Fanfiction based in the world of Harry Potter, created by JKR. Her characters are hers. Original characters are mine. Please see first chapter for full disclaimers and description.

Poor Snape trying to figure out what he is feeling, what she is feeling, and what he should do about it, if anything. Murky waters of emotion. This chapter is admittedly a little melodramatic, so be warned. Also, a huge portion of the Snape in this chapter must be credited to Annii Frazier again. Not wholly 'stolen', but definitely paraphrased in many places—though with her permission.

Chapter 8: What is Real?
He was silent and brooding on the walk back to the castle, and rebuffed every attempt she made at conversation. She quickly gave up the effort, and instead allowed herself to ruminate on the evening's events.

He walked her directly to her quarters, waited while she opened the door, and then stepped boldly inside without so much as a word or waiting for an invitation. Once the door was shut and sealed behind them, he rounded on her and stared at her intently.

"Exactly how much of your behavior tonight was a pretense?" He asked without ceremony.

She was shocked not only at the question, but at the abruptness of it and his apparent agitation.

"What? I don't understand what you mean?" she said, genuinely confused.

"I find this whole situation confusing and unsettling enough without having to guess at meanings. I can't do... 'this', whatever 'this' is, if you are not honest with me. I want to know precisely what portion of your behavior tonight was feigned," he said emphatically.

She blushed deeply and couldn't hold his gaze. Her mind whirled with thoughts of what to say and how to say it. She wouldn't lie to him, yet she feared if he knew the whole truth of her feelings for him, he would be repulsed!

Still, his insecurities and doubts had to be considered. He trusted no one. If she hoped to earn his trust, she would have to do so by being honest. In all things.

She was afraid. Silently she sat on her couch and pulled her legs up under her chin, wrapping the pretty silk skirts around them, and wrapping her arms around the whole. Without looking at him directly, she said, "None of it was an act, Severus. I might have exaggerated the outward signs for the benefit of 'dear' Narcissa. But the underlying admiration is real."

He had watched her blush, her confusion, and at last watched her as she sat. Gods! He knew that position—that self-protective ball that one takes when one fears a terrible blow is coming. She thought he would hurt her—she was afraid of him; afraid he would lash out at her for no more crime than admitting she fancied him. He temporarily brushed aside his disbelief in her words in his discomfort over her fear.

He sat next to her took her hand gently.

"Rowena, it is not my intent to harm you, either deliberately or accidentally. I don't like you being involved in this ruse. I will do my best to protect you until we can find a way out. But you will have to be honest with me if there is ever going to be anything real beyond the facade."

She laughed nervously at this and glanced sideways at him, where she rested her chin against her knees. "You don't ask for much, do you? You want me to bare my soul, be blunt and honest, consequences be damned? I don't think you understand what you are asking."

"Subtlety is for potions making and subterfuge," he said, turning to look at her directly. "It has no place here. I am a blunt man, Rowena. I don't think I have ever fully trusted anyone. For some reason I find myself wanting to trust you. I don't know if I can, if I'm capable of it. Consequences of dishonesty and deception are far greater than any resulting from the truth. What do you want from me?"

She shrugged and stared at her chess set on her table, still unwilling to meet his eyes. "Time. The opportunity to get to know you as an adult, and for you to know me. To somehow decide if the girlhood fascination I had for you was all empty fantasy or based on a real foundation.

"I don't ask for romance and poetry, Severus. I don't even ask for love. I have no idea if I'm capable of real love, in addition to your own opinions on the subject. I do know that I have feelings for you that I have never had for any other person in my life. I'd like the chance to see where those feelings might lead."

She brushed her hand across her face tiredly and continued, "I was in this way over my head before the necessary charade even started. You have absolutely no way to understand how deep my fascination with you runs. Not a day has gone by in 20 years that you haven't been in my thoughts, your name on my lips. And that was just a fanciful fascination with an elusive figure I only knew from afar!

"I feel like all those feelings were just a few seeds in my heart. Being with you these last six weeks and getting to know you like I have feels like all of those seeds have suddenly burst into vivid foliage and bloom inside of me and it's overwhelming. Every wonderful thing I felt about you has been proven true beyond my wildest expectations. I'm afraid of smothering you or chasing you away with the strength of my emotions."

She gave a small self-derisive laugh and said, "Now listen to me. I said I wouldn't ask for romance and poetry, and yet listen to me!"

He looked at her intently, though she was steadfastly avoiding his gaze. He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair, plainly trying to find some understanding in this situation.

"It is very strange for me to hear you say these things about me, Rowena. I never thought I would hear anything like this from anyone, let alone from a woman such as yourself. One whom I would consider, in all other circumstances, rational and intelligent."

It was his turn for a derisive snort but he ignored it and continued, "It's not as if I was the captain of the Quidditch team, or Head Boy. I am not the least bit physically attractive. And with everything in my past, I have always assumed that I would never hear such things from anyone.

"I am not frightened by your affections. They surprise me, and I find them more than a little disturbing. But it is not unpleasant to hear that someone has thought so well of me all of these years."

He stood and paced in silence, and she could think of nothing to say to fill it. After a few moments that felt like an eternity, he returned to sit next to her and addressed her very gravely.

"I don't know exactly what to say. I would like to have the chance to see where this might lead. I cannot promise you love. I do not know if I am capable of it, as I have said before. But I must insist you not hide things from me. I cannot do this if you are not perfectly honest with me."

She looked over at him then, at last. He was so handsome and serious! He had said that he 'knew' he was not 'physically attractive', but she had always found him beautiful! He was asking her not to hide things from him, and she actually giggled! "I'm sorry, Severus, I'm not laughing at what you said. It's just the thought--I have bared so much of my inner soul to you these past weeks that I feel emotionally naked and vulnerable just to be in the same room with you. I wonder what you possibly think I could be hiding?

"But if just what I have told you makes you feel less uncertain of my true feelings, I will bare the last of my secrets and show you the proof that I am not some prank or joke or figment of my brother's friend's contorted sense of humor."

And then impulsively, she stood up and took his hand. If he was going to reject her or be frightened away by the strength of her near-obsession for him, better now than later!

"I think it would be easier to demonstrate rather than to try and explain. Please, won't you join me for a tour of my quarters?"

He raised an eyebrow suspiciously, but as there was nothing deliberately or covertly sexual or seductive in her tone or actions, he followed her in silence.

She proceeded to present him with over 20 years of fascination collected objects.

First was the stop in her bathroom. Opening the medicine cabinet revealed a collage of photos on the inside of the door taken when she was in school. He was in all of them, obviously taken surreptitiously. "I took all of these. I have several albums full of similar photos. It's really rather remarkable how oblivious you were to your surroundings when you were reading a book. All I had to do was get my dorm-mates or friends to "pose" with you in the background. They thought I was just really, really bad at focusing and aiming my camera. They didn't know I was getting exactly what I wanted in my photos."

Then, she moved to her bedroom where sat a small, framed photograph of him—an enlargement of his annual staff picture from the school year book. This was on the bedside table right next to her bed. Upon opening a drawer in her bureau, she retrieved a roll of parchment and handed it to him.

"In my third year, you helped me with a potions essay. You actually wrote on the parchment, so I saved it. A "Severus Artifact". I sat up all night recopying the entire essay on a fresh parchment so that I wouldn't have to relinquish this one to my professor. You told me it was "quite adequate", which at the time was the highlight of my school career."

She then took him back into the living room where she handed him the Slytherin Snake he had seen the day she moved to Hogwarts. It contained only his signature. "One of my friends from your house got you to sign that for me. Raeann. She put several of her own pages in it so it would look partially filled, asked for your signature on a fresh page, took her own pages out again and returned it to me. In exchange I helped her with a particularly difficult DADA Essay."

She showed him several photo albums full of the photos of himself she had told him about. She pointed to the shelves containing all the school yearbooks since he became a teacher.

"I buy a new one every year so that I can have a current photo. You could smile when you have your picture taken, you know," she said with a nervous laugh.

He raised a brow at her, but said nothing.

And last, but definitely not least, she handed him her altered copy of The Witch and the Animagus. By now her face was flaming, and her voice was trembling in embarrassment. "Please understand before you look at that, that I did it the summer of my third year, when I thought I would surely die from never seeing you again. I was only 13 at the time, which must plead my excuse."

The fine leather binding of the book was well cared for, though it was obviously old and much looked into. However, the hand-painted illustration on the front cover and the gold inlay decorating it were still in pristine condition. The story was identical to the muggle tale of 'Beauty and the Beast', but she had magically altered it, putting her name in place of the witch, and his name in place of the beast.

There were dozens of other little things. He permeated her quarters as he had done her life.

At last she left him silently standing there, looking over the articles she had given him with an air of bemusement, and resumed her frightened ball on the couch. The worst was over, come what may.

Severus was shocked, stunned at the sheer volume of evidence. He flipped through the altered "Witch and the Animagus", with her own flowing handwriting on the last page, "And Severus and Rowena Snape lived happily ever after."

Somehow he had never fully believed any of them—Remus, Dumbledore, Narcissa, even Rowena herself—when they had told him that she had fancied him in school. It had seemed to him some abstract joke, some prank, and he had ignored the implications of it.

But this... well, the evidence was overwhelming! No one would take a prank this far for this long, not even James Potter or Sirius Black! He experienced a strange, powerful sensation deep within himself. What an odd thing to be cared about, this strongly, for this long, by someone. Even more unusual for it to be someone like her—lovely, intelligent, respectable... she was in every respect a more remarkable woman than he had ever aspired to attract!

At last he became aware of more than his own confused thoughts and feelings. Rowena was again on the couch, fearful and avoiding his gaze. Quietly he walked over to her, gently handed her the fairy tale book and sat down beside her. She accepted it in equal silence, and hugged it to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around it, as though it were precious to her.

He tried to smile at her, to let her know he wasn't disgusted or angry, but his own emotions were too confused. The expression was more a bemused grimace! Instead he said softly, gently teasing, "It appears I have been married all these years and didn't know it."

She looked over at him, trying to gauge his feelings, and managed a wry smile. "How could you be expected to know it when your wife has been woefully negligent in cleaning your robes and mending your socks?"

He gave a small laugh. "I see you do indeed believe in fairy tales, after all, Rowena."

She shook her head and looked away, blinking back nervous tears. "I told you I wasn't acting. I'm sorry, Severus. I know this doesn't change anything. I won't ask or demand anything from you. I've never dared hope I'd ever see you again, let alone talk with you as a friend, an equal. I just want time to figure out what my feelings are and what yours might be."

He took her hand again and squeezed it gently, "No, Rowena, you're wrong. This changes many things. I will need some time to think about this. I think your trust, your fascination, your admiration, even your friendship is misplaced. Yet I can't deny my own interest and curiosity. You intrigue me, Miss Lupin, and I have no intention of allowing this opportunity to slip away without exploring where it might lead."

He stood, and his manner became brusque and formal again. "For now, at least, I need to think. And you should sleep. I will accompany you to St. Mungos tomorrow at the usual time."

He had turned to leave, but stopped and turned back. Taking her hand once more, he looked deeply into her eyes. "Thank you for your honesty, Rowena. It helps..." He trailed off and bowed, gently kissed the back of her hand, and left without another word.

It was many hours of silent contemplation before she could rouse herself enough to change her clothes and go to bed.

Severus, likewise too occupied with thought for sleep, prowled the school. This was much less satisfying when the school was empty of students, robbing him of the opportunity to dole out detentions or take house points. However, it was dark and solitary, and suited his thoughts.

She was very scary, this Lupin woman. She intrigued him, and that in and of itself was disturbing. He had built his careful wall of indifference over his lifetime, and was not the least interested in allowing anyone inside that wall. His life was already complicated enough in his dual role without adding a potential vulnerability to it!

Still, she attracted him. That was an understatement. She drew him more strongly than even the locked and sealed cabinet of his Dark Magic books that he kept as a daily test of and testament to his strength of will. The innocent honesty tonight with which she bared the most secret details of her infatuation, was a gift that he knew not how to accept properly. What a thing—Severus Snape, the object of a beautiful woman's life-long obsession! He snorted in self-derision at the very thought.

"Humorous thoughts, Severus?"

Damn. Albus Dumbledore had just appeared, as though materializing from thin air, directly in front of him. Somehow, he did not feel equal to a discussion with Albus this evening. Yet he knew there would be no escape. Albus knew him better than anyone. Well, perhaps Rowena might know him nearly as well, he conceded mentally. Albus was certainly the closest person to him, the person he trusted most, if at all.

"Disturbed thoughts might be more to the point, Albus," he replied dryly.

"Ah, yes. Pretty young ladies can do that to a man I think," said Albus with a twinkle in his eye.

Severus glowered suspiciously and growled at him accusingly, "You knew how she felt about me all along! All those years ago you knew, didn't you? And you knew when you let her agree to this charade! Why didn't you tell me then? Or stop her from participating in this ruse now?"

"Yes, Severus," the Headmaster said with his usual cheerful serenity. "I have always known. It wasn't mine to tell then or now. Then, it would have changed nothing—except you might have succeeded in drawing her into the Darkness with you. I rather think she would have followed if you had asked..."

"No, she wouldn't. I offered, I can't remember what year, but I remember offering her The Book. She refused," Severus cut in quickly.

Albus appeared surprised at this, "Really? Then she is stronger even than I gave her credit for. I would not have wanted to face that temptation early in my youth. I don't know many who would resist the lure when directly before them."

He smiled again, broader now, with blue-eyes definitely aglitter in humor at his friend's obvious discomfort. "That being the case, you know why I allowed her to agree to help us in this 'charade' as you call it. Miss Rowena Lupin has a great deal of strength and determination. I don't know that either of us could have stopped her once she had decided to participate. I believe, if I had to name a flaw, I would call her a mite stubborn."

Severus made another noise of derision, "That much is certain."

"Come, my friend. Sleep is miles from you tonight, and I admit to being a bit bored myself. I do miss the students. Come join me for our game of chess. I believe the length of this one will beat our previous record, and you are no nearer to defeating me I'm afraid."

Severus nodded in resignation and followed silently. He never contradicted Albus when he named him "friend". Slytherin "Rule of A's" just didn't seem to apply to Albus Dumbledore. If there was one person he could truly name as "friend", then it was indeed the Headmaster. Though perhaps he would have to adjust to adding a second person to that list. He wasn't quite prepared for that enormous of a change as of yet.

Upon sitting and facing the board, and a command from Albus for the pieces to resume their positions of the summer-long game, Severus looked inquiringly up at the older man.

"Do you have any idea why she trusts me so implicitly? Or why she brushes off my Death Eater past as though it were a botched Transfiguration essay, not to be considered anymore?"

"Forgiveness, Severus. It's a marvelous thing. No crime, no matter how heinous, is beyond forgiveness where there is true repentance. She believes you to be wholly redeemed, as do I. It is simple as that; and as complex. You may note that her belief in forgiveness and redemption is not nearly so freely given as mine."

He snorted at that. "I beg to disagree, Albus. I at least made a full confession to you, and you have had my actions since as proof. She forgives me on her own beliefs, Ministry rumors and your trust, in spite of all my efforts to convince her otherwise, without proof of any kind. It's very irrational, but can't be considered reluctantly given."

Both men were staring at the chessboard. Albus was white, Severus black. There were far more white pieces on the board than black ones, yet it was by no means easy to tell which side was "winning".

"You are correct, Severus, in that she forgives you and absolves you completely, without question, but only you. I believe anyone deserves a second chance to rectify past mistakes, no matter how grievous. You notice Rowena has no forgiveness for her brother. I believe that rift causes both of them great pain, but she hasn't learned to forgive him."

Severus looked up and met Albus's serious gaze. "Her grudge against him is because of me, is it not? I've done far worse things than Lupin ever did; yet she forgives me and not him? I don't understand this at all."

At last he leaned forward and moved a knight, the first move of their current session. Albus sighed and gazed at the board.

"I was merely making an observation, Severus. You would have to ask her to explain it. Though I doubt she could. Sometimes these things defy rational explanations. It might help her towards healing her relationship with her brother to have someone to talk about it with."

Severus scowled at him, "You don't seriously expect ME to help mend their rift, do you? I happen to think she's better off without him. You may believe him to be a 'tame' werewolf. I'm not happy unless I see him drink the damn potion with my own eyes."

"I don't expect you to do anything, Severus. I trust Remus every bit as fully as I trust you. Only you can decide if her pain over her separation from her brother is something that you wish to help ease. I suspect you could do it better than anyone else. But that is something that is between you and Miss Lupin."

Severus scoffed, "Even if I had the power to do that, I don't think I would. I don't like being involved in other people's emotional turmoil. There is too much room for error."

"Not everything in life can be carefully weighed and measured before attempting, Severus. Emotions are much more volatile than any ingredient you might put in your potion cauldron. They can't be quantified, contained, or truly controlled. But life is far more interesting with that variety than without it. Not all risks have to be life threatening to be meaningful.

They fell into silence as they played a few rounds before retiring, neither gaining the upper hand in the game. Severus did find some comfort in Albus's words and guidance; and more food for thought. What an odd thing, to be trying to navigate the murky waters of a relationship for the first time at the age of nearly 37!