from the stress of having to keep Professor Quirrel under constant surveillance added to the stress of staring the ghosts of his past in the eyes (literally) nearly every day in not one, but two students. Hence, our pale professor was brewing a particularily potent relaxation draught.

Just one more ingredient...

In a flash, the potion turned into a creamy yellow-white. Possibly, you could have been mistaken it for buttermilk if you saw it on any regular occasion--I bet you'll be a little more careful with the morning coffee creamers now, won't you? This comparison was only amplified when the Professor poured some of the potion into his tea and sat back in his black-leather recliner.

The effect of the draught was immediate. As soon as his tea touched his lips, a pleasent sensation rippled throughout his body. The sensation started at his mouth and then snaked down his throat, then bloomed in his stomach, then rushed through his bloodstream, warming him from the center out. It felt like soft kisses to the surface of his skin and fluttering butterflies to his innards. And if Harry Potter, Maggen Black, or any other thought entered his mind, the potion allowed him to turn away from it without the slightest bit of effort. Therefore, with no emotion whatesoever, did Severus Snape drift off into a dream in which Harry Potter and Lily Evans twirled in circles in a whirr of colors, and Elizabeth Cavenhaugh along with Maggie and Sirius Black danced in a ring of shadowy white. And suddenly, the white shadows turned into black masses. There were swarms upon swarms of Death Eaters. Harry Potter was gone. The Blacks were gone. There were only Death Eaters and Lily and Bitty, and he was the dormant witness to it all...

Startled out of his dream, Severus bolted across the room and vomitted in an empty cauldron, cursing himself for forgetting the fairy wings, the ingredient that allowed for a long-lasting disconnection between the mind and its emotions.

When he was through retching, he wheezed a quick vanishing spell and let his thoughts consume him once more.