She stood in her own bedroom, back at home, staring at one of her pale lilac walls. She felt the thread of the carpet under her feet poking up between her toes. It was rough on her smooth skin, and tickled lightly, but she didn’t move. Her hands were at her sides, just resting, as she gazed into the wall, as if looking for a secret switch that would lead her to a better world.
Outside, rain spattered mercilessly on the house, making it sounds like a herd of Thestrals was stampeding down the roof. Large raindrops slithered down the windowpane, to join the river streaming through the drains. A flash of lightning illuminated the dark house for a brief moment, before dying away, only to be followed by cracking thunder. Rose dragged her gaze away from the wall lethargically and turned her head to the right, to glance out of window. Somewhere out there, her parents, her aunt, uncle, and her cousins were distributing Severus Snape’s potion to the masses. Snape himself was still at the Potters’. But Rose hadn’t been able to make herself stay there. It felt like the house itself was turning on her, blaming her for everything, for raising the hopes of her family. James had always been dying, but before she’d mentioned the cure, the death had been expected. It would have happened; they all knew it, no matter how much they prayed at night. James would have gotten suddenly worse one day, his parents would have made a last ditch attempt to save him or stabilize him, but they’d have known, deep in their hearts and minds that it was over. And it wouldn’t have hurt so much. Because they would have been expecting it.
When Hugo had gotten sick, Rose had known he would die eventually. She hadn’t been stupid or silly, thinking that a cure would suddenly materialize because her brother had finally come down with the disease. She knew her parents had resigned themselves to Hugo’s fate too – that even Hugo had known it. They had simply waited, and when Hugo had finally passed, after so much pain and suffering, a part of Rose had actually been happy. A very small part had been glad that the waiting, the suspense, was finally over, that Hugo was finally free of pain and that she and her parents were finally free of worry. The other, larger part of her, had hated everything and everyone for a long time: hated her parents for letting this happen to Hugo, hated the Healers for not having a cure, hated herself for being mean to Hugo, for ever yelling at him. She hated the fact that she wished he would simply die and get it over with so that they could get on with their lives. And she’d cried, of course. It would have been insane not to cry. Ron and Hermione had cried. But they would have gotten over it eventually, because they’d known all along – from that first dizzy spell, Hugo had been as good as dead. Hating people was useless and grieving was tiring. They’d done so much of it even when Hugo had been alive.
This was a hundred times worse. No one had expected this – because the cure was supposed to work. As soon as she’d mentioned finding the cure, an impossible hope had bloomed somewhere inside her heart, the hearts of Albus and Lily and James and, eventually, inside the hearts of her parents and Harry and Ginny. Things were supposed to have gotten better. Not worse.
And as Rose turned back to the lilac wall, staring hard at it once again, blinking more than usual, the one thought that she had been trying her hardest not to think rose to the surface of her consciousness.
James was dead.
Tears came strong and fast as soon as those three words appeared in her mind. Sobs wrenched themselves from her throat, hurting her chest and she instinctively bent forward, wilting like a flower. This was never supposed to happen! She’d found the cure for James – after losing Hugo and Scorpius, she hadn’t wanted to lose someone else she loved so much and was so close to. It wasn’t fair! Why hadn’t the potion worked? Was it her fault? Had she been too slow? Was there something she could have done faster, to get to James earlier? Could she have arrived back here, in the present, a few minutes earlier? Would that have saved James?
If the potion not working wasn’t Rose’s fault, she knew what was. The pain. The gut-wrenching, mind-boggling pain that she’d caused Harry, Ginny, Albus and Lily… and her parents too. If she had never gone to Grimmauld Place, if she’d returned straight home from the graveyard, none of this would have happened. James would have died anyway, but at least it would have been easier to bear. Not like this…
She cried and cried, and found herself lying on her carpet, face down, rough threads poking at her wet face. She hadn’t cried like this when Scorpius had died, or Hugo, but now she was. She was crying for all three of them. Crying because she hadn’t been able to save them. Crying because she had allowed James’s hopes to fly, only to be brought crashing down. She had killed him before he had even died.
Rose wanted to scream, long, hard, and loud, and because no one was in the house, she did. She screamed tearlessly until her throat was raw, pushed herself up from the carpet and kicked at the stupid lilac wall, only hurting herself, but reveling in the pain. She turned to the right, walked over to the rain-spattered window, raised her fist and hurled herself at the glass with all the strength she possessed. It shattered immediately, sending glass flying everywhere: over her arms, her body, and her face. She didn’t stop. She immediately punched the wall next to the window with even more force. Her arm bounded back from the momentum. She stood there then, breathing heavily, her hate-intensified energy slowly ebbing away. Blood trickled eagerly down her punching fist, her knuckles raw and sliced, and her hand shaking with acute pain. Something hot ran down Rose’s cheeks, mingling with salty tears and icy rain. A piece of glass had opened up her forehead, but Rose didn’t care. There was blood all over her, from wherever the glass had struck. She stood a moment near the window, letting the harsh rain splash down on her face as tears continued to leak from her eyes, stinging small cuts on her cheeks and nose and chin.
The sobs were quieter now as she stepped away from the window and turned to her bed, prepared to fall down onto it. Suddenly, she was extremely dizzy. Her sobs were immediately cutoff as the room spun around her and went white for a long moment. The sounds of rain and thunder vanished. Rose felt suddenly cold and sweaty all at the same time. Without warning or reason, a sharp pain went racing up Rose’s side. The room came back. She was lying on the carpet again, near her bed. As she struggled to push herself up (it was agony to put any weight on her injured hand) she realized, vaguely, that she was lucky – two centimeters to the right and she would have cracked her head on the bed’s wooden tailboard.
She pulled herself onto the bed, tears returning silently, and curled there, feeling rain on her back from the nearby cracked window. She pulled her legs even closer to her, cradled her injured hand under her chin, and closed her eyes. The dizzy feeling was back, and her stomach was suddenly aching.
And, she realized, as she drifted off to a troubled sleep, the pain from her hand and forehead and stomach dulling as she slipped into delirium, there was something else that would not have happened had she only returned home from the graveyard and not detoured to Grimmauld Place.
She would not have met Severus Snape. Severus Snape who could never love, even a silly, foolish girl like her. A girl who only made things worse. With those thoughts she slipped off into deep, dark blackness.
When she woke up, everything was fuzzy and nothing made sense. She could hear jumbled up phrases, strings of sentences, loud voices, none of which she could recognize. Someone was touching her hand, the one she’d used to punch her window, and just the sensation of skin on skin was anguish. She cried out and tried to pull her hand away, but she had no energy. Her limbs were like lead. It felt like someone had stacked a pound of bricks on her head.
A hand was on her cheek, soft and reassuring, and she felt something cold pat a spot on her forehead, just above her right eye. Rose blinked frantically, trying to bring things into focus, but her surroundings remained shadowed and blurry. Figures were walking around, sliding into and out of her line of sight. Rose tried to say something, but her words piled up in her throat and all she managed was a choked cough. Someone murmured something and Rose felt her head being lifted up and something peppery and burning was poured slowly down her throat. She tried to protest, but it was no use.
Then she was slipping away again, eyes fluttering shut without her realizing it.
When she awoke again, her head was less full of fuzz, but her right hand was aching horribly, as if someone had pushed a million pins into it. She could hear voices around her she realized, though the sentences were still broken and unfathomable to her, and she couldn’t seem to get her eyes open to see anything.
‘… walking home and we saw that the window was broken…’ someone with a deep voice was saying.
‘… glass and blood everywhere…’ This voice was softer, gentler, and shaking.
‘…fever. That’s how it started…’
‘At least there’s a cure…’
‘…handed all of the bloody vials out… didn’t even think to keep one for ourselves…’
‘Professor Snape will… another one… no time…’
Rose struggled to concentrate but she couldn’t even discern one voice from another after a while and more and more words were just slipping right over her head. She wanted to know what was happening, what everyone was talking about. She struggled to sit up, but the voices didn’t like that at all and they all began talking at once and gave Rose a headache. She let herself be pushed back down, just to shut them up. She was really tired, all of a sudden. Her hand gave a particularly unpleasant throb.
Just before everything went black, she felt a wet cloth on her forehead and someone close to tears said:
‘I won’t be able to stand it if she…’
‘She won’t, Hermione,’ answered a firm voice. ‘She won’t. We have a cure, because of her.’ She’d heard it all, Rose realized dimly. As she let go, she finally found a name to go with the voice: Uncle Harry.
Her sleep wasn’t dreamless this time.
Once upon a time, there was a young lady. She was an ordinary person, nothing special to look at, but still attractive. She had a brain, and though it was not very big, it was not very small either. Her parents were proud of it, at least.
This young lady lived near a huge, dark castle. It was unfriendly, with vines and thorns eating at its black walls, its windows boarded tightly, and somewhat terrifying. But it was also intriguing. The castle had been home to many important people, and though people hadn’t always known it, it was a very special castle indeed. The young lady saw the castle almost every day, as she went out to hunt or forage but it seemed so far away and unreal at such a distance. A large river separated the lady’s house and the dark castle, a river that was impossible to cross, with dangerous rapids and rushing waves.
Even when the young lady didn’t see the castle, she heard about it at home, from her family. They had once lived very close to the castle and had been afraid of it then, but slowly things had changed and they had come to realize what the castle truly was: a sturdy, secret protector. They still couldn’t help not liking the castle, but with those emotions came respect for its power. But the castle no longer held important people or protected her family. It was alone, empty, and abandoned now.
Then one day, someone built a bridge over the treacherous river that separated the young lady’s house and the great castle. The young lady didn’t wait a day – she immediately crossed the river and was on the opposite bank in no time. She wanted to see the castle more than she could say. She knew there was something magical inside it and that if she only tried hard enough, she would be able to bring the magic out. But before she could reach the castle, she heard voices calling her. The voices were of her family, carried along the wind to her. Someone was ill at home and the only cure lay just outside the black castle – a beautiful rose. They wanted the young lady to bring the rose back to them, as fast as she could.
The young lady was torn. Part of her wanted to go straight into the castle and find what she so badly needed – and the other part of her couldn’t stand to see one of her kin ill. So she made a quick decision. She would take the rose, give it to her family, and then hurry back to the castle. She ran to the castle wall, and found one beautiful red rose and then hurried back the way she’d come. There, at the bridge, stood three people she knew.
Their names, she remembered, were Hugo, Scorpius and James. They called to her frantically, saying that she should come with them. Rose shook her head. She didn’t want to come with them, she wanted to go back to the castle. The three frowned at her and pleaded. She was already halfway there, they said. It would take longer to get back to the castle – but one step over the bridge and she’d be with them… and she’d be happy. Rose wavered. Scorpius was looking at her, his gray eyes begging silently. James smiled at her, not an ounce of blame in his demeanor. Hugo laughed at her, eyes dancing, ready to tease her. She could feel them tugging at her – but she couldn’t go. She glanced at the rose in her hand and then threw it at them. As it flew over the bridge, it split into three. ‘To remember me by!’ she called over to them. They caught the roses and then nodded, resignedly. But as they turned, they smiled, almost as if to assure her that everything would be all right. Rose looked down at her hand and found she still held a single rose. ‘To remember us by,’ came three voices, carried by the wind. But when she looked up, they were gone. And the castle was tugging at her heart.
The young lady turned and ran back to the castle, but when she reached it, she found it would not open for her. Please, she begged. I can help you and fix everything and you can be powerful again! Like you were before. I can love you! But the castle still would not yield.
And then, out of the mist that surrounded her black castle, a smiling man emerged, with great blue eyes and a long white beard. He radiated calm and peace and gave her a small, sad smile. ‘Some things will never be. Yet that does not mean that your story has ended,’ he said in a soothing voice. And then he was gone. And so was the castle. And Rose was alone.
Rose opened her eyes. She was still in her room, surrounded by lilac walls. A strange pitter-patter noise encircled her and it took a moment for Rose to realize that it was still raining. She turned over warily, wondering if her room was flooded, the carpet soaked, because of the window she’d punched out. But when her eyes fell on the shattered window – it wasn’t shattered anymore. It was whole and normal looking, rain streaking down it along wet tendrils that other drops had left behind. It was as if she’d never even touched it.
But she had!
Hadn’t she? Or was she going insane too?
Rose struggled into a sitting position, and her blanket fell off her as she moved. She looked down at it, bemusedly. She hadn’t gotten under her blanket. And then she saw her right hand. It was thickly bandaged, fingers, thumb, wrist all hidden behind white tape. It itched slightly, but Rose couldn’t get at the spot and she had to let it go on itching uncomfortably. Her forehead! Rose fingered the area above her right eye and felt a snaky scar there, upraised and revolting. There were tiny scars on her arms too, and, she suspected, her neck and face as well. So it had happened. She flumped back down onto her pillows. Then snatches of a dream and a broken conversation returned to her and she sat bolt upright once more.
At that moment, Albus entered the room. He looked shocked to find her awake and immediately rushed over and wrapped her in a strangling hug.
‘Al,’ said Rose, choking and patting him awkwardly on the back with her bandaged hand. ‘Al – really. I’m suffocating here – AL!’
Albus broke away at her strangled cry, looking sheepish. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, as Rose rubbed her neck, giving him an odd look. ‘We thought – we didn’t know what to think – I mean—’
Obviously, Rose decided, she was missing something here. ‘What happened? Am I—’ Something cold fell into her stomach. ‘Am I sick?’
‘You were,’ said Albus, sitting down on her bed, still looking slightly ecstatic behind his glasses. ‘You’re okay now, I think. Does anything hurt? I mean, it always starts like this – really bad, and then suddenly you feel okay, but achy and then—’
‘Well, my hand itches,’ interrupted Rose, holding the bandaged one up. ‘But that’s all. I feel completely normal.’
Albus seemed to sag with relief and then grimaced at her hand. ‘Yeah, you pretty much broke every bone you have in that hand. What are you, mental?’
Rose stared from Albus to her hand, in slightly shock. She remembered something then – someone had poured Skele-Grow down her throat earlier. That vile burning potion. ‘Oh, yeah,’ she replied, putting her hand down on her lap again. ‘I punched the window… and then the wall.’
‘That would explain it,’ said Albus dryly. ‘Why?’
Rose thought about that for a moment. ‘Why did you push your desk out the window last night?’ she ventured finally. When Rose had told Albus that the cure had worked, but not for James, Albus had gone to his room and locked himself there (Lily had gone straight to her eldest brother). Later on, Rose had heard an almighty crash and had leaned out of Lily’s bedroom (where she’d been hiding) to see Al’s desk lying on the grass, splintered. The French windows in Albus’s room and been open and swinging.
She hoped Albus wouldn’t start shouting at her now for what she’d done to James. She didn’t think she could take it.
All Albus said was, ‘Oh.’ He lay back on the bed, lengthwise but the wrong way, and stared at the stars on the ceiling. ‘It wasn’t last night, though,’ he added. ‘It two nights ago.’
Rose gaped at him. ‘Was I out of it that long? Didn’t the cure work?’
‘You’re alive aren’t you? Snape had to make more. We gave the rest away – we didn’t think…’ he trailed off, unable to continue his sentence.
‘I went into James’s room without the Bubblehead Charm,’ sighed Rose, finally recalling her mistake. But acknowledging that she’d been an idiot wasn’t as hard as saying James’s name. How could he be dead? It didn’t seem possible.
‘The funeral is in a few hours,’ said Albus finally, sitting up again. His voice wavered slightly.
Rose managed a nod, but couldn’t bring herself to reply.
‘You know?’ began Albus. He pulled off his glasses and began to wipe them on his shirt, like he did whenever he was uncomfortable. ‘After James there were no more – no one else has—’
Rose watched Albus struggle with the word for a moment, and then whispered, ‘Died?’
Al nodded gratefully, slipping his glasses back on. ‘The cure has worked. We were so lucky… because no one was as far gone as James yet. The ones who were worse had already passed but no one else had reached the brink. As far as I know, they’re all cured. Because of you.’
‘Not me – James,’ Rose muttered. ‘If he hadn’t been willing to test it…’
‘But you found it Rose, and you went back for Professor Snape, and you convinced everyone that this was right. James helped – but it was all you, really.’ He paused and then continued, ‘Don’t blame yourself about James, okay?’
Rose looked up into Al’s emerald eyes.
‘I made it worse for you, for all of you,’ she said softly.
Albus shook his head and took her hand. ‘You made it better. James is gone, but we have to accept that – you have to accept it. But no one else has to die now. Not you, Lily, or me. There’s no more fear. Not like before, where parents would watch one of their children die and then turn to the other, almost like they were preparing…’ Albus sighed. ‘You made it better. Don’t you dare blame yourself – you did all the right things. It’s okay.’
Rose didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything.
‘Snape wants to go back,’ Albus added, after a second.
‘What?’ exclaimed Rose, looking up quickly.
Albus gave her an almost knowing sad half-smile. ‘If you want to make the funeral, you’re going to have to leave soon. Or you’ll be cutting it close.’
‘Why does he want to go back?’
‘Why do you think, Rosie? This isn’t his time – there isn’t anyone here for him.’
‘There is no one there for him, in his time either,’ Rose said fiercely. ‘He should just stay. At least we know about him – what he did! They never knew!’
Albus shook his head. ‘That doesn’t matter. Would you like to go back there and live, even if you had no one here? This is like a foreign country for him, Rose, worse even. He wants to go back.’
‘How do you know?’ retorted Rose, feeling hot all over. ‘Did he tell you?’
‘Yes,’ said Albus flatly, apparently expecting this line of attack. ‘While you were sick. He’s here, you know. He came to give you the potion. He told me to tell you that he would like to leave, if you were awake, just before I came up.’
‘How can he want to go?’ pleaded Rose, almost as if she wanted Albus to say it was okay to want to Severus to stay here. Her mind raced, thinking for problems that would stop Severus’s return. ‘He was supposed to die there and he didn’t! Uncle Harry, Mum, and Dad saw him die when they were kids – they won’t believe it if he’s suddenly up and walking around! People retrieved the body—’
‘There won’t be a body if you get there in time,’ Albus pointed out, ‘because you’ll have taken it away. And maybe Snape won’t stay in England. He’ll think of something. I really don’t think he’s stupid – do you?’
Rose’s face fell.
Albus reached out and touched her shoulder. ‘Look. I know what you feel—’
Rose looked up in shock and incredulity and Albus laughed at her expression. ‘I may be a boy, but I’m not completely dense, all right? Anyway, Lily told me. The point is I know how you feel. And after Scorpius—’
‘This isn’t like Scorpius, Al!’ Rose insisted. ‘This is something else – I’ve loved him for ages! It started out as intrigue, but now – even before I had a chance to meet him – it was something else! He was dead – I didn’t know I’d have the chance to meet him. This must have happened for a reason, Al! I can’t let him go. I just can’t.’
Albus’s shoulders drooped and his face was melancholy. ‘I know, Rose. I know. But some things will never be. And that’s the way it is. You have to accept it.’