{Disclaimer: The Harry Potter World was created by J.K. Rowling and rights are owned by, but not limited to Warner Brothers and Scholastic Books. I, therefore, own no parts of this, save for the characters that are parts of my own imagination, mostly including Andromeda McGee and Wyvern}
Chapter 18
Confrontations
**Another bruise to try and hide/ Another alibi to write/ Another lonely highway in the black of night/ But there is hope in the darkness/ You know you're going to make it through/ Another ditch in the road/ You keep moving/ Another stop sign/ You keep moving on/ And the years go by so fast/ Silent fortress built to last/ Wonder how we ever made it through. "Two Beds and a Coffee Machine" Savage Garden**
Andy stood up. "I'm going to deliver the potions that Poppy ordered and see how Snape is doing."
"Why would you care about that slimy git of a Slytherin?"
"I've told you before, Sirius. He saved my life."
"How?"
Andy sighed. "You just don't give up, do you?" He was one of the Death Eaters at Azkaban. They had gathered up all the prisoners to force them to join Voldemort's troops. I refused. I think I might have killed a couple of them when they tried to subdue me. I ran away, jumped out a window. I threw myself over a cliff, for the Gods' sakes, just to get away from Voldemort. Snape dived in after me. He apparated me back to his house."
"Snape has a house?" Sirius interrupted.
"Yes, Snape has a house. He apparated me there and told the Death Eaters that I had drowned after getting my head bashed in by the rocks below. He was the only one decent enough to do that. If not for him, I would have killed myself, Sirius. I wouldn't be here now. There would be no Andromeda McGee. You know what else he did? He agreed to let me assist him with his potions classes. He could have simply said no. He gave me my life back, Sirius. I owe him that much."
Sirius didn't know what to say. "Fine. Go ahead. I, for one, am staying here."
Andy stormed out of the room, fists closed in tight balls at her sides. Sometimes, Sirius could be too difficult for her own good. She stomped up to the infirmary and took a deep breath to calm herself. There was no reason to let her temper get the best of her. She opened the doors. "Madame Pomfrey? Here are the potions that you requested." Andy pulled the satchel from her back.
"Thank you, dear. Call me Poppy."
"All right. I will. May I see him?"
Madame Pomfrey eyed her warily. She had many recollections of Andromeda McGee ending up in fights with Snape that put both of them in the infirmary. "If you promise not to do anything to him. He's in enough pain as it is."
"Thanks." Andy walked into the small room off to the side of the hospital wing where they had originally delivered Snape.
He didn't look much better. His pale skin was slashed with the pink lacerations of healing cuts and burns. A thick white bandage covered his eyes. At least the blood was gone, she figured.
"Who's there?" Snape's voice rasped. He had heard the footsteps enter the room.
"It's Andy."
Snape went silent as she approached his bedside. "What do you want? Have you come to laugh at my pathetic position in life?"
"I wanted to see if you were still alive."
"Am I?"
"I think so. You look better than you did yesterday."
"How exactly did I look yesterday?"
"You looked like you went to Hell and back a few times. You were completely soaked with blood, limbs bent at odd, unnatural angles, burn marks covering a good ninety percent of your body." She nodded.
"And today?"
"There's no more blood. The cuts and burns are healing, and your limbs are straight. You at least look better though I'm guessing you feel like crap."
Snape didn't know what to say. She was his only other visitor than Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey. "I'm alive, aren't I?"
"Yes."
"Yesterday, I might have been dead."
"I know. We found you outside the court. Dumbledore had us apparate back. Remus and I ran you up here. We saw what you looked like."
"You and Remus?"
"Yes, me and Remus. Dumbledore didn't want Sirius running around before the notice got out that he was free."
"Figures."
"Hmmm?"
"It figures that of all the people to rescue me, it was a bunch of Gryffindors."
"You say it like it is bad thing."
"To a Slytherin, it is."
The room went silent for a moment as both tried to collect their thoughts. "Look, Severus, I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For all the thing that I said yesterday."
"The list of rather colorful explicatives, you mean."
"Yes, that and other things."
"Apology accepted. Is that all you wanted?"
"No."
"Then what do you want from me, woman?" Snape was slowly loosing the shattered remains of his patience.
"I thought you might want someone to talk to. Face it, not many people like you. You get lonely being locked up in a room by yourself."
"What if I don't?"
"Then I leave and come back tomorrow."
"Being rather persistent, are we?"
"No, not really. I can be worse. I just owe you my life."
"Not any more. You attempted to rescue you me from the horrors of Sade and brought me back here. The debt has been cancelled."
"No it hasn't. I didn't get you out of the prison place and it wasn't just me who brought you back."
"You owe me nothing."
"Stop being such a cold-hearted bastard, Sev. I know you can be civil. Underneath your callous exterior is an actual living person."
"You're hallucinating, McGee."
"No, I am not hallucinating. I know we didn't have the greatest relationship when we were in school together."
Snape snorted. "That's an understatement. How many times did you take me out in the halls? How many times was I forced to serve detention from the pranks pulled by your friends? How many times have I been publicly humiliated because of you?"
"Too many," Andy whispered. "Too many to count. I want to put all of it aside as a truce."
"Why?"
"Because you saved my life. I don't want to go around with a permanent grudge against you while I still owe you something."
"Fine, truce."
Andy gave his limp hand a squeeze as a handshake. "Truce. Also, it was for protection since Sirius and I have your job."
"You what?"
"Dumbledore told me and Sirius to teach Potions for the rest of the year."
Snape moaned. Things had gone from bad to worse. "You aren't making this up, are you?"
"Nope, I'm not."
"I am going to kill him."
"No, you aren't."
"Give me one good reason why not."
"Because killing Sirius would infringe on your truce to me."
Behind his bandage, Snape raised his non-existent, burnt off eyebrows. "How so?"
"Killing Sirius would damage my mental health.
"How would that be infringing on a truce when your mental health is not originally stable in the first place?"
"You cannot harm me directly or indirectly through the truce."
Snape swore vehemently. "Are you sure you weren't a Slytherin in a past life?"
"The Hat almost put me there. I refused to be a Slytherin since a handful of them were set to have my head."
"You really ought to learn to control that temper of yours."
"I never have." Andy looked at her watch. "I have to go. The first years are coming in a few minutes. 'Bye."
Snape said nothing as she left the room.
Andy walked out of the room, smiling to herself. She knew Snape could be civil if he tried hard enough. Maybe it was that he was still in pain. That must have been it. Pain does strange things to some people.
Snape lay thinking again. The visit had not been expected, though it was more pleasant than he had expected it to be. He had expected at least a few barbed insults, maybe a few things thrown across the room at him, but none of that had come. The Andy from his days as a student had been a typical Slytherin-hating Gryffindor yet she had been different. She had given him the respect that he craved. They had competed, fiercely, yes, but she had respected him as a person. A few times, they had civil conversations in the library when no one else was around to hear. She had been his only major competition in potions. Sure, she was a girl and a Gryffindor, but there was never a challenge that he backed down from.
He recalled the first time that he had met Andromeda McGee. He had known her name, but had never been fully introduced to her. It was half way through the year when the old Potions Master had decided to pair the two of them together on a whim, just to see what would happen. The professor had realized the high aptitude in both of them for potions making. He had figured that if they were compatible, he might have them begin brewing more advanced mixtures.
Andy had been a good foot shorter than he was, even at age eleven. They had been almost complete opposites: he, tall and dark, her, tiny and blonde. She had approached him with a quiet air of self confidence. "Listen, I know that you don't want to do this either, but I say we just get this over and done with."
"Fine by me." Snape had fully expected to at least be insulted. "Pass the lacewings."
The professor had been impressed by their creation and suggested to the head Master that they be moved into a more advanced class. Dippet, the head Master at the time, had refused the idea, so the Potions Master had taken it upon himself to tutor the two of them after classes. There had always bee a working relationship between the two of them, grown on respect, though their houses refused to let any friendships develop.
Snape sighed to himself. He almost regretted that he would have to bring her to Voldemort. If it had been any other Gryffindor, he would have done it at moments notice. Andy was different. He knew she didn't completely hate him. It was the mutual respect cultivated from seven years of working together on advanced potions. It had to be the respect thing. There was nothing else to explain it.
{Author's Note: The song that I quoted from in the beginning is one of the few songs that I can play from memory on my piano. It's actually a really pretty song to play. I like it. This is yet again another, boring non-amusing chapter, but things will get better. I just need to set a few things up.
Atheis and Aeris Gainsborough: Thank you for the three reviews! About the HGTTG, 42 comes up in chapter 25 as a quote. I have a slight obsession with those books, so I tend to quote from them a lot. FUBAR is something I got from my dad. The concept amuses me. Dvorak is a Czech composer. Tchaikovsky wrote the music to the Nut Cracker. Bizet wrote the music to the Opera Carmen, which is really fun to play on piano, by the way. What kind of keyboards, mallet kind or piano like kind? I play both, oddly enough.
WeasleyTwinsLover1112: I'm glad you enjoyed what I have written so far.
Willow: Most original? I'm impressed. This is just a bunch of random ideas that came from late nights, but thank you.
Anna Black: Actually it will end during this year. I have the ending planned out, so it will end eventually. Yes, it is slightly after Christmas, I think.
Josie: That was my whole point. I kept thinking of Mr. Bacon the entire time.
Phoenix Pendron: Its good that you're curios. Soy de una ciudad pequeña en Nueva York en los estados unidos. Hablo un poco de español, pero hace cuatro años que yo estudio. Soy la mejor en mi clase.
Hope you enjoyed it! Peace, Love, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Nataly Ravenlock}
