Rose Among The Thorns: The Third Evans Sister
By Jedi Blu, Lady at Large
DIS CLAIM TO FAME: Found in Chapter One of this story.
NOTICE: This story was written mostly before OotP came out. I'll be tweaking it here and there, and have posted it so that it occurs mostly in Harry's 5th year. The goal of this story, however, is to focus on young Severus Snape and Rose Evans. Thank you for your time.
*Denotes Memories*
'Denotes Thoughts'
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CHAPTER FOUR: The Snake and the Rose
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He waited quietly, standing at one of the long wall-to-floor windows in the council room, watching the students play a game of muggle football below him on the grounds. Aurors were posted outside the gates today so the children would be quite safe. It really was rather nice out, a beautiful day for September...if you liked that sort of thing.
Severus sighed, looking up at the white, puffy clouds in the sky, thinking of days far past....
*Beautiful green eyes glittered up at him, a mischievous smile on a pretty face, and she was laughing. "Oh come on, Severus! You Prefects are far too stuffy. Come on, it's beautiful outside, even you have to admit that!" And he hadn't...he had stayed there in the common room...and she had stayed with him.*
'If I could have it all to do over,' Severus thought, closing his eyes for a moment, 'I would have gone outside that day, and made her happy.'
The door to the council-chamber opened a fraction; Rose slipped inside and closed it behind her, leaning back against it with wide eyes and looking as if she were running from something or someone. "Severus," she hissed, "can that fool cat of Filch's get in here?"
Slowly, he shook his head. "I think not; why?"
She sighed and came forward until she was ten feet away from him. "Because the little beast has taken a liking to me—Merlin knows why! I suppose slipping her that bit of fish the other night at dinner could have started it, but she looked half-starved, and since then I've steadfastly ignored her but she's only getting worse." She rolled her eyes. "I can escape a vampire in the Glades and yet a mere cat is difficult to shake-off."
The strict, dark, sinister potions master melted away for a moment as he listened to her story, watched her animated expressions, and he began to smile as she spoke. It wasn't the Snape-sneer or even a smirk but a smile, and his dark eyes twinkled slightly.
She stopped her narrative and glared at him. "You're laughing at me," she stated accusingly.
"I didn't laugh," he responded, raising both eyebrows at her as his expression became unreadable again.
"I know you better than that, Severus Snape, and you were laughing at me!" She threw her hands up, frustrated, and sank into one of the large, wing-back chairs. She sighed, and then smiled a little. "I suppose it is amusing."
He took the chair nearest hers and ran a hand through his dark hair, a habit he had once had as a boy, and was for some reason developing again. Perhaps it was her fault. "Rose..." he began, his eyes meeting hers, now completely serious.
Her own smile vanished, her posture became weary like one who had not had rest in weeks...she had not rested in years. "I haven't heard that in a long time," she whispered, looking at him blankly. "Your voice...saying my name. It brings back a lot I was trying to forget."
"I know," he agreed. "Seeing you again, hearing your voice, it's almost more than I can handle. The memories have flooded my mind for days, it's all I can do to stand up and teach a lesson. The past is a distracting thing."
"It is. I...I talked to Harry Potter the other night. I know you and James never got along," she said quickly as he began to scowl, "but I loved Lily with all my heart, for years she was the only thing I could love, and he is a part of her too. It was hard, Severus, to confront that part of my past again and I barely spoke a word to him. But this..." she gestured towards him, her eyes tired and sad, "is much harder."
"Where do we begin?" he asked, his own shoulders sinking as if a huge load had been dumped onto them.
Looking down at her hands, she began to trace a pattern on the deep, red cloth of her robes. "I have a question for you."
He winced, sure he knew what it was, and it took him a moment to ask her to continue.
She looked up, her eyes connecting with his, searching for the truths hidden beneath the twin black pools. "Were you only using me, all along, to get back at James, Lily, and the others? Was I only a tool for your revenge?" She had been carrying that question in her heart since she was thirteen years old, through her years at Hogwarts, through her years in exile, and it had haunted her every thought of him.
"Not all along," he answered at last, slowly, "but it did begin that way." The hurt he saw in her eyes made him hasten his explanation. "Rose, I was an arrogant fifteen year-old boy, trying to get back at a large group of people for their single-minded dislike and out casting of me. You were the perfect option, so I took it, I used you—but after a while, a short time actually, it wasn't that anymore." His sadistic smile as he looked down at his own boot-tips was one she had seen in place only a few times before and it pained her to see it. "I only wanted to be around you for selfish reasons, I'm afraid. You made me feel as if I was the only wizard in the school that mattered...in the world that mattered, and that was a feeling a neglected person needed."
She held back tears that threatened to spill, inwardly scolding herself. 'Did you expect him to proclaim undying love to you?' the voice in her head asked spitefully. 'Slytherin only wants power, and will go to any means to achieve it—you know that. You made him feel powerful.' Outwardly, she looked incredibly calm. "I wanted to be needed," she admitted, "you gave me that chance, that was why I always went along with you, even while I suspected other motives."
Severus watched her carefully, wondering what she was thinking...but they both had never pried too much into each other's inward thoughts and musings, not even when—. But that didn't matter now.
He found himself now wishing that it did matter. "Is that the only reason you followed me so willingly?" Where that question had come from he wasn't quite sure, but he was glad it had come out. He needed that answer.
"No," she responded, looking up into his eyes again. "I was a young girl, Severus, full of silly thoughts and dreams for all my maturity on the outside. I wanted to have a Prince Charming as much as Lily did. I thought I had found one in you." She smiled bitterly, and watched as he did the same. "But Lily was the princess, she got the prince. I was the supporting roll of a younger, adoring sister."
"You ended up with the villain," he finished the thought, and something inside him broke. It was true. He was the dark, sinister, evil one while James was everybody's favorite hero. He would make the mistake, and James would save the day.
Rose blinked at him, surprised, and the tone she took on was one of outrage. "That's not what I was thinking at all, Severus Snape! Don't ever put such words in my mouth! We've both done terrible things, I was as much a villain as you. Now," she paused, then continued with a bemused smile, "we're the heroes in disguise, I suppose." She tried on a true smile and found that it wasn't too awkward, in fact his expression became calm as he registered she was smiling at him.
"Not what you were thinking, but it is true. You would never have done those things had you not been with me."
"You don't know that," she answered, shaking her head at him. "You didn't force me to ever do anything, Severus. I had a choice, I could have left at any time, I could have quit. I was as lost and power-hungry as you, without a clear path, so I took the easy way to glory. Thankfully, I took the hard way out when I realized what was going on and that I didn't belong there, but SO DID YOU."
Coming to his feet, Severus walked to the window to look out of it again. "But not in time to save you; what you lost...."
"You lost things, too, Severus. Everyone did at that time, no matter what side they were on. Look at Sirius Black, Harry, Remus, all the heroes of their times... and Voldemort ripped holes through all of them. Don't you dare blame yourself for any misfortune that has befallen me. Ever. You are not a martyr." Rose had stood as well and come behind him, now only inches away from him should he turn around. "I chose to follow you, from the start, and anything that has happened to me I accept as part of that choice that I made."
With little warning, he turned, his hands grabbed her shoulders and he looked desperately into her eyes. "That is what you think? How you feel? It isn't my fault?" He was like a drowning man—drowning in his own darkness—and desperate for any shred of light that he might grasp to pull himself to safety again.
"Oh, Severus," she sighed, tears visible in her eyes. So many years of pain were boiling up within her, so many of her own emotions and guilt began to ebb to the surface. "It is how I have always thought and felt. For every choice there is a consequence, good or bad. I have always believed that everything that happened to me, after I chose to follow you through thick and thin, has been worth it. Every moment of pain, loneliness, hurt.... I have never regretted it, even now." The tears began to slip down her cheeks, but she didn't turn away in shame or try to swipe at them—as the old Rose might've done. "You were worth it, and what you gave me was worth it."
Severus Snape, the ex-Death Eater, the hated potions master, looked like a lost little boy into her eyes. Here was someone who didn't see him as the Death Eater, a Potions Master, a teacher, but saw him as a man...just a person...a wizard trying to live through perilous times. He raised one hand and cupped her cheek, his thumb wiping her tears, and then he bent to kiss the other cheek, tasting the salt droplets on her skin. His arms went around her waist, he pulled her close, and kissed her.
He had not touched her, tasted her, in nearly seventeen years.
It was better than he remembered.
Rose was having similar feelings, a part of her had ached to have him hold her once more. She had missed him, so greatly, though she could not fathom why. She didn't know why or how she still had feelings for him after so many years of pain and anger, but those feelings were still there, actually much stronger than they had once been.
But he kept this kiss chaste—unlike so many kisses and moments of the past—and ended it before he wanted to. He wouldn't allow her to feel used again, not ever by him.
When they separated at last, she looked at him in wonder, a shaky smile in place. "And that was certainly worth it, too."
His laugh was low, rumbling up from his chest and out as he buried his face in her auburn curls...her hat had fallen off somewhere along the way as they kissed. "If one of the students would have heard you say that, they wouldn't agree at all. They hate me, you know. Especially your nephew and his little friends."
She dropped her head onto his chest, relaxing against him. "So what? You're their teacher; most students usually hate a few teachers. I've made enemies as well, mostly among Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, but I don't care what they think. None of them know me, none of them know you. None of them understand what darkness there is in this world."
He held her to him, feeling as if he were in a dream after many nights of nightmares...in a way, he was. "What would Potter say, I wonder, if he knew his aunt was married to the man he hates second only to Voldemort?"
Her eyes snapped up to his. "Married...? You mean...you never went through with the Sundering papers? I signed them all, sent them back...." Her voice trailed away to nothing as the implications of what he said began to sink in.
"You sound disappointed," he whispered, looking down at her. "But no, I never sent them to the Ministry Courts. I have them still, sitting in the bottom of a trunk in that old family house. Your signature is all that is on them."
"But why, Severus?" she whispered as well, loud words would perhaps break the fragile moment that lay just within their grasp...a moment of that sort neither had ever had experience with.
"I was a villain, and I wasn't going to let the heroine ever escape me. I had to win. I discovered the only way I could do that, even after leaving Voldemort, was to keep her...if only in name. I needed her." His eyes spoke more than his words, they spoke what his lips never had said but she had hoped for...longed for in her younger years.
"So I'm still...?"
Severus nodded slowly. "Rose Evans Snape."
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Ta da! Betcha none of you were expecting THAT! And don't worry, we've still got a ways to go on this story! After all, don't you want to know HOW they met and married? Don't you want to know what happens after this incredible revelation? Wait for the next chapter, then!
To My Readers:
Loretta: Thanks for coming back for more! Sorry if the length of chapters bugs ya—but trust me, it'll all work out and be satisfactorily long in the end. Satisfactorily…wow, I didn't know that was a word until my spell-check approved it! You have a Rose too? Goodness, this girl is running around all over the place!
Rae Roberts: Thank you soooooo much for your interest! For those who don't know, Rae (May I call you Rae?) has a wonderful fic of her own featuring everyone's favorite Slytherin. Click on her name in the reviews to read it. I absolutely love her interpretation of Severus, and I'm thrilled to have her reviewing my story. Shameful plug for her, isn't it? Anyway, Miss Roberts, I'm glad you're enjoying the read, and I hope the discussion between Snape and Rose was to your liking—and caught you off guard. That's always a plus.
Lysaandi: Hope to hear more from you soon. Hope the fic continues to be interesting.
LilyJamesP: Obviously you like the Lily+James pairing—good, 'cause some of that will come into play as a side-romance later on. Hope you stick around!
Thanks again!
-JB-