Chapter 12 - Telling Danielle EVERYTHING
Danielle's POV
At lunch a letter arrives from a strange owl that actually hands Severus the letter rather than dropping it in our food like Lily.
I listen as Severus reads the letter out loud:
"It's from the Ministry of Magic. To whom it may concern:"
The letter went on to tell us about the date of the court trial and who we needed to contact (The Ministry and a lawyer.)
Of course, Severus instantly volunteers Dumbledore to be my lawyer, insuring me that he's done it before and is quite good at it, which sounds fine with me. We'll have to get in touch with the Ministry of Magic and tell them that we intend to press charges. I have to go see Healers first though as proof of my damaged eyes.
This is actually kind of scary to me seeing as I've never been to the hospital before. Severus assures me it will be OK, and we will go tomorrow. I dread it, but he says the day after tomorrow we should go to my house, so he tells me to start packing.
Of course, I never really did unpack, so that's not a problem. I should have done some snooping when I had my sight, but I saw the house in its entirety and most of it's imprinted in my mind. I do plan to snoop around a little bit though; anything I can find out about Severus is something, right?
Severus' POV
It's evening and I'm sitting on the couch reading a book, and Danielle has gone to her/my room for something. I've read ten pages by the time I realize I have no idea what I'm reading. Looking at the cover, I see it's a fictional novel, and obviously a love story. What made me pull THIS off the shelf? It must have been my mother's; I should probably return it to her when we go back to Hogwarts. I read the description of it, and decide to read it anyway, just to see what Mother reads.
Danielle's POV
I'm snooping around blindly, literally. I can't tell what I'm going through, but I do manage to find a journal, which is useless since I can't read it. I want to find out the personal things that are definitely in here, but I can't SEE the stupid book. Ugh. I feel guilty searching through his things, so I give up. It's not going to do any good anyhow. I look around the room, hoping for just a glimmer of light in just one eye, but finding none. I sigh and search the last drawer. My hand brushes something at the back, and I pull it out. I can tell by touch that it's a photo. I wonder if it's of Severus and his family.
I look down at it, wishing for sight.
Severus's POV
I walk in on Danielle snooping through my things. She has a picture of Lily in her hands, which enrages me.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
She stutters a reply, "I-I…I was snooping," she admits lamely.
"I knew I should have planted something that would make you sorry for this."
"What does it matter? I can't even see who the picture is of," she says bitterly.
I realize she is right, but go on, still fueled by anger. "Why are you bothering to snoop then? You're BLIND you can't see anything to find anything out about me!"
"I know I'm blind; how observant of you," she spits. "I just want to know more about you, and my surroundings."
"Then by all means, ASK!"
She puts the photo of Lily back in the drawer, then whispers, "I'm sorry, Severus…who is that picture of?"
"It doesn't matter anymore."
"It matters to me…I know I haven't really KNOWN you very long, but the least you could do is not keep secrets in plain sight," she says, spitting the last word like fire.
Danielle's POV
I push past Severus, but he grabs my arm and pulls me back around. "Fine. I'll tell you. I'll tell you EVERYTHING."
He drags me to the couch and pushes me down roughly. He sits in the armchair and says, "The picture was of a woman named Lily Evans, well she was Lily Evans, now she's a Potter. Well, she was, at least until the Dark Lord killed her," he rambles quickly.
"The Boy Who Lived? She's his mother?"
"Yes. We knew each other in school; we were best friends actually. I'm the one who informed her that she was a muggleborn witch. I used to go to her house when my father, Tobias, was being especially drunk.
"I fell in love with her. James Potter also liked her, and his main activity of the day was to make my life miserable. He and the Marauders, that's what he called his sick group of friends, would bully me relentlessly day after day. The only thing that made them cut it out for a little while was Lily.
"I got interested in the Dark Arts, hoping to impress her. I didn't realize how stupid I was at the time. Many of the other Slytherins were interested in them too, and it seemed to impress the Slytherin girls. Of course, many of them are in Azkaban or dead now.
"Lily had finally had enough when I, humiliated by James who hung me upside down with the spell Levicorpus, called her a Mudblood.
"She went on to marry that arrogant Potter, and I went on to be a Death Eater. I wanted out again pretty quickly when I realized how evil and foolish it was to hurt innocent people. By that time Voldemort found out about Lily and James having a son named Harry Potter. There was a prophecy described by none other than Trelawney, that psychic kook at Hogwarts.
"I overheard the conversation and told the Dark Lord. I was the downfall of my own true love. I begged Dumbledore to protect Lily, and in exchange offered anything. Dumbledore gave me a job at the school and I became a spy for him. The Dark Lord thought that I was spying on Dumbledore for HIM, but I am really feeding him fake information that Dumbledore tells me to.
"The Potters' secret keeper revealed to the Dark Lord where Lily and James were, and no matter what Dumbledore did, he couldn't protect them fast enough. And so they were killed. That's when I vowed to have nothing more to do with the Dark Arts, except to bring them to an end."
He seems to be finished, and I'm speechless.
"You really loved her, didn't you?" I say quietly. "To offer…anything in return for their protection, even though she wasn't yours to protect."
He simply stares at me.
"I understand why you wanted to remain detached from me now."
"But I don't have that option anymore; you know too much. I must now protect you as well!" he says, rising to his feet again, agitated.
I stand, find his arm and hold onto it, looking where I hope his black eyes are. "Is it really so awful? At least now you have someone that has your story, doesn't that make you feel better, to be noticed?"
He is silent.
And then he kisses me, and sparks explode in my head, and I almost think I can see him through my closed eyelids. It's long and passionate this time, and we both come gasping up for air when it's over.
He backs away from me slowly, and I sense his confusion. "This cannot be happening. Not after what I just told you."
"That you're in love with a woman that's been dead for two years?"
Severus's POV
I put my hand to my face, pressing in on my eyes with my forefinger and thumb. I take a deep breath and let it out. "No, I just told you I was a Death Eater for several years, and you still…"
"Love you?"
"Yes. That and you're STILL a student to me," I continue, but am cut off.
"Dumbledore is not going to fire his spy. No one will ever know what went on this summer if we don't tell them."
"Which brings back the problem of your tuition. We've got to get started on Braille!"
"Well, wait until the Healers have a whack at me, then we'll see, OK, Severus? I might still regain my sight…" she trails off, doubting it.
I nod, then say yes after realizing that she has no idea that I'm nodding. She can't see the expression on my face, unoccluded. I should probably teach her that soon as well. I will teach her Legilimency and Occlumency as well, so that she can hide her thoughts, and become even more aware of her surroundings at the same time.
But for now I need to get some rest, and I refuse to spend another night on the couch when my own bed is in use by another. "I need to get some sleep," I tell her, and start for the bedroom. She stays on the couch, staring after me.
Of course, she's really not staring at all, is she?
Danielle's POV
After Snape goes to bed, I wait a long time before sneaking into the room. Sneaking is pretty hard when you're blind because you can't tell if the person is awake or asleep, or if they're looking right at you to see what you're doing. I do my best and listen to his soft breathing. When I'm certain he's asleep and a snore rises to me, I find my bedclothes and change into them. I'll take a shower in the morning before we leave.
Silently, I find my way to the opposite side of the bed and softly lay down. Sleep doesn't come easily. Why hasn't a letter arrived from Leah yet? Or has it and Snape is keeping it from me? But why would he do that? No, she must have keeled over dead upon reading it…
When I wake up in the morning, Severus is still asleep, which I can determine by his gentle snoring. I silently get up and grab some clothes.
I go to the bathroom and take a shower and all that other stuff that girls do in the morning in the bathroom, and head to the kitchen. I'd fix breakfast, but I can't read the labels on things or see if it's done or not, so I just wander around, getting to know the place again. I feel along the endless bookcases, wondering what the books are about. For some reason, I can't see Severus pleasure reading, or at least not fiction. I stub my toe on the edge of one of the cases and decide that's enough blind adventuring. I find my way to the front door and pause beside it. I could go for a walk, but that might be kind of dangerous seeing as I'll probably get lost.
I sigh and turn around and walk right into Severus. I jump and yelp in surprise.
"Thinking about leaving me, were you?" he asks, amused.
"No, I was thinking about taking a walk, but figured I'd get lost," I say, my heart rate returning to normal.
"I'm going to go fix some breakfast, and then we'll go by floo to St. Mungo's."
I nod and I hear his footsteps recede into the other rooms, and I wonder how I did not hear him sneak up like that. I sigh and take my seat at the kitchen table and think while Severus uses magic to make breakfast.
What if they can't fix my eyes? I can't go back to Hogwarts blind. What about the stairs? There are a lot of stairs at Hogwarts. Even if I can successfully manage to not fall off the Grand Staircase, Braille is going to be just as big a problem. Homework is going to be impossible, and how am I supposed to check things out from the library to study? I won't be able to see them! There's got to be a solution for my blindness. If there's not, I just won't be able to go back to Hogwarts to be a student. I'll have to drop out, and Dumbledore will understand.
And then bigger questions come along like: What am I going to be after I drop out? Where am I going to go? Who is going to take care of me? I guess after I drop out I'll still have to wait the last few months until I turn a legal age to use magic and take a test. I'll train for Apparating and learn to do that so I don't have to fly a broom. I can use the Floo network to get around too. The three questions above are still unanswered though. Will Dumbledore let me live at Hogwarts with Severus? More importantly, will Severus want to help me? I mean, he did promise, but that was kind of a nightmare comforter more than a real promise. I don't want to make him do something he doesn't want to do, but what if he doesn't want to take care of me? I don't want to have to have someone to take care of me.
I thought the whole point of growing up was so you could take care of yourself. How am I supposed to do that if I can't even cook breakfast for myself, or am afraid to go up some stairs? Maybe I can go to a school for the blind and learn that stuff…
After breakfast during which I was completely silent, as was Severus, both of us probably thinking, we headed to the den. Severus offers me some Floo powder in a jar, and I take a handful. He does the same and says, "Make sure you say it clearly, and that you say St. Mungo's General Waiting Room, understood?"
I nod and he steps into the fireplace, throwing the Floo Powder down as he says, "ST. MUNGO'S GENERAL WAITING ROOM."
I guess he disappears, and so I follow and do the same.
The next thing I know, I'm stepping out of a fireplace. Someone grabs my arm and I instantly know it is Severus, though he never says a word. I hear a few people talking, and it sounds like the typical doctor's office waiting room.
"I'm Severus Snape, temporary guardian of Danielle Thorne, who has an appointment today."
The woman does something, I guess checks for my record, and I wonder when Severus made the appointment for me. He must have sent Lily out. I haven't petted her in a while, or even seen her, well, you know what I mean. Severus must be taking care of her as well.
It's just now that I realize that Lily has the same name as the one that Snape loved. That must be why he hesitated whenever he said her name. It reminded him of his love.
"Oh yes, here she is. Go right in," she says.
Severus takes my arm again and leads me through a doorway. A man speaks and asks, "What can we do for you today?"
"We need someone to check her eyes. She was the one in the paper who was hexed blind."
I was in the paper?
"Ah, yes, right this way."
We go somewhere else and I feel extremely disoriented by my surroundings. The next thing I know there are people bustling around me, and they tell me to lie back on a bed. Severus hangs onto my hand the whole time to let me know that he's still there, and a lady says, "Count to twenty."
I don't make it to 8.
I'm at the hospital all day, but nothing fixes my sight. When we leave I'm too exhausted to do anything but sleep once getting back to Spinner's End. Snape tries to be reassuring, but I really don't listen to him much. He says that he'll keep trying to create a potion until my sight is returned, even if it takes him his whole life.
We decide to go to my house after I learn to Apparate. Snape can't Apparate us there since he's never been to my house, so he's going to start giving me lessons tomorrow. We talked about our options at the hospital, and it seems that I won't be returning to Hogwarts. Snape wrote a letter to Dumbledore, and Dumbledore said he would put my dropping-out forms in order. I'll never have my dream job of being a writer, but there's surely something I can do.
In the meantime, Snape enrolled me in a school for the magically blind. I start in one week. I'll be missing some of the classes though for the court hearings and such.
