OUT OF BED
1 May 1998; 22:53
Snape stood impassive, as if waiting for her to say something more.
"Oh, but naturally," Minerva said. "You Death Eaters have your own private means of communication, I forgot."
He didn't react to her remark, but he inched closer to her, holding her in his gaze as if he were the Kneazle and she the Snidget.
"I did not know that it was your night to patrol the corridors, Minerva."
Her name on his lips was soft, almost a caress, and she supressed a shudder.
"You have some objection?" she asked.
He was close enough now for her to feel his breath on her cheeks. Closer than they'd been in ages. Close enough to touch, if she were so inclined.
"I wonder what could have brought you out of your bed at this late hour?" he asked.
She stepped back, away from him, searching his face for any sign that he was still in there somewhere, the man she'd come to know — or thought she had — over the years, but his eyes were the same dull and fathomless black they'd been since he'd first returned to Hogwarts after murdering Albus.
The Death Eater Triumphant.
30 July 1995; 19:22
"Severus?"
She waited, and when there was no answer, she pounded on his door with the heel of her hand.
"Severus, I know you're in there. Let me in, please."
No answer.
She pulled her wand and whispered the headmaster's universal password.
The door swung open, and she stepped into his sitting room.
It was dark, the only illumination coming from a lone black candle on the table. She used her wand to light the sconces that lined the walls.
The spartan spareness of the room didn't surprise her. That Severus Snape lived like a particularly bad-tempered monk was more or less what she would have imagined. The room contained only a scratched and stained oak table, a severe ladder-backed chair, and a more comfortable-looking but threadbare wingback and ottoman near the window looking out into the Black Lake. The chair had no antimacassar, and the dark patch at the top suggested Severus and his unwashed hair had spent a fair amount of time in it.
Several bookcases stood against one wall, and while there were fewer books than Minerva might have expected, a glance told her that they were well cared for, the leather spines oiled regularly and the dust that clung to the other surfaces removed.
Underneath the general smell of must and unwashed man that shrouded the room was a coppery odour that quickened her pulse.
"Severus?"
When she pushed open the door to what was likely his bedroom, a black robe discarded on the floor caught on it, sweeping a smear of blood across its path.
A few feet beyond, a skull-like mask lay face-up, its empty sockets taunting her, daring her to draw closer to the bed, which she now saw held a figure sprawled face-down atop the counterpane.
She approached, anxiety clutching at her chest.
"Severus?"
A muffled voice told her that he was at least conscious.
"Go away."
"I'm here to help you. Turn over."
No answer.
"Can you turn over?" she asked.
He lifted his head, and his voice came clearer. "Go away, Minerva." He reburied his face in the pillow.
Hands on her hips, Minerva summoned her Teacher Voice.
"Well, if you won't do it yourself, I'll do it for you. Leviosa!"
With a swish, flick, and semi-twirl of her wand, Severus was flipped and re-deposited on the bed with a soft whoosh of magic.
The face that greeted her wore a reassuringly familiar scowl.
"And what brought you out of bed at this late hour?" he asked, surprising her with his jest.
They'd often met as they prowled Hogwarts's corridors in the wee hours, each sleepless and driven from bed by their private demons. Lately, it had become something of a grim joke between them, as their late-night encounters had increasingly been the result of a series of Potter-related incidents.
The last time she'd received a middle-of-the-night summons from Dumbledore, she'd met Snape in front of the gargoyle guarding the head's office.
"And what brings you from your bed at this late hour?" Severus had asked as the spiral stairway carried them up to discover what scrape the bewildered Boy Who Lived and his hapless chums had got into this time. She hadn't been able to prevent a snort of mirth from escaping her, and he had surprised her with his sardonic grin.
Now, however, she wasn't laughing, and he wasn't grinning, sardonically or otherwise. There was blood marring the wrinkled expanse of his white shirt, though less than she'd feared.
"I was afraid … I thought …" she stammered.
She cleared her throat and started again.
"I was in my office, and I saw you come in from the grounds. You were limping, and I was concerned you were injured. With Poppy gone for the summer, I thought you might need my help."
He didn't answer, just stared at the ceiling as if she weren't there.
"Can you show me where you're hurt?" she asked.
"I'm not."
"But the blood …"
"Isn't mine."
He threw an arm across his eyes, as if trying to block out a too-bright image.
She knew where he'd been. Since the Dark Lord's return at the disastrous end of last term, Severus had been called on a regular basis, and he'd often returned the worse for wear. Clearly, his loyalties were being tested.
When he'd been called that afternoon, Severus had notified her via a brief note, as per Albus's request, and she had been waiting anxiously at her desk, peering out the window towards the bridge, for his return.
She sat gingerly on the edge of the bed.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?"
"No."
"What about your leg?"
"Minor. Just grazed me."
"What was it?"
"Diffindo."
Without asking his permission, she moved his torn left trouser leg aside to reveal the wound. A long slash ran from under his knee to the middle of his shin. It wept beads of blood but didn't appear too deep.
"I'll just clean this," she said, gently probing the side of the wound with her fingers.
His leg twitched.
"Leave it alone," he said.
"It isn't bad, but it needs to be cleaned and healed, unless you'd prefer it get infected. I can manage it here, or you can go to St Mungo's."
She took his grunt as consent.
"Keep still." She held the leg with her left hand, preparing to cast a wound-cleaning spell, and he flinched again.
"Ow! Dammit, Minerva!"
"Don't be such a baby. You said yourself it was minor."
Through gritted teeth, he said, "It's over the old wound."
He pulled the pillow over his face.
"Which one?" Minerva asked.
"Dog. Three heads. All Hallows' Eve," came his muffled voice.
"Ah." She drew her wand slowly across the wound. "Adhaere!"
The edges of the shallow cut drew together to form an angry pink seam.
"There," she said. "That ought to do it if you don't move around too much for a day or so."
He removed the pillow from his face and tossed it over the side of the bed.
"Thank you," he said quietly, eyes closed.
She got up and went into the bathroom to get him a cup of water. As he propped himself up on an elbow and drank it, she asked, "Was anyone else injured? From … from our side?"
If there had been an Order action that evening, no one had alerted her. Dumbledore was away somewhere, supposedly on the Continent, and if something serious had happened, she'd need to get Fawkes to find him with a message.
"No. Just a former Death Eater's family," Severus said dully. "The Dark Lord wanted him taught a lesson."
"I see."
He threw the glass across the room, and it shattered. "No, Minerva, you don't! You have no fucking idea. You've never had to kill one of your former students because his father was an idiot." He dropped back on the bed, throwing his arm back over his eyes, breathing raggedly.
She sat quietly, watching him as he methodically regulated his breath, eventually reasserting his usual control.
"Just go away and leave me alone," he said.
Faces swept through Minerva's mind. Young faces and not-so-young ones, friends and lovers, living and long dead. People she'd betrayed in ways large and small, without meaning to. Her father, Dougal, Elphinstone. Severus.
"No," she said. "Not when you're like this."
She went to his wardrobe and dug through piles of dirty clothes until she found an acceptably clean nightshirt.
"Put this on. I'll be right back," she said, dropping the nightshirt on his chest.
In his bathroom cabinet, she found a phial, its label marked "Dreamless Sleep" in his cramped, spidery hand.
When she emerged, she was pleasantly surprised to see that he had complied with her order, his soiled shirt and trousers lying in a heap on the floor. He still sat, pale, skinny legs hanging off the side of the bed, and she had a vision of him as a boy in the infirmary, insisting he be allowed to go back to his dormitory despite the grievous wound he'd received from Remus Lupin's claws.
She'd failed him then, she thought. Failed to protect him from James and Sirius, failed to show him an alternative to the path he'd taken as a student in her care.
Whatever she did now could not atone for it, but she wanted to show Severus that there could still be some small kindness in his world, even if it came from a Gryffindor who'd once regarded him as just another inconvenient Slytherin destined for Dark things and washed her hands of him, Pilate-like.
"Drink this," she said, handing him the phial.
The fight seemed to have left him, or perhaps he'd expended so much energy, magical and emotional, that there was none left for his usual contrariness. He swallowed the potion in one gulp.
She took the phial. "Lie down."
He did.
If he was surprised when she settled down next to him, he didn't show it.
The bed was narrow, and she took care not to allow any of her body to touch his.
She spoke in a whisper. "I don't know what you were forced to do tonight, Severus. I've no doubt it was terrible. But was there anything you could have done to save them?"
He made a sound in his throat, and she said, "You don't owe me an answer. That's between yourself and your conscience. And you're right. I don't know what it's like to be you, to do the things Albus asks of you. But I do know what it is to have to make difficult, impossible decisions. Decisions that don't just affect yourself. I know what it is to live with them. And I've learned over the years that things aren't always black and white, right or wrong. That's been …" She swallowed. "That's been a difficult lesson for me. So I can hardly fault you for struggling with it."
He didn't answer, and they lay there in silence. After a while, their breath started to come in synchrony, and it calmed her racing mind. She hoped it had the same effect on him.
They slept.