CHAPTER 59

I pin Snape to the floor and throw my fist across his face, but before I have a chance to get in another punch, he grabs me by the waist—I yelp in pain as flames erupt across my side—and tosses me aside, my back hitting the edge of the coffee table. I scramble to my feet to prepare to kick him, only to find that he is on his feet as well and instead rush forward, screaming obscenities, and begin ramming my fists into his chest, whimpering with pain every time I make contact with him, my side begging to me to cease this pointless attack.

"Enough!"

"YOU KILLED HIM!" I shriek, managing to connect my fist with his face and draw blood from his lip. He does not strike back. "HE WAS GOING TO HELP ME! YOU WERE GOING TO HELP ME! YOU'VE BEEN LYING THIS WHOLE TIME!" It's like everything has finally come crashing down on me, and I've lost myself just as I did when I attacked Umbridge last year.

"STOP!"

"YOU BLOODY COWARD!" I thrust my hands into his chest repeatedly. "I TRUSTED YOU!"

Snape grumbles but does nothing to stop me from attacking him.

"Do something!" I cry. "Fight back! Do something!"

Yet he still does not try to stop me. He lets me attack him until I go for his eye, at which point he dodges aside, moving faster than I thought possible for him, and grabs my wrist to pin my arm to my side, and when I try to swing at him with my free hand, he grabs it as well and shoves me backward until I'm trapped against the wall, my hands above my head. The position pulls at my side, and I whimper. "YOU COWARD!"

I attempt once more to kick him, but Snape throws his leg inward to take the hit and then rams his hip into my legs and pins them to the wall as well, rendering them useless. "Stop," he says, his face now close to mine.

"WHY DON'T YOU JUST KILL ME TOO? YOU KILLED A MAN WHO COULD HAVE SAVED ME! TAKE ME OUT OF MY MISERY! KILL ME!"

A gasp of pain escapes me, and he seems to realize that it's because of my arms being pulled above my head. He takes my wrists in his hands and pins them down by my side. I almost sigh in relief. "Give me a chance to explain," he says.

"Kill me. Kill me, like you killed Dumbledore, Severus." I spit his name like it's a poison in my mouth. I don't understand why this seems to affect him more than everything else I've said during this encounter, but his face drops as if this is the worst thing I have ever said to him. And it feels good to disrespect him that badly after everything he's put me through.

"I believe I'm still your professor," he says softly.

"Yeah, all right," I snicker. "You're going to waltz right back into Hogwarts, are you?" I throw my head back in exaggerated laughter. "Good luck with that, Snivellus!"

"I'll be back at Hogwarts," he says matter-of-factly, ignoring what I have just called him, which kind of frustrates me because I only called him that to get a rise out of him. "I'll be headmaster."

"You murdered Dumbledore," I hiss. "You murdered Albus Dumbledore and—"

"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT?" he shouts. I flinch at his anger, but mostly I flinch because he sounds broken, his voice strained, his eyes in pain. But whatever is bothering him, I can't bring myself to truly care. He killed Dumbledore, and that's all that matters. "You think I don't know what I've done? You think I wanted to do that?"

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT—"

"Albus Dumbledore was dying anyway!"

"So am I, so what don't you go ahead and kill me?"

Snape takes a step away from me, and I sink to the floor, pressing my hand against my side and growling in pain. "I did not have a choice," he says quietly.

"Bellatrix said the same thing about Cruciating me, and she obviously had a choice. Why should I believe you?"

"Because it's the truth," he whispers. "I wasn't given a choice."

"And now you've taken mine away." I bury my face into my knees. "I trusted you."

Snape sinks to the floor next to me, our shoulders now touching. "As did Professor Dumbledore, which is why he knew that if he asked me to end his life, I would do it. Albus was the closest . . . friend I've had in my adult life. I would never have killed him without reason."

"What reason could you possibly have?" I growl.

"His hand—the one that looked dead—was cursed. The curse was going to kill him in a few months," Snape says quietly. "He . . . he asked me to save him from a humiliating death."

"So you killed him? Sent his body over the edge of the Astronomy Tower?" I reply coldly.

"I killed him in battle, the way he needed me to, the way he asked me to. I didn't have a choice." He looks over at me. "You said you trusted me. Is that still true?"

"No."

"Do you really have a choice?"

A wail escapes me, and my body begins trembling. Not caring about the consequences, only needing someone to be close to right now after everything that's happened in the past couple of days, I rest my face against his chest, sobbing, and clench his robes in my hands.

Snape puts his arm around me and rests his head on top of mine, his body slightly trembling with what I assume are suppressed hiccoughs of his own.

Only one night has passed and already I feel myself slipping away. Everything is speeding by, and I am unable to keep up with it. Even now, as I sit at the kitchen table of Spinner's End, I fail to realize how all of this is real. I just don't understand how any of this is actually happening, how I'm standing in June with nothing more than a few weeks before the Dark Lord calls upon me.

Snape sets a glass down in front of me, startling me. I had forgotten that I'm waiting for the breakfast that he so kindly offered to make for me. I feel as if he's trying to make things easier for me until I am called back to Malfoy Manor. "What is it?" I ask quietly, the first words spoken to him since we cried beside one another on the floor yesterday, wiping my tears off my face, realizing for the first time that I'm crying again.

"Orange juice. Just drink it." Then he turns back around and walks to the stove where the bacon is sizzling. I watch Snape, who is not yet wearing his typical robes but rather a pair of black trousers and a black button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. I've never seen him before without the robes over his clothes, and it gave me a bit of a shock this morning when I forced myself down the stairs and saw him so un-Snape-like. But I guess all the black still makes him look like himself.

A plate of fruit arrives to the table, followed by a plate of eggs and one of bacon and one of toast. Snape watches me with a sorrowful expression as I grab what I feel I can stomach and place it on my own plate, and once I claim what I want, Snape fills his plate as well. Though so clear to myself—now more than ever as we sit silently at a table eating—that I miss speaking with him, I cannot find it in myself to begin a conversation.

I close my eyes while chewing, doing my best to ignore the heavy weight on my chest, and try to expel the doubts from my mind. Snape wouldn't lie about why he killed Dumbledore.

Or would he?

Of course he wouldn't—look at him. He looks like death himself, rings under his eyes, a blank expression on his face, sadness in his eyes running deeper than ever before.

That doesn't matter. All of that can be explained away—he didn't sleep well, he's bored in my presence, he's sad his cover at Hogwarts has been forever blown because he's a murderer! And if he murdered Dumbledore, who's to say he won't murder you too?

With great difficulty, I swallow down a bite of toast, unable to look up from my plate at him, unable to say anything to him, unable to stop the fear slowly growing stronger in my chest. Stop it, stop it, he wouldn't lie about why he killed Dumbledore and he wouldn't hurt you.

Another, angrier voice in my head continues arguing. You don't even really know the man! You've seen glimpses of his past, and that's it! You know nothing!

"What did Bellatrix do to you?" he asks quietly. The sound, however gentle it was, still sends a shock through me, and I flinch at the words, the sound, his voice. The toast halfway to my mouth again, I try to look up at him but can't—instead I watch his chest, his hands, the spot behind his ears. Those black eyes make me ill to look upon—he could kill me at any minute. He's known you a fraction of the time he knew Dumbledore, and he killed him without a second thought . "Charlotte—"

"Please," I say, trembling now as I lower the toast back to the plate, still unable to make eye contact, unsure if I'm begging him to stop asking or begging him to stop speaking to me at all. "Please."

"We—Narcissa, Draco, and I—we heard your screams." I close my eyes, but that does not stop the tears from flowing. "They rang out for—tell me she didn't Cruciate you the whole time you were screaming." Shaking my head, unable to look up at him, I hear his chair scrape on the floor as he shuffles into the chair beside me, his knee against mine. "Charlotte—" A sobs rips free from me and silences him. "The streaks of blood on your face when I saw you in St. Mungo's—she Cruciated you until your eyes bled?"

"And my throat," I whisper, surprised to hear myself answer. "It ripped and bled from the screams." The sobs come in full force, and why bother stopping them? I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and rest my elbows on the table, letting my body convulse with my wails.

A gentle hand rests on my shoulder, disappears when I flinch, and then returns. "Look at me, Charlotte." I remove my palms from my eyes and try to look at him but can only manage to look at his chin before giving up and gazing down at my hands, which now lie on the table. Very slowly, giving me time to pull away, he reaches over and takes one of my hands, then holds it in both of his. I do not fight. "I will not hurt you like she did." My trembling intensifies, and he glances at the hand that is now shaking so violently in his. "Charlotte, please look at me." Against my better judgment and fighting every second, I force my eyes from our hands to his chest, to his chin, to his forehead, to the area behind his ear, and finally to his eyes. I fight down the sob in my chest when I see the pain and sorrow in his black eyes, the heartbreak on his face, the agony in his every feature. "I will not hurt you," he says evenly. "I will never do to you what Bellatrix did."

"You killed him," I breathe. "How do I know—"

"Because I didn't want to," he says, his voice cracking. "I never wanted to hurt him. He trusted me to—"

"I trusted her, and I trusted you."

His head drops, and tears spill from his eyes and roll down his hooked nose, then fall to the table. "I didn't want to hurt him," Snape says airily.

"Bellatrix said she didn't want to hurt me either."

His head snaps up quickly, his eyes furious for half a second before devolving into sorrow once more. "That's not comparable. You know that's not comparable." He gives my hand a gentle squeeze. "You have to believe me, Charlotte. Someone has to believe me." He swallows with difficulty. "Please."

Before me I no longer see Severus Snape, the professor who killed Dumbledore in cold blood, but rather a younger version of him, one who cowered in the corner of the living room in this very house, one who later fell into that room as a young adult—not much older than I am now, I realize—sobbing in a plea for forgiveness that no one ever heard, and it's this version of him, one who reminds me so terribly of the grief-stricken Snape from his memories, that ultimately pulls my voice from my throat in a hoarse whisper. "Of course I believe you."

Instant, unfathomable relief floods his features, and a weight seems to lift from his shoulders as he releases my hand and leans back in his chair. For a brief moment he seems overcome with emotion—he exhales deeply and wipes his eyes. We sit that way for a few minutes before he turns his attention back to me. "Thank you," he says softly.

I wipe my nose and eyes on the napkin. "I—I'm sorry I doubted you," I whisper.

Snape waves the words away. "How could you not have? I killed—" A crack in his voice stops him, and he just shakes his head.

I take in his appearance, now able to look him in the face again, and say, "Why don't you try to get some more sleep, and I'll clean up breakfast? You look exhausted. We can start over at lunch."

He nods silently, then stands and exits the room. As he retreats up the stairs, a sudden peace washes over me. Of course he'd never hurt me; of course he wouldn't just kill Dumbledore; of course he and Dumbledore planned this. How many times did he tell me that the wizard in control had everything planned already? That was his way of telling me that everything he had to do was under Dumbledore's orders, not the Dark Lord's, because obviously Dumbledore would be the one in control between the two of them. But how many people will ever believe Snape? Had it not been for the massive amount of time we've spent together, I certainly would not have believed him.

With a heavy heart at that thought, I stand and clear away breakfast, then make my way upstairs as well to my borrowed room. Only after closing the door behind me do I consider finding the silver amulet Dumbledore gave me what feels like an eternity ago. What I want with it is unclear, but I want to see it—to see the chessboard that shows Snape and me both in white rather than black. So I dig around in my trunk until my fingers graze the silver chain where it resides with the Black family heirloom.

Until right now I haven't been able to bring myself to look at the amulet since Dumbledore's death. With a sigh, I place it on the bed and wave my wand at it, the chess board appearing instantly at my command, only this time it looks different than before. Things have changed—the pieces are no longer the way they had been, have moved around, which surprises me despite knowing how powerful and clever Dumbledore was. Sure, I believed him when he told me that the chess pieces moved depending on what happens in real life, but I had never seen evidence of that until this moment.

My eyes find the Harry pawn that Dumbledore pointed out to me when he gave me the board, and while he has not moved from his position, Dumbledore's queen piece—the one who had been protecting the Harry pawn for so many years—is smashed into two pieces, the two halves lying helplessly on the silver board. In its place stands yet another white queen, before which are the shattered remains of what appears to be a black bishop. For whom that is a stand-in is unimportant—it's doubtful I'd be able to guess regardless—so I leave that piece alone and gingerly pick up what is left of Dumbledore's queen.

I roll it over in my hands a few times. I was in St. Mungo's when he was buried, was unconscious when they put him in the ground. Perhaps I could have found a way to speak with the Golden Trio after the funeral. If Dumbledore truly believes—believed, I remind myself—that Harry can defeat the Dark Lord, it would probably be beneficial for him to know that said Dark Lord is trying to produce a child. Though I don't yet know what he plans to do with a child, since it's something the Dark Lord wants, it simply cannot mean anything good for anyone. What if he's trying to find a way to become immortal? I shake that thought out of my head. That's impossible.

I crawl to the foot of the bed and reach into my trunk, fondling around until I find my wooden box. I pull it from the trunk and place it on my bed. Inside is everything that has ever meant anything to me, and I place the two halves of Dumbledore's queen and beside the coin from Dumbledore's Army and the spot reserved for the amulet and the ring given to me by my mother—Bellatrix, she gave up the role of my mother when she Cruciated me; no, a voice says in the back of my mind, she could have made it worse but showed mercy despite what the Dark Lord threatened.

If Snape is in charge of Hogwarts next year, as he believes he will be, Dumbledore's Army will no doubt be reinstated. Keeping the amulet close by might help me learn what they're doing so that I can keep Snape informed. They'll most likely treat him as poorly as they did Umbridge—with good reason—as by now I'm sure many of them know that Snape killed Dumbledore. I mean, they saw him flee the castle with the Death Eaters. No one knows the truth behind his actions.

After securing the Dumbledore piece in its spot, my eyes drift back to the chess board and land on the queen that has so valiantly taken up Dumbledore's position. None of the other pieces have moved—all movement likely ended after Dumbledore's death. I reach forward and try to pick up Dumbledore's replacement, but it refuses to budge. Then, suddenly, a needle emerges from the top of it, and I grab it since I cannot pick up the queen itself.

The little needle snaps in half without me trying to break it, and the two halves form themselves into a small piece of parchment. Brow furrowed, very concerned, I take it in my fingers and unroll it.

Rodgers,

Professor Snape does not know that I have written this, and it would be best if he learns of its existence. I know what he will do, as it was I myself who commissioned him to do it. You must trust that he will help you through the rest of your journey. He is the other queen on the board, the one about which you asked, and he will do his best to help you.

I now ask something of you. Help him in return. His role will not be easy, but sharing the burden he faces will allow him to continue with less difficulty. He respects you. Speak with him and believe what he says. Help him.

Albus Dumbledore

I stare down at the short note before making decision, pulling out my wand, and setting the paper ablaze. Its ashes fall to the bed and create a mess, but that's also something Snape doesn't need to know about.

This time when I reach for the queen, it easily comes off the board. I suppose it must have been charmed by Dumbledore so I could find the note. And why would he have even thought that I would attempt to look at the board again?

No, that's a ridiculous question. Of course he would believe that I would look at the chess board after his death. Because I did. And Dumbledore could read people. And I feel like I'm too easily readable. But that is currently the least of my worries. Right now, I need to worry about how I am supposed to help Snape.

Things do make more sense now. Dumbledore told me that the queen that was ready to take his place had once been a pawn. Snape was a pawn in the Dark Lord's scheme, and now he's a queen on Dumbledore's side of the war. He is protecting Harry. He is trying to help me prepare myself for when I am called upon by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

How is he going to help anyone when the entire Wizarding World thinks he is a murderer?

That's his own problem. I can't help him with that, but at least he won't be alone in this.

I place the queen back in its space, wave my wand at the board, slide the amulet back onto the chain with the ring, put them both back into the box, and shove the box back into the trunk.

Then I think about Snape who is, hopefully, sleeping now and getting some rest he absolutely needs before facing everything that is to come. The entire world—or at least the Order—believe he is nothing more than a murderer, a traitor who wants the Dark Lord to destroy Harry Potter. How long did he know he would have to kill Dumbledore? How long did he sit with that, dreading that moment, all alone?

I lie down on the bed and stare up at the ceiling. I might very well be the only living person who knows the truth about Snape now besides himself.

Whatever differences he and I once had, Snape has been my greatest defender and protector for almost a year now. How he has helped me cannot truly be calculated; all he's done for me cannot be accounted for. And now it's my turn to help him—Dumbledore has asked me to help him, which means he must suspect that Snape will struggle in this upcoming year.

I vow quietly to do everything in my power to help Snape as much as possible and just really hope I can help him as much as he has already helped me.