Chapter 38
"She can kill with a smile, she can wound with her eyes
And she can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child but she's always a woman to me
She can lead you to love, she can take you or leave you
She can ask for the truth but she'll never believe you
And she'll take what you give her as long as it's free
Yeah she steals like a thief but she's always a woman to me"
- Billy Joel [She's Always a Woman]
Rose walked into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom with a feeling of resignation and dread. As expected when she arrived, Severus Snape was already seated happily behind the desk at the front of the classroom. He looked up when she entered, the smugness never leaving his face. Rose took a deep breath, knowing that she needed to stay calm and collected in his presence. She didn't think that Snape went around using legilimency on unsuspecting students, but she was not about to risk it.
"Miss Malfoy," he drawled. "Lupin left a letter indicating I should expect you."
"Good morning, sir," she acknowledged simply, picking a pile of essays off the desk and moving to set them face down on the desks around the room. She could have easily done this with magic, but it served as a good excuse not to be too close to him.
"I see that Lupin is still as lax as ever in giving marks. Hardly a handful of those would have managed an 'Acceptable' from me." Rose didn't rise to the bait and just kept setting the essays down. It irked her a bit to know he'd been reading through them before she arrived—likely just to have something to criticize when she got there. It was bad luck that the lesson Lupin had specifically asked her to assist him with fell on the day of a full moon.
"Interesting that he'd require the help of a mere student to teach something as simple as a Patronus Charm…. Inept some might say." Rose bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from retorting but couldn't help sending him a look of annoyance. His lips curled back from his mouth in an amused smile at her obvious irritation. She was sure that Severus Snape was well aware or at least guessed that Lupin's patronus took on the form of a wolf and that he wouldn't want to just show this off to his students; he was just being deliberately obtuse about it.
"Interesting that you remembered today's lesson; we were concerned after you became so easily confused last term," the words slipped out of Rose's mouth as soon as she stopped actively biting them back. She saw the brief flash of anger in his dark eyes.
"Detention, Miss Malfoy. Tonight, potions classroom." he said after a long moment of silence. It was Rose's turn to sneer at him.
'Worth it,' she thought.
The sixth-year class began to trickle into the room, taking their seats silently. The good-natured chatter that usually marked the time before classes began was conspicuously absent under the gaze of Severus Snape. The majority of students in the class were Slytherins as they tended to have an affinity towards the Dark Arts, closely followed by Gryffindors who outnumbered the bare spattering of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. Much like Rose's own seventh year defense class, this one was small enough that all four houses shared a single class together. Due to the inconsistency of the teaching, taking Defense Against the Dark Arts to the N.E.W.T.s level was considered quite risky by the majority of students. When Rose had turned up for DADA classes last year to find that Gilderoy Lockhart was a complete imbecile, she'd been terrified that she'd made a huge mistake in continuing the subject.
"Settle down," Snape said, not unkindly, to the couple of Slytherin students who were daring to whisper to each other as he stood to teach. The students from other Houses looked appropriately miffed at this obvious preferential treatment. Rose seated herself at a desk off to the side of the room to observe the lesson.
"Today, we will be covering the Patronus Charm, a defensive spell which summons a magical guardian to the caster's aid. A fully corporeal patronus will take on the form of an animal which the caster generally bears a deep affinity towards. A corporeal patronus is like one's finger print and it is rare to meet another individual who shares your same animal—because of this, some wizards and witches will choose to cast incorporeal patronuses in order to conceal their identity. Since many are incapable of ever summoning a fully corporeal patronus, it is difficult to know if someone is hiding their patronus or merely incompetent. It is said that only a wizard or witch who is pure of heart can cast a corporeal patronus." Snape sneered the last line as if this were a fanciful notion. Rose wondered, briefly, if someone as often cruel and malicious as Severus Snape was capable of producing one.
"You all have had the unique opportunity to experience first-hand one of the creatures the Patronus Charm can help you defend against: dementors." A collective shiver ran through the class at the mention of them. "The charm works by manifesting a purely positive force, incapable of feeling the despair dark creatures often feed upon. The incantation 'expecto patronum' must be cast while simultaneously concentrating on a single, powerfully happy memory. Professor Lupin recruited Miss Malfoy to demonstrate this for you all today."
Sighing at Snape's pettiness in assuring that the entire class knew that Lupin had been the one to bring Rose in for the charm, she stood up and walked up to the front of the class. Smiling at the sixth years, she brandished her wand and focused on the first memory that came to mind. The image of sitting in bed with Lupin, holding his hand while the two shared a cigarette together immediately popped into her head. With a faint pink tinge to her cheeks, Rose began tracing quick smooth circles in the air with her wand focusing on the feelings of love, contentment, and joy she had felt.
"Expecto patronum," Rose said clearly, and a silvery doe burst from the tip of her wand and began to gallop around the room. The eyes of the students followed the animal's progress, and Rose, who had expected Snape to immediately critique her for some error she had made, glanced over at him in surprise at his silence. He looked even more pale than usual, and his eyes were following the doe around the room with an unfathomable expression. The look disappeared behind an apathetic mask as soon as he noticed her glancing his way. She narrowed her eyes at him, but he didn't look at her again, instead instructing the students to stand and distance themselves around the room to begin practicing the patronus charm.
'What was that about,' Rose wondered to herself as she wandered around, helping the students where she could. She couldn't shake the idea that something about her patronus had badly unnerved the man. Was it because he'd expected it to be a fox? After registering with the ministry, her animagus form had quickly spread around the school when curious students had looked it up. She knew that an animagus form and patronus were both supposed to reveal an animal which the caster had an affinity towards and had been surprised herself that she had not become a doe upon transforming.
"What form is your patronus, sir?" she heard one of the Slytherins ask Snape, but it seemed like he didn't hear her because he walked quickly by to snap at one of the Gryffindor's wand-form. Rose snorted under her breath, now even more convinced that Snape could not produce a corporeal patronus. By the end of the lesson, Rose had dismissed his strange behavior.
That night, when she made her way to the potion's classroom, Rose was determined to be on her best behavior. She didn't want to give him an excuse to give her another detention after all. Rose had already been in detention more this year than she had in her entire Hogwarts career. Walking in, she steeled herself, expecting to bear the brunt of Snape's temper, but he barely looked up at her and seemed uncharacteristically subdued.
"I dare to assume you aren't rusty enough after a year off that you've forgotten how to brew a Wiggenweld Potion," Snape asked derisively. Rose snorted derisively at this—the Wiggenweld potion was a basic healing concoction they learned to brew in their first year that helped to counteract sleeping draughts.
"I think I can manage it, sir," she answered, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. As he didn't comment on her tone of voice, she assumed she must have accomplished it.
"My sixth-years will be testing their Draughts of the Living Death tomorrow, and it occurred to me that having some on hand might be convenient," he continued as if he really didn't care whether his students stayed in a death-like coma or not. "The ingredients are on the desk; the instructions are on the board. I expect you to be able to prepare a few batches before your detention is up."
Walking towards the empty cauldrons, Rose pulled her hair up into a messy bun atop her head to keep it away from the potion fumes and laid her robe across one of the chairs, getting to work. Rolling up her sleeves, she read over the instructions to the potion carefully—just because she was confident she could brew it didn't mean she was going to rush and give Snape something to criticize. As she began to carefully prepare the ingredients, she found the process oddly calming and nostalgic. Potions had never come to her with the same intuitive skill that Ava possessed, but she had worked hard to hone her skills in the subject given that Snape had been her favorite Professor for years. As she worked, a question she'd been thinking about since that morning kept revolving around in her mind.
"Professor…," Rose began cautiously as she set her first potion to simmering and moved on to preparing the next.
"Don't tell me you've forgotten how—"
"It's nothing like that, sir, I just had a question about patronuses," she tried to sound properly placating, but he immediately looked guarded and suspicious.
"You are here to serve detention, not to receive instruction," he snapped at her, turning back to the letter he was reading.
"I'm sorry, Professor," Rose said innocently, returning to her potion preparation. "I suppose I can wait and ask Professor Lupin about it tomorrow."
Rose deliberately didn't look back up at Severus, but even from this distance could almost feel the internal battle he was having with himself—he knew she was intentionally baiting him into answering her, but he also hated Lupin and thought him incompetent. She had to work very hard to keep any signs of a grin from showing on her face.
"What is it," he asked finally. Rose resisted the urge to tease him some more and dove into her question.
"Well, the patronus charm and the animagus potion are both supposed to reveal animals that are most like the caster, but I don't understand how that can be since my patronus and animagus form are different." Rose hadn't really thought too hard about the discrepancy before sitting in on the morning's lecture. Snape observed her silently with his dark eyes for a long moment before answering.
"The problem is in your assumption that both manifest the same part of a caster's personality. You learned about this in arithmancy, I assume," Severus began in a lecturing tone. Rose nodded, in arithmancy, there were three different parts of one's personality—one's general character, one's inner heart, and one's social personality. "There are many theories about this, but simply put a patronus, which is a manifestation of a deeply happy memory, represents a person's true inner self and desires whereas the animagus form, which is about changing the caster's appearance, is believed to represent a person's social personality or how a person wishes others to perceive them in the moment they drink the potion."
"Oh," Rose said, considering this information for a moment. This was easy enough logic to follow especially given her background in arithmancy.
"There are other theories that tell us that a person's patronus—because it is a guardian creature—is tied to feelings or memories of protection and safety," Snape added almost as an afterthought.
"So, it isn't unusual for the two to be different?" She asked the question that was weighing on her mind.
"Corporeal patronuses and animagi are very advanced forms of magic, there aren't enough wizards and witches who can accomplish both to say," Snape said turning back to the letters on his desk.
Rose continued brewing her potions, lost in thought. Thinking of it in those terms, it was a wonder to her that a person's patronus and animagus form ever matched up at all. What kind of person was so vulnerable and honest that their inner self matched what they desired others to see? That was certainly not how she had been raised. She found it even more interesting now that Remus' patronus was a wolf. Was it because he felt his strongest and most able to defend himself as a werewolf? Or was it because wolves were pack animals, and Remus craved the inclusion and social connection with others that he had so long been denied. She found the second thought utterly depressing and quickly turned her mind to her own patronus. Rose had always found the doe rather lackluster. Deer were not particularly ferocious or exciting—in fact they were quite common and skittish. She had been so excited that her animagus had been a fox—a cunning sure-footed creature—that she hadn't initially questioned the difference. She supposed that a doe was graceful and swift but couldn't fathom why she'd feel protected by it.
At the end of her detention she bottled her potions in several vials and took them to Severus' desk. He began carefully inspecting each vial—an unimpressed look on his face. Rose wasn't overly concerned about this as she'd seen him make that face at Ava's extraordinary potions for an entire year. Still considering the oddity of her patronus, she voiced her thoughts aloud.
"Why do you think my patronus is a doe?" She asked. One of the vials Severus was holding up to the light slipped from his fingers. Rose made a dive for it across his desk, managing to snatch it out of the air before it could shatter over his letters. Letting out a shaky breath, she gave him a cheeky smile and handed the vial back to him which he took from her carefully.
"No need to thank me, sir," she said teasingly at his silence. Snape gave her an irritated look that made her grin. As he lowered the vial to his desk, Rose's eyes followed the movement, and she froze at seeing a letter with familiar dark green ink and gracefully looping script. He'd clearly been hiding it beneath other papers, and it must have become dislodged during her saving of the vial. Seeing where her eyes had gone, Snape quickly shuffled it back under other papers but not before she had seen her name amongst the various words.
"Are you talking about me with my mother," she asked in outrage, putting her hands on her hips and glaring down at him.
"If you do not wish for another detention, Miss Malfoy, you will speak to me with more respect," he hissed back, clearly hoping to intimidate her into dropping the subject—it wasn't going to work.
"Are you talking about me with my mother, sir," she snarled. Clearly realizing she was not going to be so easily dissuaded, Snape stood and splayed his fingers out on the desk, leaning towards her irritably. Severus—who was of a height with Remus Lupin—easily towered over her normally intimidating height.
"Narcissa and Lucius are concerned about you," he sneered.
"I wonder why, given who they're talking to," she said accusingly.
"Do not presume to chastise me after I have spent the last several days defending the subject matter of your recent publication," he snarled back, and Rose's mouth clicked shut, her face going red. Of course they would be upset that she'd written on lycanthropy.
"I didn't think—"
"That much is clear."
"I didn't think they'd read it," she finished in irritation. Transfiguration Today was not a common newspaper like The Daily Prophet; it was an academic journal.
"You obviously underestimate their interest in their daughter's accomplishments."
"Were they… angry," she asked hesitantly, her eyes dropping back to the desk.
"They were not pleased," he answered. "Especially as this occurred mere weeks after you appealed to Narcissa on behalf of a hippogriff that attacked your brother. They wanted to know what has been happening to make you act this way."
"And what are you telling them?" Rose asked suspiciously. "You can't tell them about—"
"What I write in my personal letters is not your business," he snarled, but she stood her ground.
"You can't tell them that Professor Lupin is—"
"You needn't worry about your precious werewolf," he sneered at her. "Though it is beyond my comprehension why you have grown so fond of a lying untrustworthy monster."
"He's not untrustworthy or a liar, and he isn't a monster," she snapped back at him although she knew this wasn't entirely true. She had been aware for some time that Remus Lupin was a very good liar.
"You are just like your mother—defending and fawning over a man who doesn't deserve it." His voice was acidic, and she stepped back as if he'd struck her. She knew he was not talking about Narcissa.
"Don't you dare compare me to Lily Potter!" she shouted at him angrily. Snape looked at her stonily, clearly regretting bringing up the subject in the heat of the moment.
"Get out," he said dismissively, waving his hand at the door. Rose didn't need telling twice. Turning on her heal, she grabbed her robe off the chair, stormed out of the classroom and slammed the door behind her—their fight making her forget that he never did answer her earlier question.
AN: Last full moon before June!
