Chapter Forty-One
Severus Snape was wary about being called away from the school at any point, especially to meet anywhere as seedy the Hog's Head in Hogsmeade village. His only clue regarding this summons was that it been writing by wandwork, not by hand. The handwriting was anonymous and without ornaments or nuance - a security measure, most likely, so it was a fair bet to say that the person who had sent him the note was not a complete oaf. That ruled out half of the Death Eaters with whom he was acquainted.
Suspicion rose without halt when Snape was directed by the barkeep, Aberforth, to proceed upstairs to one of the rented rooms - it was never someone of a reputable or desirable sort who booked a room at the Hog's Head nowadays. He had his wand drawn before he even reached the top of the stairway. It was the middle of the week, and no one else seemed to have a room booked on that floor or any other. When he opened the door to which he had been directed, he immediately pointed his wand at a figure in the room, wearing a traveling cloak with their back turned through the door.
"Turn and face the door," Severus snarled sharply, clearly in no mood for mysterious figures of any sort. "Drop your wand -"
"An Auror never surrenders their wand," came the voice under the cloak, which was soon accompanied by the face of Davina Maddux, who turned and pulled the hood off of her head with one hand, twirling her wand idly in the other. "I'm surprised you were able to come, with what I've heard about 'Umpback Whale-"
"Black's tendency to use the most asinine nicknames has rubbed off on you, I see." Snape interrupted sourly. "I'll take it that the joyous reunion has already taken place," he sneered without the slightest inkling of joy in his expression. "Pity that I missed it, I'm sure you made quite the spectacle of yourselves as always."
"He asked me to marry him."
Davie's sudden interruption seemed to hush Snape's snark, for reasons Davie was unable to fathom but was thankful for nonetheless.
"You were," Snape began, regaining his stony composure, "completely and absolutely foolish -"
"For running off again, I know." Davie said flatly. The word 'again', Snape quite visibly noted. "But - Remus told me about what you did. I can't thank you enough, especially knowing how much you hate Sirius."
"Your sentimentality is unnecessary," Snape replied flatly, though he paused and his brow furrowed when Davie reached out and clasped her hand on top of one of his - coming from Davina Maddux, it was such a common gesture. It was a kindness she allotted towards everyone, much like Lily Potter did. "We both know very well why I bothered with something that left such a bad taste in my mouth. We both know the only reason I would ever do anything in Sirius Black's interest -"
"Why can't you just say it?" Davie asked gently, grimacing and shaking her head. "Severus, no one can even hear you here, why can't you just say her name?"
"Did you ever once say in any explicit terms that I was simply a makeshift poultice over the wound left by the loss of your precious Sirius Black ten years ago?" Snape retorted in a smooth, cold voice. "Not once, Maddux." Davie would have recoiled and considered this conversation with Severus Snape a lost cause, except for the fact that he had not yanked his hand away from hers. No matter how putrid the venom in his words may have been, that simple lack of action was encouragement enough.
"I only came to thank you," Davie continued steadily, in a voice whose cadre seemed far stronger than suited to a woman of her stature. "For all of this, for doing what I ought to have had the integrity to do from the start."
Snape stiffened and looked away, and felt quite compelled to end the conversation and send the woman home when suddenly, she spoke up again.
"I lied to you."
For once, Snape's brow furrowed in visible surprise and confusion - emotions that he was indignant to ever display - as Davie pulled out the Pocket Pensieve he had showed into Black's hands. She pulled out her wand and held it to her own forehead, pulling a long, indistinct sliver from her temple: a memory. Guiding it into the Pensieve with the tip of her wand, she placed it into Snape's hand.
Lily Potter was in tears, sitting alone in a room packing baby Harry's things into a bag. They would need to take everything, as they were going to be away for possibly a very long time. Davie, however, walked into the room, shutting the door behind her - one hand held something tightly behind her back, her face was nervous, as though she was afraid of what she was about to do.
"Lily - Lily, wait," she spoke up, causing the young auburn-haired woman to flinch before looking up at her best friend, who gave a weak, apologetic smile. "I know this is a bad time. The worst time, really. But I made a promise a long time ago and I don't know how long it will be before I have another chance to keep it."
Before Lily had a chance to ask what her best friend was rambling about when Davie held out a rumpled, yellowed piece of parchment with a flat, crispy look to it that indicated it had spent a great deal of time pressed flat.
"Please, Lily," Davie pleaded, her voice shaking just as much as her hand as Lily hesitantly took the paper, broke the wax seal that had become brittle with age, and read the letter.
Its contents, Davie did not know - she could only guess that it was a confession of the feelings of one Severus Snape, who had handed the letter to her years ago. The expression on Lily's face, a mixture of fear, confusion, and sadness, seemed only to confirm Davie's suspicions.
"I'm -" Lily began slowly after a good minute or so of silence. "I don't -"
"I'm sorry," Davie said quickly, kneeling next to her best friend - the two girls looked at one another's faces, and for perhaps the first time, they really looked, and found that so much in either face had changed. The youthful glimmer in their porcelain skin seemed to be overcast with a sort of shadow that came with growing up too fast. Davie was no longer the old Davie. Lily was no long the old Lily. "I've had it for a long time. Years - maybe if I had given it to you sooner -"
"We could have saved him?" Lily asked, her forehead wrinkling questioningly, eyeing her friend with an unfamiliar sort of curiosity. "No. No, we couldn't have, Davie. I'm where I'm meant to be and I'm going where I'm meant to be going -"
"Meant to be going!" Davie repeated in a quiet but poignant scoff. "What if - what if we'd all chosen a different life? He loved you-"
"And judging by what he's done, he clearly does not anymore," Lily said in a prim yet somehow still scathing voice. "I wish things weren't this way too," Lily said, noting the crestfallen expression on Davie's face - Davie had always been the one to step in, and while Lily had never uttered such a sentiment, she resented Severus also for using her best friend to get to her. "He was my very first friend in all of this - all this magic and wizardry and everything that I am now. My heart aches for him, Davie. It really does."
"I wish you could forgive him," Davie said quietly, her voice distant and confused - she very deeply only wanted for something to make this go away, for something to heal the wounds that had been created and allow them all to start again and make different decisions. "Even if he never knows, I wish you would -"
"Not everyone deserves to be forgiven," Lily said, shaking her head solemnly, and Davie flinched visibly - the single sentiment cemented the fact that the two young women who had been inseparable and very much a package had grown into such different people. "Not everyone can be saved. You, James, Harry, all of our friends in the Order - you can't expect me to forgive someone who at any time could have taken you from me without even a grain of remorse."
"But -"
"Davie, please." Lily said, holding up her hand and closing the hatch on her suitcase with a sort of finality that even after all these years, Davie knew could not be argued with. "Everyone makes a choice. Everyone. And every choice has consequences. You of all people know that."
For a moment, Davie stared at her friend with confusion, until the thought really sank in - the decision to become an Auror, to join the Order, to not marry Sirius - all of it had shaped the Davina Maddux that Davie had become. Silently, she made to stand up, but while she was still partially bent, she reached over and held Lily's hand which still contained the letter, clenching it tightly.
"Just keep it, then. Even if you do nothing, keep it." Davie insisted in the soft, childlike voice that Lily had never been able to refuse from her best friend. "People can change. They change a little every day, and you never see it until it's too late."
Severus emerged from the memory with a very grim expression on his face, his eyes planted sternly at a nondescript spot on the floor.
"You led me to believe that she never received the letter." he said, his jaw clenched tightly. The lower hood of his eye gave a slight twitch as he struggled to maintain this steady countenance. He couldn't say Lily's name for worry of being unable to manage the task. "You explicitly said -"
"I wanted to hurt you. I wanted you to feel what I was feeling." Davie said, her eyes darkening in a way they only did when she spoke with Severus, because there was a sort of darkness in desperation that only he was able to force her to come to terms with. "Sirius was in Azkaban, Lily and James were dead, and I'd never shown to any of them the measure of how much they were worth to me, and by Merlin, I wanted to make sure you felt it too because it was all because of you. I wanted it to hurt as much as possible. And I know it worked just as well as I meant it to." Davie continued, and she could not help her lips from curling into a brief sneer, though this faded quickly.
Snape stared for a moment, eyes stonily locked onto Davie, whose expression mirrored the same calculating hesitation. It continued this way until he spoke two simple words.
"Thank you -"
"You don't -"
"But I do need to ask why you chose to remedy this circumstance now that it makes no difference." Snape said stiffly, his eyes trained questioningly on Davie. "What reason is there?"
"Because you told Sirius the truth. You gave me back my life," Davie is a voice that was so lacking in melodrama that somehow it did not seem over sentimental. "And I may not have been able to do the same for you but I owed you this much."
"You're a fool." Snape replied, and Davie gave no reaction. Being called foolish by Severus Snape was a bit like breathing. It was natural and could hardly be helped. "You risked being seen by Umbridge for this. We haven't even found a way to reveal that you're alive that won't endanger your life. If you were as good an Auror as they say, your fiance is an unfortunately bad influence on you."
Davie gave an almost imperceptible nod before pulling her hood back over her head and starting towards the door - but first, she turned and faced him once more.
"How is Harry?" she asked carefully, crossing her arms over herself.
"At this very moment, I have reason to believe that he is in detention with Dolores Umbridge. And I've also reason to believe that Professor Umbridge has an affinity for - leave a lasting impression," Snape said vaguely, but this in and of itself was enough to cause a very familiar glint to appear in Davie's eyes. It went without saying that something bad was happening to Harry.
"And you're just allowing this to happen?" Davie asked, eyes narrowed. "I have to go there - I'm still an Auror, I still work for the Ministry, and -"
"And you are severely outranked by Dolores Umbridge, she'll have your head, and you'll be no use to us then," Severus said, his lip curling in slight disgust at her reaction. "As a member of the Order, you will be updated duly regarding Mister Potter, and he will be duly informed of recent developments between yourself and his godfather. I would now, however, recommend you return to Headquarters before your fiance is no longer able to tolerate your absence," he continued with seamless condescension. Accustomed to it, Davie gave a slightly sour succinct nod before stepping out into the dark hallway and Disapparating with a crack.
Once she was gone, Severus Snape gave a shuddering, heaving breath, drooping into a nearby chair and burying his head in his hands.
A/N's
Hello and Happy Thanksgiving! I'm back!
I know it's been far too long since I last updated, but I have not forgotten about this story. So I hope you haven't forgotten about me! I have been having a lot of real-life trouble, after my accident. Long story short, there are a lot of legal issues, and that along with my studies have taken up a lot of my time. However, after watching Deathly Hallows Part One (which I would love to hear my reviewers' thoughts about, by the way) finally reviewed my muse. And so, I am taking the opportunity with my week off from school to get further in this story. It's all planned out, just needs to be written.
I want to say thank you for all the feedback I have received since my last update, though I'm again hard-pressed to go through everyone one-by-one. I want to especially say thanks to those of you who sent me personal get-well messages after my accident.
I hope to have the next chapter up very soon! I also apologize for typos, I haven't had much of a chance to proofread in my hurry to get this posted. I hope you all enjoy nonetheless. Cheers!