The last weeks sped by faster than I could have imagined. I spent a lot of time in the library with Susan while she studied for the remainder of her exams. I followed Severus' advice and looked for some books on healing. During the evenings after dinner I would often sneak down to the dungeons where I would sit in Severus' office, reading a book I had borrowed and watching him create his experimental potions.
It was my last night at Hogwarts. The final feast had taken place, the house cup had been awarded (To Gryffindor), and I was sitting, for one last time in the familiar dungeon office. The sound of bubbling liquid and the slightly sour smell of brewing potions hung in the air. I stared, hypnotized, as Severus moved deftly between cauldrons. His movements were swift, practiced, as though he had been doing it for centuries. A piece of hair slipped from behind his ear momentarily falling into his face before being tucked back again.
He stood over the cauldrons and surveyed the boiling potions. They slowly turned from teal to green. He turned around and sat at a chair across from me.
"Are you alright?" He asked.
"I'm fine." I said automatically, my eyes still focused on the cauldrons.
"You're sure?" He asked.
"Yes." I said, turning my head and looking at him. "Why?"
"You're crying." He said.
I immediately rushed a hand to my cheeks to wipe the tears I didn't realize I was crying. "I'm sorry."
"So what's wrong?" He asked. "You can't tell me you're fine. People don't normally cry when they're fine."
"I don't know." I said. "I'm really going to miss it here. I'm…really going to miss you."
"You don't need to miss me." He said.
"I can't help it, now can I?" I said. "I'm used to seeing you every day. You're a comfort. After tonight, who knows when I'll see you again? Tomorrow morning I will board the train to London and I will go back to my parent's home, and I will wait for my N.E.W.T. results. I will likely never set foot into this school again."
"You won't need to miss me for long." He said.
"What do you mean?" I asked, my heart jumping into my throat.
"I wanted it to be a surpise." He said, standing up.
He began wringing his hands. "I know you have your doubts, but you will start working at St. Mungo's and when you do…I want you to know that I will be there for you."
"What?" I asked, also standing up.
"I'm going to resign." He said. "I have a friend with very strong connections in the Ministry and I'm sure he'll be able to get me something there."
"You're leaving Hogwarts?" I asked, panic setting in at the realization that Dumbledore's prediction was coming true. "But you love it here."
"I love you more." He said.
"No." I said, shaking my head.
"No?"
"I mean, it's just…didn't you take this job as a favor to Dumbledore?"
"He'll understand."
"But what if he doesn't?"
"He will."
"But what if he doesn't?"
"What's the matter with you? I'm telling you that we can be together in London and you're arguing with me. I thought you'd be happy, but here you are, worried about Dumbledore's reaction."
"I'm just saying that it's irresponsible to just leave when someone is counting on you to be here. He helped you and you promised to stay here and now you're just going to leave?"
"Dumbledore will understand why I want to leave."
"What if…what if you stay here?"
His lips were beginning to tighten in anger. "How can you do this?"
"Do what?" I asked, my throat going dry.
"You're arguing with me when all I want to do is be with you. I thought you wanted the same thing but if none of this meant anything to you then tell me now."
I bit down on my bottom lip. "I don't want to hurt you, Severus."
"So that's it…"
I couldn't look at him. I was trying so hard not to cry.
"I need you to leave now."
"Severus, I'm sor…"
"You may address me as professor, Miss Winston. Now if you will please leave my office, I have work to do."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what? Sorry for pretending to love me or sorry that I fell for it? I can't believe I've been so stupid."
The slightly sour smell of the brewing potions quickly turned to a toxic stench. Clouds of purple grey smoke began to fill the room.
"You've made me ruin my potions!" Severus coughed. He raised his wand and gave it a swirl, the cauldrons emptied and the smoke disappeared. "Get out!"
"This isn't how it was supposed to happen."
"OUT!" He shouted as he grasped onto my arm and led me from the room.
My free hand patted over my robes, I found my wand and my fingers clasped around it. I couldn't leave Severus in this kind of pain. I never wanted to hurt him and this conversation had taken a very wrong turn. He pushed me over the threshold so that I was standing in the classroom. He turned away and made to push the door shut behind him.
"Obliviate!" I shouted as I pointed my wand at him through the doorway. My attempts to keep from crying were useless. Tears began to stream down my face. My arm fell limply at my side.
He stopped walking, his tight shoulders fell and relaxed. He looked around as though he had forgotten what he was meant to be doing.
I gave a small sniffle and he spun around to face me. His face showed no hint that he recognized me. His lip curled in disgust at the sight of my crying
"What are you doing?" He asked, in a stern tone that I hadn't heard in so long.
I was waiting to hear an audible crash when I felt my heart crack in two. A fresh wave of hot tears began to cascade over my cheeks. I turned away from him and ran from the classroom. I ran up the stairs past a few Slytherins and pushed my way into the first classroom I passed. I closed to door and pressed my back against it and slid down to the floor where my body continued to shake with violent sobs.
I stayed there for a long time. My mind kept repeating the moment when he turned to face me without even a hint of recognition shining through his eyes. Why had I stayed? What had I expected? I could have done without that memory. My knees began to throb with pain from kneeling on the stone floor for so long. I deserved it. I cried until my throat was raw, my head ached, and my eyes stung, no longer able to make tears.
I laid on my side and watched the streaming moonlight move across the classroom floor. I felt worthless. What had I done? I couldn't take it back. His memories of me, of us, were gone. There was nothing I could do to replace them. I had panicked at the worst time and made a rash decision. One that I would apparently regret immediately.
My mind wandered to weeks ago when I woke up next to him in the Shrieking Shack. A lump formed in my throat and my eyes pushed for a few more tears.
I wasn't sure how long I had been lying in the room before everything had simply gone numb. I had exhausted my emotions and my body no longer registered any physical pain. I lifted myself automatically off the floor. I quickly wiped my cheeks of any lingering wetness and pushed open the door.
The hall was empty. The door to Severus' dungeon stood in front of me. There was something almost surreal about being so close to him but knowing that I would never see him the same again. I turned to walk down the hall. I walked slowly and mechanically up staircases and through hallways to Ravenclaw tower.
The door opened to rather loud conversational noise that caught me off guard. I hadn't expected so many people to be awake much less making so much noise. I must have overestimated how late it was when I finally left the classroom. I was able to reach the stairs up to the dormitories without really being noticed. I realized I still had things to pack up.
"Oh good!" Susan shrieked as soon as I entered the room. "I was hoping you'd be back soon. I have such exciting news!"
I forced a smile. I wasn't sure how convincing it was but hopefully Susan was too excited by her own news that she would overlook it.
"Tell me!" I said in an overly excited tone. She would surely notice.
Susan was also in the middle of pack up. "Henry asked me…"
"If you say he asked you to marry him, I'm holding an intervention." I said.
"No, shut up!" She said throwing a pair of socks into her trunk. "Let me tell it!"
I picked up a shoe off the floor and put it into my trunk.
"Henry asked me to go to a Quidditch match with him and his family this summer!" Susan said, barely able to finish her sentence before she erupted in a screech.
"You hate Quidditch." I said.
"I know that." She said. "But I really like Henry so I'm willing to sit through it. Besides, I've gone to loads of Quidditch matches here, what's one more."
I shrugged as I threw a scarf into my trunk.
"Henry says I'll get a kick out of his youngest brother, Oliver." Susan continued. "Apparently he is completely obsessed with Quidditch."
"Isn't Henry?" I asked, throwing a quill into my trunk.
"Stop packing like that!" Susan yelled. "It's driving me crazy! Oh, let me do it!"
She crossed the room and took out everything I had just packed.
"I guess Oliver is worse than Henry." She said, neatly folding my clothes as she talked. "He loses sight of anything that isn't the game. Henry said once he and his brothers were playing a game at home and one of his other brothers fell off his broom and broke his wrist. They were bringing him inside when Oliver started yelling about how big of a baby he was to let a little scratch stop their game."
"Oliver sounds intense." I said as I sat on my bed, watching Susan pack my trunk for me. "How old is he?"
Susan smiled. "He's seven."
Susan continued with stories of Henry and his brothers. They were all quite entertaining and did help keep my mind occupied and off other things. Before long she had my trunk packed up and far more organized than it had ever been before.
Once the lights were out and everyone was in bed my mind went back to what had occurred in Snape's office. I'm not sure how much sleep I actually got but I was certain it was nowhere close to how much time I spent crying.
I remembered reading about the forgetfulness charm in a book my fourth year at Hogwarts. I never thought I would use it but I thought it was interesting. It seemed like very complicated magic since it removed all the subject's memories connected to a particular event or person. It even went as far as to remove all evidence including pictures and written words.
As soon as I spoke the incantation I hoped it wouldn't work. I wished it wouldn't work. I hadn't known why I had tried that spell. The argument we had been having would have been resolvable. Now there was nothing to fix.
By morning I had returned to a state of numbness, feeling nothing but I was able to put on an act to keep Susan's suspicions at bay.
When I finally arrived home I went directly up to my room, where I stayed for the rest of the night. My parents nor my brothers bothered me and I wasn't sure if that was because my mum and dad thought I would be tired from exams and told Sean and Louis not to bother me either. It had to have been very difficult for Sean because he always had so many questions for me when I got back. A few times I heard him come up the stairs and stand outside my door, sigh, and then go back downstairs. I felt bad but I was completely worthless.
By the next morning I felt up to unpacking my trunk for the last time. I didn't know what I was going to do with my robes. I put them in the drawer with the ones I had outgrown over the years. I tried not to allow myself to be too upset by telling myself that I was trading them in for acid green robes at St. Mungo's.
It wasn't long before I heard a knock at my door. It was Sean.
"Are you done being tired yet?" He asked hopefully.
I smiled. "Come in."
He sat on my bed asking me questions as I unpacked. It kept my mind occupied and he was quite entertaining. He told me about his school, a movie they had all gone to see a few weeks ago, and how Louis had a crush on a new girl in school and how much fun it was to tease him.
I reached into my trunk as I listened to his constant yammering. My hand his something cold and spherical. My heart fell into my stomach.
I pulled out a small snow globe, inside galloped a small silver unicorn.
I lost my balance as I crouched in front of my trunk and fell backwards, my back hitting the dresser behind me. A bottle of perfume fell to the floor and smashed.
"Are you okay?" Sean yelled as he hopped off my bed.
"I'm fine." I said, placing the snow globe on the floor. "Stay there, I don't want you cutting yourself on broken glass."
I began picking up the pieces of the shattered perfume bottle.
"Oh, cool!" Sean shouted.
I turned around to see him pick up the snow globe. "The unicorn is moving! Where did you get this?"
"It was a gift from someone." I said, as I looked for somewhere to put the glass.
"Was it Susan?" He asked.
"No, it wasn't Susan." I said, stretching to reach the rubbish bin in the corner.
"Was it the boy that made you sad at Christmas?" He asked.
My fist involuntarily clenched and I felt a piece of glass pierce my finger. I dropped the shards on the floor and brought my finger to my mouth.
"It was." He said, sounding sure based on my reaction. "So do you like him again? Am I going to get to meet him? He must really like you to give you something like this. Louis just gives the girl he likes sweets."
It was becoming increasingly hard not to cry again. "No, I don't think you're going to meet him."
"Why not?" Sean asked.
"Because you're just not." I said.
"Oh." Sean said, realization spreading across his face. "Sorry."
I heard my mum call up the stairs for Sean.
"Coming!" He yelled back.
He put the snow globe down on my bedside table as he left my room.
I finished picking up the broken glass and throwing them away before I used a pair of socks to mop up the spilled perfume. I threw the socks in the bin with the glass, opened the window to get some of the smell out and made my way downstairs.