Wednesday, December 2nd 1981
Hogwarts
6:30 a.m.
Eileen arrived on Florence's quarters to have breakfast with her and the twins, but walked out of the fireplace into a silent and empty living room.
"Florence?" she called, walking around the place, feeling that something wasn't right.
Everything was too still, no sounds of the kids getting ready for school, no laughter as they played while waiting for Florence to get ready.
Eileen walked into the boys' bedroom and saw them both still fast asleep on their beds, so she closed the door and went looking for their mother.
Walking into Florence's room, Eileen saw that the bed had no signs of having been slept on.
Could she have spent the night in the dungeons? She wondered with a smile; but soon dismissing that idea, for Florence wouldn't leave the kids alone, she'd have called either her, Tiffany or Pomfrey to look after the twins.
Then she noticed something that had her frowning: the floor by the door of Florence's bathroom was more than just wet: it was flooded.
Eileen walked towards the door and peeked inside the room, gasping at what she found inside.
"Florence!" she exclaimed, running in and kneeling beside the unconscious woman on the floor.
Eileen looked around frantically, noticing the unusual mess; there were things scattered all over the bathroom.
"What the fuck happened here?" she asked out loud, touching Florence's face, but the young woman was unresponsive.
So Eileen pulled her into the shower stall and turned on the water, cold.
Florence immediately sat up, inhaling loudly and coughing.
"Eileen!" she exclaimed with a relieved sigh, "Thankgoodness you're here!" she held the woman's arms tightly.
"Flor. What happened here?" Eileen asked, wandlessly turning off the water and frowning as she saw that Florence's eyes were light-green – she'd never seen her wake up with light-green eyes before.
"Just get the boys, Eileen," Florence said between breaths, "Get them away from me; for their safety. Please."
Eileen looked at her, very concerned, there was only one person with the ability of getting Florence out of control like that.
"Flor, what did Severus do?"
Florence closed her eyes, taking deep breaths, struggling to control her veela magic.
"He came here- accused me of sleeping with Remus-"
"Not this shit again!" shouted Eileen, angrily.
"Yes. Same jealous nonsense!" she nodded, continuing: "But that's not the worst. No," Florence shook her head, "The worst is that he came in here smelling of another woman," she inhaled sharply as the memory had her inner mythical being going crazy in rage, "Call Pomfrey for me, please. I need a strong dose of sleeping draught."
Eileen didn't hesitate, she ran to the fireplace calling Pomfrey, before waking up the boys and getting them ready to go, saying she was going to take them to have breakfast at McDonald's. They were very excited about that and left without asking for their mother.
Florence got herself up from the floor, feeling the wind restarting inside the bathroom.
"No! Just stop it! He's not here anymore!" she said, even though she knew the veela magic acted on instinct and not on reason.
She walked to the living room, still fighting for control. The veela was growling, her violent powers trying to take over her body again.
"No!" Florence shouted, holding onto the back of the sofa, her head down as she focused on her breathing, using the same technique she'd learned to avoid being controlled by an Imperius Curse.
Then the flames turned green in the fireplace and Pomfrey walked out of them with a bottle in her hand.
"Florence?" she abruptly stopped as she saw her state, "I brought the sleeping draught," she showed the half-litre bottle she was carrying.
"Thank you, Poppy. Just pour it to me in a glass please. Half of that will be enough."
"Half of it?" Pomfrey stopped, looking from the bottle to her, worried.
"Yes. It has to be strong. I need to put her to sleep."
Pomfrey nodded, understanding but still frowning in concern, "I'll keep an eye on you during the next couple of hours, Florence."
"Sure. Whatever," she didn't care what the other mediwitch did, she just needed to leash that blood-thirsty creature again.
Pomfrey poured half of the bottle of sleeping draught into a glass and gave it to Florence, who drank it all fast and lay down on the sofa, falling into a deep sleep within seconds.
Pomfrey checked her vital signs and left after thirty minutes. Going back every half an hour to check on her again.
That night, Severus spent many sleepless hours brewing and pacing his quarters; after tossing and turning in bed, his mind filled by the horror and the despair he had seen in Florence's green eyes earlier, he gave up trying to rest and decided to work.
His eyes were on the cauldrons, but his thoughts were completely on her.
Florence's reaction left him surprised and confused; he could swear he had heard her veela purring for him in the bathroom, how wrong was that when she had been washing her body off of another man's fluids just seconds before?
Unless, part of him considered, I got things wrong last night.
He put the potions in a stasis spell and started pacing, thinking; Florence had already told him she hadn't slept with Lupin the night she'd healed his concussion and made love to him months ago.
But last night the wolf kissed her! I saw it in his mind! He kissed and held her and fucked her!
Didn't he?
Severus stopped pacing and touched his cheek, where she'd slapped the hell out of him; the place was warm, swollen and throbbing – he knew he'd have to hide it with a spell before going to class that morning.
Florence had been furious – and he couldn't understand why. How could she be angry at him for smelling of another woman, when she herself had just fucked the wolf?
Hadn't she?
At eleven, Severus returned to his lab and he could tell that Florence hadn't been there that morning. The place was exactly like it had been before he left, the three potions he had started during the night lay untouched, still with his stasis spell on them, and no papers had been graded.
He hadn't expected her to show up, but her absence hurt anyway.
He walked into his private quarters and called the kitchens by Floo, asking the elves to send his lunch to his living room, for he couldn't drink firewhisky in the Great Hall, and he knew he was going to need it to get through that day.
His skin abhorred his clothes, his face hurt, his mind was a mess, and he couldn't forget the pain he had seen in Florence's eyes the night before.
He sat on his armchair – no longer blood-stained thanks to the elves – and picked up the jade necklace he had left in the side table, memories of Florence wearing it with her eyes sparkling in that exact shade of green filled his mind.
He dreamed of putting that around her neck again; that necklace had been his way of claiming her after she had refused to marry him so many times.
Could she be planning on marrying the wolf?
He fisted his hands in anger.
Never. I will not-
The sound of unexpected knocks took him out of his rage-inducing thoughts.
He didn't even get up, with just a flick of his wand he opened the door.
"What do you want, Albus?" he asked with his eyes in the fireplace.
But the sound of the door being slammed shut had him opening his eyes and frowning – Dumbledore never slammed doors shut.
He turned to look at the visitor.
"Lupin," he drawled, letting the necklace fall on top of the side table and standing up.
"I can't beat you in a duel, Snivellus," Remus snarled, "But I sure as hell can kick your ass in a fistfight! Get up. I'm giving you some new wounds to match the cuts I know you already have on your back," Remus assumed a fighting stance, feeling the lycan blood in his veins pumping into his muscles.
"I'm not getting into a fistfight with a werewolf," replied Severus, rolling his eyes and adding, sarcastically: "I've already done that this week, thank you."
"So you won't fight me? Really?" Remus smirked, "Not even when I tell you how delicious my night with her was? Flor's gorgeous when she cums, isn't she?"
That had Severus jumping to his feet, throwing his wand onto the armchair, and walking towards the other man.
"Shut up, wolf!" he growled.
"I must say that after seeing Florence so lost in pleasure at the end of my dick, I can totally see why you and Sirius are so obsessed with her."
And Severus jumped on him, missing his first punch but hitting Remus's shoulder on the second try.
But Remus landed a hard blow on his left ribs and continued to rile him up: "I can't wait to beat you up and go back to her bed," he hit Severus's jaw hard enough to make him spit a tooth, "You shouldn't expect to see your assistant this afternoon. I'll have her assist me- on her knees," he smirked, making it clear what he meant.
Severus punched Lupin's stomach but the werewolf apparently barely felt it, quickly hitting him on the ribs twice more in return.
Severus groaned in pain and fell onto his knees in front of the man, "So she lied to me-" he said between breaths, "She said you two... never..." his mind filling with images of Florence kissing Lupin, having sex with him, marrying-
NO!
He shook his head, growling in rage and jumping from the floor, head-butting Remus's stomach and pushing him against the wall, punching him repeatedly.
But Remus's werewolf blood gave him enough strength to easily push Severus backwards, making him fall by the armchair, blood dripping from his mouth.
"Fuck!" Severus groaned, feeling that at least one of his ribs had to be broken.
But then he saw it: his wand lying on the armchair, and he didn't hesitate in grabbing it and pointing it at Remus.
"I'll fucking kill you, werewolf!" he said as he stood up, blood dripping down his chin.
"Why?" Remus asked, trying to make the other man think, "Why are you this angry about me fucking her when for a long time you shared your bed with many different women?" he paused, glaring at him, "You even tried to do that last night! Why can you fuck around, but she can't?"
"She's mine!" Severus shouted furiously.
"Is she?" Remus's smirk was back, "It wasn't your name she was screaming last night though, was it?"
And in the blink of an eye, Severus was right in front of him, pressing his wand on Remus's neck.
"Last words, wolf," he growled.
"Look into my mind, Severus," Remus said, raising his hands in a sign of surrender.
"No! I don't want to see you fucking her!" he shouted, pain mixed with fury in his voice.
"And you won't!" admitted Remus, "She kissed me, yes. But look at how it happened!"
"Legillimens," Severus whispered, watching how Florence told Remus about him saying that he was going out, her pain as she said she wished she could have chosen Lupin, and how she'd kissed him before crying herself to sleep on his chest.
He stopped the spell and took a step back from Remus, no longer taken by a jealous rage.
"How about months ago...?" he asked.
Remus rolled his eyes, "I've never fucked her, man! What you saw was the first time we kissed. And the last."
Severus looked at him, the reality of how big he had fucked up hitting him, "So that means..."
"It means what we all already know: you're an idiot!" Remus exclaimed, with a hint of exasperation, "You have to apologise to her!"
"How? How could she ever forgive me?" he whispered, shaking his head.
"I don't know, man," said Remus, "But that's why she came to Hogwarts: to help you and to hear an apology."
Severus looked at him with desperation in his eyes, "Doesn't she blame me? For the baby?" he needed to know.
Remus shook his head, "You should ask her that yourself."
Severus slowly nodded and moved to the door, but he suddenly inhaled sharply and stopped walking, slowly getting down onto the floor.
"Lupin, I- I'm going to need your help getting to the hospital wing. You broke my ribs and I think one of them just pierced my lung."
"Oh, shit!" cursed Remus, helping him walk to the first floor.
When Florence woke up from the draught-induced sleep, it was a little after noon, and she was feeling like herself again.
She had her blood-thirsty veela back on a mental lead and was starving.
Having lunch at the dining table was how Pomfrey found her minutes later, when she ran out of her fireplace unexpectedly.
"Florence! Thankgoodness you're up! I need you to see this!" Pomfrey laughed.
"What happened, Poppy?"
"Come, come," she motioned excitedly, "you have to see what's happening in the infirmary!"
"Ok," Florence drawled, smiling, and followed her to the hospital wing, wondering what she'd find there.
"What the fuck happened?" Florence shouted as she walked out of the fireplace, seeing the two men in the beds in front of her.
She rushed to Remus, her eyes going to Severus and back to her friend who had a purpling jaw and a split lip, "Who did this to you?"
Remus just shook his head, "It doesn't matter, Flor. I'm fine. Help Severus, he has a pierced lung."
She inhaled sharply and turned quickly to the other bed, noticing that Severus really looked way worse than Remus.
"Florence," he started, needing to say something.
"Shut up! For Merlin's sake, Severus, shut your fucking mouth!" she growled as she passed her wand over his body, focused on checking his wounds.
He did have two broken ribs and one had punctured his lung; also, he had lost a tooth and had another one about to fall off.
She healed it all, taking around five minutes and many incantations to finish healing him.
When she was done, there were three pairs of eyes looking at her. And Pomfrey seemed about to fall into laughter again.
"What's happening here?" Florence asked, "How did you two get hurt like this? There was no trace of any spells on you, Severus. Which means you got all of that in a fistfight," She frowned and then ran her wand over Remus, who was on the bed to the right of Severus's, "But you do have a trace of something, and it's... legillimens," she said, looking from him to Severus, understanding what had happened there.
"I was at The Three Broomsticks last night-" started Remus.
Florence closed her eyes, "I don't need to hear it, Moony."
But he went on: "And Eileen told me this morning what Severus did, how she found you unconscious on the bathroom floor."
Severus winced, the knowledge that she had slept on the floor of the bathroom because of his stupidity and jealousy just reinforcing his certainty that she'd never forgive him.
"I appreciate you beating him up for me," Florence sighed, "But...," she shook her head and looked at Severus, pain clear in her eyes, "You just had to see it for yourself, didn't you? You used legilimens on Remus to see if he had fucked me or not," she sounded sad, disappointed and hurt, "My word is not enough for you."
"Florence, no, it's not that," Severus whispered, the stabbing pain on his ribs making him gasp.
But she just turned and left, not even looking at him again, failing to see the amusement Pomfrey seemed to have seen.
The door had just closed behind Florence when Severus tried to get up to go after her.
"No! No, you're not getting out of that bed today!" ordered Pomfrey, "She's just healed your wounds. You're on bed rest until tomorrow!"
"I have to go after her, Pomfrey!" he sounded desperate.
"You haven't apologized for thirty-two days, Severus! She can wait another twenty-four hours," she looked at Remus in annoyance, "Why did you have to break his ribs?"
"He deserved it," Remus shrugged, "It was out of love. A wake-up call. From a friend to another."
Pomfrey shook her head. But she sighed, nodding: "You did deserve it, Severus."
He laid his head on the pillow, whispering: "I know."
Florence spent the rest of the day in the potions lab.
She had decided she'd brew all she could in just one day and then she'd leave the castle.
She refused to stay there another day.
If he wants to talk to me, he knows where I live.
She was hard at work when Dumbledore walked into the lab, looking at the eight cauldrons on the long worktable – each of them letting out different vapours and smells – with a frown.
"Do you know why my Potions Master is in the hospital wing, Florence?"
"Yes. Because he's an idiot who got into a fistfight with a werewolf about something he only had to ask," then she added with sarcasm: "But why ask when he can get his ass kicked, his lungs pierced, lose a tooth and use legilimens?" she nearly shouted on anger.
The headmaster looked at the cauldrons warily again, "Is it even safe to be brewing so many different potions at the same time?"
"Well, that depends on how great is my desire to just throw a bursting mushroom to one of these cauldrons," she scathingly replied.
He let out a loud sigh, "Florence, you're not leaving," he said, clearly understanding what she was doing.
"Yes, I am," she not even hesitated, "I came here to help him, to hear an apology, to-" her voice broke as the feelings of his betrayal choked her, "To fall into his arms and maybe- maybe even say 'yes' to his persistent proposal."
Dumbledore looked surprised.
"But now..." Florence shook her head, "He doesn't talk to me. He accuses me of cheating on him when he makes plans to go fuck some bitch in Hogsmeade!" she shouted, walking around the worktable, adding different ingredients to different cauldrons and stirring each one accordingly, "Acting irrationally and moody like a jealous teenager!" she shook her head, "I swear, if James acts like that when he grows up, I'm sending him to Hogwarts and let Severus deal with him!"
"Severus has always been a jealous man, Florence. You cannot be surprised by that."
She added ingredients to the last cauldron and stopped, glaring at Dumbledore, her voice low and filled with pain:
"I'm hurt, Albus... what I felt last night-" she closed her eyes at the memory, "He stormed into my bathroom smelling of Hogsmeade's little whore, Cassiopeia."
Dumbledore looked at her, surprised: "Your veela must've gone crazy."
She snorted, "That's an understatement. There was wind and water and a thirst for his blood... I passed out on the floor of the bathroom. Where Eileen found me this morning. I had her take the twins to school and I didn't even see them, because I was taken by anger, I didn't want them to see me like that."
Dumbledore just stared at her for a minute, then he nodded, "Sunday. You can leave then. Just give him three more days, Florence."
She sighed, knowing that arguing with Dumbledore wouldn't take her anywhere, so she silently acquiesced.
It was five in the afternoon when Florence finished cleaning the last cauldron.
She took a large cardboard box and filled it with all the potions she had prepared that day, then she went to the hospital wing.
She opened the door of the infirmary and walked in slowly, seeing that just one bed was still occupied.
Severus lay asleep in the infirmary bed, looking peaceful and relaxed, his hair messier than usual and his bottom lip a little swollen.
She paused for a second by the foot of his bed, looking at him, her heart wishing she could go to him, lessen his pain, touch and kiss him-
No. She shook her head. He doesn't deserve my love.
So she went to the storage room, distracting herself by putting the vials in their correct places in Pomfrey's very organized shelves.
"Florence," she suddenly heard Severus say and turned to find him standing by the door of the storage room.
"I know now what I need to tell you," he continued.
Florence looked back to the Potions shelves, her heart pounding in her chest, "It doesn't matter anymore," she said, finishing putting all the vials in place and turning to look at him, silently waiting for him to get away from the door.
He immediately did it and she walked out of the storage room, closing the door and not failing to see that he still wore the same blood-stained shirt from his fight with Remus, and black pants.
Without a word, Florence moved to the exit of the Infirmary, too angry and hurt to want to listen to him right then.
"You promised you were going to listen," Severus reminded her.
She stopped and turned to look at him, "Fine," she locked the infirmary door and cast a silencing spell, "Say what you want to say, I'll listen."
"I'm sorry," Severus didn't hesitate.
"For what? Be specific," she demanded with her arms crossed.
And he went on: "I'm sorry for all I said to you the night you lost the baby... I was blinded by fear and jealousy. I had seen Remus whispering in your ear at the party. And you danced with him. Then you didn't seem to want to dance with me and... I remembered you had told me about having dinner with him a couple of months before-"
"Do you really think I'd do that?" she asked, trying not to cry, "That I'd sleep with Remus and then with you in the same night?"
He shook his head, "No. I knew I was wrong. I regretted saying it the moment the words left my mouth, but I just kept remembering you dancing with him and you had worn such a sexy dress the night you had dinner with him," he paused, "When you told Pomfrey to check the baby, I have to admit: I feared it wasn't mine. Again," he looked at her, the pain clear in his dark eyes.
Florence gulped, freezing in place as she realised what he was saying: Again, he thought he wasn't the father again.
He continued: "It was the same nightmare of years ago: you were pregnant and, once more, I wasn't the father."
She licked her lips, quickly hiding her thoughts with occlumency.
"But I told you the baby was yours," she said.
He shook his head, "I'm afraid I was so lost in my own jealousy and pain that I just couldn't believe it."
"Why? I told you it was yours!" she had to understand why he had doubted her so much.
"Because..." he whispered, finally admitting: "If I was the father, that meant my bad choices killed our baby."
Florence felt her heart breaking for him, she walked towards him and touched his face with both her hands.
"Stop it, Severus. You didn't kill our baby," She whispered, "Voldemort killed our baby."
"You don't blame me?" he asked, touching her face as well.
"No! I'd never do that!"
"Then why...?" he touched her neck where the imperial jade used to be. "Why did you give me back the necklace?"
She let her hands down from his face and looked at him as if it was obvious: "You accused me of sleeping around as I cried the loss of our baby! How do you think I felt? I wanted your arms around me, holding me as I cried, but instead you were calling me a slag! Questioning how I knew you were the father!"
"I am truly sorry," he said, looking into her eyes with tears in his, and she could see he was being sincere.
She slowly nodded, saying: "I forgive you."
He smiled and tried to close the gap between them. But she took a step back, taking his hand off of her face and shaking her head.
"No. No. Don't. I thought hearing your apology would be enough – but it turns out it's not. You hurt me that day and you hurt me again last night."
"I was jealous!" Severus admitted, grimacing as he realized that it was a lame excuse, "Again."
"So is that how it's always going to be? You get jealous, don't talk to me, call me names, and fuck Cassiopeia?" she sounded furious.
"I didn't fuck her. I couldn't."
"Why not? Now you'll tell me you're having problems to keep it up?" she crossed her arms again.
"No. Quite the opposite really. I've been hard for the last four days and nothing can make it go down," he let out an exhausted sigh, "My skin hurts. I'm irritated. My dick hates the touch of my own hand."
"Have you ever felt that way before?" her medical training making her ask that.
"Yes. Whenever I kiss you and you run before I could make love to you. After that... I'd go days like this," de looked down, and she could see he was hard under his pants.
"Why not just fuck Cassiopeia then?" she asked, angrily, her veela growling at her for giving their mate such horrible ideas.
Severus grimaced, "I hate to say that I did it, sometimes. But it never worked. Not fully anyway. There's only ever been one thing that fixed my problem..."
"What?" she honestly asked, trying to understand what was happening to him.
"You," he replied.
And she laughed: "Ha! Good one, Severus. But that nice sad story is not going to make me fall into bed with you. If you're having problems to fuck other women, I have nothing to do with it! You've been doing it for years, So, yeah, nice try. Fuck off!"
And she walked away from him, leaving the hospital wing, as angry as she had walked in.
That night, after she had put the twins to bed, Florence sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace to talk to Eileen.
"Severus is getting out of the infirmary tomorrow," Eileen said.
"Good for him," Florence whispered, sipping some wine.
"I visited him before dinner, he told me what happened, how he got hurt. He also said that he's apologized to you."
"Yes. He finally did it," Florence sighed, looking at the flames, sad and confused at her own feelings. "But it wasn't how I thought it would be. I thought hearing his apology would heal me, that it would make me forget at least some of the pain of having lost my baby. But... Ait still hurts," she finished in a broken whisper, feeling some tears roll down her face.
"You'll always hurt because of that baby," said Eileen, with the certainty that one only had after having lived through a hard situation. "Believe me," She whispered, her eyes tearing up as she sipped her tea.
Florence frowned and asked softly: "You had a miscarriage?"
"Yes. A baby girl," Eileen averted her eyes, as tears fell from them, "I was almost five months pregnant. Severus was seven years old."
"What happened?" Florence asked, although she feared she knew.
"Tobias pushed me down the stairs," she whispered.
"Oh, no!" Florence gasped, "That's horrible!"
Eileen took a deep breath, "As you can see, I've never stopped hurting," she wiped her tears and looked at Florence, "You'll never forget that night, the friends that died, the ones that were locked away or put in the hospital, and you'll never stop hurting for the child you lost – certain things we never move on from, but we must move forward with."
Florence nodded, understanding what she was saying; she pulled Eileen for a hug, "I love you, godmother. Thank you for sharing that with me."
Eileen just nodded.
Then Florence asked: "What was the name of your baby?"
"Elizabeth."
Florence gave her a small smile, knowing right then that if she ever had a daughter, she already knew what her name would be.
Note: Finally! Things are going back to the land of happiness! Next chapters are happy! Hard to believe it, I know, but it's the truth (which is the title of chapter 50! *wink-wink*).