Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling and the legal licensees of Harry Potter books and products. I am writing this for my own pleasure and have no intent to make any sort of profit with it. The inspiration came from Severitus, the plot came from my warped imagination, and everything else belongs to JKR and those to whom she's given the rights.
WHAT WILL COME, WILL COME. . .
(An Answer to Severitus' Challenge)
By RowanRhys
Chapter Four
July 2, 1995, near dawn* * * * *
"What exactly happened down there?" Pomfrey asked as she handed Remus a thick ceramic mug filled with steaming chocolate. "I could feel the reverberation all the way up here." The first fingers of dawn were lighting up the ward through the great clerestory windows.
Gingerly touching the back of his head where the mediwitch had expertly healed a crack in his skull and applied a Healing Potion, Remus frowned. "I'm not exactly sure. We were finishing up the Wolfsbane Potion--got about half of the powder mixed into it--when Peeves charged in and threw something into the cauldron. It exploded as if someone had set off one of Filibuster's Fireworks. The blast knocked me clear across the room and into the stone wall. I don't know what happened after that until I woke up here. How's Severus? Did he manage to duck in time? I was never good at getting out of the way of Potions disasters."
"Well, he did manage to avoid a fractured skull," she answered cryptically. "Finish up your chocolate and go to sleep again. I'll be checking on you and if you don't show any side effects of the blow to your head, I'll let you loose around lunchtime." She nodded her head towards the mug then added, "Drink up," before collecting her equipment and whisking around the curtain towards the sluiceroom and her office.
Remus obediently sipped at the medicinally rich mixture and settled back into the pillows of the hospital bed, wondering why she had rushed away without answering his questions. The aroma of the cocoa filled his sensitive nose, soothing him, but he could still smell the acrid tang of the adulterated potion that had splashed all over him. Poppy had removed his soaked clothing and had cleaned the stuff from his skin and hair, but enough had penetrated to give him an annoying scent. Perhaps no one else could tell, but to his nose he smelled the way the Wolfsbane potion tasted. What was it that made it explode like that? Whatever it was it certainly was glowing, almost the same shade as those flameless torches that Filch uses when he's working around really flammable things. Hmmmmm.
As he finished off the chocolate and began to slide down against the pillows to sleep some more, voices beyond the curtain from the other end of the ward caught his attention and he sat up straight, listening intently.
"I will not lay about here like an invalid, Poppy! I have work to do and I intend to get it done!"
"Severus, we don't know what that potion did to you! You were raving half the night, and I'm concerned that you've got some sort of closed-head injury from hitting the floor." The mediwitch's voice was as reasonable as Snape's was angry.
"I didn't hit my head! And I wasn't raving!" Remus could imagine the offended expression in Severus' eyes.
"You don't call screaming out the name of a woman who has been dead for more than thirteen years raving? Albus, he really should stay here for observation; what if he collapses again? It's not as if a student would be able to find him, like in term time!"
The Headmaster's voice, softer than either of the two combatants, soothed her. "Poppy, the only way we're going to find out what happened is if Severus can examine the potion and determine what the reaction was. I certainly don't have the skill to do so, and you, while excellent at Healing Potions and such, don't have the research skills necessary to deconstruct it. Let Severus return to his rooms--on the understanding that he must eat and rest regularly and check in with you about any sort of change in his condition."
There was silence for a moment then Severus growled that he'd keep to those conditions. Poppy hemmed and hawed for a bit, then reluctantly agreed.
"Good!" Dumbledore said, almost too enthusiastically to Remus' ears. "Poppy, I'll walk him down to his rooms, you don't need to bother."
"All right," she replied grudgingly, "but I'll be sending down a House Elf to check on you every so often! I don't trust you not to ignore dangerous symptoms, Severus."
"Just hand me a robe. I have no intention of walking about this place in these bloody pajamas, even if there are no students about to see me." Remus silently snickered at the mental image that comment engendered.
"Keep me posted on Remus' condition, Poppy."
"Oh, I'm nowhere as worried about him, Albus! He listens to me when I tell him to stay in bed and go to sleep!" she shot back acerbicly.
Snape snorted and Remus heard his slippered feet stalk towards the door.
"I'll see you at lunch, Poppy." The Headmaster hurried after the Potions Master and the door to the wing closed quietly behind him.
The werewolf sighed and buried his face in his pillow, closing his eyes to the brightening light of the early morning. As sleep took him, a phrase from the overheard conversation floated across his mind. "The name of a woman who has been dead for more than thirteen years." Merlin's beard, could she have meant Lily?
* * * * *
"I don't need an escort, Albus." Snape's voice had retained the sharpness he'd used in his conflict with Pomfrey. "I'm not an invalid, regardless of what Poppy thinks."
"I never said you were. But I would like a longer look at the remains of your workroom. We were rather more concerned with getting you and Remus appropriate help than the details of the incident." Dumbledore rummaged in a pocket of his sweeping robe and withdrew a small bag labeled with Honeyduke's logo. "Lemon sherbet?" he offered.
Severus shook his head, frowning at the stone floor they paced, and the Headmaster returned the bag to his pocket after selecting one of the sweets.
" A knut for your thoughts?"
"They aren't worth that much. I'm trying to figure out just what Peeves threw in the cauldron to make such a spectacular explosion. It was a rather bright greenish-golden yellow, I remember that much."
"Hmmmmm," Dumbledore nodded his head. "There really aren't too many things of that colour that are reactive."
Severus looked up, a bit of a grin curving the corner of his lip. "I thought you said you were no good at Potions?"
"Well, I can't hang around you without picking something up. Manticore." Dumbledore released the wards he'd put into place when they'd taken Severus and Remus to the infirmary. "Gracious, it is quite a mess, isn't it?" He bent over and picked up a toppled stool.
Snape grunted as he took in the room. The spilled potion looked like extremely thick dried blood on the floor, and he could see where it had congealed on most of the flat surfaces. "Accio cleaning supplies!" He slipped his wand back into the sleeve of the dark green robe he wore as a mop, bucket and scrub brush flew out of a cupboard in the corner of the room. "I don't want the House Elves touching this. I don't know what it might do to them."
"Severus, we don't know what it did to you!"
"We'll find out." He went across the room and pulled a boxful of large glass vials from a lower shelf that had managed to escape the destruction. "I'll take what's left in the cauldron and evaluate it later. The first priority is getting Remus' Wolfsbane Potion done. He's running out of time."
"We're running out of time, Severus. They're expecting me back for the Prefect's meeting."
"You'll make it. Besides, they can't do anything until the Head Girl gets there. I just wanted to show you something." He pulled her by the hand into an old, abandoned classroom. "What do you think?"
"What is this?" She stared wide-eyed at the tower room and the tall windows that overlooked the frozen lake. He stared at her. Even in the dusty, cobwebbed chamber, she glowed like a jewel to his eyes.
"It can be our place. I've cast a Glamour over the door. Only you or I can perceive it. I'm tired of dodging into shadowed niches in the hallways to avoid the Golden Boy and his fan club. What do you think?"
"I think that my boyfriend is a very clever wizard!" She laughed, staring up into his face, drawing forth an unaccustomed smile from him.
"I know it needs cleaning up and some stuff to make it more comfortable, but we'll finally have some privacy." He looped his arms around her waist and pressed a kiss to her parted lips. "I love you, Lily."
"Oh, Severus," she sighed.
"Severus?" Dumbledore was peering up at him, concerned. "Where did you go just now? You aren't being called?"
Snape shook his head. "No. I just--remembered--something." He put the box of bottles down on a clear table and rummaged for a ladle and glass funnel in one of the equipment drawers.
"Ah."
The Potions Master pulled on a pair of dragonhide gloves and began to carefully fill the vials with the ruined potion. He apparently didn't hear the Headmaster's response. Then, as he turned to fill the next bottle, a new vision flashed before him, and he didn't see his sleeve catch on the just filled container, knocking it over to spill anew across the table.
They were older and not wearing school robes. But they were at Hogwarts, in their tower chamber and Lily was sobbing, her face buried in her hands. He stood silently by the bespelled door. Three months it had been since he'd seen her, three months of pain and terror as he tried to get back to Hogwarts from the devastation of a failed mission to rescue the family of an Auror who had been targeted by Voldemort. He limped forward and called her name. "Lily?" His voice was hoarse with the desire and longing for her that had been the main thing driving him to get home, to avoid the Auror squads and the Deatheaters alike as he crossed England and Scotland, unable to Apparate, and with no access to a Floo network.
Her head jerked up and she stared at him, an expression of disbelief on her face. "Severus!" She leaped to her feet and flew into his arms. "They told me you weren't coming back! That you were lost forever!" she wailed, pounding on his chest with her fists. He smoothed her tangled red hair and kissed the top of her head, the only part he could reach as she had buried her face in his shirtfront.
"I'll always come back to you, Lily. Nothing short of death would keep me away." He caught her hands easily in his and smiled tiredly down at her. "Don't cry, Lily. Please, don't cry."
She shook her head, not looking up at him. "They told me you were dead; they'd seen your body." She started to pull away from him, and he clasped her hands tighter.
"Who said--?" His voice trailed off as he felt cold metal on the ring finger of her left hand. "Lily?"
She jerked her hand from his and retreated from him, backing away as his face went cold and his black eyes went flat. "They said you were dead," she repeated. The tear tracks on her face glistened as fresh tears renewed them. "Severus."
"I told you before I left that I'd return to you. And THIS is how little faith you had in me? Who is it? Black? That damned werewolf? Potter?" He advanced on her angrily. "What's your new name, Lily?" Enraged at the perceived betrayal, he cornered her against the window seats and trapped her there with his arms on either side of her body.
"You don't understand!" She gasped as he grabbed her left wrist in a bruising grip.
"I understand that you are sealed forever to someone else with unbreakable vows. Were all those words of love you gave to me only lies? How many others have you been stringing along like me?"
"No one!" she cried out "Severus, I'm pregnant!"
He stared down into her despairing green eyes and released her wrist, leaving an angry red mark about the limb, before striding toward the door.
"It's YOUR child, Severus. I'm three months along." Her sobbing voice dragged him to a halt.
Without looking at her he asked, his voice as cold as ice, "And if it is?" He whirled around again. "Why get married to someone else? Why just cast me aside? Why?"
"I was afraid!" Lily cried out. "Three days after you left Dumbledore told me that you were dead! Caught in that Auror's trap and killed by a stray Aveda Kedavra curse! I DIED that day!" She took in a deep gasping breath. "Then two weeks later, I missed my period. I did the Conceptio Charm and found out I was pregnant. I was alone, and afraid, and I didn't want to go on. I just wanted to join you. James found me on top of the Astronomy Tower and talked me down." She buried her face in her hands again, her following words muffled. "I didn't mean to tell him about the baby, but it just came out, and he told me that he'd make it right. He didn't even ask who the father was. He told me I needed to live for the baby's sake. He went to Albus, and I found myself married within the week." Lily looked up sniffling. "We leave tomorrow for his ancestral home. I came up here to--to say--goodbye." Her green eyes pleaded with him to forgive her.
He stared down at her, feeling the briars enclosing his heart once more. Once again, fate had cheated him. Offering with one hand and taking away with the other. He should have known better to expect that the bliss would last. "Then, goodbye, Lily." He turned and walked from the room, not caring who might see him emerge from an apparently blank wall, seeking only an escape from the pain that wracked him as his dreams were shattered by the well-meaning efforts of a man he despised.
Pain filled his hand as Snape tore free of the memory, shards of glass embedded deep in his palm from the crushed bottle. He stared hollow-eyed with shock across the table at the alarmed Dumbledore and said hoarsely, "He's not Potter's son."
To be continued
Author's Note: Yes, there are overtones of "The Princess Bride" in this one. I watched it recently, and no matter how many times I went back over the memory vision, Lily kept insisting on speaking Buttercup's line! You may notice that the memories don't seem to be in chronological order. In my Psych class when we discussed memory storage and retrieval, I learned that memories are stored randomly all over the brain, and it made sense to me that they'd emerge in some sort of random order now that they're showing up. Yes, Starlight, this answers a challenge to write a fic where one of the required points is that Snape is revealed to be Harry's father. Severitus has the requirements of the challenge at http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=647935. Emma, as you can see, my chapters are intended to link up. Just not as obviously and as quickly as most of the challenge fics do. Thanks to all of my patient reviewers. Since I'm a mother of five kids, and a full time college student, I have to fit my fic writing into what little spare time I do have, so I don't get to update quite as frequently as I'd like to. I'm still transcribing the stuff I handwrote over my four days in Missouri for this story and I hope that you'll like the twists and turns that you'll find in it! Cheers!