Hm. I do believe I might have lost a few readers with the last chapter, wherein Snape is extolling atheism's virtues. I know some of you are very indignant. Well, I want you to notice, Jennifer is religious too--more deeply and more genuinely than Dr. Cromwell. That is the catch to this story, what separates it from much of the radical work that is out there.

I am not anti religion. The point of this story is to encourage tolerance, which I believe will become more clear in the next chapter. I value religion for the impact it has had on society--without it, we should not have many just laws, or the idea of social equality. However, I do not agree with all aspects of every religion, which I believe is healthy. I'm not one of those evil atheists, and I'm not looking to fdebate. On the contrary, my point is that people of any extreme should be mellowed. No one will say that Muslim extremists have not gone too far in this day and age, I think. Sometimes people refuse to believe that there are extremists of every branch, though, who are conceited enough to believe that they have the divine mission of converting everyone else or bring them to death (this being metaphorical or literal depending on how serious they are). Again, I must say, I'm not anti religion. I just think it is growing more and more obsolete with the advancement of society, though I will confirm my opinion that a need for universal morality has not (and will not) diminish.

Besides, just as I don't agree with a lot (understatement) of what Dr. Cromwell thinks and says, I don't agree with everything Snape does or says. It's a story, and I'm writing the characters as they occur to me.

Thanks for bearing with me. Hope this was an enjoyable tale . . .

Chapter 9

"Severus? Severus? Are you all right?"

Snape felt a soft hand on his forehead, and a biting pain in his neck. As he tried to sit up, his mind went foggy. He attempted to remember why his throat hurt so much . . . why his body felt heavy as lead and dead as a washed-up whale . . . why his arms refused to move, and why the circulation had been cut off from them.

"Severus? Ducky?"

The first name that came to mind, he whispered aloud. "Nagini." He tried to make sense of his situation. His throat hurt so badly, he felt it was bleeding, he felt every bit of blood in his body was seeping out of him through every pore in his skin, and he felt as though every pore was clogged with a needle-thin razor, to the point where it hurt with every breath.

"Severus, ducky, please talk to me."

Then he remembered what Nagini was. A snake. A snake had bit him. A snake was responsible for this . . . its venom was seeping through his body, his brain . . .

"It was Nagini. Nagini did it." Then something else came to the forefront of his mind, something he felt he had forgotten to say or do. "Potter . . ." he murmured, "Tell Potter that his mother loved him, Jennifer loved him more than anyone else on earth . . . tell Potter how lucky he was to have that; my mother never cared for anyone but herself . . . Jennifer loved him so much . . . and tell him I loved Jennifer, that was why I did it . . . I have been Dumbledore's man through and through since Jennifer died, since I just as well killed her by relaying the prophecy to Voldemort. . . oh Merlin! I missed her so terribly all my life . . . but I was double-crossing Voldemort all the while, and I protected Potter throughout his life when people tried to kill him . . . I had to repay the debt that James had over me for saving my life . . . and I had to protect him for Jennifer . . . Dumbledore, though, he needs Potter to know this especially: Potter must die. Some of Voldemort's soul is in him, and Voldemort will never be completely vanquished if Potter does not die. I protected Jennifer's son all his life, only to be slaughtered like a pig for Dumbledore's great and grand ideals . . ."

He was conscious of some soft arm cradling him, of wet drops falling on his face, of a gentle dampness at the corner of his mouth, but all of these failed to bring him to complete reality.

Then a fierce pain seized him, and he cried out in agony. "I'm going to be dead in a moment!" he shrieked with urgency. "Leave me alone! Curse the bloody arse who left me here! Please, who are you who touches me? No matter, whoever you are, don't allow Voldemort to win the war . . . if you do, all the world will succumb to his tyranny . . . It cannot be . . . it cannot be . . ."

"Severus, it's Jennifer."

"Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer. Pretty Jennifer." He could see her face; it was wreathed in light, and in another moment it was gone. "You must be an angel. May I go to hell for the deeds I have done? I think heaven is too hot to hold me . . . there's no retribution or sanction there . . ."

"Severus, please listen . . . you're not well, you're-"

His stomach turned, and forced anger to erupt uncontrollably from his bosom. "Why, then, kill me!" he screamed, kicking and clawing, but never reaching her, never touching anything but thick fabric. "Kill me!" he demanded again, eyes open, blinking furiously. "This blackness is all too horrible! The world is crumbling . . . I see the fabled Armageddon, only it has nothing to do with the return of Jesus . . . oh have mercy, slay me!"

Jennifer was horrified by his raving. She tried to make some sense over what he was saying, but the only aspects she could recognize were that, in his confused version of reality, he was reliving the events of a year ago, when he was almost killed by that dark magic 'death-eater'. An hour later, he was silent, exhausted and to some degree asleep.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

She had noticed that he had not returned that night when he left her there in the kitchen, searching for the elusive garlic press. Dinner was ready by that time, fortunately—he had left with practically everything done except the salad—and she was able to serve everyone before going on a search for him. To her shock, she found him being carried to his room by a very drained-looking Dr. Cromwell, who reported that Mr. Snape had experienced a fit, and needed someone to look after him. Her lover was donned in an old duck canvas strait-jacket. For years later, she remembered that scene with horror.

He had been more stark raving mad than she had ever seen him—including the day he first came to the institution—for the duration of twenty-six hours. During that time, she had neither slept nor bathed, only taking time to eat obsessively when Dr. Cromwell brought her meals. The rest of her concentration had been devoted to Severus, but he had not shown himself for the better the entire time.

Her eyes had become watery more than once in watching him. She wanted to remove the strait-jacket which so shocked her, that looked so foreign on his limp body—but the Doctor said no, and she had to obey. She wondered how the man had the callousness to sleep when one of his patients was so ill, but he claimed that since he had nothing on his conscience, there was no need to worry. He said, too, that what had happened to Severus was just what the man deserved-- "Betty, he's an atheist, and a terrible one at that. He's been smitten by God; there will be proof of that soon, just you wait."

She could not believe that a man so unreasonably tortured by God could be faced with yet more agony, but she resolved there would be one good thing out of it for him—she would be there for him when he awoke. Atheism or no atheism. There is no reason to think him any the worse just because he believes in something different. He's wrong, of course, but I'm sure it's just his way of dealing with his terrible life—believing that there's no one out there watching over him, because he can't understand that a God who cared would let things happen to him like this. But he will come to understand, soon—God cares about him, for God brought him to me. And I love him.

The Doctor had stuffed Desmonda and one of the other nurses into the kitchen, and the results were tolerably good, though nothing like Severus was capable of creating. Jennifer finished her bowl of pudding quickly, avoided the vegetables that Severus would have nagged her to eat, and picked at her tasteless pasta alfredo. The only sounds in the room besides that of her fork and plate were the slight beeps that occasionally were emitted from the IV monitor that dripped a nutrition solution into the lax body of the patient, so that Severus would not starve while in a state of inability. The sight of his eyes—now closed with exhaustion—was so saddening to her that she could not look at him.

That is, until a lazy motion accosted her vision, and she turned her head up to see. He had opened his eyes again, and there was a definite look of—well, sanity—in his non-dilated pupils and focused glancing around the room. In a rational attempt to rise, he lifted his head, but found himself too tired, and he fell again upon the pillow.

Jennifer stood eagerly, advancing upon him.

"Severus?"

He turned to look at her and glared feebly. "What's going on? Why am I bound up like a wild animal? It's not like I'm a werewolf or something."

She could not reply at first, instead walking to the window and opening the curtains to admit a small stream of light. It was the second morning she had seen since Severus had fallen so desperately ill, and the sight of it made her feel very miserably tired. The newborn light streamed through, a silver glow against the dim lights of the sickroom.

"Jennifer, what's been happening? I demand an explanation."

Stepping cautiously to his side, she put on her best smile. "You're . . . in a strait-jacket. Doctor's orders."

"What the blazes?" he boomed, all traces of sleepiness disappeared. He tried to sit up again, and got much farther this time, though he was no sooner upright than exhaustion seized him, and he fell back once more.

The silence which followed was eerie as Severus tried to think.

"I shouldn't have shouted. My dear Jennifer, you look about as terrible as a Buddha faced with a bible. What has been . . . oh, merlin, did I try and hurt you? Is that why I'm like this?"

"Not I, thank God."

"That is comforting, but not very enlightening. What did I do to come to this?"

"You don't remember, do you?"

"Nothing. My last impression is of Dr. Cromwell—is he here?"

"No, ducky, he's in bed." Her irk at this fact was evident in her tone, which, though foreign to her character, was utterly more realistic than her common undying patience.

If he had been more well, he would have commended her usage of obvious italics in her voice, but he had to focus on just one thing at the present. "Well, the last thing I remember is that he stabbed me in the neck with a syringe."

At this, she looked intensely at him.

"My dear, do you not believe me?"

She did not want to suggest that she doubted him, but she saw no other alternative. Since the doctor had definitely uncovered their relationship by his inopportune visit to her house, he had been very polite, and extraordinarily not angry. He had given up on her sportingly, as she saw, and wished her the best of luck with Mr. Snape. Now, Severus' accusation seemed preposterous. A week ago she might have been quicker to believe it . . . but now she doubted, especially after his hours and hours of hallucinating and insane raving.

Her uncertainty showed in her face, evidentially, for he scoffed. "No, Jennifer, I am not making this up. Why would I?"

She shook her head in silence.

"Why do you not believe me?" His tone was pained, now, and on the verge of poisonous. "Have I ever lied to you?"

"The Doctor said he just gave you a sedative when you attempted to strangle him," Jennifer replied softly.

"And you take his word as truth? Why, that cock and bull story wouldn't convince-"

But he stopped his protestation when he clearly saw that she had been convinced.

"Well, Jennifer," he said coldly, "You're no better than Lily. Abandon me when I need you most, why don't you?" His voice changed a bit, as he tried to bite back tears . . . his voice constricted until he sounded almost cavalier. "It's all right, I suppose . . . it's not your fault. It's fate. I just wish we hadn't grown so . . . may I venture to say . . . close. I daresay I must have seemed insane to you all along. It was probably one of the only allures I had to you, actually. Maybe, if I am lucky, I will actually go mad after this . . . at least my wounds would be stopped up with tar."

Jennifer's heart tore as he said this, and she saw–despite his rather light tone—he was nevertheless heartbroken as well.

"Maybe-" she began to say, but, opportunely, Doctor Cromwell stepped into the room, another syringe cocked in his hand.

"Up, Betty," he insisted, "It's time for his next sedative dose. Has he been giving you trouble?"

Jennifer looked at Severus lying prostrate on the bed, bound and perfectly helpless. The Doctor brushed past her, disregarding her hesitation.

Briskly undoing one of the straps of the patient until he could just access Severus' wrist, the Doctor quickly inserted the needle and pressed his thumb on the plunger. Jennifer watched as the clear water-like fluid was pushed out of the chamber, and Severus gave a hideous scream. The poor man kicked and tried to move his arms, but to no avail—the Doctor had scooted out of reach in record time.

"You can't let him do this!" shrieked Severus, all color draining from his face, "You can't . . ."

His sentence ended in an unintelligible gibberish, a gibberish that did not even sound like Latin. Jennifer turned away, unable to hear her lover's ramblings and curses, unable to watch him suffer, unable to hold him in her arms.

"Just a bit of chloroform; that ought to settle him for a while" the Doctor decided, pulling the straps back over the patient so that his struggling was even more futile. "Come, Betty, I want you to come to my office for a moment."

She heard him, but her eyes had wandered to Severus again, and she could not tear them away again. His pupils were again dilated, and a look of supreme horror had swept across his face. He had turned back into his animalistic state again, he had become inhuman and terrible. All this, in sixty seconds after the injection.

At once—at once she understood.

"Do you really think I'm that stupid, Doctor?" she questioned tersely, in the same manner she imagined Severus would.

At this sanguine suggestion, Dr. Cromwell simply turned and stared at Jennifer. "What did you say?"

"I said: do you really think I'm that stupid?"

Her sudden confidence was raised, and she was able to look him straight in the eye, even though she was so tired, so hungry, and so much shorter than him. At this, the Doctor laughed uneasily.

"I don't know what you mean, Betty," he replied.

"I mean," she stated, "I know what you're doing. You lied—you're the one who has brought him to this. You've got some hallucinogen that you just put into him."

The Doctor made a show of astonishment, but the expression came to his face just a trifle too late. "Betty, that idea is outrageous. Why, I would lose my position for doing something like that."

"I think you are about to do so, actually." This stiff statement was interrupted by the desperate whimpering of her lover on the bed, and her heart ached to help him. Now she was on a crusade for his cause, however, and she was ready to fight. She sincerely wished she had been smarter—had done something before he had injected the poison into Severus for a second time—Good Lord, why had she not seen it before?

Severus was not the insane one—instead it was the Doctor!

"Betty, what are you saying?" exclaimed the Doctor, not really angry or upset, more surprised than anything else. "There's nothing harmful in what I gave him, just-"

"How do I know what you gave him?" Her voice rose significantly, and she realized she was losing her calm. Good Lord, I ought to be losing my calm! "How do I know what you gave him?" she shrieked louder. "How do I know anything with you?"

"My words, dear girl," replied the Doctor, appearing very taken aback indeed.

"Your word. Well!" she exclaimed. "Your words are nothing I can respect! Your words have insulted me for years—telling me I'm stupid, that I'm subservient, that I'm worth virtually nothing!"

"You misunderstand me, Betty," the Doctor faltered. "Yo mean everything to me—everything under God--"

"Oh, confound it!" she cried, angry. "I don't even believe you care about God!"

"Betty, how dare you insinuate--"

"My name isn't bloody Betty! It's JENNIFER!"

Her face flushed in anger—really quite exhilarating, actually—and she felt quite ready to slap Dr. Cromwell silly.

Dr. Cromwell looked as though she actually had done so.

"I . . . I never thought you would be like this B-Jennifer," he said quietly. " I thought . . . I thought I could control you better . . . so you wouldn't lash out at me . . . well, I can see I was wrong. This madman has poisoned your mind. I will be going, now. I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Betty. I'll cry for you when I pass St. Peters and you remain outside of the fold." So saying, he walked out of the room, as though someone had whacked him over the head with an oak plank.

Jennifer then turned to Severus, who was mumbling something about Voldemort and Dumbledore dueling over his dead body. Almost going back into tears at seeing him so ill, she gently began to undo the bounds of the strait-jacket. She needed to get him out of there, take him away somewhere the Doctor could not get at him, so he could recover from the poison in his veins. She only hoped his body would be as quick at it as it had been before.

Then, from down the hall, she heard a piteous cry, though she paid it no attention for the time. She only remembered it later, when she heard that Dr. Cromwell had jumped from the topmost window of the institution, three floors above the ground. The coroner's verdict was suicide, but Mrs. Yitter was strangely silent when the police came. Jennifer almost believed that she had seen the old woman walking down the hall from that direction as she was struggling with dragging Severus to the institution ambulance, but decided not to say anything about it. She could not have rightly blamed the old lady.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

Epilogue

Severus awoke after two days of fighting the hallucinogen in his bloodstream, which they discovered was merely a concoction of belladonna and wild mushroom distilled for the purpose by Dr. Cromwell himself.

When he finally returned to complete reality, he discovered Jennifer leaning over him, tears streaking down her face.

"Jennifer, what's been going on? I had a dreadful nightmare that we had a falling out . . . though it seemed extraordinarily real at the time . . . and Merlin! My brain itself aches."

She could not help but smile. Let him think it was a nightmare. I would prefer that he did.

"You're my house, ducky," she whispered hoarsely, kissing his pallid blue lips. "You're home. I've been so scared for you, ducky . . . I'm sorry . . . I let him hurt you, and I really shouldn't have . . ."

Heavily, he raised his throbbing hand to brush a tear off her cheek. "Don't cry for me, Jennifer," he whispered in return. "Really—don't cry."

Of course, this as just the provocation she needed to burst into all-out sobbing. He said nothing, just ingraining his hand into her hair, refusing to let her move, pressing his nose into her neck in a manner that made her shiver despite herself.

Neither of them said anything; there was nothing new that they could say that generations of lovers had not already said, that generations of lovers would continue to say.

"What was it that made you change your mind about him?" Severus asked. He was not fooled by her slight misguidance—he knew that the 'nightmare' had happened, but was willing to forget its worst aspects once he knew the whys and wherefores.

"Oh, it was rather obvious—you were all right until he stuck that . . . thing . . . into you. Then you turned—well, you reminded me of your patronicus-spell-thing. You reminded me of a horse at bay; frantic, very vocal, and unwilling to give in."

He smiled a bit—not very much, but enough—and pressed his lips against her ear. "Lay next to me," he requested, "I want to hold you, but I fear I won't be able to properly in my present state."

She complied with a hidden yawn, not molesting the covers of the bed, just lying on top while he was underneath. This proved satisfactory for their current purposes. Gingerly, he extended his arms and wrapped them about her middle, burying his head into her bounteous bosoms.

"You haven't been taking care of yourself, Jennifer, and I am highly ashamed of you." His tone was light, but she could tell he was nonetheless worried. Without a word, she ran her hand through his hair, before decided on an answer.

"I haven't slept in a bed since you fell ill—and, even in a chair, barely at all. I couldn't until I knew you were safe."

"Hence your bloodshot eyes and drooping hair."

"Mhm." She was already falling asleep as she lay at his side. "Does you hurt much right now?"

"Not with you here."

Closing her eyes, Jennifer had to agree. Her heart had been in constant turmoil since she felt she had betrayed Severus, and having his forgiveness meant the world.

"By the way, I would like to say something," she suggested. "You remember what you tell me about lying?"

He paused, lifting his head so that he could look into her drooping eyes. "Yes?"

"You can lie to whomever you want, but never me, all right? I don't want the man I love to ever tell me something that he does not believe to be true."

"That is a valid point," he conceded. "And I swear I never will. But, you know, I never have," he aded staunchly, "Never needed to."

"That's good," she answered.

They did not have any more conversation that afternoon, Jennifer instead falling asleep almost immediately, and Severus staring at the ceiling lost in thought, never letting go of her once.

. . . x . . .X . . . x . . .

Because they were not soppy teenagers, as Severus said, they decided to get married very soon afterwards, once he had completely recovered. Jennifer invited Desmonda to the small nuptial gathering, and Severus wrote a letter to McGonagall requesting for her and Sylvia to also attend. Not that he really wanted to see either of them, but they had gone out after him in an attempt to find him, as unsuccessful as they had initially been. All three women came (Sylvia fortunately left her little brat Thomas at home with a French caregiver), and a lovely time was had by all.

After the wedding, McGonagall offered Severus a post at Hogwarts again, but once the man had access to his Gringott's account (and the large sum of money therein from his teaching and Dumbledore's monetary will) he decided to take Jennifer on a trip around the world. It was the best way to make up for taking care of him all those years when he really needed nobody to take care of him, or so was his argument. Plus, he wanted to dredge up potion and culinary recipes from exotic regions. It was not by coincidence that they also stopped in New Zealand to visit Chelsea and her rich husband, either.

They spent six months traveling, at which point they decided they ought to settle somewhere and start earning some sort of living in the new millennium. So, on January 9, 2000 (Severus' birthday) they moved into a little comfortable cottage in the countryside near Bath, where Severus developed a mail-order potions company and attended to a vegetable and fruit garden. Jennifer, meanwhile, wrote romance novels—at first of the Jane Austen sort, but as her talents grew, of those kind that Jennifer claimed not to read—and ate her way through Severus' kitchen experiments.

Though Jennifer regretted it, she was too old to reproduce, so they never had any children—though that did not keep them from 'trying'. Truthfully, Severus said he would not have been capable of dealing with children, anyhow, so she never bothered him too much about it.

They associated both with Muggles and Wizarding people of the area, even though the former (who knew nothing of the service Snape rendered to the country) poked fun at them with the epigram of 'Jack Sprat and the Mrs. Sprat', though someone did later mention to Jennifer that the expression had originated from Severus himself. She little doubted it—he still jeered at her constant struggle against gaining weight, though his efforts were all contradicted while pressing his latest sweet concoctions upon her. Even more so when they were in bed together; he never gained a pound during their dual existence, and instead lost the majority of his visceral fat, so he found her voluptuousness 'more satisfying to ensconce (his) brittle bones than any comforter or sofa, to put it lightly'. It was more just an issue of being cold at night, Jennifer thought, but she did not mind; either way, he was not pressing her to change, and he loved for exactly the way she was. She admitted to the same.

It was a peppermint existence, Jennifer wrote in her later semi-auto-biography, with all the easy banter of a married couple, yet with all the sweetness and romance of an unsettled one. She was never a very good author, but Severus would read her work with more religious fervor than he showed anything else. Even though she knew he never declined from his steadfast atheistic views, she knew he was too much a martyr to not enter heaven. When she did eventually die, she did so with the light heart of one who knows that the one she loved most was going to be where she was going someday. That was satisfactory enough to her.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

Thanks very much for being such excellent readers. I appreciate you all—every criticism and every comment of compliment! I now have expended this plot bunny, and feel quite satisfied about it. I probably will edit it someday, but not in the near future. Thanks very much to you all for reading! If you have not reviewed before, please, feel free—I reply to every signed review and every anonymous review with an email, and I love to hear from you.

Ultimately, merci for reading!

Alex