Chapter 24

lemons are perfect though for the need to jump…
into the task that must have no nonsense about it
they have no truck with laziness or the idle hope

they can be easily misunderstood - their sourness
their association in sayings with the poorest of the lot
their way of squirting you in the eye when being cut
they don't have much emollience in their nature

you can't get that close to lemons - they stand firm
in their separate place asking to be respected…

- Rg Gregory [understanding lemons]

As the weeks of January crawled by and February began, Rose knew that she should be inundated with anxiety and fear given her recent encounter with Lord Voldemort. Despite this, she was the happiest she had been in a long time. Knowing that Remus was there and that he loved her was like having her own personal patronus protecting her at all times. The only time when this feeling of protection was threatened was during her weekly occlumency lessons with Severus Snape. She'd been very careful to bury her current relationship with Remus in the depths of her mind-space, but if he were to break through or stumble across other memories, Rose wasn't entirely sure how he'd react. He certainly knew about her love for Remus, but she was positive he'd remained unaware of just how far that love had taken her.

"You're feeling guilty," Severus said, his dark eyes staring into her own. Rose chewed the inside of her cheek irritably and pursed her lips.

"And you're feeling curious," she replied, breaking eye contact and looking around his office. The pair were sitting across from one another and quite a bit closer than she'd prefer in order to maintain eye contact for the lesson. The past month she'd spent trying to construct a mental net of sorts through which she could filter her emotions in order to only project what she wanted someone else to sense. She was finding it quite a bit harder than the false mind-space he'd helped her create in the fall.

"That was a guess, not the use of legilimency," he snapped, and Rose resisted rolling her eyes.

"It's still true," she grumbled.

"Do not flatter yourself," he replied coldly, and this time she did roll her eyes. "Focus your attention on clearing your mind of all emotion, be aware of your posture and your body language. Let's try again."

Leaning forward, he stared into her eyes, and Rose took a calming breath, meeting his gaze and trying her best to empty her mind and relax her body. Unfortunately, staring deeply into the eyes of Severus Snape brought its own challenges with it; challenges that would explain the guilt he'd sensed wafting off of her only moments ago. There had been a time when all she'd wanted to do was drown in his dark, calculating eyes.

Despite the time that had passed between then and now, she still found it difficult not to dwell on past desires and memories when forced to sit mere feet from him and make prolonged eye contact for hours at a time. With all the time she was forced to spend in his presence, she was beginning to realize how much she'd been avoiding dealing with residual feelings for him over the past year rather than allowing herself to process and move past them.

"You're not concentrating," he scolded her, and Rose felt a hot wave of frustration course through her body.

"I am concentrating," she protested, and he snorted derisively.

"Oh? Were you trying to project feelings of nostalgia and desire," he sneered, and Rose's face flushed red at his words.

"I—I wasn't," she began in protest, looking away from him.

"Clear your mind; control your emotions," he chided, and Rose glared at him.

"It's not that simple," she griped back, her hands curling into fists on her lap. "Especially when—"

"When what," he interrupted, his dark eyebrows raising judgmentally.

"When you're pissing me off," she snarled at him, standing up and pacing across the room so she could look at anything else. She rubbed her temples with her fingertips. They'd been at this for hours, and she was tired and frustrated and knew that wasn't helping. She could practically feel the annoyance wafting off of him as well at her emotional outburst.

Taking deep calming breaths, Rose tried to visualize a stormy sea and then what it would be like to sink deep beneath the foam-capped waves into the still darkness of the deep ocean. So deep and calm that the water was completely unaffected by the storm raging above. Walking back to the chair, she sat back down and nodded at Severus. He met her hazel eyes unblinkingly, and the pair lapsed into silence for several minutes before the barest of smirks tugged at the corner of his lips. He nodded at her.

"Better," he said.

Rose sighed with relief and gave him a small smile.

"Thank Merlin," she said. "I think I would have had to murder you otherwise."

"I said it was better, not that you had anywhere near the skill needed to accomplish that," he drawled.

"Yet," she corrected him. This time it was Severus who rolled his eyes.

"That is enough occlumency for today," he said, and Rose slumped back in her chair, closing her eyes in exhaustion. Normally, when trying to grasp a new subject that she didn't comprehend, she would insist on continuing until she understood. But in this case, the splitting headache occlumency was giving her left her with no desire to overdo it.

"Here."

Rose jumped, having not heard Severus move from his chair at all. Opening her eyes, she looked up at him where he was now standing beside her, holding out a small vial. His face was still carefully neutral—without the slightest sign of concern, but his simple action spoke volumes all the same. Accepting the vial, she uncorked it and threw back its contents in one swallow, sighing in relief at the instant warmth that spread through her neck, shoulders, and forehead.

"Are you in the habit of accepting unknown tonics from people without first asking what they are," he asked with a quirked brow. Rose might normally feel abashed by this but was still enjoying the aftereffects of the tonic too much to care.

"I've been giving you access to my mind for months now, there are more effective ways for you to harm me than poison," she replied. Snape did not respond to this, but Rose saw the way his lips pressed together more firmly—others might see this as a sign of disapproval, but over the years, Rose had come to recognize the expression as his way of suppressing a smirk.

"How are the preparations for your potion's N.E.W.T. progressing," he asked, moving over to his desk and falling into his chair. He pulled out a stack of essays and dropped them onto its surface to begin marking.

"Look at you, making small talk," she teased, and he narrowed his eyes at her.

"You are supposed to be taking private lessons from me; imagine how it will reflect on my reputation if you achieve anything less than an outstanding," he replied sourly.

"Do you really expect me to achieve anything less," Rose asked, grinning when he gave her an irritable glare. She considered teasing him further before wisely dropping it. "They're going well, I am focusing mostly on the theory since I lack a potion's lab, but I haven't run across anything too difficult. Ava has been helping me study too."

"Miss Feldner's help will likely be… advantageous," he admitted.

"Most likely," she agreed, grinning at this massive understatement. Ava had always been the best in their year at potions—a fact that used to frustrate Rose to no end.

"You are welcome to use the potion's classroom for the practical portions," he offered.

"Oh? Thank you."

"Don't look so surprised. It is what we're supposed to be doing with this time anyways," he said, casually tapping some excess ink off his quill.

"Do you mind if I work on one now?"

His quill stopped its scratching on the parchment, and he glanced first at the clock on the wall before his eyes moved to hers.

"It's getting late, won't your husband be missing you?"

Rose felt a wave of complicated emotions sweep through her at this question and silently cursed herself when Severus' eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch. After hours of legilimency, her defenses were badly compromised, and he was already tuned into her feelings and mental landscape. She had no doubt that he was quite aware of all the feelings she'd just experienced—and she suspected his question had been calculated to provoke just such a response.

"That's hardly something you need to concern yourself with," she said evenly. Her immediate reaction was to be angry at him, but anger would only leave her mind in a continuing state of vulnerability—calm and self-discipline were what she needed.

"Then by all means," he replied, gesturing towards the door to the classroom.

It was only when she was safely out of his eyesight, that Rose let her control slip enough to process the feelings his question had dredged up. Things with Stefan had been tense since the holidays. He knew she was having an affair and refusing to tell him about it. She was frustrated with him for continuing to pine after Damien without doing anything to try to win him back. And the threat of his mother continued to loom over the pair of them. Though Rose still held him when he had nightmares, the two were keeping each other at a distance during the day. Where previously there had been a comfortable friendship to come home to, now their home was filled with aloofness and resentment.

Rose tossed some ingredients in a mortar and began to grind them together with her pestle a bit more aggressively than she needed to. She could deal with the awkwardness at home. The real question was why Snape had provoked her into thinking about it while her mental defenses were lowered. Had it been simple curiosity or coincidence? She had known him too long to believe that. He did everything with a purpose.

Her fingers loosened their grip on the pestle as the next thought crossed her mind. Had the increased amount of time they'd been spending together been causing him to have similar renewals of desire and affection that she'd been experiencing in their lessons? She couldn't deny that she'd been sending him mixed signals—but it hadn't been intentional. They were signals he'd never have picked up on were it not for legilimency. What could she do to stop emotions that were practically at the level of the subconscious? She didn't want to toy with the man because of her own unprocessed attachment to him. She had left him, and she was with Remus now. Suddenly, her need to perfect her skills at occlumency took on a new much more personal significance. In the meantime, she knew of one surefire way to keep him from misinterpreting her feelings. Though she'd have to be careful about exactly how much he found out about, she'd need Severus to discover her relationship with Remus. And boy was it going to suck.