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Recollection
By Taleya
Chapter Twenty-Two
I
The mood in the school changed dramatically after Snape's speech. No one
likes to admit they were wrong, and Hogwarts was no exception. No one had
outright apologised, per se, they had opted for the easier and less
ego-destroying manner of anonymous gifts, or tentative smiles, easing up the
dark cloud of disapproval that had chased them about. For the first time ever,
Trelawny had actually served him a prediction that didn't involve maiming,
illness or actual death.....and that particular little gem was rather
disconcerting in itself. Not all were swayed, but not everyone would ever be,
and it was enough for Harry.
Madam Hooch was the exception to the rule.
Harry was relaxing against a parapet, staring out again across the expanse of
the quidditch pitch to the forbidden forest, lit golden by the dying sun when
she caught him.
Caught wasn’t really the word, it insinuated skulking or sneaking, some sort of
subterfuge at any rate. The truth was that she just walked up to him, bold as
brass, rounded riding heels making an odd little noise against the flagstones.
“Potter.”
The Auror eyed her warily. To tell the truth, given reactions of some of the
other staff he had been avoiding her. He knew (even if Severus didn't) that she
was rather protective of the potions master. And Harry didn't think he'd walk
too well with a broom wedged up his back passage.
“Madame Hooch,” he said politely, surreptitiously shifting so that his backside
was against a stone wall.
She had a small, non-descript box in her hands. “I was going to leave this for
you in your quarters,” she weighed it carefully in her hands, “But then I
thought you may not know what it was, growing up with those muggles of yours.”
Harry stared at the small stone jar in the box. “It’s a pensieve.”
Hooch nodded, briefly. “Actually, it’s a celebratory.” At the confused look the
auror gave her she elaborated. “It’s a gift among the wizarding world. Part of
what Severus would no doubt term ‘ritual humiliation.” A smile quirked her lips
and Harry found himself tentatively returning it. “Usually to mark a momentous
event in a young wizard or witch’s life. This one is young Araminta’s birth.”
“Both Poppy and I contributed,” she continued as Harry stared hungrily at the
bowl, not even daring to reach for it. “And Minerva, Remus, Severus himself, of
course, Albus…It’s not supposed to be opened until her eighteenth birthday, but,
well…” again that little quirky half-smile and she thrust it at him, the moment
passed, businesslike once more. "Girl needs her father, Potter. Father's,"
she corrected herself. "You weren't there for them then, but you can be now.
Enjoy." Then she turned about and left Harry clutching the pensieve, mouth
gaping a little in astonishment.
He didn’t get to view the pensieve right away. The outside world intruded
unpleasantly into his life. He’d almost forgotten that there was a world
outside Hogwarts and the muddle his life had been of late.
There was another owl waiting for him in his quarters. Another note from the
ministry, calling him back Over the past few weeks they had gone from gentle
reminders to less polite almost-demands that he go back to active duty. His
compassionate leave was long gone, as well as his service leave. It was time to
re-enter the world of the Aurors.
He wasn’t sure that he wanted to go back.
Once he would have said it was his life. His job. Back then, the two were
interchangeable. And the death eater attacks hadn’t stopped. Things were quiet,
they were calm, too calm, they had been for some time. Some thought that it was
over. That the shadow was finally gone.
Harry wasn’t one of them. He could feel them, still out there. Watching.
Waiting.
He ran a hand through his hair, the tips of his fingers rubbing idly at his
scalp as he sagged down on a couch. Go or stay? Duty warred with a delightfully
selfish desire to stay at Hogwarts, to hell with the world. He was the best
Auror there was, he was under no illusions to his skill, it was simply a fact.
He should fight the darkness, protect people.
But he was a father now. He had a family. One he barely knew, one he was just
getting to know, and he wanted nothing more than to just stay at Hogwarts, stay
with his family, catch up on so many lost years and just….be with them. There
were a thousand little delightful things he’d never realised he could do.
Birthdays. Flying lessons. Telling her what little he knew about his own
parents. Even simply sitting down to breakfast had become a new and crazily
wondrous thing. And he wanted so much more. He’d been parched of a family for
so long that he wanted to plunge into it, to drown himself.
One hand toyed with the slip of parchment, fingers absently petting the head of
the waiting owl as it butted his hand with its head, hooting softly. The
darkening shadows in his unlit quarters seemed to grow with his pensive mood,
swallowing everything in their path.
He could resign. It was rare – most people who were Aurors were Aurors for life,
but it did happen. There were those that left. Invalided out, or just resigned.
He could do it. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could.
He still wouldn’t be free. The knowledge, his training was too dangerous, too
powerful to have in the hands of just a normal wizard. He would be watched.
There would be checks, in case he went rogue. Memory charms were dodgy at best,
but it was an idea that he weighed seriously. A wrong word, the simple slip of
a tongue could destroy his mind irreparably – but the alternative also held its
risks.
Knowledge intact, he would be watched. His daughter would be watched. Snape
would be watched. Snape, the Death Eater. Servant of Lord Voldemort. The
ministry had long memories, and Aurors weren’t immune to grudges.
It’s a vile, tasteless thing, but sometimes you must acknowledge humanity. The
whole of humanity, its depravity and fangs as well as its glory and saints.
Not too long ago he would have ‘thought like a parent.’ Continued his job.
Walked away. Protected his daughter, his ex lover, his family. Gone out, left
them alone, gone to protect their world. Made a world for his daughter to
grow up in.
But now, he was thinking like a parent. And it wasn’t romantic. He was
thinking like a father who desperately wanted to see his daughter grow up into
the beautiful woman he knew she’d become. To selfishly drink in every second of
her life, to see it all, to love her for every second. There had been one
attack, there could be another, and he was frightened – no, he admitted
honestly, he was terrified that there would be another. That they
would be killed, or worse….and he wouldn’t be there to protect them.
Fudge could go pack it, he decided with a guilty sort of glee. And then laughed
as the phrase reminded him of a delightfully obscene insult the muggles used
when he was a child.
But even he recognised that sudden urge to be childish, ill-thought and
impulsive. There were consequences. Always consequences. He’d learned that the
hard way. And he’d learned that where his family was concerned he had to think -
really think, and weigh his actions. His world didn’t revolve around
himself any more.
Some might have said he was growing up.
Gathering the matter, he put it to one side of his mind. It was urgent, but not
immediate. He could delay a few more days yet, obfuscation always worked well
when you had as free a reign as the Unspeakables did, especially when wrapped in
the most pompous language possible.
Right now he wanted to be with his family.
Cupping the pensieve in his hands, he hesitated for a moment, then stroked his
fingers gently over the surface.
***
News is an entity in its own right. It breeds, it morphs, but most importantly,
it moves, with a speed faster than any achieved
by muggle or wizard.
Which is why, even though Remus and Snape apparated straight to the infirmary
itself Rolanda Hooch sailed through the door before Poppy had even finished
getting the labouring wizard settled into a bed.
Severus gifted her with the finest glare possible. Given the circumstances, it
was rather an impressive effort. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Rolanda trained as a midwife, Severus.” Poppy informed him calmly. “And the
thing about being a nurse in a school full of children is that you don’t have
much call to use your obstetric skills.” To her credit, the Quidditch coach
didn’t make a single crack at Snape, simply settling down to the job at hand.
Severus resisted the irrational urge to start biting people as they pulled off
his oversized robes, making him move out of his marginally less painful little
curl. Decidedly unpleasant things were happening deep inside him, and he
desperately wanted nothing more than to lie down and huddle into a little ball
until it all went away.
And above all, he was afraid.
“There we go…” there was some satisfaction in Hooch’s voice. “Just a little
longer now Severus. The little one’s almost ready to start coming out now….”
“Start??” Severus was beginning to understand the circumstances
that resulted in the creation of the phrase ‘oh, shit.’ Quite calmly
and logically he knew that labour took some time, and that there would be some
pain. And had been prepared to deal with that. He had also been a bloody idiot
because now that his insides were merrily mincing themselves to a lively tune
and he was about to attempt shoving a living being out of somewhere it really
had no business being, logic and calm were currently well over the horizon of
his mental mindset and accelerating fast.
Behind him, unseen, non-existent at this moment in time, Harry turned green. Oh
god, Hermione had been right about how his daughter had been born.
Poppy debated ordering Remus out of the room, but stayed the words in her throat
as the werewolf kneeled down beside the bed and laid a single, simple hand
against the potion master’s chest.
“I’m here, Severus. I won’t leave you.”
The rising panic seemed to melt out of Severus’ features at the touch, hand
reaching out to wrap around one waiting for him. The charms surrounding the bed
showed a visible calming, and the simply joined hands resting on the side of the
bed made it evident that what Snape needed more than anything during labour was
someone to be there for him.
A small smile touched her lips. In all the hurry they’d forgotten that simple
little fact. Luckily Remus hadn’t.
The rest of the world seemed to vanish for Harry as things progressed. People
moved around him, Poppy, Hooch, but he would be hard pressed to tell who was
who, relegated to mere shadowy forms absently sculling through his perception.
They didn’t exist, not really. No one did.
Just Severus.
Sweat plastered his hair to his head and shoulders, teeth bared in an almost
animalistic growl, facing the hardest challenge of his life, the potions master
had never looked more magnificent. Long, thin fingers knotted and crushed
against Remus’ supporting grasp as he curled on his side, clutching their joined
hands to his chest.
He was giving birth. To Harry’s daughter.
All of a sudden Potter couldn’t even remember what had ended their relationship
in the first place.
The contraction passed, leaving the potions master gasping, head hanging, ropes
of greasy, sweat-slimed hair glued to his cheek. Reaching out, Remus gently
cupped the back of his head in one hand, bringing their foreheads together,
uncaring of the sweat, whispering soft, gentle words of encouragement, so low as
to be almost beyond the threshold of hearing. Raising their tangled fingers
between them, he gently pressed a kiss to the back of the other man’s hand.
And Harry’s heart broke all over again.
But somehow, this time it was a good break. It didn’t fester. It didn’t burn.
All it did was hurt, but a different hurt, something he wanted but knew he
couldn’t have, and accepted. The most important time in his ex-lover’s life.
The birth of his child. He hadn’t been there, but Remus had been. Loving,
gentle Remus, and that meant Severus wasn’t alone.
Poppy looked up briefly from her ministrations, exchanging a small smile with
Hooch at the scene she saw. The labour was hard, to be honest, but not
dangerously so. True, Snape was a little older than the mediwitch would have
liked for his first born child, and the entire circumstances of the birth were
unusual even in the wizarding world, but both Hooch and herself had read up
extensively in preparation and she felt it was well within their realm to
handle. Thankfully Severus, although as slim as his birth father, had slightly
wider hips, and with care and some help, that fact would not cost him his life
as it had Aramanthus. A fact for which Pomfrey was profoundly grateful.
And Remus was an absolute god-send.
Both men had their eyes closed, foreheads pressed together, fingers entwined,
breaths slow and measured. She had no doubt the latter was the work of the
werewolf, with his gentle encouragements, helping Severus to keep himself
focused, but not blinded by the pain. Returning the almost painfully tight grip
that turned his wrist white with softly stroking fingers and soothing words,
gentle and compassionate. And what Snape needed more than anything right now
was someone to be kind to him. Poppy and Hooch may have been able hands aiding
his body, but Remus was the tender touch soothing his soul.
Not for the first time she found herself marvelling at the strength of
friendship. There weren’t many men she could name who would be there for a
friend during a time like this. The strength of friendship had always been a
facet of the Marauders that had captivated her – no matter how many times their
pranks had landed various people in her care.
The body under her hands began to tense again, drawing her attention back. Remus
shifted up on his knees, almost crawling onto the bed as the grip on his hand
increased, deft fingers stroking back the other man’s hair with a damp cloth,
the soft whisper of soothing words never ceasing.
“A little longer, Severus, just a little longer, you’re doing so well, you’re so
strong…”
Severus held his gaze, letting the words wash over him, then his eyes closed
again, tight lidded against another gout of agony and he fought the urge to
scream. He could feel Remus return his grip and focused on it, clung almost
desperately to it, his rock, stopping him from drowning completely in the pain.
Poppy and Hooch worked quietly together, trading less and less words as time
etched on further, professionalism hiding their worry.
Something wasn’t right. It wasn’t something the mediwitch could pin down, but it
was something years of experience told her. Every single sense told her things
were fine, there wasn’t a problem, except that last sense, the one she had
learned to listen very closely to over the years. Exchanging a glance with
Hooch she could tell the other witch had felt it too.
Something was wrong.
One of her monitoring charms turned a dangerous colour, a chime whispering
through the air.
"Finestra ocularus!" she snapped immediately, worry sharpening her tone. A
screen akin to a muggle X-ray, but so much clearer stretched across Snape's back
and her breath caught in her throat.
"Oh no..." Hooch whispered.
Chapter Twenty-Three -->
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