A/N: Happy Valentine's Day!
Jonathan had taken her convalescence seriously. She woke early the next morning, ready for a normal day, and found him making breakfast for the two of them again.
"I presume this is Day Two of vacation?" she asked.
He chuckled.
"If you're good, we'll start up tomorrow afternoon after your appointment"
"Well thanks, Sir," she said sarcastically, but not meanly. "And thanks for breakfast, really," she said in a softer tone.
"You've got time to get dressed down. See you in a bit"
He smiled at her warmly and she returned the gesture.
She filled a glass with water from the faucet and headed back into her room.
Her smile was instantly wiped off her face when she saw Snape with his arms crossed, standing next to her bunk bed.
She froze, losing grip of the glass. Snape hardly twitched a hand and the spill and broken glass disappeared.
"What are you doing here?" she asked stiffly. "I thought we would not meet again"
He had watched her for a few moments before settling into her room. He was mildly jealous of her. She had brushed shoulders with the wizarding world, his violent wizarding world, and had managed to escape...for a short time.
She was determined not to be intimidated by him, and despite his very practiced looming presence, she stood defiantly. This was her domain. She mirrored his stance and also crossed her arms. Her lips were clamped tightly together in a thin line.
"Well?"
"Your activity has not gone unnoticed," said Snape finally.
She waited for him to elaborate and motioned impatiently with her eyes for him to go on.
"Your humanitarian efforts abut strong wizarding communities, and are directly aiding rural muggle ones. Communities that are especially vulnerable to an extremist group known as Death Eaters. I am part of an organization that is trying to ensure their leader does not come to power. We believe you can help us"
When he finished speaking, there was an awkward silence in the air. As if it wasn't bad enough she was talking to a wizard, he was now telling her that she was in the middle of some kind of "international incident". Could it get more complicated? Was he even telling the truth? She suppressed the growing feeling of fluttery panic in her stomach, and cleared her throat, which had suddenly gotten clogged up.
"How would I know if I even playing for the right side? Maybe you're the extremist," she said, narrowing her eyes. "I won't be involved in something I don't understand"
She thought she saw the faintest glimmer of reluctant satisfaction.
"I'm at least relieved you're not foolish enough to play a hero," he said.
She walked up to him so that they stood with just a foot of space between them. He was a poor choice for a diplomat, entirely too cold and not nearly empathetic enough.
"We're going to have a long conversation later," she said softly but firmly. "Jon expects me to come out of this room."
"You're feeling quite comfortable," he sneered.
"You're in my room, Severus. I'd better be comfortable," she said sharply.
"It's Professor Snape," he said, returning the bite.
"Then it's Dr. Coffrey to you," she snapped and walked out of her room.
Erin stomped over to the kitchen and ran the tap into another cup. After gulping a few mouthfuls of the cold water, she gave an aggravated sigh and ran a hand through her hair. She had a bad feeling about this. But it didn't seem likely she would be able to escape him. She had a life here she would not abandon, and he was a bloody wizard. He had appeared in her room in a cottage in essentially the middle of nowhere. She had little doubts he would be able to track her down wherever she went. Suddenly the deal she had struck with him all that time ago did not seem that great. She would have rather lost her memory of how they came to meet and never have to see him again.
She had forgotten that Jon had made breakfast for her and was waiting at the table. It was the sight of the greasy pan that brought her back to her world. She took a few deep breaths to right herself, and hoped she didn't look too flustered before joining him.
"You ok?" he asked. Damn.
"Ahhh- yeah, yes," she said, hoping her voice wasn't too shaky.
Her enthusiasm for the day was gone, extinguished by the dark man who had just visited. Jon seemed worried about her sudden change of temperment, but didn't say anything. His silence was much appreciated. The rest of the day was a blur. Once night fell, she lay on the top bunk, staring up at the cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling.
It was impossible to sleep. She almost didn't want to because she kept running their conversation over in her head, trying to glean more information from it. Stuck between a rock and a hard place for a few hours, she finally decided enough was enough. She clambered down the ladder and rummaged through her dresser, taking a few allergy pills with some water before settling into bed again.
Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap... Tap, tap, tap.
Erin rolled over and covered her ears with the pillow. What was that incessant noise?
Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. - SKREEE!
"Holy shit," she grumbled and rolled to the window, opening one eye against the bright sunlight.
The heart-shaped white face of a barn owl greeted her through the window. It cocked its head and opened its beak to screech at her again.
SKREEEEEEEEEE! SKREEEEE!
"Oh my Godddd," she groaned.
It had to be a wizarding thing.
She got out of bed and approached the window.
SKREE!
"Jesus Christ"
She fumbled with the latch on the window and thanked her lucky stars that it worked as she swung it open. The owl hopped in and ruffled its feathers indignantly. The damn thing was intelligent, it was pissedat her. She noticed a scroll tied to its leg and took it off the owl. She thought it would leave, but it stayed perched on her sill, looking at her expectantly with its inky black eyes.
She pursed her lips as she opened the scroll and read the contents.
Dr. Coffrey,
Select a discrete meeting place of your choice. The owl will deliver your message.
-Professor S.
They were on formal terms then. She rubbed the yellow crust off her eyelashes and yawned. A discrete place? She was having trouble thinking of one. She took a pen from her dresser and twirled it between her fingers as she thought of what to write. Her mind was still a bit sluggish from last night. The owl opened its beak widely.
"No you don't!" she said quickly, pointing her finger sternly at the bird.
The owl closed its beak slowly, giving her a creepily knowing look.
She wrote her response in ballpoint and rolled up the scroll.
"Why not black cats?" she asked the bird as she attached her message.
It had the temerity to screech at her one last time before flying away.
At 3 PM on the dot, Erin was sitting in the blue Ford past the dead end on the outskirts of town. She had the emergency axe in the doorside slot, hidden and within easy reach. She blinked as Snape apparated in front of the car. Erin took a deep breath and beckoned him inside. He examined the automobile with an ill-disguised expression of dislike and opened the passenger-side door, letting himself in.
"Hello," she said, turning in her seat to face him.
She noted with some malicious of glee that he was not comfortable in their meeting place. He was unable to create the image of a threatening face amongst billowing black robes. To his credit though, he did not come in the usual swath of clothing, but just had the frock coat instead. He stared ahead for a moment, then also turned to meet her gaze.
"You remember our first meeting," he said.
He knew she did.
"I was being pursued by Aurors. Wizards police, if you will, employed by our Minstry of Magic. They believed I was a Death Eater, a member of a subversive group of wizards who wish to overthrow the Ministry." He paused for effect.
"That is not the case. You are bound to my secret, that I have defected to Headmaster Dumbledore who is making moves to stop the Dark Lord and his followers. The Ministry is corrupt and ill-equipped to battle the Dark Lord, and so it falls to the most powerful wizard of our time with the exception of the Dark Lord, Albus Dumbledore, to ensure he does not come to power. "
He monitored her face for confusion, weakness.
"I've already expressed my opinion regarding government matters," she said, coolly.
He put a hand on the dashboard, leaning in just a bit. He could see the faintest lines of crow's feet at the edges of her brown eyes, betraying her advancing age. Tendrils of dark wavy hair invaded her visage.
"This is not something you can ignore. There is a war coming. What happened to you will happen to everyone. What you have seen in these villages will become the milder, kinder reality for wizarding and non-wizarding kind alike."
He saw a line of tension in her jaw as she clenched her teeth. He continued.
"Death Eaters are ruthless, blood-thirsty, some border on the insane. And they serve one purpose, to bring death and destruction to every place they touch. Why? Because the Dark Lord wishes it so. Because he is so perverted by his lust for power that he will do anything and kill anyone in his way to attain it"
She blinked very slowly and Snape felt time's passage stretch like an elastic band as she licked her lips.
"How long as your civilization existed?" she asked.
"Hundred of years," he replied.
"And in those hundreds of years, has there never been major conflict? If you've remained secret for that long, you have ways to keep this within your borders"
In a practiced motion, she unclasped the cuff from her left wrist and showed Snape her unglamoured hand. She saw he was briefly mesmermized by the glimmering silver scales shifting as she flexed her fingers.
"We can't fight with you. We're only... normal people. You'd be leading the lambs to slaughter"
What an apt saying. He saw a flash of fire in her eyes. She seemed to think that would be the end of their conversation. He could sense from her body language that she was disengaging from their exchange. How presumptuous.
"I misspoke," he drawled.
"Oh?" she asked dryly, laying her hand in her lap.
"The Dark Lord does not kill indiscriminantly. He is in fact, very selective about whom he tortures and slaughters"
Erin resisted from reflexively backing away from Snape as he inched closer to her. His lip was contorting into an ugly sneer.
"He believes we wizards are superior to the rats who scurry under us without magic. He systematically finds those of unclean blood and eliminates them. The children of those mixed marriages are destroyed. He is a monster who will commit genocide on your people"
"A Holocaust," she croaked, her throat dry.
"Do you think you are so isolated?" he asked contemptuously.
"Your terrorists are more often Death Eater strikes. Your history is one that is distorted with memory charms. In my history, a bomb was delivered to the United States Senate in 1983 by a Death Eater. The Montreal Massacre of 1989 was the rampage of a known Death Eater Thorfinn Rowle"
"Everything that happens in our world has repercussions in yours, but you are too ignorant to notice"
Her heart was pounding in her chest. It was provided a frentic drumbeat to his low silken voice. The gravity of what he was telling her was just beginning to hit her. He was presenting her with the war chest. For all she knew, this was first contact between their respective worlds.
"I want proof," she said. "I can trust you, but-"
He was waiting for this moment. He had slowly been closing the distance between them and locked eyes with her. She vageuly recalled his lips moving.
"Legilimens!"
She was sucked into a rushing corridor of visions. Snippets of a dark haired boy and red-haired girl, fast forward to when they were adults. Her shock that it was Snape's very own childhood was soon replaced by horror as she saw him come upon her lifeless body. Fast forward again to being recruited by Dumbledore. And then it was images upon images of sinister faces, shots of green and red light, and death. So much torture and death.
She felt the loathing he felt as he was forced to inflict curses on muggles. His comrades laughed and spit on the poor souls, then took turns themselves. It was cruelty turned into sport. To them, she was just an animal.
She was given an image of an enormous skull in the sky with a snake coming out of its mouth. Its meaning was clear, it was the Dark Lord's sign, and it marked every area he touched with death. His reach was wide and deep.
As quickly as she'd be taken into his memories, she was ejected from them. Her head lurched back, hitting the window with a loud crack. She righted herself quickly. "
Oh my God," she gasped, looking at him with new eyes.
Though it was harshly done, she knew he was right. She couldn't refuse him. He had shown her his memories, and they held terrible things. "What did you have in mind?" she asked, there were no other questions now.
He felt a satisfied thrill in his chest. The atmosphere between them had changed. Everything was going according to plan.
"Eyes. Spies. If you can get word back to your colleagues back in the States, that's even better. The Dark Lord's hold is only strongest in Europe. We'll give you information to pass on to local governments so they can react better to these so-called 'terrorist attacks'. With any luck, the wizards nearby will see through the cover stories and come together"
She bit the inside of her lip. It seemed easy enough to do. She just wasn't sure how Jonathan would react to her sudden interest in being a political lackey. She had shown such disdain for that type of doctor. Money-grubbing low lifes.
"Protection, for us?" she asked.
"You'll be watched," he said mysteriously.
She shook her head.
"More than eyes. I need you or someone else with us, 24/7"
He regarded her carefully.
"I applaud your caution, it's a useful sense," were his last words before he disapparated, leaving the seat empty.
Erin was in shock for a moment, then fell back into her seat. The nerve!
She mentally replayed their exchange behind closed eyes. She hadn't expected to be convinced of the cause so quickly. But the memories were filled with such powerful emotions, there was no way they could have been falsified. The Dark Lord- Voldemort, was a man who had to be brought down.
She opened her eyes again and shook herself to get rid of the shivers. The blissful safety and beauty of her surroundings had been robbed by Snape. All she could see now were shadows were evil things lived.