Setting: November 1977, the Potterverse.

Rating: PG-13/T - a little blood, brief mention of suicide.

Beta(s): None.

Notes: This is a rewrite of an old scene ("Flash Forward") originally uploaded here in July 2009, which was meant to be part of an older story ("Corvus et Serpensia") based on role-plays that took place on Neopets and AIM c. 2002-2004. Although the RP turned out to be predictive of canon in a surprising number of ways—we had a really well-played Severus courtesy of Sevvy Snape, which helped—there were still plenty of things we just didn't know, and it was chock-full of OCs. Jenni is mine, and Morganna, who is mentioned a couple of times, belongs to Adele Elisabeth. Sylvia, also mentioned briefly, wasn't a player character, but a bit-character mentioned in Sevvy's fic that I fleshed out a bit for mine.

If you guys ever read this, drop me a line via PM. I'd love to catch up. {= D

Something Beyond

During the after-dinner study period, Jenni found Severus in the Great Hall, seated by himself at the near end of the Slytherin table with books and parchments ringed in front of him like a rampart. All the seventh-years had N.E.W.T.s on their minds. Most of them weren't studying this hard in November, but Severus had always found refuge from the world in his schoolwork and other pursuits.

Jenni intended to intrude upon his isolation. Since the start of term, he hadn't seemed like himself, and she was going to get to the bottom of it. She'd given him time to come to her—or if not Severus himself, anyone from their circle who might share her concern. She had gotten to like being the one her friends trusted when they needed to talk to someone besides each other about their troubles. But Severus, when she'd gotten a chance to speak to him at all, hadn't responded to her polite overtures, and it felt like everyone else was giving her the runaround, too. She was fed up with being worried and lonely, so it came to this.

She paused by the courtesy tea service in the middle of the table and poured a cup. Bits of leaf swirled around the bottom; good. She went to Severus and shoved a massive old folio aside, then set the blue china cup down in front of him.

Startled out of his thoughts, Severus looked sharply to the cause of the disturbance. His dark eyes narrowed at her. "What the hell, Robinson? I'm working." He glanced down at the cup of tea and back to her, lip curled. "What's this for?"

Jenni sat across the table from him and said cordially, "Hello, Severus. I'm working, too. Practicing at Divination. I want to ace my exam this year." She gave him a smile as translucent as the excuse.

Severus rolled his eyes and gave a sigh that rattled in his chest. "You know I have no time for that rot."

"Three minutes," said Jenni, watching him closely. "The tea isn't even hot; it's perfect, and you get a spot of caffeine for your trouble. Come on, humor me?" She tried not to sound like she was begging, but wasn't sure she succeeded.

He eyed her for a long moment. In the end, likely deciding it would be the quickest way to get rid of her, he picked up the cup and raised it to his thin, unsmiling lips. He drained the tea with evenly measured swallows.

Jenni held her hand out for the cup.

Severus' eyes went wide. It was a split second's warning before a harsh cough burst from his lungs. The teacup slipped from his fingers and clattered onto the table. He covered his mouth quickly, but a little expectorate still spattered onto the parchment in front of him.

The droplets were tinged pink.

Horror clutched Jenni's guts. "Oh, god."

She jumped up to go to Severus' side, but he threw out one arm to forestall her.

The spasm didn't stop right away. It dragged on for a few seconds, leaving Severus wheezing and sagging with exhaustion. His face wasn't just pale, it was waxen, and his cheeks flushed unnaturally bright and rosy.

He still managed to glare at Jenni with enough force to set her back a step. His eyes glittered like black obsidian.

"What did you do?" he rasped.

"Nothing!" The accusation on top of the fear lancing through her brought tears to prickle behind her eyes. "I wouldn't. Please. I just, I've barely seen you, I knew something was going on, no one will tell me anything, and I just thought . . . " Words failed her. She gestured at the cup and shook her head, denying that she had any intent besides reading tea leaves. "Please. Let me help. What can I do?"

Severus stared into her eyes a moment longer, then nodded, head drooping low. "My bag. Left inside pocket. The potion."

"Okay." Jenni got his schoolbag out from under the table and looked inside. It was dark, obviously enchanted to obscure its contents. Jenni made very certain to identify the correct pocket before she stuck her hand in.

She uncorked the bottle she pulled out and gave it to Severus. He took a mouthful. After another few painful breaths, he inhaled more deeply and sighed with relief.

"Jenni. Is anyone watching?"

Jenni glanced around the hall. A group of second-years were practicing the Tickling Charm at the far end of the Hufflepuff table and giggling too hard to take notice of anything. One boy had collapsed to the floor and drawn the attention of Professor Flitwick, who was supervising the study period. Jenni could just make out the professor's hat bobbing along behind the table as he went to the lad's aid. The few other students scattered around the hall were either enjoying the entertainment or too absorbed in their own work to be distracted.

"No," said Jenni. "No one cares."

Severus nodded. "Good."

Jenni frowned at him. For someone coughing blood, he seemed awfully keen to avoid attention. She could get Flitwick anyway—she knew her Head of House would help, even if Severus wasn't his favorite pupil—but of course, the other students weren't likely to be as kind as Flitwick if they saw that the unpopular Slytherin was vulnerable. Maybe it was better if he got out of the Great Hall without a fuss.

Severus picked up his wand and aimed it at his parchment, but his hand shook. His lips pulled back in a silent snarl.

It was clear enough what he was trying to do. Jenni drew her own wand and whispered, "Tergeo." The bloody droplets vanished. While she was at it, she waved the wand again and set Severus' books and papers packing themselves into his schoolbag. The china teacup got swept along, too, but Jenni was in too much of a hurry to sort it out.

Severus suffered her assistance with a sullen scowl. "If you've damaged anything—"

"Oh, hush." Jenni slung the bag over her shoulder, then ducked under Severus' wand arm. "Come on, I'll get you to the Hospital Wing."

He protested, but his body had little strength to resist her as she hoisted him to his feet. It was too easy. Jenni wrapped her inside arm around his waist, and god, but he was so thin. He'd always been a beanpole of a boy, but she could feel his spine through his robes. That wasn't right. It sent her heart straight into her throat.

She started to walk, but Severus deliberately dragged his heels.

"Not the Hospital Wing," he said on a ragged breath.

"What? But—"

"No. Pomfrey knows. Since last month. There's nothing she can do."

"But—" Jenni swallowed, fighting frightened, angry tears and the feeling that she might be sick. She held Severus as tightly as she dared. "Where, then?"

Severus didn't provide an answer. His head hung low, his hair masking his face. Jenni could feel how he was fighting to keep from going into another coughing fit. Apparently the potion didn't stop them.

"We'll find somewhere quiet," she said. "A—an empty classroom. Something."

In the end, they simply staggered across the entrance hall to the small chamber where first-years traditionally waited to be escorted into the Great Hall for the Sorting Ceremony. It was completely empty. They leaned up against a wall and slid gracelessly to the floor. In the still air, Jenni could hear Severus' every harsh, labored breath. He coughed a few more times, and she didn't mind how his bony fingers dug into her shoulder or that her arm was going to sleep between his back and the wall. She held him and hoped it helped a little.

Slowly, his breathing eased into something more like normal. He folded both arms around his knees, drawn up to his chest, and put his head down. Jenni brought her arm up around his shoulders.

"I'm not going to float away, you know," Severus muttered.

"I don't know," Jenni snapped, her voice thick with emotion. She only tightened her grip. "I don't know anything. Nobody told me you were this ill. I had to find out the hard way, as usual." She sniffed and wiped her eyes roughly on her sleeve, trying to stop crying.

Severus' whole body tensed. "I don't want people to know."

"Why not?"

"Because, I can't talk about it. If the wrong people started asking questions, it could be dangerous. It's bad enough I went to Pomfrey at first. At least she's uninquisitive." Severus raised his head and pinned Jenni with the most dangerous look she'd ever seen on his face. "If you tell anyone, I will hex the tongue out of your head, do you understand?"

Jenni glared at him, spurred by a frisson of fear. "I'm not going to get you in trouble—not unless you deserve it, Severus. Don't be an ass."

He stared back, panting with the effort. Jenni could see where tiny blood vessels had burst in the whites of his eyes due to the force of his cough. He looked desperate. Very serious, and very afraid. "You can't tell. Promise you won't."

She shook her head, neither agreeing or disagreeing. "I . . . I don't see how you could deserve to be in trouble just for being ill."

He tried to stare her into submission, but she was every bit as stubborn as he was. That was the best she was prepared to give him, and he didn't have the strength to argue. With a sigh, he let his head drop back to his knees.

After a minute or so, Jenni spoke again in the most even tones she could manage. "I don't see how you think you can hide it much longer, either. Look at you."

"Most people aren't as nosy as you."

Jenni rolled her eyes. "Most people don't care, you mean. Well, I care." She squeezed his shoulders. "What is it, anyway? What you have?"

"I just told you I can't talk about it."

"All right, I'll guess, then. It looks like—" She hesitated. His symptoms all added up to a singular picture. It just didn't make any sense. "No, it is. It's plain what it is. But, wizards don't get consumption. Do they?"

"Not the common Muggle disease." Scorn barbed his words, even tired as he was, but he seemed to think better of it. He turned a considering eye in her direction. "Jenni . . . do you remember the History unit on the Black Death?"

Jenni nodded. It had been one of the few subjects inherently interesting enough to act as an antidote to Professor Binns' soporific drone. She frowned as she thought back. "The fourteenth century. Witches and wizards drew suspicion from their Muggle neighbors for what appeared to be devilishly good luck in avoiding the plague. Some healers helped treat the victims, wearing beaked masks to protect their identities. Others . . . " She looked sharply at Severus. She'd begun to see what he was driving at.

"Go on," he said, just as though he were tutoring her in a simple lesson review. That was how she'd met him, when Morganna had invited her to join one of her study sessions with Severus in the girls' fourth year.

Jenni wished that were all this was. "Others . . . some Dark wizards . . . used the Black Death as a cover to disguise the murder of their enemies. They could mimic it somehow." Neither Binns nor the textbook had explained how, and Jenni thought that was just as well. Cold dread was starting to creep down her neck.

Severus gave her a slow nod.

Severus, whose reputation for having a morbid fascination with the Dark Arts was well deserved. The old book she'd shoved aside earlier; she'd glanced at the title: Maladies Maleficarum. A name like that was enough to tell her it wasn't the sort of book that showed up on the regular curriculum. Knowing Severus, Jenni wasn't even sure he'd gotten it from the library at all.

"So you're saying it's a curse. Dark Magic."

Smoothly, Severus replied, "I'm not saying anything at all."

Jenni shuddered with understanding, and not. If it was true, why? Why would someone invent a curse that mimicked a hideous disease? Why use it on Severus? Most importantly, why couldn't Madam Pomfrey cure it?

"Think about it," Severus said as if answering her thoughts.

She couldn't keep from thinking about it, though she half wanted to. The reason wizards didn't tend to suffer much from mundane illnesses was a combination of intrinsic resilience against them and the ability to combat them with magical remedies. A common cold was nothing to a good Pepperup Potion.

Magical illnesses were another story. There was always at least one kid left with horrible pockmarks after a bout with spattergroit because those boils couldn't simply be magicked away. Dragon pox could kill a grown adult. And, if her reading of Severus' hint was right, this wasn't just an illness, but something that had been done to him deliberately.

Dark Magic also left scars that couldn't be erased. Maybe Pomfrey could help Severus with the pain, maybe even dispel the curse, but once the damage to his body had been done . . . and it must have been a lot for him to get as emaciated and weak as he was . . .

Jenni's fingers clenched into the fabric of Severus' robes. No. She had to be wrong. "Sev, there must be something someone can do to fix this."

"There isn't. If there were a counter-curse, I'd have discovered it by now." He turned his head a little farther and looked up at her through the curtain of his hair. Very softly, he said, "It's no great loss."

"Shut up." Jenni glared at him through fresh tears. "You're such a bastard, and you're wrong." She felt with sudden, deep certainty that Severus was not supposed to die. He couldn't. There must be some way to stop it from happening. There must be something she could do.

A wan smile curved his lips. "You can't help, Jenni. You had better get used to the idea."

He was answering her thoughts. Bloody Legilimens. "Get out of my head." Jenni waved her free hand through his line of sight, as though shooing away a bothersome fly, and looked away.

Severus chuckled. "I'm hardly trying. You're so transparent."

"Shut up. I'm trying to think."

Just because Severus and Madam Pomfrey hadn't found an answer in their areas of expertise didn't mean there wasn't one elsewhere. Jenni's interest in Divination had been the butt of plenty of jokes over the years, but she was in earnest about it. Divination was the art of revealing what was hidden. If one could know aright, one could act aright. After her dorm mate and friend Sylvia had committed suicide last year, Jenni had resolved never again to be so blind to what was happening right under her nose, and delved into even more advanced studies.

Over the summer, with one foot back in her mother's magic-free world of science, her research had taken her places she had never dreamed of at Hogwarts. Wizards and Muggles alike had been seeking ways to pierce the veil between the realms of known and unknown for centuries. A few of them had gotten close. Neither side had the whole picture, but when viewed together, the sketches of seers and physicists aligned to form the image of a truth almost divine in its scope: that there was something beyond the confines of the known universe, something so essential that to know it would be to know everything. If one could open the way to knowledge like that, with magic or with a machine, then one might do almost anything.

Jenni had tried. She couldn't use her wand at home, so she had experimented with words and will alone. Wizards and Muggles both used the same language to describe their most lofty pursuits. It only made sense to take the best of both, combine them, and recombine them, over and over, every sweltering summer night, until something worked. On the latest occasions, the veil had felt so close she could almost touch it, but a feeling of nauseous dread had crept up on her and made her stop.

Now, she was feeling plenty dreadful already, and she needed answers. She ran through the meditations she'd cobbled together in her mind.

The veil thinned and started to slip. Something in the core of Jenni's being tried to twist away, like a fish in a slowly shrinking net, but she ignored the warning. She was so close. She could feel it. She could almost see through . . .

flash

She saw.

There was a cord hanging in the air before her, behind her, around her, through her. It was her: everything she had been, everything she was, everything she yet might be. It was woven of phantasmal strings of color, and more than color: rich green that smelled of leaf buds, and earth after a shower, and all new things in spring; carmine as soft as petals, as warm and aching as a mother's heart; blue as deep as an endless river that flowed toward every hollow place; copper that danced and sparkled and rang out like a robin's song . . .

There was more. Beside, among, woven with the first cord, a second: velvety black like the bottom of a cauldron that thirsted for its emptiness to be filled; brilliant and scalpel-sharp alchemical quicksilver with the bittersweet taste of an elixir that could either kill or cure; viridian and vermilion that hissed with tongues of serpents' envy and Promethean flame; a few lonely, clouded strands of sun-gold with the scent of cut lilies . . .

There was more. Shades of now. Fear that bristled in black and ochre brindle, digging deep like a porcupine's quills; bright, lightning-scented pain that faded to gnawing retinal red; the entry wound with its burnt-sulfur edges like parchment eaten through by the drip of acid from a subtle fang; love and torment tangled together in a snare of purple heart's blood that reached beyond the two of them to enmesh a third, a fourth, a fifth . . .

There was more. There weren't just two cords, or even five; there were many, raveled and twined about with many more, spreading out, all around, forever . . .

"Jenni?"

The sound was a fleeting amber ripple that raised the taste of tea and the smell of a cold night, where the warmth of shared understanding sheltered under a cloak of silence. If Jenni reached for it, she could see that moment in the courtyard below the library. If she wanted to, she could even step into it again.

"Jenni!"

Alarm flared in desperate orange embers.

Something in her wrenched hard. She gasped, blinked, and looked around.

She was sitting against the wall in the chamber where first years waited for the Sorting Ceremony. There was a stone floor pressing up on her bottom as her weight pressed her down. There were stone walls all around her, giving space a three-dimensional shape. There was cool, dusty air, giving it texture.

Severus was on his knees in front of her, one hand clutching her shoulder, staring at her with a deep scowl carving lines into his face and making him look older than his years.

"What?" Jenni asked, frowning at him in turn. She took a deep breath; her heart was pounding and her stomach gave a queasy turn. The world was so tight, so small.

"You were . . . " Severus hesitated, momentarily at a loss for words. "You didn't seem to see. You didn't answer when I called. What were you doing?"

"Looking. Elsewhere. It was all strings and colors . . . and there was a red bit . . . it was here." Jenni reached out and touched Severus' chest. "I could smell how much it hurts." Her face screwed up in empathy. She stared at her fingertips indenting the gray fabric of his cardigan, wishing she could still see through into what lay beyond. A moment ago, everything was so clear. She tried to remember how it all went together, but the vision of the Something Beyond was fading, floating apart until only washed-out, nonsensical pieces remained.

Severus gave her a shake, snapping her back to the present. "Stop it. Do you know how mad you sound?"

"I'm fine." She let her hand fall and looked up to meet his eyes. Her discomfort had passed, and she went on excitedly: "I could see something, Severus. So much more than leaves in a cup! But it's gone now; it was only for a second." His raised eyebrows gave her pause. "Wasn't it?"

He shook his head slowly. "A minute, at least. You . . . faded. But your eyes . . . " He took her chin in his fingers and leaned closer.

Jenni held completely still. For an absurd moment, she thought he might kiss her, but of course he didn't. When he thought of her at all, it wasn't like that. His love belonged to someone else. Jenni wouldn't steal it.

Severus only squinted clinically at her eyes, turning her head gently from side to side for a more thorough examination. When he finished, he released her with a disgruntled sigh. "Nothing extraordinary about them now. But, whatever that was, I don't think it's something you should be toying with. Don't do it again." He shifted away and turned to lean up against the wall beside her.

Jenni thought she might jump out of her skin with anger. "Don't you dare lecture me about toying with things one oughtn't, Snape!" She cracked his surname at him like a lash. "You've practically made a career of it, and look where it's gotten you." She gestured curtly at him, with his sunken and flushed cheeks, then tugged up her sleeve to dab her eyes again.

"Oh, dry up, Robinson." Severus folded his arms across his chest and pointed his nose at the floor. "You don't seriously think I'm stupid enough to have done this to myself?"

"No, you're a special kind of stupid," said Jenni. "You're so sharp you could cut yourself, and you're in bad trouble, and you're too stubborn to tell a professor or anyone else who could really do something about it. That's a very special kind of stupid."

"Cheers," he sneered. He drew a sharp breath to say more, but it sent his lungs into spasm again. He turned away from Jenni and coughed violently, one hand exerting all its strength to hold him up while the other clawed at his chest. Bloody sputum flecked the tiled floor.

He didn't even try to fight Jenni off when she reached out to him. She hooked one hand under his armpit, helping to keep him from collapsing to the floor, and ran the other over his back, up and down, until the paroxysm subsided. She could feel his whole body trembling with weakness.

"This isn't right," Jenni whispered through tears. "You should be in hospital."

He didn't answer. It was all he could do to draw breath after ragged breath.

She pulled him to her, and in his exhaustion, he let her hold him and help him drink his potion. He leaned back against her chest, eyes closed.

After a moment, he spoke, his voice soft and almost silky. "Have to say. Your bedside manner. Better than Pomfrey's."

Jenni snorted softly. "You're a rotten heel, Sev."

He gave a weak, wet chuckle. At least he still had his sense of humor, such as it was.

Jenni rested her cheek against his head and breathed the rich, leathery smell of his scalp cut with the sharp tang of potions reagents and fear-sweat. There was an underlying ferric sweetness that she didn't like one bit. It took all her willpower not to dissolve into messy sobs.

Everything about this was wrong. The two of them should not be on the floor together, hidden away in this barren little room. Severus, whatever his sins, should not be dying of a brutally medieval curse at seventeen years old. Jenni should not be helpless to do anything but hold him and wish for his torn lungs to mend so that he wouldn't hurt anymore.

Eventually, he recovered enough that he said he could walk back to his dorm unaided. The Slytherin dungeon wasn't too far from the entrance hall. They both got to their feet, and Jenni cleaned up the room and Severus' clothes—her own, too, when Severus pointed out she'd been somewhat incautious, handling someone in his state. As if she gave a toss about that.

They agreed he would leave first, and she would follow a few minutes later. With luck, they would avoid starting annoying rumors if anyone happened to be passing by.

With one hand on the door, Severus hesitated, giving her a peculiar look. "Jenni. We were discussing the Black Death earlier. And that exam you want to pass."

She hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about at first, but her off-the-cuff excuse to sit down with him earlier came back to her. "Ah. Right. My exam." The dots began to connect. "Which you helped me study for tonight?"

Severus nodded. "If we don't get a chance to study again—"

"No, Sev—!"

He held up one hand. "Shut up and listen." Gazing at her intently, he went on: "In the fourteenth century, some suspicious Muggle deaths took place in Wiltshire. They never proved that a wizard was responsible, but you should know who the suspect was, in case it comes up as a test question. Do you remember?"

There was no way she could recall something that obscure right now. "No. I'll, er, have to review that section."

He jerked his head down in the affirmative. "Good." Almost to himself, he murmured, "Then at least someone will know."

Jenni took a step toward him. "Severus, if you'd just—"

He stayed her with a last warning look. "Be sure you don't let anyone cheat off you. And . . . " His expression softened. "Whatever you do, please don't tell Morganna."

Jenni wanted to protest at this more than anything, but the thought of the anguish that learning Severus' condition would bring their mutual dear friend broke her heart more than knowing it herself. She could only nod.

"Thank you," said Severus. With that, his usual aloof demeanor slipped seamlessly into place. "Well. Goodnight." He swept out the door and pulled it shut behind him with a conclusive clatter of the latch.

Jenni stood and stared at the ancient wood. Severus' secret lay heavily on her heart, even without knowing the whole of it. She wasn't sure she wanted to find out the rest.

She wasn't sure it mattered.

The only thing that mattered was saving his life.

If she couldn't tell anyone, then it was up to her. She didn't care what he said: she intended to try looking at the Something Beyond again, and again, as many times as it took, until it showed her how to undo this. She would find a way to save him.

More Notes

And she did, or at least she helped. But then she ran headlong into the full knowledge of herself before she was ready to assimilate it, had an identity crisis, slept with Severus (in adulthood, after he'd married Morganna; oops), and finally quit the multiverse and settled down in the PPC. Like you do.

I decided to do that old scene over as a one-shot more or less on a whim, to see what I would do differently 10+ years later and because it's a piece of character history relevant to things I'm working on now. It was fun! My understanding of Jenni's supernatural side has changed, and I had a blast going all-out with the descriptions of her peek into the ethereal. I admit, I love having an excuse to wax florid now and then. {= D

I think I've improved in such areas as actually setting a scene and making sure what's happening and why is clear to people who aren't me. Helps that I intended this to stand alone rather than ending up part of a larger work, but still. Important things, like what the hell Jenni's real plan with the tea was, should still have been explained, and weren't. It was icky.

In addition, for a long time, I maintained a fantasy about rewriting the whole story to be less wacky, to answer such questions as "where are the adults?", and to be more canon-compliant, so I did that here. In the tradition of that RP getting a shocking number of things right, there are some juicy little bits of information that came out of Pottermore in the last decade that happen to fit so well I couldn't resist working them in. For instance, the very best thing is that if you want to know whodunnit, you can follow Severus' clue yourself via the Harry Potter Wiki. Start with the Black Death, and see also Nobby Leach. See what he's driving at? (Here's the answer: it was Yhpvhf Znysbl [rot13 to unscramble].) At the time, the consumption curse was just another bit of off-the-wall RP drama. Now, there's canonical precedent for this sort of thing being done by this sort of person! Go figure!