Chapter 24

A Secret love

The gradual reawakening of his memories hadn't been easy, quite the contrary. Taya had promised night times free of the terrors, but as the days and weeks progressed, he becoming more like his old self again. He even had to admit that Harry Potter's assistance had helped a great deal. Shame it had been him who was his assistant, but as the weeks passed Severus grew to know the younger man who had angered him for years. It was almost a pity that he would soon have to deal this those terrible memories of Lorsekruker.

It was true that he was now gone and he would never bother Severus ever again, but those memories that she had been so carefully shielding from him were slowly breaking towards the surface. It had been only a matter of days for her, that she finally had to stop shielding them from him.

It had been a long and plainly slow drawn out process. Having to go through each memory, each thought. Dumbledore had advised using a pensieve but Taya reasoned that it was better doing it her way. Being thrown into a three dimensional living representation of a memory as if it was real would cause more harm than healing.

They had gone through the feelings, the emotions, the bitter rages, and the resentments, like before similar to the other memories from the past.

"How is it going with Harry," Taya asked one evening.

"All right I suppose. As well as it can be considering."

"Good. At least you aren't yelling at each other now."

Something still worried her. Was Dumbledore's choice in a helper the right person? Granted he was now on more equal terms with Harry, and the scales had been changed, but was it in their best interest to let him work in such close proximity with Severus who still harboured a great dislike for the young man?

"I still see hate in your eyes," she said sadly.

"I never hated him," he re-assured her "I just saw him turning out just like his father, arrogant, big headed, the centre of the universe. And Lilly-"

"...was his son. Yes I know. I'm sorry. I know it hurts you still. But he hasn't. He is a very respectable man. But I would have thought you would have felt an empathy with him. He's an orphan like you."

Severus looked angry.

"He had everything that I could only ever dream." He realised how childish this was but he felt the same neither the less.

"At soon as he stepped into this blasted school he was cloaked by followers, people who cared about him, loved him. I had nothing. No one, no body treated me like some kind of special deity. So what if he defeated Voldemort. All that worship could have gone to his head.'

Potter needed guidance and the realisation that not everybody will bend knee to his every whim. The world is primarily still an evil place. A small boy needed protecting, despite his own reasoning. It could have gone to his head. Power is seductive like I experienced and to be offered it on a platter...If only Lilly knew," he whispered sadly.

"If only she knew what... "

Taya looked at him deeply and saw something in his dark eyes that perhaps she didn't want to see. She ignored it at first, but over a few moments of time that expression began to haunt her.

Taya swallowed.

"Do you still love her?" His head shot up and he was met with desperate verdant green eyes.

"Stupid question," he spat.

"Answer me."

"I love her memory."

"That's not an answer, Severus." Suddenly she felt guilty. How could she make him answer something like that. Lilly Evans had been his one and only true friend and later he had burned himself for loving her. Here she was a woman who claimed she loved him and trusted him and she was jealous over the memory of a dead woman.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. Severus let himself be held in her arms as she eased his head to her shoulder.

He tensed and gritted his teeth debating over and over to tell her how he truly felt. In the end he pulled his head up and met her eyes.

"I wanted him to have been mine."

Taya reacted completely opposite to how he had thought .

"I guessed the reason would be something like that. Him being a part of the only person who gave you a little happiness at that time." He pulled away.

"Every time I see those eyes," he swallowed. "I see her, and I see something in Harry that should have been part of me. Not him. I don't hate him Taya." He clenched his jaw painfully hard. "I love him."

Taya was silent, but she replied to his pain in the only way she knew how. She kissed him tenderly.

"I think you should tell him how you feel," she said.

"He would laugh in my face. The old Potions Master really loves Harry Potter. He didn't really hate him for all those years. I can see how he would react. He'd never speak to me again. If you can even label bickering and patronising as a decent conversation, may as well slam each other's face against a wall and be done with it."

"You don't know that. He's not a child any more."

"Child or no child. I still feel the same." Taya nodded.

"Just think about it. I wont pressure you further but he's probably going to be here for a time yet and if your differences don't connect then it'll only make you feel worse."

He contemplated her words and made a decision.