A Delicate Obsession

Chapter 17 – The Final Memory

It all belongs to Rowling, except what you don’t recognize.

Severus Snape was living his worst nightmare. Laura was gone. He’d dressed quickly and Apparated to Hogsmeade in hopes of finding her after leaving the Knight Bus, but after an hour’s fruitless search, he’d given up and returned to Hogwarts. He had no way of finding her, except by owl. That was probably his best hope. He wondered why he was such an emotional cripple. The past twenty years of aimlessly taking out his feelings on people who didn’t deserve it had ill-equipped him for any meaningful relationship. His last and only chance for happiness had walked out the door at his prompting simply because he had gone into a snit about her refusing to be seen in public with him. One couldn’t be a bigger dunderhead than that.

Snape faced the final, unbearable truth. What if a Death Eater should see her in public with him? If word got back to the Dark Lord about her, his final torment might be to see Laura as part of the ‘entertainment’ before he got served up. Snape returned to his dungeon in complete despair. You’ve been lying to her, he thought, and to yourself, she was never safe with you. No woman wouldr ber be. Her insistence on not being seen with him was nothing less than an act of self-preservation.

Snape walked over to the pensieve. Over the week, he’d returned all of the memories to his awareness but one. He had been tempted to destroy the pensieve and that final recollection forever. But no, he couldn’t just take the good and leave the bad. He owed it to her to remember everything.

With trembling hands, he used his wand to remove the last filament from the bowl:

Young Snapd wad waited impatiently at the Hogs Head for over a half hour. Damn-- where was Lucius Malfoy? The older wizard had been Snape’s mentor at Hogwarts and later had introduced him to the Death Eaters. Malfoy was as clos a f a friend as anything Snape had ever had. And yet, now that Snape had the Dark Mark, everything had changed. Too quickly Snape had found out that he was no longer a free agent, but rather a slave to the handsome and fascinating Lord Voldemort. Snape had already been punished once for not showing to one of the tedious and never ending meetings. It was something he would not venture to do again.

Finally, his friend showed up.

“Sorry I’m late Severus, old fellow. I had some business to finish up,” his eyes were gleaming with delight.

“What could have been so rtanrtant? You might be a man of leisure, but I have an apprenticeship and I need to get back now.” Severus was feeling very irritable.

l, tl, then I shall walk with you. And you needn’t be so harsh. After all it was your affairs I was taking care of. Don’t ever say I never did anything for you.” He smirked.

Severus felt a small knot of anxiety fist in his stomach. “What are you talking about Malfoy? I can handle my own affairs.”

“Not very well. You know the Lord was not too pleased with you the other night. He felt you might need a bit of support. Now I remembered how much trouble that little Mudblood bitch was giving you…”

“Leave her out of this. I can handle her.” Snape was panicking. What the hell was he talking about? They had left the Hogs Head and were a few blocks away from the lab when Snape heard an explosion. Black and purple smoke were in the sky directly over where his place of work was. Snape turned frantic eyes towards Malfoy. “Gods, what have you done?”

Malfoy sneered. “The Imperio Curse is quite versatile, don’t you think?”

Snape’s eyes widened and his breath stopped in his throat. “No, no, Malfoy you didn’t.”

“Don’t look too upset. I am your alibi so—“ Snape never heard the rest of the statement as he went careening off toward Master Bernardus’ lab. He ran as fast as his long legs would take him, never thinking to even try to Apparate. He shoved witches and wizards out of his way, cursing them. Finally he got to the street where he worked. He saw a containment field had already been cast over the area keeping the toxic smoke inside the building. He saw the big bear of a wizard who was his Master.

“Master Bernardus, where’s Tara?” He gasped.

“Calm down, son. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing any of us can do for her.” Tears were running down his large, ugly face.

“Let me in there! Gods, let me get her!” Snape was scrabbling to get past him into the building.

“Stop it!” Bernardus picked Snape up easily and threw him to the ground. “You can’t go in there. I don’t know what Tara brewed up, but it will eat the flesh right off your bones. Do I need to use a body bind spell on you boy?”

Snape’s lips were quivering as he groveled in the street, wanting, desperately needing to get to his lover.

In his mind’s eye, he saw Malfoy cast the curse on her. He imagined the look of horror that would have been er fer face as she tried to fight off the curse and failed. How her normally smooth, assured movements would have jerked as she fought to stop herself from gathering and combining the ingredients that would result in her death. The cauldron explosion might have killed her straight away, or at least knocked her unconscious so she’d never feel the deadly smoke eat away at her. But there would still have been the mental anguish of knowing she was about to kill herself.

S let let out a howl closer to animal than human and his eyes rolled up in the back of his head. His body went into convulsions and then still.

The next time he would wake five months would have gone by and he’d find himself in the long-term resident ward of St. Mungos.

The memory faded to darkness and Snape discovered that he had curled into a fetal ball on the stone floor. Bile rushed into his mouth and he got to the loo just in time.

Jerkily, he got off the ground by the toilet and washed his face and mouth out from the tap. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and then smashed it with his hand. The option was there, to remove the memory, put it back and destroy the vessel. But how could he keep Laura safe? She needed to be protected from the filth that he was. He was glad he had the memory now.

After his release from St. Mungos, he had gone to Albus Dumbledore and confessed. He told Dumbledore everything and requested to be taken to the Ministry. The old man had asked why Snape didn’t go directly there himself. Snape didn’t know. Dumbledore, although saddened by the story, was still upbeat. “The reason you didn’t go directly to the Ministry is because you know you can be of use to me. You don’t want the Dementor’s Kiss,” said Dumbledore, “you want to stop them.”

That may have been true once. But now, it was time to welcome his death.

&&&

Snape was back to himself by the time the Ball started. He was glad that Laura wouldn’t be there. There were many children of Death Eaters at Hogwarts, not all of them in Slytherin, either. Word of Laura could have gotten back to the Dark Lord, so all in all it was for the best that she hadn’t come.

When Hermione Granger approached Snape, she looked more of a mess than usual. Her hair was wild and tangled, her eyes and nose were red. She was simply pathetic. McGonagall had told Snape that she suspected that Hermione had had a break-up, probably just that day, and that she was worried about the poor girl. Normally he would have simply sneered at the matter as beneath him. However, his new memory of Tara’s death, coupled with his own break-up with Laura had inspired him to be kind. Well, as kind as Snape would ever be to Miss Know-it-all who obvious knew nothing about relationships.

If the horrid child wanted to dance with her professor, he would allow it. Anyway, it was quite a novelty being asked to dance. There was something quite pleasant about holding someone in his arms, even Miss Granger, and just dancing. Ironically, dancing was something he was quite skilled at but never had a chance to do. He finished the dance and then went outside to blast some roses and maybe deduct a few points from libidinal students.

He hadn’t gone far went he saw a shadowy figure at the far end of the garden. Wand out and ready to defend himself he walked over. “Lumos” he said and there was Laura, his beautiful Laura dressed for the ball in a red r Sh She shyly came forward.

“Severus, put that out, we don’t want to be seen. Especially not by any students.”

“Laura.” He came forward and put his arms around her. All noble thoughts of her safety and his death fled. He just wanted to be with her. “Please don’t ever listen to me when I’m being that stupid,” he said just before his mouth found hers and he kissed her. It was a long kiss, which he wanted to never end. He caressed her beautiful hair with one hand as the other pressed her body tightly against him.

Hermione broke off the kiss, she felt quite breathless, but she needed to tell him. “I’m sorry. I do have a terrible temper. I shouldn’t have left. Look I don’t have much time. I just wanted you to know that I still love you. And I’ll see you next Saturday.”

Severus nuzzled her throat. “Stay, I know a secret way to my room, you won’t be seen.” Just then there was a racket as couple of students came out from the castle. Severus quickly turned around and yelled “50 points from Gryffindor”. The students scurried back inside. He turned back to Laura, but she was gone.

&&&

“Well, that cost us 50 points,” said Ron peevishly. “Was it worth it Hermione?”

Hermione slowly smiled. “It would have been worth 500. Thank you Ron and thank you Harry for the good idea.”

“I’m just glad it worked.” Harry grinned. “And you’re happy again. That’s worth 50 points, isn’t it Ron?”

Ron looked chagrined. “Oh right. I guess so.” He gave a half smile. “I bet Snape about pee’d his pants when he thought he was going to be discovered snogging a girl!”

“It was good timing. Just long enough to let him know I still cared,” Hermione sighed. She did feel a lot better. Severus knew she still loved him and they’d be together next Saturday.

Looking back years later, Herm wou would remember the next two months as some of the best times of her life.

A/N: Karena Elizabeth, Andrian, Manda, Halo, Adora, and Katharina, thank you so much for reviewing. These are tough chapters for me to write and your support is invaluable!!!