Chapter 7: Lessons in Life and Love
It seemed unlikely that students or teachers would be out of class to catch her woolgathering, but nonetheless, A.M. stuck to the shadows to ensure anonymity. After all she had done to come to Hogwarts, it would be a shame to spend her time in detention.
She steadied her hand to keep the newspaper clipping clutched there from rattling and listened around a corner. Nothing. Darting down the hallway, she stopped and repeated the action at the next turn. This time she was not so lucky.
"Why are you so upset anyway?" she heard a familiar voice ask. Ron Weasley.
"I'm not upset, I'm just disappointed. You keep blowing your friends off so you can moon over some girl-"
"She is not just some girl!" A.M. had to stifle a laugh as his voice cracked at the end of the objection. But who was he arguing with? She sank to her knees and dared a peek. Hermione's wild curls would be obvious, even if she hadn't caught a look at her face. She seemed flushed and fidgety, as if unable to say her true point.
"A.M. is very nice, but…" Hermione continued and guilt stung A.M.'s throat. It was one thing to spy on a person's conversation, but quite another when she was the main topic. Still, she was intrigued by the going-ons. Hermione had no qualms with A.M., so the argument must be about the time Ron and she spent together. But if that was true, that meant-
"We're friends, Hermione, nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes you act like we're attached at the hip or something-"
"And sometimes you act like I'm not even alive!" She lowered her voice quickly, in case they had alerted the authority to their whereabouts. "What about that letter you sent me this summer?"
Ron sounded visibly shaken. "W-w-what letter? I didn't send you any letter."
"Liar! I recognized your handwriting, even if you did try to disguise it. 'I want to be with you always, I can't stop thinking of you, I want to kiss your lips…'" she quoted in a high-pitched squeak.
"I don't have to put up with this," Ron retorted, and A.M. heard his footsteps loudly receding down the hall.
"You can't ignore me forever!" Hermione shouted after him, and turned the corner. A.M. willed herself to be invisible and, although she did not achieve transparency, Hermione was too angry and inwardly involved to notice the crouched figure by the suit of armor. "Stupid boys," she muttered under her breath and stalked down toward the girl's lavatory.
When sure that Hermione and Ron weren't returning for reconciliation, she continued on her path. She felt sorry for the frizzy-haired girl, dealing with such a rejection. A.M. thought back to her childhood. Her mother, probably sensing her inability to shield the outside world forever, gave A.M. a copy of the Feminine Mystique at age seven. There had been no formal introduction, no explanation of the history and electric charge the book had created. One day her pillow was empty, the next the book had been there. At first A.M. had not read the book, only ran her hands across the raised letters of the cover. She was quite bright: she knew 'feminine' and how it described her. But the second word, the one with the curvy 'M,' that one brought a mystery. How ironic that "mystique" was probably the best word to describe A.M. She was an enigma, wrapped in an ethereal magic.
Despite her mother's attempts, A.M. inherited her childlike love of romance. Romeo and Juliet, When Harry Met Sally: a world of fanciful meetings and star crossed suitors. It was inappropriate that her own feelings should be unrequited; that wasn't the way the movie was supposed to end. Neither did she like to see failed romances, rejected teens crying in bathroom stalls. Still, perhaps because of her own sting of rejection, she did not run to console Hermione. They were equals: neither able to bring the comfort of experience.
She reached her destination shortly and pulled the door closed behind her. The Professor looked up from his work and grinned. "For awhile, I thought you'd decided to stop visiting."
"Merely a busy week. My arm hurt like hell, but it's better now," she stretched her forearm in front of him, showing only the freckled skin.
"Good," Snape smiled, rubbing a warm, dry hand down the uninjured spot. "For a second there, I thought we'd have to start building a box, digging a hole, all that, you know."
A.M. smiled. She missed her daily meetings with the man, the gentle teasing that ensued. "Believe it, you'll be far underground before me."
He quickly grew serious. "I know why you haven't been coming, and you should know, I understand."
"I just don't want people thinking we're… you know-"
"Good friends?" He folded his fingers in his lap and raised a quizzical eyebrow.
"Anyway-" She pulled the newspaper from her newsboy bag, where she had hastily stuffed it during her walk. Placing it on the desk, she worked to spread the wrinkles out. It was a muggle newspaper, only a few days old. While the story should have been on the front page, with its seriousness, Scotland Yard had banished it to end of the local section. They probably feared rumors of a modern day Jack the Ripper.
"I haven't seen anything about this in the Daily Prophet," Snape told her, peering over the rim of his reading glasses.
"They had that Primrose girl a couple weeks ago, but apparently they haven't caught wind of this."
He studied the accompanying photo. "Blonde again," he murmured to no one in particular.
"Looks like he's just sneaking up on them or something. But why cut them open? Why not just use Avada Kedavra and leave it at that?"
"A ritual perhaps? I don't know. I can't recall any other time Voldemort's used physical means to end a life."
She sat on the edge of the desk, swinging one leg lazily. "So he's after me."
"Looking at the photographs, how can you have any doubt? The reason for the chase is the dubious information."
"Well," A.M. sighed, pushing her long, sleek hair from her eyes. "The situation hasn't changed. I haven't put down my guard yet, nor will I plan to in the near future."
"That sounds like an excellent idea. When not on school grounds, try to always stay within sight of a teacher."
"Is Hogwart's… safe? Should I be searching for a back door?"
Snape laughed. "You may be number one on everyone's list right now, but you shouldn't worry for a minute. There is no way Dumbledore would ever allow Voldemort to get within a mile of you." His smile disappeared. "You're far too important."
A.M. had considered the dangers long enough. Pulling up an old wooden chair, she put her feet up on his desk. "Professor Snape, tell me about my mother. Take my mind off of things." While A.M. knew all about the lady and the tragedies that befell her, she loved to hear them described by the man staring at her from behind his desk.
"A.M…. by the way, I've been meaning to ask you, where did you get such a stupid name?"
"If you think about it, it fits."
Snape considered it. "Despite its symbolism, I know there are better ones to choose. Anyway, I don't want to discuss her right now."
"Please?" she pleaded, turning her dark blue eyes on him.
"You know how difficult it is for me to talk about her."
"Severus, it's difficult for me not to see her everyday. When other people talk about her, which is infrequent, they hold her in such contempt. They don't understand her like you and I do. That's why I love to hear you talk about her. It's so romantic."
"Fine," he sighed. However, he did not look at her, but rather at the beamed ceiling. "Your mother was incredibly beautiful- the most beautiful woman around, in fact. Of course," he now turned to his pupil, "your looks are even more blessed than hers, although you two look almost exactly alike."
Except for our eyes," A.M. breathed, shrugging off a moment of disgust.
"Yes, except for your eyes.
"I met your mother in Florence. We were both trying to get away from our lives; after training at the Ministry, I just wanted to escape from my fellow colleagues and my troubles. She was sitting in a café, her legs crossed and her nose in a book. But somehow she just sensed me walking by. She looked up- looked at me with those big, gorgeous green eyes, and said, 'I know what you are.'
'What I am?' I asked.
'You're from my world. You're not like the muggles. You know, what you are.'
'How do you know?' I inquired. I was confused by her forwardness. She was quite strange, but she was gorgeous, and I was a young man, so of course I continued the conversation.
'Please, come sit with me. I've been away from that world for so long, I need someone to talk to.' So I sat down and we conversed all evening. I was quite taken with her and despite the difference in age, we found much to talk about. We didn't leave each other's sides for the next two weeks and when it came time for me to return to England, she reluctantly joined me under one condition: that I never tell anyone who she was or where she was. Your mother had so much more to get away from than I did."
A.M. sighed and sank down in her chair. "It was love at first sight." Sometimes she even sickened herself with her fascination with the stereotypical boy-meets-girl story.
Snape grinned at her adolescent romanticism. "Well, as you know, they found out about her. She left me, in the middle of the night. I looked everywhere for her, but could not find her. I was heartbroken. I searched many years before I heard from her again. I was teaching a class when there was a tapping on the window. A falcon with a letter was there. I can't tell you everything that was in the letter-"
"Ooh, racy," A.M. interjected.
"But it told me she was waiting for me in New York. I apparated there as soon as the class was over, and indeed, there she was. But when I embraced her, she told me she was involved with someone: your father. I screamed and yelled at her- told her I had waited all this time, but she couldn't do the same. However, when I looked into her eyes, I saw her gentle love and could not stay angry.
"We caught up on old times, and we soon realized the passion between us couldn't be contained. We started an affair and everyday I begged her to leave your father. But she was afraid, and refused. We kept our love a secret, even though it was horribly hard for the both of us.
"I was with her when we received the news of your father's disappearance. We were so happy that we could finally be together, she promised to break her vow of secrecy and come back to England as my wife. And we were more ecstatic because she was pregnant- she was so sure the child was mine." Snape stopped, and stared into the distance.
"But when she- when you were born, I saw your eyes. You looked so much like your mother, but those eyes were only your father's. It hurt so much, but I vowed to love you like my own daughter. However, your mother was stricken with guilt. She said that she could not raise this child with me. With tears in her eyes, she asked me never to see her, or you, again."
"But she loved you."
"She did, but her shame and fear kept us from our happiness. I wrote her letter after letter, begging for one moment of her time, but she never answered. When I saw a falcon in the sky, I prayed it was for me, but it never was. The next thing I heard, she had died, and you were gone."
Tears were streaming down A.M.'s cheeks. Unsure of what to do, Snape wrapped an arm around the sobbing girl. "I still will always love you like my own child. And I will never love another woman besides your mother. You two are my family, and always will be."
A swift knock on the door separated the two. Although she tried to hide it, A.M. was sure that, as Dumbledore entered, he caught her wiping away her tears. "I see you two are catching up. I apologize for interrupting." The wizened man did something like a bow and turned to leave.
"Wait!" A.M. grabbed Dumbledore's sleeve. He turned and smiled a grizzled smile.
"Is there something I may do for you, Miss Kinter?"
"Well, I've been having some trouble with magic in my classes, what with the wand and all-"
"Yes, I've heard stories. Tell me, has Miss Brown recovered from that ill-placed curse last week?"
A.M. laughed, trying desperately to bury her sadness. "The spots are finally fading, but she's having some trouble with the fins."
"Oh dear, I hope Madame Pomfrey is able to do something about that," he winked. "I will be sure to have a less bulky model sent immediately. Perhaps that will fill its purpose better than Snape's leftovers."
"That wand gave me many years of excellent service, thank you," the professor called indignantly.
As Dumbledore shut the door, he called, "Miss Kinter, while I approve of your reunion, I don't want you to forget your studies. You only have twenty minutes to make it to your next class."
"I'll be there." She turned to Snape. "See you later?"
"Not if I can help it," he teased. She grinned openly at the blatant affection the Professor showered on her, then followed Dumbledore's path to the hallway, allowing the door latch to click softly behind her.