AN: TW. Please scroll down to the bottom of the chapter to see TRIGGER WARNING
Chapter 61 - "The prettiest star."
Severus was still quietly fuming in his bedchambers as the hour crept closer to midnight, still hearing the echoing taunts and torment of that awful, horrible memory in his brain, like the turning of a broken record…
Who wants to see me take off Snivellus's trousers?
Leave him alone!
Oi, oi… Sticking up for Greaseball are you, Evans?
Sirius Black, you are an arrogant, cocky, cruel little bully. And you, James Potter are no better.
Need girls to stick up for you, ehh Snivellus?
I told you, leave him alone!
I don't need you help, you…. you Mudblood.
But the record playing in his mind came to a sudden halt when a hesitant knock came at his door. He scowled and re-buttoned his shirt, having been ready for a long bath to try and calm himself. His temper was still red-hot and sore to the touch after his last Occlumency lesson with Harry and he wanted to be left alone. The knock came again and he spat back irritably,
"A moment!... Give me a moment for Christ sake!", thinking that it would be some upstart First Year with an "emergency" in the Slytherin common room for him to resolve.
"Severus… it's Minerva." the voice beyond the door called out with a waver.
Snape left the last few buttons of his shirt undone and instantly rushed to the door to Mcgonagall's call. Minerva's knocks were strong and steady, even when she came bearing strange tidings. Now, her knock was timid and so was her voice, and the mere acknowledgement of that fact sent a shiver up Severus's spine.
When he opened the door to her, Minerval looked up from the floor with tears in her eyes. He stared at her lined and despondent face, feeling the air leave his lungs as his suspicions grew. All thoughts and resentment from those awful memories of his were gone in a flash. He had tried all afternoon to make the past lay dormant once more, and now it was, in the face of Minerva's distress. He couldn't even utter a single word, feeling his body shake just with the energy of complete sadness Minerva was emitting with every part of her. Every quiver of her lip, every blink of her shining eyes, every bony finger clasped somberly in front of her.
"Well for goodness sake, Severus… say something." she spluttered out.
"Harry?" he asked hoarsely. "If this is about the incident earlier today in his lesson-"
"No, Severus. It's Circe." she replied in a whisper. Almost like she knew that saying the words out loud would send shockwaves of panic coursing through Snape's veins.
"What is it? Is she alright?" he breathed out hurriedly, his breaths becoming ragged.
"No… she's very much not alright." Mcgonagall uttered.
"Minerva! What has happened?" he asked as his voice grew louder and more frantic. He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked imploringly into her eyes.
"Don't make me tell you, Severus. I'm not sure it's my bad news to tell…"
"Minerva!" he shouted again. "Tell me right now!"
There was a pause, during which Minerva let out a small, stifled sob. There had only been one other time where he had seen Mcgonagall shed even a single tear, and that was at Lily and James's funeral…
"I'm sorry, Severus. I'm so sorry." she sucked in a deep breath, laying a comforting hand on Severus's shoulder despite the aggressive way he clung to her. She looked into his black eyes over her spectacles with an expression of boundless sorrow and Severus felt weak with fright. "Poppy… Poppy believes Circe has had a miscarriage."
Severus let go of her shoulders, feeling his world collapsing in around him. The dungeons grew constricting tight and he felt like he was about to be buried. He looked straight through Minerva, his mind in complete turmoil. There were no solid thought going through his head at that moment, just sensations of pain, fright, shock… His mouth moved wordlessly, like a dying fish. He tried to pull anything concrete from out of his head to formulate a question, a single word, but found himself unable to even remember how to breathe…
"Where is she?" he found himself asking. It shocked him to hear it, like he was hearing the voice of someone else close by. Not himself speaking. Severus was almost looking down on himself from another plane of existence, consciously aware of what he was doing but dissociating from it. It was almost like a near death experience… But he also found himself moving his feet, compelled to Circe's side like a homing pigeon, guided by instinct alone. He broke into a brisk walk as Minerva followed on behind him.
"She's in our rooms. Poppy's seen to her. She's stable, but she's hardly said a word all day… She's just been curled up in the bamboo armchair in the conservatory, staring up at the sky through the glass roof."
"I… Wh-... She… She was pregnant?" Severus asked, his mind jumping from one half-formed question to another. He was in shock. His arms felt heavy at his sides. But somehow an autopilot mode had taken over him, and all that autopilot was saying was "go to Circe". He was glad for it. If he took the reins back from whatever force guided him, he would crash and burn from despair and sadness. For now, he was happy to let himself be guided.
"Good lord, Severus. Did you not even know she was carrying?!" Minerva asked ashamedly, afraid that she had told secrets that had not been hers to divulge.
"No… I don't think she did either." Severus muttered through numb lips.
"Severus…" Minerva called to him, gently taking his arm and pulling him to a stop. "I know this is an imbecilic question to ask, but… are you alright?"
"Me?" he asked through his reeling, dizzying fog.
"Oh Severus, don't make me say it out loud..." muttered Minerva, taking his shaking hands in hers with a look of deep compassion in her rapidly clouding eyes. "But it would have been yours, wouldn't it."
"Minerva, don't do this now… This is not a time to fawn over me and my temperamental psyche."
"But you've both-"
"No! Stop it. Please, Minerva... I can't… Not right now." he spluttered out incoherently, shaking from her grasp and marching on through Hogwarts's halls.
As they approached the double doors of Circe's and Minerva's living quarters, Severus paused, staring at the door handle as if waiting for it to open by itself.
"I would have waited for her to ask me to find you… but she was so quiet, Severus… She barely even looked at me or Poppy when we were caring for her. But she needs you. She needs you to be her rock now."
"And I will not fail her." Severus said steadily, a lump rising in his throat as he remembered his words of promise to her father.
He grabbed the handle, swallowing his emotions and striding into the room. Her bed was empty, he had expected that. But laid out on the top of the mattress were Circe's clothes, carefully folded one on top of another in a neat pile, her tartan coat now stained with a large, angry, red spot.
"Ohh, I'll have to give those a wash…" Minerva muttered, gathering the clothes in her arms and bustling around Severus.
"Don't bother, Min. That coat's way past its prime anyway. Just burn it." called out Circe from somewhere within the conservatory. The sound of her voice made Snape and Minerva both flinch; neither of them having expected her to speak. Minerva pressed the coat close to her and let out a small sniffle. Snape did not turn to watch her but he assumed she was weeping once more. Severus pushed the rising tide of emotion deep down into his core, storing it away in some hidden place within him until the pain gave him enough driving energy to force him onwards. He sucked in a long and level breath before walking into the conservatory.
Circe was curled up in the bamboo armchair, wrapped in a long and copious blanket with her knees drawn up close to her. Poppy sat at her side on the edge of the long bamboo sofa, gently laying a comforting hand on Circe's arm, stroking her softly with her thumb as Circe stared up into the black, empty glass ceiling. The nurse rose from her seat and moved silently over to Severus's side.
"She's lost a lot of blood, and we'll need to keep an eye on her temperature overnight, but her uterine fluids were clearly… Well, she-"
"She's right here." cut in Circe. "And I think what Poppy's trying to skirt around is that she's not pregnant...anymore."
Poppy Pomfrey cleared her throat awkwardly and shuffled out of the conservatory to allow Circe and Severus time to have their moment in private. Severus moved to the seat where the nurse had once sat in and he watched Circe's face carefully as she traced her gaze back up to the starry skies. She was pale, oh so pale… Deep bags rested under her eyes from her smudged mascara. Her mouth parted slightly as she tilted her head up into the canopy of stars, her lips a little blue and her green eyes a little dulled. He waited for what seemed like an age in that green and luscious conservatory. Waiting for her to speak, to start, to say what she needed to say. And he waited. Prepared to just listen.
"Fourteen weeks. According to Poppy's estimations…" she said suddenly, her eyes never leaving the stars above.
"Fourteen weeks." Severus echoed, feeling that pool of sadness pushed deep down inside him wriggle up close to the surface.
"You remember when Dad asked me if I was pregnant? When we went to see him?" she chuckled. The out-of-place sound made Severus grimace slightly. "Turns out I was pregnant then. Just didn't know it."
He remembered how he had practically balked at Matthew's assertions. How he had gone white with shock when the mere idea had passed through his mind. He also remembered his own father's questions about "grandchildren" as he'd lay dying in his hospital bed, and he marvelled at the cruel synchronicity of it all.
"So you weren't aware…?" he asked gently.
"No. No clue." she responded flatly.
Severus could hear in the tone of her voice that she was being deliberately flippant and jovial. Maybe to shock him. Maybe because she was just numbed to everything. Maybe to cope. But he had steeled himself and prepared himself for a woman who he assumed would be inconsolable. Minerva herself had told him that she had barely spoken since it had happened and he could still see the remnants of the tears stained on to her cheeks. He took comfort in the knowledge that clearly his presence had drawn her out of herself somewhat as she was quick to speak now, but nevertheless he still felt so, so far away from her…
"How did you not know?" he asked suddenly.
"Sev, think about it. Have I ever once mentioned periods or anything like that to you? I don't get them. I'm so irregular I always assumed I'd not be able to… you know. Or find it difficult. Just another part of me that's shit and doesn't work properly."
"I… I just assumed that you knew what you were doing when it came to… protection. That's why I never bothered with the contraceptive charms."
"Fantastic." Circe again said flatly. "Then I really do have no one else to blame for all of this but myself…"
"No. I should have taken joint responsibility for your health…. Your safety."
"Well, I guess it doesn't matter now." Circe whispered, the first hint of sadness creeping into her voice. "It happened. And now it's gone…"
"It?" Severus asked, his voice straining slightly as the lump in his throat threatened to choke him.
Circe paused and stared back up into the infinite sky. She felt a little drowsy from Poppy's medicines and remedies but she had refused to get into bed, slightly calmed by the greenery and tranquility of the conservatory around her and the great, vast sky above her. The heavens made it all seem so miniscule and insignificant. All her pain and soreness was so inconsequential in the great turning of the cosmos.
"I didn't think you'd want to know the gender..." she muttered hoarsely. "I thought you would be angry with me."
"Angry with you?!" Severus repeated, his eyes filling with tears. "Circe, look at me."
Circe's lips quivered as she kept her eyes resolutely on the stars.
"Circe…" Severus whispered, sinking to his knees before her and taking her face in his hands. He turned her head towards him and both of them were weeping openly as emerald stared into obsidian. "I am not angry with you. I am so, so sorry that you had to go through this alone, my love."
"I lost her, Sev." Circe sobbed. "I lost her…"
"Her? It was a girl?" He asked, still holding her face tenderly.
She nodded.
"I am so, so tired, Severus." Circe muttered, looking straight through him as he himself had done earlier with Minerva. Her eyes glazed over as she rambled on, almost like she wasn't really talking to him but to herself. "All of this that has happened to you and me these past few years: the bad dreams, the werewolf attack, the War, Azkaban, saying goodbye to Dad… I kept my head up and above water because I had to. But I'm so tired, my love. I am so tired of bearing the brunt of blow after blow. And I was close… I was close to my drowning point after Dad…. but I didn't think it had ground me down that much. I didn't think this War had torn me up into those "thousand pieces" like you once put it just yet. I hoped that I was still strong. I am not perfect, but I try. I don't pretend to be a good person through and through, but I thought I was good enough… I'm a complete mess, but I thought I was still strong enough to have given her life."
He held her tight to him, wishing that he could shoulder all of her hurt and her torment as his own. He would have taken it all from her in a heartbeat.
"Circe… nobody's to blame for this." Severus spoke gravely, pressing his forehead to hers. "This did not happen because you were not strong enough."
"So why, then? Why? Because I wasn't even tuned in enough with my own body to realise I had something growing inside me? All that vomiting and nausea that I thought was nerves or anxiety…How stupid can you be? I was so caught up in myself that I didn't even realise I was pregnant for three months?! It's laughable really isn't it. Of course I couldn't have been a mother."
"It happened because life is unfair." He whispered to her, his tears running off his nose and onto her face. "Not because you were lacking or broken but because life is cruel."
"So why is it especially cruel to me? Has it not already had its pound of flesh from me already? Hasn't this place and it's people already taken enough of us both already?"
Circe could feel herself changing, being carved into someone entirely new from the mould of the girl she once was: When she had first walked into Hogwarts's halls again as an adult just five short years ago. When she was unscarred. When she had been alone and lonely but full of fire. When she did not feel sick and sore with the accumulation of so many bruises laid down upon her. Now, she felt like she was being made into someone else with chisels of pain and trauma. A Pygmalion of some sadistic God's design. And now finally this was it, the last hammer of the chisel that caused the Pygmalion to crack and shatter.
"I know you didn't want to be a father, Severus." She stated in a low voice.
"Circe, if you'd have known and told me, I-"
"You would have "stepped up to the task"?" She interrupted him swiftly, pulling away from him and fixing him with a harsh look. "You would have "made an honest woman out of me"? You would have been terrified, Sev."
"Well can you blame me?" He asked her defensively. "I don't know how to be a father. I couldn't put any child through what I went through."
"Do you really think so poorly of yourself that you think you'd turn into Tobias?" Circe scoffed.
"That cruelness is in me, Circe. I know you've seen it."
"So you're saying that had I known, and told you, you wouldn't have wanted her?"
"Circe, I would have loved her with my whole heart because she'd have been yours and mine-"
"But would you have wanted her?" Circe said through gritted teeth.
Severus paused, searching within him for the answer of his truest heart of hearts.
Would I have wanted to bring a child into this unstable world? Would I have wanted another weakness for others to use against me or exploit? Would I have wanted somebody to grow up knowing their father was Severus Snape, the traitor, the turncoat, the two-faced?
"I… I don't know." He replied earnestly.
The comment sat heavy in the air. Silence descended over them both as Circe blinked at him wordlessly.
"Right… I see." She stated coldly. She withdrew from him and pulled the blanket around herself tightly, cocooning herself in it and staring back up through the glass roof.
"Circe…"
"No, it's alright Sev. Honesty all the way, remember? Even when it hurts. We still have a War to fight. And maybe… maybe it's better this way. I couldn't have made an orphan of her." Circe whispered to the stars above.
"Do you want me to stay with you?" He asked, feeling a deep well of regret pooling inside him.
"I want… I want my Cantuscope." She replied, taking him by surprise a little. "Fred and George should have left it in the Room of Hidden Things for me."
He thought about asking her if the Weasley twin's little display earlier that day had anything to do with her, but he thought better of it.
A question for another time.
"Can I convince you to get into bed, my love?" he asked, lingering by the door of the conservatory.
"No. I'm quite happy here. And I'll be happier when I've got some music too, to start healing the wounds that Poppy's medicine cannot touch. But I swear to God, if I hear any songs about "little angels" or "souls too good for this world", I'm throwing the damn thing into the Lake"
"Understandable." Severus smiled sadly. "I shall only be a moment then." he stated, his eyes lingering on her upturned face.
Severus turned from her, leaving her to her searching of the heavens. He nodded politely to Minerva, who sat on the edge of Circe's bed gently dabbing her face with her handkerchief, still holding Circe's coat close.
"Minerva, will you stay with her? I will be back soon."
"Of course. I heard her talking… is she-"
"She's… she's processing it in her own way, I suppose."
"You got her talking. That's more than Poppy and I managed."
"But you were with her in the eye of the storm. I was not." he mumbled sadly. "And for that I will be forever grateful to you, Minerva."
"She would have done the same for me had our roles been reversed. She's a good, kind soul, Severus, and she didn't deserve this…"
"No. No she did not." he stated, his chest feeling scooped out and hollow but still aching with pain.
How is it possible to feel both empty and full at the same time?
Minerva could see the far-off look of grief growing in his eyes and she stood up from the bed, approaching him steadily.
"I'm fine, Minerva." Severus said quickly, before she could ask about how he was dealing with the news again. "Concentrate on Circe. It would make me feel better if I knew you were doing that."
"Severus…"
But before she could press him for more, to open him up like an unbecoming mussel shell, he turned from her and strode from the room.
He walked on, feeling the man who was once on autopilot stepping gradually away from the controls. His adrenaline began to fade. His instinct of survival began to die down. The growing sensation of anger and loss and pain and sorrow soon became unbearable as he strode through Hogwarts's halls. Now the need to remain strong for Circe was not necessary, he found himself coming to a gradual stop. His footsteps ceasing altogether. Standing still and motionless in the center of the corridor. The rising tide of his own grief suddenly caught up with him. He stood stock still, almost shrinking in on himself with the weight of his own despair…
...until suddenly he turned his throat to the ceiling and screamed up into the sky. It was a snarl, a teeth-bearing, gut-squeezing cry of pain. He clutched at his hair, pouring out his anger in that primal outburst, sinking to his knees as he wept. His shoulders shook with dry, heaving sobs, in between scream after scream as he beat the stones beneath him with his balled fists. If anybody heard his cries, no one came. He stayed alone and desolate in that corridor, wailing into the ground, a black ball of utter anguish.
His screaming howls eventually died down into pitiful mewls. There was not enough air in his lungs to truly empty all of his anger and regret into the world so he tried to gather the last shattered pieces of himself back around his raging heart. His tears slowed and halted altogether after what had seemed like an endless torrent of sorrow. Eventually, he rose back up and sat kneeling on the cold, hard, floor, staring into the vacant air with wet cheeks and red eyes. He stood up on shaky legs, almost like time was reversing and he was going back to who he was in the moments before his outburst. He sniffed, refusing to wipe his face or hide his sorrow, breathing in deep again and again. The facade of "Severus Snape, the immovable, emotionless rock", slowly fell back into place and he stood tall and calm once more. Almost as if nothing had happened, he took one uncertain step down the corridor, and then another, and then another.
Severus strode on through the stone halls like a black specter, until he eventually came to that spot in the Third floor corridor where the Room of Hidden Things hid from sight. He closed his tired, stinging eyes, picturing the door to the Room emerging for him in his mind. When he opened them, the gothic-arched door stood waiting for him and he stole inside without a backwards glance. Once inside the Room of Hidden Things, he cast a quick lumos spell to light his way, peering into the gloom and looking around the mountains of discarded things for Circe's Cantuscope. It took him a while to wonder over to the spot where he remembered Circe leaving it beforehand, grumbling to himself when he realised it wasn't there. So, he set off on his quest, traipsing through the hills of goods in search of his beloved's most prized possession. He kept his eyes down on the floor as he looked, waving his illuminated wand about in the darkness and scanning over the uncountable items at his feet, until eventually he came to a stop.
There you are! He thought, a tiny surge of triumph rippling through him when the light of his wand finally fell on the Cantuscope. He hopped over a small pile of gold goblets and placed his hands over it, letting out a small, relieved sigh, happy that he would be able to grant Circe her small request of him that night. But he looked up into the gloom with a confused frown on his face, thinking he could see another shining lumos in the dark in front of him.
"Who's there?" he called out, raising his wand higher. The other hovering ball of light did exactly the same. He moved his wand again, and the ball of light copied his movements exactly. Severus strode forwards into the darkness, towards the other light and the golden frame of the Mirror of Erised came into view. As he grew closer, he saw himself emerge from the darkness in it's reflection, realising he had seen the mirror of his own spell in the glass surface.
He moved forwards, until his long nose was almost touching the surface of the murky glass. He looked drawn and haggard, an old man who has seen too much pain and gone through too much hardship.
He gasped aloud when the silhouette of a woman appeared in the reflection behind him, her back to him. Severus's chest tightened with anxiety; he couldn't face seeing Lily right now, his poor heart would break within him. But he stopped himself from turning away from the mirror when he realised it wasn't Lily.
"Circe?" He called out, pressing a hand to the glass.
I thought the mirror showed you what you wanted most in the world. He thought with a frown. Severus had expected to see Lily in its reflection, as he had before, as he presumed his deepest desire was still to see her safe and alive. His heart may have belonged wholly to Circe now, but his deepest longing was still to have had her live again. If not for him, then for her son. The woman in the mirror's reflection had Circe's copper hair and buoyant curls, her tall elegance, her gentle curves. Severus recognised her in an instant, even with her back turned to him as she was now. He would know her if he was blind, by the scent of her perfume or her footfalls alone. But his frown deepened as he puzzled over what the Mirror was showing him.
But… she is already mine. As I am hers. Why show me something that I already have?
But Severus felt his poor, broken heart shattering all over again when Circe turned around to face him…
Her eyes shone with a happiness that made her look radiant, her smile was perfect and bright, and in her arms she cradled something. A baby.
"My..." Severus muttered, his voice cracking and his eyes filling with tears. "My girl…. My daughter…"
The mirror laid bare for him what he had struggled to come to terms with on his own. Unapologetically waving in front of him what his greatest and saddest desire was.
"Of course I wanted you…" he sobbed. He sank to his knees in front of the glass as Circe drew closer to him with the baby in her arms. The child wriggled about drowsily in her blankets, and Circe held her close and rocked her back into a peaceful snooze: The most natural and beautiful show of motherhood Severus had ever seen.
"Of course I wanted you…" he sobbed again, touching a hand to the baby's head of dark hair and finding only cold glass beneath his fingertips.
"Oh, Severus…" a voice called out from the darkness behind him. "I'm so sorry."
Snape opened his streaming eyes just enough to see the shadowy outline of Dumbledore in the reflection of the mirror.
"Leave me alone…" he whispered. "Let me grieve in peace without you at my shoulder."
"I thought misery loved company." Dumbledore added as he approached the mirror steadily.
"Why are you here? How are you here? I thought you had to leave Hogwarts in disgrace when Potter's little band of Merry Men were discovered."
"Severus, this is my school. You don't really think that I wouldn't know a few secret passages and tunnels in and out of here, do you?"
"Wonderful. Now kindly fuck off and cause trouble somewhere else." Severus spat, turning his attentions back towards the mirror, his soul shattering all over again as his gaze fell back upon Circe cradling their child.
"Minerva sent an owl to me and told me what happened to Circe." He stated in a low voice.
Severus's throat closed up again as he pressed his forehead against the glass.
"And your presence here helps her how?" He asked irritably.
"... and Minerva also mentioned what occurred between you and Harry."
"Ahh, of course. Your prize pig is in danger so you came running back."
"Severus, I came back because my staff and my students need me."
"God, you sound just like Circe." Severus grumbled, rising to his feet and turning his back on the reflection in the mirror. If he looked any longer, he feared his heart would never knit back together. "Both of you off on some martyristic mission to get yourself killed. But I think the difference there, Headmaster, is that Circe is genuinely kind for the mere sake of being kind. She puts others first because she is a good person… a good person who didn't deserve this." Severus echoed the words Minerva had used only moments ago, his pain plain in his strained voice. "You always have ulterior motives, don't you Albus. To reap someone's loyalties or get them in your arsenal of soldiers. Don't pretend like you care about her, in the way she really does for your students… You came back to check she was still working hard on the translations of Regulus's journal, didn't you."
"Why would you say that?" Dumbledore asked curiously, his deep and furrowed brow creasing beneath his glasses. "Has she found something significant?"
"You are shameless, old man." Severus spat. "She has just miscarried and here you are unabashedly asking about her work."
"You are determined to paint me as a villain, so a villain I will be. As sad as Professor Smith's loss is, it does not stop the war machine from turning."
"She's found references to horcruxes. She isn't aware of the word's meaning, but it's plainly something that Regulus has spoken of a lot. You were right. There were more. At least you can say you were right…"
"Horcruxes?!" Dumbledore asked, his eyes flying open. "What? Where?"
"I don't know. If Circe herself knows then she hasn't divulged that information to me."
"And where is she now?"
"She is resting." Severus snarled. "And you will not disturb her tonight. Not even if the walls of Troy begin falling."
"Severus, this is wartime…"
"And even the Greeks laid down arms to give King Priam time to mourn Hector!" Severus shouted.
"Then may I at least ensure Harry is safe?!" Dumbledore roared back incredulously.
Severus strode past the Headmaster and picked up the Cantuscope from the floor.
"Do what you want, Headmaster. Tonight my loyalties are to Circe, not to you…"
"Severus… will you at least send him to me? I am a hunted man in these halls." Dumbledore called after him as he weaved his way through the mountains of discarded items.
"I am not your owl, Headmaster!" he shouted back to him, not even bothering to turn around and face Dumbledore. "I'm not sure what creature of yours I am now…"
The walk back to Circe's living-quarters from the Room of Hidden Things went by in a blur. Severus strained under the weight of the Cantuscope, but he gripped on to it tightly, his knuckles turning white with the sheer force of the strength with which he held it. Despite the hollow feeling in his chest, he nevertheless felt a small spark of pride that he had managed to fulfil Circe's only request of him that night. Like Jason returning with the Golden Fleece in his arms. He set it down on the floor outside her door and knocked politely. Minerva's puffy face appeared in the crack of the open door and she exclaimed happily, or as happily as she could muster, upon seeing Severus returned to them. She opened the door wide and looked down at the machine at Snape's feet.
"Oh! I wondered where that thing went. It's been curiously missing from our rooms for quite a while…." Minerva bent down and picked up the Cantuscope in her own hands. "You don't happen to know anything about the little display the Weasley twins gave us this afternoon, do you? They had quite the accompanying soundtrack to their performance."
"Not a clue." answered Severus honestly. "I hear it gave the Pink One quite the humiliation though… Quite deservedly so too."
"Well, it puts me in a rather awkward position as their Head of House." Minerva mumbled.
"What do you mean?"
"Because I don't know whether to serve the Weasley twins with an expulsion… or a congratulatory biscuit."
Severus snorted, despite his abysmal mood, rolling his eyes hard at Minerva as she softly chortled.
But their small attempts to make a touch of joy on this dark night was interrupted swiftly by the gradual approach of hurried, running footsteps echoing down the stone corridor. As the noise grew closer, Severus could also hear the accompaniment of short, raspy breaths with the heavy footfalls. They reminded Severus of the breaths his father had taken in the Hospice bed; they were the breaths of a heavy smoker, someone who lived off whiskey and whinging. And then Filch came careening round the corner, clutching his chest and wheezing hard.
"Professor Snape….!" Filch breathed, approaching him with a trot. "Headmaster Umbridge requires your presence, Sir. I went all the way down to the dungeons and halfway round the school looking for you…"
"And what does she require my presence for?" Severus asked shortly.
"I am not at liberty to discuss it, Professor." he grumbled back, casting a quick, sly glance to Mcgonagall before staring at his feet. "She's in her offices."
"Oh, still having trouble accessing the Headmaster's office, is she?" Severus asked with a knowing raise of his eyebrow. Since Dumbledore's hasty departure from the school, his offices had been near impossible to get into. Snape theorised that Albus must have placed some kind of curse on the phoenix statue that guarded its entrance, and Dolores, nor her Inquisition Squad, could make the statue move for love nor money. Filch grunted evasively and kicked at a corner of a carpet on the floor.
Severus rolled his eyes and looked to Minerva. "I will be back soon." he said to her quietly. "Tell her for me."
Minerva nodded and looked down at the Cantuscope in her arms. "I shall pass on your charge." she said with a small smile. Severus nodded his thanks to her and Mcgonagall gently closed the door to him.,
"Now if you'll follow me, Professor." Filch said in a raspy drawl.
"Get out of my way, you idiot. I know where the Defense Against the Dark Arts Office is…" Severus spat back rapidly, pushing past him with a huff.
He could hear Dolores's shrill screeches from a good two hundred yards away from the office.
"WHERE IS HE?! YOU WERE GOING TO HIM, WEREN'T YOU!"
"Who..?"
"DUMBLEDORE!"
"No I wasn't."
The crisp crack of a hand smacking across a face reached Severus's ears.
"LIAR!" screeched the woman.
Severus lay a cautious hand on the doorknob and began easing open the door just as Umbridge began threatening Harry with the cruciatus curse to loosen his tongue.
"You sent for me, Headmistress?" he asked, moving inside the garish, pink room. To his surprise he saw gathered there the other 'merry men', as he had referred to the other members of the DA, all held in place by other students in the Inquisition Squad, wands poised under their chins. He hadn't been able to hear anything else above the screaming of Umbridge, but it seemed like Dolores had quite the audience for her interrogation this time.
"Oh yes… Professor Snape." The toady-faced woman said primly, straightening her back and smoothing down her still slightly scorched-looking pink dress. "I trust Mr Filch explained what I require of you?"
"He did not…"
Dolores tutted and cast Filch a sour look of contempt. Argus looked to his feet sheepishly. "Sorry, Headmistress. By the time I spotted 'im, I'd run all over the castle and I was just so glad I'd found 'im-"
"Useless squibs!" muttered Dolores under her breath. Draco tittered at Filch's side, but soon received a swift kick to his shins from the old man's worn in leather boots.
"Ow!"
"What Mister Filch failed to mention, Severus…" continued Umbridge, utterly ignoring the now hopping Draco. "... is that I require more veritaserum from your stores. I am perfectly content with waiting here whilst you-."
"Headmistress, you used up the last of my stores when you spiked Miss Chang's tea with it." Snape interrupted quickly, his voice icy and slow. "I told you that it takes months to brew."
"You… you used veritaserum on Cho?" Asked Hermione, utterly aghast.
"She didn't sell us out!" Ron said aloud, a wide grin on his face.
"How long?!" Shrieked Dolores. "How long does it take to mature?"
"About six moths or so." Answered Severus coolly.
"But… But I wish to interrogate him now! He was communicating with someone through my fireplace! I NEED to leech the truth from him!"
"And as I already informed you, Headmistress, I really cannot help you in that regard. Unless you are prepared to wait until next September…"
"What about something else? A poison perhaps… something else to loosen his tongue." Dolores said frantically, rounding on Harry again with a vicious sneer.
Severus eyed up Potter with a quickening heartbeat beneath his still, calm black robes. The boy was looking at him rather oddly, almost like he was trying to will a message into his mind through his eyes alone...
"Well should you wish to poison Potter you would have my deepest sympathies, but most of my poisons act rather too quickly for the victim to tell anything before they're gasping and choking for air." Severus stated in his slow, rich voice.
"You are on probation, Professor Snape!" hollered Umbridge, her cheeks a furious red.
"Am I." Severus said in a deadpan drawl.
"You are being deliberately unhelpful. Ugh, Lucius always spoke so highly of you. And you're just as useless as he! Now get out of my office!"
Severus snorted and turned to leave.
"He's got Padfoot!" Harry shouted. "He's got Padfoot in the place where it's hidden!"
Severus came to a sudden stop, his blood running cold.
"Padfoot? What is a Padfoot? Severus what is he talking about?" Asked Dolores eagerly, her pink-bowed head bobbing from Harry to Snape, back and forth.
"No idea." Severus replied with a shrug. He locked gazes with Potter, his jaw set firm and rigid, his expression giving away nothing. Harry on the other hand was panting with desperation, looking at Severus imploringly. He turned back to the door sharply, feeling Harry's eyes boring into the back of his head, and left the office.
He tried to stop himself from breaking into a run when he closed the door of Umbridge's office behind him. Yet, his heart pounded inside him, his mind racing with thoughts.
Sirius… he meant Sirius. The Dark Lord has Sirius! In the Department of Mysteries. Good God, he must have finally run out of patience with Lucius and Bella. He must be trying to torture the location of the Prophecy out of Black.
His restless legs walked steadily through the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, just in case anybody in Dolores's offices cared to listen to his footsteps of retreat. But eventually he reached the corridor and his heart threatened to burst from his body.
I must find Dumbledore…
And then he broke into a run.
Severus burst back into the Room of Hidden Things like a whirling black tornado.
"Albus!" He shouted out into the gloom. "Dumbledore!" He called again, hearing his voice bouncing off the innumerable items and discards.
A long-backed armchair near Severus suddenly swiveled round to face him, and sat in it was the Headmaster, hands placed together on his lap delicately.
"Back are you, Severus?" He asked derisively. "I thought you were busy this evening."
"Harry has had a vision. He's seen Sirius in Voldemort's grasp. He's in the Department of Mysteries!" Severus said frantically.
"No he isn't…" Dumbledore chuckled. "He's sitting at home at Grimmauld Place, sulking. Remus has finally plucked up the courage to take Miss Tonks on a date, I hear…"
"I… what?!" Snape spluttered. "But he told me "He's got Padfoot in the place where it's hidden"."
The Headmaster rose sharply from his chair. "How…? How would he know something like that?"
"A vision?"
"An incorrect vision." grumbled Dumbledore.
"But what if…" Severus wondered aloud. "What if The Dark Lord wanted him to see an incorrect vision?"
Dumbledore's eyes widened behind his half-moon spectacles. "He knows. He knows of the connection between he and Harry."
"How?!" Snape asked, his stomach dropping into his shoes.
"It doesn't matter "How". But it's obvious he's trying to draw Harry to The Ministry to-"
"To retrieve The Prophecy himself." Snape completed for him.
The two men ran from the Room of Hidden Things as fast as Dumbledore's old legs would allow. However, when Severus approached the Défense Against the Dark Arts office again, he could already tell the students were gone. It was quiet. No shrieking from the Pink One. No snickering even from the Inquisition Squad.
"Bugger." Severus stated plainly as he opened the door of the office just enough to see Crabbe, Goyle, Malfoy and the other members of the Inquisition Squad out cold on the floor. They were all covered in sick, and Severus could see a few sachets of the Weasley twins puking pastilles wrappers dotted about the floor. "They're gone, Albus." He said gravely.
"Gone where?" Dumbledore asked exasperatedly.
"To Grimmauld Place, hopefully. Let's pray that Potter at least has the intelligence to go to The Order for help, rather than charging in to rescue Sirius himself."
Severus once again turned on his heels and moved to leave the office.
"And where are you going, Severus?!" Dumbledore called after him with an exasperated flap of his arms.
"The Dark Lord still trusts me. If I am present this night, he will know of my treachery. But I have done my part, and I already told you. I am busy tonight, Headmaster." He muttered back. "I shall alert Minerva to what has happened and the two of you should be able to alert The Order as hastily as possible. But tonight, there is someone else who needs me. And I will not fail her."
"Severus…" Albus sighed, reaching out a hand to the man as he strode away from him. Snape stopped and turned one last time to the Headmaster, meeting him with black, obsidian eyes that ached with sorrow. "I truly am sorry. Do wish Circe a speedy recovery from me, won't you. Although, of course, there are wounds that all the medicines and well-wishes in the world can't heal, aren't there."
"Circe said something very similar." Severus muttered, almost to himself rather than to Dumbledore. "I shall await word from either you or The Dark Lord, come the morning. Let's just pray Potter's not as foolhardy and imprudent as Sirius… or his father."
Severus turned from Dumbledore and made his steady way back to Circe's living quarters with a heavy heart. He knocked on the door again, this time hearing the sound of music cascade out of the door when Minerva opened it to him again. The Cantuscope was already working its own special kind of magic.
"Minerva, you need to find Dumbledore and go to The Order headquarters as soon as you can." He whispered, barely audible above the music. He cast a cautious eye out to the conservatory where he could not see Circe, but hoped that her somber but soothing tunes were masking his words just enough to keep her unaware of the madness occurring that night. If Circe knew a fight was happening, she'd want to help. Regardless of what had happened to her, or her and Severus's cover. He also knew that Circe would be fuming with him when she eventually learned that he'd kept the unfolding events of this night from her deliberately, but he didn't care. For her own sake, for her own time to begin healing and grieving and rebuilding herself, she needed to stay ignorant.
"Dumbledore? Dumbledore's here?" Minerva asked confusedly.
"You'll find him in the DADA classrooms. You better hurry. It's rather urgent."
"I see." Minerva replied pragmatically, having adopted a whisper herself. She too cast a wary eye out to the conservatory where Circe was listening to a rather familiar, twanging, glam-rock melody whose notes seemed to float on the air like dandelion seeds.
"Cold fire, you've got everything but cold fire
You will be my rest and peace child
I moved up to take a place, near you
So tired, it's the sky that makes you feel tried"
"Tell her I went to deal with the Weasleys or something…" Minerva added quietly.
"I shall. Good luck, Minerva." Snape added, laying a grateful hand on her arm. "And thank you again."
Minerva purses her lips together and nodded primly. She took a deep breath in, gathering her courage for the night ahead, and left the room.
"Staying back in your memory
Are the movies in the dark
How you moved is all it takes
To sing a song of when I loved
The prettiest star"
Severus swallowed the lump in his throat as he moved as quietly as he could into the conservatory. Circe was as he had left her: still sickeningly pale, still hollow and sunken-eyed, still wet-cheeked, still in her blanket, sat in her bamboo chair, but her face seemed calmer somehow, she seemed almost tranquilised under the spell of the music, still gazing up into the starry sky for comfort. A few of the green plants rustled as he brushed past them, and Circe looked to the source of the noise, suddenly snapped out of her trance-like listening of the music.
"You're back." She said with a hint of a smile.
"I am. Now brace yourself."
"What are you- Hey!"
But before Circe could protest, Severus had lifted her up in his arms and carried her over to the larger bamboo sofa that also sat in the conservatory. He lowered himself down onto the couch, still cradling Circe close and keeping her warm and wrapped up in his lap.
"Comfortable?" He asked.
Circe grunted and shuffled around a little until she lay her back against Severus's chest. He extended his legs across the couch, keeping his arms wrapped around Circe and resting himself against the arm of the sofa, finally letting out a long sigh. Circe repositioned her blanket so that it covered them both and finally relaxed back into his embrace with a similarly heavy sigh to Severus's.
"I am now."
Severus held her tight in his arms, resting his cheek against the top of her head as he listened to the sound of her breaths. Feeling her warmth close to him stirred his emotions once more and he scrunched up his eyes tightly, holding on to her tighter than he had ever done before. They lay in each other's comforting embrace, letting the music speak for them and weeping freely when their hearts needed to weep. And so, they mourned together.
"Staying back in your memory
Are the movies in the dark
How you moved is all it takes
To sing a song of when I loved
The prettiest star"
"What shall we call her?" he asked suddenly.
Circe snapped her head up from its resting place on Severus's chest, her eyes swimming with pain and shock.
"I know she's gone…" he continued, his voice breaking with sorrow again. "But she deserved a name if nothing else. What would you have called her?"
Circe cast her expressionless face back up to the glittering heavens above, staring into the strangely calming black expanse as she had done many times that night. "Seren. I always liked Seren." she whispered.
"Seren Snape." he said, testing the name out on his tongue and finding it familiar and comfortable. Like he had spoken the name of someone he had always known. "What does it mean?"
"It's Welsh... for Star."
TW: Miscarriage.
Please see the links below for organisations to help with this issue if you, or someone else you know, are affected byt this issue.
The Miscarriage Association is a charity that offers support to people who have lost a baby. They have a helpline (01924 200 799, Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm) and an email address (info .uk)
baby-loss-support is also another brilliant organisation that offers support around this issue - please see their website for contact information and helplines