AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am nothing but apologetic for the delay in this story. I never put it down, and it's always been in the back of my mind, but between computer troubles, family illness, work, and writer's block, I've been unable to commit to the story the way I fully intended to. Thanks to everyone for the interest, and I'm going to keep on trucking… all my apologies once again, but I'm just not one of those people who will post something just to post it—it has to really come along naturally.
"I should never have come." Her voice was low, scored raw with the emotions wrung from her. For a cynic—and she considered herself such—she had been idiotically idealistic about her nephew. In him, Lilith had seen a family member in pain, this family member not too late to save.
How many different examples did she really need to prove to her the past was done with, and nothing could change that?
Draco was not her mother, and he surely wasn't his father. Severus was no longer a Death Eater, and Lilith herself was no longer a timid orphan.
Things inevitably changed.
And so she made her statement, casting bloodshot eyes untouched by any glamour to Severus's face.
He let out a huffed breath, the closest he'd come to laughing, even in derision. "Perhaps you shouldn't have, but the fact remains, you have. What's done is done and can't be changed." He knew no other way to face her, to face her pain, but with facts.
Her eyes widened at his statement, so closely had it resembled her own thoughts. Perhaps she had been chiding herself similarly, but she didn't need to hear it from him, of all people. Some help he'd been with her nephew, for as well as the Potions Master claimed to know the boy. "What's done is done?" she echoed, infusing her voice with sarcasm. "You seem to be doing very well with that particular concept, Professor Snape." She thought of Amadea, of the American witch's pretty, animated face, and caught back a wayward—and totally inappropriate—sigh. "You of all people seem more preoccupied with the past than most."
Lilith could actually see him close himself off from her, his moment of defense for her suddenly distant, at home once more with the misery he so carefully clutched to himself, all the transgressions of his past he tortured himself with. She may have known him for only a short while, but Lilith recognized the sight of someone who regularly tortured themselves with memories.
Like recognized like.
"You, Miss Benedict, would do well to keep your mind on your own shortcomings," Severus said tightly, his words quiet and economical. "Numerous and weighty as they are."
But she did not retreat, as he had expected her to. No, of all moments for her to show her occasional unbending spine, she had to choose this one to draw the firm chin into the air, her eyes now the color of brittle amber, cold and ancient. "You can't possibly mean to imply this is my fault." If anyone was going to blame her, dammit, it would be her. She at least had that privilege, didn't she?
It was on the tip of his tongue, sharp and acerbic, to say "yes." But he found he couldn't, no matter how he wanted to. Who were these women he couldn't lie to, couldn't help but shelter, at least a little? First Dea, arrived so many years ago, then gone, then back, then gone again… and now this one, this mysterious stranger with her many sides and her familiar face. And what did it really matter? He was simply going mad, but he spoke the truth anyway. "No, it isn't your fault. Family or no, you know him less than I, and I knew how he would react. I goaded him instead of guiding him." He winced at the alliteration of it, disgusted at his own triteness.
Some days he very nearly wished for the comfort of silence, when no one spoke to him because they feared him. Being feared, Severus Snape judged, meant being left in peace at least now and again.
There seemed to be nothing else to say but for her to ask the obvious. "Will he return?"
And it was not Severus who answered her, but a voice much older, much wiser, and much wearier. "We do not know," Albus said, entering the dungeon office slightly stooped over, the low doorways and heavy matters combining to make a nearly unbearable onus. He was tired, and he, too, had been wounded during the war. He had lost more students than he cared to count, more bright and shining pupils than would ever be considered fair.
He was tired of losing students, and what was more, he was just plain tired. It was time for others to take up some of the burden, starting with the two people in front of him.
"You call yourselves short-sighted, thoughtless, and I will not argue," Albus said pedagogically, sweeping his arm in a wide arc. "You needed only to do this one thing for him, to swallow his pride and answer his questions. You knew how he would behave. You of all people, Severus, know what it is to push away that which you fear."
Severus thought of Dea, as did Lilith, but neither the Potions professor nor the woman beside him missed the long, pointed look which the headmaster gave her.
"He has left the grounds," Albus said with an air of finality. "We have taken measures to find him, but the only sure measure is just to wait."
Lilith stood, eyes wide. "Wait? No, we will not wait. How could he have left so quickly? How could he have left already?" she repeated, turning her eyes to Severus. He painted the glance with his own guilt, interpreting it as You were supposed to watch out for him, that's what you said you'd do.
But because Severus could not utter falsely hopeful words, he said nothing.
And they waited.
She bit her lip as she looked over her shoulder at the people in the doorway, wondering why they persisted in this farce of a class.Ginny sat down in the classroom she'd shared with Draco several times, knowing in her heart he was not there, pondering in her mind why anyone would think otherwise. The spell summoning him to the classroom would only work if he was on the grounds, and since he'd been gone for two days, Ginny highly doubted he was still around.
Like he'd show up voluntarily, Ginny snorted derisively as Dumbledore shut the heavy door behind her, trying to complete the image of the classroom as it always was. Locked door, captive students, big windows.
What a farce. He'd finally escaped, and Ginny couldn't altogether say she blamed him.
"They're watching you."
The voice was low, mysteriously bouncing off the walls of the classroom and rendering the hiding spot of the speaker indeterminate. Her breath ricocheting from her lungs and up to her windpipe, Ginny looked frantically around the spacious classroom.
For a moment, he'd sounded just like Tom.
"Don't look around like a bleeding ninny," he said, and this was pure Draco, exasperated and annoyed with the Weasley duchess. "They're watching you, so keep your eyes to your parchment, Weasley."