One Day at a Time
A Birthday Celebration
About a week and a half later, all talk of the ball and all of the decorations for it had finally disappeared. The green decorations in the hall had become unnecessary, anyway, with the gradual return of greenery on the grounds. I was thinking this during breakfast one day in early April when the arrival of an owl interrupted my thoughts. It was holding two small, wrapped packages. The first one contained a small card and a bracelet wrapped in tissue paper. The front of the card had Deneb's salutations, and the back carried brief instructions for the bracelet: "Touch the garment you're wearing with your wand, then immediately touch the bracelet and voila! The bracelet will become perfectly coordinated."
"That's a pretty bracelet" Sprout peered over, curiously looking at the opened package. "Any special occasion, or did you just order it by owl?"
"No, I wouldn't order this. I never wear jewelry," I explained "One of my brothers sent it to me as a birthday gift."
"Why didn't you tell me that today's your birthday!" she exclaimed. "I would have gotten you something, a card or a cake, at least."
"Oh, that's really not necessary," I said bashfully before returning my attention to the other package in front of me. This one was a small but thick book with miniscule typeset; I recognized the title as one that I had been wanting to read. When I opened it a card in Tarazet's neat cursive handwriting wished me a happy birthday and explained, "I know how much we both hate infinitesimally small font, but no worries—the book has a shrinking charm which should wear off in a couple of hours. I didn't want to accidentally kill Deneb's owl with the weight of the book." I laughed and, tucking the packages beneath my arm, left for class in a rather good mood.
I hadn't expected Sprout's promise to do something for my birthday to actually come to fruition, but in the evening she excitedly found me.
"Come with me," she enthusiastically smiled. I acquiesced and we walked to the entrance hall, where a small group of professors were standing. "I gathered all of your professor friends," the Hufflepuff professor beamed. "We're going to Hogsmeade to celebrate your birthday."
"You didn't have to do this," I said embarrassedly, feeling rather flattered. "But thank you." Severus and McGonagall walked at the head of the group, followed by Flitwick with Hagrid, and Sprout and I chatting in the back. "It's really nice of you to have planned this," I said cheerfully.
"Of course I had to do something," she smiled. "This is the best I could do on short notice. But, after all, what's better than spending the evening with some friends?"
"Most definitely," I replied, eyeing Sev a ways away at the head of the group. "Out of curiosity, how did you know that Severus and I were friends?" I had considered us friends for some time now, but I always thought it was an example of excessive hopefulness on my part.
"Well, it's obvious, isn't it?" she chuckled. "You two are always so friendly with each other."
"Really?" I said, honestly surprised. "Severus is always a bit cool towards me."
"That's just the way he always conducts himself," she shrugged her shoulders. "I'd say that with the exception of Dumbledore, you're the person he talks to most."
I felt a burst of joy at hearing this and had to restrain myself from immediately smiling broadly. "Professors, on a school night?" Madame Rosmerta grinned as we all walked into the Three Broomsticks.
Sprout laughed, "Just don't tell the students. They're probably all studying for their O.W.L.'s and N.E.W.T's. right now."
"Tests which we will be writing and grading," McGonagall said pointedly, but she seemed to nevertheless be in a good mood.
"So what's your reason for being here, you troublemakers?" Rosmerta joked. "Just can't take the students anymore? They've finally made their professors crack?"
"I think if we survived the Weasley twins, we can survive anything," Flitwick squeaked cheerfully.
"Today's Liseli's birthday," Sprout explained happily to the barmaid.
"Ah, that's nice," she smiled pleasantly. "A year older."
"You're getting to be an old lady," Hagrid joked, clapping a hand on my back. "Why, you're over half my age, now."
We continued joking (except for Sev, who was too serious for such light-hearted teasing) and chattering about light topics. When we left the streets of Hogsmeade were lit up, in spite of the worry of Death Eater attacks, and the village looked rather charming.
"I just remembered something," I exclaimed as my eyes glanced at the lit storefronts. "I have an errand to run in Hogsmeade. You guys can go on," I added; they were a few steps ahead of me as I had stopped walking when the thought struck me.
"Are you sure?" Hagrid asked.
"Yeah, don't worry about it," I replied.
"But it's not safe to walk alone in Hogsmeade in these dark times," Sprout said with a look of concern on her face.
"I'll stay," Severus said shortly.
The other professors hesitated, as though feeling it would be more polite for them to all stay. They finally acquiesced and once they had left I turned towards Sev and pointedly said, "You of all people should know I'm not afraid of Death Eater attacks."
"No. You don't seem to be afraid of much," he responded in his characteristic ambiguous tone; I couldn't tell whether he meant it seriously or sarcastically.
I teased back in what I hoped was an equally ambiguous manner, "Well, I'm sure you'll be the only person to ever see a boggart in its true form; it won't have anything to turn into."
"I've heard it said that when the wise face a boggart it becomes a dementor—because the wise are only afraid of fear itself," he said almost conversationally, looking at me as though curious how I would react.
"Hm," I said skeptically before hesitatingly adding, "I don't quite agree with that."
"No, I don't either," he regarded me with an approving look. "For one, only the foolish believe that fear itself is the worst thing to be feared. For another, Dementors spread unhappiness more than they spread fear."
I nodded. "Dementors make people recall their worst memories. There's little to be afraid of in the past. Fear is what you feel when something bad or unexpected is about to happen, not what you feel after it happens," I continued the thought that Sev had started. "You know," I mused aloud, "I had a friend at Hogwarts who argued that somebody's worst memory is the singularly most revealing angle with which to see them. I was never sure if I agreed with her."
"What does yours show about you?" he asked disinterestedly.
Such a question felt awfully personal, and my first reflex was to say in an annoyed tone "I don't know." But then I looked at his face again and remembered this was the man I loved, and even though it may have been unreciprocated, I got a sudden urge to tell the truth. "Nothing good," I finally replied lamely. His glance quickly shifted from the streets of Hogsmeade to my face, and he almost looked surprised that I had actually answered his question. My mouth continued, "I did something which wasn't very nice, right before Tarazet went to Azkaban." Severus nodded to acknowledge that he had heard me, but didn't press for details; I knew he would respect my silence. "You aren't going to answer your own question?"
He seemed to be surprised at being asked the question, and after a moment of hesitation and looking at me, the words struggled from his lips, "Same. Only it was something I said to a friend when I was fifth year." I respected his further silence, as he had respected mine. "We're going to Honey Dukes?" he added, mildly puzzled, when I turned into that shop's doorway. "This is your errand?" he said skeptically.
"My fifth years just reached curse detection and counter curses, so I thought I'd give them cursed chocolate frogs like I did to my sixth and seventh years at the beginning of the year," I replied, actually not annoyed by his comment.
I quickly found the chocolate frogs and brought a large box up to the cashier. "I remember you," the cashier grinned. "You ought a bunch of chocolate frogs the last time you were here, too. Chocoholic, or avid card collector?"
I laughed, "Neither. I'm using them for one of my lesson plans."
"Oh, are you a professor at Hogwarts?" he asked in a friendly tone, and I nodded. "Man, I wish my professors had used candy in their lesson plans. What do you teach?"
"Defense against the Dark Arts," I cheerfully replied.
"Ouch, I heard things haven't ended too well for a lot of those professors," he said in a light-hearted tone.
"I'm still alive and in good health, so I think things are going pretty well," I said happily.
"Are you a professor, too?" the cashier turned to Severus.
"Yes. I am the potions master," he replied smoothly.
"You must be the man who replaced Slughorn a while ago, that fat old snail. I haven't seen you before, but I gotta say, if you start using candy in your class, too, the students will definitely pay more attention," he grinned.
"That or the students will be dead, because of contamination from all of the poisonous ingredients kept and used in the dungeons," he replied coldly.
"Or that," he said in a less friendly tone, and he handed me the chocolate frogs in a bag.
On the walk back to Hogwarts, Severus eyed the bag and asked, with a frown on his face, "So I suppose I'm going to be brewing the antidote for the 'Aegrus Venter' curse soon?"
I let out a sheepish laugh, "I was assuming that I was going to make it on my own."
"Have you made it before?" he asked in a rather business-like manner.
"Well, no, but, I mean, I'll be able to find the recipe in the library I'm sure," I confidently replied.
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, "It's a rather difficult concoction. It would turn out better if I brew it for you."
"You don't have to do that," I embarrassedly said, not wanting him to think I couldn't be self-reliant.
He briefly shook his head and replied in a final-sounding tone, "I'll do it tonight."
I sheepishly thanked him before we reached the castle, at which point we split off: him towards his potions classroom, me towards my room. The small confines of my quarters seemed artificially silent as I sighed and took to unwrapping and cursing the individual chocolate frogs. I wonder what Sev's doing right now, I distractedly thought, ripping the packing off of a particularly stubborn one. He's probably already set up the black, iron cauldron on a sturdy stand, and lit the crackling blue fire underneath it. I visualized the scene and the large grey cinderblocks of the potions classroom as I continued my repetitive movements. He's probably setting up his ingredients, now. The pickled flobberworms arranged in an orderly rectangle, careful to not touch the purple Gila Monster scales, and the orange blossoms of the Pluto Weed next, ready to be crushed into a fragrant powder. I sighed again as I glanced around at my empty room and the stack of chocolate frogs left to be cursed. He was doing me an awfully large favor, by brewing the potion. The least I could do was go down and thank him, right? Offer to help him? Besides, I'd never made the potion before; maybe I'd learn something.
I strode towards the potions classroom, and quietly opened the door. Severus stood at an angle, his eyes carefully focused on the contents of the cauldron in front of him. He mouthed something as he began stirring it with his wand, and leaned forward to gain a better angle. His black hair fell forward as he did so and masked his profile from my line of sight; I got the urge to walk over and carefully tuck the offending strands of hair behind his ear, but resisted the temptation. A smile formed on my face as I watched him carefully tend the potion and add ingredients without once removing his gaze from the bubbling liquid. He seemed rather oblivious to my presence, even as he shifted his gaze from the cauldron to an adjacent cutting board. With a wave of his wand, a knife from the other side of the room slowly levitated towards him, while he arranged what looked like dried squid tentacles on the surface of the clean black cutting board. After placing them in symmetrical lines, he glanced up at the patiently hovering blade and murmured in a barely audible voice, "Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?" before grabbing said handle. He began dicing the squid tentacles while rotating the cutting board with his other hand and making rather complicated patterns.
With a slight smile on my face, I casually leaned against the doorframe and broke the silence, "Why did you call it a dagger?"
He glanced in my direction with a mildly surprised look before turning back to the cutting board. "I didn't hear you come in."
"I thought I should offer to help, as thanks," I shrugged my shoulders while stepping into the actual classroom. "So why'd you call it a dagger?"
A slight furrow creased his brow, from annoyance or from concentrating on the dicing, I couldn't tell. "It's a quote."
"Oh, from where?" I light-heartedly asked.
The furrow across his forehead became deeper. "From a play."
"Which play?" I cheerfully pushed.
In an annoyed exhalation he replied, "I doubt you've heard of it."
"Try me," I spitefully grinned.
Sev stopped cutting the squid and turned towards me, drumming his fingers on the wooden hilt of his knife as he surveyed my face. "It's called Macbeth, by William Shakespeare," he finally responded.
I curiously tilted my head, and tapped my index finger against my jaw while I silently reflected. "Macbeth? I think I have heard of that."
"I doubt it," he scoffed, and brushed the oddly shaped pieces of squid tentacle into the cauldron. "It's a Muggle play."
"No, I know," I continued with the same thoughtful expression on my face. "My Muggle-born friend Paige Collins gave it to me as a gift one year when I was a student. I think she was hoping I'd read it and take away some lesson about Slytherin ambition. She was a Ravenclaw."
The Potions Master was now crushing several small red spheres with the broad side of the blade, and I vaguely wondered if the small red spheres were a plant or animal product. "It was a friend who recommended it to me, also," he slowly stated. "I never thought about why she did. I think she just enjoyed Muggle literature." I nodded to acknowledge his words before he continued in an almost scholarly voice, "What did you think of Lady Macbeth?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, crossing my arms due to the rather chilly weather in the dungeons, before uncrossing them a moment later to pick up one of the small red spheres that was rolling away; I placed it back on the cutting board and noticed that just touching it had stained my fingertips a bright red.
"She convinces her husband to murder for power, aids him in dispensing of evidence, and spends the rest of the play hallucinating that she has blood on her hands. That is, before committing suicide at the close of the play. She's a rather interesting character, don't you think?" he drawled as he flicked a few drops of the red liquid into the cauldron.
"I find it ironic she doesn't follow her own advice," I finally stated. "She tells Macbeth to not think of the murder he just carried out, or else he'll go mad. Then she turns around and does the exact opposite. I remember her quote very well. I—I think of it a lot. You can't think about the murders you've committed, or you'll go mad. It's really—it's really rather sound advice," I sadly stated, concentrating my attention on the small red sphere he was now crushing.
He paused in his crushing motion for a second before resuming. "Yes, I suppose it is."
"I also wonder sometimes how much she, in a Muggle play, can actually relate to the Wizarding world." I took a step closer to the work bench Sev was at and continued in a quiet, guilt-tinged voice, "I mean, you and I both know that—that Avada Kedavra doesn't leave blood."
He stopped midway through adding more of the red juice to the cauldron and quietly replied, "No, no it doesn't. But there are many ways to kill someone without leaving blood. Just a few words spoken to the wrong person, and somebody you care about could die without you ever intending it," he spoke in a barely audible whisper. I didn't understand what he was referencing, or if I was supposed to understand, so instead I quietly nodded. The bubbling cauldron lay almost forgotten as he spoke again, this time slightly louder and directed to me. "Did you ever wonder what would happen if Macbeth and Lady Macbeth felt guilt at the same time? At the beginning, only Macbeth feels miserable with guilt, and at the end only Lady Macbeth does. The rest of the play they separately follow a self-absorbed path into their own destruction. What do you think would have happened if they both felt guilty together?"
I tilted my head and curiously gazed at him, unsure what to say as I had never considered that angle before. "I think Shakespeare wouldn't have written that, because he needed them to both die at the end. It needed to be a tragedy."
"But what if it wasn't a story?" he neutrally retorted.
I took my chin in my hand as I continued thinking, "You mean if they were real people? Like us?"
He slowly nodded. "Yes. Exactly like us."
I looked at him, standing in front of me, facing me, but with one hand still on the cutting board he had been working at. A few small red spheres rested by the side, waiting to be crushed, while the liquid from the previous ones had stained the cutting board and the Potions Master's fingers a bright red. "I think that sharing their guilt would have eliminated the haunting element from it. I don't think they would have gone mad. I think they could have even achieved happiness someday," I finally replied.
Sev gave me that odd look he had given me a few times previous, as he returned his attention to the potion. He swallowed and replied in a voice so quiet, I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to hear what he said or not. "I think they could have been happy, too."
…
A/N: The Lady Macbeth quote Liseli references is, 'These deeds must not be thought/After these ways; so, it will make us mad.' Anyways, a huge thank you to Mark Darcy, tibys, PollyWantCookie and angelofire for reviewing! I find reviews very inspiring, so I really appreciate it when you review.