NOTE

Content warnings: abuse, bullying, death/grief, and mentions of suicide. Also references to Wilma's trauma, including sexual assault and miscarriage.

Some of Severus's memories will be rewritings of memories used in the books and films. Only the infamous bullying scene will include some of the dialogue word-for-word from the book (full credit to the author).

51. Pensieve

After leaving the hospital wing, I went immediately to the headmaster's office. The castle was cold and dark, and I heard the wind growing stronger outside. It seemed the sky would storm soon. I reached the gryphon that guarded the staircase. "Dumbledore," I told it, recalling the password from Minerva's list.

The stone stairs began to slowly curl upward, and I stepped forward, allowing myself to be carried in a spiral. Eventually the stairs stopped, and I stepped forward into the headmaster's office.

I hadn't had frequent reason to be here while at school, but had been once or twice. I recognised certain objects–particularly the Sorting Hat, sat on its high shelf–but the whole room had a ghostly feeling that worried me. I was trespassing, after all, and hadn't the first idea where to find the pensieve.

A soft throat-clearing sound turned my head towards the great desk that sat at the end of the room. I saw through the dimness that the sound had come from a portrait–a portrait of Albus Dumbledore.

"Professor!" I exclaimed, forgetting myself.

"Miss Weasley," said the portrait, in Dumbledore's voice. It was just the same voice–steady, trustworthy, finding slight amusement in everything. "Why are you here?" he asked.

"I need to use the Pensieve." I held up the small vial of Severus's tears.

He studied me over his half-moon spectacles. "I see."

I wasn't certain of his abilities as a portrait, and hesitated for a moment before asking. "Can you tell me where it is?"

"Of course I can." He paused, as though testing me, but then smiled. "It's inside the blue cabinet to your right."

I turned to see a dusty blue cabinet, which, as I looked at it, opened of its own will. The doors unfolded to reveal a circular stone basin at chest-height, glowing a magical blue. I stepped towards it with conviction, before realising I hadn't the slightest clue of how to use it. The liquid inside was swirling calmly, like a tranquil sea.

"Professor?" I asked. "How do I…?"

"Pour in that vial you're holding, and submerge your face. Don't worry–you will be able to breathe."

I nodded.

I uncorked the vial and poured in the contents. Immediately the water itself seemed to darken slightly, though the light coming from it brightened. Now I could see ghostly traces of movement.

I cast a nervous glance at Dumbledore's portrait. He was watching me, waiting. I turned back to the pensieve, entranced and afraid at the same time. Despite his assurance that I would be able to breathe, I still took a long, deep breath before touching my nose to the cool water, and then letting my face sink down.

At once I had changed state, my body moving very fast, somewhere between diving and apparating. I was in the water, but the water was in my mind, and it was my consciousness which was being propelled through it. I heard many layered voices tangled all around me, Severus's among them, and as I focused my ears upon it, I felt myself taking shape again. A scene built itself around me, and when it was complete, it was as though I were really standing there. I could feel my feet on the ground, feel the watery breeze in my hair.

I was standing on the bank of a river under a willow tree. Nearby was a bridge and, seeing it, I realised I was near Severus's house. I turned at the sound of children's laughter.

He was a small boy with clear black eyes, his hair lying straight and long against his cheeks. His clothes were too big on him, and he seemed rather too pale for a little boy, but there was an innocent smile on his face. Next to him was a little girl with long red hair that fell over her shoulders and trembled in the soft wind. Her green eyes were focused on a twig, which was hovering in the air in front of her.

"See?" she said. "Now you try it, too."

The boy looked nervous as the girl let the twig fall again, but soon his eyes were intent upon it. There was the slightest tensing at his temples.

"Come on, Sev," the girl urged.

Slowly, the twig began to hover off of the ground. Soon it was floating further up, above their heads and towards the swaying green limbs above. The girl laughed. "See? You're better at it than me!"

"Lily!"

A sharp voice interrupted the moment as a dark-haired girl, a year or so older than Severus's friend, came through the curtain of the willow branches. Her eyes widened in shock as she saw the twig, which had been hovering high in the air, fall to the ground. Then her face hardened, her eyes looking suspiciously from Severus to the little girl. "Mum and dad want you home straight away."

"Alright," said the red haired child–Lily. She stood up and began to follow the other girl, who I assumed was her sister. "Bye, Sev," she said, before she disappeared beyond the screen of the willow branches.

"What were you doing with that freak?" I heard her sister hiss. Severus glared after them disdainfully until they could be heard no more.

He stayed there for a few moments, and then stood up, walking out from beneath the tree and starting up towards the path by the bridge. I began to hurry after him, wanting to know where he was going next. But then the scene shifted around me, the sound muffling for a moment as my surroundings dissolved and then changed.

I was now in the street by the house I had seen twice in real life. The boy seemed too small and precious to be entering the dark, rain-blackened house. Warily, I followed behind him as he opened the door and closed it behind him.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs above and he looked up, his shoulders tensing. He relaxed again when a woman appeared–a very beautiful woman, with flowing black hair and black eyes. "Sweetheart," she said to him, bending down to hug him against her. I noticed that she had a frightened look in her eye, which she was trying to conceal. "Let's go on a walk."

More footsteps on the stairs–heavier. A man appeared on the landing, his silhouette intimidating as the light of the window shone behind him. "Where d'you think you're off to?" he said.

I watched Severus and his mother shrink when he spoke. He walked down the stairs slowly, and when he reached his wife, he slapped her across the face. Severus backed into the corner on instinct, and I covered my mouth with my hands. The woman's head remained bent to the side for a moment before she stood up straight again, looking at her husband with cold eyes. "In front of the boy, Tobias?"

The man sneered–an expression I couldn't help but recognise as Severus's, but which was undoubtedly worse. He turned to his son, who was cowering, his eyes shining spitefully out of the grimy shadows. "Go wash your face," he barked. "You're dirty."

The boy looked up at his mother, and she nodded. Then he hurried past his father, and ran up the stairs. I ran after him. This child shouldn't be left alone. Even though I knew he couldn't see me, I wished that he might be able to feel my presence.

He washed his face and hands in the bathroom, which was painfully familiar as the bathroom where I'd miscarried. As he did so, we could both overhear the fight downstairs–his father's brutal shouting, his mother crying out in pain. Severus stood there, his nose dripping water. He turned up the tap to block out the noise, and watched the water swirling down the drain.

The scene dissolved and reformed, and suddenly I was standing in the great hall, in the midst of a sorting ceremony. The young, small Severus was among the first years waiting at the front, his black eyes wide and nervous as he watched the other children mounting the stairs, sitting up on the stool.

"Evans, Lily!" a much younger Minerva called, reading from the scroll of names.

There was a softening in Severus's whole body as he watched her climb the stairs and sit down on the stool. Lily… Of course… Only now did I realise that she was Harry's mother. Only now did I recognise the look in Severus's young eyes. He was innocently, completely in love with her.

The sorting hat was lowered onto her head, and after sitting there for a moment, called out "GRYFFINDOR!"

Severus's eyes changed slightly, full of worry, and then determination as he watched Lily walk down to the Gryffindor table.

My heart hurt as Minerva called out "Lupin, Remus!" A boy almost as scrawny as Severus, with dirty-blond hair, climbed quickly up the stairs and sat on the stool. I drank in the sight of his face, so young, before the scars. He grinned as the hat also sorted him into Gryffindor, and he ran to sit beside a boy who only could have been Sirius Black.

Then Severus's name was called. I could feel his heartbeat as though it were my own as he walked up the steps, Minerva floating up and down in his vision. I remembered the feeling well–looking out at the hundreds of blinking faces. Severus found Lily's eyes in the crowd, and she nodded at him encouragingly as the sorting hat was lowered…

"SLYTHERIN!" it bellowed, just as the brim touched his forehead.

Head down, he walked to the Slytherin table, where he was greeted by a very young Lucius Malfoy, who I saw was a prefect. I kept my distance, watching Severus as he watched Lily. She was speaking with James, Sirius and Remus, and did not notice Severus for some time. Finally, when the sorting was finished, she caught his eye. She waved at him, smiling. Severus waved back, his face gloomy.

The scene disintegrated and I caught snatches of other memories during the transition. I saw Severus working on spells, sitting with Lily in certain classes, inexplicable cruel looks shot through the corridors by James and Sirius–

Then the scene was solid again. It was night, outside on the grounds of the castle. Severus was a bit taller, and quite lanky. His face had become leaner, and the moonlight exaggerated its angles. It must have been his third or fourth year. Suspicion filled my chest as he hurried down the hill towards the whomping willow. He seemed to know what he was doing as he picked up a long stick which had been poorly hidden in the nearby bushes, and used it to poke at a knot on the trunk of the tree. Whatever the trick was, it made the branches stop swaying violently. Severus ran forward towards the trunk, and as he did the clouds shifted slightly. I looked up to see the full moon, cold and white in the sky. My body filled with cold fear as I guessed what was about to happen.

I sprinted after Severus, following him down through a small hole between the roots of the willow. He had just lit his wand, and was striding down the dank passageway. I hurried behind him–even as a thirteen year old, his legs were longer than mine.

A struggling noise at the end of the tunnel made him stop short. The sound of boys shouting over each other. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. Severus hesitated for a moment longer before hurrying forward, only to come up suddenly against James Potter. His gold-rimmed glasses winked in the light of Severus's wand.

"Get back Snivellus," he warned, "if you know what's good for you."

A triumphant look came into Severus's face. "What's all this, Potter? I'm sure Dumbledore would like to know why you and your friends are prowling around the grounds so late at night."

"So're you, Snivellus." James raised his wand. "Turn back now, and I won't tell."

There was a low moan at the end of the passageway.

James put on an overconfident exterior, but I could see true fear peeking out from behind the facade. Severus saw it too. He stepped forward, and pushed past James. I looked on in horror as we both saw what was at the end of the tunnel. It opened into a room of the Shrieking Shack, where a large black dog was barking furiously, and Remus stood shivering as he began to transform. I couldn't tear my eyes away–though I wanted to–as I watched his body elongate, his mouth stretch in a howl of pain, his teeth…

James seized Severus around the middle and threw him back down the tunnel. "Run!" he shouted.

Severus didn't need to be asked twice. He took off down the passageway, while behind him, James promptly transformed into a tall stag. I followed Severus, running to keep up with him, hearing him panting in the darkness of the earthen tunnel. Then the ground seemed to be tugged out from under me as the scene slipped away.

I caught glimpses of Severus arguing with Lily, of his jealousy as she began spending more time with James and his friends. Seeing Lily's face, I realised that she was going through the same thing that I had. Severus was sometimes lovely to her, and at other times would not even look at her. I saw the pain in her eyes at his guardedness. Severus's demeanour became more sour, slowly more recognisable as the ingrained spite he'd worn when I'd been his student.

Then I was standing on the grounds near the lake on a sunny late-spring day. Billowing clouds raced across the sky, and the grass was long and scratchy in the wind.

I spotted Severus–even older now–sitting in the dark shade provided by the trees. He was intently reading something. To reach him I had to pass by the Marauders, who were sat in a tight group near some girls by the lake. Remus was bent over a book, his face now recognisably scarred, and James was playing with the golden snitch. Overhearing their conversation, I realised they'd just gotten out of exams.

Part of me wanted to linger and listen to them, but I knew I belonged with Severus now. I crossed the grass and sat down beside him, watching him read in the cool shadows. His eyebrows were deeply furrowed. He was not at peace, even in the privacy of a fine day. Soon he stood up, tucking his papers away, and began to walk through the sun, which he cringed from, towards the castle. I felt the moment when he was spotted like a shock in my chest. Nothing good was going to come of this.

Sirius and James stood up, and Remus began looking very hard at his book. I hung back near the edge of the woods, afraid of what would happen.

"All right Snivellus?" James said, his voice cocky.

Severus automatically drew his wand, but was disarmed in a flash by James. Sirius drew his own wand and cast a spell that made Severus fall, as though his legs had given out.

"How'd the exam go, Snivelly?" James taunted, watching as Severus struggled against invisible restraints.

Sirius joined in the taunting, and Severus seemed to hiss something at the two of them, which I couldn't make out. James seemed to have done, for in the next moment he'd jinxed Severus, and bubbles were pouring from his mouth.

"Leave him ALONE!" I turned sharply at the sound of the voice, relieved that someone seemed to be on Severus's side.

James grinned as he saw Lily standing there. "All right, Evans?"

Lily glared at him. "Leave him alone. What's he done to you?"

James turned to Sirius, who began to laugh. "Well, it's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean…"

I was certain that the look on my face matched Lily's precisely. I couldn't understand what Severus had done to deserve this–had I missed something important in the time-skip?

Lily said something in a very low voice, and I stepped closer, wanting to hear better.

James grinned. "I will if you go out with me, Evans," he said, clearly wanting the growing group of onlookers to hear every word. "Go on … Go out with me, and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again." I felt a flash of hatred in my gut at the cocky sound of his voice. I was shocked at how similar Harry's father could sound to Draco Malfoy.

My eyes flashed towards Remus. I was unable to believe that he was doing nothing. He was staring pointedly at his book as though nothing were going on. I felt angry at him, but was unable to linger on it as Severus seemed to come free from Sirius's jinx, moving slowly towards his wand while James was distracted.

"I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid," Lily insisted.

"Bad luck, Prongs," said Sirius, and, turning slightly, he saw Severus pick up his wand. No sooner had he shouted out a warning than James was bleeding from a laceration on his cheek. Severus was scowling, his expression tottering on the tightrope between victory and fear.

James retaliated and suddenly Severus was hanging upside-down in the air, struggling to hold his robes up. The onlookers were roaring with laughter.

Lily looked furious. "Let him down!"

Promptly, Severus fell and scraped himself up, shaking with rage, his eyes burning. James smirked. "You're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus–"

"I DON'T NEED HELP FROM FILTHY LITTLE MUDBLOODS LIKE HER!"

I felt my face drain. Time seemed to suspend itself around this single moment, as Lily's expression sank. Her eyes grew cold as her heart was sealed off from her childhood friend forever.

The scene broke apart yet again, the chaos of the flickering emotions echoing my own feelings about what I'd just witnessed. But there was no time to think as I urgently watched, taking in everything I could.

I saw Severus's shame and pain when Lily stopped looking at him in the corridors, the numb expression she wore whenever he tried to speak to her. I saw Lily cheering at a Quidditch match as James caught the snitch, saw Lily and James kissing in the back of a classroom. I saw that Severus was in love with her, saw that his heart had been broken; and out of the cracks was growing a gnarled hatred of himself.

The overlapping voices and visions subsided, and I was standing in a tiny bedroom. Severus was sitting on his bed, reading an advanced potions textbook by the oily light of his wand. It must have been the summer before his final year; he appeared to be studying for his NEWTs. His eyes were glued to the pages of his book as the sounds of a burgeoning argument filtered through the door. But his gaze snapped up suddenly when his mother screamed.

He threw the book down violently, holding his wand in his fist. I dove out of the way as he strode through the door and into the sitting room. His father had his mother by the wrists and was shouting in her face. His body full of adrenaline, Severus grabbed his father by the neck, trying to wrench him away. But the man turned and struck him, and Severus fell hard to the floor.

"Tobias!" his mother cried, as he pushed himself up on the heels of his hands. Blood was rushing from his nose.

"Weakling," his father spat. "Lot of good that magic stick will do you in the real world."

Severus rose to his knees and pointed his wand with dire intent at his father. But his mother stepped in front of him. "Severus, don't!" she sobbed.

"Mother–"

"Don't!"

He looked at her for a long time, blood flowing down his chin, and then lowered his wand.

Time sped up around me then, and then slowed. I was standing in the same room, but it seemed to be many nights later.

"Please, Severus," his mother was saying, as she paced near the fireplace. "I'm getting worried."

"Give him another hour," Severus said, his voice rough with hatred. "Or all night. Or forever, if he wants it."

"Don't talk that way," his mother pleaded. Her eyes were warm but weak, the eyes of a good person who has become accustomed to being used. "Please, go and find him."

He was glaring at the floor. She approached him and tried to touch his face, but he turned away before she could, and stomped down the stairs.

I followed the seventeen-year-old Severus through the dark and threatening streets of the town. It seemed a very dangerous place at night. The sound of breaking glass and shouting came from one alleyway, and a woman could be heard giggling madly from a window. Severus kept his head down and his scowl intact, his shoulders tense. I saw that it was his way of defending himself. He did look quite intimidating, and though I knew I couldn't be hurt by anyone in the memory, I found myself keeping close to him, wanting the protection of his forbidding energy.

Severus found his father soon enough, walking home from the pub. "Son!" he shouted, his voice thick with alcohol. He began throwing himself clumsily at Severus, in some pathetic pantomime of a fistfight. Severus stood tall, easily blocking his father's blows. "C'mon, let's see who's the better man."

"I'm taking you home," Severus said clearly, restraining the man. A look of fury entered Tobias's face.

"Put your hands on me, boy?" he shouted. Severus stepped back–the look in his father's eyes was truly frightening. He began to hit Severus again. Though his blows were no more precise, they had more weight behind them, and Severus was clearly being hurt as his father's violence drove him backward into the nearest alley. I covered my face with my hands, terrified as Severus grew afraid, and then was set on fire with rage. Before I knew what was happening, he had drawn his wand, throwing his father backward against the grimy wall.

"SECTUMSEMPRA!" he roared, years of pain and hatred tearing through him with his voice.

His father gave a croaking gasp, and slumped to the ground. It was very dark, but I could see his blood shining as it began to seep from a number of cuts in his belly and chest. It looked like he'd been stabbed.

He choked, trying to speak. And then his neck lost all its strength, and his head sank to the side.

Severus's eyes were wide and full of terror as he put his wand away, looked up and down the alley, and began to run.

I was soon standing in the house again, watching as Severus bent over his mother's bed. She was lying there looking drained and absent, her body heavy with depression. Her eyes were blind to the light coming through the window. Severus was speaking to her in a soft voice, seeming to plead, but she only turned her head away. I understood that his father had died. Severus had expected his mother to be happy again, now that they were free of him. But she had only grown further from happiness, never leaving her bed. His belongings were packed for his next year at Hogwarts, and he was putting off leaving as long as he could. But in the end he had to go–had to leave her behind.

I realised I was crying as I was swept away again, my body and mind exhausted from all of Severus's pain, these pieces of his past that I never would have imagined on my own. Through my tears I took in glimpses of the next few years, as Severus left Hogwarts and became a young Death Eater. With horror, I saw him standing with Lucius Malfoy and the Dark Lord, in a black and lightless room. I saw him with a woman I didn't recognise, with long auburn hair, who leaned over his chair and kissed him. He kissed back, full of lust. I saw his disgust, his anger, the damage he did to others and to himself as the first war raged on.

My mind had almost had too much when I finally felt solid ground again. It was a silent, freezing night, with no wind. Pale white lightning lit up the sky, and thunder rolled distantly, though there was no rain. I was standing some distance behind Severus, as he stood looking up at a tudor house with a crushed roof and broken windows. The years had hurt him–he was older and darker; a man, now.

His body moving like stone, he went through the gate, and up the garden path. The dark mark loomed, green and faded, over the house. I was afraid, but had no choice but to follow him.

The lock was broken, and the door already stood ajar. An all-consuming darkness swelled on the other side, the maw of hell. Severus stepped in.

The only light was the eerie green light which descended from the dark mark, and the pale blue light of the storm, flickering across the walls. From above I could hear an infant's screaming cry. I felt my heart contract as I began to suspect what night this was; what house this was. I followed behind, every step making my heart thud harder, as Severus ascended the narrow stairs.

Over the edge of the landing hung two naked feet. I shook with terror, pausing for a moment as Severus stepped over the body. I braced myself and looked. It was James Potter.

At the end of the hall there was a room, and in the room was a yellow cabinet. A crushed lamp lay on the floor, amongst the smithereens of some destroyed piece of furniture. Warm light and the colour yellow had never looked so cold and haunting. I crept forward, Severus's silhouette blocking me from seeing anything else inside of the room. Then, very slowly, his body slumped against the wall, all strength leaving him as he processed what was finally revealed to me.

Lily Potter was lying on the floor, her hand next to her face, her green eyes unseeing. The lightning illuminated the room, and I saw Harry Potter in his crib, his scar new and red and furious on his forehead, his eyes thick with tears as he bawled.

Severus seemed incapable of hearing the sound of Harry's cries. Dragging himself like a dying man, he crawled across the floor and pulled Lily's limp body into his arms, roaring with grief. I stood paralysed in the doorway, sobbing and watching him rock her, until under the whisper of the thunder, and Harry's crying, and Severus's wails of misery, I heard a rumbling sound outside. Severus himself heard it a moment later. I went to the window and looked through the lace sash to see Sirius Black landing in the street on his flying motorbike, his face contorted with fear as he left it to topple over onto the cobblestones, running towards the house. "JAMES!" he was shouting. "LILY!"

Severus gasped desperately as he gently laid Lily down. He bent over to kiss her forehead as Sirius's footsteps began to pound up the stairs–and then he disapparated.

The walls crumbled away. In shock, I was no longer fully aware that I was inside of the pensieve. I didn't want to see any more. I felt trapped in a nightmare–a nightmare which, for Severus, had not paused or ended for eighteen years.

The war had taken its toll even on the muggle town where he had grown up. I stood behind him, still shaking with silent sobs, only half-hearing as he spoke to a woman who lived across the street. Severus was looking distressed.

"Of course the house is empty," the woman said, her chin raised in anger. "Eileen died just last week. Sent herself off to the Lord, poor woman. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. It hurts a parent when a child abandons them, and with your mother already in the state she was–"

But Severus was no longer listening. He had sat down on the pavement and begun to scream into his hands.

My heart was closed as I witnessed the following years. I saw his first years as a teacher. I saw his brief affair with a woman who sometimes passed through Hogsmeade, always leaving him to wake alone in a bed in the Three Broomsticks, without even a note. The first time he saw Harry. The day Remus returned to Hogwarts as a professor. Clutching his left arm in pain and panic as the dark mark returned to life. I watched as he sent Dumbledore off the tower, plummeting to the courtyard in a flutter of grey robes, dead before he hit the ground. I watched from the corner of the boathouse as he was attacked by Nagini, and was overcome by a flood of memories of Lily as he gave Harry his tears, fully believing he would die.

Then there was blackness and silence.

I was still clenching my eyes shut as I slowly came to life in the next memory. I felt the air relax around me, cooler, a slight breeze. There was a slowness to the sounds of this memory that allowed me to calm myself again. To breathe. Breathe. Breathe…

I listened to the flapping of fabric, the voices of people. My eyes opened slightly, and I squinted out through my eyelashes. There was warm sunlight. Fresh air. I was surrounded by a large tent. The voices were those of nurses and injured people. Faint cries came from further down the row of cots, but even these were strangely calming… familiar.

I realised why as I opened my eyes fully. I was standing at the foot of a cot which held Severus's body, and the one to its left held me.

As I adjusted to the shock of seeing myself, I was aware of Severus's soft breathing. He had been awake for some time, it seemed, and was very slowly coming to accept the fact that he was alive. Bandages were covering his neck.

His eyebrows furrowing in a wince of pain, he turned his head slowly to the side. His eyes came to rest on my sleeping, dirty face, and I saw, in a strange haze across my eyes, the ghost of another memory.

He was watching me brew a complex potion in one of his classes. I looked about fifteen, and extremely focused as I checked the ingredients, purple steam rising from my cauldron. I felt his eyes on me and turned around, my face sharp with alarm, my mouth partly open. He turned away.

I watched Severus's face change, and could tell he was seeing the same thing. A memory within a memory. His eyes lingered on my sleeping face, and his own face seemed to mirror the slight flinch which indicated that I was stirring. I watched myself slowly come around, deliriously speaking to myself, an edge of terror in my unintelligible moans. Quickly I had sat up on the cot, my body trembling violently, trying to resist an invisible aggressor. It was as though I were having a nightmare with my eyes wide open.

"NO–" the first clear word broke out of my mouth. "NO!"

I watched Severus's expression morph into one of panic. "Miss Weasley–" he said. They were his first words since he'd woken, and they were very weak. "Miss Weasley, you are safe–"

His voice could not reach me, and so he clambered from his cot and knelt by mine. He reached out to catch and hold my wrist, but that only made me scream harder, my eyes staring straight ahead at the terror inside my mind.

I felt myself wince as I watched, remembering the delirium, the blind fear of those days after my first rape.

Severus, startled by my reaction, quickly withdrew his hand. I saw in his eyes the same fear which had filled them when he'd seen his mother crying in his father's grip. Poppy was running over–I heard her voice from behind me, and stepped aside to let her pass. She supported my neck in the crook of her elbow, and put me under again with her wand.

"Lie down, Severus," she snapped.

He did so, very slowly. Poppy was right to sound angry–his brief but sudden spell of movement seemed to have exhausted him. Poppy remained at my side a moment longer, and then began to assess whether Severus's bandages were intact.

"What happened to her?" he said, his strained voice only managing a whisper.

"No more talking," Poppy demanded. "Your throat is extremely sensitive."

Then someone called for her and she hurried away to tend another patient. The walls of the tent flapped in the breeze. Severus was still watching me. My face was numb and I was resting again, but a single tear rolled from the corner of my eye and down my face in my sleep.

The transitions between full memories became easier to bear as I began to recognise Severus's circumstances more clearly.

I saw him sitting in that terrible house in front of the fire, the original marriage law letter upon his knee, staring at the names. An owl tapped on his window and he let it in. It was carrying my letter, telling him that Remus and I had agreed to be married. I watched him write back his well wishes, his face empty, and then write to Frederica.

I saw him in the potions classroom at Hogwarts, brewing a deep blue potion, which let off a light, coppery smoke. He poured it into vials, one by one, and held one of them to the light of the lamp. There was that memory-within-memory haze as he recalled my sleeping face in the hospital tent. He set the vial aside.

Severus was more watchful of myself and Remus than I'd realised, in my time at the castle after Remus's first transformation. I saw in Severus's eyes an echo of how he had felt watching Lily with James, when he saw us sitting together across the great hall at mealtimes. I saw the deep-coursing pain with which he regarded Remus. It was not hatred, but an inescapable reminder of a deep hurt.

I was with him as he walked, holding a lantern, down the dark winter path to Hogsmeade. I saw myself through his eyes, a kind of beauty drawn around me, as he saw me standing still, looking into the forest. I was looking at the being, which had then appeared to me as Fred. I realised now, feeling the threat of tears, that it was Lily who Severus saw. And I also understood as he turned away to press tears from his face, that he had brewed the deep blue potion so that he would not dream of her.

He walked down the corridor to the hospital wing in the late morning, and slowed as he heard my voice, reading a bit of The Odyssey. His face was guarded even when he was not being observed, but not so much so that I could not decipher the conflicted emotions in his eyes. He lingered outside the doorway a moment before stepping inside. I saw myself look over at him in surprise, one hand holding the book, the other holding Remus's. I held down my own private pain, which came from seeing myself with him, touching him, caring for him after the full moon. "Pardon me," Severus said. "Wilma, we should speak now, with Minerva." I heard Remus saying something to me, but Severus had left the room and I stepped out into the corridor to watch him closely. A look of heartache had seeped now into his face, but it silenced itself quickly when my past self emerged.

Three weeks later, after Christmas, he carried Remus's smoking goblet of wolfsbane to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom every evening. I watched his response to hearing the terrible cough I'd had that week. I remembered how hard I'd tried to hide it from Remus, but saw that Severus had been just as concerned by the sound as Remus might have been. I saw our tense conversation when he delivered the penultimate dose of potion into my hands. "Are you ill?" he asked. "No," I said curtly. "Are you alright?" he urged. "Yes, thank you," I lied.

I watched as he carried my unconscious, sweating body from the dungeons to the hospital wing. I recognised this at once, the night of the full moon, when Remus and I had made love and I had awoken in agony. "Pomfrey!" he shouted as he entered the hospital wing. Poppy came running out of her chambers as Severus was setting me down on one of the hospital beds, dressed in her nightgown and carrying a candle. "Explain!" she said, her voice urgent. Severus was gasping. "I did all I could– I beg you–"

…this was by far the longest memory of them all. It seemed I spent many hours following Severus between the hospital wing and the dungeons, where he brewed potions based on what Poppy thought I needed. The night was never ending, and I sometimes appeared to be in distress, though I myself had no memory of any consciousness until much later that morning.

Now that I was in Severus's mind, I saw that when he had briefly skimmed my memories outside of his office door, in his impatience to discover what had caused my pain, he had indeed seen more than I had realised. In that memory-within-memory haze, I saw him seeing Remus and me together, our passionate, naked bodies.

"That should do it," Poppy said, after I'd been woken into delirium, just enough to be made to swallow the last potion. After I had finally grown still, and my breathing steady and deep, Severus was bent over my cot, holding my hand. Poppy watched him while she twisted cool rags over a basin and laid them over my forehead and chest. I watched Severus swallow when more of my skin was exposed. Poppy gave him a strange, strict look. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were in love with her," she said.

"Excuse me," Severus said. I followed him warily down the stairs, into his office and into his bedroom. No sooner had both doors been shut behind him than he was gasping and moaning, leaning against his bed. He freed his erection and began to relieve himself, his face full of shame and desperation. Oh, my, I thought, wondering if perhaps I should turn my head, if he hadn't intended for me to see this. But I had grown to appreciate his body, and watched with a feeling of tension in my heart as he pressed his lips to the bedcovers and quickly spent himself. It did not escape me that the thoughts which fueled his pleasure were lifted from what he had seen in my mind–my body arched, my breasts peaked, my mouth open. Oh...

The next memory was of the night I'd eavesdropped on him and Frederica. I watched from a distance as the woman kicked off on her broomstick, and Severus turned to address me, where I stood concealed behind the fountain. Again I saw that look in his eyes, which had frightened me, which I hadn't been able to understand. But I believed I understood it now.

I saw him sitting by the fire in his old house, hearing me whimpering from the other room. He followed the sound, and I followed behind him, looking on from the doorway as he shook my other self awake from a nightmare, lighting the lamp. "You're bleeding," came the inevitable words. His face sank into despair as he watched me press my fingertips to the blackness of the mattress.

I was startled by the abruptness of the next change of scene, the walls of the sitting room of No. 12 Grimmauld Place crashing into existence with the speed and shock of his anger. My past self had fallen into a deep, magically-induced sleep moments ago, and his hand was still resting upon my chest. He watched my face with deep urgency, and seconds later began to sob. Poppy arrived by floo. I watched him try to silence himself, but it was impossible. Poppy looked at him, an expression of disbelief on her face. "You do love her," she stated. Severus wanted to go to the Malfoy Manor himself, but Poppy kept him from it. "You will do no such thing. This evidence will be more than enough to condemn him, and for you to attack Lucius would do nothing good for Wilma's case." She forced him to leave the room so she might undress me. I followed him into the kitchen, not wanting to see those terrible bruises again. His body crumbled into tears once more as he sat at the long kitchen table, rereading the ministry letter he'd brought, half-crumpled, in his hand. If your husband has not returned before next month's fertile window, the Marriage Law will require that you be remarried to any eligible wizard of your personal choosing, who consents to take on a second wife. I watched as his tears crinkled the paper.

Next, I was in a small clean bedroom, which was completely unknown to me. Rain was falling outside, and Frederica was holding Severus in the tousled white bed. "Is she very young?" she was asking him. He nodded, his emotions tightly walled in behind his face. "There's nothing wrong with it, Severus," Frederica said. "She'll be lucky to have you. Of course you have my consent." Her expression softened, and she seemed to make a choice to speak further. "By the way you talk, I'd guess you feel more deeply for her than you'll say in words. Run towards your heart, Severus, not away from it."

The scene dissolved easily into a cloudy day outside the Burrow. The clouds had been so singularly beautiful on the day he'd proposed to me that I knew at once it was that day. The wind ran its fingers through Severus's hair as he approached the front door, stepping carefully through wildflowers. Molly was already there, opening the door for him. "She's out on one of her walks," she said, as she put the kettle on. Hands in the pockets of his trousers, he wandered over to the window and looked out at the grassy hill, where I was sleeping.

Then I saw my own body curled into a ball in the corner of the staffroom as the boggart strode towards me unforgivingly. Severus threw his body between Lucius and me, and the boggart cast about in confusion for its next shape before landing on something entirely unexpected. I saw yet another version of myself sitting quite still on the wooden floor, legs crossed, arms crossed over my chest, body more motionless than stone. My boggart-self was in a state of catatonia, refusing to look at Severus no matter how he interrogated it, its face as cold and uncaring as Lily's had been forced to become after he'd destroyed their friendship with the worst of insults.

He looked more terrified than I had ever seen him, but managed to change the boggart into a more manageable shape. His face twisted with effort and fury as he forced it into the small wooden box, and leaned upon it with his whole weight until it was securely latched. He stood there watching the rattling box in shock. Clearly this was the first time a boggart had taken that shape before him, just as it had been my first time seeing one take the form of Lucius.

He recovered himself, and then turned his face to my real trembling body. I could hear his heartbeat pounding in my ears as he approached me. I felt myself drain when I remembered what was coming next. Flitwick came and went. "You're safe," I heard Severus say, when we were alone. "It's alright." He reached out to touch me, but I pushed him away, my voice strained. "Go. Please." I saw him stand up and leave the room, struggling against the anguish in his throat. I watched him escape down the corridor, aghast, tears flowing down my face as I began to put the pieces together at last. My pushing him away, my fearing him, was his worst fear. And I had done quite a bit of that in the past month. What but fear could explain his harsh and changeful emotions? What but fear and… something quite the opposite?

The scene changed, and though my whole being was exhausted from the energy required to sustain my attention, I was now desperate to fully understand, to escape my present state of denial. I knew it would not take long. The memories themselves seemed to be urging me to admit what I already knew.

Severus was walking up the spiral staircase late at night, The Iliad under his arm, and a mug of tea in his hands. The night of our consummation, then. An hour after I had fled. I saw how desperate he was to comfort me, the pain in his eyes when he held me by the fire. I followed the two of us, my knees trembling, as he carried my body into the bedroom and sat on the bed. My heart beating erratically, I watched the way he stroked my hair as I fell asleep. How he situated me carefully in the bed, and laid down beside me, keeping his hand on mine for comfort. I watched from the desk chair until, some minutes into my sleep, I rolled over and embraced him. "Severus…" I heard myself murmur. He responded slowly, but the response was undeniable. His face was full of love as tears leaked from his eyes; full of wonder at my body lying there of its own will upon his chest, my leg over his leg.

I saw anew the end of our argument over the wolves. How his eyes changed when he saw me cower away from him, and fall down in my fear. He walked into the woods and when he entered them broke into a run. I saw his self-loathing as, in the darkness of his destroyed house, he scrubbed his hands and held them in front of his eyes, remembering how they'd held my wrist in anger as he'd pulled me from Hagrid's cabin, remembering the violent, unforgivable hands of his father.

Finally there was a sense of peace, of an ending, as he received my letter of forgiveness, asking him to return. The owl I'd sent sat quietly by, watching him with glowing amber eyes as he at last broke the seal. He read the words in the darkness. He bent down to the floor, and pressed his face to the ink like a lover, suddenly moved by tenderness to weeping.

Everything melted, and my body seemed to be rapidly pulled backward through each of the memories; through dense, painful time. The broken glass on the Potter's nursery floor, the chill of the passageway on the night of the full moon, the sorting hat bellowing "SLYTHERIN," the touch of his mother's soft hand, and the shifting of the willow branches as Lily showed him her magic.

The wind was knocked out of me as I landed on my back on the floor of the headmaster's office. My head was buzzing with dizziness, and I thought I might be sick. My whole body ached from the weight of Severus's past.

I looked over at Dumbledore's portrait in shock, but he seemed to have drifted off to sleep. My eyes were wide as the images from the pensieve repeated themselves in my mind. I remembered how Severus had held me earlier, how he had sobbed, completely exposed. Why are you doing this to me?

I lay there gasping for air as a hard rain pelted the mullioned windows, clutching at my thundering heart as I finally accepted the truth.

NOTE

This was the longest chapter so far, and also the most difficult to write, so I very much hope you enjoyed it! I aimed to include some of the 'missing pieces' of Severus's perspective, and hope that none of it felt too repetitive after having already read it through Wilma's eyes. I would be very grateful as always to hear your thoughts.