AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you for all your reviews, comments, and feedback, and for sticking with the story this far. If you're like me, most of you have got your faces buried in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix these days, and rightfully so.
If you are reading this, I'm assuming that you've already gobbled up the book in one breathless weekend. I am very grateful for anyone who is still here keeping up with this story, particularly after the long lapse in chapters, and would surely appreciate reviews.
However, please note that there are several readers, not to mention this story's author, who have not yet finished "Phoenix", so if you do take the time to review this chapter, please be sure to not post anything that might even be remotely construed as a spoiler for the book.
Many thanks to Superwitch and her wonderful story here on fanfiction.net called "The Coiled Splendor", for the idea of picking up at the start of a new chapter where we last left off. So…
Chapter 19 ended with:
He lit some candles and stepped out into the Potions Classroom, just as the sound of her stomping footsteps came to a halt outside. He straightened and smoothed his frock coat, double-checking his torso, arms, ankles, and neck to see that he was properly buttoned up and that his cuffs and collar were resting properly. Then he cleared his throat and fixed a look of gracious welcome on his face, as he pointed his wand at the door and opened it from across the room with an expectant "Alohomora".
Snape was lucky that he had keen reflexes. Had he not ducked just in time, the lamb chop would have hit him smack between the eyes. Even drunk, Addy had good aim.
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And now, on to Chapter 20: A Revelation
The lamb chop missed Snape's head by inches and collided into several of the jars that sat on the shelves behind him. The resulting jangle of shattered glass was soon dwarfed by a thunderous bellow:
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF MERLIN DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, SENDING ME A LAMB CHOP???"
Snape sprang back up and looked over his shoulder to ensure that there were no wet ingredients mixing catastrophically on the floor behind him. Then he turned back slowly to glare at Addy, who was advancing bullishly up the center aisle of the classroom, hands on hips. This was not exactly the greeting he'd envisioned. The crazy witch seemed to be--of all things--angry!
After all the trouble he'd gone through, he did not appreciate her tone of voice, the stubborn set of her jaw, nor her Ninja-like skills with a lamb chop. That temper of hers could have blown the whole place up, had she hit the wrong jars.
His dark eyes narrowed as he said dryly, with forced nonchalance, "It would appear that something has upset you, Adelaide. I gather it has to do with my package."
"Oh, Professor Snape," purred Addy, in sarcastic, mock admiration, "How stunningly perceptive of you. Fifty million points to Slytherin for the breathtaking acuity of its Head of House!" she growled, as she continued her inflamed march towards him, zigzagging ever so slightly.
He pursed his lips and clenched his hands together in an effort to stop himself from responding to her verbal provocations. He couldn't imagine why she was so upset—it was just a lamb chop, after all. He'd only intended to pique her curiosity enough to compel her to seek him out.
His plan had obviously gone awry somehow—she wasn't supposed to be angry. 'Why were witches so bloody unpredictable?' he thought to himself. But, just before a biting retort escaped his lips, he remembered the apology he owed her, not to mention the bottle of fine champagne that sat chilling next door in his office, and decided that he would do his best to get the evening back on track.
Ignoring her fury, he clapped his hands together brightly, the way he'd seen Albus do so many times. "So," he said with an effort at enthusiasm, "You opened the package, read the note, saw the contents, and it made you…curious, correct?" He looked as though he believed he could defuse her anger by the sheer force of his will.
"Curious? CURIOUS??? Try FURIOUS, not CURIOUS, you…you…you MORON!" she exploded. Addy knew that "moron" was neither a particularly witty nor accurate epithet for Snape, but due to the lingering effects of the cognac, it was the best she could come up with under duress. She looked wildly about for something else to throw at him. Unfortunately for her, the potions classroom was monastically immaculate, as usual.
Snape's right eyebrow shot up, his clenched knuckles turned white, and his left eye started to twitch in his struggle to restrain himself. He couldn't remember anyone having ever called him a "moron," and, apology or no apology, the thin ice on which Addy had been treading was now definitely cracked. He had to literally bite his tongue until it bled to keep himself from replying, although he couldn't stop his eyes from wandering surreptitiously toward his wand, which sat on the desk in front of him. One quick swish and…
Addy took his silence as a sign that he simply had nothing to say to her. She sighed in frustration, trying to get her temper under control. When she spoke again, the liquor-fueled vitriol was gone from her voice, replaced instead with the long-suffering undertones of a martyr. She gesticulated violently and looked as though she might even lay the back of her hand across her forehead.
"Look, Snape. I realize you hate me…I realize you think I'm still part of Voldemort's 'flock'—ha ha--lamb chop--I get it. Believe me, you made yourself MORE than clear at the gate last night! But honestly—"
Snape pressed his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes. It had finally dawned on him that she had taken the package to be a cruel joke…his way of continuing to make his vicious point. And, even though he thought she was laying the theatrics on a bit thick, he still very much wanted to set things straight and make it clear to her how much he regretted the things he'd said and the ways in which he'd hurt her.
"Addy—" he said, trying to cut her off.
"—I would have thought that a wizard of your stature, not to mention advanced years, would be beyond—"
"Adelaide!" he said louder, hoping to break through her tirade.
"…this sort of childish prank. I mean, really! Sending me a piece of meat? You ought to be ashamed of—"
"ADELAIDE SHUT UP!" he thundered, silencing her. He opened his eyes to see that she had breached the gab between them and now stood directly opposite him, glaring at him darkly from across his desk. She leaned on it with both hands splayed across the surface, her head jutting forward defiantly, a squall building behind her gaze with each blink of her blazing green eyes.
"Give me a chance to explain," Snape continued hastily, slicing the air with his expressive hands as he backed away instinctively, as one would from a rabid animal. "All I wanted to do was apologize for last night! The lamb chop was just…just bait," he said with a shrug.
"B…b…b…" Addy was sputtering so apoplectically, she couldn't even get the words out. She clutched the edge of the desk with all her might to keep herself from leaping across it, and managed to growl through clenched teeth, "If you wanted to talk with me, why didn't you just say so???"
Now it was Snape's turn to explode with indignation. "I TRIED!" he hollered, pacing behind his desk like a large cat in a small cage. "I tried last night…I tried at breakfast AND at lunch. Then you cancelled our strategy session—too cowardly to face me--and snuck your way out of Dinner as well."
Addy glared at him, nostrils flaring. But she knew he was right, and she was at a loss for a response.
Snape knew an opening when he saw one, so he folded his arms across his chest poutily, and seized the moment, saying, "You wouldn't listen to me and you know it. Face it. The bait worked. You're here aren't you?" Then he raised one eyebrow at her--in triumph.
Adelaide had to admit, if only to herself, that he had a point—she had refused to speak to him, and he had, indeed, exploited her own curiosity to get her to come to come down there. Cursing herself, she glowered at him and folded her arms in unconscious imitation of him. "He may have won that battle," she thought stubbornly, "but we're not done here yet."
"So," she said, her voice shifting into a disturbingly inquisitive tone, "I'm here for an apology, am I? Well then…let's hear it."
"Please, have a seat," said Snape, gesturing graciously toward the comfortable armchair he had placed next to the desk for her use. 'Now we're getting somewhere,' he thought to himself.
Adelaide sneered at it and instead walked slowly and deliberately around the desk toward the old, black, leather chair in which he sat to do his work. Snape's chair. Her eyes sparkled puckishly and she kept them trained on him as long as she could, before turning her back in order to lower herself languidly into his chair.
She was instantly bathed in his unmistakably masculine scent, which caused her to close her eyes against its dizzying effects. The leather was still warm from his heat, and creaked a bit as she snuggled her bottom into the depression that fit his body like a glove. He was standing directly behind her, beyond her vision, and she could only imagine with bratty glee the expression on his face as she massaged the chair's padded leather arms.
With her back turned dismissively to him, she could not see the fleeting recoil that seized his body, in response to this unheard-of assault on his personal realm. He twitched with the impulse to stop her, but somehow managed to check himself for fear of losing control and doing some real damage.
By clenching every voluntary muscle in his body, Snape managed—just barely—to maintain a stoic façade. He cleared his throat and reached stiffly into a drawer on her right. Taking great care not to brush against her leg, he retrieved the scroll of parchment on which he'd been working all night. Once he'd got this out, he thought to himself, they could be done with this silly apology and he could throw her out of his office—bodily if necessary—until she learned some manners. Glancing back to make sure she wasn't touching anything, he took a deep breath, and launched into his "apology."
Except, unfortunately, the speech which he had so looked forward to delivering was, in fact, more of an explanation than an act of contrition—a rather extensive, analytical rationalization for the "causes for his temporary lapse in judgment, which had produced a reversion to learned responses of doubt and suspicion, resulting in abnormal thought processes and behavior."
The overpowering intensity of his essence continued to ring through Addy's body for the first several sentences. But as soon as the blissful fog she was in lifted a bit, the sound of his voice penetrated it and a deep frown of disappointment crossed her face. She opened her eyes and stared at him.
What she was hearing was not an apology for his unconscionable behavior the previous night. Rather, it seemed to Addy that Snape was more interested in absolving himself of blame than in simply apologizing and putting it behind them.
Snape persisted with his speech, certain that the irresistible logic of his argument would win her over. He lectured on for over thirty minutes about the causes of, and precedent for, his extreme reaction upon Addy's return from Voldemort's lair, citing scientific, historical, literary and philosophical sources. It was a truly magnificent speech. But he never said he was sorry.
When he was finished, he rolled up the scroll with a flourish and a rather self-satisfied grin, for he knew himself to be an exceptionally skilled orator. He looked up at her expectantly and said, "Well, what is your response?"
Addy let out a resigned sigh and stood up dejectedly. At the start, she had actually believed that he felt badly about having hurt her feelings. But now it seemed that he simply wanted to be let off the hook for it.
"That was a very thorough explanation, Snape" she said. "You've crossed all your T's and dotted all your I's, haven't you?" she added, unable to hide her disillusionment.
Again, it was not the response he'd been expecting, and Snape started to feel that he was hopelessly lost when it came to dealing with Adelaide Mayhem. She still seemed hurt, despite his best intentions and his best efforts at righting the situation. He could tell that he was letting her down, but he didn't know how or why, and the feeling knotted up his heart. He'd done the wrong thing again, but what was the right way? What did she want of him?
"Am I forgiven then?" he asked uncertainly.
"Yeah, sure," Addy replied with a sad look that held his hopeful gaze for a moment, before sinking to the floor.
"So then, we can get back to our work?" he said, hoping to cheer her.
She glanced up at him sharply, and then looked as though a wand had just been illuminated over her heard. "Ahhhhhhhh, I see. You needn't have worried about the work, Snape. I'm not a child, and I'm not about to let hurt feelings get in the way of my professional obligations. I just needed this one night off…to sort out some of the…overwhelming events of the past few days. I would have returned to our strategy work tomorrow, even if—"
He cut her off, saying, "My apology has nothing to do with our work, or your 'professional obligations'."
"You call that an apology?" she replied bitterly.
"What was wrong with it?"
"That wasn't an apology, Snape. You just want me to agree that your actions were somehow justified!"
"No I don't" Snape responded, not entirely convinced of his own protest.
Then, Addy fixed him with a stubborn stare and spat out point blank the question she'd wanted to ask him all day: "Why did you accuse me last night of being loyal still to Voldemort?"
"I told you," he said, reaching again for his scroll. "There is an historical precedent that led to an association and response—"
She reached out and smacked the parchment out of his hand. "Oh, stop it Snape. Just talk to me. What…what came over you? I thought you trusted me!"
"I do!" he protested.
"Then why?" she whispered. Addy's eyes shone with imminent tears, and she balled up her fists to stop herself from crying. It was a childish gesture—the last thing she wanted to do—but she could think of no other way to stem the tide of emotion that threatened to wash her away.
Snape took an awkward step toward her, but stopped in frustration, not knowing what to say or do. Impulsively, he took her hands in his, just as he'd done in his office the previous night, although it seemed to both of them like ages ago. He found himself wishing for a potion that would erase all the things that had happened after he had walked her to the gate and she had disapparated…
Suddenly inspired, he gripped her hands and said, "Do you remember when you were first summoned by Voldemort, and I gave you a potion to drink before we left for the back gate?"
Addy looked at him as though he was setting a trap, but answered tentatively, "Yes—it fought off the pain for a while. What about it?"
"You wouldn't drink it at first," he said nervously.
"Yes I--" she started, and then remembered how her father's voice had rung in her ears, bidding her not to trust Snape, or anyone for that matter. She snapped her mouth shut.
Snape continued, "You questioned me about the contents of that potion until I had to practically beg you to drink it, despite the pain you were in. I saw it—the suspicion and mistrust in your eyes. I saw the Death Eater in you then, Addy, and it was easy to spot because it's the same one I see when I look in the mirror. It's the same one that came out in me last night, when you returned to Hogwarts. The same one, only fiercer."
Addy tried to pull her hands out of his grip but Snape held fast. His eyes were shining with a fierce animation. She looked away from him, as he continued.
"Did you know that when I first left Voldemort's service and came to…to work here, I would trust no one except for Albus, and even him I tested incessantly," he said with an ironic laugh. "The kindness and patience that wizard showed me…" Snape's voice trailed off, and Addy snuck a quick look at him. His eyes clouded with the effort—still—of comprehending Dumbledore's compassion towards him. A moment later, they fixed on her intently again and she looked away.
"Among other displays of, um, misguided behavior, I would eat and drink only from Dumbledore's platter and from Dumbledore's pitcher." He continued, stumbling, at times, in an effort to give voice to the thoughts and feelings that had spun in solitary tumult through his brain for so long.
"But, in time, I came to realize that there was a whole other…another way, Addy…different from Voldemort's cunning world…different from the dark things we were taught. A world of honor and trust and…" Once again, words failed him.
Snape took a deep breath and went on. "The staff—those that were here back then—they still joke about the day I finally dared to eat off my own platter, instead of forcing them to pass me Dumbledore's. It was a platter of lamb chops, Addy..." He gave her a knowing look, and she glanced over his shoulder at the lamb chop still sitting greasily on the floor.
He continued intensely, letting go of her hands and taking hold of her shoulders, "It might sound funny but I swear to you Addy, the taste of those lamb chops was the first taste of freedom I'd had in a long time…possibly ever." Snape licked his lips at the memory. Addy watched, transfixed by his physical presence and the emotions that battled behind his shimmering black eyes.
"It…it's not the same, Snape," she managed, stubbornly yet meekly, wanting so much to just let herself be swept up in the river of his emotions, but unable to quite haul anchor.
"It is the same thing, Adelaide," he replied, eyes flashing feverishly, trying hard not to grip her too tightly in his zeal. "My mistrust of Dumbledore, your mistrust of me, my mistrust of you…it's all the same thing, just different degrees! It's the rotten seed that Voldemort has planted inside every one of his Death Eaters…the miserable crop of fear and subjection he's trying to sow across the whole world. He won't rest until every witch and wizard is blind with suspicion and nearly eaten alive with cynicism. I had thought it was too late for me, until…"
He cut himself off, not daring to admit to the hope that came to his heart the day she had come to Hogwarts.
"That fear lives inside both of us Addy," he continued. "Last night, you were afraid to trust me, and I was afraid to trust you." He lowered his head in order to catch her eye, and when she obstinately refused to look at him, he took her chin in his long fingers and tilted her face up until her gaze met his, twinkling away with inspiration and mischief. "I'm just better than you are at behaving like a dragon's arse, that's all. I'm afraid you're just going to have to live with that fact," he added with a shamefaced grin.
Then he grew serious again, and for the first time, he knew exactly what to say to her.
"I'm sorry, Adelaide. I should not have said those things to you last night. You did not deserve them. Please forgive me."
Addy stared at him, her stunned expression finally turning into a sheepish smile. Blinking back tears, she said simply, "OK."
During the next few tongue-tied seconds, the silence was broken periodically by the sounds of Addy's sniffles as they avoided looking at one another. Snape tentatively let go of shoulders to offer her another green silk handkerchief. Finally, she cleared her throat and said "It's still early…we can still get in a couple hours of work tonight on our plans for the underground."
"You don't need the night off?"
"Not anymore."
A hint of a smile graced his face as he said, "I've arranged for some refreshments while we work. There will be no spilt tea tonight."
He crossed the room, opened the door to his office, and followed her in. Addy's breath was taken away—no one had ever done anything like this for her before. Snape, however, grimaced at the site: the few candles that were still lit had burnt down almost to nubs, and the bottle of champagne sat in a puddle of mostly melted ice. "I can fix it," he said, retrieving his wand. "No," she replied, stopping him with a hand on his arm. "It's perfect."
Snape opened the champagne while Addy sniffled her last sniffles and pocketed the Slytherin-crested handkerchief, gaping around at the hundreds of candles that hung about the room. A moment later they raised their sparkling glasses and Addy offered a toast:
"To Voldemort's worst nightmare."
Snape replied, "Yes."
They clinked glasses and downed their first glass, as a few more candles sputtered out with a soft hiss.
To be continued…
AUTHOR'S NOTE: OK, is everyone happy—no cliffhangers here, right? But I will tell you that in the next chapter, Snape and Addy definitely get a bit closer. He he he…