Snape touched the tip of his wand to his temple and drew from it, a shining silvery thread. He waved his wand over the tranquil silver surface of a large basin and let the thread drop into the liquid. Images of a spectre drawing closer to him played across the surface, replaced by Coffrey's pale face accompanied by the faint sound of anguished cries, before dissolving away. With the memory safely in the Pensieve, it would not be vulnerable to the Dark Lord's intrusion. It would be too difficult to explain away this entire encounter. He rubbed the lower right side of his chest, remembering the startling feeling of being stabbed.
The floo in his chambers roared to life and amid the green flames, Dumbledore's head stuck out.
"Severus"
"You may come through"
Dumbledore stepped into the room neatly. Behind him, the flames extinguished to just a whisp of vapor.
"She was delivered to muggle London safely," said Snape, turning from the Pensieve.
"Good," said Dumbledore. "We can't afford the plan to change on the account of a stray muggle. You did check if anyone else would know of her absence?"
Snape's lip curled in barely concealed disgust. Everyone he met who was not being handled by his spymaster was subject to being played by him. There were times where Snape wished he wasn't such an accomplished Legilimens.
"She was alone"
Dumbledore peered at him over his half-moon spectacles in almost a scolding manner.
"You know she's safer this way... How are you feeling, Severus?" asked the older wizard softly.
The resentment Snape had been harboring ever since he recovered bubbled out of him without warning.
"How am I feeling?" he hissed. "How would you feel after being cursed by every hex known to man, suffering a punctured lung, and being beaten within an inch of you life. And for what? Being misinformed does not begin to describe the utter disaster the entire operation was!"
Dumbledore quietly stood through the enraged rant. This was the way most of these types of interactions played out.
"You do realize that these incidents are becoming too common for my liking. And with each explosive clash with the Ministry, He is becoming more suspicious of my utility"
"There is a problem," Dumbledore admitted. "Moody is going to be reviewing our sources"
"And until then?"
"Cautiously maintain your alliance with Lucius Malfoy. I need to speak to Minerva now, Poppy was a little overexcited"
Snape huffed quietly. "Women," he said with little mirth. Dumbledore took no note of it and stepped back into the floo, disappearing through the flames.
The Summer of 1991 was an exciting time for Erin. She and Jonathan became fast friends. The man was brilliant and driven. He got her settled in and soon they were combing through the extensive database he had been compiling over the years.
When she wasn't working, she tried to reconcile her recent experience with the real world. She had gone to a therapist but found the interaction hollow. The inability to speak freely about what happened created a wall between them, and soon it was clear the sessions were useless. She ended up fabricating some story about being abandoned by an ex-boyfriend which the therapist eagerly took notes on and declared she was just depressed. That was depressing. Erin eventually found solace in writing everything down in detail into a notebook, rereading it, then burning it to ashes in her trashcan. She had felt distinctly punk about the whole affair as she sat back in an armchair with the smoke detector in one hand and a drink in the other, watching as the flames devoured the notebook and the smoke exited through her window.
She had come to the conclusion that she was going to quietly at peace with the fact that she had touched another world, because the alternative was insanity. With some trepidation, she had set to experimenting on the hand. It was true, the sensitivity of the limb had limits. Touching the flame of the gas range was hot but not appropriately so, getting ahold of the dry ice in the vaccine icebox was cold but not to the point of pain. She had gone as far as to hold the dry ice for at least ten minutes, finding that her fingers moved just a tiny bit slower, but didn't seem damaged at all.
While properly buzzed, she had gone through a back and forth with herself on whether bashing her hand in with a hammer was a good idea. It took another swig of whiskey and a listing of pros and cons before she brought the tool down over the top of her hand. She preemptively let out a scream, covered by the raucous music in the background. But when she opened one eye to take a look at the damage, found that the hammer had the imprint of scales on the face, and the hand was unscathed. She remembered involuntarily letting out a maniacal cackle at that one. The last test she had done was to see if dirt would destroy the mechanism somehow that drove the movement of the scales. It unnaturally repelled everything she threw at it. Once a needle she was trying to insert within the tiny spaces was flung out like a missile, she stopped. It wouldn't do to show up at the Emergency room trying to explain how she had launched a needle into her eye out of her mechanical hand.
Jonathan had sensed an air of melancholy about her despite her denials, and set out to completely distracting her from being internally preoccupied. He was delighted when she finally came around the bend and commemorated the day by revealing to her they had managed to secure funding for their pet project.
"Pack your bags girly, we're off to Scotland!"
They took a cheap flight to a countryside town, concluding their trip in a cottage with a large shed
"Home sweet home," said Erin.
"For a few months, hope you like bugs," said Jonathan.
"As long as I'm not eating them," she quipped.
They put their things in the den, and set to exploring the house. There was only the master bedroom, which sported a modest bunk bed and sink. Jon seemed to know the drill and had already pushed the couch flush against a wall and set up a cot. It was nice when chivalry worked to her advantage, though she wouldn't have minded alternating between bed and couch every month. The kitchen was small, but had the essentials. The water ran, cold and not cold.
"Are we juiced up?" she asked when she re-entered the den.
He was bent over, following the wire from the lamp to the outlet.
"Yeah in a moment. Just don't touch anything," he said.
"I think you're superstitious about women and electronics," said Erin, putting a hand on her hips.
He had tracked down the outlet and made a face at her.
"Listen to me, woman. I was never this sensitive about my gadgets before you came along"
She snorted.
"Bullshit"
Once he had his computer, projector, and cell phone plugged in, he plopped himself on the couch. Erin sat beside him and held out a hand as he opened a packet of crisps from his bookbag.
"Never though I'd end up here," she said between bites.
"What was the five-year plan?"
She flicked the salt off her fingers and stared off into the distance.
"After residency, the idea was to find a guy. But I ended up working a lot and then it felt like no one I really liked was around. I guess I got...bored. I didn't want to just do the daily grind, but I wanted to time to mean something more. All my friends got married, had kids, and they were out of the picture. I'd always wanted to travel, so when we started speaking online, I knew it was time for a change"
"You?" she asked.
In a moment of rare seriousness, he looked off towards the distance and gave a deep sigh.
"I had a large extended family. But my parents never spoke about anyone else apart from a few of their siblings. On my eleventh birthday, a man came to the door and gave me a gift. The next day, he was completely addled. The worst case of early-onset Alzheimer's I'd ever seen. And it wasn't just him, I had several relatives who lived in the same town with the same problem. They were ignored and hidden away as village idiots. I could never explain it, even now, but they were all muddled, confused, a few became psychotic. Mum and dad didn't care, it wasn't their problem. They were preoccupied with other things. There was a lot of crime where I lived. A lot of poverty, general misery. I felt that I had to just get out of it, and being a doctor, well, it had never crossed my mind...but it was the way out. And well, five years? This is probably it. Send off the prelim report and hope for more money. "
"Hm. I had you pegged as a legacy to the Royal College," she said, trying to add some levity.
"No," he said in a far off voice, "I was the first. The only"
The atmosphere had become very solemn.
He looked at her with an expression she had never seen before, almost like intense loneliness mixed with pity.
"Let's go to the pub," he said.
They drove a rickety blue Ford to the local bar. The loud music provided covered up the serious air they had left with and they spent the night speaking of the coming week over several mugs of ale.