An unspoken accord seemed to have been enacted over the next few weeks. Harry had decided to keep the scene he'd witnessed between the two professors quiet, not even telling Ron and Hermione. Something told him that was best; something that personal didn't need to be repeated verbatim.

For some funny reason, though, he was glad he had been in that room that night. For the first time since meeting him, Harry found himself trusting the Potions teacher a little more. He'd known Snape had been picked on and taunted, thanks to that little accident with the Pensieve. But having seen a side of him he'd never known existed forced Harry to see the professor as more human.

One major change since that night was that Professor Drecorum took sporadic meals in the Great Hall with the other professors now. She walked around the grounds occasionally, and even attended the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw match. While she still worked fiendishly in her office, at a pace that Hermione envied, she showed her face more around the school.

Dumbledore, on the other hand, looked more and more tired every time Harry saw him. The normal energy that he seemed to flow with was waning. The few-and-far-between owls he received from Lupin matched what Harry suspected; Dumbledore was working far more than he should have been, trying to manage both the Order and Hogwarts. Harry rarely saw the Headmaster anymore, except for some meals and the rare sighting on the grounds.

Harry and Drecorum still spent hours each evening, discussing the Dark Arts and the theories behind them, as well as his other coursework. While he was still working far harder than he needed to be, he was at least awake for all of his classes, and doing remarkably well in them, all told. He enjoyed the talks; well, as much as anyone could enjoy talking about what turns people toward evil. They gave him an insight into a world he hadn't grown up in, and a world in which he was dedicating his life. The professor seemed to have an understanding as to what life was like for Muggle-kind, as well as the pressures he faced thanks to the prophecy that always hung over his head. She knew when he needed to laugh and forget, and when he needed to remember his place in the world. Somehow, Professor Drecorum made it easier for him to come to terms with what his life had become.

It wasn't all heavy conversation and philosophical debate. She treated him less like a student and more like an equal, something he'd craved over the last couple of years. She seemed to know stories and gossip about the school, the Order, and the people within, and had no problems sharing any of them with him. Lavender and Parvati had nothing on Drecorum; for someone who rarely left her classroom, she knew everything about the school and its students, past and present. An occasional tale slipped from her lips about his parents or Sirius; these moments in particular he cherished close to his heart.

One thing never changed. As Harry left Drecorum's office each evening, he sporadically caught sight of Draco Malfoy, loitering around the corridors.

Just because Harry was starting to respect Snape didn't mean he enjoyed Potions class any more than before. In fact, if it weren't for Ron and Hermione, he'd lose his mind. All of the tedious, miniscule measuring and stirring drove him mad some days. Slicing lacewings while stirring the mandrake juice and wolfsbane concoction counter clockwise just wasn't the thrill of his life.

Snape sat at his desk, rustling through different pieces of parchment as his students went about their work. For once, he couldn't care less if they blew the castle to Kingdom Come or not, and for once, his mind wasn't focused on the professor down the hall. The latest news from the Order was that Voldemort was planning to make his first major strike. From the pains in his arm, he knew that Voldemort was gathering the remaining Death Eaters to him. How Malfoy and the others had gotten themselves released from Azkaban still puzzled and confused the Order. Inside help, most likely. But they'd laid low since then. Now they were waiting.

For their master's command.

He remembered the call. Long ago, he too had answered it.

One thing never ceased to trouble him. By now, Voldemort had to have known he turned traitor. Spies, gossip, evidence seen with his own red eyes. He knew by now that Snape wasn't a death eater anymore. Why hadn't the Dark Lord tried to exact his revenge yet? He wasn't by nature a patient man, nor one who allowed traitors to go unpunished.

Why was he still standing?

Pain shot through Harry without warning, causing him to drop everything in his hands and clasp his head. His scar burned. That wasn't unusual; he'd been feeling sharp pains from his scar for years. However, once in a while, the pain surged, the sensation not unlike mild torture. Even though this had happened a few times in the past year or so, it still came as a shock. The pain consumed him, blinding him, finally making him yell out in pain.

Snape jerked his head toward Potter's table at the first sharp intake of breath and stared as the young wizard began to writhe in pain. He knew what that meant. Everyone in the Order knew.

Voldemort was angry.

Harry could barely see enough to sit down; the pain kept coursing through him, stabbing and throbbing. By now the entire class had stopped working on their potions and watched the wizard. Ron and Hermione stood by him, knowing there was nothing they could do but stay with him and offer to take him to Madam Pomfrey when it was over.

Snape rose to begin to walk over to Potter.

That had been his intention.

He never made it there.

The scar on his arm began to burn, as if he had been set on fire. From nowhere, sharp pains encompassed him. He felt as if his flesh was being stripped off of him; as if a thousand sharp blades were cutting him into the smallest of pieces.

Snape hit the floor at the same time Harry did.

Students began to scream at the sight of both teacher and student collapsing. Ron and Hermione exchanged looks over Harry as he lay spread-out on the floor, still clutching his scar. "Stay with him," Hermione ordered Ron, who had already ripped his robes off and were bundling them up under Harry's head like a pillow. She ran from the room, hair flying behind her, frantic to get to the closest person who could help.

Halfway down the corridor between Potions and Dark Arts classrooms, she ran into her target. "Professor, hurry. Potions class. Snape and Harry. Something's happening." Hermione choked out the words to Professor Drecorum as she gasped for air.

Desi stared at the girl who had almost bowled her over. A far-off scream echoed off the stone walls. Leaving Hermione to trail behind her, Desi gathered her robes and flew down the hallway as if she'd somehow charmed her feet to run faster than normal.

She entered a classroom in chaos. Half of the students surrounded Harry Potter, who had passed out, still clutching his scar. The other half surrounded their teacher, still conscious but writhing in untold pain. She ran to his side, literally shoving students out of her path without care.

He could barely see her; the pain was blinding. "Desi - the mark..."

She knelt down beside him, smoothing the hair from his face with one hand while gathering up a sleeve on his robes to see the hated mark with another. She jerked her hand away immediately from his left arm; she felt as if it had grasped hot coals.

If it had burned her through the fabric covering it, what must it be doing to him?

From behind her she heard voices; an older one mixed with the young. She spun around to face the two groups in the classroom, and began to bark orders in a voice that stunned the mob of people into complete silence.

"Prefects, get your students back to their dormitories NOW! Hermione, go fetch Madam Pomfrey. Ron, in my office there is a black glass bottle in my top desk drawer with a silver colored potion in it. Bring it quickly. Minerva, get Papa."

People stared at the Defense teacher who knelt beside Snape, gathering his head in her lap, trying to comfort him as he screamed in pain. McGonagall stared at her as if hit over the head with a troll's club. She saw that no one had moved except for Ron, who had pelted out the door as if his life depended upon it. "GO!"

People flew in every direction.

"Desi..." a weak voice uttered her name. She looked down into eyes wide with fear and pain. "Don't leave...angry... voice in my head..."

She took his hand in one of hers, using her other to wipe away the sweat and tears from his face. "I'm right here, Sev. Hang on." As he screamed again she held him tighter, constantly moving her gaze from him to the doorway and back. "Please, hang on."

Ron arrived with the potion a second or two before McGonagall arrived with Dumbledore. With the bottle in her hand, she gestured over to the other victim in the room. "Take care of Harry."

She grasped the cork with her teeth and yanked it from the bottle. Putting it to Snape's lips, she poured half of the potion into his mouth, making sure he swallowed.

As soon as he tasted the ice of the potion, Snape's eyes grew wide. "Desi...what are you...?"

She smiled weakly. "I'm putting a stopper in death, Sev." In one smooth motion, she choked down the other half of the bottle's contents. Instantly, the cold that slid down her throat was replaced with burning. Pain shot down her arms and legs, centering on her upper left arm, which felt as if a red-hot poker was constantly being held there. Her body felt like knives were cutting her in a thousand places at once. Her vision blurred, the pain caused her to scream, and as she fell over unconscious, she heard two voices.

One was across the room, ordering someone to stop her from hitting her head.

The other was inside her head, hissing a name.

Severus Snape.

Albus Dumbledore stood between two beds in the hospital wing. Both people were still unconscious, but alive and no longer acting as if they were being tortured by unseen hands. That was some small benefit. A third bed behind him held the most famous wizard of his age, who was sitting upright, eating his way through a pound of chocolate, trying to regain his strength.

"Headmaster," Harry called out between bites. "Are they...?"

The question remained unasked, but then again, it didn't need to be. With a sigh, he turned and walked to Harry's bedside.

"They're alive, Harry."

Harry breathed a sigh of his own, this one of relief. "I wasn't sure. The pain from my scar was enormous. Voldemort was angry, Headmaster. Far angrier than I've ever felt him."

Dumbledore took a seat next to the boy's bed. "Harry, tell me everything you remember. Everything you felt and experienced."

Harry described the screaming in his head, directed at Snape. About the fire that burned through him, the stabbing pains in his head, and the anger and pain that laced through it all.

"And then I passed out, Sir. I never even knew that Professor Drecorum was in the room."

Dumbledore closed his eyes for a moment, taking in everything he'd just heard. He silently damned his granddaughter for doing what she had done. Why she had done it, he understood. But it had almost cost Desdemona her life. As it was, it had saved Severus's, but right now that was still little comfort.

"Thank you, Harry." Dumbledore began to rise, but Harry stopped him.

"Professor, what did Voldemort do? What did he do to Professor Snape? How? I thought he couldn't penetrate Hogwarts. I don't understand."

"What he did, Harry, is known as the Caderminus Curse." Dumbledore explained. "It's rarely used, because the creator of it was Voldemort himself. He devised the curse as a final means of punishing his Death Eaters. He can call them to himself through their Marks, but he can also torture them and end their lives through it. Voldemort doesn't have to be nearby to attack Severus. Why he waited until this long, however, I cannot answer. As to your reaction, I can only guess that being in such proximity to the person Voldemort was directing the curse at, along with the feelings you received from the wizard, caused you to experience it stronger than you normally would have."

Harry swallowed. Not exactly a pleasant way to die, and he felt even worse for Snape, since he had left Voldemort's ranks, had gone so far as to help the Order fight him. Even more for Harry to think about the next time those cold eyes glared at him from across a room. "But what about Professor Drecorum? Why is she in here?"

Dumbledore stole a glance at his granddaughter, still resting peacefully in the hospital bed across the room. "Because, Harry, she used a very powerful potion to save Severus's life called the Acupartio potion. It is taken by two people in order to share and relieve the pain and suffering that one is experiencing. It is rarely used, and difficult to create, but is highly effective in protecting someone from dying. That's why it's often referred to as the 'stopper in death'."

Both student and headmaster sat in silence, both minds reeling as they tried to take in the events of the last hour.

From the darkness, images began to race through Desi's mind, feeling like memories but acting like dreams.

Cruel laughter coming from her throat, wand in hand, uttering words so dark they invoked fear from those in front of her. Flashes of light; screams of torment.

Laughter at someone else's pain. A twisted feeling of satisfaction. Of revenge. Of peace.

Another crack of light. Cries of horror echoing in her ears. Watching figures she didn't know thrash in agony.

"Tell me..."

More whimpers through tightly-shut mouths. More light. More pain. More wrenching torture. More diabolical laughter. People crying out for the agony to stop. Words she'd never spoken before. Another flash of light.

A final scream. Then silence. Loud, deafening silence.

Guilt flooding her mind. 'What have I done?'

Begging someone to let her stop. 'It's wrong'.

Her own torture beginning.

Pain shooting through her; arcs of fire across her back as if she was being whipped, blades on her skin cutting into her flesh, lungs burning as if she'd breathed in poisonous fumes, her throat tightening as if being strangled. She thought she was about to die. Part of her welcomed death openly.

The pain suddenly ceasing.

'If you ever ask to leave my side again...'

Fear. Terror. Guilt. Horror.

Hiding from prying eyes.

An offer. Salvation. A second chance.

Desi shot up from her bed, drenched in sweat, her mind racing, her heartbeat to match. Looking around the room, she found herself alone, except for another sleeping patient in the bed next to hers. Gulping air, she reminded herself over and over that they weren't her memories. They weren't her memories. They weren't her memories.

She finally believed herself.

Quietly she slipped from the bed and slid her wand into her robe pocket. Then she stood by Severus's bedside for a moment, staring at the man she once vowed never to forgive.

Tears fell from her blue eyes, landing on the bed sheets. She'd forgotten one side effect of the Acupartio potion. The pain didn't have to be physical for it to be shared.

He stirred in his sleep. Probably reliving his torture, as she just had.

With a whisper, Desi walked away from the hospital wing.

"I forgive you."

She stormed through the hallways of Hogwarts, through passages she hadn't walked down in years, plowing through students of her way with little effort. Just outside the entrance to the Slytherin dormitories, she caught sight of the person she was looking for. She grabbed the back of Draco Malfoy's robes and spun him around easily. The look of shock on his face was the only reaction she saw. She ignored every other face in the corridor, most of whom stared at her with wide eyes and gaping mouths.

"The next time you write your father, let him know that Desdemona sends her love, and to remember that she owes him a little favor."

With that, she let go of his robes, turned on her heel so forcefully that her hair whipped his face, and stormed off again, leaving a large group of confused Slytherin students in her wake.

Severus jerked awake, daylight pouring over him from an open window. That was new; he kept his apartments in total darkness, with the curtains always drawn closed. Where was he?

Then he remembered. The pain, the feeling that Death was finally on his doorstep.

Desi and that damned potion.

He groaned as he sat up in the bed, shaking the grogginess from his head. A throat clearing behind him told him he wasn't alone.

"How are you feeling today, Severus?"

He looked over his shoulder at the man to whom he owed a debt of gratitude he could never repay. "She shouldn't have done that, Headmaster. She should have let me die. She should have let him end it once and for all."

Albus Dumbledore looked at his friend and colleague with eyes brimming with compassion and understanding. "Severus, you of all people should know that Desdemona could never have let that happen. Even in her darkest moments of despair, in her fiercest anger, she would never wish such a fate onto you. You matter too much to her."

Severus rose from the bed, gathering his black robes up around him, pulling himself up to his full height as if to help himself forget he had ever lost composure the day before. "I didn't deserve that from her. She risked her life, taking that potion. You know it, I know it, and I know damned good and well she knew it. What possessed her to act so foolishly?"

Dumbledore sat in silence for a moment as he allowed Snape to vent his frustrations. He'd asked his granddaughter similar questions only a few hours before. The answers hadn't necessarily shocked him, but had left him with things to think about.

"Should I have let him die before I gave him a chance to explain, Papa? Before either of us had a chance to apologize and listen and try to make things right? Should I have allowed that to happen, knowing full well I had to power to stop it? I'd have been no better than the person he became. I don't have the right to make that kind of decision. You taught me that, remember? You taught me that, good or bad, it is our decisions that make us who we are. I decided to walk the noble and self-sacrificing road years ago. I couldn't turn back now if I tried. Besides, Papa. If I hadn't, I'd never be able to live with the fact that I never gave him another chance..."

"Perhaps, Severus, the thing that possessed Desdemona to save your life is the same thing that possessed you to make a choice yourself, several years ago. Just because we can't make things right again doesn't mean we don't wish to. You might want to think about that before cursing my granddaughter for saving the life of the man she claims to love." With that, Dumbledore nodded once and strolled from the hospital wing, leaving a confused and bewildered man in his wake for the second time this term.

"Don't you come in here screaming at me, after I throw all caution to the wind just to save your ungrateful, selfish, thoughtless, cold-hearted hide!" Desi screamed at the man standing before her, her hand itching to reach for the heavy paperweight on her desk to heave at Severus Snape's oversized head. "How DARE you come in here with some high-and-mighty attitude, berating me as if I was only twelve years old and you'd caught me too close to the Forbidden Forest all alone on a moonless night. If I recall correctly, you were dying on the classroom floor, begging me not to leave you. And here you come, storming in, all to ask me what in the blazes was I thinking?!? You overly-arrogant, inconsiderate, foul and utterly stupid creature! GET OUT!"

He stood his ground, roaring right back at the woman before him. "If I recall history correctly, you WERE too close to the Forbidden Forest all alone on a moonless night. And you deserve to be berated for doing something so damned foolish. Did you think to consider what would happen if you-know-who found out I not only lived through that curse, but that the granddaughter of his second-worse enemy was my savior? Did you think, Desdemona, that you are probably now marked on his list? Did you think, for one bloody second, that taking the potion wouldn't be enough, and there would have been TWO dead bodies on the floor? Did you think AT ALL?!"

"His name is VOLDEMORT, damn it! And I'm already on his list of people-I'd-like-to-barbecue-today-because-I-can, so that little concern of yours can take a swan dive off of the North Tower for all I care. And yes, your high-and-mightiness, believe it or not I DID think!"

Desi stopped her vocal theatrics long enough to take a deep breath and count to ten. Twice. "I thought about the fact that you didn't deserve such a fate. I thought about history, and the present, and long talks with my grandfather. I thought about the fact that I didn't have the right to watch you writhe in pain, when the solution to it all rested in a little bottle that I've carried almost every second of every day since I came to this hellish place! I thought about the fact that I loved you once, and I could love you again, and I couldn't let that chance slip through my fingers. I thought about the little girl I was and the person I am and how much I have grown, and that you had to have done some growing of your own. But most of all, I thought about you, Severus. I. Thought. About. You."

Once again, he stood in front of Desdemona in shock. The feeling was becoming too routine for his tastes. He hadn't believed it coming from the Headmaster's lips, but now?

Could she forgive him?

Desi walked up to the man who stood dumbfounded in front of her. Her voice dropped in volume, and her posture relaxed slightly. Humility was never easy for her, and right now, it was ten times the challenge. "Sev, my grandfather forced me to finally recognize that the simple fact that you walk these hallways is a testament to the fact that you've changed. Seeing you on the floor, in agony, paying the price for your choices forced me to see it again. I haven't forgotten what you did all those years ago. I can't. It's become so much of who I am. But to continuously judge you for something that neither of us can change, for a choice you made when you were young and stupid, for a decision that you've regretted and worked to rectify, to do all this makes me just as blind and stupid as I've accused you of being. I couldn't live with myself if I let that happen. That's why I did what I did. That's why I used the potion. And that's why I saved your life. So, you see, I had a lot on my mind when I made that 'inexcusably stupid and irresponsible decision', as you called it." Desi looked at his face, blurry through unshed tears, and then began to walk away from him.

Severus couldn't believe what he'd just heard. Nor would he be as stupid as he had been in his youth. He made this mistake once; it wasn't about to happen again.

"Desi, don't leave." He took a deep breath as her steps ceased halfway between where he stood still and the door to the hallway. "Don't leave without letting me say how much I have regretted that choice since the day I made it. When your grandfather came to me that night, begging me to leave that life behind, I did it because I thought that it might, in some small way, make right what I did to you. When he told me you were coming here to teach, I hoped I was ready to face you and your bitterness. I know what I did to you, Desi. I've spent half a lifetime trying to figure out how to erase it."

He walked around her, putting himself between her and the door. In a hoarse, deep whisper, he continued. "The fact that you'd try to throw your life away just to save my worthless, undeserving existence scared me, Desi. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you, if it were because of me and my utter and complete stupidity and lack of consideration. I may have done some incredibly rash and unforgivable things in my life, Desdemona. But I never once stopped hating myself for hurting you."

First one solitary tear slid down Desi's cheek. Then another. A third followed quickly, and before she knew what was happening, her body shook with uncontrollable sobbing.

Arms supported her just as she thought she was losing balance. Hands drew her in, holding her, protecting her as she clung to black robes and cried into a shoulder. Fingers brushed her auburn hair from her temple, smoothing away some of the tears from her cheeks. Lips touched her forehead, bringing with them a bittersweet heartache.

The tears finally ceased. Desi pulled away, an odd little laugh escaping as she did so. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I have papers to grade..."

Her words ceased as he bent down to kiss her, pain and bitterness and a rift twenty-five years in the making fading into the distance as he did.