Fanfiction based in the world of Harry Potter, created by JKR. Her characters are hers. Original characters are mine. No pecuniary rewards. Please see first chapter for full disclaimers and description.

Thank you to my Beta, Elaine!

This chapter again dedicated to my Niece, Meghan Marie, whom we lost to a drunk driver in December. When you read Katrina's dialog in this story, you are 'hearing' sentiment similar to what Meggie said to my husband many years ago when we were dating and Meghan was about that age. She wanted 'cousins'.

Chapter 38: Changing Perspectives

She slept well for the first night… well, since the Malfoy's dinner party she supposed. The nightmares had become less frequent and more manageable when they did occur, but the pain was a constant nuisance and often interfered with her sleep. As she had told Severus, sometimes it was worse than others. While he was gone it had actually decreased, in spite of the frequent bouts of uncontrollable tears. Then, it had been the crying that had kept her awake.

She approached the staff table for breakfast with her usual efficiency, and much improved color for having the benefit of a restful night.

"Good morning, Rowena," Minerva greeted her warmly, "It is good to see you at the staff table again."

"Good morning, Minerva," she gave a small smile in return. "I'm glad to be back."

The dull ache in her chest gave a sudden sharp stab so that she almost gasped aloud. She did not need to turn her head to know who had entered the Hall, or need to hear his chair scrape next to her as he seated himself.

"Severus," Minerva greeted him with a definite chill in comparison to the greeting she had offered Rowena. "I see you have returned from your holiday. It was productive, I hope?"

Only Minerva McGonagall would expect someone to have been "productive" on a Holiday away from the school. Only Severus Snape would have answered with utter indifference after the 'Holiday' he had experienced.

"Adequately," he said. "Professor Lupin, would you pass the scones?"

Rowena looked up from her plate where she had been trying to ignore the ache in her chest. She was annoyed that he would disturb her silent misery, and more so to find that the scones were indeed beyond his reach on the other side of her. She briefly thought to snap something waspish, like, 'you're a wizard, summon them yourself', but found she just didn't have the energy to bother. She picked up the large platter and turned to him with it.

He steadied the heavy serving plate by placing one of his hands firmly under hers, so that they both held the plate while he selected his pastry. Again she almost gasped, now because of the nearly instant soothing of the ache. Her eyes flew to his face to find him gazing at her intently. His hand gently squeezed hers for the most fleeting of moments before releasing it to allow her to return the plate to the vacant space on the table.

In bemusement she took the opportunity of reaching for the butter to look at him again. His attention seemed utterly riveted in applying jam to his scone, but his inky black lashes twitched ever so slightly as he winked at her. It was an infinitesimal gesture. If she hadn't been sitting right there, she wouldn't have seen it. But she was, and she had.

Severus Snape had winked at her, after sneakily managing to hold her hand without anyone in the crowded hall or gossipy staff table noticing either momentous event.

The pain in her chest being now all but gone left plenty of room for a flock of butterflies to move in, though they settled uncomfortably in her stomach instead. Conversation flowed around her but she couldn't follow any of it for the confusing thoughts and feelings in her head. Severus was involved in a rather animated discussion with Hagrid over the advisability of using certain potions to prevent mange and repel fleas in Unicorns. Both men were in their element, so that much of the table was listening with various levels of amusement. Rowena didn't follow the subject at all, she merely allowed herself to listen to the melodious voice of the man sitting next to her.

When she at last realized, to her horror, that one surreptitious touch and even sneakier wink had her behaving like a love-struck schoolgirl AGAIN over the same man who had caused all her trouble to begin with, she forced herself to stop listening. Instead she turned to Flitwick to converse over the newest issue of 'Charms Today' until her meal was done and she could escape the Hall without rousing attention.

Her reprieve, however, was brief. In the following weeks she came to feel as though she was being stalked; slowly being gently herded toward a dead-end gully from which there would be no escape. Each meal followed a similar pattern. Surreptitious touches and looks. There was plenty of conversation that either included her or not as she desired, yet never singled her out. He would stop by her classroom when he knew that no one was likely to be present, with some sort of reasonable excuse such as dropping off or retrieving books that someone wanted exchanged with her.

Severus Snape, the man who did not allow anyone to touch him if he could at all prevent it, became the master of casual touches, yet the most diligent observer would have been hard pressed to catch a glimpse of any of them.

Rowena did not need to be a diligent observer, as she was the recipient of every 'accidental' caress. Moreover, to her dismay, she had to admit (at least in secret to herself) that it did help. Something in the physical contact soothed the ache of the broken Bond. It never was completely gone, and sometimes it still twinged horribly, but it was far more manageable now than it had been so far.

She couldn't even convince herself that he was doing this for no other reason than to ease his own discomfort. He never failed to attempt to catch her eye when he did this, so that she was left in no doubt, ever, that every touch was intentional. When she allowed the eye contact, she sometimes feared she would drown in the warmth she could see in the inky black depths.

He was the hunter. She was the prey. The apathy was being slowly eroded away, no matter how hard she tried to cling to it for the sense of safety it afforded her. Yet the rest of the staff, even Dumbledore, continued to treat Severus with a slight amount of annoyed reserve, while treating Rowena with almost exaggerated solicitousness. He seemed to be succeeding at paying her the extra attention without any of their colleagues being any the wiser.

There were a few slight glitches in the wedding plans of Tonks and Remus. Firstly, Severus outright refused to wear anything but black, which made Tonks all but beg Remus to choose someone else to stand up with him. Remus, being the obliging and besotted fiancé that he was, agreed at once, to the relief of both Snape and Tonks—until he said he would ask Alastor Moody, the only other person that he felt would be appropriate. Tonks liked Moody well enough, but he had been in charge of much of her Auror training, and she found him more intimidating than Severus. In the end, she decided to alter her desired color scheme to allow Harry and Snape to wear black, though she would put Remus in a lovely royal blue that would be very suited to him.

Snape, through all this, was forced to slightly revise his opinion of Remus yet again. It seemed Slytherins weren't the only ones who knew how to get a situation to end to their advantage. Remus just managed to appear friendly and obliging in the process. Severus found it a useful lesson.

Secondly, sometime during his absence over the Easter Holiday, Dumbledore had inducted the Cowboy into the Order. Dylan Howard had somehow managed to convince the Headmaster of his sincerity and trustworthiness. Not that getting Albus to trust was particularly difficult. Snape really didn't care overall who was brought into the bloody Order. The decision was not his to make, and he trusted the Headmaster's judgement, mostly.

What he did care about was that this development meant that the annoying git would be at the blasted wedding. There was a limit to the amount of obnoxious joy he could tolerate at any given time, and Albus usually managed to provide the quota in and of himself in situations like these. Severus could not imagine that the Cowboy would not increase that intolerably.

Thirdly, and more concerning to everyone but Severus himself, he was Summoned near the end of April.

Rowena paced her office, her hand over her chest, the pain stabbing at her, as it hadn't done in days. She was not where she wanted to be. Even in her uncertainty over all things dealing with Severus Snape, she wanted to go to the hospital wing, to be there when he returned. She could see the folly in that, however. If he was trying to help them find some new way to interact without anyone knowing, it would not do for her to ruin the subterfuge now.

Even if she no longer had any idea what she wanted.

The pain in her chest reached a fever pitch, rising to such a crescendo that she thought she might be ill. She was no longer able to pace, but simply sat in her chair at her desk, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, rocking nervously. She may have slept or perhaps merely became so lost in her thoughts that the passage of time eluded her.

"Professor Lupin, I wondered if you might be working late this evening," Severus's deep voice roused her from her semi-conscious state so that her eyes flew open to look at him critically, hungrily. He looked so pale that his skin seemed almost translucent, with dark purple circles under his eyes. "I was up late myself and found this research article that might be pertinent to your current lessons. I thought to bring it to you before I forgot about it."

He spoke this nonsense and nothingness while the door was open, walking with his usual brisk strides, back straight, shoulders squared. As soon as the soft click of the door indicated it was sealed against outside observation, he seemed to wilt before her eyes. He approached her desk and looked at her impassively, apparently uncertain of his welcome. He was not in any condition to play his current game of gentle cat and mouse.

"Shouldn't you be in the hospital wing?" she asked worriedly, all apathy gone for the moment as she looked at him standing there, trying to conceal his fatigue by casually leaning against her desk.

"I am uninjured," he said. It seemed it was now his turn to watch her warily. It was hard for him to admit any level of 'need' for another human being in any circumstance. His vulnerability made him irritable. "It was merely a pleasant little chat between Master and Slave. I have no need of the hospital wing."

She stood and moved around the desk so that she could be closer to him. She knew what he needed, because it was what she needed as well. She held out her hand to him, much as he had done that first night after his return from the Easter holiday, gentle and unthreatening. He regarded it with the same wary uncertainty as she had done then. Rejection now, for both of them, seemed to be the greatest fear, learning to trust again the greatest hurdle.

A sigh of relief filled the room when their hands touched. Whether it was hers or his or the combination of both, neither could have said. Nor could they have said who instigated what occurred next, only that both needed it as much as to draw their next breath. In a timeless instant they came together so that her arms were wrapped around his neck as she stood on tiptoe to reach. His arms wound tightly about her waist to hold her against him, lifting her slightly so that her toes barely touched the ground. He buried his face into her hair; she rubbed the smooth skin of her cheek against the rough stubble of his.

The pain was eased, instantly. Fear turned to relief. Relief turned to comfort. Comfort turned to awareness. Sometime in the minutes that he held her, her body seemed to come to life again. It felt as though her skin had been numb, asleep for months, a lifeless covering for her insides, and now was suddenly awake again. She could feel his breath in her hair and remembered what it felt like, hot and moist against the skin of her neck. She could feel the heat of his hands on her back through her robes, and remembered what it felt like for them to play across her bare flesh.

Perhaps something similar was occurring for him as well, because he gently returned her to her feet and moved away. His color had improved; his skin no longer looked so pale and waxy, even though the dark circles remained beneath his eyes.

He smiled at her softly, almost wistfully, and caressed the side of her face, tucking a loose tendril of hair behind her ear.

"Thank you, Rowena," he said, the gentle silken tones of his voice sending a long-forgotten shiver up her spine. "I needed to be with you a moment. Thank you for allowing me, accepting me."

She thought he was going to kiss her, and while her body yearned for it, her mind recoiled, almost panic-stricken, not yet ready to accept that level of intimacy with him again. Whether he really had intended to kiss her, she didn't know. Perhaps he read the uncertainty in her eyes and changed his mind. He made no attempt to move closer or touch her again.

She didn't know how to acknowledge his gratitude—something that he would never have been able to state before. She merely nodded mutely.

"I must go and report to Albus. He will be expecting me. Good night."

She watched him leave with his usual stealthy grace and then went to her quarters as soon as he was gone. There was almost no pain to keep her awake, but her mind had too much to consider. Sleep was elusive and when it finally came it was filled with restless dreams that were not wholly unpleasant.

"I expect I'll be Called again more often now, in addition to the necessary absences to perform the task." Severus sat in 'his' window-seat in Albus's office. His back leaned against one side of the alcove; his long, thin legs pulled up as his feet rested against the other, his arms draped lazily over his knees. He stared out the window into the starry night as he spoke to the Headmaster.

Albus sat in his comfortable over-stuffed chair, his fingers intertwined in his lap, his blue eyes clouded with worry.

"You did say that you were expecting this. Are you surprised that it has come now?" Albus asked.

"No. Not surprised; resigned. Apparently He did not find any of the other Potions Masters He tested up to the task," Severus said with a disdainful wave of his hand. "I knew He would not. The formulations were mine. I would have been greatly mistaken in the evaluation of my own skill if He had found any others capable of it. The problem now lies in the fact that He does not trust me. He needs what only I can provide, yet He does not trust me to provide it. I expect to be called often, and tested. Repeatedly.

"The brewing will take months. It won't be ready for consumption before September at best. He wishes to perform the ceremony on Halloween, of course," Severus snorted in derision.

"That's six months away," Albus said with a mixture of relief and concern. They'd have more time to work with Harry, more than even he had dared hope. Yet also more time for things to go horribly wrong, and for Severus to bear his great burden of secrecy. "Tested how, precisely?"

Severus leaned forward to lean his forehead against one hand, long fingers massaging the bridge of his nose.

"The usual," he sighed, his heavy tones and weary actions making it clear that he was not so imperturbable as he wished to be believed. "My presence will no longer be completely excused from raids, or the games after. I will have to show how joyously I revel in the promise of purifying the Wizarding Race. I would rather not go into detail.

"You may no longer rely on me for the safety of any Order Members, Albus, not if you wish the ultimate goal to succeed. I will of course continue to keep you informed. However, it would not do to further this cause if any more of your known allies suddenly return miraculously from the dead."

"As Remus has done. Very well, Severus," Albus said, his worry deepening. He knew of what 'games' Severus spoke, and had a better idea than most what that sort of activity would cost the young man.

"By the same token, I would appreciate knowing as little as possible of Order activities," Severus said. He did not expect to be 'broken'. He had honed his skills well and endured much without breaking confidence on repeated occasions. Still, it was safer for all involved for him to know as little as possible now that the situation was escalating.

"It would be useful if you and yours appeared to heighten your distrust of me. He knows Remus lives, and of the intended nuptials, because I told him, so that ought to give you a starting point. I have been 'ordered' to attempt to ensure my invitation to the event. I thought it wise to permit that to be His idea rather than something to be learned of later."

"Understood. I've already made preparations to intensify security here for the celebration." Albus's expression remained tense with worry. "Be careful, Severus. Do what you need to do. I will do anything I can to aid you."

Severus shrugged and leaned his head back against the wall behind him. "There's little that can be done to aid me, Headmaster. I simply must not fail. I can afford no weakness."

Albus wisely decided that this was not the time to discuss his philosophy of love and the human condition. Instead, discussion turned to stratagems and tactics so that it was several hours before Severus made his exhausted way to his own bed at last.

The following Saturday was a Hogsmeade weekend, so that he had none of his N.E.W.T. students in his lab. It was an ideal time for him to begin gathering and cataloging the ingredients he would need. His door stood ajar, as he was required to maintain a certain number of 'office hours' each week for students to come with questions or requests for assistance in regards to his class. However, he did not keep a particular schedule of hours, and generally left his door open during those periods when he knew he was least likely to actually be bothered by any students. There were very few that would dare to seek him out for such matters in any case.

The small golden-haired creature that stormed into the lab with all the fury of an angry Doxy took him entirely by surprise, and his first reaction was concern. He quickly closed the cabinet doors out of which he had been gathering dangerous ingredients and went over to her.

"Katrina, what's wrong?"

"Uncle Remus askted me if he and Tonks could 'dopt me after they get weddinged," she said, blue eyes flashing at him furiously. "He wants to be my new daddy. He can't be my new daddy, 'cause YOU are gonna be my new daddy, right?"

Severus's heart sank right to his toes. He had assumed that Rowena would have explained things to the child, but now realized that she had left that task up to him. He also had a sharp surge of anger at the thought that Lupin would ask the child such a thing without talking with him about it first! There was also the painful realization that as a married couple, Lupin and Tonks would have a reasonable chance of their application succeeding, depending on the Ministry's ever-changing regulations on the lycanthrope population.

It was only then that he realized that in spite of all of his protestations to the contrary; he had already considered himself as her 'rightful' father for quite some time. The knowledge that that relationship could never be was excruciating.

"Katrina, things don't always work the way we expect them to," he said, kneeling down to her level to look her in the eye. The resemblance to Rowena, in the stubborn set of her tiny chin was alarming, and he wondered vaguely if it was possible to 'inherit' such traits from someone who was not a biological relation.

"That's stupid," she said, stamping her foot angrily, tears now sparkling in those vivid blue eyes.

He sighed and picked her up. He waved his wand to close and seal his door, and carried her to his chair where he could hold her on his lap and attempt to have this conversation in relative comfort.

It galled Severus to think that his opinions had altered dramatically enough in the course of the past year, that he now genuinely considered Remus Lupin, the werewolf to be an adequate adoptive parent for Katrina. Then again, a year ago, he would not have believed he was capable of loving a child so much that he would be willing to do anything to ensure her safety.

"I can't be your daddy, because I am not married. The people who decide who gets to be your new family believe children ought to have a mummy and a daddy. Remus and Tonks will be able to give you that, do you see?"

She rolled her eyes and looked at him as though he were as obtuse as Neville Longbottom, her voice thick with the three-and-a-half-year-old equivalent of scathing sarcasm.

"But when you get weddinged with Rowena, then I will get a mummy and a daddy with YOU. And then you can go to the hopstal and get me a new baby brother or sister 'cause my old one got deaded. And then we will be a real fam'ly like everybody else. See? Why do grownups have to make stuff so stupid?"

He closed his eyes painfully and pulled her close so that he could rest his chin on her golden curls. How did one argue with the innocent logic of a child? She clearly had given the situation far more thought than he had given her credit for. He also felt a pang of kindred sympathy to know that she remembered the baby brother that had been murdered. He had seen images of her family in her mind of course, when he first saw her in the hospital all those months ago. But she had been so young; he had hoped that she would forget that trauma in time.

He should have known that some things are never forgotten.

It would be a cruelty to continue to allow her to hope for something that was so completely unlikely. He didn't share Lupin's optimism that he and Rowena would ever mend their relationship enough to marry again. He thought he was reaching for the stars to hope that they might develop something of a comfortable friendship. Adopting Katrina seemed as likely as adopting Potter, though admittedly far more desirable.

"Poppet, Rowena and I are not going to get married. We thought we were going to, but we're not anymore. Sometimes that happens with grown-ups. We would like to be your parents, but we can't. If your Uncle Remus and Tonks adopt you, we will still get to see each other very often. We won't be going away, and you will get to have a family, just with them rather than us."

"NO!" She shoved hard against his chest so that she could glare daggers up at him. "Why aren't you going to wedding my Rowena? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. That's not how it's s'posed to work. You love her and me, and I love her and you, and she loves you and me—see? We all love each other, and that makes a family."

The unspoken "Duh!" all but dripped from her tone and expression.

Some part of his mind could not truly believe he was having this personal conversation with a three-year-old. ("Three and a HALF", she would remind him if he called her 'three' aloud.) It was sorely tempting to brush her off with a 'why don't you ask Rowena to explain it' and thereby get himself off the hook. However, he had felt an incredible connection with this child almost from the moment he first saw her. He was not going to betray that now.

"Sometimes things don't work the way they are supposed to. I made a very bad mistake, and Rowena doesn't want to marry me anymore. She still loves you very much." He swallowed hard, barely able to articulate the words that he knew she needed to hear and he needed to say. "I still love you very much."

He was vaguely astonished that a cataclysm did not occur on the spot from the act of Hell Freezing Over, as he had rather thought might happen if he ever said such a thing aloud, to anyone. He was actually surprised how easy it had been to say.

"My mistake doesn't change any of that. It just means that Rowena and I will not be getting married, so we can't adopt you. I wish it could be different, but that's the way it is."

She was frowning at him as he spoke, listening with undisguised doubt. She sighed and shook her head; clearly unable to believe anyone could be so dense.

"You're a teacher, right? I thought you were s'posed to be so smart," she said. "If you're so smart, how come you don't know how to fix a askident? When you make a m'stake, you have to 'pologize—that means you say you're sorry—then it's all better."

He wiped his hand across his face in a gesture of fatigue, not so much physical, but intellectual, as he tried to find both words and patience to help her to understand. She slid down off his lap and regarded him as though she was the 'wise' teacher and he was the wayward child.

"You hafta tell Rowena sorry. Then you can get weddinged and 'dopt me, and everything will be all fixed, just like it's s'posed to be. I hafta go. Harry's gonna let me open the Quidditch box and make the balls all fly out. I'll tell Uncle Remus everything's all fixed. Bye!"

With the speed of a Snitch, she had skipped out of the room, golden curls flouncing, clearly pleased with herself for setting her world to rights. He didn't even manage to find his voice in time to call after her. He flopped back into his chair with an expression of bemusement.

He had to admit, at least to himself, that life would be a great deal easier if it was truly as simple as it appeared from the perspective of a child.

A/N: I am going to follow suit of some of my favorite fanfic authors and leave my notes in my Live Journal account for the various chapters from now on, rather than interrupting your reading experience with my comments and rationales for certain things related to the chapters. If you are interested, anyone can read my journal. I am 'weasleyfan' at