Chapter 17

dive for dreams
or a slogan may topple you
(trees are their roots
and wind is wind)

trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
(and live by love
though the stars walk backward)

- E. E. Cummings

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Rose said a bit more loudly than she'd intended to. Damien gave her a sidelong glance; his own face having gone a bit pale as well.

"They're facing dragons?!" Rose rounded on both Charlie Weasley and Ludo Bagman who were standing with the small group from Angevin's labs. Charlie ran his hand through his red hair abashedly, but Ludo's boyish smile hardly twitched.

"Going to make for a thrilling event," Ludo grinned, and Rose considered hexing him. But Ludo, like most of the wizarding world, didn't know that Rose was Harry's older sister and thus didn't understand the true nature of her exclamation.

"I've got all of my dragon keepers on hand in case things get out of hand," Charlie, who did know of their relationship, assured her.

Taking a deep breath, she settled down and listened to the instructions for what they would be transfiguring. Led by Damien, the group began to change the empty meadow into a large tournament ring full of rocky terrain as well as a large champions tent on the edge of the forest, out of view of the stadium. With so many of them working on it together, the work took just over an hour. By the time they were done, spectators had already begun to arrive—witches and wizards from Hogsmeade and parents of Hogwarts students who had managed to purchase tickets were arriving.

"There you are, Rose," Stefan leaned in and kissed her cheek. Rose leaned into his now familiar greeting, taking comfort in his calming presence. She had felt increasingly agitated since learning that Harry—a fourteen-year-old boy—would have to get past a dragon. Stefan noticed her mood immediately.

"Are you alright," he asked, looking into her eyes steadily with his own grey-green ones.

"Yeah… feeling a bit nauseous," Rose said with a small smile.

"He'll be fine," Stefan reassured her. "He's a Gryffindor. This task was practically made for him."

Rose nodded along with Stefan's words.

"Should we go find our seats," he asked, offering his arm. Glancing around at the inflowing crowd, Rose caught sight of Professor McGonagall leading Harry and Cedric down from the castle and towards the champion's tent. Carefully, she slipped her wand out of her pocket and into Stefan's. He glanced at her curiously.

"I'll meet you up there," she said, slipping quickly away from the crowd and towards the tent. As soon as she had gone far enough around the stadium to be out of sight, Rose transformed into a fox and dashed across the grounds towards the tent. There were four people milling around outside of it, some pacing back and forth, others sitting on the grass. Rose circled around to the forest and crept along the tree line.

Harry was staring at the trees as though lost in thought, and it didn't take him long to see her. She watched him tilt his head curiously, squinting as though trying to decide he was really seeing what he was seeing. Rose gestured with her nose towards the far end of the tent where he would be out of sight of the other champions. Hesitantly, Harry stood up and tried to casually begin pacing towards the location. The other champions seemed much too wrapped up in their own anxieties to care what he was doing.

"Is that you, Rose," he asked quietly once they were both out of view. Rose answered his question by transforming back into her normal appearance.

"Your first task is to get past a dragon," Rose said quickly, knowing they didn't have much time together.

"I know."

"You—what?"

"Hagrid told me," Harry answered.

"Oh…," Rose said simply, biting her lip. Harry's bright green eyes had softened, and she could tell that the fact that she'd told him even though he already knew still meant a lot.

"Hermione and I came up with a plan," he said. "I think it'll work."

The two siblings stared at each other for a moment before Rose impulsively reached out and pulled him into a tight hug, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Harry's hands dug into the fabric of her robes, and she realized that he was shivering very slightly.

"It will. You're going to do great. You've got more daring and nerve than anyone at Hogwarts," Rose said while they clung to one another. Rose only released him when she heard the stirrings of noise from the other side of the tent.

"I think Bagman's coming, I should go," Rose said. Harry's face was nearly white, and she was struck suddenly by how young and how small he seemed. "See you after."

"Yeah," he replied. "See you."

Rose watched him walk back around the tent, listening to her own heart pounding rapidly against her ribcage. Once she heard Ludo Bagman calling for the champions to gather in the tent, Rose snapped out of her cloud of anxiety and transformed back into a fox and began scampering away towards the stadium. She was so lost in thought, she didn't notice the man she passed until he reached down and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, lifting her into the air so they were face to face. Severus Snape's black eyes met her hazel vulpine ones.

"Cheating, are we, Roselin," he asked dryly. Rose squirmed in his grip, but he didn't release her. She glared at him, and he sneered at her.

Transforming back was a mistake for two reasons. The first was that Severus had been holding her quite close to his face and, as such, in her human body, Rose found herself nearly pressed against him. Only the barest millimeters of air separated the two. The second reason—though no fault of hers—was that Severus did not let go as she had expected. Because of this, his hand was wound tightly into her hair at the base of her skull, pulling her head back so that she could only stare up at him. Her neck and back were arched almost wantonly from the way he was holding her.

For a moment time seemed to pause while the pair stared at each other. Rose did not miss the flash of hunger in his dark eyes, nor, to her own self-disgust, could she ignore the sudden heat pooling between her thighs. Severus suddenly released her and took a quick step back as if she had burned him. Rose could feel the blush rising to her face, and the pair looked away from one another.

"I was just wishing him luck," Rose said finally, still refusing to look at the man.

"Potter's dealt with worse than dragons," Snape said. His tone was mocking, but Rose was surprised by the comfort they offered. She glanced at him in surprise, but he was adamantly observing a hawk circling in the distance.

"I should go before my seat gets taken," Rose said quickly, walking off before he had a chance to do anything else.

'What was that,' she asked herself angrily, making her way to her seat. She clapped her hands to her still red cheeks a couple of times, trying to snap herself out of her embarrassment. Why was it that Severus could still affect her so strongly more than a year after things had ended between them?

Sliding into the seat beside Stefan, it took Rose a moment to notice that the person on her other side was Damien. She wondered how long they'd been sitting there in silence and had to laugh at whatever twisted deity had assigned them those seats. The pair were both looking as awkward as she imagined Severus and herself had only moments ago. Rose glanced between the two of them and gave a loud irritable sigh. Both looked at her and glared.

"Sorry," she said insincerely, putting her hands up in the air in a defensive gesture. Stefan looked back down at the stadium, but Damien held her gaze with a salty expression.

"Drop it," he warned. Rose didn't.

"This is just stupid, one of the three of us should be happy," she replied irritably.

"Nothing's stopping you," he replied bitingly. She opened her mouth to return the jab.

"Rose," Stefan cut her off in a warning tone, not taking his eyes off the stadium where Cedric Diggory was emerging from a tunnel. Soon they were all too wrapped up in the tournament to continue bickering.

'Harry would be going last,' Rose thought bitterly, her anxiety mounting with each champion's appearance and each close shave and subsequent injury. When they brought out the Hungarian Horntail for Harry to face, Rose was seething. Couldn't they have at least picked four of the same type of dragon? This one was markedly larger and more vicious than the other three. When Harry walked out of the tunnel and waved his wand in the air, saying a spell they couldn't here, Rose was sure she was going to break Stefan's hand from gripping it so hard.

As soon as he leapt onto his firebolt, however, Rose's anxiety began to dissipate. She saw how much calmer and more confident being in the air had made him. Rose could relate to the feeling of power and reckless daring that being on a broomstick could bring. As she watched him dodge a bout of flames from the Horntail, she too began to relax. She'd seen Harry fly for three years and knew just how good he was. It wasn't long before Harry had swooped in and plucked the golden egg from the nest. Rose sank against Stefan's shoulder in relief, applauding loudly with everyone else.

"How touching," Severus drawled, and Rose's surroundings suddenly snapped back into focus. She was panting heavily in the chill darkness of his office. She'd once again been unsuccessful at hiding her secret mind space from his searching. Rose was only grateful that the memory he'd seen when he'd broken into it had been so innocuous—a scene from the first task that had occurred the week before. It was the fifth or sixth time he'd broken through her defenses. Glancing up at him from beneath dark lashes, she tried not to look too resentful.

"What am I doing wrong," she asked. His lips curled back into a sneer as if to say: 'what didn't you do wrong?' Fortunately, the words that came out of his mouth were not quite so damning.

"You're hiding memories with strong emotions behind bland everyday experiences. The emotions of the hidden memories… bleed through," he said, obviously trying to think how best to describe the experience of legilimency. "Until you have better mental control, you need to camouflage it behind memories with similarly strong emotions."

Rose rubbed her temples with her fingers.

"What memories do you hide yours behind," she asked. Severus crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at her irritably, looking pointedly away from her. Rose stared expectantly for a moment before comprehension dawned, and her mouth opened in an 'oh' of understanding.

"I see," she said, her stomach squirming before the absurdity of the situation hit her and she began to chuckle.

Snape gave her a look that—had she still been one of his students, would have made her fall into immediate silence. Instead, it just made her start laughing harder. Rose put her face in her hands and dissolved into a fit of silent giggles, trying to muffle the noise she was making.

"Are you finished," he snapped. Glancing up at him, she managed to stop.

"I'm flattered," she said with a cheeky grin.

"Don't be," he snarled menacingly. Rose's lips twitched in continued amusement at his temper. She knew she was going to pay for annoying him when they got around to practicing again, but for now it was worth it.

"You know the more memories you make with Potter, the harder it's going to be to hide," Severus observed, changing the subject. This sobered Rose up instantly.

"What are you telling me to do, Severus? Ignore him? Cut off ties with my brother?" The words 'we've only just started getting to know each other' echoed around in her mind. Her hazel eyes had turned steely, but he didn't flinch or look away.

"The closer the Dark Lord thinks you are to that boy, the more danger you will be in. He will look for ways to manipulate Potter using you," Severus said warningly.

Rose sat in stony silence considering his statement. He wasn't wrong. If the Dark Lord thought that she and Harry were indifferent or even hostile towards each other, he likely wouldn't see any usefulness in their relationship. Did this mean she needed to keep the boy at more of a distance? But surely Harry needed all the help and support he could get right now. And what would Remus or Sirius think of her if she suddenly turned cold towards her brother with no way of explaining why?

"You've become too trusting over the past year," Severus continued chiding her. "You need to be more selective about who you are letting in on your secrets."

She knew he wasn't just talking about connecting with Harry. Mariko, Sam, Ava, Stefan… even Remus—all of them knew more than was wise concerning her relationships, plans, and desires. Mariko and Stefan in particular were dangerous to have in her confidence given the likelihood that they would come into contact with the Dark Lord should he return to power. Rose gave a grunt of frustration and let her head fall back into her hands. Letting more and more people into her life and allowing her guard to relax had been such a freeing experience. What price was she going to pay for this fleeting freedom?

"Damn," she growled into her hands.