Chapter 76: Victory of Reason
'Humiliating' was the only word Snape could describe this entire misunderstanding.
On their trudge back to the castle, she had conjured a magical bubble to shield them from the raising winds. With her voice not fighting to be heard above that not-so-subtle howl, she had dropped the truth unceremoniously upon Snape's head. "I'm not pregnant." And from there the mortifying explanation came about: the insidiousness of hearsay and its equivalent reliability.
"Wait, Sev," Lily's voice called after him as he stormed through the front doors into the entry hall, bringing with him a fresh burst of snow onto the no-doubt newly mopped stone floors.
Snape didn't slow. It wasn't just the embarrassment that refused to relinquish him. His heart had a jumble of mixed emotions that had formed at the start of it all, and that revelation only served to knot it further. He thought he'd be relieved with such news, perhaps she thought the same too, but it seemed his emotions were far more complicated than the either of them could have predicted.
He stopped only when Lily stepped before him, her hands braced firmly upon his chest. "Stop, Sev. Talk to me." He hadn't said a word since they stepped forth from that gossip starter's broiling hut. "Look, I see that that you're disappointed-"
"Disappointed?" Snape rasped, unable to hold comment about that ridiculous assertion. How could he be disappointed? He never wanted to bring a child into the world, especially not one like this. But try as he might, he could give no better label to his black mood.
That knot of emotion in his heart now was also threaded with that of confusion. He did not understand why he felt as he felt. To have balked at the thought of a child as he did, yet to feel no catharsis at its dismissal into inexistence. A hypocrite of a heart.
"You're mistaken, Lily. I'm simply relieved," Snape uttered, too eager to shrug aside this conversation and pack away his own uncomfortable thoughts.
If Lily was in anyway convinced, she did not show it, although she no further attempts to intrude. She withdrew, her hands moving down his torso and slipping from his person. "I'll be up at the staffroom, okay? Setting the record straight."
Snape felt a twist in his heart, as too his lips as he allowed a smile to show. "I appreciate it."
The smile she returned was easy, so generously given. She stepped forward again, this time with intent behind it. One that Snape had learned, as too the heart behind it. He leaned forward to meet her lips, accepting her need for affection, as she had accepted his need for distance and time.
There were a few stern words about gossip Lily would have liked to give, and she would have, if the object of her ire were her friends. As it were, these people were her workmates, all of which not one year ago had been her teachers and role models. As such, when Lily stepped into the staffroom, she felt far more inclined to give the diplomatic approach a go.
But as the muggle saying went, the best of plans rarely survive the first encounter. As it was, any thought of stirring up the hive fled Lily's mind the moment she stepped past the threshold and saw the small gathering of professors by the fireplace, comforting a member among them.
Minerva McGonagall, the Professor who had once comforted Lily by a similar fireplace, was now sat sobbing in a heartbreaking echo. Flitwick sat on the couch beside her, feet dangling off the floor with a hand laid upon his co-worker's knee in empathy, while Kettleburn fussed over a pot of tea, his prosthetic hand clinking against the fine china as he braced it to pour from a kettle held in an equally unsteady hand of flesh.
Lily's eyes flickering to the ethereal form of a mournful looking Binn floating by his suffering co-worker's side, and to that of Sprout, sobbing loudly into a handkerchief. It didn't take much for Sprout to cry, for she had always been an empathetic crier, but it was an apocalyptic effort that could anchor that narcoleptic spirit so firmly into the world of the conscious.
Standing frozen by the door, Lily was caught by the moment, fearing the worst. "What's happened?" Lily asked in a choked voice, strangled by shock.
Every set of eyes flickered up to meet her, but few settled for long.
It was Kettleburn who explained, his back turned to the girl, his voice soft as he steeped the kettle with unnatural focus. "Family tragedy," he uttered in explanation.
Lily's heart seemed to still where it beat, feeling her lip quiver at the empathetic thought, then drop with horror at a sudden suspicion. "Pandora?"
"My niece is… thankfully… fine," McGonagall uttered aloud, her voice laced with the tears her downcast eyes shielded. "But her uncle… but Robert. My brother…"
"No," Lily breathed, tears spilling from her eyes. She stepped forward, gliding over to her believed Head of House. Her Den Mother. "I'm so sorry, Minerva. I'm so sorry." First names with her professors still felt foreign on her tongue, and by their insistence, she had been learning to interact by first names. But today no struggle ensued in the face of tragedy and humanity.
Lily knelt by the couch, taking the grieving woman's hand, resting upon the armrest, into her own. In the other hand was grasped a letter, one that was almost crumpled in the distraught professor's grasp.
Suddenly, McGonagall made to stand, but her legs gave way, made unsteady by her distressed emotions. "I must tell Eamon. He'll have heard the news on the radio and want to know his mother and sisters are alright."
Eamon McGonagall was a first year who, like most of his year group had stayed the Christmas. A quiet boy with a love for the radio. He was often seen travelling class to class with a portable, yet still cumbersome, radio box in his hand, with one channel or another chattering at a respectable volume. Needless to say, he was on Madam Pince's watch list.
He was the second student Lily had met to bear that name, but unlike his aunt or cousin, he had been sorted into Ravenclaw as more befitting his bookish nature. Once upon a time, Lily would have been unlikely to have anything to do with a shy soul from across the house borders, but that was before her own leap across the border into the teaching side of Hogwarts. And there, there was no escape from the members of the house of curious minds.
Lily had once written to Pandora about the amusement of having been taught by, having studied with, and now teaching a McGonagall. In true Pandora fashion, the young McGonagall sent back a letter explaining away any irony or amusement by revealing there were a fair few more McGonagalls lined up and ready to attend too in the future, namely her cousins and little brother, who was almost a whole generation younger than she was.
Flitwick stood from his seat, bracing his fellow professor's knee in a gesture more than any type of physical support. "Peace, Minerva. I'll tell him. He's of my house and therefore my responsibility." He did not give his fellow head of house the chance to protest as he hopped off the sofa and strode to the door as quickly as his short legs would allow him, already conjuring a set of dancing sparks that whizzed off to help him seek his student.
Kettleburn finally approached, floating over four cups of tea to the couch and set about setting one before each sobbing witch before taking his own to the seat Flitwick had vacated. "Were they after you and yours, then?"
"No. No they were… Robert and Malcom… They were staying out of the war… they had families. They had too much to lose…" McGonagall uttered in a breathy voice as she muffled another sob. "But those… those Death Eaters. Those fiends… This was a muggle village. They were there for sport… for the muggle families. Oh, poor Dougal. And his wife and children too…" Another sob tore through, followed by a fresh wave of tears.
Lily's blood ran cold. Her heartbeat sounded in her ears as anger bubbled forth. "This is… horrid," Lily gasped, her eyes filling with helpless tears. "I'm so sorry, Minerva." Families who had nothing to do with the war, torn apart by such utter and senseless violence.
What was the point of it all?
She couldn't sleep that night.
Though darkness steeped the room, in her mind's eye she could see her breath form before her in harsh white puffs. She hadn't stoked the fire that night. She hadn't cast a heating charm. The cold nipped at her nose and cheeks, seeping into her eyelids. Into every part of her that was not curled up under the thick covers. But despite the cold, her body burned.
It wasn't her family and friends they destroyed. It was people she had never heard about. Never met. Never known. But in that moment, when she saw one such as Minerva McGonagall rendered to utter desolation. Someone that had always been, to Lily, an utterly enduring figure…
She didn't know how long she lay in the dark like that, mentally and emotionally exhausted, but firmly anchored in the world of the waking, but it was long enough that she heard the distinctive click of a key in a lock, followed by the rasp of a moving wall.
She closed her eyes, willing herself to focus on sound of movement, willing her mind to fold the sorrow away, behind this moment that was physical and real. The sound of boots carefully slipped off and stowed away, the rasp of meeting leather, and the gentle clink of a boot buckle against stone. A harsh whoosh of flames, coming to live in the grate she had neglected, and subsequently banked as the pops and crackles died to a murmur. The sound of softened steps slipping softly into the room, a soft orange glow of candle fire brushing against her eyelids from the grate facing the feet of her bed. Footsteps exited the room, followed by the click of a shutting door and the sound of running water.
Lily breathed out slowly, willing her tightly wound thoughts to release her consciousness. Even as the pitter-patter of running water ceased, Lily's roiling heart refused to be as cooperative. Surrendering to reality, Lily rolled onto her back, eyes open and turned to the ensuite bathroom, and waited.
When Severus finally stepped out, trussed up warmly in his bathrobes, she cracked a smile and startled him still with her unexpected consciousness. Sev's untamed mane hung about his shoulders, evidently dried with heavy-handed, hair-frizzing efficiency. His black eyes glinted in the candlelight, the source of which held aloft in a holder he set onto his night stand. The orange light was soft and unobtrusive unlike that of the harsh cool white of a lit wand. That was perhaps why he chose to enter by candlelight, for fear of waking his slumbering wife.
"I thought you asleep," Sev muttered, stepping to his armoire and unfolding his sleep clothes from its drawers. Lily watched in silence as he loosened his bathrobes with his one hand, a motion made quick and clever with practice. Lily felt a smile pique her tired visage. How comfortable he had gotten with her in their few short months.
Clad in his black shorts, Severus stood for a moment, with his far shortened nightshirt in hand, appearing to be locked in consideration. A decision seemingly reached, she watched him twist his wrist, folding the garment back into a workable imitation of how it came out of the drawer.
Lily's smile turned lopsided with knowing as Severus slipped into the covers, torso uncovered and obvious intent glinting in his shadow-cast eyes. "I've missed you," he murmured stiltedly. For all their months together, he still had no idea how to initiate subtly without coming off as awkward.
"We just saw each other this afternoon," Lily returned, being obtuse on purpose and enjoying the blush that underlined his glare. Lily reached up to run the back of her hand down his cheek, feeling his sharp cheekbones and rough peeking stubble. "You mean you miss other things, don't you?"
He shifted over, his body weight braced upon his one wounded limb, no longer wrapped in its layers of linen and cloth, scars of his trauma no longer hidden from her sight. Sev leaned over her, his lips finding hers, intent in its slow, insistent motion.
But he paused, breath on her lips, brows pinched into a frown over his black eyes. "Something is bothering you," he stated so astutely that Lily had to recoil by reflex.
"Now, I know you're a Legilimens," Lily uttered defensively, unexplainably offended by the mere thought of an intrusive touch despite the knowledge that nothing she kept would not welcome his sharing. But even as that thought reared, it quelled under the reassurance of his nature. That he had promised her, her mental sanctuary. And a promise, to Severus, was sacred.
She felt his hot palm cup her cheek, his long fingers trail into of her hair flowing down her spine. "Your kiss is stilted. And I know we have not been so long without affection that you have forgotten your passion. What is it on your mind that pains you so?"
Lily felt her lips twitch into a mockery of a tired smile. "It seems you're not the only one that wears their thoughts on their face…" she felt his thumb trail off her cheek, her hand finding itself enveloped in warm fingers.
"Is it… about children?"
Lily rebelliously replied, "What if it is?"
Severus withdrew instantly. He could not sound more worried by the thought, or more struck with dilemma. He must be debating with himself whether pressing any further tonight would be a prime gamble. Goodness knows Lily hadn't made a good impression of herself with the topic of promises.
And that was an image that did not sit well with Lily in the least. Not after everything she knew about Severus. "It's not about children… not… directly anyway," Lily muttered, burying the side of her face in her pillow so her words came out somewhat muffled. "And don't think I'll just… trap you. I've promised you, okay? And I'm trying..." Trying to equal your word.
A smile touched his thin lips. "You put my heart to ease."
Lily sighed, drawing the hand that held hers around her waist. He obliged, sliding closer in bed so she could nestle in his hold and press against his torso. An invitation she did not turn down, drawing comfort to the rise and fall of his bare chest.
"Just had a bit of… bad news in the staffroom," Lily murmured after a moment's hush, her hushed voice lancing through the silence. "Family death… Professor McGonagall's family."
Severus shifted, still on his side, pulling her in under his chin, his one mangled arm tucked faithfully under his body so that he would not be any accidental contact. Though he had learned to whether her sight, he took all lengths to avoid her conscious touch. But in doing so, caused himself much discomfort. She had seen him, more than once, stretch out his shortened limb painfully in the morning, having no doubt cut off his circulation by the way he slept.
"None of her family's in the Order… none of them are in the war. Why did it happen to them? It shouldn't have been," Lily huffed under her breath, stemming her tears by her force of will alone. She huffed, a sound like a sob mired in frustration. "Everything's going wrong. Remus has disappeared, nobody's seen hide or hair. Nobody knows if he's even alright. I get that he's on a dangerous mission, but I'm worried sick. They won't tell us a thing. It's not fair."
"Life's not fair." Those words slipped from Sev's lips. He grimaced, as if he had not intended his words or at least the concise way he had delivered them.
Lily's fingers clenched upon his back, instinctively grasping for the fabric of his shirt. The motion must have tickled him, because he squirmed, suddenly repositioning himself such that her fingers were no longer right where the small of his back had been. But in doing so, his mangled arm slipped between them, brushing against Lily's belly through the thin fabric of her nightgown.
Severus tensed, as did Lily in response. Sev tried to quickly withdraw his limb back beneath his body, sheepish for that accidental contact. But Lily, feeling raw and exhausted by the day's events and night's elusive embrace, placed a hand upon his amputated arm, feeling that smooth flesh of foreign texture under her fingertips.
He flinched so harshly Lily thought her touch had somehow caused him pain. But he didn't pull away. Lying there stock, dark eyes glinting from the shadows of his angular face as Lily's fingers rested upon the desolation of his limb.
"I'd give anything to take this back…" she whispered.
"That trade would not be yours to make, Lily," Severus muttered, finally pulling his invalid arm from her grasp, his other hand, his whole hand, came up from the covers to brace against her cheek, his fingers training through the thick of her hair.
"Because that price is my life, huh?" Lily asked with a sigh and a lopsided smile, pressing her hand against his and nuzzling her cheek against the palm of his hand. Where once his hand had been covered in scars and calluses from working with blades and various grass roots, the months of separation from that field had worn away the rough skin.
Severus leaned close, pressing his lips against her forehead, planting a tender kiss through a short scratching of whiskers. "I have lived already in a world without you. I would not endure it again."
"It's weird to think that you're from the future…" Lily muttered, her green orbs slipping from his shadow-cast eyes. "Some days I still can't believe it. But some days… it all just makes so much sense…" Such as how he reacted to the idea of fooling back when they were both still students at Hogwarts. He was more mentally a professor than he would care to admit.
A thought occurred to her, one that slipped from her lips before she gave it proper thought, "Did Minerva lose her brother the first time around?"
Silence was his reply, and the realisation slowly dawned on Lily that not only must he have known about this unfortunate passing, but every subsequent death to come. Her own death had been his entire raison d'être. An hourglass of inevitability that hung above her head, and every day she could only be thankful that she never knew the exact date it would come. Lily could not imagine having that knowledge hang above her head as it did his. And how desperately he must rail against that fate. Tragedy in knowing, and to be unable to prevent it. A single stone standing against the inevitable. And knowing each death that passed him by was one he had known was coming.
Gently, she brushed her fingers through his hair, trying to sooth the roiling she knew had to be behind those shadow-hidden eyes. He blamed himself too easily for things outside his control. And though he had made decisions worthy of his guilt, he had long proven himself by his actions as a man greater than his mistakes.
"There wasn't anything you could have done for him. For any of them," Lily whispered, stroking her husband's brow. He said nothing and the shadows thwarted any attempts to interpret his expression but she felt his fingers tighten about her waist.
"Couldn't I?" he finally asked, a question whispered into the darkness.
Lily felt a twist of sorrow, one she had been nursing since the beginning of this month. She knew him too well to think this thought hadn't crossed his mind as well. "Well, unless you could have transfigured my dad a new heart. He was always doomed," she offered with a wry smile. Her father would have appreciated the humour, dark as it was.
Severus rolled back onto his back, his eyes turned upwards allowing that candlelight diffuse from behind him and chase away that impenetrable shadow. "You forgive me too easily," he muttered pulling back his one good hand to gather up the blankets about him.
"And you don't forgive yourself readily enough. Especially for things beyond your control." Lily drew close to him, encroaching upon his space. She laid one hand upon his blanket-covered chest, kneeling over him so he had nowhere else to look but directly into her eyes. "You do not hold the power over life and death, Severus. And I know you too sensible to have a god-complex."
She felt his hand cup gently the side of her face. His black orbs, still lost to the candle-lit shadows and depth of his sunken eyes. "I have to believe that I can," he whispered in a voice low, his meaning clear.
"For once, I wish we could have a romantic evening without you reminding me of my impending doom," Lily quipped jokingly, wishing she felt as brave about that thought as she pretended to be.
Shadows grew long upon his face in a way no candle could cast. Severus tried to glance away, but Lily's hand upon his cheek held firm. "I'm sorry," she murmured, not so much for the flat joke but the needless reminder.
She knew how much it pained him, before she even knew its significance. Her death was his heart's regret since the day he breathed his first breath of a second life, long before that even. Another fault he carried too closely, but one he could call his own. And one that he was railing against the world to prevent with every dawning breath.
She leaned forward to lay a kiss to his lips, to chase away his foul memories. A promise she had made when she knew nothing, but now weighed upon her as heavily as the responsibility of the truth itself. That she would remind him, every time he would forget, that she was alive and by his side.
A wry smile peeked through Severus' façade, chasing away those dark thoughts from his expression. "You're sorry? When I ruined the romance?"
"You can't take all the credit." Lily replied, her own smile tugging on the edge of her lips. "Plus, I've a bit to be sorry for too. I didn't manage to set the record straight today."
"With all that's happened, I'm not blaming you."
Lily slipped back to her side of the bed, settling under her covers already chilled by her brief absence. With a shiver, she gathered the covers about her, snuggling close to her husband, enjoying the warmth radiating from his skin.
Severus rolled over to tuck his injured hand under himself so that Lily would not press herself against it. His good hand instinctively snaked around her waist, pulling her tightly against him. She did not know when sleep took her that night, but she slipped away upon the wings of a dream and into the fold of a restful peace.
The morning started on an odd note with the boy wishing Snape the best with fatherhood. A situation Snape had been quick to deny.
"That's a shame. I thought you'd have made a good father."
That comment had been unexpected, not to mention uninvited. But offered in earnest by a young man in the midst of issues with his own father, it presented a rare and unobtrusive opportunity.
"What forms that opinion?"Snape asked quite reluctantly. He did not wish to even think on the topic much less converse about it.
Crouch's eyes dropped as he shrugged before he turned away to his prep work. But Snape insisted, as he was too much of a Slytherin to allow an opportunity to pass, no matter the discomfort it brought. "My own thoughts on that matter is that I'm yet too young to fit that role."
"Right. You're just one year older than me. I forget," Crouch muttered, still refusing to look Snape in the eyes.
"A commonly forgotten fact," Snape agreed as he had settled in the stool opposite.
Crouch glanced up from his set out tools, regarding his professor with an appraising expression. "You just… seem far older than you are. For as long as I've known you, I've thought that."
There was good reason for that, not that any reasonable person should guess. "You too are mature for your age, Mr Crouch," Snape had remarked, which was true in its sentiments but false in contrast. Bartemius Crouch was mature for a child of his age, that part was true, but he was not immune to his need for approval, just as every other child under the sway of House Point allocation.
"I wish my father was of the same opinion," Crouch had muttered as his expression turned sour.
And there was Snape opening to pry. "Your grades put you above your peers in intellect, ability and hard work, and you are a prefect on track to becoming a Head Boy. What more, may I ask, could your father possibly ask for?"
Crouch's lips twisted as if in distaste or uncertainty. "My father had been Head Boy. My father had graduated the top of his class. And then at least one student a year after him had that honour. The achievement I've made is neither rare nor unique," Crouch replied, his lips curling as he spoke reflecting a telling root to his state of mind.
"Your drive is admirable, but I cannot say I agree with his view on ordinary achievements."
Crouch gritted his teeth as if angered by those placating words, glancing up from the cauldron of water he had levitated in from the gargoyle faucet, "And yet you're achieving magical firsts without barely an exerted effort."
After a moment's pause, Snape replied, carefully gauging the boy's reaction. "I think you'll find that I respect what is achieved through hard work far more than natural talent. Neither of which you are without."
Crouch fell silent, his hands stilled upon the tools he laid out upon the bench. For a moment that silence stretched, but Snape made no move to dispel it. He watched the boy carefully, gauging his reaction as he trod lightly on the fringes of the boy's mind, despite knowing that no son of any member within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, much less the Head itself, could be left without Occlumency training. Old habits died hard.
"Results are all that matter… according to my dad," Crouch finally said after a long drawn silence. "My achievements discounted to as merely expected, and my failures held above my head like a placard of shame. To my father I am but a lesser copy of him."
A shadow passed across Crouch's face, a shadow that stoked the embers of a worrying familiarity. "I sometimes wonder what would happen if I turned the other way. What would the scandal do to the Head of Magical Law Enforcement? If his own son were to… rebel…" He trailed off, his brow pinching together as if the thought itself was physically painful.
Rebellion. Was that the start of it all? Was that the reason for which this straight as an arrow student would court the darkness? Was this one small frustration of childhood what wrought so much destruction to this young man's life?
But Snape knew all too well how childhood trauma could set one down this path. How easy it was to give in to the seduction of glory and riches promised. Of recognition and respect…
That had been what this young man had sought. Passed over by his father, ignored and belittled. His step into the darkness might have been little more than a spiteful stab at his father, and one that quickly lead to a sharp and slippery fall. A precipice passed that he could never return from.
It was too easy to fall. Too difficult to return. And had it not been for that one spark of light left in Snape's heart in the form of a love that had been the best of him, there was little doubt in the professor's mind that he too would have never looked back.
"I too hated my father. I cannot even begin to describe how much I despised that man. A muggle who could never found anything to appreciate in his son." Snape's black eyes dropped, his careful façade marred by true shame. "But my choice of rebellion against him was to join those who marked him as a lower lifeform. And unthinkingly, I had endangered the most precious person in my life. A foolish venture that had marked me for a terrible loss." Snape knew what he meant when he spoke those words but Bartemius Crouch knew no better. The boy's grey eyes drew to Snape's severed hand, a mistaken inference that Snape did not try to correct.
"Perhaps it is not my place … perhaps it's a bit presumptuous of me to say… but whatever it is you have fantasised as a strike at your own father, perhaps step back from a rash decision. Don't let your dark fantasies blind you to the pain you may cause to those you love. Don't let your choices take from you your future as it has mine."
Glass clinked heartily in the vial box that Snape levitated before him as he ascended the Grand Staircase. A morning's successful brew yielded a product the professor deemed satisfactory. A tall compliment for a moderately complex potion sporting untested modifications to its recipe and brewed by a young potioneer who had never attempted its like before.
This time, the potioneering process ended without a hitch. A viable product had been made, one made in accordance with Snape's altered recipe to ensure the potion was a far weaker version than its original form. The reason being, as to not cause irreparable psychological trauma to the children he plans to have imbibe it. An offer for a taste of fear, as it were, as harmful as a meeting with a boggart, but with little one could do to soften the trauma.
Though initially wary of Crouch, Snape had not wished to commit subterfuge against the boy who he personally knew to have potential for great darkness. There was little point in trying to stop the boy from learning his way into dark potioneering books regardless. The Crouch that Snape had first met was a man well versed in the craft. Well versed enough that he was able to brew a regenerating potion so powerful it brought a cursed and twisted husk of a man back from the brink of non-existence. A Draught of Waking Nightmares would not even stand upon the bottom rung of this ladder of difficulty.
With the potions completed, Snape could no longer use project work as an excuse to keep company with young Crouch, but he sensed he had touched upon the tipping point of the boy's life. Though he had not the hubris to believe that he could make the difference, Snape felt an invested responsibility all the same. All the same, asking the boy to lend his, for a student, considerable potioneering abilities to help restock Snape's personal potion stores seemed a tad contrived. Not that Crouch refused the request. On the contrary, he positively jumped at the offer.
But that eagerness only cautioned Snape to his own personal conduct. Though Snape ultimately was comfortable his actions was morally right, as the end result would be to prevent a tragic end to all involved, he could not shake the distaste it left him with. He knew the manipulation game he was playing with Crouch. Preying on the child's feeling of worth. Snape held no illusions that he was building himself up to becoming a guiding figure in the young man's life, for that had been how Lucius impacted upon his own. His own tragedy of fate served as a reminder of how foul that deed had been.
In an attempt to foster something real, perhaps to placate his own conscience, Snape had chosen to share with the student some truths about himself. Truths that he had never willingly revealed to anyone else, and seldom ever discussed with to those who found out regardless. A decision, perhaps, inspired by the gift of memory from a certain headmaster that not even death could silence.
The power of a snippet of truth, even hidden among a mountain of lies.
But that honesty was a double-edged sword. A brief morning's conversation had left Snape still feeling drained well into the latter half of the day. With the potions and rattling within its magical transport, Snape headed to his office intending to store it away and seek silence and solitude to centre himself again before keeping his appointment with Dumbledore. He had already missed lunch and had planned to forgo dinner for a quieter elf-catered plate. His absence since morning would be a disappointment to his wife, he was certain, for they had already spent too little time together this holiday period as it was.
But any chance for a quiet afternoon of solitude was dispelled the moment he pushed open his office door and saw a shock of uncombed hair peek out from behind his desk. James Potter, lounging insolently in his chair, playing with a small golden snitch in much the same way he once had in fifth year before the toy mysteriously vanished when it met with a magical accident involving a high-speed train and a window.
"Out. Out of my chair," Snape growled, slamming the levitated box down on the table a little too hard. The bottles rattled with protest but thankfully no telling clink of broken glass was to be heard.
To his credit, Potter scrambled up to his feet as he was told, but much of that could have been credited to the startle. The snitch slipped from the man's fingers and began zooming about the room, rattling against the jars of preserved plant roots and animal parts lined on his shelf. An aesthetic that Snape preserved from his potion master days, and one that no longer held any practical use since the loss of his hand.
Snape reached across his body and drew his wand from his sleeve holster, pointing it at the offending object. "Impedimenta," he growled catching the golden pest in mid dash across the room. Potter didn't wait to be asked. He leapt up and grabbed the snitch hanging mid-air and quickly secreted it back into the folds of his robes.
"You're getting good at flinging spells again," Potter offered, an utterly uninvited observation.
Snape scowled, already irritated by this uninvited intrusion and attempted malicious damage. "I do not need your idle comments."
"No really, I really do admire your tenacity," Potter continued, not seeming to get the message. "I can't even imagine where I'd be if I'd lost my duelling, quaffle-throwing, snitch-catching hand."
"Out of a job, for one," Snape muttered uncharitably as he unpacked his box of fresh-brew into a specially stasis-enchanted storage crate one bottle at a time. Snape had not yet felt confident enough with his spell casting to charm the bottles into their spots, having no longer possess the finesse of spellcasting to handle delicate glass.
"Here, allow me," Potter offered as stepped beside Snape and with both hands began to unpack.
Snape didn't even have the energy to rebuke the man. "What are you doing here Potter? I had been hoping it'd be another week before I had to see you."
"Yeah, I really hadn't planned to visit again this holiday break," Potter agreed, making short work of the task and snapping shut the lid of the enchanted trunk without even being asked to. "But you know, I heard word of what's happened to Minerva. I'd thought to come by to give my condolences."
"That doesn't explain why you are in my office."
Potter grimaced, then kicked back into Snape's seat with a sigh. "I just needed a place to… sort of hide out for a bit, you know? I've never seen McGonagall so… upset."
"Perhaps the reason is that her brother has just died," Snape uttered dryly, causing Potter to flush as if realising the stupidity of the direction of his pondering.
"Yeah, I get that. I know why she's upset, and she's got every reason to be. But… she's always been as solid rock, you know. And I've never seen her this… not solid as a rock…" Potter trailed off, no doubt unable to process the direction of his own ramblings. He suddenly sighed with a hint of finality, collapsing back in his chair falling into an uncharacteristic silence.
Snape stood awkwardly by the door for a moment, trying to find a polite way to voice his sentiments. "If you have already delivered your condolences to Minerva, I do not see the reason why you should still be hiding in my office when there is a perfectly serviceable Floo-Network connected to my fireplace." And yet, for what Snape would have once replied to Potter's grievances, this was positively civil.
"Yeah, Marley and I are gonna have a good cry about it tonight. For now I just need to… recharge… between people, you know?" Potter muttered, burying his head in his hands. "I've just got a bit much on the plate at the moment. The war, I haven't seen Remus in months. I don't even know if he's alive or dead. The wedding. Planning's been a nightmare. And my parents… they're dying, you know. Mum and dad…" his voice cracked as he spoke, sending a jolt of discomfort through Snape as he watched.
This was another fate to be. The ending of the Potter bloodline. The reason why the only blood relative left to that orphaned child of another lifetime was to be petulant Petunia.
"I still don't see why you're bothering me. Not when your precious Black is still available and utterly unengaged with his miserly contributions to the war." Enthusiasm was all that man was good for. That, and another body to throw at the enemy.
Potter straightened in his seat, his eyes staring through his fingers and his slightly askew glasses. "You know, you're right. I can go and offload all this on Sirius, he's heard it all from me before. I just thought maybe that you and I, you know, we're past this."
"We're not friends," came Snape's automatic reply.
Potter sighed, leaning back into Snape's chair. "No. I suppose we're not," he uttered, sounding almost defeated.
Snape hesitated by the door, intending to step out and leave the boy to his sulk, but against better wisdom he felt compelled to stay. Empathy was a new tool in his Slytherin bag of tricks, but there was honestly no reason for him to apply it to one such as Potter. No reason…
"Your wedding should not be in that list."
"Excuse me?" Potter lifted his head, his expression so blank Snape actually believed he might not have caught what was clearly said.
"I said, your wedding should not be on that list. That list of stress and angst in your life."
Potter frowned but the corners of his lips lifted into a meek smile, "It wasn't stressful for you?"
"It-" Snape paused, his brows knitted together remembering all the second guessing he had done for himself all the way up to the alter, and beyond even. "Perhaps then, I just wished someone would have told me that there was nothing awaiting me at that altar that deserved so many nights of lost sleep."
That tired smile turned cheeky. Perhaps that should have been Snape's first warning, "A comment on your love life?" But that cheeky smile was wiped straight off when Snape turned straight for the door to leave.
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. You set yourself right up for that one, but I'm sorry. I should have resisted," Potter offered apologetically. "And you're right. I love Marlene. It's just… our special day, you know. I want everything to go right."
"You're talking to the wrong person about perfect weddings," Snape muttered, remembering how destitute his own had been. Potter grinned, perhaps remembering too under what circumstances the head boy and girl had tied the knot.
Potter sighed, leaning back in the chair, the corners of his lips upturned in a tired smile. "Thanks Snape. Decent of you to give me a pep talk."
"Don't make a habit of needing one. Especially not from me," Snape snapped, utterly done with counselling duties for the day.
The smile on Potter receded as a contemplative shadow fell over the young man's eyes. "You're not a bad person at all. I honestly don't even remember why I thought that you were to begin with."
"Prejudice against Slytherins," Snape answered flatly.
Potter's head dropped as he chuckled into his chest. "I was a real arse, wasn't I?"
"Rhetorical?" Snape jibed, but with a softened point. No longer was malice the driving force between them. Their relationship was no longer that of nemesis or rivals, instead it had transformed to a discomforting unknown.
Another tired smile flittered across Potter's face. "My wedding is in just a couple weeks now, Snape. I'd like you to come."
"Because adding one more into the catering list on short notice is absolutely another stress you're all too happy to moan about," Snape muttered sardonically.
But Potter did not even blink at the notion. "I'll personally ensure there's a spot reserved for you."
"I haven't agreed to anything."
"Regardless."
A moment passed in silence. Snape struggled to find a rebuke. He turned away unable to find a way to rebuke an invitation offered so sincerely, nor able to understand why he cared. But even as his had rested upon the handle of the door with every intention of escaping this discomfort, he paused, feeling obligated to offer an answer.
"Then, I will come."
Snape waited for no response, striding forth from the room and fuming with his inexplicable decision. But the mystery was only in his own stubbornness, for he knew the reason why.
Time that once refused to wash away his guilt had worn his heart weary of its bitterness. It was not the sins that time could heal, for no past could be rewritten, but forgiveness was not the wound but the stitches.
Snape was done picking at those scabs. He was done gnawing at his wounds. His own pride had bled him for long enough.
Time had its own flavour of mortal irony, and though Snape could still find no forgiveness for himself, he found no fuel left for his hatred. There were far greater atrocities in his world left to haunt him than the actions of a boy long since paid with apologies.
And though, like time, apologies did not wipe away the debt of sin, that debt was not one that Snape cared to pay with bitterness any longer.
As the last of the holiday peeled away, so too did Snape's excuses for engaging in his wayward student's company. It came to a point where his cabinets were full to the bursting and he simply had to cut his student loose for the remainder of the holidays lest his already farfetched excuses bordered on the suspicious, or even worse, the needy.
With paper in hand, Snape had thought to retire to the staffroom to catch the last of the west-setting sun. His own office and board were located in the east towers and thus was suboptimal for afternoon lounging, especially in the light-poor months of winter.
Part of the reason too was the chance of encountering Lily, for she was naturally drawn to hubs of social interactions. From the conversations they'd had during meals and what brief snippets of time they'd managed to find to spend together, Snape understood she had spent a majority of it socialising with the denizens of the castle. Getting to know the lay of the land and relearning her old professors as co-workers. A problem Snape knew quite personally, for he had spent his two lifetimes flipping his mind from student to professor, oftentimes in rather rapid succession.
Turning his way of thinking had been far easier at the cusp of his new life. With his full arsenal of well-practiced skills in espionage, Snape had had been able to condition himself rapidly to the mindset of a student. Two years on and occasions that needed mental fortitude were few and far between, and his decline in adaptive discipline showed it.
But concession to his abstract familiarity was far more preferable a reasoning for his distance. For the truth was in his final year of life, after usurping the seat of the headmaster, he had felt he had lost his right to kinship. This was not because he felt any blame for his own actions, for he had long absolved himself for doing what he had to for the sake of protecting the school and those in his charge. But still, he could not shake off the memory of the despise upon faces of those he had once considered friends. It was easier to think of them as strangers than those that thought him a traitor.
There was a silence in the staffroom today, a silence that usually only came from a room with few souls seated within. It was not uncommon for school staff to take a break from school grounds during the holiday period. Many professors took this time to visit family and friends or take brief respites abroad. Few teachers were needed at the school, for there were fewer students to supervise. The ones who remained were those professors who had no families to return to or with circumstances where they could not leave, such as Kettleburn who was, quite happily, overseeing the incubation of a batch of Moke eggs. They had been laid rather too early in the year to be expected to survive without assistance and required expert care lest they got overlooked when they shrank and slipped through the straw in their nesting box. Often, though, it was usually only the heads of Houses that stayed, save perhaps Slughorn, who might contrive one reason or another to flit away to a warmer part of the world.
Professor Kettleburn sat in an armchair by the fire, his wooden legs tucked under him lest they wander too close to the grate. On his knees an orange cat curled up, comfortably dozing against the stroking of his obliging hands. One of the many that lay a claim to a member of staff in the castle. Hovering by another chair was Binns, haunting the spot that he died. A commonly observed occurrence among spectres that Snape had long chalked down to some ghostly obligation.
The only other soul in the room sat across from Kettleburn, a book in hand, a calico patterned cat in her lap, and a tabby curled up by her side. Minerva McGonagall had an affinity for cats, as if her Animagus and Patronus forms had left any room for doubt. A number of the felines on school grounds belonged to her. At least seven by the time Snape had taken up residence in the headmaster's office, but given the early days of this lifetime her numbers were within the realms of sanity. Three seemed an approachable guess, given the number of furry bodies currently in attendance.
Cautious sunshine streamed through the frosted window, white sunlight mingling with the orange glow from the roaring fireplace. Snape sat himself in one of the armchairs a space away from the Gryffindor head and her pile of cats, his newspaper grasped in his one hand as he hesitated.
He had not yet given his condolences. Not a calculated act on his part, nor one he had actively remedied. Before this lifetime, Snape would have never dreamed of broaching upon another's mourning, just as none would have expected of him.
Empty words. That was all they were. Pitying remarks by one who shared not a fraction of the pain.
But he had once offered his condolences to Lily. He had justified his stake in her pain. And took to heart his passing, for he felt keenly his own negligence upon the man's passing. But Lily had never asked him of his reasoning. Never rebuked his offered words, for that was all they were, and all that he could give. And to her, it seemed to give a measure of comfort. A social norm that most subscribed to, and one that Snape had never before felt compelled to join.
But for Minerva McGonagall, he felt condemned by his silence. Though he had never considered her a friend, or indeed anyone in that lifetime, she had been a colleague he had deeply respected during a time he had rarely respected anyone.
"I heard of what happened to your family, Minerva. For what it's worth, I am sorry," Snape offered, his words stumbling from his lips awkwardly, not quite sure exactly what he was apologising for. He hadn't known her brother, his death meant little to nothing to Snape. How then could he even begin to of her loss when he knew not even enough to conceptualise it.
McGonagall's eyes raised from her book, meeting his own. "Thank you, Severus. I appreciate the thought." Because a thought was all that amounted to be. Acknowledging words that were so utterly meaningless, for no one could know even a fraction of her pain.
But perhaps that wasn't entirely true.
Snape knew the pain of loss keenly. That the loss was felt by another, for another, should not render the pain any different. The memory of that pain still clenched his heart but the thorns no longer pieced so deeply. Wounds upon his heart he had thought would never heal. They ached, but pained but no longer so sharply. No longer the ruin of the man that he was.
"If… there is anything I can do for you, just ask…" Snape offered, in a voice muted but sincere. "I will do what I'm able."
McGonagall smiled as if somehow appreciating Snape's clumsy condolences. "Thank you, Severus. I'll be certain to think of you should anything come to mind."
"Something comes to my mind," Kettleburn uttered suddenly, bringing his clawed hand pointed upwards as if in inspiration. "We have one furry guest present in need of a lap."
The cat in question raised his head as if somehow realising its comfort was up for negotiation. "Do you mind animals, Severus?" McGonagall asked in an utterly serious tone.
This did not feel like an ideal time to be brutally honest. "I… don't dislike them," he lied through gritted teeth, already cringing at the thought of cat hair.
The New Year was on the horizon, and with it was ushered in the year of nineteen-seventy-nine, the year the momentum of the war would shift in a violent way. This was the year the Order lost the bulk of its fighting force and the ministry would fall to chaos by treachery from within.
But pessimism for the future was not what tonight was about. This was a night of rare joy. A night that could not be eclipsed by the fear of what was to be.
It was one year to the day Snape had joined his life with his one love, and for all the practical lack of sentimentality Snape boasted, he would not allow this day to pass without note. He planned his day around a small reprieve in the evening. A dinner date for two. A simple gesture to mark the date as remembered.
He had even dropped in a note to the kitchens to have a meal sent to the room, along with a fresh bouquet of out-of-season flowers, enchanted beyond a question. Simple gifts, for her tastes were not extravagant, and he knew little of the beauty or function of gems and stones.
But there was one meeting he could not reschedule for the night.
As dinner wrapped up, Snape excused himself, quoting his nightly appointments with Dumbledore as his reasoning. He saw his wife's face fall, disappointment painted upon it, but understanding as well.
Their brief moment together tonight was all he could afford between his vying duties. One to the future of a soul fighting to stay on the path of light, and another to himself. His duty to pursue any hope, no matter how slim.
With a gentle kiss, Snape excused himself. His tone apologetic but his heart holding nervous hope. As weeks leading up to this evening, hints of a miracle were starting to peak in results. And tonight too, that hint came from Albus Dumbledore himself, sent by way of House Elf.
A parchment had been delivered to Snape as he sat for his evening meal. On it was scrawled only one sentence.
"I have found a solution."
A/N: Happy New Year!
A thank you to my Beta readers Sattwa100 and cookeroach for your work on this chapter.
Next Update: Saturday 18th January 2019
Chapter 77: Whole Once More
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe and do not seek to profit in any way, shape or form from this fan work.