Chapter Seven: Fondling Time
Lilianna stepped out of the shower, the warm water doing little to assuage the hurricane that was her thoughts. She thought ironically, how she could face down a room full of death eaters with only her quick reflexes and her wand, but she could not conjure the strength to face an idea of time travel with her…what? What was Severus to her now? Her lover?
No. She shook her head as she continued to towel her slick skin dry. He was nothing to her, she reminded herself. Nothing.
With a force of will born of sheer terror at her own inapt ability to rid Severus from her aching head, Lilianna threw her towel on the floor and vowed to steer her ponders towards their upcoming quest.
And so she did.
Walking into the downstairs solon an hour later, dressed in a gown of the palest yellow velvet, Lilianna found her grandfather with Remus Lupin, the two of them discussing plans concerning herself and Severus.
"If we send them back four years, there is no assurance that the potion will be ready. We can't have them lingering in the future for Merlin knows how long, waiting for the potion to be ready." Remus paused to shake his prematurely grey head in frustration. "With all the risk that time travel entails…we would only be adding to it."
"Indeed that would be a great risk." Albus nodded and seeing his granddaughter enter the room, he stood, pressing his parched lips to her cheek in silent greeting. "Only, I think it would be a far greater one to send them further. If they arrive in a time where the potion has been sitting for far too long, then the potion will be of no use to us and Lilianna and Severus will have risked their lives in vain."
Albus turned back to face Lilianna. He reached his two arms around her almost as if to pull her into a hug. It was only a second later when Lilianna realized that he had, instead, fastened a gold pendant about her neck. She looked down, finding the time turner nestled between her breasts, just above the low neckline of her gown.
It was a curious artifact, she thought. There were bands of metal, round circles, the inner most housing a small hourglass with a dusty brown sand. She rather admired its strange beauty, it was almost a allegory to the elusiveness of time.
How powerful time was, how oddly erotic and beautiful, but when meddled with, dangerous.
Bringing a hand to caress the cold metal, she felt disheartened that such a rare adventure would be spent in the curious company of Severus Snape. It rather made a difficult situation nearly unbearable.
Something of her thoughts must have been playing across her face, for when she looked back up, her grandfather was regarding her with penetrating eyes above his half-moon spectacles. In a lowered voice, so as not to be heard by Remus or the other few Order members that had now made their way into the room, he spoke.
"Are you unsure of your decision to leave?"
Lilianna's eyes widened at the conclusion he had drawn, reprimanding herself at the same time for not being more guarded with her emotions. What must have Severus deciphered her expression to mean, standing not three feet away, regarding their exchange?
"No," She infused emphatically, shaking her head. "That's not it at all, I just…" Here she left off, shrugging her shoulder as though to either declare her unease with topic at hand, or to indicate a loss of adjectives that might help to describe her twirling emotions.
After another second of staring into his granddaughter's eyes, attempting to discover the root of the forlorn crease across her brow, he turned around to face Severus.
"Well, my boy, best get on with it then. If neither of you are having second thoughts? I need not impress upon you the seriousness of this endeavor, nor the incredible chance involved. If something is to go awry, any unknown entity to play out, then you may not have a familiar home to return to."
Lilianna rolled her eyes. "Thanks for that uplifting send off, grandfather, we'll be sure to arrive calm and collected, now."
Severus stepped closer to her, having already noticed the pendant lying seductively against the ivory hollow between her breasts. His eyes had taken in every part of her in fact, and he was currently berating himself for the forbidden thoughts that had followed.
"Ready?" He asked, one word, his voice as cold and indifferent as ever it was.
Lilianna looked up sharply, narrowing her eyes. She nodded briskly. Stepping uncomfortably close to man she had, only hours ago, made love to, she tugged at the chain about her neck, throwing it over his head and around his own. She looked to her grandfather enquiringly.
In reply, he placed a hand on either of their shoulders, nodding his head encouragingly.
"Six turns, I should think."
Glad for the offered distraction that would allow her to keep her wandering eyes from Severus' handsome face, or the sliver of olive skin that was peeking out from the first three open buttons of his shirt, Lilianna turned her eyes to follow her hands as they fiddled with the small dial on the time turner.
It was a moment, just a moment, before the world spun around them. So dizzying was the effect, that Lilianna quickly shut her eyes against the blinding light that seemed to encompass her and her companion. Indeed, she thought, using a time turner into the future was much different from her remembered experience with a time turner into the past a few years ago.
It might have been five minutes, it might have been an hour. Neither one could have said, before the unbalanced feeling seemed to leave them, leaving in its wake a strange sense of stillness. Severus was the first to open his eyes, to look down upon the woman who had, at some point during the journey, enclosed her arms around his waist and buried his head into his neck.
He felt, oddly comforted in the embrace.
Remembering himself, he pulled her arms away from him, the sudden movement causing her eyes to fling open in surprise. With a look of irritation plastered across his face, a look that caused far too much effort to produce in his opinion, he grasped the thin metal rope that was keeping him bound so close to this warm female body and jerked away from her as though burned.
The result was instantaneous. Lilianna lost her sense of displacement in a blink, her eyes flaring with renewed anger at this obvious insult. She opened her mouth to issue forth a well-deserved insult, when Severus slapped a hand across her mouth. "Quiet." He commanded, pulling her back into a shadow of the room.
They were still in number twelve Grimmauld place, though any resemblance to the headquarters they had just left was nearly nonexistent. The solon looked as though it was once more cherished with a loving hand. A light shade of paint covered the once filth coated walls, a new carpet the color of sand spread out beneath their feet. The furniture was new, the accents and photographs set about on random shelves a sure indication that this was a headquarter no more.
It looked as though it now belonged to a young wizarding couple…wait. Surely not. Was that Lupin and Granger involved in an intimate embrace in that photo on the mantel?
Lilianna gasped beside him, and Severus knew that she had come to the same conclusion as he just had. This house now belonged to Remus and Hermione, and any traces that England was in the midst of a war had been erased over the years.
"We must have succeeded then. With the potion, I mean. There is just no other way we could have possibly won the war without it." Lilianna whispered.
Severus nodded, pulling Lilianna closer into the shadows, as the sound of laughing voices were growing ever louder. Sure enough, not a minute later, they watched as a woman, so obviously a fully-grown Hermione, strode into the room.
"It's here somewhere, I know it is." She called to someone in another room of the house. They watched as she bent down, searching the bottom of a bookshelf for some unknown object.
Remus walked into the room then, an amused smile orchestrating his face. He leaned a side against the framed archway that led into the room from a hallway, simply watching her.
"Yes, there, I see it!" She cried triumphantly. Pulling from the very back of the shelf a brown book that looked to be a photo album. Turning around, Hermione gave a start to find Remus lurking behind her. She rolled her eyes. "They will absolutely adore this. Lilianna was so disappointed when she lost all their wedding pictures in the fire."
Sandwiched between the protruding hearth and the sharp corner of the adjoining walls, Lilianna felt Severus stiffen in response to this revelation. So, she was married in the future. That was a thought she could surely get used to. Obviously she would forget all about Severus Snape when she met a man much more worthy of her affections. She wondered at who he would be?
Hermione had silenced her voice as she walked across the room towards Remus. Wrapping her free arm around his waist, she pressed a chaste kiss to his grinning lips. "Perhaps we should think about starting our own family." She whispered into her room, just barely loud enough for the other couple to overhear her words.
Where the hell had that come from? Severus thought with apparent irritation. His mood had already left on a drastic decline at the information that Lilianna was evidently married in the future. He had an unwelcome desire to kill whoever the bastard was who had seduced her.
Focusing his attention back to the unfolding scene in the solon, he watched as Lupin's smile slowly transformed itself into a frown, his gaze locked on the crown of Hermione's head as she rested her head on his chest. "I thought we talked about this?"
At the note of distress Hermione heard in his voice, her head snapped up, her own frown replacing the smile. "Remus—"
"No. Dammit, Hermione. Don't you get it? It's not safe for us to bring a child into this home." He cringed at the thought. "I am not safe for a child to be around."
Tears began to leak down Hermione's face at this proclamation that she had heard so many times before. "Oh, Remus. When are you going to stop fearing yourself?"
Remus opened his mouth to respond but before a single word was uttered, they heard the doorknocker resounding from the entryway. The couple pulled apart, Hermione walked out of the room, heading towards the door to greet their company. Meanwhile, Remus strode further into the solon, retrieving their cloaks from a coat rack, then retreating in his wife's footsteps. A troubled look still pressed into his face.
Severus and Lilianna waited patiently, daring not to move until they heard the door resound into its frame, taking with it the four voices that had previously occupied the entry way.
"Do you think we're alone?" Lilianna whispered.
Severus nodded. "Yes. But we must be quick."
Striding out of their hiding place, Severus led Lilianna to the hearth. He pointed out a small tin filled with a green powder. "After you."
Lilianna took a handful of the floo powder. Walking into the brick structure, she called out her destination. "Headmaster's office, Hogwarts." Releasing the grains of powder in her hand, she was enveloped in warm emerald flame, and felt, once more, as though she were being spun like wool. When she next opened her eyes, she was brushing the ash from her gown and stepping into a warm, bright study.