This time, she was the one who stopped it almost right after she had put her hands on his neck. She let out a frustrated scream. "It's just— it's like a tidal wave, I can feel it right when I touch you, it just hits me and rips me away. I can't block it, I can't..." she grunted and balled her fists. "The only thing I can do is letting it wash me away, but—" Her expression changed. She stared into the space over Severus' right shoulder as if the answer was written in the air. "Let it wash me away," she murmured, "Go through it..." She looked at him, her eyes wide open. "I think I know what to do now. I need to let it happen, see it through to the end."
"That's insane," he interjected, "How do you know this will work?"
"I just... know? I can't explain it. Let me try it one more time. If this doesn't work, I will find another subject, I promise."
Severus groaned, but consented. Before she laid her hands on his neck, she said, "You must under no circumstances break the connection, understood?"
He nodded. Then, her palms made contact with his skin. It all started again, the expression of extreme grief on her face, the wailing, the sobs racking her body. It seemed to take forever and was getting almost unbearable to watch. Severus closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. More than once, he had the impulse to move himself out of her reach. But he clenched his jaw and stayed put, for better or worse.
Bit by bit, Mette's reaction diminished. Her sobbing got less frequent, her breath steadied itself and she stopped shaking. He wondered whether this meant that her theory was correct or whether she had simply tired herself out. He almost jumped when she whispered, "Put your hands on mine." When he didn't react immediately, Mette repeated her request. Eventually, he laid his palms on the backs of her hands. A curious feeling arose in his palms. Small waves spread through his arms and entered his body and mind until he felt like he was in a trance, completely serene. As he experienced this deep calm, he realized that something inside him had been tossing and turning. Now, for the first time, it went still.
They remained in silence, sitting across from each other, eyes closed, deeply connected. When Mette finally lifted her hands, the feeling she had given him stayed. He opened his eyes.
They smiled at each other for a moment. Mette asked, "Will you stay the night?"
He nodded.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
He awoke amidst a faint scent that was unfamiliar to him. The room was also brighter than usual. He looked around and, after momentary confusion, remembered that he had spent the night on Mette's couch. Quiet noises reached him from the open kitchen. He sat up on the couch and looked over its backrest. A column blocked Mette from his view. Only now did he realize that he was wearing a shirt, but no trousers. He grabbed them from the armchair on which they lay folded and hastily put them on. Finally, he dared to speak.
"Good morning," he said as he approached the counter that marked the border between the living room and kitchen.
Mette turned and quickly looked him up and down. With a crooked smile, she said, "I have never seen you in just a shirt, with no jacket on. You look good in white..." She blushed and hastily turned to the kitchen counter. "Do you want some coffee?"
"No, thanks. How are you feeling?"
She cocked her head and said, "Different. Also tired." She chuckled. "How about you?"
"'Different' is a good word to describe it." After a pause, he added, "I suppose we did not manage to give you control over your gift, though."
She turned to him, but stared into space, frowning. After a minute, she said, "I don't mind, I think. Something has changed yesterday. You showed me that I can use my gift for the benefit of the other person."
"I didn't really do anything."
"Yes, you did. You let me in." She took a step in his direction and his heart made a leap. But she merely smiled and said, "Thank you."
"What? No. I'm the one who has to thank you. I feel... calmer, deep down."
When they were both ready, they left the house together, and were immediately greeted by shouted questions. There were a number of new ones among them, Severus realized:
"Did you spend the night together?"
"Miss, what do you see in this man?"
"Are you plotting to bring back You-Know-Who together?"
Severus turned to give that riffraff a piece of his mind, but Mette grabbed him by the arm and pulled him further. When they were safely within Hogwarts grounds, Severus snarled,
"Trust them to ruin a nice morning like this."
"Why? Because they are shouting nonsense? It doesn't matter what they are saying, does it?"
Later that day, Severus discussed with Xanimus the things that had happened the night before.
"Can you describe the feeling you had afterwards in more detail?" the Healer asked.
Severus became still and focused on the part of him that had always been one thing, but now was another. "There is... a core? A nucleus? Something at the centre. Like the eye of the storm. There used to be only storm. Now there is a quiet centre."
"What is it the centre of?"
"Of me."
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Severus saw Mette sitting at the teachers' table as he opened the side door leading onto the dais in the Great Hall. An emotion quite unknown to him spread from his chest. He paused for a second to examine it. Joy.
Was it his imagination or did the buzz of the students' voices grow quieter when he came to the table, just to flare up again more excitedly than before? He brushed the thought aside and focused solely on Mette. A smile lit up his face when she turned and saw him.
He had only just sat down when he made out a movement from the corners of his eyes. He turned to see Claire do the most curious thing. She knelt down beside his chair, looked up at him with a pained expression and laid her hand on his knee. He moved his leg away.
"Honey," Claire said softly, "You really should have talked to me! Come see me as soon as you can, okay?"
Mette moved on his other side. "What is it now?" she snapped.
"Oh..." Claire's eyes widened. "You need to get out of your love bubble! Didn't you see the Evening Prophet yesterday?"
"No, why?"
A look of triumph flitted over Claire's face. Wordlessly, she produced a few pages of newspaper from a bejewelled handbag and stuffed them into Severus' hands. He awkwardly unfolded them under the table. A photograph of him running through Hogsmeade filled a quarter of the title page. Beside it, a headline was printed in huge letters.
SNAPE HELPED YOU-KNOW-WHO INVADE HARRY POTTER'S MIND – STUDENTS IN DANGER?
The article below ran,
Severus Snape, whose recent "miraculous" return from the dead has raised great concerns all over the country, paved a path for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named into the mind of Harry Potter.
Sources close to the Daily Prophet revealed that Snape was tasked by the late Albus Dumbledore to teach Potter Occlumency, the art to close one's mind from prying eyes. It has come to our attention that in the course of those Occlumency lessons, Potter's mind got more vulnerable to attacks from You-Know-Who with every passing week. It is safe to assume that ... cont. on p. 4
Severus quickly searched for the indicated page
...Snape was the one who gave his Dark Master access to the Boy Who Lived. Yet, at this very moment, Snape lives among the students of Hogwarts, protected by Headmistress Minerva McGonagall who seems to share her predecessor's idiotic weakness for outcasts and criminals.
The school staff are trying to defend Dumbledore's foolish decision to let Snape teach children at the school for many years, despite Snape being a known Death Eater. Harry Potter still insists that Snape was "a hero", but was unavailable for further comments. It is probable that Snape put Potter under a spell to cover up his own shameful and despicable role during the war.
We will keep reporting any new information that comes to light.
Like in a trance, Severus folded the newspaper into a tiny square. Someone pried it out of his hands. It had begun. His life was being made public, every occurrence in it subjected to whatever interpretation made for the most sensational headline. His stomach clenched and a tingling sensation crept up from his hands and feet. Despite discussing with Xanimus the possibility of the papers writing about him, the reality of it was unbearable.
He tried to remember the Healer's advice. These people don't shape your life. Keep to the ones you trust. But there were so few that he trusted and so many who would now condemn him. He forced himself to turn and look at Mette, whose eyes darted along the last few lines of the article. The shocked look on her face did not help to make him feel better. He got up, his legs hardly following his commands. "I need to leave," he said hoarsely. He staggered through the door and along the corridor. Passing students threw him fearful looks, made a wide berth around him or even turned on the spot and walked in the opposite direction.
When he arrived at the dungeon corridor, he put his back against a wall. It became painfully obvious that hearing the advice to not heed anyone's opinion was easy, but following it seemed altogether impossible. He had decided to let down his defences for Mette, but as it turned out, this meant that they were down for everyone else too.
Someone else was in the corridor. Mette, most likely. Relieved, he looked up – and saw Claire standing a few paces from him.
"Are you okay, darling? Oh, what am I saying, of course you're not okay!" she took a few steps towards him and studied his face with an earnest look. "I will go down to Hogsmeade and set them straight right now! Just say the word. Please, give me a chance, let me show you what I can do for you!"
"Severus?" a voice rang out from further away. Mette came hurrying towards them. When she saw Claire, she stopped short. "How did you get here so fast?"
"Fast?" Claire scoffed, "Hun, you took ages! Wanted to finish that dinner before you checked on your friend, huh?"
Mette frowned and blinked, then murmured, "But I left right after him. You were still there..." her voice trailed off.
"Anyway," Claire said with a hint of impatience and turned back to Severus, "Please let me do this?"
"Why would you help me?" he asked.
Claire gasped in disbelief. "Because I'm your friend! And I can actually do something to make this whole situation go away. Not just" – she threw a look at Mette – "hang on to you all the time. I'd get things done."
Would she really offer her help so persistently if she was responsible for this whole situation? No, she could not be trusted, she had been eavesdropping on him. Then again, there was no real evidence that it had been her. But it had to be, who else could have done it?
"Could you please leave?" he said to Claire, but without vigor.
She sighed, saying, "I see you need more time. But I should probably tell you that this isn't the first article about you. Just the first time you made the title page. Now that they've managed to dig up something interesting about you, they won't stop. They're like bloodhounds. Believe me, I know from experience." Her smile, usually overly sweet, now held something bitter. "So don't wait too long! You know where to find me." She turned and walked away.
When Claire was just out of earshot, Mette growled, "No need to find her, she always finds you first."
Severus did not answer. His hands were clammy with cold sweat. They're like bloodhounds Claire had said. Maybe it was a good idea to put someone on the case who knew how to handle the situation. Claire was friends with a lot of people, he had seen it at the party. Should he have accepted her offer after all?
"Severus?" Mette's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "We need to do something to stop those reporters."
"Yes..." He hesitated. "Maybe Claire is on to something? It can't hurt to let her try, can it?"
Mette scoffed. "Are you serious? Did you forget she eavesdropped on you, on us, probably for months?"
"We don't actually know it was her."
"Don't you start with this again! How else would she have known all those things about our experiments? And the taaffeite?"
"The taaffeite could have been coincidence. And your potion... are you sure you never said anything about it? To anyone?"
"Yes, I'm sure!" Mette exclaimed angrily.
"And why would Claire offer her help if it was her who told the reporters all those things about me?"
"She's clearly after you in some twisted way, can't you see that? She probably told them so she could swoop in and rescue you."
"That seems far-fetched."
Mette raised her eyebrows, ready for an angry retort. But then, she let her hands fall to her sides and closed her eyes. "I don't want to fight," she said softly. "If we can't do anything ourselves, maybe we should talk to Minerva again tomorrow."
Severus nodded mechanically.
Sev and Mette can't seem to catch a break! Will Mette cave and let Claire help? Subscribe you don't miss anything! I'd also be suuuper happy if you wrote a review or gave the story a fave :) Until next time, my friends.