Author's Note: This is another spot where the warning appears. Just so ya know and you can't scream at me... :)
Chapter 19: Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
Rowena was sitting beside her brother when he slowly awoke. They stared at each other for a time, neither wanting to break the silence or the peacefulness both felt in the late afternoon light.
They were very opposite in nature, Severus realized slowly. When she was belittled, he stood tall. While he had little patience with the students, she seemed to truly enjoy their company. When he had acted rashly in his youth, she'd had her future planned out since she was 9.
Their father, while taking a firm hand in Severus's upbringing, had been very lax in regards to his daughter. He had allowed his wife to try and raise a puffskein, all prim and proper, with little lace cushions and fancy fans to hide behind. Severus remembered one time he had caught his sister taking those fans and trying to hurl them, like a discus, into a target. Her reason: in case a boy ever dared to come near her.
Of course, these memories only served to remind him how very differently driven they had been, he to escape the family, she to embrace what was rightfully hers.
"What are you musing about?" she asked, breaking into his thoughts.
"How we act like an old married couple."
She sniffed. "No wonder Voldemort snapped your jaw, with that barbed tongue of yours. What did you say to get him spitting mad?"
He winced slightly. "I don't know what you mean."
Rowena smiled humorlessly. "Voldemort likes his toys to beg and scream. You must have said something that really set him off."
Snape looked away, but answered her. "Remember an old rhyme? From that story about the sphinx you used to read?"
She smiled nostalgically. "The one that I used to beg you to read over and over? What does--?" She nearly shrieked with laughter when it finally dawned on her.
The Sphinx would challenge each puffskein in turn to find him a riddle that he couldn't answer. The Sphinx had had quite a meal of the losers by the time the last puffskein had come forward. Always the same line to announce its challenge:
Riddle me this
And riddle me that
An impossible question
And I won't get fat!
"I didn't quite get it all out, but it seemed appropriate at the time." Severus watched as she doubled over, silently laughing. Once she had calmed down and wiped away a few tears, he asked, "Are you going somewhere tonight, sister?"
The mood between the siblings changed immediately. No longer just brother and sister, there was an air of business about them, similar to whenever Lucius was around the Minister at a social gathering.
"Why do you say that, Sevi?"
He raised a bandaged hand from the sheets to encompass her dress and jewelry. "That is hardly the dress to wear in a classroom that is frequently demolished by Gryffindors," he said lightly.
"I've been invited to another Ministry function, can't turn it down." She straightened her gloves slightly, not looking at him. He could see an odd glint in her eye, not unlike the look that came into Potter's eyes when he decided to take things into his own hands, laws be darned.
Before he could question her further, she leaned forward and kissed his check lightly, with a whispered, "Remember to take your potions," and was gliding down the hall.
After several unsuccessful tries, Albus Dumbledore found himself outside the hospital wing, wishing that he would find the person he was looking for. He wasn't surprised, though, when he did not find them there, either.
"Are you looking for someone, Headmaster?" Poppy asked, coming out of her office, watching as the Headmaster wandered up the ward.
He shook his head as his eyes came to an uneasy rest on the bedside table of her only occupant. Severus was currently under several potions a day to combat the various injuries, the resulting in him being unconscious a great deal of the time. He looked, the Headmaster noted, to be in less pain now that he was safe under Poppy's care.
Moving forward, he took the scrap of parchment out from under the plain black stone and read the short note.
Have been invited to another gala. It would be dishonorable to refuse.
--Rowena Snape
"She left that there around 8:30," Poppy said from behind him. "She was all dressed up, too, black velvet dress and cloak."
"Of course."
Rowena checked her make up one last time, adding a new layer of eyeliner and lip-gloss before putting mirror and make-up away in her purse.
The door pages opened the entrance as she approached, silent and obscure. The huge hall opened up before her, couples dancing to one side, tables laid with exquisite fair to the other. Groups were scattered about, talk reaching her ears of the latest scandal to Quidditch.
Making her way across the floor, she made sure to catch the eye of several people in each area. Dressed as she was in a sleeveless black gown, black cocktail gloves and small gems in her hair, it was only a matter of a look here, and a promising smile there. She joined a group of ladies, and chatted easily, although later she couldn't recall the topic. Half an hour later, she was hanging on the arm of a wizard from the Ministry, an hour after that, dancing with the Minister for Magic himself. He wasn't that bad a dancer, she mused afterwards, but she'd had better.
Over the night, she had caught sight if five of the 'old crowd': Lucius's sneer, thug 1 and 2, Avery eating only the choice cuts and MacNair was acting as a bodyguard.
As the second to last dance was finishing, Rowena noticed two more off to one side: Nott and Dailev. After touching up her make-up a bit, she moved quietly through the groups, coming up beside Narcissa Malfoy. The blond was standing off on her own, Lucius having just caught the ear of the Minister and was guiding him away.
"Hello, Miss Snape," she greeted loftily.
"Mrs. Malfoy," Rowena said courteously. "Enjoying yourself?"
Narcissa sniffed and caught Rowena's glance at the pair of men. "You've been dancing?"
Rowena nodded and glanced again. "Yes, but only twice. No one else has asked."
"Nott's not bad," Narcissa commented.
Rowena restrained herself from rolling her eyes. Come on… she thought. "It would be like dancing with my own father," she complained softly.
Narcissa laughed a bit, then suggested Dailev.
Rowena blushed a bit. "I doubt he would ask me, Mrs. Malfoy."
"Ask him."
She gave a little gasp and looked at the older woman in shocked surprise. "I thought that a lady--"
"He is family," Narcissa purred, leading the way over to the pair. The final dance of the night was just starting and the dance floor was filling up quickly. "Would do the honor of dancing with Miss Snape, Dailev? She doesn't have anyone to show her what a good dance is supposed to be."
By the feral grin on his face, Rowena could tell that there were several alternate versions of what Narcissa had just said running through his mind. Giving a small smile in return, she allowed herself to be led onto the dance floor.
As he took her hand, she noticed the jeweled rings on his fingers, the left with the class ring, the right with an oblong ring set into the gold band. As the music ended, Rowena let her smile become more inviting. Dailev kissed her once, a bit rougher than she'd have liked, before she slipped away from his grasp. With a parting smile, she slipped into the ladies waiting room.
"What did you think of him?" came Narcissa's voice.
Rowena finished wiping her mouth before replying, "Tastes terrible." Narcissa and several other ladies burst out laughing. Rowena smiled and applied a fresh layer of lip-gloss, touched up her hair and was just starting to straighten the seam of her gloves when a scream echoed out from the dance floor.
The group of ladies, who had been preening a moment before, rushed out of the room, Rowena and Narcissa in their midst. The scene before them was enough to make one the elderly matron's in front of them faint right away, caught by her younger daughters.
Dailev lay on the floor, convulsions racing up and down his body. There was a bloody froth coming from in between his lips and his eyes were rolled so back into his head that the whites were the only thing to be seen. He looked like a man possessed, a total opposite from the dashing man he had been less than ten minutes ago.
Rowena felt someone watching her. Glancing up from the two men who were trying to hold the injured man down, she saw Lucius Malfoy's hard eyes locked on her. She returned his gaze, face impassive, before stepping to the side to let the summoned healers through just as Dailev stilled.
Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews, and that Butterbeer was tast--yy! Chapter 20 is coming, but is currently under the chopping block.