Hello. So we are nearing the last few chapters in the story, and I hope to have this story finished by the end of the summer.
Chapter 19
The next few weeks around the school were very tense. Jenny avoided Lily and Severus with all her might. Alice, Maddie and Tonks had apologised profusely and Jenny had forgiven them, knowing what Lily did had nothing to do with the other women, but still she found herself drifting away from the group completely, and leaning more onto the Malfoy family. She would sit with Narcissa and Lucius for dinner, and often Minerva and Albus found the young woman in the company of the family. Narcissa had taken on the role of Jenny's protector, and often she would sitting in the back of Jenny's classes while Jenny taught. The students had also noticed the change in their Muggle Studies teacher, gone was her normally bubbly and fun personality; and it had been replaced with a cold and sad woman.
"Ok that's all for today." Jenny said one Monday morning, to her Gryffindor and Hufflepuff third year students, "You may leave and I'll expect your homework for our next lesson." As the students filled out one remained; Chloe.
"Miss?" She called out once the students had left. Jenny turned her head to look out on the classroom.
"Chloe? Don't you have another lesson to go to?"
"No, I've got a free period next." Jenny smiled to herself, she knew for a fact Chloe was lying, she had a Herbology lesson with Alice next, but the teacher couldn't bear to force the young girl to go to her next lesson.
"How can I help you Chloe? Are you having problems with today's lesson?" Chloe took a deep breath, and rose from her seat and walked up to her teacher's desk.
"Miss… are you ok? You've been acting really weird lately, like completely not yourself." Jenny sighed and dropped her head to the desk. Chloe couldn't help herself, she wandered right up to her teacher and wrapped her arms around the woman.
For a moment Jenny was taken aback, but eventually she found herself hugging the girl back. Her eyes were filling a little and she squeezed them shut to try to stop them falling.
"Chloe, I'm fine." She spoke, knowing she was lying to herself.
"I don't believe you." Chloe said immediately. Jenny shrugged the girl off her shoulders. Chloe let go but stayed where she was standing. For a while Jenny was silent, Chloe said nothing also, but simply stayed where she was, providing comfort for the older woman. Jenny let go a deep sigh.
"Chloe," She began, "You honestly don't need to worry about me. I can take care of myself, I've been doing it for long enough now."
"Is this all because of your memory problems Miss?" Chloe asked more than a little puzzled.
Jenny couldn't help but laugh. It was the first proper laugh she had had in a long time. Chloe was spot on the money.
"Chloe, how much do you know about Hogwarts, and its students?" She asked. Chloe thought for a minute.
"Only what I've read and seen." She answered truthfully.
"Have you heard of a girl called Rachel Evans? She was at school here about 9 years ago." Chloe shook her head.
"Sit down." Jenny gestured, and the young girl took a seat on Jenny's now vacated desk chair, Jenny perched on the end of her desk. "What I am about to tell you, cannot leave this room. You must not tell anyone Chloe, and I mean it."
"I swear I won't tell a soul Miss, ever." Chloe replied. Jenny took a deep breath and began her story.
"9 years ago, 2 sisters came to Hogwarts, one of them you know as Lily Potter, but she was once Lily Evans. She had a younger twin sister called Rachel. Now the two girls were best friends, and when they arrived at Hogwarts they became friends with a group of other students, Frank Longbottom and his future wife Alice Francis, Maddie Cross the future wife of Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks, James Potter and Severus Snape. Now the group were inseparable as they grew up, and eventually they all paired off but still remained friends. Have I lost you yet?" Jenny asked Chloe.
"So Healer Potter used to be Lily Evans, and she had a sister called Rachel, and the sisters were friends with Professor Snape, Professor Lupin, Professor Longbottom, Professor Potter, Healer Black, Auror Tonks, Auror Longbottom, and Mr Black." Chloe surmised.
"Correct. Now just before the group were due to leave Hogwarts in their last year, Rachel went missing. She left her dorm one night and never came back." Chloe gasped.
"I have heard of her!" She cried out. "The girl who never graduated. Rumour is that professor Dumbledore still has her results in his office."
"That's the one." Jenny said. "Now do you remember your first lesson with me?"
"You told us that you had been introduced to magic only months before you started working here."
"Correct again, what I didn't tell you all was that the only reason I came here is because Professor Dumbledore and McGonagall found me in a café near where I live in Cornwall. Apparently I am the spitting image of Rachel Evans."
"But why are you here?" Jenny sighed again, and took another deep breath.
"When I was 18, my adoptive family found me in our local park. I had no recollection of who I was, where I was from, whether I had any family or anything. Because of this and the fact that we looked so much alike, it was through I was Rachel Evans, despite the fact I can't do magic or have any memories of Hogwarts or the group of people who were supposedly my best friends and my boyfriend."
"Boyfriend?" Chloe looked confused.
"Rachel Evans and Professor Snape were together when she vanished." Jenny filled in.
It took Chloe a minute to let everything sink in.
"So Professor Dumbledore thinks you're a missing witch?" Chloe asked.
"Yes in a nutshell." Jenny replied.
"But you don't think you are?" Jenny got the desk and walked away from Chloe running her fingers through her hair.
"I genuinely don't know. I've got no memories of Hogwarts, and I don't know if I should stay." For a while both were silent, before Jenny looked at her watch. She had kept Chloe for only 15 minutes, but it felt like much longer.
"Come on, I'd better take you to your lesson, you're already late." Chloe quickly grabbed her things and followed Jenny out of the classroom.
Meanwhile on the other side of the castle, Severus was taking full advantage of the empty corridors to take the time to walk around the castle trying to clear his head. He knew Jenny had been avoiding him since their awkward last encounter and if he was being honest with himself, he had been avoiding her too. Lucius was also wandering the corridors, he was on his way to see Jenny knowing she now had a free lesson. By chance as he turned down one corridor, he ran smack bang into Severus, sending both men crashing to the floor.
"Sorry." Lucius was the first to get himself up, when he realised who he had run into.
"Severus, just the person I've been meaning to find. What have you done to Jenny?"
"What are you talking about?" Severus said trying to get around the blonde wizard, but Lucius was having none of it. He grabbed him by the collar and shoved him right against the wall.
"I mean it, what have you done to her!?" By now he was shouting right into Severus's face.
"And what would you care?" Severus shouted back.
"Because unlike you and your gang, Jenny is willing to give people a second chance."
Severus fought to get free but Lucius held him tight.
"What did you do to her?" Lucius asked one last time staring Severus straight in the eyes.
"I kissed her." He admitted, all be it almost silently so that only Lucius could hear him.
It was the first time Severus had admitted it out loud, and Lucius let go of him almost instantly. Severus fell against the wall letting it take all his weight.
"I kissed her ok, is that what you wanted to hear?" Lucius was silent.
"You… you kissed her? That's it?"
"What do you mean that's it?"
"Well it was pretty obvious she liked you, and I mean it did look like you enjoyed her company as well…" This time it was Lucius who found himself flat against the wall with Severus right up in his face.
"You listen to me you pathetic excuse for a wizard." He spat. "I love Rachel. I feel nothing for Jenny, she is pathetic, useless and above all else, she is simply and utterly ridiculous. A muggle pretending to be some she isn't, Albus and Minerva obviously didn't know Rachel as well as they thought they did because that thing is defiantly not the woman I love. There has never been anyone else and there will never be anyone else, do you understand me?" Lucius managed to shake Severus off, the darker haired wizard still fuming.
"Alright, keep your robes on. I wasn't saying you had to be with her." Severus feeling in more of a bad mood now, sulked off quickly looking for someone to terrorize.
As he stomped past he failed to see two shadows standing behind the corner Lucius had come from; Jenny and Chloe. Chloe was getting angry at her professor. Jenny meanwhile was defiantly crying silent tears. Chloe turned to her professor.
"Miss?" She said at a loss for words. "Do you need anything?"
"Professor Dumbledore." Jenny managed to splutter out. "Now."
While all this was happening at other parts of the castle, Jenny's quarters were being invaded by an intruder. An intruder of the furry kind. She had in her mouth a shallow but long box. As the portrait to the rooms allowed her access, the tabby cat silently slipped in and looked around her. Lola, being the ever so conscientious guard dog rose from her bed. Just in time to see the tabby turn into the older professor the dog recognised. Minerva bent to stroke the dogs head.
"Good dog." Although the feline professor wasn't completely happy about sharing her castle with two canines (Sirius had a lot of grovelling to do to get her to accept his animagus), Lola had wormed her way into Minerva's affections. The box Minerva now held seemed of great importance. She hunted for a place to leave the object. Finally she settled on the bedside table in Jenny's bedroom.
"Now Lola," Minerva spoke to the animal, "It is of great importance that Jennifer sees this box. Do what you can to get her attention towards it. This will tell us once and for all who she is. I only hope I'm doing the right thing." The dog pushed her head into Minerva's hand and rubbed around her legs.
"Thank you Lola, this is for Jennifer. I hope it all works out for the best. Now to bed with you quickly, and remember what I said, Jennifer must see the box. One touch of what's inside, then she will know the truth." And with that Minerva slipped back into her feline form, and left the rooms just as silently as she had entered them.
And chapter 19 is done. I hope you guys like the idea the story is going in. I promise we are nearly at an end of Jennifer's story, and the final story in this trilogy will explore the final battle between good and evil. It may however take a while to be posted, I wat to re-read the last few books before I try my own version.
As always though please read and review, and I'll post again soon.
Happy reading,
Beth xx