Fmh: Thanks for reviewing! Oh, I absolutely get irritated with Charlotte's impulsiveness. She can be the worst, honestly. She wasn't as impulsive in the original version, and so when I was rewriting it, I realized that she needed more flaws to make her more human. Impulsiveness became one of her major flaws in this version. I'm glad her impulsiveness doesn't stop you from enjoying the story though! And I'm glad you feel sympathy for her and her problems!

EmilyCMalfoy: Thanks for reviewing! Thanks for your patience and understanding! I like the name you've come up for them, and yeah, it definitely sounds like a Pokemon. It's cute. Aww, I love fountain pens. I used to write everything by hand too! Then I got too lazy, haha. I'm sorry to hear that you're sad right now.

PineappleBearr: Thanks for reviewing! Yeah, Charlotte has issues. I think Snape would be upset in this situation. She's the only person who knows the truth about him, and without her, he'd be in this whole mess alone, so I think it's safe to say that losing his only confidant and friend would be difficult. I really miss his relationship with Charlotte too.

03Isabella: Thanks for favoriting!

Saniah-san: Thanks for following!

AlecLightwoodMagnusBane: Thanks for favoriting!

Gail05joypotter: Thanks for favoriting!

roon0: Thanks for following!

I should have the next chapter up by the end of this month or maybe the beginning of December! Thanks for your patience! Also there was supposed to be some sections with strikethrough over it, but FFnet doesn't allow that so...sorry if it's confusing.

CHAPTER 39

It's been a week since I made that dreadful mistake that ruined one of my greatest friendships, and I've regretted it every day. Severus still isn't speaking with me; the Carrows are still questioning me about my family; Daphne is becoming almost a type of replacement Severus, which I need to end because that's not fair for either of us.

She is now the person I tell everything. She is the person who comforts me when I feel myself slipping back to my darkest, most bitter state of surviving, the one I found myself in after Zoe's death. I suppose I could go to McGonagall, but I fear I might let it slip to her that I am to die after I have Voldemort's child. If I let that piece of information slip to Daphne, I doubt her reaction would be "we have to get you away from this immediately and hide you with the Order of the Phoenix" or something along those lines as McGonagall's reaction would probably be. So I've allowed Daphne to halfway fill the Severus-sized hole in my life.

Or almost halfway fill it.

I just really need Severus back in my life.

But I doubt he'll be any more willing to speak with me today than he was a week ago, so when I wake up on Friday morning, I intend to spend today and the weekend with my friends to take my mind off the disasters I've ruined my life with. They smile at me as I come down the stairs. "We were wondering if you'd wake up early enough to go with us for breakfast," Christopher says, smiling.

"Well, here I am. Let's go get some food."

Christopher walks beside me, the rest of our group either a few steps ahead of us or a few steps behind us. "You're still planning on joining me for the Christmas break, yeah?" he asks quietly, almost shyly.

I slide my arm around his shoulder. "Of course." It'll be a great opportunity for me to get away from Hogwarts, which in turn means I can get away from Severus, which means I can push this whole issue into the back of my mind and pretend at least for a short while that I am not the biggest fool on the planet. "I'm rather looking forward to it." Unfortunately I will be unable to get any of the gifts out of Severus's office because I am not allowed in there anymore.

"Me too," he says, his face turning a slight shade of red. "My parents can't wait to meet you. They don't believe me about how much you look like Helena did."

I smile through the lump forming in the back of my throat, unsure why his statement has affected me so. "We'll just have to prove them wrong."

He chuckles quietly before Jacob speeds up and takes his attention. I remove my arm from him and watch the two boys saunter off laughing. I glance back at the Greengrass sisters who are walking on either side of Ella and Julia, who are smiling happily at one another. Malcolm leads the way, speedily trying to get to breakfast.

Astoria finds her way beside me. "How are things with Draco?" I ask her.

"Going well. I miss seeing him every day. But he writes." I nod at her. "Do you know if something has happened? He seems…sadder now."

I shrug. "Death Eaters are ruining everyone's lives."

"Speaking of Death Eaters, the Carrows aren't still attacking you, are they?"

"They question me constantly, but for some reason they stopped physically hurting me. I haven't asked why. I'm afraid they'll start again," I say. Of course I know why—I guess they finally got Voldemort's message. How they got that message, I have no idea. I doubt Severus gave it to them. Why would he? He doesn't give a shit about me anymore.

"You have a point."

Peaceful is the only word I can use to describe breakfast. That's not how I have described a day at Hogwarts in months, and even with the ever-looming fact that Severus and I are not speaking anymore, this is one of those few times I don't hate that I am here at the castle rather than being literally anywhere else.

At least, everything seemed like it would be fine until I'm pouring a second glass of juice and a hand lands on my shoulder. "Professor Carrow," Daphne says. She is sitting across from me and has the perfect view of my assailant. "We're having a rather good breakfast, and Charlotte has been called to your office six times this week. I think it's time for her to have a break, wouldn't you agree? You know, let her breathe without the two of you trying to suffocate her?"

The hand on my shoulder tightens dangerously. "You act as if we take Miss Rodgers against her will," Alecto says, her fingers digging into me painfully. "I assure you that we would not force her to speak with us against her will." I hold back a whimper as the pressure increases on my shoulder. "Isn't that right, Miss Rodgers?"

"Yes," I breathe, closing my eyes against the pain. "Yes, I would tell you if I didn't want to."

Another sharp dig into my shoulder. "Would you like to walk with me, Miss Rodgers?"

"Yes," I say again, fighting through the pain. "I'd love to."

"Then let's not dally."

I wink at the group I'm leaving behind and try not to make some sort of scene as I am escorted out of the Great Hall. I look backward before I'm dragged away completely and see McGonagall watching Alecto and me, her lips thin. Then I'm pulled toward Alecto's office. "What's so important that you've taken me away from breakfast?"

"Quiet," she says, closing the door behind her. She places her hand on my shoulder and directs me toward the chair they always force me to sit in when they question me.

"Where's your brother? Decide you'd rather torture me by yourself rather than share the fun with him?"

"Quiet." The door behind me opens, and I turn. Amycus enters, but he is not by himself. Two students follow behind him, their heads held high. Crabbe and Goyle.

"Great, so now you're teaching your younger selves how to properly torture someone for information?"

"Rodgers?" Goyle asks.

"Hand over your wands," Amycus says. "All of you."

"And become defenseless in front of you two clowns and those fools? No thanks."

"Miss Rodgers," Alecto says sweetly, so sweetly I feel ill, "please—"

"You can't have my wand."

"Take their wands," Alecto says to her brother. "But leave hers."

A smirk comes to my lips—I absolutely cannot stop it. Amycus seems ready to argue, but he takes the wands from Crabbe and Goyle anyway.

"What's going on?" I ask.

"A meeting with the Dark Lord informed us of a row between the three of you that could have led to serious injuries to you, Miss Rodgers," Alecto says, still leaking that gross sweetness that makes me want nothing more than to punch her in the face—or Cruciate her. Don't think like that, Charlotte, I silently chastise myself. I shouldn't be willing to use that curse like Bellatrix.

"Why is this just now coming up? Everything's been settled." I glance over at the other two students. "Well, at least it seems to be. Are you two planning on attacking me anytime soon?"

Crabbe meets my eyes and scowls.

"No, they won't be attacking you again," Amycus huffs. "Though I wouldn't blame them if—"

"We did not undergo the Cruciatus Curse for you to turn around and disrespect her again, did we?" Alecto hisses.

Amycus clenches his teeth but does not finish whatever threat he attempted to make just moments ago. "So you two idiots were finally punished for hurting me, huh?"

"Crabbe, Goyle," he says, his voice tighter than it was before, "Rodgers is not to be touched again. The Dark Lord himself has demanded her safety and comfort."

"Why?" Goyle snaps. "What's so special about her?"

"You're not entitled to know," I say sharply.

"If we learn that either of you have harmed her in any way or have orchestrated another to harm her, the Dark Lord himself will punish you and your fathers as he sees fit," Alecto says.

They both give a stiff nod.

"Am I free to go now?" I ask. "I don't really—"

"We're not done with you yet," Alecto says.

I huff loudly as the other two students leave the room, their wands still in Amycus's possession. "Are you going to torture me for information after that whole spiel you just gave those two? After you underwent the Cruciatus Curse? Did the Dark Lord hurt you, or did he let his lieutenant Bellatrix do that?"

Alecto pulls a chair in front of me and stares at me with hateful eyes. I cross my arms in front of my chest. "We were told…" She seems almost physically pained to be saying this. "We were told to offer you…help if you needed it." As if I would ever approach these fools for help. (Though, as it is now, if I need help from a Death Eater inside the castle walls, the Carrow twins are the only ones I could contact considering the fact that Severus is still avoiding me like the plague. With good reason, of course. I'm a terrible person.)

"Trust me, I doubt if I'll need anything from either of you," I assure her.

"We were commanded to offer our assistance nevertheless," Amycus says, looking out the window rather than at me.

"And we will no longer be questioning you," Alecto adds.

I smile broadly at her. "Finally realize that I'm not giving you the answers you want?"

"Our orders from—"

Amycus clears his throat loudly to cut her off.

"Who gave those orders?" I ask, feeling vindicated that I was right about that.

"You're free to go," Amycus says.

Though I know they now know better than to hurt me, I decide not to risk it. Besides, they wouldn't tell me who ordered them around anyway. So I stand and leave the room, a weight removing itself from me though I had no idea I was even carrying it around.

I saunter to the common room and sit down at a table with my group of friends quietly. None of them try to make me talk at the moment, but by the look on Daphne's face I can only assume she'll ask me about everything later. And I'll tell her. Because I can't stop myself now that Severus is no longer there to talk to.

"What about you, Charlotte?" Christopher asks.

I flinch and look up to see everyone around the table watching me expectantly. Heat flushes my face, and I clear my throat. "I'm sorry, what?"

His face breaks into a smile. "Do you want to play Exploding Snap with us?"

"Not this round."

Daphne pats my leg comfortingly under the table and turns her attention to the game. I shrink down in the chair and cross my arms over my chest. Then I tilt my head backward and close my eyes.

Sometime later a gentle hand squeezes my shoulder, and I jolt awake, unaware that I had even fallen asleep. Astoria smiles at me. "Did you know that you snore softly when you sleep?"

I groan and rub my eyes. "I wasn't aware, no."

"Wanna join us for lunch, Charlotte?" Malcolm asks.

With great effort I force myself to sit up. Then I nod. "Sounds good."

I walk in the group and do my best to beat down that steadily rising sorrow. Or anger. Those two emotions have grown too close together in the past few months, and I can hardly differentiate between them anymore.

Before we even get to the doors of the Great Hall we hear nervous murmuring, and for a moment I brace myself, expecting to be dragged out in front of everyone and tortured. Julia softly touches my arm and smiles warmly at me. I smile back, my heartbeat returning to normal. At least for a few short minutes. Some strangely mixed emotions rise in my chest when I walk into the Great Hall and see none other than Severus Snape sitting at the staff table, his face as uninterested as it always is when he eats with the students, as if this isn't the first time in weeks he's shown his face at a meal.

I slow down, and Jacob runs into me. "What are you doing?" he asks, a hint of frustration in his voice.

"Sorry," I breathe, unable to remove my eyes from Severus.

My legs carry me without my full approval, but they don't take me to the Slytherin table. Instead they take me farther, ignoring the quiet "Charlotte, what are you doing?" questions from my friends, straight to the staff table, my eyes locked on that black head of hair, on that pale face. But he does not look at me. I at last come to a stop in front of the table and watch him for a moment before saying, "Professor Snape, if I may—"

His eyes cut over to me, an odd hatred in them that I haven't seen directed at me in so long. "Rodgers, I do not remember inviting you to speak with me." Then he looks away.

It would have hurt less had he just punched me in the gut. "I know, Professor, but I was wondering if—"

"Why are you still here?" Amycus says. "The headmaster is busy."

"Doing what?" I reply coldly. "Staring at the students while not eating the food on his plate?" I look back at Severus. He does not seem well. But I no longer have the right to say anything to him about that anymore. "Professor Snape, I need to speak with you about—"

Severus abruptly stands to his feet, then spins on his heel and leaves, not once looking back at me again. Alecto cackles quietly, and I glare at her for a long moment before McGonagall steps in and says, "Rodgers, you should return to your table now."

I start that way but cannot bring myself to sit and eat because of the nausea building in my stomach. "I'm not hungry anymore," I say to Daphne and the others, snatching up a piece of bread. "I'm going to lie down for a short while."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Daphne asks kindly.

I shake my head. "I'll be fine. Just need a moment alone."

"What'd they say to you?" Astoria asks.

I simply shake my head again and leave the Great Hall, ignoring the probing eyes following me. The Slytherin Dungeon is the last place I want to be right now, so I make my way to the Owlery and sit down in one of the corners. Milo flutters down to me and lands on my knee. "You wouldn't happen to have some sort of posthumous message from Zoe, would you?" I ask him. He nibbles at my hand, and I smile, reaching into my pocket to retrieve the bread. "I'll take that as a negative, shall I?"

After finishing off the bread, he pecks at my hand once, allows me to run my hand over him, then flies back up to the other owls. I sigh and stand to my feet, deciding to go to the library.

Very few students are in here when I arrive, and I smile at that thought as I take a seat next to one of the windows. With a wave of my wand comes parchment, a bottle of ink, and a quill. My heart is heavy as I begin writing a long overdue letter, a long overdue apology that I doubt I will ever send. I just need to get it all out of my system.

Professor Snape,

I know I have no right to be contacting you, but if you would hear me out this one last time, I swear I will never bother you again without your approval. Hear me out this one last time and I will leave your life forever if that's what you want. I just need you to know how truly sorry I am about this whole situation.

Professor, you are the greatest friend I have ever had. I don't know if you yourself would consider me a friend—and I doubt I have the right to call you a friend anymore either—but since the first summer I spent at Spinner's End with you, regardless of how we bickered and fought and complained and tried our best to annoy one another, or worse, you became the single most important person in my life and I don't fully understand why. But it's true. Our friendship has kept me sane through situations that I thought would kill me, and I hate myself for letting my selfishness get in the way of that.

Allowing Dumbledore's Army to steal

You're the reason I'm still alive, and I let myself forget about all of that in order to feel important to the anti—well, the anti-you cause inside Hogwarts, I suppose. Not that I was going against the real you but rather the you that is seen as an all-evil Death Eater who killed Dumbledore and is now trying to destroy Hogwarts with the help of the Carrows, who have declared that they will no longer be questioning me, by the way. But that's not important now.

Anyway, I don't want you to think that I'm going against you you. I never wanted to do that, and I didn't see my actions before as going against you. Now that I think about it, though, I can't see how I could have been any other way. Of course my actions were going against the real you because I was supposed to trust you enough to tell you when things like that were happening, and I didn't. I failed you, and in doing so I betrayed your trust in one of the worst ways.

I never should have agreed to let the D.A. raid your office for the Sword of Gryffindor. I should have gone to you and told youI should have never given themI gave them the password and

After everything we've been through together—you trusting me with the truth about Dumbledore's death, you saving me from Aurelia, you not letting me be alone after Zoe's death—I did not entrust you with the information of the impending thievery, and I am sorry. I had no right to keep that from you, and I had no right to do what I did but

You are the only person in my life I've never been ashamed to tell everything to, because I admire you and respect you and consider you a friend. Or did. Do. I don't know anymore. You're the only person I've ever trusted this much, and I took what trust you put in me and squandered it away. Professor, I am so sorry.

As for my actions the night of the attempted stealing of the sword, I am truly

I realize that I

I'm sor

Looking back at the earlier piece of this letter I can only assume that I was lying. Not about me seeing you as my friend or me being sorry that I lied to you and betrayed you. But about me being sorry for the whole situation. I don't regret all of the si

Because I realized something when

Because something happened

Because I don't

Because I

I can't write this down.

Professor, I made a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake. I betrayed your trust in me. I betrayed our friendship. I betrayed you.

And the worst part is that I can't even bring myself to be completely and wholly upset with it because I

I am sorry that this has happened. I am sorry that I betrayed you. And all I want to do is make this right. If that means staying away from you, I'll do it. I will do anything to fix this.

Sincerely,
Aurelia

I debate crossing out my birth name and signing it with "Charlotte" but after a moment realize that's not a good idea. If someone found a letter from Charlotte to Severus, it would raise questions. If someone found a letter from an unknown Aurelia to Professor Snape, it becomes much less damning and just a lot more confusing because way fewer people know that name means me. At least, that's the thought process I had when I began writing it—I didn't plan to send it and knew I wouldn't be able to destroy it, which meant it could possibly be found should someone go snooping through my stuff. Now though, all I want to do is hook it onto Milo's little foot and have him carry it away until it reaches the one person in my life most deserving of my most heartfelt apologies.

But I know in my heart of hearts that no owl will ever make it up to the Headmaster's Tower—well, Milo won't because he knows who Milo is and knows that I am the only one who uses him to send anything. And I almost don't believe he'll accept any owl that seems like it came from Hogwarts because who inside this castle would send anything to Severus other than this student, whom he obviously does not want to speak to right now.

Perhaps sending the letter just will not work at all. I have no way to get it to him.

That's not true, Charlotte.

I huff at myself as I finish the letter of contrition and roll it up tightly and slip it into my pocket. Then I place my head down on the table and take even breaths, trying to calm myself. I truly do have some dreadful, dreadful ideas, yet here I sit preparing to act on another one without a care as to just how horribly this might turn out.

Because I have to try one last time.

That in mind, I write down a few words on a piece of scrap paper, push myself to my feet, and force myself to leave the library. At the first empty room I come across I dart inside and cast the Disillusionment and Silencing Charms around myself without any prying eyes catching me. Once that's finished, I leave the room and make my way to Amycus's office, and I take it as a positive sign that both twins are in here rather than in Alecto's office.

With a wave of my wand the scrap paper flies into the room and lands on his desk. The siblings look at one another apprehensively before reaching for the note, and I rush away, right to the gargoyle statue blocking the entrance to the Headmaster's Tower. There I wait patiently.