Happy New Year, patient readers. May peace, health, and prosperity be yours. Thank you all for your kind reviews and faves/follows. This dark time of year is tough to get through, and this year especially. I love the support I get from you all. Just looking at where everyone reading this is from really warms my heart. THANKS! There is more to come in the story, so do stay along for the ride. Cheers, DN
Hunter and Snape arrived to find Janiss Ames sitting up, still in her school robes, feet dangling sideways off the hospital bed, a scowl on her face. Snape stood back in the shadows that were now gathering as the sun began to set, allowing Hunter to greet her first. Janiss looked away, not meeting anyone's eyes.
"Aunt Morgan," she began. Her defiance gave way to sadness, the tears rolling down her cheeks precluding any further talk. Hunter sat in the chair at the bedside and held her hand wordlessly until the young witch was able to regain control of herself. She rested back on the pillows and stared dejectedly into the distance.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, eyes closing now, pressing out more tears.
Hunter said nothing for a time, the only sound in the room Janiss's raspy breathing. "Was it an accident?" she asked at last.
Janiss mutely shook her head. Hunter closed her eyes in empathetic sadness and held Janiss's hand a little tighter.
"Why?"
Janiss glared at Hunter, angry disbelief springing easily back to her face. Her words came out, spilling one upon another. "I haven't had a mother since I was five. My dad, the criminal and thief, but all I had in the world, especially since he pulled me out of my school where I at least had some friends, is gone, too. He spent every penny he ever made or stole, and more, so now I have nothing. Probably not even money to pay for this rotten school or even to get back home. Everything here is in ruins, so I can't stay. I still have outstanding debt at the Salem Academy, so I can't go back there, either. Dad threw curses at most of the staff there, so I wouldn't get a warm reception even with a sack of gold in my hands. To get even the worst apprenticeship here or in the States, to get a job and make my own money, I'd need recommendations, and that's not too likely, either, given what I've done." Her anger dissolved once again into despair. She hung her head and simply cried openly, her shoulders shaking and heaving.
Hunter tugged at the edge of her robe and conjured a handkerchief from the same fabric and handed it to Janiss. She looked thoughtful for a moment, as the girl wiped away some of her tears and blew her nose loudly. Her paroxysms of sadness began to abate as the warmth and comfort the fabric carried began to reach her. Hunter turned to Snape.
"Headmaster, did you make the antidote that Janiss took?"
Janiss cast a suspicious glance at Snape, clearly displeased that he may have caused her survival.
He nodded, both in agreement with her statement, but also to show he was tracking with her thinking. "I did."
"And you used your blood for it, didn't you?"
"Yes. It's from the same batch as yours."
At this, Janiss could not hold back her disgust. Her lips curled and her stomach churned at the thought.
Hunter turned back to Janiss, purposefully not acknowledging her reaction to this information. "Your future may be brighter than you imagine, Janiss."
She rolled her eyes and rested her head, looking anywhere but Hunter. "Maybe you actually even believe that, Aunt Morgan, but I don't. I don't see what the antidote has to do with anything. I used the Scorpion Venom because there is no antidote and I was sure it was potent. It killed my dad, after all," she finished miserably. "I must not have used enough."
Hunter took Janiss's hand in both of hers. "It means that you have around you love that you don't know about."
Janiss snorted derisively. "Whatever. Once Seamus figured out I jinxed him, he dropped me and told the others. No, I don't even have a boyfriend anymore. I haven't had one since the fall."
Hunter scooted in even more closely. "Not that kind of love. The power of the antidote is only sufficient if person who made it, using their own blood, loves the recipient."
Hunter allowed time for Janiss to think. Not much later, Janiss snapped her head back around and looked at Snape, disgust and disbelief playing alternately across her face.
"No," she said apprehensively, eyes narrowing. "That's not possible. After all the trouble I caused you. I broke the two of you up, got you in trouble with the Ministry, embarrassed you in class."
Hunter looked to Snape, awaiting his reply.
He looked stony, as usual. "Yes, you did. All of those things, and you brought bad publicity to Hogwarts." Hunter's eyes grew wide with apprehension, hearing again the voice belonging to the stern and inflexible Headmaster. Severus' style of drowning any good intentions with criticisms and admonishments was not likely to be understood by a teenage witch. Or even many adults. She only saw through him by seeing his aura over time, and even with that insight doubted him. Was he planning to admonish her at her lowest point? Perhaps she was expecting too much from him and too much from Janiss. "However," he said gravely, stepping out from the gathering shadows. "The actions a person takes are not a complete picture. Why they do things, and under whose command, these also matter. Your father put you up to that...event. Any daughter would find it difficult to refuse the orders of a father like yours. You couldn't have known how things would play out for me. I bear you no ill will, Miss Ames. I had thought I made that clear in class, by treating you no differently after the incident than before. Obviously that was not sufficient to communicate my forgiveness." Hunter very carefully, very silently, breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't exactly warm, but at least it softened somewhat his first words on the matter.
Janiss took in these words, remaining unmoved. She looked back to Hunter. "So I've been forgiven for being a saboteur. Forgiveness isn't the same as love."
Hunter held her hand tighter, leaning in to say something more, when she heard Snape speaking from behind her.
"You are correct, Miss Ames. Forgiveness isn't the same as love, but it is a component of it. As Headmaster of this school and your teacher, I...care...for every student here. As students have no parents here, I act as a kind of father to all of you. Given the effectiveness of the antidote, there must be within me therefore some love for you, though it is like a father's love, not some other kind."
At this, Janiss turned away. Hunter smiled, pleased to hear him say those words, to hear that he was thinking along the same lines as she was, even if his tone lacked any warmth.
"I've forgiven you, too, Janiss, for the same reasons. But you are more to me than only Ethinian's daughter. You are Phillipus' niece, a living link to him. To lose you would be losing the only family I have now, the only living link to him. That may not be something you understand at your age, but for me, losing you would be like losing the last piece of him."
Janiss allowed more tears to flow.
Hunter released her hand and stood. "We will talk more about your future, Janiss, but let me assure you, you aren't alone. I will have a conversation with my lawyer and whoever represents your father's estate. We will get things sorted out. You are my family, Janiss, and I will provide for you." The young witch could not speak, but only stared at Hunter with gratitude and relief in her eyes. Hunter gave a quick pat to her knee. "Now," she said, rising. "It's about dinner time. Let's find you something to eat. You'll also want something to drink to wash down another dose of the antidote. It's effective, but it tastes like a Dementor's Kiss." At this, Janiss was able to muster a weak smile.
Hunter stood and went to seek out someone on the staff to get a meal sent up, leaving Snape alone with Janiss. He eyed the chair just vacated by Hunter, but opted to remain standing. He looked to the windows at the end of the ward, growing dim with the setting sun. Janiss, too, kept her eyes fixed at some distant point, not daring to look at him, this wizard she had wronged so badly. He spoke softly, but not with the dangerous tone she'd learned to associate with his speaking quietly. "Miss Ames, I understand your motives for self-destruction, but I urge you not to give yourself over to despair. Even seemingly hopeless situations can be bent to our favor, given enough time and fortitude. Life is not a simple matter, its problems not tidily solved like in the chapters of a book. Apply the talent and the knowledge that you have to your advantage and nearly any situation can be survived."
Janiss bristled at these words. "You can't possibly understand how I feel, Professor Snape," she shot back. "Everyone always says that, but you don't know what it's like." She surprised herself by her own daring in snapping back at him, and prepared herself for some kind of biting retort as she'd received in so many classes and detentions. What did it matter? Detention, house points, nothing mattered anyway. She continued forward. "You dumped Aunt Morgan months ago, but then duelled for Deputy Alexander just today. Now here you two are, all lovey-dovey again. I don't know what plans you have, but if you hurt her or cheat her for her money, I'll report you to the Ministry of Magic and the newspapers as soon as I possibly can," she hissed.
Snape felt the familiar rise in temper that disrespect kindled in him. He wanted greatly to hex her into silence, then give her a blistering lecture on just how long he'd fought his own self-destruction, just how hopeless his life had seemed, just how horrible the past years, and especially these past months, had been. To somehow shout it into her understanding of how punishing the pain and deaths of students at the hands of the Death Eaters in the war had been on everyone who had survived. That he hoped to never see another student die or be tortured for as long as he lived.
What would Morgan do? How would she handle a brash, insolent witch? His jaw tightened as the questions gave himself time to recall himself at 16: brash, contemptuous of authority, certain of himself. Talented, ready to go beyond the ordinary, but thwarted in learning, forced into the conventional path, his knowledge squeezed aside into margins of a book he had thought only he alone would ever see. Growing more angry and disillusioned by the day as things fell apart around him, despite the efforts of the supposed leaders. Seeking a way, any way, out of a bad situation. Ready to make bad decisions, decisions that would haunt him across the years. It didn't have to be that way for Janiss, indeed not for any other Hogwarts student. Her confusion and suspicion about his relationships with Hypatia and Morgan were, no doubt, shared by most of the staff and students. He breathed out an exasperated sigh and sat beside her.
"Miss Ames, you are correct. I don't understand how you feel. But I have felt angry, alone, afraid, and hopeless. Burdened by the limits placed on me me by virtue of birth and the flaws of the adults around me. Perseverance was only an option if one could see the possibility of change, but not every change was for the better. The change that needed to occur was not always outside me; some of that change needed to happen within me."
He stopped, his expression stony.
"As for my feelings for Dr. Hunter," ho continued slowly, "that is a matter between her and I alone. Should I ever disappoint her, I have no doubt that she will herself will hex me into oblivion. Should I survive, you'll be free to also exert your anger on me."
Janiss still looked away, anywhere but at the Headmaster, trying to make some sense of her current situation. Her efforts had failed, despite using proven Scorpion Venom, thwarted by some new antidote made by Professor Snape, containing some of his blood. The potion needed the blood of someone who loves the person for whom it is made, meaning that Professor Snape loved her, on some level. As a father, he claimed. Certainly she was not worthy of this from him, given what she'd done. She hoped, if it were true, that his "fatherly" love might take some shape different from her own father's love. Perhaps not so full of greed, bitterness, and manipulation. Probably full of sarcasm, criticism, but possibly other things, too. Aunt Morgan had some kind of arrangement in mind for her future, though how that would be, she didn't know. She hadn't considered that Aunt Morgan might think of her as family; they'd only just met and under perhaps the worst of imaginable circumstances. Forgiveness probably didn't mean forgetting everything and going on as though nothing had happened.
That same antidote had also saved Aunt Morgan, though it seemed the love he had for her was not of the fatherly sort. She cast a sidelong glance at the Headmaster, who, thankfully, was looking down the ward towards where Aunt Morgan had disappeared, his expression troubled and pensive, yet somehow softer than she'd seen him before in class or his office. Despite being such a strict and unforgiving teacher, he'd found some way to forgive her. Perhaps she might find a way to forgive herself. And then to persevere. Her future wouldn't be easy; her past hadn't been either. She would have to find the strength somehow to overcome the life her father had created for her, to create a life of her own. It would take time, Professor Snape was probably right about that. She would try to keep going, if not for herself, then for Aunt Morgan, both of them wronged by Ethinian Ames. She would defy him, overcome him, simply by living. A new determination, to create her own story no longer under the repressive control of her father, welled up within her. She would be defiant, defiantly strong, for herself and for Aunt Morgan.
Hunter returned, a House Elf trailing her with a tray of steaming soup with spring peas, roasted chicken, a baked potato dripping with Scottish butter, and a pitcher of pumpkin juice. She sized up the scene as she approached, both the witch and wizard scowling, arms crossed, not looking at one another. Whatever had been said (or not said) in her absence hadn't gone well, though their auras were not those of anger or resentment. Hunter saw within them both nobility, with a sparkle of hope and determination in Janiss. Perhaps it had gone as well as was possible, given the circumstances and the personalities involved.
The warm, steamy scent of food reminded Hunter painfully that she had eaten only one meal in several days' time and was famished beyond belief. Her attention had been taken up entirely by things other than her stomach all day, but now her mind was at rest enough to notice pangs of deep hunger. Once she was certain Janiss was eating and comfortable, she rose.
"Perhaps we, too, would benefit from dinner, Severus," she said, laying a gentle hand on his arm, a gesture not missed by Janiss's watchful eye. Janiss threw Snape a warning glare, to which he responded with an almost imperceptible nod. "Before I go, Janiss, I need your promise that you won't do anything or make any decisions before we have a chance to talk. I'm not fully recovered myself, so I need time, but I will come up with a plan to help you and support your future. Will you make me that promise?"
Hunter reached out a hand to Janiss, who took hers. "Yes, Aunt Morgan. I promise." Hunter breathed a sigh of relief and said her goodnights, leaving only with the assurance from Madam Pomfrey that Janiss would continue to be observed, although it seemed that she was well on the way to a full recovery.
Once in the hall outside the Infirmary, Hunter turned to Snape. "I need a moment to freshen up, I'm in no condition for the Great Hall." Glamor Charms were not her greatest talent, but at least a Clean-up Charm would help a bit. The dust flew from her robes, her hair rebraided itself, and the smudges were removed from her face. Once she was done, she looked expectantly at Snape. After a moment's hesitation, he concluded that a witch like Morgan Hunter should be accompanied only by a wizard worthy of her. He'd never bothered to develop any skills in Glamor Charms and wondered if he should allow her to work her magic, then decided he'd be best off attempting to handle this himself so as not to ask for her effort on his behalf. He dismissed the dust and dirt from his clothes, removed the sweat and dirt from his face and hands, then attempted some kind of cleansing of his hair. At least the visible grass and dirt came out. Anything further would require more effort and practice. For her, he would do so, though where he might seek advice or instruction was less clear. Lockhart's book hadn't been useful up to now, but perhaps on these matters…
Once Hunter nodded her approval, they set off.
Later that evening, after enjoying a restorative and amusing dinner in the Great Hall, purposefully and smugly ignoring the stares and whispers of both the students and staff as they entered together, arm in arm, Snape and Hunter relaxed in the Headmaster's office, sharing a bottle of wine and a number of kisses. She rested in his lap, her ear against his shoulder, his robes draped around her shoulders, as though no time had passed since the fall.
There were so many conversations he wanted to begin. How soon could they marry? Where? What would the arrangements for Janiss be? Would she want to work here or return to Sedona? There were so many questions, but the hour was drawing late. He would need to oversee the final day of exams tomorrow, despite having little sleep the night before.
Snape set his glass aside.
"Morgan," he began, not yet able to meet her eyes, instead looking up to the portraits on the walls. "These past few months, trying to live without you and failing so badly, I'm so sorry." He decided to simply tell her everything, apologize for how much he'd hurt her. She gave him all the time he needed to speak. It pleased him that she was listening and not interrupting, as had been her usual habit, to interject some idea of her own, that she seemed to sense how important it was to him that he tell her these things, so that she would understand more. He glanced down to gauge her reaction.
Her head rested on his shoulder, as it had for those pleasant times they'd shared before. Those times he thought he'd lost forever, memories tainted by worries of her deception and their eventual dissolution at the end of the school year, or when she found about his past, whichever came first. Her eyes were now firmly closed, her breathing slow and regular, her mouth hanging slightly open.
He grimaced, but concurred. It had been a long and exhausting day for both of them. She wasn't yet fully recovered. Neither was he, for that matter. Madam Pomfrey's Blood Builder was helping, but not yet fully effective.
Rather than wake her, he wrapped her more fully in his robes and held her a little bit closer, amazed at having the privilege of holding this wonderful witch in his arms. She knew what he was, and yet still, here she was, and had asked to be so forever.
Before the hour became unseemly, and after it was likely that most, if not all, students would have cleared from the corridors into their common rooms or the library to prepare for the final day of N.E.W.T. and O.W.L. exams, he lifted her and turned his feet toward the Hospital Wing. He had no interest in the Healer lecturing him about her need to further recover before she declared her released. He also had no interest in the resultant rumors should he be seen near her private chambers at this time of the evening.
Strangely, the halls outside his office were unusually lively for this time of evening, students milling about aimlessly, all carrying books and quills, yet obviously not walking to or from the library, instead leaning against walls and talking in groups. Their voices dropped to silence as he and Morgan, still sleeping like a rock, emerged from the Headmaster's office. As he strode wordlessly past them, the mostly slack-jawed boys, the swooning girls, his glare alone was sufficient to cause instant, yet curiously quiet, scattering of students in every direction, except towards the library.