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Battle
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May 6 1997
Shari knew the final battle was quickly approaching. She hoped Severus had the antidote to Nagini's venom ready.
He came home briefly with Draco and she followed him around the house until he stocked several vials of the anti-venom in his pocket. She also insisted he take her bottomless bag and put Essence of Dittany, Blood Builder, Universal Antidote, Angelaureas, Healing Potion, Strengthener, Invigoration Draught and Wit Sharpening Potion.
He had resisted at first, but finally listened to her and placed all the vials in the bag, shrunk it and placed it in his robe pocket.
To Draco, she gave him a bag containing Burn Paste, Essence of Dittany, Strengthener and Healing Potion.
"Burn paste?" He held it up, eyebrows raised.
"Just trust me and take it. I already got one stubborn Slytherin on my hands. Don't make it two." She jerked her head towards Severus, who scowled.
"I won't. I love you, Shari." He leaned down and hugged her. Somehow, in the last year, he'd grown to a foot taller than her.
"I love you, too, Draco. Bring yourself and him back to me, yeah?"
"I will." He looked at his godfather, who remained expressionless but was watching the two of them.
She grabbed his robe for a moment. "I mean it. No matter what, bring him back."
Draco swallowed, understanding her meaning. "I will. I'll wait outside." He cast a meaningful look at his godfather and exited through the door.
She turned and looked at Severus. They had been arguing for the past hour over her sending the vials with him and she did not understand why he resisted.
"Severus, it's almost like you want to die. Is that it?" She grabbed his robe and pushed him against the wall in the Spinner's End entryway.
"I have always been resigned to dying in service to the Dark Lord. Especially since I have played both sides." His face was expressionless, but Shari caught a twinge in his voice.
"Now you have me and Draco to live for, don't you?"
He didn't answer, but swallowed hard and stroked her cheek with his thumb.
"I will do my best to come home to you, Love." He pressed his lips to hers and she moved her arms up so they wrapped around his neck.
She pulled away from the kiss, and leaned her head against his robe as she grabbed onto the thick fabric.
"You have to go, don't you?"
He placed a finger under her chin and raised her head up
"Yes, I do. I love you, Shari."
"I love you, too, Severus." She pulled away completely and held the door open.
He joined his godson in the yard and they both disapparated.
All that night and the next day, she heard nothing. She did not sleep, but stared at the stars and fireflies. During the day, she passed it listening to music and watching the outdoors.
Her radio, sensing her anxiety and somber mood, selected Jenny of Oldstones by Florence and the Machine.
"High in the halls
of the kings who are gone
Jenny would dance with her ghosts
The ones she had lost and the ones she had found
And the ones
Who had loved her the most
And she never wanted to leave
Never wanted to leave"
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In the boat house, the Dark Lord had confronted Severus.
"You stand in the way of what I want, Severus."
"There is no one more powerful than you, my Lord. The Elder Wand is yours. Shari became the master of it when she killed Albus Dumbledore, but you have disarmed her." He had disarmed her when he had thrown her against the wall the night she beat Bellatrix to a pulp.
"Ah, Severus, it is not the wand I seek. It is her. You have her heart, her love and her loyalty. All the things I want. I want more than just a child with her. I want her to be mine alone, but she will not let you go, no matter how I influence her away from you. You've been a good and faithful servant, Severus, but I will not share her any longer."
He slashed his wand through the air and Severus fell against the wall, bleeding and paralyzed.
"Nagini, attack!" The snake lashed out several times and struck his throat.
After both the dark wizard and his snake had left, Harry, Hermione and Ron crept out of hiding. Severus gave Harry his tears while Hermione dug potions out of his bag and gave them to him. She also poured Essence of Dittany on the gaping wounds.
As soon as the battle was over, Harry and Hermione, along with Draco, returned to the boat house and brought Severus home.
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She spent that night much the same as the previous one. Stars shone brightly over Spinner's End, oblivious to the destruction and death she knew to be occurring under the Scotland sky. Just around dawn, she felt a burning in her left arm and lower abdomen, then her arm suddenly went cold and she began to bleed. The mark went from green to black to blue to grey. She guessed that Harry must have killed the Dark Lord. The pain in her abdomen eased after two hours but the bleeding continued.
It was early morning when Draco apparated into the yard, Severus in his arms. He wasn't alone. Harry Potter and Hermione Granger were with him. She surmised that Ron was with his family coping with the shock of Fred's death.
Shari hurried outside and helped to carry him inside the house and to their bed. He was semi-conscious and obviously very weak. She could see the lines on his neck where the Dittany had been applied over Nagini's bite. His robes were shiny and blackish-maroon with copious amounts of blood. All his layers of clothes were torn around the left shoulder and neck from the evil serpent.
After the wards were lifted, Hermione raided the lab and Draco poured more potions down his throat as Shari and Harry held him up.
At one point, Shari and Hermione made eye contact and the younger witch's eyes grew large in recognition.
"It was you. You were the one who jumped in front of me at Malfoy Manor and wouldn't let them torture me. Then you helped us escape."
Shari slowly nodded. "Yes, it was me." She had never expected to see any of the trio again.
"Who are you? Why did you do that?" Hermione's eyes never left her face.
"I knew they would never dare kill me, but that they would kill you as soon as look at you." Shari broke eye contact and looked down at Severus. She had suffered under their fellow Death Eaters' wands immediately after her heroics but it had been worth it.
"You did not answer her question. Who are you? Are you a Death Eater?" Now Harry was questioning her and fingering his wand.
"Can we get him stable first? Then I'll tell you two who I am, alright?" Shari looked both of them square in the eye.
They looked at each other and then nodded at her.
Following a cauldron's worth of Angelaureas and the entire stock of venom antidote and Wiggenweld potion, Severus finally opened his eyes all the way. His gaze was immediately fixed on Shari and he raised his hand up and touched her face.
She bent down and softly kissed him and stroked his forehead.
"Hi, Severus. You're awake. I think that means you're going to make it."
"Shari… I love you."
"I love you, too. Welcome home." She bent down and kissed him one more time. "I think you need to rest, Severus. We'll be in the sitting room."
He grabbed her hand as she started to turn away. "He's dead, Shari. He wanted you for himself and I stood in his way. He was obsessed with you. Now he's dead."
She felt pairs of green, grey and brown eyes on her, but she ignored the teenagers for now. Her eyes met his dark ones and she reached out and stroked his hair.
"You're here now and you're going to make it, you hear me? You are not allowed to die on me, Severus Snape. Now get some rest." She kissed him on the lips one more time, then turned and left the room. Harry and Hermione followed. She stopped upon hearing Draco's voice.
"I think...I'm going to stay here with him."
Shari remembered that Draco had actually fought against the other two teens in the room and understood his reluctance.
She patted him on the shoulder and nodded. "Thank you for bringing him back to me."
He gave a single nod and turned back to Severus, pulling a chair closer and sitting down next to the bed.
Shari sighed and walked out to where the other two were already in the kitchen. She put a pot of tea on, keeping her eyes fixed on the stove as she decided what to tell and what not to divulge. The least of her worries was her age old reluctance to make tea for Brits in the worry that she wouldn't make it good enough. The old kettle finally whistled and she extinguished the flames, then added in the tea ball of her favorite, a black tea with cinnamon, honey and vanilla that Severus had created.
She realized she had things in common with Harry. He grew up unwanted and unloved with his aunt and uncle. She grew up unwanted and unloved by foster families.
Of course, her radio sensed her somber mood and came to life accordingly with Celine Dion.
"What's left to say?
These prayers ain't working anymore
Every word shot down in flames
What's left to do with these broken pieces on the floor?
I'm losing my voice calling on you
'Cause I've been shaking
I've been bending backwards
till I'm broke
Watching all these dreams
go up in smoke
Let beauty come out of ashes
Let beauty come out of ashes"
The kitchen was silent as she waited for it to brew. She saw Hermione wipe a tear from her eye and had to hold her breath to keep her own from falling. Many people had been lost in this battle. Many people these two teens loved.
"I don't know where this road
Is going to lead
All I know is where we've been
And what we've been through
And if we get to see tomorrow
I hope it's worth all the wait
It's hard to say goodbye to yesterday
And I'll take with me the memories
To be my sunshine after the rain
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday"
(Boyz II Men)
"Why is that radio playing such sad music?" Hermione looked like she was about to hex it through her tears.
"It plays music according to my mood." Shari flicked her wand at it and it switched to instrumental movie soundtracks. It started playing 'Requiem for a Dream', so she flicked her wand at it in exasperation and it switched to Sounds of the Shire.
She knew they were baffled by who she was. She had been at Malfoy Manor with the Death Eaters, but had rescued Hermione from torture, rape and death.
She poured the tea into cups, and retrieved biscuits she made three and four days ago as she had baked away her anxiety to rap and heavy metal in the otherwise empty house. The radio had cranked up the volume in response to her stress and had blasted everything from Black Sabbath to Tupac, Motley Crue to Trey Songz, Metallica to Public Enemy.
"Have a seat, I'm going to bring Draco a cup of tea and then I'll come answer your questions." Shari grabbed her godson a biscuit, a cup of tea and a saucer. He barely noticed her at first as she walked in, so focused on his godfather that he was. After she set it down, he mumbled a thank you.
After sitting down and taking a sip of her own tea, she finally looked up and nodded. "Ask away, but keep the wands stashed."
Harry spoke first. "Who are you? Where did you come from? Why did Voldemort want you?"
"My name is Shari Borlosi, and Dumbledore brought me from the States around the end of your fifth year. I have Black, Malfoy and Borlosi blood in me. My ancestor ran away to the States to flee his brother Scorpio who had become a dark wizard. He put a curse on his family and all his descendents to take away all magical abilities, but Severus restored it. I've been living here since my arrival."
Shari paused, to allow for questions and to collect her thoughts before explaining why she was kidnapped.
"Why did he bring you here?"
"I know what I'm about to tell you is going to sound pretty unbelievable, but it's all true. Dumbledore brought me here to force me to have his child. He claimed my great great grandfather had promised him one of his daughters but then they fled to the States before they could marry. He decided he still wanted an heir with my family lines, so he went into the future and took me. Severus was told of the plot ahead of time, and tricked him into letting me go with him and he hid me away here."
"Did he ever find you?"
Shari took a deep breath. It had been nearly a year and also a year and a half, but it still was difficult to talk about both occurrences.
"Yes. Once when I had stepped out for whiskey. Then he learned where Severus lived, and during a Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch game in which Draco was playing and Severus was referee, he came here. He had polyjuiced himself as Severus and said he was sneaking me into the game, then took me to his quarters and started to rape me, but I fought him off and killed him."
"You...killed...Dumbledore?"
Shari took a deep breath and nodded her head, unsure what to expect.
The two exchanged looks before Hermione spoke. "They blamed that on the Death Eaters and Voldemort. You never answered our question. Are you a Death Eater?"
Shari took a deep breath and rolled up her left sleeve where the hideous tattoo marred her skin. "The Dark Lord insisted I take his mark after I killed his enemy. I wasn't one when I killed him, though."
Her mind drifted to the night she had received it 11 months before. She grimaced as she remembered the burning pain as the hideous snake was magically carved into her flesh.
A movement jerked her out of the memory and she glared at Harry. "I specifically stated to keep your wands stashed. If you are unable to do that, then it's time for you both to go."
"You're one of them. You belong in Azkaban and so do they." Harry nodded angrily towards the bedroom.
Hermione glared at him. "Harry, she didn't want to become a Death Eater. She's not really one of them."
The brunette turned her attention back to Shari.
"But why did you save me? It was like you knew what would happen before it happened. You didn't have to do that, but I'm glad you did."
"She does that, predicts the future. I don't know how, but she does. She knew he would be bitten by Nagini." Draco had walked into the sitting room and was standing by her. He stared at her exposed forearm and then into Shari's eyes.
"Did you show them your other arm? Did you show them what my aunt did to you after you took the mudblood's place and they escaped?"
Shari took a deep breath to calm herself. She unclenched her fists, not realizing she had tightened them. "Draco…. Don't call anyone that and she doesn't need to see that." She glared at him with narrowed eyes.
"I heard them out here drilling you about being marked." He turned towards the brunette. "The only reason she took the mark was to protect me."
Harry scoffed at that and Shari leveled him with a specialized glare until he looked away and apologized quietly.
"Then she saved you, Granger, and got marked again. Show them, Shari." Draco's grey eyes were blazing into hers and his face was as reddened as a Gryffindor scarf.
The American sighed long and hard. No one else besides Draco and Severus had seen this scar on her right arm. Scabior and several others had held her down and groped her body while Bellatrix carved it into her. This was after several of them had a go torturing her with the Cruciatus.
Keeping eye contact with Draco, she pushed up her right sleeve. Carved in fiery red letters on her forearm were the words AMERICAN WHORE. She heard both Hermione and Harry gasp, but kept her eyes locked on her godson.
He broke the eye contact and looked at both of the Gryffindors who were still staring in shock at her forearm.
"If you knew what he used to do to her…" Shari immediately pressed her fingers to Draco's lips and gave him her big eyed specialized glare. "Draco Malfoy, what the hell are you thinking?"
"Sorry. I'm going back to sit with my critically injured godfather, and I do not want to hear the two of you giving her a hard time again." With that, the blonde Slytherin stormed out of the room.
"Who used to do what to you? Voldemort?" Hermione was looking at Shari with enormous eyes.
"You will both forget you heard that. Are we clear?" Shari put the sternest face on she could summon.
"Voldemort did something to you?" Harry had tuned in to the conversation now.
"Enough! End. Of. Conversation."
Seeing the look on her face, they both shut up and looked at each other. "She even talks like Snape."
Draco was back a few minutes later. "He's awake again and is asking for you, Shari. He needs you more than they do."
Harry had stood up and was glaring at Draco, who was glaring back. Hermione tugged on his arm. "Come on, Harry, let's go. Now."
Shari and Draco watched the two Gryffindors apparate from the back yard before she went to see Severus again.
Taking the seat next to the bed, she took his hand in both of hers. He opened his eyes and immediately focused on her.
"How did you know I was going to be bitten by Nagini?"
"I just knew. I don't know. How are you feeling?"
"I'm in a lot of pain." Severus closed his eyes as a spasm rippled through his body.
Shari called for Draco, who brought a pain potion, a muscle relaxer and an anti-spasmodic. They helped him into an upright position so he could swallow all three, then they held him on his side as seizures commandeered his body and then quieted down. Three more times before noon, his body shook out of control as a seizure attacked his nervous system. Each time, their godson helped her give him potions and hold him on his side in case he started vomiting.
The seizures struck six more times between noon and midnight. Shari thought for sure they were losing him more than once, but he pulled through each one. In between, she laid next to him and held his head on her chest, even though he was mostly unconscious.
Draco tried to convince her to step away and eat, but she refused until she became wobbly and unsteady. Shari briefly hurried to the kitchen and wolfed down a sandwich and a cup of water, then returned to Severus's side.
By the next morning, he was in less pain and had only been hit by the seizures twice more. He woke up and was more alert. Shari stayed by his side, making sure he ate dry toast and drank fluids. Draco slept in a chair in their room, ready to be of assistance when needed.
The following day after that, she and Draco helped him to walk to the bathroom and sit on a transfigured chair in the shower. No spasms had occurred in 24 hours by that time.
A week after the attack, he was slowly walking around the house with help.
