ENIGMA

Plot, new characters, new magical terms and abilities etc. are my intellectual property. If you want to borrow then please kindly ask. JK Rowling's characters and Wizarding Universe are all uniquely hers.

Summary: AU: What if everything we ever read in JK Rowling’s books was real – including the people characterised? What would you do if you found yourself caught up in that reality knowing what was to come? SS, RL, OC

Authors Note: It has been mentioned in the story but now I am noting it here. I am a fan of Diana Gabaldon’s ‘Outlander’/’Cross Stitch’ series and definitely was influenced by that in writing this story – i.e. the Standing Stones and traveling through time. But I also love Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ series and the tv programme ‘Sliders’ and the alternate universes alongside ours idea comes from there no doubt.

Fantasy/Drama

This story is rated R/M.

ENIGMA

Chapter 013: Lightning Crashes

It was some time before Jessica saw Remus again. He was avoiding her and so she had no choice but to go see him. He was hunched over his desk in his office, nose buried in a book that he really wasn’t reading and hadn’t been for the last two hours – a book that she had given him for his birthday.

“Mind if I come in?” she asked softly.

Lupin’s head snapped up and he looked almost afraid of her.

“I think it’s time we had a chat Remus, don’t you?”

“I… I… suppose so…”

Jessica took a seat and warmed her hands at his fire. “I’m sorry that Harvey went off like that; but you took off that night without me saying so. He knows you are my friend and that you aren’t like the others he and his kind have encountered. He also got a ticking off about what Jarveys tend to be like and how they are regarded in this world. You and he are in the same boat and I think he understands that now.”

“But I am not about to be a dinner guest, now am I?”

“You still have your first time to even extend an invitation yourself, Remus; let’s not play that game.”

“It is true though.”

“Harvey is a child, just a baby by Jarvey standards. And as a single parent (Jessica shook her head at the thought)… He looks at me as his mother – and I have a responsibility towards him. I can’t just have people dropping into his life not knowing whether or not for sure if they are going to be around. He gets very attached and easily upset when he thinks he’s being rejected – and he thinks its all his fault that I am alone and miserable. I have to be careful with him. I can’t help it that he saw you for what you were right off – and never in a million years would I have expected that or that he could be so scared. It’s a complicated problem with no easy solution. But at the end of the day, I can’t force the issue with him about you and I won’t…”

“Given the essays people have been running to you about I would have thought you’d have recognised me for what I am sooner.”

“I did – I was just…cautious…in bringing it up to start with. And then when I was going to ask, we were interrupted.”

“That night with Severus and Harry; that was the personal question wasn’t it – whether or not I am a werewolf?”

Jessica sighed and took the cup of tea Lupin offered her. “Yes,” she answered quietly staring into its murky depths.

“Mmm hmm,” Lupin grunted, giving her an appraising look. “But why is it that I think you knew long before this, Jessica? Why is it that sometimes I think you know more about me than I really want you to? You took Harvey’s outburst just a little too quickly and calmly in your stride... You seem to take a lot of things in your stride about all this and it’s not right. You aren’t exactly what you appear to be, are you?”

Jessica blinked and wiped away a stray tear. “I’m sorry – but I can’t…I can’t answer that as much as I would like to.”

Lupin was nothing less than incredulous, and perhaps a bit angry. The look on his face was a revelation – and Jessica didn’t know how to take it.

“I have already had a much needed meeting of the minds with the Headmaster, Remus. Full disclosure and I am still here. Suffice it to say – I am on the side of the good and when the time comes I will do my bit for the cause – useless Muggle cow that I am…”

“Right… Well, I suppose that settles it then. Albus has his reasons and it’s not for me to know what they are. But thank you for at least not lying to me, even if you won’t be straight with me as a close friend.”

“I have lied by omission – I don’t like it but it is necessary. The Headmaster will tell you what he wants you to know, if he wants you to know anything. Our friendship is one thing, and your safety is another. There are risks, huge risks all the way around…I just can’t go back on my agreement with Dumbledore.”

“Fine. Fair enough.”

But Lupin was very hurt she wouldn’t confide in him and anyone could see that.

Jessica had the sinking feeling that their relationship wasn’t just friendship for him. But Remus being Remus, she knew he would never confront her about it.

xxxXXXxxx

Jessica was mystified. Every morning there was a full English breakfast for she and Harvey along with bowls of porridge and fruit; at lunch a tray with the day’s menu appeared for her in her office and at night when she returned it was to find Harvey perched in a highchair of sorts (which had also appeared out of nowhere not long ago) at their dinner table which was laden with more food than they could possibly eat between them. She had gone back on her promise to herself to stop hiding away, d in spite of it had found that every need was seen to – just like always.

“See how good Professor Lupin is to us,” Jessica said with a look during her latest dinner with the little Jarvey. She had just rushed in, taking care not to run into any late stragglers on their way to the Great Hall. And once again Harvey had hit her with a barrage about Severus; a barrage that didn’t make any since given the long time it had been since the Jarvey had last seen his saviour. “Not all werewolves are bad…hopefully one day you will understand that.”

Harvey didn’t say anything and just went back to stuffing his face.

“You’re going to choke in a minute eating so fast,” she admonished him.

“Daddy is good to us; Daddy loves Harvey and Mummy! Daddy would do anything for us but you…” the little Jarvey blurted out even though he knew he shouldn’t.

“For God’s sake! Will you cut the crap about Snape! Just shut up! I have had enough of your prattle about him to last a bloody lifetime! Morning, noon and night the same old song and I am sick to death of it! He doesn’t care about us! He never cared! It never meant anything to him, none of it! Nothing I did or said meant anything!” Jessica thundered.

Harvey flinched and then burst into tears as Jessica stormed from the room. There was the tell-tale sound of the door to her bedroom slamming. She must really be mad, he thought, because it was a loud thud, a lot louder than usual. She screamed and once it again it seemed that he’d made her upset by trying to talk to her about his father even though he really wasn’t supposed to.

But he had gone too far and his usual tears and upset weren’t going to work.

xxxXXXxxx

It wasn’t like Jessica to not come out after calming down. Harvey knew his beloved mummy better than anyone other than Dumbledore – and he knew something was wrong. He looked at the clock on a side table. It was almost midnight; something was definitely wrong. It never took her this long to calm down. It was past his bedtime and she hadn’t even put him down for the night.

The little Jarvey flung himself off the sofa and toddled out of the room and down the hallway as quick as his little legs would carry him. The door to the bedroom was closed; the first time Jessica had ever fully shut it. Usually she just closed it so that there was only a small crack. She always made it easy for Harvey to get to her if he got scared of sleeping on his own, which was pretty much every night. Jessica still woke up every morning to find him fast asleep sighing breezily next to her with his head on her shoulder.

“Mummy?” the little Jarvey squeaked as his lips started to quiver.

There was no answer and he starting banging on the door. “Mummy please talk to Harvey!”

Still there was no answer.

Harvey kept pounding and scratching at the door until he burrowed right through it.

“MUMMY!” he cried at seeing Jessica sprawled on the floor, blood oozing from wounds on her head and face. There was a foot-long spike sticking out of her head at an angle.

“Mummy please get up, please!” Harvey begged as he shook her gently to no avail.

“HELP! HELP!” he cried through his tears still shaking his mother.

It was no use. His Mummy had gone to the Otherworld. “Mummy don’t leave me! Don’t leave Harvey!” I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Harvey gave her a gentle poke on a bloodied cheek and still no response.

“I love you Mummy! I promise I won’t make you cry anymore if you wake up!”

But his Mummy didn’t wake up. Jessica did not stir so much as a muscle. There was only one thing he could do, and Harvey reluctantly turned away from his mother’s cold body and flew down the hallway once more.

xxxXXXxxx

The little Jarvey inched down the corridor outside Jessica’s rooms slowly. It was cold and dark, very dark and he was afraid, more afraid than when he was abandoned in the Forbidden Forest. A ghost whooshed by and then something rattled in the darkness up ahead as he cowered in fear.

“Harvey doesn’t like it,” he squeaked under his breath.

He sat still in the hall, hiding behind his hands while precious minutes ticked away. Slowly he picked himself up again and wiped away his tears which continued to flow unabated. He had no idea where he was going and it seemed to him that the safest place was at home with his mother. But this place was their home too and his mother was dead.

The little Jarvey was desperate to find his Daddy – the only one who could make things right, just as he always did. Daddy had told him something about what to do if he needed him just the other day and Harvey kept forgetting. It was hard to remember anything being so scared so he had no choice but to keep moving.

On and on he moved, until finally he decided to just to run. Harvey ran faster and faster, barely taking in his surroundings. He kept going until he collided with something, a something that growled in the dimness of the torch-lit hall in which he’d come to a stop.

He looked up – and found himself staring into familiar black eyes.

“What the… Harvey?” Severus asked, clearly taken aback. God how he hated that name! It pained him to even have to verbalise it. But something was wrong. No one other than he and Jessica knew how the little Jarvey was scared of the world outside his home; other than the two of them only Hagrid, McGonagall, Dumbledore and Lupin knew about the Jarvey in their midst. The rest of the staff would have gone berserk – the werewolf set everyone’s nerves on edge as it was and then there was the not-so-small matter of convicted murderer Sirius Black being on the loose. A foreboding chill went up Snape’s back as he wondered what had driven Harvey out of his sanctuary.

“Daddy!” the little Jarvey cried as he trembled and his little bud of a mouth quivered. “Daddy help Mummy!”

“Help? Help your mother? What’s going on? What’s happened?” Snape asked in a heated rush as he scooped Harvey up into his arms. He had been trying to get Harvey to stop calling him Daddy – as pointless as it was. Still, it was nice to be needed, and thought he wouldn’t admit it – it was very nice to be loved again, even by a Jarvey.

“Mummy – Mummy left Harvey!”

“LEFT?” Snape roared. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE LEFT?”

‘Damn her for leaving me’, Severus thought, thinking only of himself as Harvey burst into sobs. ‘Damn her for being such a coward and for going to the Stones’. But it was madness, suicidal even to think she would make it out there with every nook and cranny swarming with Dementors – Dementors which had not been able to feed for some time and which were ferociously hungry. He wouldn’t want to live in Hogsmeade for all the galleons in Gringotts – having to make it home behind closed doors by sunset and barricade all entrances against them. No – she couldn’t have done and she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t just go without so much as a bye-your-leave…would she?

“Mummy left Harvey and Daddy… M…mummy is g…gone… t…to…the Otherworld!”

“No!” Snape croaked as he drew Harvey tighter. “No, no, NO!”

He tore down corridors and up staircases and down even more corridors flying like the wind. Goddamn McGonagall for having put Jessica so far away from everyone. She had proven herself hadn’t she? He would see to it that she was given new quarters alongside the rest of them even if it meant going to the Headmaster of his own accord.

After what felt like an eternity he stormed through Jessica’s front door and steamed down the hallway. He burst into her bedroom and nearly dropped Harvey from the shocking sight which greeted him.

“Oh God no,” Snape moaned as he dropped to the cold stone floor. There wasn’t even so much as a rug – it was no wonder his beloved was blue with cold. It was the cold of the room, nothing else he tried to convince himself. He placed Harvey up on the bed where it was warm and the little Jarvey lay under the throw on top with his head hanging over the side where he could see his parents.

Snape gathered Jessica in his arms and stroked her fringe back from her face as he’d done that night at the inn. For the first time his eyes registered the candelabra that had come down from the ceiling. It had come crashing down on Jessica and split her head open on top, driving in a ferocious-looking spike. Being unconscious for so long was dangerous, very dangerous even in the wizarding world. Unconscious – that is what she was; no, she was not dead he kept trying to convince himself.

“Mummy’s not d… not gone to the Otherworld,” he croaked not looking at Harvey. “She’s just unconscious…that’s it; that’s all it is. Mummy is unconscious…that’s all it is…”

“B…but…”

“I will not let her leave us, Harvey. Not now, not ever,” Snape said rising carefully at last and holding tight to the woman he knew he loved without a shadow of a doubt. “You can’t be here by yourself; come with me…”

xxxXXXxxx

“I’ve tried everything, Headmaster – I…I suppose that given she is a Muggle my best efforts are not good enough,” Snape whispered savagely.

Dumbledore leaned forward in his chair with his hands clasped and raised to his mouth, watching Jessica for any sign of movement.

“No, Severus. You have done more than even I have a right to expect of you under the circumstances. I think it is more an issue with Jessica herself…”

The Potions Master looked away; he looked away from the woman he had done this to. “She has lost the will to fight, lost the will to live…”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Everything I touch…”

“Does not turn to poison, Severus.”

There was a faint sniff and given its rarity Dumbledore could not simply ignore it.

“Do the one thing that has eluded you,” Dumbledore said rising and walking to the door of Jessica’s room in the infirmary wing.

“And that is?”

“Talk to her. Reason with her. It can work if you want it to,” the Headmaster replied gently. “The only one who has needed convincing is yourself..”

“What can I possibly say that she will care to hear, if she can hear me at all?”

“If in your heart of hearts you know that you love Jessica, tell her; or else you will lose her…”

Snape looked at Dumbledore with red eyes ringed with dark circles and puffy bags. He was hopeless – and helpless. He did not like being either but that is what he was. There wasn’t a magical solution to their dilemma, only a spiritual one. And spirituality most definitely was not his forte.

“A leap of faith, Severus. You wanted her to trust you, to have faith in you, to believe in you. You have believed in her more than she has ever believed in herself. I know it has not been in your nature to be concerned with your emotional well being or anyone else’s; but give her reason to come back… Only you can do that.”

“No…” Snape croaked. “Please…”

“She has not crossed over. But once gone from us she cannot come back to life. If you find her worthy enough then the words should come.”

‘I can even put a stopper – in Death’ Snape had intoned so many times over the years during his first lecture to every first class of the school’s First Years. How egotistical and far-fetched it seemed with Jessica laying there, her life force ebbing away with each passing second because he was so bloody…scared.

“Potions and charms aren’t always the answer, but you don’t need me tell you that,” Dumbledore said breaking the uneasy silence and then closing the door after picking up a protesting Harvey and taking the little Jarvey with him.

Once again – Snape was being left to stand or fall of his own accord.

xxxXXXxxx

He blinked rapidly in the dimness of the room and tried to sniff back his tears. But it was no use. Snape moved from his chair to the bed and lay down next to Jessica, taking her cold still body into his arms.

“You are the only one – the only one besides my mother and perhaps the Headmaster who ever gave a damn about me,” he croaked in anguish. “But no one has ever loved me, stood by me, understood me as you do. You are everything I ever needed, Jessica and I don’t want to have to go back to what it was like before you.”

Snape leaned over and kissed her. Her lips were blue and ice cold. There was no warmth for him, no passion. His name did not cross her lips as he recalled from their time together at the inn. Through every kiss, every heated thrust of his manhood she had called out his name wanting so much more and giving all that she was to him. So tender she had been; so tender and so warm. She had given him so much and he had been so careless and undeserving.

“You need to be warm,” he muttered deliriously as he conjured more blankets around them. “You need… you need so much better than what I can give you!”

As if in response, her skin went just a bit colder.

“No! Please! I don’t mean that – but I…”

The room was going colder and he felt…something…odd. He knew this feeling, he knew it well.

Having taken so many lives how could he pretend otherwise?

“You can’t, you mustn’t leave me!” Snape whispered. “I am not the man that I was! There is so much I want to give to you, so much I want for us to have together no matter how impossible it seems! I have feared the Dark Lord’s return and what he will do! Loving you will put you at a great risk you have no comprehension of. I have struggled, Jessica! I have struggled with loving you and wanting you so much and knowing what he would do to you were I to make a mistake or not be as strong in his presence as I need to be! I do not care about myself – my life has always been at risk even from those who followed him. I do not like Lucius Malfoy but only because of him have I been able to carry on as I have without serious threat from the others. It is just a matter of time before the Dark Lord returns – and as much as you are my salvation I am not yours!”

Snape buried his head in Jessica’s cold shoulder and howled in despair.

“Please; please forgive me! I just wanted to do the right thing! I need you, Jessica! I need you so much – I need you to love me again and I need… I need… I need to know that you don’t hate me…that you still want my love as much as I want yours!”

The Potions Master removed her gown and his clothes. He wrapped his body around hers, willing her to warm up and then caressed a cold cheek.

“That night meant everything to me Jessica. And every night since then all I have wanted was what we shared in that moment. I would do anything for you, my love. I made mistakes; we both have. But we can start again, you and I together… And if I have to walk through hellfire and brimstone so that we make it through I will!”

There was a tense stillness that seemed to exacerbate his heartache.

“I need absolution, Jessica; and only you can give it to me,” he whispered sleepily. “I love you, God how much I love you!”

He struggled against the sleep overtaking his body to no avail.

Snape closed his eyes and fell into a troubled slumber scarcely knowing what awaited him when he next opened his eyes.