Hermione arrived almost immediately, looking frantic. For a moment Rose felt bad at having caused her mother unnecessary concern â“ then Hermioneâs expression changed. Her eyes fell on Snape who had returned to his seat after Harry had walked across the room and sat down on the edge of Jamesâs bed.
âWhat the bloody hell has been happening here?â she screeched after having closed her mouth and dragged her gaze away from Snape, who was still radiating cold fury. As quickly as Hermione might have been rubbing off on Ron it seemed Ron had rubbed off on Hermione much faster. Then, glancing at Snape out of the corner of her eyes, Hermione cleared her throat and said, âI mean â“ what⌠happened?â
âRose went to the past and brought Professor Snape back,â Harry supplied. âApparently she found an incomplete cure and the only way to finish it off was to be here.â Severusâs Black comment seemed to have hit home belatedly. He looked grim but seemed much calmer, much more like himself.
Hermione looked grimmer. She rounded on her daughter immediately. âWhat?â
Albus, Lily and James and rushed in to take some of the blame but halfway into their remonstrations James was overcome by a sudden attack of pain. He fell back suddenly and his head hit the headboard hard. Rose, Lily, Albus and Hermione all leapt forward, but Harry, already on the bed, got there first. He gently pulled James away from the headboard and lay him back down on the pillow. Rose spotted blood on the woodwork where Jamesâs head had hit and felt an icy chill in her abdomen. James was still conscious but his jaw was clenched fiercely and it was taking all of his energy not to scream out. Rose watched him without realizing that he maybe didnât want to be looked at in such a vulnerable state. Soft moans escaped him despite his strongest efforts. Harryâs fingers stroked his sonâs hair softly.
Severus had watched this was newfound interest. âWhat does it do?â he asked.
Hermione jumped as if sheâd been shot and Rose had the vague feeling that her mother hadnât really been convinced that it was actually Severus Snape who sat in her nephewâs room.
âIt ravages the body,â she replied, quickly regaining her composure and looking directly at Severus. âAs far as the Healers know it eats away at internal organs, starting with the most unimportant. In the beginning the pain is enough to kill â“ in the end it is the destruction of the heart and the lungs and the brain that does the job. Those organs are last to be consumed, at the very end. The sick go insane in the moments before their deaths.â Rose saw her motherâs eyes glaze over and she knew she was thinking of Hugo and his screams. Screams that would no longer be controlled. The screams and then the silence.
Harry was watching Hermione, his hand still on his son who had fallen into a sudden, fitful sleep.
She sensed his gaze and turned to him. âHarry,â she began, but he held up a hand and turned to Snape.
âIâmâ”â he struggled with himself for a long moment before continuing, âIâm sorry. Please, help us.â He looked back at James. âPlease.â
His eyes moved to Rose and she saw the apology brimming in them â“ she gave him a small smile. He did not need to utter the words for her.
âThat is what I plan to do,â replied Severus sharply. âBut as I told your children earlier â“ first I require rest and food.â
âAnd you shall have it,â responded Hermione. âHarry, I think we should go back. We need to make plans in case the Ministry arrives. The children were handling themselves very well before we arrived, I think.â
Harry nodded deftly and got up from the bed, following Hermione to the door. She held it open for him and he walked out. Hermione paused just before leaving and said, âI donât want any of you to get your hopes up. We need a miracle now â“ and miracles are rare.â
She closed the door with a snap behind her leaving four young people and a very weary man enveloped in silence.
Albus had already left with Severus for his bedroom when Rose noticed the tray of food that sheâd set on the desk. Lily was busy making the honeydew balls vanish. Rose, deep in thought about what Harry and Snape had shouted to each other and of how sheâd heard Snapeâs voice go odd when Lily had told him her name earlier. Lily had been Harryâs motherâs name too. Registering that she was watching her cousin scarf down the food sheâd prepared, Rose pulled out of her thoughts for a moment.
âLily!â she said. âThose were for Severus!â
Lily paused her chewing, swallowed, and grinned at Rose. âSeverus, is he? You know Rose, I rather fancy you actually like that man. And by like, I mean, like.â
Rose blushed furiously. âI do not!â
Lily laughed. âYeah, right. Tell it to the Wizengamot. Iâm not a dunderhead â“ the way you look at him, the way you donât stand close to him, the way youâve always tried to get his portrait to talk to you when youâre in the Headmasterâs office⌠well, this has been a long time coming, hasnât it?â
âShut up,â said Rose, folding her arms and turned away from Lily to stare at the Weird Sistersâ poster hanging on the opposite wall. âNothing has been a long time coming!â
Lily hopped of the desk and brushed her hands off on her rear. âWell, Iâll just go talk to Severus about my little theory â“ maybe he knows why his portrait wonât speak to you!â She headed for the door but Rose tackled her.
âLils, donât you dare!â she screeched, pinning her cousin against the door. Behind her James murmured something in his sleep.
Lily seemed momentarily conquered by laughter. She slid to the carpet, clutching her stomach, when Rose released her hold. Rose watched her a moment, as she laughed hysterically but quietly, then rolled her eyes and turned away. She sat down on the now-vacant desk chair and sighed.
Lily wiped her streaming eyes and smiled at Rose, âI didnât mean it Rosie. Maybe itâll happen.â
âWhatâll happen?â said Rose. âI donât even know what I want to happen. Heâs, at this moment, about twenty years older than me.â
Lily smiled gently, âYes, but that hasnât stopped you hoping.â
âI donât think heâs ever loved anyone.â
âThat hasnât stopped you hoping,â repeated Lily.
And it hadnât, though Rose felt that it should have. A long, long time ago. And yet, it hadnât.
Albus returned to the room a while later and announced that he did not know if Severus wanted food or not, on questioning by Rose and Lily. He had just shown the ex-Professor the bedroom, provided sheets and blankets, asked if he required nightclothes (he didnât, and, said Albus, he didnât really possess any that would fit the man) and then left.
Rose decided sheâd go downstairs and make something fresh and take that to him. If he was still awake, fine, if not⌠fine. He could eat when he woke up.
With a fresh tray of sandwiches and a glass of wine in her hands, Rose made her way from the kitchen to Albusâs bedroom. She knocked on the door and when no one answered, had a little mental battle with herself outside the bedroom door. Should she just go in? What if he wasnât decent? The thought was both exciting and terrifying and Rose was attacked by a fit of laughter at her own silliness. She was acting rather like a foolish schoolgirl.
She knocked again and walked into the room. It was dark. She could see a silhouette on the bed and suddenly felt terribly shy. She hurried over to the nightstand, set the tray down and then left the room quickly, her cheeks burning and her heart thumping, for no reason whatsoever.
She fell asleep on the desk chair in Jamesâs bedroom. Albus and Lily had left to play a revised version of Quidditch, tweaked to allow a one-on-one game. Rose had dozed off in the middle of thoughts about Hogwarts Battle, Lord Voldemort, the cure, James and, because he just wouldnât leave her alone, Severus Snape. Her dreams were the most unpleasant she had ever had. Hugoâs screams wound in and out of flashes of a bleeding Snape on the grimy wooden floor of the Shrieking Shack, Jamesâs ashen face begging Rose to save him, Lord Voldemortâs menacing voice reverberating through the walls and a boy falling to his knees, dead, as a green light swept through him.
She awoke to soft cries and the bubbling of a potion with tears on her cheeks. Luckily, her face was on the desk resting towards the wall and not the room. She wouldnât have recognized the sounds of crying, they were so muffled, had she not heard them once before. She raised a hand to her face and wiped away the tears as inconspicuously as possible before turning to face the room. Her neck ached, as did her back. Her arms seemed loath to come out of the position sheâd had them in for â“ Rose glanced at the open window â“ the past fifteen hours, if she wasnât mistaken. Sheâd slept yesterday evening, night and early morning away.
Jamesâs face was to the wall and window but Rose spotted his shoulders shaking and felt pity flood through her. The pain was intense, Rose knew from Hugo, and it was impossible to keep the sobs down. They came of their own accord, even if you didnât want to cry. Rose wondered if James was praying that he would die then and there â“ Hugo had told her in one of his more coherent moments that it was what he wished whenever he couldnât ignore the hurting.
Severus Snape was also in the room. Rose managed a half-strangled good morning, (praying that she hadnât been crying out loud in her sleep), which he acknowledged with a nod. He told her that her cousins had given him preliminary ingredients and a cauldron and dragged another desk into the bedroom. Rose immediately felt ashamed that she hadnât been up, but Snapeâs words hadnât been accusatory. Only matter-of-fact. She watched him cutting up some sort of root and adding it to his potion, which he proceeded to stir with the utmost care. His brow was wrinkled in concentration. The red leather book was on the desk next to the cauldron and Rose wondered shortly how heâd gotten it. It had been in her pocket last sheâd checked.
She glanced at James again and felt that perhaps they should respect his dignity and leave â“ but then again, Snape needed a patient and one who was close at hand. And if Snape stayed, she had every right to as well. Her heart ached for her cousin though. Trying to muffle the cries was probably making the pain worse.
She asked Severus if heâd had breakfast. He informed her that heâd eaten half of the food sheâd left him yesterday, last night and the other half this morning. He was not hungry.
She felt silent after that, contented to watch him make his potion.
He was not, by any standards, even the gentlest, handsome. Nor was he even good-looking. The hair was much too greasy, the nose much too hooked, the mouth ever frowning, the lines on his face harsh, his demeanor unfriendly. Yet Rose had always found him attractive. Even his portrait radiated⌠power, perhaps, was the word. Confidence and pride oozed from the way he held himself. Rose had spent more time watching his portrait in the Headmasterâs office than anyone was probably aware of. She had gone to Hogwarts having heard at length what this man had gone through. She had been expecting someone who looked rather more heroic and yet, when she set eyes on his portrait, she had not been very disappointed. His dark gaze, his thin lips, his very expression had intrigued her. It had started as an obsession. She had to know everything about Severus Snape. And the more sheâd learned and analyzed, the more interested she became. The obsession had, without her noticing, evolved into something much worse.
Rose wondered why she had fallen in love with a portrait. A man written about in a book â“ almost a storybook character. Did it matter if heâd lived at one time? It had been absurd then, at school, when sheâd know he was dead.
And now? Now that the very man that portrait portrayed was standing not three feet away from her?
Would it be prudent to push her feelings away? He was, right now, at least twenty-years her elder. And technically, in real time, she was fifty years younger than him. It was ridiculous. But true.
It hurt to think that she was doomed to be rejected. It was what made her keep her mouth closed, though in her chest, her heart burned with the need to tell him. He had only just come to know her, yet she had known him almost all her life. And she had loved him for seven years.
The word âloveâ brought Scorpius Malfoy to her thoughts. The charming Slytherin boy whoâd entered Hogwarts the same year she had, who she had found irksome (in the beginning) to say the least. Heâd been in her every class, paired with her for every project, potion, spell-practice. He had been a terrible student, not stupid, not unintelligent, but terribly lazy and uncaring. He would rather have spent all of his time holed up in his dormitory inventing new spells and finding out ways to use them on her. Theyâd been friends and not friends. She couldnât explain the relationship. She had helped him with studies and with rule breaking. They had traipsed through the Forbidden Forest, been sent to detention together, been made (astonishingly) Prefects. Heâd gone on to make Head Boy, but she had not been bestowed the honor. The Head Girl had been one of the Hufflepuff girls, (and a cousin) Molly Weasley. Scorpius however managed to keep himself glued to her by handing out detentions for the most petty crimes and residing over them himself, insisting to the Professors that he could handle her âtypeâ best. Thrown together at every turn, she had grown to know him and love him. Yet that love was different from this love. Was it because Scorpius had been just a boy and Severus Snape was most certainly a man?
Or was it because Scorpius had died and left her? Because he had been getting better and then heâd died? Because on the last day, sheâd gone and visited him, they had laughed together, and everything had seemed better and after that, after that one day, she couldnât find it in herself to forgive him for what heâd done. She needed him. She needed him so badly it hurt her. They had never got to make anything out of their love.
Sheâd stowed that pain away in a part of her heart that was secret to all â“ including herself, and forced herself not to think about it. Every day after his death sheâd told herself that it was over, so many times that the mantra found itself into her dreams and one morning, she woke up and found herself believing it. Therefore,, sheâd gone to his grave to say goodbye. And after, sheâd found the red leather book. It was like Fate had spoken.
After a while, Snapeâs voice broke in to her thoughts. He wanted some more ingredients and handed her a written list. Their fingers brushed as he passed her the paper. She scanned the items on it casually, feeling her cheeks grow warm and told him that sheâd go to Diagon Alley immediately.
Rose didnât think she could stand it if Fate decided to throw a twist into the bubbling plot. She didnât think she could stand it if she did not tell Severus of her feelings soon. She didnât think she could stand it if he left.