Disclaimer:

All characters in the story are the property of J. K. Rowling and Bloomsbury Books, with the exception of Eleanora Sterling and a few supporting characters, who are my own creations. This story is created purely for the entertainment of myself and other like-minded readers and no copyright infringement is intended.

By mentioning J.K. Rowling in this story I do not intend to present her as a fictional character or to imply that the Harry Potter books are not her own 100% original works.

Any opinions, political or otherwise, on world events, personages or governments expressed in these pages, are the opinions of the characters speaking them and not necessarily those of the author.

THIS STORY IS A SEQUEL TO "THE HEALER"

The story so far:

The time is 2002. Long suspecting that Snape has been acting as a double agent and is really spying for Dumbledore, Voldemort accuses him in a horrific trial of duplicity. In spite of Snape's valiant attempts at hiding his real purpose, the truth comes out. Voldemort exacts a terrible punishment on him - he removes the Dark Mark in the most painful way imaginable and sets the Dementors upon him to leave a powerful warning for Dumbledore and his followers.

Luckily, Snape's broken body is discovered in the forest by Remus Lupin, who returns him to Hogwarts before death can overtake him. Nora Sterling, a 33-year-old mediwitch and former student, who has returned to Hogwarts from Canada to assist Madame Pomfrey in caring for casualties of war, saves Snape from the effects of his run-in with the Dementors, but as a side effect of the cure, they fall in love.

Dumbledore decides that the safest haven for Snape is to return to Canada with Nora. But not only has Snape gone into exile on another continent, he has actually entered the Mundane dimension where magic does not exist, except for those native abilities possessed by a wizard and by few adepts such as Nora.

Somehow the Death Eaters learn of Snape's planned escape and warn Nora that her cooperation will cost her dearly. In making arrangements to travel to Canada from London, they are dogged by Algernon Welkin, a man suspected of being a Death Eater spy. His real purpose turns out to be less sinister, but the truth may inconvenience the two lovers more than a dozen of Voldemort's followers.

Chapter 1: Snape's First Day

Severus Snape's first day in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, in Mundane North America, had not been an auspicious one. First there had been the matter of the missing luggage, which had contained all his clothing and nearly £500k, enough money to keep him going in his new home for a year or more if necessary. Secondly there had been the necessity to fool a customs agent and enter Canada by using a passport made out to his female companion, Eleanora Sterling, an exercise that had been intolerably taxing in spite of the pliability of the young agent. And thirdly, there had been that disastrous first meeting with Nora's best friend.

They had arrived at Nora's home early on a Thursday evening in late July. The heat was the first thing that had struck him about this place. Having spent most of his life in Northern Scotland had meant that summer heat was a foreign experience to him, and totally unexpected in a country that he had always assumed had a northern climate. There was not only the heat, but there was a debilitating tropical humidity that made his clothing stick to him. No wonder Nora had suggested he might consider wearing short pants and light shirts. Right now they seemed like a damned fine idea.

Just as Nora had been about to put her key in the lock of the leftmost door of the handsome two-story red brick home, she had asked him "How do you feel about cats?"

"You have cats?" he asked, feigning neutrality. How perfect... after a day like today he should have to meet a feline. He loathed the creatures. He decided there was no point in upsetting Nora on her first day back, so he lied. "I'm not bothered by cats one way or the other, particularly. As long as yours doesn't openly despise me I suppose we shall get along."

Nora had just put the key into the lock when the door was yanked open from inside. "Surprise! Welcome home!" an irritatingly perky female voice called from within.

"Angie! This is very naughty of you! You weren't supposed to be here when we got home!" Nora exclaimed. "And your hair is blue."

"Yeah," said the skimpily clad younger girl, running a hand through the appalling and unnaturally coloured mess of her hair. "Blueberry Kool-Aid. Like it?"

Severus shuddered inwardly, expertly masking his distaste. It was a good thing Nora was not able to read his mind as easily as he was able to read hers. At least he had perfected the subtle art of cloaking his innermost thoughts from her.

Angie, transparently, did not like him. Being supernaturally empathic, he had read the cause of it the moment he laid eyes on her: she was jealous of his presence and the impact it would have on her attachment to Nora. But the feeling was clearly expressed in the look she had given him when shaking his hand.

Upon entering the house the younger female had immediately attached herself to Nora, who was clearly the star in her firmament. It reminded him sickeningly of the adulation that Potter's little sycophants had lavished upon him when he had first arrived at Hogwarts. That was not all; Snape had wanted to be alone with Nora and to begin to feel comfortable in his new home, but this annoying little blue-haired flibbertigibbet simply would not leave. She had insisted upon staying and making them supper, of all things. Supper was the last thing he had wanted at that moment.

Still, he had tried to be tolerant and polite, and determined that the best way of doing this was simply to stay out of the way. While Nora and Angie had gone off to consult about something in the kitchen Severus had stayed in the living room, trying to get a sense of the place. When Nora returned he had felt compelled to comment. "I like this house, it has a good feel to it. And I like your choice of colour. But your friend Can't you just ask her politely to go?" he pleaded.

"Please, Sev, I don't want to hurt her feelings. I'm sure she'll be out of here as soon as she's fixed us something to eat. In the meantime, let me give you the house tour." He unwillingly found himself being led up the stairs.

It was not a bad house on the whole. He certainly was not insincere in his compliments on the décor. Whether the house had come that way or whether Nora had decorated it herself, the overall result was much to his liking, especially the master suite with its navy wallpaper and black tiled bathroom. The large double bed had looked particularly inviting, and Nora, in spite of her obvious fatigue, looked rather enticing herself. He found himself filled with a longing to sweep her onto the bed and have her then and there, pesky visitors be damned.

"I should have carried you over the threshold or something," he said, embracing her and trying unsuccessfully to interest her in a little romantic interlude.

"Under the circumstances, maybe I should have carried you!" she laughed, quickly brushing off his advances. Disappointed, he allowed himself to be dragged through the rest of the upstairs, and inevitably back to the kitchen, where the dreaded Angie awaited.

Severus forgot his earlier determination to stay out of the conversation, and his rejoinder was immediately seen as an opening to attack him. Nora was appalled at her friend's outburst.

"Relax, Sev can take a joke, can't you Ooh sorry," the younger girl quickly recanted. "I guess I should get to know you a little better before I start giving you the full benefit of my caustic wit."

"If I ever do allow you to 'get to know me better', you will find that it would be very unwise to engage me in a battle of wits," he warned her darkly.

That closed her smart mouth quickly enough, and her departure seemed imminent. But suddenly he found himself being hustled out onto the deck and handed a beer, in a bottle, of all things. Nora was mortified.

Her reaction baffled him. After all, he had only responded with the sort of warning he would have given to any other disrespectful student or underling. But her anger was unmistakeable - it had not taken much of his empathic power to read that. He now found himself in the uncomfortable position of making peace with the young lady and of mending fences with the love of his life.

Apparently making the supreme effort to apologize to Angie had gone a long way towards appeasing Nora, but he had felt he needed to do more. This was an unaccustomed feeling for him. It had been years since he had felt he needed or wanted to appease anyone's anger. The only people in his life who had ever made him feel that way in the past had been his mother and his sisters, Cordelia and Valeria. They were all dead now, it had pained him to recall. And since their death he had not allowed himself to feel that he had needed anyone else comforting and caring in his life. No one else, that is, except Lily Evans.

When Nora had entered his life, he had just survived an attack by Dementors set upon him by Lord Voldemort. Voldemort had discovered that Snape's apparent loyalty to him had all been a ruse and that Snape had in fact been spying on him for Dumbledore instead of the opposite. The Dark Lord had punished his most trusted follower by first removing the Dark Mark with an extremely painful Incisio Excavatum spell which ate away most of the flesh on his left forearm, and then setting Dementors on him to effectively remove his soul.

Luckily for him, Dementors are capricious and difficult to control. They succeeded only in creating in his mind a kind of fugue state, which, though tormenting enough, proved not to be fatal. His recovery from the attack was largely in part to his luck at being dumped by the Dementors in the Dark Forest outside Hogwarts, where he had been rescued by Remus Lupin of all people, and had been carried by Lupin and Hagrid to the hospital wing at Hogwarts.

Nora Sterling, a mediwitch with considerable healing powers and a degree in conventional medicine and naturopathy, had recently been taken on at Hogwarts to assist Madame Pomfrey in dealing with casualties of war. It was she who had been able to affect his cure from the Dementors attack. It seemed that while suffering an episode of anguish and self-recrimination brought about by the Dementor's attack, he had kissed Nora, believing her to be his lost Lily. Somehow the kiss had removed some of the effect of the curse, but it had had another side effect: whether through natural or supernatural agencies, he had fallen deeply in love with her, and she with him.

Nora's presence had another profound effect on his life. As he was now a marked man, it was necessary for him to go away from Europe and into hiding, for as long as Voldemort retained power. Nora was a Canadian and still had a home there. By taking him back with her she would be able to hide him from Voldemort and assist him in building a new life here in North America.

But that had not turned out to be the whole story, for not only was Nora from the other side of the pond, it had also been revealed that her world was actually in another dimension apart from the one in which he existed. That dimension was known by only a handful of wizards as the Mundane dimension. It existed apart from his Magical dimension and was accessible through a number of portals found in random locations which attached themselves to arches or doorways present in both dimensions. By passing through such a portal in London, they had been able to escape capture by Voldemort and board an airliner for Mundane Canada.

Today was the day he had finally arrived in his new home. And already he was mired in such mundane difficulties as losing his clothes and his money, and fighting with his lady's best friend.

And, oh yes, there was that other annoying little issue that had revealed itself today: in this dimension, there existed a series of children's storybooks and a film about Harry Potter.

And he, Severus Snape, was a character in this so-called work of fiction.

NEXT: Appeasing Nora

A/N

A bit of backtracking here to review some of the last part of the story. I thought it might be interesting to retell some of this from Snape's POV.

And many apologies for the delay in getting this on line! My beta-reader disappeared for a while, I got busy, I got stuck in my plot, Blah, blah, blah... a million bad excuses. My update schedule may not be as frequent as it was with the last story.

- Grey Lady