Disclaimer: All JKR, except for one OC
On a special morning several weeks after Christmas, Severus found a package in his room. The card read, "In memory of a perfect day and to wish you a Happy Birthday." He ripped the wrapping to discover a framed picture of the two of them, standing next to one of the snowmen they made and waving. He looked over at his nightstand and put the picture there, removing the torn picture and letter that had been there.
It was finally time to send an owl he'd been thinking about.
Dear Harry,
Having seen my memories, you will know how and when I came to have this picture and page from your mother's letter. I apologize for taking them, but cannot express the gratitude I feel for having had them during the worst of the war. However, they belong to you and so I here return them.
Severus Snape
Since Christmas, they had gotten into the habit of going to one of their offices together in the evening. They graded papers and tests, after which they played chess or read together, often while keeping an eye on their potions research.
This evening was no different, although since it was Severus' birthday they gave themselves a break from grading papers. They were playing chess when Severus' stretched out his arm and his sleeve fell down, showing the mark on his left arm. He lifted his eyes to hers, expecting to find disgust or revulsion but instead saw compassion and sympathy.
"I've done horrible things, Barbara, just to be allowed to carry this mark, and for years afterwards to prove I was worthy of it. It doesn't really carry the enchantment anymore, since the one who placed it there is dead." She got up and walked into the next room.
"I know it's horrible...now that you've seen it, you may think differently of me ..."
"Shush." She was back, having gone to get his bottle of special healing potion and some gauze. She drew him to his sofa, after which she rolled his sleeve out of the way and went to work with the potion, dabbing it along the mark. As she worked, he felt his mind opening to hers and showing, as if with priori incantatem, the things had done and endured as a Death Eater. By the time she arrived at the night he received the mark itself, she had tears in her eyes, for those he had hurt and for the pain it had caused himself.
"I don't know if this will make it go away completely," she said as she finished, "It's such horribly dark magic and I don't have the skill for healing that Poppy has. But it's the most powerful healing potion I know. I don't care about the scars on you arm, Severus. They're a symbol of something you had the ability to overcome. What you have been doesn't matter to me anywhere near so much as who you are now and the man you aspire to become."
He couldn't trust himself to speak, but buried his face in her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her waist. She put her arms around him and comforted him as she would a small child while he wept as he had done the day they first met. As the grief subsided, he lost himself to a sense of comfort he had never before known.
Rushing to a meeting with Professor Binns several weeks later, Severus noticed Barbara in an unused classroom with a group of students. He backed up to peek. She looked up at him and something in her face told him to move on. He recalled his meeting and hurried off.
Coming back later, he found that the students were gone but that Barbara was seated on a davenport, sobbing violently. He sat beside her at once and gathered her into his arms.
"Oh, Severus," she said, catching her breath but with tears still rolling down her face, "It's so horribly sad..."
He held her for several minutes before she could speak.
"Neville Longbottom and Hannah Abbot formed a sort of club for the students who had lost parents in the war. She asked me to be the faculty advisor for the group. These children have experienced so much...some barely escaped death, themselves. They're living with relatives or friends, some not very happily."
"I'm not sure this group should continue--"
"Oh, but it must! It's helping the children, I know it is."
"But at what cost to yourself? Don't tell me that you're not drawing their pain onto yourself. There's no rebounding jinx that will solve that."
"It doesn't work that way. Anyhow, look at you, telling me to worry about personal cost, after all you've sacrificed and suffered." She looked up at him, smiling through her tears. "Don't you understand? I'm one of those children, too. They can tell me their worries and sorrows and fears because I know them. It will get better, I'm sure. I've heard that the first year after a tragedy is always the worst..."
"I love your care and concern for everyone, but I selfishly need you for myself. I don't know how to share you."
"There's a part of me that belongs to you only, Severus. Surely you know that by now."
Despite the distress of the moment and his own confusion it was a sweet, warming thought. If she was so determined, he would find a way to help.
"I cannot ask you to be less than you are for my sake. Do you have anything this afternoon?"
She shook her head.
"Then, perhaps I can help you bear it?" he said while leaning back into the davenport. He drew her to himself and let her weep for the sorrows of the students, while shedding a few tears of his own.
A/N: Once again, thank you to my kind reviewers.