A/N: A bit of a longer chapter this time. This chapter especially was hard, like bloody hard. I love writing, but wow, this segment in particular is tough. Severus Snape is first and foremost a very damaged character, in my mind, considering what he put himself through at great personal risk to his own life, and his outlook on life and especially towards a witch-like Dahlia who reminds him of Lily would not be an easy thing for him to live with, let alone for the better part of a year, as my story dictates. I feel like it's only natural considering what Snape went through, he'd almost want to tear her throat out, at least at first, but there's a thin line between love and hate.
This will be something of a slow burn as it will take time for Snape to recover and learn how to trust/love someone else again, but hopefully not too slow, so I hope those of you invested in the story will continue to enjoy it. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, please review, follow, & like, as always! Happy reading, everyone!
THIS was admittedly the second time Severus wished he would have just been killed. Severus woke to a dream standing underneath the same shaded willow tree that he and Lily used to frequent in the park near their respective neighborhoods as scrawny children before their Hogwarts days.
He looked around as the wind on his hair tasted like bitter Licorice Wands, causing him to crinkle his nose in disgust and pull a face, and he closed his eyes, wanting to remain right here in this very spot until the end of his pitiful existence, for he knew if he were to open his eyes, it would bring him to another phantom.
Severus forced his eyes to remain tightly shut while feeling his spirit float far, far away from his body, and beyond this very tree. There was the familiar sensation of the cold droplets of a light spritzing of rain trickling down his face, and when he looked, finally, he could see the rain beginning to fall.
His black woolen thick coat draped heavily against the light rainfall that was more of a drizzle and the grey emptiness of the area around him, until he perceived the growth of a lily so white and pure, out of the ground, as if by magic, though even in his dream-like state, Severus could not recall casting any sort of spell.
He never would have thought of seeing another lily flower, not even in a dream, and his mind drifted yet again to thoughts of Evans, wishing that just once, he could have gifted her with the most perfect flower that shared her namesake, hoping that Lily would cherish it, always.
It took Severus three lazy strides towards the lily, and he bent down to pluck the delicate little plant off the cold barren ground, but the moment he rested it against his calloused palm, it turned into a fine tress of red—a woman's hair. He stiffened, a muscle in his jaw spasming as he suppressed a gulp and a wonton ache for the witch for whom he had sacrificed everything sparked deep in his gut.
He tightened the grip on the single strand of hair and brought the lock of red hair to his face to give it an intimate whiff, thinking that if this was all he would have of her, his sweet, lovely, Lily, then it would have to be enough. But his first inhale quickly discarded his interest, for instead of a witch's perfume, he smelled the unmistakable iron stench of blood.
Quickly, his hand that held the single strand of red hair was now covered in a coat of thick, garish liquid, warm, sticky, and putrid. Before Severus could ascertain where the blood had come from, his vision began to blur at the edges, as if he was awakening to another violent coughing spell, he faintly remembered that happening to him a couple of times.
His sleep had been deep, but not entirely peaceful. Images had flashed before his mind's eye, more like fragmented thoughts than actual dreams, as if he were viewing the snippets of the last few hours in a Pensieve. Some were memorable—he thought he could vaguely remember a pair of delicate arms doing his best to lift him out of bed, speaking quietly into the shell of his ear how they were taking him home, but they needed his help to walk to the door once they Apparated there.
Severus thought he could faintly recall the phantasm image of Lily staring at him, trying to peer into his pupils, and for a moment, he thought that she had, but then when this phantasm had opened her mouth to speak to him again, it was not Lily's voice. The hazy and fragmented memories from earlier had passed him by too quickly for Severus to comprehend any of what had happened in his state of semi-consciousness where he was only barely lucid, leaving a deeply unsettling presence in their wake.
His eyes flickered open and shut, barely perceptively, a low groan escaping his lips. Severus was beginning to wake up now, but his already weakened body had been drugged with copious amounts of a Calming Draught and a Sleeping Draught to keep him from flying into a rage, and he lay there for a while in a semi-conscious haze, teetering between the brink of the darkness of his dreams and the even darker light of the world, or should he say, the lack of light.
He felt as though he were submerged in dark, murky water, as if under the Black Lake at Hogwarts, just beneath the surface of whatever new reality was his. He could see and hear this phantasm of this woman who shared a remarkable likeness to Lily, but she was distant and distorted, both her image and her voice, an indistinct ripple that could not manage to fully penetrate the gauze that stretched over Severus's perception of the world. A thought swam towards Severus, fully formed and dangerous, like an electric eel or a mermaid with their spear in hand.
You dreamt it. There is no woman speaking to you, trying to keep you calm, there is no hospital room in St. Mungo's, you're still in that damned boathouse, chimed a familiar snakelike voice from somewhere in the dark recesses of Snape's mind that sounded entirely too much like the Dark Lord for Severus's own comfort.
Momentarily, this voice lit up the mental darkness that he was experiencing now. Severus had imagined things before—Lily's phantasm visiting him in his sleep a few times, those talks with Lily at her tombstone.
In fact, following Albus Dumbledore's death by his own hand at Dumbledore's bequest, Severus had long since lost track of what was real and that of his own fantasies. Could that room in St. Mungo's just have been another illusion? Alarmed, he quickly swam to the surface, and whatever might be waiting for him there, needing to wake up. As he shakily rose to sit up, the first thing that spun into his focus was a woman's back turned towards him, looming nearby.
This alarmed him, this stranger in his room, he could tell he was in his own living room parlor by the dinginess of the atmosphere. This mysterious woman was standing on the far side of the room, staring at his bookshelves that were shoved against the walls, practically covering the entirety of the wall.
Even though her back was to him, and Severus could not make out any details of the woman's face from this distance, there was something that was hauntingly familiar of her.
This witch was short, around Lily's height, he pegged her at around 5'4, at best, with shoulder-length deep red hair, and she held herself with the assurance of a witch who had worked hard to attain her life's goals, just as he had.
For a moment, Severus gaped at this stranger, sure that he was seeing a ghost.
He did not know why he had to let Lily haunt him, but there was no denying the ache burgeoning as a warmth that seeped into his chest at her appearance here in his home.
Had he not known that it was impossible, save for the only means to resurrect the dead was for the spirit of the departed to return as a ghost or as an apparition via the means of the Resurrection Stone, which Potter had possession of, he would have sworn that Lily Potter had returned from the dead. Severus's heart thumped beneath his ribs. His mind felt like it was reeling as bile rose in his throat as Severus fought with himself to ground himself in reality. He tried to speak, but he could not manage to catch his breath long enough to utter a single word to announce his waking.
All Severus could do was sit up slowly, staring at the phantasm of Lily before him, waiting for her to turn around and say something, for the moment when she would turn to face him fully and shatter the illusion of Lily's image that his mind's eye had created. But she stayed just as she was, still, silent like the shadow he believed her to be, and distant. She appeared to be eyeing his collection of books on the shelves, interested, with her hands folded neatly behind her back, stiffly, the alarming sounds of his own coughing pulling him back to life, reminding him he was still alive.
As it came close to clearing, Severus inhaled another deep breath and coughed gravely, temporarily quelling the pain that settled in his lungs but jabbed sharply in his throat, which felt like it was utterly on fire.
Alarmed, the young witch eyeing his shelves full of books turned around to face him.
She did not say anything back, surely, this woman who strikingly resembled Lily, except for the eyes, this woman's eyes were a rich dark brown, was nothing more than a product of his feverish mind, but her face was a picture.
"Good, you're awake, finally, I was starting to get worried that I'd maybe given you too much of a Sleeping Draught, Snape, sir," she murmured hurriedly, darting forward to reach him as he could only stare in a daze at the young woman in his home uninvited against piled pillows as he sat up as best as he could on his threadbare old sofa.
Her red hair was almost a striking hue against such pale skin it was almost alabaster, dark brown eyes, the same slender cute nose as Lily's was. The witch was Lily if Lily would have lived to her early to mid-thirties.
Fierce yet noble, his every reason to have gotten drunk on Firewhisky for a little liquid courage when he was younger, though he was still quite young at age thirty-seven, those days were behind him.
It was definitely her, he was sure of it and he thought he heard himself speak Lily's name in a weak rasp that barely resembled his voice, but when the witch spoke back, it was an unfamiliar voice that melted his senses.
But of course, it was. Lily was dead. And even if she wasn't, she would be somewhere else. In the comforts of her own home in Godric's Hollow with Potter and her son.
She would be anywhere else but here in an enclosed space with him.
Severus barely managed to restrain the hoarse bitter laugh that threatened to escape from his throat and turn into a sob if he'd let it happen, not knowing what she was doing here. Unshed burning moisture was glistening in his eyes that would soon be his tears, he could feel it now if he couldn't manage to maintain control over his emotions.
In that first moment after waking, Severus was stricken with a bout of paranoia and a cold, debilitating fear that was humiliating. He was suddenly convinced that surely this was nothing more than one final hallucination.
Perhaps it was his mind's way of letting go of Lily Potter once and for all, though he almost let out a small painful sob as that thought pricked his conscience, coupled with the knowledge that this witch was not Lily.
"I have water for you to drink when you're ready, you'll feel better." The young woman was looking down at him, holding a glass of water in one hand and a cool damp cloth in the other, and still wearing an apathetic look, though Severus thought he caught a flicker of sympathy flit through her dark eyes.
It took him several seconds before Severus could realize that this was no dream.
He was pulled back to the nest of problems that awaited him in the living room following the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts and Voldemort's snake's attack against him, and it felt like he was being hurled into a grave alive, the dirt just being shoveled on top of him with no regard for his own life.
Severus felt his stomach churn in apprehension as she drew closer towards him. He tried to sharply turn his head away in the hopes of escaping her gaze, but even that proved to be too difficult a task as his head felt heavy.
Repressing a sigh, it was all Snape could do but lay there helplessly as she waved her wand and conjured a chair out of midair and scooted it closer to the sofa and sat down.
"How are you feeling?" she asked him, her voice timid and soft, laced with concern.
He blinked owlishly at her, as though this witch had sprouted a pair of antlers. He was sure that, aside from Lily in times past, no one had ever dared to ask after his health before. On the contrary, most expressed a desire that he kills himself by throwing himself into the Thames River and drowning.
He tried to speak, though the effort burned his throat, and only a dry croak escaped past his lips.
Slowly, he accepted the glass and pretended not to twitch to his side as Severus pulled himself upright to a sitting position as best as he could, though Snape was unable to stop the grunt of pain from escaping his throat. No matter how hard he tried to hide the flinching on his face from the pain that ravaged his whole body as he was exerting almost all of his energy and what meager strength he had managed to regain just to sit up, he knew this witch had seen it.
He begrudgingly allowed the witch to hold the cup to his lips as she helped him to drink. Severus swallowed the ice-cold water in careful measurements, swallowing what seemed to be shards of glass through his throat and spilling some out of the sides of his mouth to his chest.
"Here," the witch murmured in a low voice that shook slightly as he had finished his drink and she moved to take the glass from him and set it aside on a small wooden night table perched by his sofa and then held out a cloth for him to take. He knew what the cloth she held in her hands was for. His hand was covered in blood, fresh and old. He touched his mouth, only to feel the blood moistened at his lips.
Severus could smell his own sweat lingering underneath his damp clothes. Taking the cloth with bandaged and shaking hands, he stiffly gave his cheek a light tap before wiping away the remaining blood on the edge of his lips.
"You've slept in for almost a full day, Snape, sir," the young woman broke the awkward silence, and Severus was almost too petrified to speak recounting what he thought had transpired within the last several hours before his dreams had happened. The witch went on, either oblivious to his shock or purposefully ignoring it to spare him the embarrassment, for which he was grateful. "Can you remember anything of what happened, Severus?" she asked, very softly.
Moved with emotion, and all of them he would rather not share with this witch, he finally managed to speak in a hoarse whisper.
"No," was all that he could say to her. He couldn't be sure, but Severus thought for a moment he saw a temporary kernel of disappointment flicker through the redheaded witch's brown eyes, but just as quickly as the foreign emotion had come, it was vanished, replaced by a mask of calm peacefulness.
Severus hardened his gaze as he sat upright. He wasn't sure what of this witch he had been expecting.
A part of him had expected that he would see fear in those brown eyes of hers, but instead what he found as she regarded him silently was a look of amazement. Perhaps even curiosity mingled with just a twinge of pity for his condition. The witch was looking at him as though she were some odd foreign magical creature she had just discovered, not the man who had betrayed the Dark Lord and had sacrificed everything.
Any other witch would have likely looked away from him, blushing with embarrassment or perhaps even fear, knowing of his reputation. But this woman's gaze was steady and unyielding, telling him without words that she was not about to be the first one to look away.
It was as if the Healer knew exactly what rested beyond his own exterior, and yet the witch did not flinch at what she saw. It was unsettling, to say the very least, and for a moment, he did not know how to respond.
"Why are you here, witch?" he rasped, his voice low due to his wounds but clear enough. He was more than surprised as the redheaded witch had the impudence to raise her brows at him, a move from her that he had not expected.
She looked surprised at his question, but less so than she expected to be, Severus keenly noticed. She hesitated.
"I'm your ah, live-in Healer for a year, sir. Headmistress McGonagall and the Ministry's orders, Severus, if you'll allow me to call you that," she stammered, waving her wand and conjured a sealed envelope to appear in mid-air in front of her, watching as Severus reached out a bandaged hand to pluck it where it hovered, waiting for him. "The orders are in there, the proper signatures accounted for, see for yourself," she answered in a rather dismissive, curt tone.
The witch's voice was surprisingly present, not feeble, or high pitched as Severus had expected.
She lifted her chin, jutting out slightly defiantly as her expression shifted only slightly. The curiosity and intrigue that had seemed to radiate in her brown eyes a moment ago quickly dissipated, to be replaced with a look of resignation, as if bracing for something unpleasant.
The young Healer that he pegged to be a few years younger than him clasped her hands in front of her and stood stiffly.
There was almost something disgustingly noble of the way this pretty witch was acting, that Severus could not quell the unpleasant feeling of bitterness in the form of bile rising in the back of his throat, and a wave of warm anger seeping its way into his chest. Who the hell did this witch think she was, a saint?
"Your name, witch, what is it?" he barked in a flat voice, purposefully keeping his voice bored and the note of intrigue from creeping its way unbidden to the surface of his voice and giving too much of himself away, watching as the Healer turned her back to him.
This move on her part was something that vexed him, though he could not quite pinpoint just why it bothered him.
"Dahlia, sir, Dahlia Hawthorne," she replied, her voice surprised.
For the second time, Severus almost had to stop himself from smirking. Nevertheless, the sly quip escaped from his cracked lips before he could stop himself, though it sounded more of a snort than anything else.
"Of course, it is, witch," he muttered to himself, sharply turning his gaze away and instead out the window, wondering how long she would truly be here. She'd said a year, but he could not allow her to stay here in his own home.
The impropriety of such an arrangement was almost unfathomable. If she had indeed been assigned to him, it was for the purpose of house calls, and likely St. Mungo's with the assistance of the newly formed Ministry of Magic was putting her up somewhere close by. The Leaky, if he had to guess.
Severus frowned as he let his dark eyes rake over her form and made a quick scan of her appearance.
"Why did they assign you to me? How old are you?" he scoffed. "You have been a Healer a long time?" he shot back, the contempt dripping from his voice as she slowly turned her profile to the side, still keeping her gaze directed stubbornly at the floor. It took Severus a moment, as her pale face was hidden by her red hair, but then when she swiped a lock of it back behind her ear, he realized with the beginnings of alarm that the young witch was blushing at his questions.
"I'm thirty-four, and more than old enough to be a licensed Healer, sir," was all she said to him.
It was harder to make out the details of her face at this distance, but Severus was eager to make Lily's doppelganger in all ways but her eyes and the shape of her nose, the length of her hair, look at him, something she was clearly avoiding.
Severus felt frustration bubbling within his chest, but one way or another, he would get her to look at him.
He'd succeed somehow. He always did.
"You were interested in catching a glimpse of the Dark Lord's betrayer, was that it?" he growled, sitting upright. "What benefit do you gain? The notoriety and recognition of being the one to heal me? Do you find yourself enthralled by how much joy and happiness surround this place, where a savior resides?" he snapped, the bitterness in his tone unmistakable as he attacked her reasons for being here. "The Ministry of Magic would see me kept a prisoner until a trial and competency hearing can be arranged for me, I suspect, and what better way to keep an eye on me than sending someone to monitor my every moment under the guise of 'healing,'" Severus spat out spitefully.
After a moment, he expected the young Healer to nod, all but confirming his growing suspicions.
But Dahlia Hawthorne did none of those things. Dahlia, if that was indeed her name, yet another witch in his life so appropriately named after a flower, proceeded to furrow her brows into a frown at Severus's remarks that were intended to cut her, and she turned her heated gaze to Snape.
She spoke to him very quietly and slowly, as he would address one of his students.
"This is no place of joy, Snape, and despite your actions, which were heroic, you're not a savior. And you are not a prisoner here," Dahlia replied.
Severus sat rooted to his spot, completely stunned by the pretty Healer's cold response she'd offered up just now.
He felt his smug, almost triumphant expression slide off his face like water falling over rocks, only to be replaced by an expression of complete astonishment, taken aback. And Dahlia Hawthorne stared defiantly right back, and he could see in those brown eyes of hers a look of defiance, satisfaction, and even…victory.
This, he could not allow. Blood flashed in his eyes as he struggled to stand upright.
"You're right, witch. I'm not a savior. Some call me the devil, didn't you know that?" he snarled hatefully through gritted teeth as he staggered to his feet, though the effort nearly took all he had left within himself to stand.
He saw the witch's brown eyes widen in astonishment as his inner strength, which pleased him to see it had a positive effect on the witch, as she was currently gaping at him like a fish, her mouth slightly slack-jawed, her grip iron tight on her wand in case he made to go against her.
"And you call this freedom?" Snape asked in disgust, looking around his house with narrowed eyes in utter disbelief.
A faint blue haze could be seen just outside through the cracks in his windows that not even his curtains could hide, which meant that this witch had taken precautions to put up Shield Charms around his own home, and likely had put protective enchantments in place which would prevent a select few from Disapparating off the property. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he was one of those select few who would not be leaving here.
"I call it protection, sir," Dahlia shot back angrily, her own tone sounding spiced and offended. She still had the impudence to keep her eyebrows raised at him, her wand at chest level.
"Locked doors and Shield Charms, protection?" Severus mocked in disbelief, scoffing at the witch.
"Yes." Dahlia held firm. "It is the best that I could do for you, sir. My supervisor thought that considering the circumstances at the hospital and your...unique situation and with the number of reporters attempting to hound our Welcome Witch for an interview with you, that you would be more comfortable here in your own home. You are not a prisoner here," she repeated, a note of impatience in her shy voice. "You will be safe here. As long as you don't leave."
Her answer was cryptic, and only fueled Severus's curiosity and growing suspicions.
"Why? And I don't think I'll be taking any orders from you or anyone else the Ministry chooses to send. I don't need anyone's help, Miss Hawthorne, I am perfectly capable of managing on my own," Severus growled.
His sarcastic voice rang in Dahlia's ears as she slowly turned around, her face set in a steely sort of disgust and growing anger. She looked as though she wanted nothing more than to cut him down with a well-aimed jinx for his biting remark but managed to restrain herself. She spoke to him through gritted teeth as she clenched her fists at her side.
"You will take your orders from me, Severus, like it or not, you have to," Dahlia Hawthorne's passionate decree rang above the noise of something chaotic occurring just outside. "And as for your 'Why?' Well, let me tell you why. You will do as I tell you. Otherwise, you'll be facing that mob outside of your home on your own, and good luck changing your bandages," she threatened, motioning with a jerk of her thumb over her shoulder to the window she stood behind.
Severus sneered in Dahlia Hawthorne's direction but fell silent and strained to listen for a moment.
If he concentrated, he thought he could hear the unmistakable sound of camera shutters flashing, and the combined shouts of several people, all of them likely journalists for The Daily Prophet, the lot of them clamoring for a glimpse.
"The Ministry and even the Hogwarts Headmistress has no right to interfere in my life, none," Severus whisper hissed through clenched teeth as he stalked towards her, though his steps were more lumbering as his gait was uneven and shaky, and he was forced to clutch at a stitch in his side. His frantic breaths were shallow and ragged as he gasped for breath that did not come to him so easily. "You are no Healer, you cannot be one, you are too young," he protested hotly. "I think that if I should suffer to be in the same room as you, much less let you tend to my wounds, it might kill me. Having someone like you around me for an entire year might just be the thing that actually kills me. You might finish what the snake started. To let an inexperienced witch like you try to heal me is a fate worse than death. I'd rather suffer the Dementor's Kiss." Snape was not quite shouting at the Healer, but nor was he pleased with this arrangement.
Someone from the Ministry could have sent word to him during his brief states of consciousness. But a part of him felt blindsided that this beautiful witch who was sure to be a constant reminder of the woman who he'd loved and lost, was to be his personal Healer for a year. She was a distraction that he knew he could not afford right now.
Surely, Minerva and Minister Shacklebolt would have had to know that it would not have changed his answer, but he could have been better prepared to accept this young witch into his home.
Dahlia frowned at the sarcasm that dripped from his voice, but Severus paid the witch no heed. The young redhead standing stiffly in front of him proceeded to frown and grit her teeth in anger, and before the former Hogwarts Headmaster had any time to respond, her voice ripped through the air, effectively shattering the silence between them.
"How dare you!" shouted Dahlia angrily, and she raised her wand so that Severus was propelled back onto the sofa before he could even raise his own at her.
She had surprising reflexes and seemed a capable dueler, for a Healer, one who was supposed to be a pacifist, something Severus had not anticipated, as he reeled back against the sofa cushions, too stunned quite frankly to respond. He stared up at her, and this time, it was he who could not manage to form a coherent reply.
"How dare you speak to me like that?" Dahlia repeated through clenched teeth. "You might have been a vital part in ending Lord Voldemort's reign, but that does not mean that I am going to tolerate your insufferable attitude while I'm your Healer. We have got a year to ensure you're well enough to resume your normal life, don't you think we ought to at least try to get along?" she pleaded as the worst of her anger dissipated as she bit down on her lip, and stuck it out in a pout as she regarded her stunned patient. Cold anger slowly overtook Dahlia's hurt. Her mind reeled at the notions forming in her thoughts as her brain processed the former Headmaster's cruel remarks at her abilities as a Healer.
She could not continue to let him make such disparaging remarks against her chosen profession.
"You have no idea what I've been through, the things that I've done to get where I am, Snape. I made a vow, a promise to all of wizardkind when I swore in my oath as a Healer that I would do whatever it took to heal any patient that came into my care and responsibility, including you, Snape, though with how you've just spoken to me, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I should have left you there in that boathouse to die, and I cannot start wanting to wish that people were dead on my watch, so don't tempt me, Snape."
She raised her chin proudly, unwilling to show just how much his hurtful remarks were inwardly affecting her.
Severus could only stare at her. She had dared to raise her wand against him in his own home and had been one of few who were not afraid to speak the Dark Lord's chosen name, showing no fear as she'd said it. This witch had to be the insane one, not him. To put it simply, Severus had never received such a response like this before, not even from Lily.
He could not begin to put it in words, but something of her defiant and bold attitude only spurred him on.
There was something of this witch that was inexplicably drawing him towards her, likely it was her stubbornness and brazen boldness. It was infuriating and curiosity-inducing at the same time, and he was not sure what to do.
Severus did not even need to glance down at the sealed envelope in his hands to recognize the official wax seal of the Ministry of Magic, and it was obviously Kingsley Shacklebolt's handwriting on the front of the envelope addressed to him directly. He knew there was no way he could refute the order given to this young woman to serve as his Healer for the entire duration of a year, much to his immediate dislike and chagrin.
He heaved a frustrated groan and pinched at his temples, already feeling a bad headache coming.
"Fine," he growled in a voice that did not sound entirely like himself. "Consider yourself lucky I lack the strength to raise my wand, Miss Hawthorne," he hissed. "Make your house calls to me if you must." He stiffened and gnashed his teeth together as he caught sight of the expression of relief on the witch's face, how her shoulders slumped in relief and felt compelled to continue. He frowned as he could almost imagine the triumph singing in her veins at this little personal victory of hers. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he fought back his anger. "You might think that this is over, Hawthorne, that I let you win this time, but this is far from resolved," Snape grunted, approaching her once more.
This time, Dahlia Hawthorne did back up somewhat hesitantly and grabbed hold of a fistful of her lime-green Healer's robes in a defensive manner.
This was pleasing, he thought. At least, he was having some effect on the witch.
He felt something ugly and dark rise within himself as she was looking at him with contempt yet there was a concern for his well-being there too.
Gritting his teeth, Severus stared at Dahlia Hawthorne bitterly, hating that he had to accept the help of another, let alone a witch who was sure to bring painful memories to the surface, memories which he would really rather not think about if he could help it.
Severus began to speak when something stopped in his tracks. He noticed it out of the corner of his gaze, and his breaths hitched in his throat as he forced himself to stare into her warm, pleading eyes that were the polar opposite of his, cold and distant and apathetic to all the hurt that had been burgeoning inside him for several years.
As Dahlia Hawthorne stood there, staring up at him in pure fear, fear of what his reaction would be, looking as though she sincerely hoped she'd not have to raise her wand against him in his current injured state, he realized he did not want this. For some reason, this witch, this Healer, did not see what every other woman saw when they looked at him.
This strange creature, this lovely Dahlia Hawthorne, did not see a man of many masks, a wizard that was to be reviled and feared. No. She seemed to be looking straight through him, as though searching his face for something, though what that thing or those things might be, Severus could not begin to guess, and a part of him was not sure he wanted to know what she hoped to find within, but he was not about to give it to her.
Purposefully keeping his mind closed off to prevent her from probing in the event she happened to be skilled in Legilimency and his facial expression blank and unmoved, he knew that she saw him just as he was. A broken bastard of a man, a man who was cracked and taped together at the seams. She saw him, just as he was, and had miraculously made him forget for a moment, the hell that his life was about to become now that he had shown Potter his memories and the cold truth. She made him forget that he was a man who had always wished to live in the light of the sun yet was condemned from an early age to the shadows, unwanted, unloved, and reduced to little but an empty shell because of it.
It was clear, judging by the fear in her eyes, that Hawthorne saw a monster.
And of course, the witch was right to think that.
"Leave. Get out," he whispered angrily, feeling hot stinging moisture begin to prick at the edges of his vision as he turned away from her.
Dahlia stood rooted and frozen to her spot, as though temporarily stricken with a bout of paralysis, still looking up at Severus. She was regarding him now again as the witch had done the first time with that insatiable curiosity in her brown eyes. Severus could hardly stomach to look the witch in the eyes once more.
He wanted nothing more than for the witch to leave his home, and not look at him as she was currently doing now. He did not want this woman to see him as he was at present, weak, vulnerable, and a complete and utter mess.
"Get out!" he roared again a second time, looking down at the floor in defeat and yet he caused Dahlia Hawthorne to flinch.
The witch did not need to be told a third time. Dahlia turned on her heels to comply with the wizard's demands, though before she could wrench open the front door of the man's home, she paused, sensing he was still looking at her.
She studied his rough hair as black as the night that needed a good comb and a trim if he'd let her, ruffled and uncaring as the stubble that was growing in a light dusting along his cheeks and chin. She could see the red creases on his knuckles, angry, sweltered, and the pinpricks of the fang marks that had belonged to the snake who had very nearly killed Severus Snape in the boathouse. But it was the paleness of the man's face that most astonished Dahlia the very most, and Dahlia gazed at him through the shock and antagonizing hurt that was now evident in his coal-black irises.
Severus Snape was a broken man, this bastard, broken and taped together as best as he could manage it on his own, but the cracks screamed for relief, to be re-taped again before Snape fell apart. And altogether, even in the former Hogwarts Headmaster's ashen look, and despite the solar flare of his temper that he had just experienced, which was likely brought on by his copious amounts of stress and the shock of the news that she would be visiting within him daily for the better part of a year, perhaps longer, however long it took, she found the man quite charismatic.
Dahlia made a silent promise to herself to remain calm and level-headed in Severus Snape's presence, recognizing that outbursts like the one she had just displayed for him to see would get her nowhere with him if she hoped to break through the surface of not only the man's physical hurts but the emotional haunts that plagued him as well.
Dahlia breathed out long and slow before forcing what she hoped was a soft and convincing smile on her face.
"I'll go," she promised, rolling her neck to crack it, and letting her hand not clutching onto her wand drift up to rub the back of her neck gingerly in hopes of soothing the pain of the stiffness in her neck. The furrow between her brows deepened and her lips pursed into a thin line as she grabbed her bag that she'd taken care to hang on the coat rack by his front door. She frowned as she sighed. "But I'll be back. Tonight. Oh, and I believe Headmistress McGonagall was hoping to visit with you. I had informed her originally that you weren't up for receiving any visitors for a few days, but since you're awake now and clearly well enough to yell at your Healer, I think I'll tell her you're awake and can see her. I'll send her a Patronus on my way out. You should likely expect her to call on you within the hour."
Her tone as she spoke was frosty and distant and utterly dripping with sarcasm in such a way that almost caused a smirk to form on Snape's lips. Severus watched in silent awe as a glint formed in the young witch's brown eyes, though whether it was out of malice and spite towards his behavior and how he had treated her just now, or something else, he could not tell, nor could he manage to pretend to care what this witch thought of him.
Her last words to him were almost flat and devoid of any emotion. Severus inwardly groaned at the thought of Minerva paying him a visit.
How he would rather swallow a vial of venom and choke to death instead, to let her see him like this.
"Miss Hawthorne," he blurted out before he could stop himself as he watched the witch turn her back when Severus did not immediately respond.
The witch stood midway to twist her head, having to step back slightly to tend his words. She cocked her head to the side and waited.
"…Will you leave?" Severus asked quietly. A part of him did not want to know her answer, but he wanted to get the question out and was overcome with curiosity, wondering if the moment she would Disapparate off of his home's front steps outside, she would go to her supervisor at St. Mungo's and then to Shacklebolt if her supervisor at the hospital refused and demand a reassignment.
Part of him wanted her to linger, to learn what made this feisty witch tick as she did. His voice was too flat and emotionless, it almost painted everything a drab grey.
Dahlia was visibly startled at hearing the man's question, almost thinking that for certain she had misheard Snape. But as she turned her gaze to his, he was unstirred, still sitting on the sofa, as she'd left him.
Dahlia paused, chewing on the wall of her mouth as she listened in to the silence around the two of them in the man's desolate and dreary home that was almost deafening, in a way, though she shattered the silence that existed between them as she spoke her last words before leaving the man's home and doing as her patient had asked.
"As a Healer, I only do what my supervisor tells me. Most of the time unwillingly as I don't always agree with Mr. Smithwick's methods." She frowned, and almost sounded cold with her tone, which turned out calmer as she made to turn away. "And accepting his request that I come, that I heal you, was one of his only orders I was happiest to take on. No, Severus."
Dahlia glanced at Severus one more time, her dark brown eyes a contrast of cold and scalding hot that left Snape's insides freezing cold and searing at the same time.
"I won't leave," was all Dahlia said as she turned and left.