Happy update day!
December has been too busy and I have not been sleeping well. But this chapter was a very welcome way to spend my down time. It's a bit heavy, but it was heavy in a nice way. Happy reading!
"You are not listening, Dumbledore! Once the progression takes hold there will be no stopping it," Snape pressed, fury coursing through his veins as Dumbledore merely observed him with that placid smile of his, as though Snape were some child needing the enlightenment the old man would offer.
"I think you will find I have been listening, Severus, and rather, I think it's you who refuses to hear what it is that I'm saying, because there very much is a way to stop the curse, just not a way for you to do it for her."
"What is that supposed to mean," Snape said through gritted teeth, fingernails digging into the cushion of the chair he sat stiffly upon.
A flicker of impatience crossed Dumbledore's tired features, momentarily satisfying Snape. Perhaps he would finally give the subject matter the attention it was due.
"I do not discount that your skills have spared Penny terrible pain, and without them she would have likely succumbed to it; being on the receiving end of such help, I can say with authority, it is a gift most dearly cherished," Dumbledore said, motioning to his blackened hand.
Flattery would get him nowhere, Snape scowled inwardly.
"But—" Dumbledore pressed on a little more loudly when Snape made to interrupt him, "it is time to accept this is a journey Penny has to make alone."
"So I'm supposed to just sit back and enjoy the show of watching her be torn apart from within, am I?" Snape said sardonically, getting to his feet, unable to sit there like some silly student being reprimanded by the headmaster. Too often Snape had heeded Dumbledore's word, done as he was bade and made no complaints. But not today, he would not remain silent about this.
"Certainly not. What use would there have been in learning as much as you have you about the curse if not to give her the best chance of succeeding?"
A sharp glance as he paused his pacing, the sneer working its way across Snape's thin lips, "Because telling her that soon she will be fighting an unseen battle for her sanity will be such a welcome burden on top of the multitude she already carries," he said derisively.
"I can empathize with the fact that for what you possess in magical talent, you also lack in communication skills, but can you honestly tell me you do not see the value of empowering Penny? Fostering her own ability to believe in herself?"
"I have already told you, she is still harboring guilt over Black's death, and that insolent half-breed only fed it! Her mental state is more precarious than you will acknowledge, and I fear this will be precisely what finally sends it toppling," Snape replied, his own impatience being less polite than Dumbledore's and putting itself on full display.
It was endless circles with the old man, him presuming in his arrogance to understand the finer workings of the girl's mind better than he, he who had spent more hours than any other, observing, studying, and cursing it.
"It is lucky then that we are speaking of souls and not minds, and I am quite confident saying that Penny harbors a most uniquely resilient soul," Dumbledore smiled, steepling his fingers as he appraised the man before him, blue eyes sparkling with that infuriating refusal to just state things plainly.
"Again with the souls, Dumbledore?" Snape seethed, returning to his pacing or else he might resort to yelling. "It is her mind that—"
"You are a brilliant man, Severus, but I think even you must concede that my own studies have taken me further than you. So please do not ignore me when I impress upon you how it is her innermost nature we must be tending to now, because I suspect, and my hunches are very rarely wrong, that it is doubt that will be her undoing."
"And exactly how does one doubt away their soul, Dumbledore?" Snape drawled sardonically.
The suggestion was ludicrous, even by Dumbledore's standards.
"By being uncertain who they are. Being the self-assured individual you are, you have likely never felt you should be someone else, but I fear those exact thoughts have plagued Penny for quite some time now."
Snape came to a stop for a second time, turning back to the headmaster, dark eyes narrowing. "I do wonder how it is you came to that conclusion when you make it abundantly evident your only concerns have remained with that brother of hers."
"Do not presume," Dumbledore said, and he sounded angry now, "that because I have made mistakes where Penny is concerned that I have not cared for her. I have watched her more closely than you can know, and I have found her to be a magnetic creature who shakes the foundations of everything she touches. Yes, I have been guilty of tending to Harry at the expense of Penny, and perhaps coddled her where I have not Harry, which is why I have decided that like the information I leave to Harry, I will offer to Penny the only thing I can, in hopes it will help her see the truth of herself."
"What haven't you told me? What did you do?" Snape accused, moving back toward the desk.
Dumbledore did not respond right away, instead examining his fingers for quite some time before saying, "I have written to Nurmengard." There was no wavering in his admission. He spoke the words as a man who had made up his mind and would not be deterred, but still, Snape could not help himself from trying.
"You cannot possibly be considering—He is a known manipulator!" he all but yelled.
"And the only other person alive like Penny."
"They are nothing alike!" The outrage was thick in Snape's voice, the indignation dripping from every fiber of his being.
"To that, I can wholeheartedly agree, but I think you will find she feels destined to follow the same path."
"So you would set her upon it by putting her within his grasp!"
"It is you now, who is coddling her, Severus, or do you think Penny so weak willed to be converted by a single meeting?"
Snape clamped his mouth shut, glowering at Dumbledore, who seemed content with this response.
"Penny must discover the power of her agency for herself, and I will admit, I do think he may offer some insights into her particular experiences."
"You would trust him! You, knowing more than anyone exactly what he is and what he's done, to tell her the truth?"
"They say he has shown remorse in these last years—" Dumbledore said, and for the first time in the conversation, he looked away from Snape, blue eyes dimmer somehow.
"A fool's hope! No, you are grasping at straws, wishing to make true what never was, before dying. I will not let you sacrifice Penny for this trip down memory lane!"
It was the straw that would break the camel's back. The thing that finally pushed Snape to mutiny. She'd already suffered, more than he could bear to acknowledge; what would possess Dumbledore to believe Snape could watch another person break a little more of that beautiful soul of hers. He was a horrid man, guilty of many evils, there was no denying that, but he would never be found guilty of not coming to her defense. Not now, not ever.
"I cannot fault you for that sentiment, Severus. Because like Penny and Grindelwald, you and I are intricately aware of the secret the other harbors, even if we, ourselves, wish to ignore its presence. My answer to you is this, I have made my peace, and while the years by Grindelwald's side offered me joys I have never known since, I have no intention of reliving the pain of it by questioning it. No. I will not accompany her, but was hoping you would."
Snape's lip curled, and now he was the one to look away when those damning gaze pierced Snape's, prying into the places no one else ever had, dredging up truths Snape himself did not dare to acknowledge.
The hands at Snape's side flexed and closed in rhythm with the clenching and unclenching of his jaw. "After everything, you would ask me, against my better judgment, to do this on your hunch! Does my conscience mean so little to you, Dumbledore?" Snape demanded. "It is an easy gamble for you to make standing before your executioner, but me, who cannot even tell her what I must do—to wager what precious little peace she is to have before—on the whisperings that maybe he feels remorse? You spoke of souls, Dumbledore, but have you ever spared a thought for mine—for what will be left of it if at the end of this she is lost to all the evil I have dragged into her life? Do not ask this of me. . ."
Dumbledore had the decency to look moderately shaken by Snape's plea, but then he seemed to steel himself against whatever thought had drifted across his mind and tinged his features with sorrow.
"You came to me a desperate man and risked it all for the possibility that Lily might be spared, and when Voldemort did as we would knew he would, you returned a broken man and made a vow to save Lily's son—"
"WITHOUT EVER KNOWING OF HER DAUGHTER," Snape screamed, slamming his hands down on the table before him.
"Because you never asked, Severus. Answer me truly, before meeting Penny would you have ever considered her anything more than James' child—"
"You never gave me the chance—"
His chest was heaving, eyes bulging. The old man was making a mockery of him, trying to manipulate him with the half-truths he'd been feeding Snape all these years.
"No, I did not, and if you'll forgive me, I do not regret it. But if you ask me, Penny made a marvelous case for herself, and I do not think a day has gone by these past six years that I have not been pleasantly surprised by the changes her presence has made in you."
"Pleasant? You have put me in an impossible position, cursed to wish only for her happiness while always being forced to put it second to what I must do—But not this time—"
"Only because you have convinced yourself that our goals are somehow in competition with her happiness. You of all people, Severus, must know that if we do not succeed in vanquishing Voldemort then Penny will be at the top of the list of people who suffer, and not simply because he wishes to kill Harry, her only remaining living relative, but because he would make her his servant. Yes, your love for Lily compelled you to take this vow, but it is your love for Penny that moves you to keep it. And I beg you, let that love move you now to trust Penny to stand on her two feet before it is too late."
He was pleading like a man on the edge of his looking seeing before him all his regrets laid neatly before him. It revolted Snape, reminded him of the evil he must still commit while Dumbledore got to move on and find his peace, leaving the worst of it and all the responsibility on Snape's shoulders. But still, his only thoughts were for Penny, and forgoing his own gripes with the old man, he had to press him, figure out what it was he wasn't saying.
"Too late? What is that supposed to mean?"
"That I have not asked for your mercy without acknowledging what coming out looking like you betrayed me will cost you and cost Penny. If you seek to save her soul from this curse, then I beseech you to consider her perspective if you would ask for her to look past such a betrayal without first demonstrating that you too, trust her instincts."
Both hands trembling on the table beneath him, Snape bent low, his face rigid with anger. "No," he breathed. "I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. But not this—I will not forsake her for you. Find someone else."
Sighing, blue eyes closing, making Dumbledore look like the tired old man it was often too easy to forget he was, he replied, "As you wish, Severus."
"No, of course I haven't asked him," Penny said in a hissed whisper, eyes darting to her twin's face. "How'd you suppose that would go—hey, Draco, any chance you poisoned the meade that almost killed Ron on his birthday? No? Are you sure? Just wanted to make sure you aren't a psycho murderer these days."
"Well you wouldn't have to be so obvious about it, but surely he's let something slip," Harry scowled.
"If he had, I'd hardly be running off to tell you, I'd be spending my energy helping him figure out how to get out of the awful situation he was obviously in."
"Look, Penny, I know you're friends and it's probably hard to accept which side he's on, but you can't ignore the fact he nearly killed Ron and Katie! Who knows what else he's capable of—"
"And I turned two little kids into monsters, do you wonder what else I'm capable of?" Penny said, entire body rigid.
"That's different! They forced you, Penny. No one in their right mind could blame you—"
"And if someone is threatening Draco, forcing him to do whatever it is he's doing, how can you blame him?"
"I-he-you're twisting this around to suit your argument!" Harry spluttered.
"No, you're just refusing to apply your own argument to Malfoy because you're determined to hate him. But I am not and tire of these conversations. I love you, Harry, but the world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters," Penny said, slamming Magik Moste Evile shut and gathering it into her arms.
His green eyes flashed to the title, eyebrows furrowing. "Why are you reading that?" he said, unable to keep the suspicion from his voice.
Penny scanned the guilty features of her twin, feeling she may have finally found a lead. "A project," she said stiffly. If he wasn't sharing his secrets that he was learning from Dumbledore, Penny was not about to share those she'd uncovered. And turning on her heel, she left him and his half finished paper, looking thoroughly irritated.
Achoo. For the 100th time that week Penny reached for the wall, the world around her spinning as she tried to recover from the sneeze.
"You alright there, Potter?" a wonderfully soothing voice said from behind her.
The deep set eyes of Sebastian peered down at Penny as he stepped up beside her, scanning her face.
"I'm f-f-achoo!" she sneezed again, nearly toppling over this time.
Sebastian reached out to steady her and picked up the book she'd dropped when he was certain she was not in danger of sneezing again.
"Sorry, had this awful cold that just won't go," Penny sniffled, wiping her watering eyes with the back of her shirt, giving him a small smile when he handed her the book.
"Maybe the bedtime reading material is giving you bad luck," he said, tapping the cover of the book pointedly.
"Oh, a bit on the morbid side I suppose, but I can't honestly blame the book for my bad luck, it's all my own," Penny shrugged.
"A bit morbid?" Sebastian said, heavy eyebrow arching skeptically. "Is that how you fell in love then? Bonding over the dark arts?" he asked, a mischievous smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"Fell in love with who?" Penny replied, perplexed.
"Professor Snape."
"Ooh," Penny said, her cheeks suddenly glowing red. "We aren't—it's not like that!"
"Then how'd you end up engaged?" he said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall as though they were having any old everyday conversation, and not discussing a highly sensitive matter Penny had yet to even confess to her brother.
"Err, it's complicated," Penny said, trying her best not to let the absurdity of her life sink in too much.
"A common theme with you," he mused, glancing out the window to observe the raindrops slide their way across it.
"It's probably why I'm a chain smoker," Penny sighed, following his gaze.
"You smoke?" he said, sounding surprised.
"Yeah, but not recently seeing as I'm trying to avoid a certain high strung Potions Master who happens to frequent my spot," she said, scowling as she recalled their last conversation.
"A lovers quarrel," Sebastian said, the amusement in his eyes startling her somewhat. His deep set eyes and low voice made him come across as more serious than his personality suggested making Penny feel unusually off kilter.
Pushing off the wall, Sebastian nodded toward the nearest secret passage, "C'mon, I'll share mine."
"Uhh, if Malfoy made you some kind of promise about some, er, favors. . ." Penny said, running her hand through her hair awkwardly.
"Ouch." he said, biting his tongue as he watched her. "I may be in Slytherin, but did you really take me for the kind of guy who would need to be motivated by a blowjob to hang out with you?"
"I just—Malfoy often says things that I don't condone—just wanted to be sure—" Penny said, fumbling horribly over her words, face burning.
"Malfoy says a lot of shit, all the Slytherins do, I've learned when to ignore it."
He was turning when Penny reached for his shoulder.
"Do you like Marlboros?" she asked apologetically.
Ten minutes later they were perched side by side on a table in one of the old green houses, Penny lighting up her cigarette and passing the pack to Sebastian.
"What's your deal, mystery man," Penny said, closing her eyes as she took a much needed drag from the cigarette, feeling her stress ease away, knowing her damn cold would not thank her later.
"What?" Sebastian coughed, Penny opening her eyes and finding herself pleasantly satisfied by the fact she'd caught him off guard this time.
"You never played on the team before, now you're captain. You know too much about my life, suggesting someone in your family works for the Dark Lord, but I always seem to find you on your own which makes me wonder what you're looking for."
"Is that how we're playing this?" he said, glancing at her from the corner of her eye while he took a long breath in.
"Did I miss the mark?" she said, a smug grin inching its way across her lips.
"Have it your way then," he said, letting the smoke in his lungs out with an exaggerated blow.
Turning, he pulled his legs onto the table, sitting crisscrossed as he considered her for a long moment.
"Being on the team comes with a certain notoriety, and I can't say I was all that keen to be associated with that group. My dad is the head of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, useful for finding the Dark Lord foreign allies," Sebastian said, Penny noting with some sadness the bitterness in Sebastian's voice. "It was his idea I join the team, thought getting on Snape's good side would bode well for us. And as for your last question, I don't know—anything else," he said, deep eyes meeting hers and striking Penny with the honesty she found in them.
"My turn," he said after a long silence where they mulled quietly over their own thoughts, observing the other through the haze of smoke between them.
"Tis only fair, I suppose," Penny sighed with a smile, turning and copying his crisscrossed position. "Have at it."
Putting out his dwindling cigarette and reaching for a second, he said, "You're the sister of the supposed chosen one, yet you spend all your time with a Death Eater—one who apparently wants to marry you," he said, derision ebbing into his voice. "You dated Cedric Diggory telling me you're pretty enough and popular enough to have anyone you like, and yet you can always be found going about your business alone. So I wonder, what is Penny Potter running away from?" he finished, watching her as he bent his head downward to light his cigarette.
Penny looked away first, afraid her face might betray the way the heart in her chest had skipped a bit. Flirting was fun, something that seemed might come easy with someone like Sebastian. What she had not bargained for was the way he cut right through her. For whatever reason she'd always just operated like she was invisible, never once considering that someone might have noticed those things she thought she kept securely hidden within her.
"The chosen one," Penny whispered to herself, reaching for another cigarette as well. "I feel I really should get more credit," she said, taking a huff. "Not developing a complex being the sibling of my pure, brilliant, perfect brother," Penny added, when Sebastian gave her a quizzical look.
He smiled down at his shoes in response.
"If someone miraculously knows we are twins, I'm just relegated to the other Potter, you know, the unimportant one," she said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "It's not Harry's fault, it's not like he got a say in it, and Merlin knows I'd never wish for the crap he's had to endure, but sometimes it just feels impossible to live up to," she shrugged. "As for that Death Eater—sometimes life offers no explanations and feelings that defy all logic, but I can't say I'm sorry about it—well not usually, lately he's determined to be an unrelenting ass who pretends not to know what feelings are, but it's not like I haven't always known what he is, I just never cared."
Sebastian's last question ate away at her, Penny knowing it would be in bad faith to just blatantly ignore, so she took her time smoking, pretending to watch the rain pattering against the roof above them.
"The people close to me always end up worse off, so I suppose it's me I'm running from," she finally admitted to the sky.
"Feel better?" Sebastian said as though he knew that sharing these bizarrely intimate truths with what was basically a stranger left Penny's heart feeling lighter than it had in months.
"Don't act like you don't, Slytherin boy," she said, green eyes turning mutinously back to him, making his mouth twitch.
"You say that with an awful lot of confidence for being someone so oblivious to the effect you have on others," he said, pressing the butt of his cigarette against his tongue to ensure it'd gone out before flicking it away and hopping down.
"And by that you mean?"
Gathering up his bag, he stopped beside her, his large hand resting on her thigh, brown eyes looking up through long lashes to find green, "You're important, Penny. If you let some of us catch up once in a while you might know you're fine the way you are."
"Fine?" Penny said, the indignation at the horrid adjective edging into her voice. "Please, tell me how you really feel."
"Haven't you learned yet, all the fun comes from working for it," he said, his cheekbones lifting slightly into a smirk, as he gave her thigh a light squeeze.
"You mustn't have realized I'm the competitive type," she smirked back, turning away to blow her smoke toward the ceiling.
"No, I was actually banking on that," he said, Penny whipping around to see him lift his hand lazily in farwell, head of blond head sauntering away toward the door, leaving Penny floundering.
She was not accustomed to others getting the last word, much less leaving her reeling after so easily breaking through the walls she'd convinced herself were impenetrable. And yet, she was not sorry for it. Sebastian Urquhart was an enigma, an enigma she quite liked the idea of solving.
It was just Penny's luck that when she finally came to her senses and abandoned the green houses it was pouring so hard that by the time she reached the Great Hall she was soaked head to toe.
Achoo! This time the sneeze actually knocked her off her feet, Penny landing painfully on her back. People around her laughed and pointed, giving Penny even less incentive to sit up. She really just preferred the idea of melting into the floor, but a Iong shadow looming before her refused to let her.
"What are you doing on the floor, Potter," Snape said, the impatience dripping from his voice.
"I sneezed," she said, grasping her head in her hands as another sneeze rolled violently over her.
Uncertain if his silence was a good or bad thing, she looked up once the room had stopped moving only to find him dragging her to her feet to get a better look at her.
"You're soaking wet," he accused, annoyed now. "I thought I told you at the start of the week to get a pepper up potion!"
"I did, I've had multiple," Penny protested as his hands clamped down on either side of her head to hold her still so he could examine her features.
His normally frigid hands were warm to the touch, Penny's teeth chattering damningly.
"And you didn't think you would share that information?"
"It's just a cold," she said in exasperation, Snape releasing her face in lieu of her wrist so as to drag her towards the stairs leading to the dungeons.
"Nothing is ever a 'just' when you're involved, Potter."
"You're so dramatic—achoo!" said Penny, nearly tumbling down the stairs, Snape holding her upright, dark eyes flashing, evidently vindicated.
Five minutes of his cursing later, he managed to drag her over the threshold of his private quarters. With a flick of his wand, he sent the fire roaring.
"You're going to give yourself hypothermia," he scowled, yanking her drenched sweater over her head. "Take the rest off," he demanded, making toward his bedroom.
When he returned, Penny had made very little progress, her violently shaking limbs making it very difficult to undo the buttons on her shirt.
Sighing in exasperation, he pushed her hands aside and began popping each button with ease, sending Penny's heart hammering in her chest, green eyes watching him tentatively. He glanced up at her as his hands slowed near her bust, careful not to brush anything he shouldn't, Penny certain she must be red as a tomato now.
Penny looked away, not at all eager to out how her desperate hormones were assailing her with all the times she'd imagined him undressing her in a less innocent manner.
Popping the last button, his hand moved to her shoulder to slide the shirt off her, making Penny gasp. He froze, hand lingering on her blissfully against her skin, "What hurts?" he said instinctively, making Penny feel even more guilty for her wandering, out of control thoughts.
"It doesn't, I was just surprised, I never thought the day would come where you felt as warm as Lupin," Penny lied quickly. It was a half truth, which he likely knew, but he did not press the subject.
"That's because this is not just a cold, you have a fever," he replied, pulling the shirt free from her arms and leaving her standing topless before him.
Were he a lesser man, he would have looked, Penny finding herself slightly disappointed when the dark eyes did not so much as glance at her and rather, remained focused on shaking out the dry shirt in his hand, which he forced over her head. It was much too big for her, falling around where her uniform skirt did.
Kneeling down, his nimble fingers reached beneath her thigh high socks, forcing Penny to bite down on her lip to prevent herself from responding to the pleasure it brought her pathetic hopes.
The electricity between them felt amplified ten fold on her leg, making it nearly impossible for Penny not to devolve into a puddle of arousal, but by some miracle she steadied her breathing before he pulled the second sock free. It was a bliss she had never known, and over much too soon, Snape either oblivious to her struggle, or blatantly ignoring it.
Standing, he pushed the shirt aside to unclip her skirt, Penny closing her eyes and wondering what she'd done to be tortured this way. But his hands were gone and he was collecting her wet clothes, leaving her shivering there in his oversized t-shirt.
He fiddled with hanging her clothing in front of the fire for a few minutes before turning and realizing she was still standing there waiting for instruction. Dark eyes found green before slowly trailing the length of her body and stopping on her bare thighs. He lingered much longer than she expected him too, Penny clearing her throat to get his attention because she was actually freezing now.
His face burning bright in the dim light, his eyes flashed away and he marched toward her, pushing her onto the couch by her shoulder.
"Is it my curse?" she said through chattering teeth as he rifled through a drawer beside her.
Finding what he was searching for, he said, "Open," tapping her bottom lip gently. When Penny obliged he dropped several drops of a horribly tasting concoction into her mouth, returning the bottle before fixing her with his dark eyes.
"It was never a cure," he said quietly, the apologetic guilt apparent in the lines of his face.
"It was nice to pretend while it lasted," she said with a small smile, sitting herself up a little more to reach for the blanket on the other side of the sofa, but Snape was there before she got anywhere near it, bringing with him a pillow that he tucked beneath her head.
"Sit," Penny said after he'd fussed with the blanket for a bit. "Please," she added when he looked on the verge of ignoring her.
Glancing at her cheeks, brows furrowed, he relented, sitting as far from where she laid as possible. Silence spanned between them, Snape watching the fire, lost in thought and Penny stared at the ceiling, freezing and conflicted. Her body was starting to ache, and though she was wrapped in a blanket it felt as though it only served to keep the cold sealed into her skin.
Just wanting a little of his warmth, his comfort, Penny wormed herself down off the arm of the chair, wiggling across the couch until her toes found his leg.
"What is it?" he said.
"Nothing, Penny lied, holding very still for a long moment, knowing he was watching her.
When she saw his shadow move, telling her he'd turned back to the fire, she moved, feet snaking over his hip to his stomach and toes curling around his shirt, she gave a little yank, tugging his shirt free of his pants.
"What are you doing, Potter—" he started, before gasping.
Penny's feet had found the gap between his shirt and pushed it aside, seeking refuge on his warm, smooth, and rippled abdomen, apparently shocking him with the stark difference in temperature.
"Merlin, you feel so good," Penny sighed, before realizing what she said. "Warm, you feel so warm!" she quickly fumbled, utterly mortified and glad he could not see how her cheeks burned in humiliation.
"You couldn't warn me—" he spluttered.
"Now you know how it feels," she smirked, propping herself on her elbows to watch him, head thrown back, body tensed and scowling as he tried not to squirm beneath her frosty toes.
Giving her an annoyed look from the corner of his eyes, cheeks pink, he reached beneath the blanket, soft hands finding her feet, and began rubbing them ever so gently.
"I missed this," she said, relief spreading from her toes upward unto the rest of her.
Arched eyebrow questioning her, she added, "Life with just us."
The lines around his mouth and eyes deepened, a look of tortured longing looking back at her. He was sad, but she did not understand why, because sitting here with him, though she felt like rubbish, made her perfectly content. How was it he did not feel that?
His right hand letting go of her foot and snaking its way to her ankle, face turning decidedly away from her, she felt for a second, maybe he did, and it was precisely that—the bliss of such moments and their fleeting nature that made him sad.
"Lay down, Potter, I'm not going anywhere," he said, voice adopting that resigned husky tone she only ever heard when he was on the verge of sleep.
Rolling over, Penny watched the fire for a long time, drowsy, but much too uncomfortable to find sleep, so she focused on the fingers making small circles on her calf until she could not take it any longer and sat up, turning and laying her head in his lap before he could protest.
With the ease of someone who had done it a thousand times before, Snape's fingers laced through her hair, lulling her into a sleep fraught with doors and Lupin's vacant eyes looking back at her.
Penny's quest for discovering what a horcrux was came to a very frustrating end the only mentioning of it she could find offered very little insight, Magik Moste Evile writing "Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction —" No other book in the library even made a mention, and Penny suspected it would be unwise to start asking questions, but concluded that whatever Dumbledore and Harry were discussing in private, it was related to some very powerful dark magic, which made Penny feel it must relate to the Dark Lord and possibly preparing Harry to finish him once and for all. The prospect was enough to at last placate her until she found any new leads.
With April came apparition tests for all those who were old enough, which felt like everyone except Penny and Harry. They were to be taken in Hogsmeade during double potions. The only ones not able to attend were Draco, Ernie, Harry and Penny. Slughorn seemed to understand the disappointment, and allowed them to use the period to brew him something 'amusing'.
"Why are we even still having class," Draco fumed. "He can hardly grade us and not the others."
"Think of it as an investment into next year."
"I'm not one for poor investments," he said. "There won't even be a Hogwarts to come back to after I've—" he said, catching himself with a sharp look in her direction.
"Go on, you have my full attention," she said, placing her chin in her hand and watching him.
"Don't you have the best potion to brew," he scowled.
"Oh, it can definitely wait for you," she said. "Whatever it is you think you have to do, you don't. Next year can be whatever we want it to be—"
"Don't bother wasting that deluded dribble on me, Penny. Even if I didn't—" he paused, considering his next words very carefully, lips a fine line. "It's going to break you in the end—the denial. You need to wake up and realize nothing will be the same," he said, almost apologetically, grey eyes angry when they found her green eyes.
"Whatever lies you've been told, we're fighting him, Draco," Penny whispered, almost pleading with him now. "Dumbledore, Snape, and many others. If you'd just let us help you—"
"For fucks sake, you're sitting right on the truth, Penny! It's always been there, and still you refuse to see it!" Draco said loudly, finally losing control and startling Penny. "So don't try telling me what it'll be like when it's a fantasy made up of the lies you've told yourself to avoid accepting you love a liar!"
Everyone was staring at them now, Draco's chest heaving, looking on the verge of strangling Penny, who'd taken a step away from him, Slughorn giving a disapproving "My, my!" but looking up eagerly from his desk all the same.
"I know you, Draco. You're a better person than you give yourself credit for. No matter how hard you try, you can't make me regret caring for you—"
"Not me you bloody fucking idiot!" he said rubbing his hands angrily over his face several times as he yelled into them, releasing all frustration that was so evident in his sunken, tortured features. "You won't see it and I can't make you—not until he—but it will be the end of you, the utter fucking end of you—so just swear to me you'll remember I love you, I do—you a Potter no less, and me a Malfoy," —he laughed, as though the entire thing was utterly absurd— "but I fucking love you, Penny. So when he breaks you into a million pieces swear you'll remember it," he said, reaching for her shirt and shaking her, grey eyes bloodshot as several tears hit the floor.
"Mr. Malfoy, I hardly think this the time or place for that kind of confession," Slughorn said, trying to sound scandalized, his greedy eyes moving between the pair.
"Draco," Penny said weakly, "What's this about? Talk to me. Please just talk to me," she begged, her own eyes burning now as several tears slid down her cheek.
His words, they filled Penny with a horrible fear, the fear that she had not done enough; not shown up enough for him, leaving him alone in the dark place he was now. And yet, he proved yet again that he was the better friend; the best Penny had ever had. Here he was, looking out for her, despite it all, everything he was enduring, he stood here trying to look out for her!
"Swear it to me!" he screamed, shaking her so violently, Harry finally moved when Slughorn didn't, stepping up and putting a threatening hand on his shoulder.
"Get off her, Malfoy," he said, a cold fury emanating from her twin, Penny mildly surprised he hadn't just swung at him.
Draco's eyes turned on Harry, the customary sneer appearing as he weighed him up with that great disdain he held towards her brother.
"I s-swear it," Penny finally stammered, afraid to let the moment slip by without honoring her friend's request.
"To your head of house, boy, let's go," Slughorn said, pushing himself slowly from his desk and apparently deciding he finally had to act.
"I'll take myself," Draco practically spat, grey eyes snapping back to Penny.
"I swear it," she said again, the tears blurring her vision.
And leaning in to kiss her cheek, Draco left, whispering "I love you," for the third time, as though she had not believed him the first two times he'd said it.
The door was snapping shut behind him, her twin speaking to her, but Penny did not hear him. She ripped herself free, her chest constricting, being reminded of how, too often, those she loved walked away from her only to never return.
She skidded down the hallway, Draco only at the first step.
"I love you too," she heaved. "I love you too, Draco," she shouted, afraid he hadn't heard her the first time.
He turned his head to give her the most peculiar look, as though she were some strange animal he had never seen before. A peculiar creature he could not explain or comprehend. "I know. I've always known," he said, his voice tinged with the kind of pity only someone who has been well loved by their parents understands; someone more familiar with the workings of love than Penny ever hoped to be.
Turning, he left her there, evidently wary that when she gathered her wits about her she might return to interrogating him.
"P-Penny, what was that about?" came Harry's voice. "Is there something going on between you and Draco?"
She turned, finding the familiar green eyes distant, wary, as though he were uncertain she was his twin or not.
"Don't look at me like that," she said, suddenly angry.
"Like what?"
"Like the idea of caring about him is so despicable, so unimaginable."
"What do you expect from me, Penny? His dad is a Death Eater, he was there laughing that night when Voldemort returned," Harry fumed, the mention of the Dark Lord's name making Penny flinch violently.
"Lucius was there, not Draco. When will you stop holding him accountable for his father's sins, Harry! Did it ever occur to you that sometimes you push people into these evil things when you don't allow them the chance to choose differently?"
"That's well and nice, except Malfoy hasn't chosen differently! He's working for him, Penny! He nearly killed Ron, but that doesn't matter to you does it? You'd rather keep pretending so you won't have to admit maybe you have a bad habit for liking people who aren't good for you!"
"Not good for me!" Penny scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief. "He got me out of that hellhole they were torturing me in! Lied for me to the Death Eaters, and continuously shows up for me when I think I can't take it anymore. He's my friend, my best friend, Harry, and I'm tired of feeling like I have to choose between you and him, I'm too tired to do it. No part of my life will stop going to shit—I can't—I can't do it anymore. So either keep your feelings about Draco to yourself, or just leave me alone."
Penny left him there, calling after her in his frustration, her heart too confused and heavy, her head throbbing with pain.
When had the chaos of the outside world breached the walls of Hogwarts, disturbing the little peace in her life? Why had she been so woefully inept at caring for the things most precious to her? Things were moving much too fast and no matter how hard she tried, everything just slipped through her fingers like sand through an hourglass, falling away from her and leaving her empty, alone.
Malfoy needed her; Harry was keeping things from her; Snape was confusing her with his hot and cold attitude; she still wasn't on speaking terms with Lupin but dreaming about his death nightly, on top of burgeoning fear surrounding the fact her curse was progressing making her feel helpless.
If she had a bursting point, this surely had to be it. Her mental state had no room left, nothing left to give; it would shatter if they didn't stop pressing in on her on all sides; it would shatter like the blood pact Penny had made with Sirius did when he'd fallen through the veil, leaving Penny behind though he'd promised not to.
She was standing on the third corridor, bent over, holding herself steady on the wall with one hand, the other holding her heart as she closed her eyes, hot tears splattering the ground as she cursed them, cursed herself for being too emotional and not strong enough to do anything to help Draco, Snape, Harry—any of them. They were always caring for her, picking up her pieces, but she was never the one able to do the same for them; wasn't able to stop Remus from spiraling into his drinking problem—no, he'd solved that after she'd left. None of them needed her, and Penny could not blame them now that she truly acknowledged what a nuisance she was.
"Potter?"
Springing to attention, Penny wiped her face quickly, cheeks red as she turned on her head of house, too embarrassed to meet the bespectacled gaze she knew was scrutinizing her appearance.
"S-sorry Professor. I know I should be in class, but I wasn't feeling well."
"Yes, I can see that," she said, her voice notably softer than Penny expected.
Penny looked up tentatively, finding Professor McGonagall frowning almost sadly at her before she straightened her glasses and crossed the distance between them to place a consoling hand on Penny's shoulder.
"Sometimes the sheer amount of similarities you share with James astounds me. He too was stubbornly steadfast and thought he always had to do things by himself. I credit Lily's influence for showing him the futility of such thinking," she said, voice steeped in nostalgia. "There can be no doubt you are a hardworking and capable individual, Penny. However, I do think you would benefit from being reminded once in a while that there is no shame in struggling and not knowing what to do. Sometimes our best course of action is just being. And yes, that includes crying, there is no shame in it."
"It just feels like such a waste of energy," Penny mumbled. "Like there is something more I should be doing."
"Motivated to a fault," Professor McGonagall sighed. "Tell me, Miss Potter, were you to stumble upon any of your friends expressing their emotions in such a way, would you tell them their time would be better well spent doing something productive?"
"Of course not—"
"Then I ask you to treat yourself with the same care and kindness you do them," she said, eyebrow arched. "Now come along, I think you could do with some lunch." Offering Penny her handkerchief, telling her she could keep it, Professor McGonagall left Penny at the Gryffindor table after filling her plate with every sweet offered.
Her spirits lifted slightly after a few pumpkin pasties, Penny deciding on a cup of coffee as she considered the danishes waiting to be devoured. Students started trickling in now that classes had finally ended. The 6th years taking their apparition tests had yet to show, leaving much of Penny's table empty, with Harry nowhere to be found.
Sipping her coffee Penny glanced up just as a tall dark figure entered the room, walking briskly as he always did. He looked lost in thought, or maybe annoyed, Penny thought, following his progress. Before he made it to the teachers table he turned, almost automatically, dark eyes sweeping the Gryffindor table until he found the green eyes watching him.
He stopped where he was, foot hovering on the step before him, Penny thinking she noted his eyes narrowing. Could he tell she'd been crying from that far away? She really shouldn't doubt his attentiveness, he never did miss a thing where she was concerned.
His body was turning, as though altering course like he intended to investigate further, a prospect Penny was not sure she was prepared for. She did not want to speak about Draco, or have the events stolen from her. The exchange had been too intimate, a private exchange that had not been private and the rest of the school would soon likely know about. Nevertheless, Penny did not feel that Snape's typical response to these sorts of things was what she needed right now. What she really wished for was for old Remus to return and fill every ache of her heart with his warmth.
Committing to make a break for it before Snape had any hope of cornering her, Penny got to her feet turning too quickly and collided with someone standing just behind her.
"Penny?" the soft tones said, his hand steadying her before he gave her distance, warm brown eyes searching her features.
The breath caught in Penny's chest, the heart in her screaming at her to reach out and touch his face, feel the life in it that had eluded her in the visions that had been tormenting her dreams for the last month. He stood before her, alive, though not looking all that well; more tired, beard unshaven. But his eyes, they sparkled like she always remembered, searching her face; following the streaks left by her tears; lingering on her red cheeks, and creasing with worry on her puffy eyes.
At the same moment, both of their hands moved, reaching as they had so many times before—to wipe away her pain—commit to memory every line of his face. But they both faltered, hesitating when the murmuring around pulled them out of the memory of how things had once been between them and returned to how they were now.
Lupin cleared his throat, glancing down, before offering her what he was holding.
"I thought these might brighten the rainy spring days, I know how you love tulips."
Tearing her eyes away from his face she looked down at the bouquet in his hands, obviously picked from his garden and tied together with a string. Penny smiled despite being confused about how she should act; genuinely smiled, the thoughtfulness of his gift reaching deep into her bruised chest and reminding her she was still capable of finding it—that happiness that had eluded her since Sirius passed.
"They're so beautiful, I almost feel sad to know you picked them."
"Oh don't worry my dear, their beauty pales in comparison to that smile of yours, so I require no solace," he said, Penny finding his own smile dancing along those lips of his. She had not realized how much she'd missed it, and yet her heart was still reluctant to trust it.
"I think we have an audience," he said, glancing around at the students murmuring and craning their necks to get a look at them.
"You have an audience," she corrected. "I am just boring ole Penny, you are the most beloved Defense Against the Dark Arts professor that left us too soon."
"Boring? Does that make me special then, seeing as I must be one of the few who know the truth?" He cocked his head slightly, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
"Do I even want to know what truth it is you speak of?" she sighed, glancing back toward Snape and finding him seated, looking furious as he stabbed murderously at his plate, staring decidedly away from the pair of them. "But regardless, yes, Remus, you are special. . .to me," she admitted, surprising even herself, cheeks reddening when she turned back and found him staring quite intently at her; that once tentative hand of his reaching and caressing her pink cheek with the back of his finger.
"I do not think I have ever met a more fascinating creature than you, Penny. But I won't bore you with all the ways you have made me a better person, I'll just ask if you'd accompany me somewhere a little more private so that I might tell you why I'm here."
"Yeah, alright," Penny said, reaching for her bag and following after Lupin, her green eyes drifting automatically to the black ones following her across the Great Hall.
Snape was jealous, that much Penny could tell. But it was an odd kind of jealousy, not prone to the shallow petty desires one normally associates with jealousy. That is, it was not so much Penny's proximity to Remus that upset him; Snape was looking at something entirely unseen with the naked eye—that connection between Penny and Lupin that would part heaven and earth, if only to sacrifice everything else for one more moment by the other's side.
It was not Remus that Snape was envious of, it was the freedom with which Remus loved Penny—unbeholden to a task that would inevitably tear them apart.
We are rounding the bend on the end of HBP and so much is converging and Penny is getting close to figuring stuff out but not quit close enough. It reminds me of the quiet before the storm. I just wanted to write a bit of fluff and cuddly stuff before getting into the shit show that is DH lol. Shout out to Draco for being the most emotionally capable one in this entire book lol.
Okay, I really need some sleep now. Chat soon!