The Name in Red **COMPLETE**

Hello everyone! Sorry to have kept you waiting again! I had an obnoxiously huge amount of work to do for school in the past few weeks. I'm done for the summer now, though. Hooray! Anyway, I don't want to keep you waiting any longer! Here is chapter 24. Enjoy :)


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The Name in Red.

Chapter 24: Things Not Remembered.
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Late in the evening, Minerva McGonagall was pacing restlessly across the plush carpeting of her office. The holiday was nearing, and it was all she could do to keep those few unfortunate students who had remained at the school under control with all of their holiday cheer. She had been too busy over the past few days to pay much attention to the news. Yesterday's copy of The Daily Prophet, as well as today's, sat still-folded and untouched on the corner of her desk. She hadn't had time to so much as glance at the headlines.

This disappointed one of her office's occupants; the silver-bearded, blue eyed, serenely smiling man hanging in a portrait directly behind the Headmistress' desk. His piercing blue gaze followed Minerva as she paced back and forth across the room, just as he himself used to do so very often. One of the highlights of his framed existence was being privy to the goings-on in the world that he had departed. When Minerva would sit down to read the papers, his half-moon spectacles would slide even farther down his long, crooked nose as he discreetly examined the news over her shoulder. Due to the hectic business that accompanied the holiday season, however, he had been without news for the past couple of days. Despite his eagerness for the news, he did not press Minerva on the matter and risk trying her nerves. He knew himself, after all, how trying and troublesome being Headmaster of the school could sometimes be.

As if Albus' thoughts had somehow penetrated her mind, Minerva stopped mid-pace. Her arms were crossed behind her back, and her eyes came to rest on the folded copies of the Prophet sitting on her desk. It was too late in the evening to begin reading both of them word-for-word. Perhaps there was a quicker way to catch up on the news. Walking again, she extended her pacing route over to a tall table which rested near one of the office's elegantly paned windows. Atop it sat her Wizarding Wireless. Turning one of the knobs gently, her office was filled with the sound of static and indiscernible chatter; one of the house-elves had probably brushed the dial inadvertently while dusting. Leaning close to the box, she tuned the dial carefully until she reached her desired station. She began pacing again as the deep, clear voice of a very professional-sounding wizard permeated the air.

"...and prices are expected to rise to almost twenty galleons per ounce after a record shortage in crop yields for the plant this fall. We now return to our top story once again today, the break-in at Gringotts bank."

McGonagall furrowed her brows as she paced, slowing down. Another break-in at the bank?

Above her, Albus' eyes widened.

"We reported yesterday evening that two unidentified suspects broke into the notoriously secured bank. This marks the second break-in at the bank within the past year. The situation is being kept tightly under wraps, but the small amount of information available at this time points to a vault belonging to the Ministry of Magic having been broken into. This information, leaked into today's issue of The Daily Prophet by an unknown source, is something that the Ministry is extremely displeased with. The Ministry has declined to make any further comments about the incident. It is unknown what may have been taken from the Ministry's vault, or whether or not this break-in is somehow connected to the recent breach of Ministry security several months ago."

McGonagall had stopped her pacing, now looking contemplative. There certainly was beginning to be a lot of scandal during what was supposed to be an unparalleled time of peace following Voldemort's downfall. The wizard on the radio spoke on above her thoughts.

"Shortly after the break-in, the entire building was evacuated of customers and put on lock-down by bank security. With the bank secured, bank officials are claiming at this hour that it is unlikely that the culprits may have even escaped the bank's inner complex, and may still be holed out and trapped somewhere inside. The bank's entire vault complex is currently being searched."

McGonagall chuckled lowly to herself. This was clearly a ploy by bank officials to dissuade people's fears about the bank's security. If the culprits had been skilled and knowledgeable enough to manage to locate and gain access to a single specific vault deep inside the bank, they had almost certainly managed to escape as well. There was no doubt in her mind that whoever had perpetrated this was still at large. After a few more moments, the newscast had moved off of the topic of the break-in and began the weather forecast. Minerva continued pacing again, her thoughts racing. It was becoming clear that there was some sort of design behind all of this; there had to be, with the break-in at the Ministry a few months ago, and followed up now by a break-in at the Ministry's vault within Gringotts. Something must be going on, she deduced, and it worried her.

She did not notice the silver-bearded man in the portrait above her looking unusually pale. His eyes had ceased following Minerva in her pacing, and instead were staring off in a single direction. Surely it couldn't be, he thought to himself. He had convinced himself that he had jumped to conclusions when he had first seen the girl. Recently, however, the announcement of the girl's first name within Minerva's office had sent another jolt of fear through him; it had been on the day when she and Harry had come inside the office abruptly, asking for permission to visit Grimmauld Place, unaware that the girl had been the topic of the conversation that they had just interrupted. He had suppressed and dismissed his fears again after that event, content to instead ponder the girl's apparent attraction to Severus, as well as the great concern Severus seemed to have for the girl when he would discuss her with Minerva. Besides, maybe it had only been a coincidence.

But now there could be no dismissal. It was already clear that she had befriended Harry closely, and Harry was perhaps the only person with the courage, audacity, and personal, first-hand experience to pull off such feats as breaking into the Ministry and Gringotts. Could it be the two of them who were behind the events? Could it possibly be connected to...

"What is it, Albus?" Minerva suddenly spoke up, having stopped in her pacing to glance up at him. When she had seen him staring off into the distance, looking troubled, she had become concerned.

The piercing blue gaze shifted to rest on her again. He managed to smile. Inside his mind, he was fighting down the urge to ask her if she knew where Harry Potter and his friend were this evening.

"Oh, it's nothing, Minerva," he said kindly, "Just a little surprised at the news, that's all." He couldn't possibly bring himself to trouble her with it at the moment, especially if, somehow, he were still jumping to conclusions... but he doubted it.

McGonagall nodded. She then paced back to the Wizarding Wireless, turning a knob and shutting it off. With a flick of her wand, the lights extinguished themselves as well.

"Goodnight, Albus," she said, pacing off to her quarters.

"Goodnight," he told her. He sighed.

Instead of joining in the peaceful slumber of his neighbors all around the office, he continued staring off into the darkness, troubled.


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Harry had been trying in earnest all afternoon long and into the evening to find some way of keeping himself occupied. It was a strange and awkward thing to be a guest in Snape's home, but it was made even worse by the fact that Sarah was still resting and recovering from her injuries. Harry desired nothing more at that moment than to speak with her, and to plead with her for forgiveness. It was too like himself to be shouldering all responsibility for what had transpired, but he could not possibly help it. If it had not been for his persistent urging, he thought, they would not have been put in the mortal danger that they had been in; they would not have broken countless laws of the Wizarding world; they would not have discovered the painful truth that Sarah did indeed have a living family. Harry wondered which was worse... having parents that were undeniably deceased, as in his case, or having very alive parents that apparently knew nothing of their child's existence.

Even though he wanted greatly to talk to Sarah, he didn't press the issue. He reckoned that staying as far out of Snape's way as possible would please him. He spent most of the day in the small sitting room, trying to amuse himself by looking through many of the old, dusty tomes which filled the room's bookcases. Hermione would be in paradise, he thought to himself, but time seemed to be crawling by for him, especially when his mind was preoccupied with Sarah's mental and physical welfare. Snape would pass through the sitting room every now and again on his way to and from the kitchen, no doubt to fetch food or water for Sarah, but Harry didn't bother him. Harry was sure that when Snape was ready to confront him about something, he would.

Late in the evening, Harry was standing in the corner of the room farthest away from the front door. He was reaching high up over his head, replacing a book that he had selected a little while ago at random. It had ended up being about the history of herbology, something that Harry considered less-than-ideal reading material. As he reached up, he winced a little; the claw marks on his right arm twinged in pain. The rest of him was feeling relatively alright after Snape's treatments, but he knew there was little that could be done for the werewolf wounds at the moment. When he lowered his arm again, he accidentally hit another book on a lower shelf with his elbow. He sent the book tumbling to the floor, where it opened, sending a flurry of what looked like pages scattering about the floor.

Harry sighed and knelt down to the book. It would be a pain to reorganize all of the scattered pages. When he got a closer look, however, he realized that they were not pages; they were photographs. Harry took a quick glance over his shoulder before he began collecting them. The book case which concealed the staircase to the upper level was open, but Snape was nowhere in sight, and Harry could not hear anything else aside from the faint ticking of the clock sitting upon the mantle piece, as well as the small fire crackling underneath in the fireplace. When he was sure that he was alone, Harry picked up the photographs one by one, examining them as he went.

He already knew bits and pieces about what a bad home situation the young Snape had from the memories that he had once inadvertently seen during his Occlumency lessons, as well as the memories that Snape had given him while he lay bleeding on the floor of the shrieking shack.

Still, what unfolded before his eyes in the photographs was a sad story. The first few photographs that Harry examined were portraits of the family. The woman Harry recognized as Eileen Prince stood on the left side of the picture, with long, stringy black hair and sallow skin, several heads shorter than her husband standing next to her. She looked wary of him, almost frightened, as she waved halfheartedly from the photograph. The man that must have been Tobias Snape stood next to her. He did not resemble Severus so much in appearance as he did in bearing, save for his nose. He stood there with his wife and child, looking dour and impatient as he posed for the photograph. He did not wave; his arms were crossed tightly across his chest, and his eyes were scanning the corners of the photograph, as if he could not wait to get out of it. In front of the couple was a young Severus, shorter than either of them, looking scraggly and unkempt. He did not wave either; instead, he seemed to be in a discreet struggle with his mother. It looked as if he was trying to inch away from his father, but Eileen was keeping him firmly in place at the center of the photograph, between his parents. Dissatisfied with this, Severus was wearing a sneer, and his eyes would dart to his father every so often.

Harry placed the photograph back inside the album, and picked up the next. To his surprise, none of the other photographs were Wizarding photographs. They were all stills, taken with Muggle cameras. Tobias, Harry assumed, with his apparent distaste for everything magical, must have disliked posing for the moving Wizarding photograph that Harry had just seen. Many of them were ripped, leaving only Severus or Eileen in the photograph; Tobias had apparently been torn away. Harry did not need the increased detail of Wizarding photographs to tell, that in every photograph, Eileen appeared distraught and unhappy, and Severus appeared troubled and angst-ridden. As Harry replaced the photographs back into the album, he took care to put them back in a less precarious manner than they must have been to fall out so easily when he had knocked the book down.

It was a curious thing, Harry realized; his own album, full of the only photographs of his parents that he possessed, was one of his most treasured possessions. Snape's on the other hand, was dusty, neglected, out-of-order, and jammed haphazardly into a seemingly random spot in one of the room's many book cases. Harry didn't have to imagine why. These memories, unlike Harry's, were something that Snape probably did not enjoy revisiting.

When the album was back in order, Harry stood up and placed it back in the spot on the shelf where it had come from. Just as he was sliding it back into its place, he was startled by a noise from behind him.

Snape had cleared his throat loudly as he watched Harry fumbling around the bookcase.

Harry's heart skipped a beat; this wouldn't be the first time that he had been caught going through Snape's memories without his permission. When the album was back in place, he turned about to see Snape, standing before the staircase, his arms crossed over his chest. Visions of Tobias briefly flashed through Harry's mind, but he pushed them away quickly. He didn't need Snape probing into his mind and finding out that he had been going through his family's photo album, as if he didn't already know. He had no clue how long Snape had been there watching him.

Snape's dark eyes scanned over Harry. He didn't need to use Legilimency to immediately notice that the boy had been up to something. His eyes then jumped to the bookcase, to the volume that the boy had just put back in place. His eyes narrowed slightly when he recognized it to be the photograph album.

Harry swallowed hard. The last thing he needed to do while staying in his home was to upset the man; Snape probably hated him enough already for obvious reasons, and now he probably hated him even more for putting Sarah in such danger.

Snape clenched his teeth as anger welled up inside him. The boy had been going through his old photographs, something that he never did himself. He didn't even know why he kept the damned thing in the first place. He should have just chucked it into the fireplace long ago and spared himself the use of some firewood.

Patience, Severus, he told himself inside his mind, If you hex him, the girl will be cross with you.

It was this thought that stayed his hand.

"Sir?" Harry asked at last, after several moments of tense silence had passed.

Snape blinked, coming back to reality.

"She wishes to see you, but--," Snape began.

Harry's heart leapt. He had been waiting all day to speak with her. He immediately rushed forward, headed straight for the open staircase. When he reached it, however, an arm shot out, stopping him in his tracks.

"But," Snape continued, louder this time, stopping the boy in his apparently overwhelming excitement to see the girl, "First, it is time for another treatment for those werewolf wounds of yours."'

"Again?" Harry groaned, wincing as he recalled the intense stinging that the treatment produced.

"Unless you wish them to become permanent," Snape said impatiently, "I could just as easily--,"

Harry sighed.

"No, sir, I'm sorry," Harry supplied, moving over to the empty sofa. He plopped down on it. He watched as Snape produced the small jar of salve, as well as a swab, from inside his robes.

Harry rolled back the appropriate sleeve as Snape took a seat to his right on the sofa. As soon as the swab touched his wounds, Harry flinched, hissing as he drew a sharp intake of breath through clenched teeth. Snape smirked to himself as he dabbed the salve on the boy's wounds. Causing the boy pain didn't exactly give him pleasure, per se, but he wasn't complaining about having the opportunity. His smirk curled up into something more of a tiny smile as the boy continued to flinch, hiss, and wince as his wounds were treated.

Harry was certain that his activity involving the photo album was earning him an extra rough treatment.

"It could have been a lot worse," said Snape.

"Don't I know it," Harry said. "Could've been the full moon. Then what would have happened to us."

"The two of you would be going through werewolf orientation at St. Mungo's this very moment," Snape drawled sardonically.

Despite himself, Harry could not stifle a small chuckle.

"That should do it for now," said Snape, capping the jar of salve and placing it back inside his robes.

Harry rolled his sleeve back down. He glanced to the staircase, and then to Snape.

"May I?" he asked.

"Go ahead," Snape said with a nod. "Last door on the left."

Having finally obtained the permission he so desperately wanted, Harry jumped up off of the couch and quickly scaled the staircase. He followed the dark, narrow hallway all the way down to the last door on the left that Snape had indicated. He found the door open, and light from within it was flooding into the hall, creating a stark border of light and dark upon the floor. He stepped into the light and slowly entered the room. When he stepped inside, he found Sarah, lying in the room's modestly-sized bed, propped up on a small mountain of pillows and covered in a thick blanket. He immediately noticed that she must have been dressed in robes belonging to Snape, and he could not help but smile at how absurd she looked.

"Hey," he said to her, slowly approaching the bed.

"Harry," she said, looking up at him. He was immensely relieved when she smiled back at him. He had been terrified that she would be furious about everything that he had put her through, and what they had discovered.

Reaching the bed, he found a comfortable-looking, tall-backed chair resting next to it. This must be where Snape sat while he watched over her. He pulled the chair a bit closer to the bed and sat down beside her.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, unsure of what to say, and still afraid that she might be angry. She was still looking pale, but looked worlds better than she did when he had brought her here. At that point, she had looked close to death.

Sarah shrugged a little.

"I'm alright," she said, "But considering that I'm lucky to be alive, I really shouldn't be complaining. What about you?" she asked, trying to sit up further and lean closer to him in interest. Snape had told her that he had treated Harry's injuries, but he did not expound upon what injuries Harry had suffered, exactly. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Harry said, nodding in assurance. "I got off easy compared to you, anyway."

"When I woke up here, I didn't know what had happened to you," Sarah said, her eyes meeting Harry's. Harry blinked in surprise to find them to be red, but steadied himself. "I was terrified that maybe you were..."

"Dead?" Harry asked, his voice jocular. "Not even Voldemort could finish me off. It'll take more than a few wizards and their crazed werewolf to do the job," he said, giving a casually dismissive gesture with his hands.

"Werewolf?" Sarah asked, one of her eyebrows quirked quizically.

"Yeah," Harry said, "Of course, the bloke who tackled you and gave you those lovely scratches, remember?" Harry rolled up his right sleeve, showing off his own claw marks.

Sarah's eyes widened as she examined Harry's clawed arm. Her left hand moved to rest on her collarbone. Underneath the robes were the mysterious scratches that Snape had been somehow unable to heal as of yet, and instead continued treating them with a foul-smelling medicine which stung something awful.

"You mean," Sarah said slowly, having gone slightly more pale, "A... a werewolf gave me these?" Severus had not yet informed her as to the nature of the stubborn, painful wounds which did not seem to be healing in a hurry.

Harry nodded vigorously.

"Well, technically," Harry explained, "He wasn't transformed at the time. Don't worry about it. Snape-- Severus-- said they would heal. You're not going to be a werewolf or anything of the sort."

"I--," Sarah began, looking contemplative, "I don't remember that."

"Well, you might not," Harry continued, "He sort of tackled you from the back. I don't think you saw him coming. After that I'm pretty sure you might have been out cold. It was right after you fought off a few of our attackers."

Sarah looked thoroughly confused.

"I-- I what?" She stammered.

Harry now looked confused as well.

"I barely fought off anyone," Sarah said quietly, "The last thing I recall is being hit by some curse that cut up my arms while I was trying to fight them off. The next thing I knew, I woke up here. I didn't do much of anything to them. You must have."

"You mean to say," Harry began slowly, "That you... don't remember what you did?"

"What do you mean, what I did?" Sarah asked, sounding slightly defensive. "I might have gotten us both killed for how terrible I was. All I did was get hit by a curse and fall down like a useless idiot."

"No," Harry stated simply, shaking his head slowly at her. His voice sounded strange. "No you didn't."

"What are you talking about?" Sarah asked, leaning closer to him.

"I saw you hurt those people," Harry explained, looking her in the eyes again. "You fought them off like they were nothing. It was...," Harry paused for a moment, thinking of the right words to use, "Frightening. And you did it without a wand."

Sarah shook her head at Harry. That couldn't be possible; she didn't remember doing any of that. She definitely would remember something like fighting off a few thugs without a wand. The last thing she remembered was being hit by a painful curse, and falling to the ground.

"Are you... are you sure?" she whispered in disbelief.

Harry nodded slowly.

"Absolutely sure," he said firmly, his tone serious.

Sarah turned away from Harry, gazing down at the open palms of her hands. How had she done something like that? And furthermore, why wouldn't she remember it if she had? As far as she remembered, she had been rendered unconscious after only a few moments of fighting. It was true that she had inadvertently performed magic before, without a wand, when her life was imperiled by the Centaurs... but she definitely remembered that.

"And the mark," Harry said quietly, "Didn't you see?"

Unbeknownst to him, Snape was now standing outside the door, but out of sight, listening. When the boy mentioned the mark, he tensed; he hadn't shown it to the girl yet. He had been so preoccupied with tending to her injuries that he hadn't asked her much about what had happened, especially after what Harry had explained about her alleged family. He did not wish to upset her by asking too many questions, and she had enough on her mind already without having to become worried about the mysterious mark that had appeared on her wrist. What she was saying now, however, troubled him greatly. The boy had already explained to him what he had seen take place on that Muggle street. She had no recollection of the chaos she had wrought on the people who had been attacking her.

"Mark?" Sarah asked, turning back to Harry.

Harry reached out and gently took Sarah's right wrist in his hand. When he rolled back her sleeve, he found that her wrist was wrapped in bandages, concealing it.

"This doesn't hurt, does it?" he asked.

When Sarah shook her head in the negative, Harry carefully unwrapped the bandages concealing the mark. There, on the underside of her wrist, just as brilliantly red it had been last night, was the strange symbol, with eight different lines diverging from the center point, each of them tipped with an arrow. Sarah's mouth dropped open with disbelief.

"I didn't happen to stop into any tattoo parlors during the time that I can't remember anything from, did I?" She asked jokingly, her eyes on Harry.

Harry's lip curled up in a smile.

"No, you definitely didn't," he said, letting go of her wrist.

When he had let go, Sarah brought her wrist closer to her eyes, examining it more closely. With the thumb of her left hand, she rubbed it firmly, almost as if she were expecting it to rub off. As Harry watcher her, her expression darkened.

"Tell me," she said quietly, her eyes on the strange mark. "Tell me what I did."

"Well," Harry said, taking a deep breath, "I'm not sure what you did to one of them, at least... they were already lying on the ground by the time I looked over. The first one I saw, you sent them flying down the street, down a couple houses. They hit a car parked there and didn't move."

Sarah remained silent as she listened, still staring at the mark, and trying desperately to remember what she had done.

"The next one," Harry continued, "You sent them flying too, and it also looked like you had hit them with the Cruciatus Curse at the same time."

"Did I?" Sarah asked, her voice a whisper. "Did I use an Unforgivable Curse?" How could she possibly not remember that? She would never...

"I-- I don't know," Harry stammered. He honestly didn't know what she had done to those people. "I didn't hear you using any verbal spells. You just sort of... did it."

"Without a wand?" Sarah asked again for confirmation.

"Without a wand," Harry affirmed. "As soon as I looked over at you, it was lying in the street. I didn't see you use it at all except for when we first started fighting. Oh, that reminds me. Here," He said, reaching inside his robe pockets and searching. After a moment, he drew out her wand, placing it on the side table near the bed. "I'd forgotten I had it."

Sarah made a fist with her right hand; veins and tendons rippled underneath the skin onto which the strange mark was branded. She continued to stare at it.

"Thanks," she said absently as Harry placed her wand on the side table. "I'd pretty much forgotten about that too."

Several moments of silence passed. Sarah continued to stare at the mark on her wrist. Harry watched her, unsure of what to say. He had yet to broach the most sensitive topic which had become painfully apparent the previous night. During the silence, Snape continued to listen outside the door as well, anxious for more chatter between Potter and the girl.

Harry took a deep breath, his bright green eyes still intent on Sarah as she continued her unwavering stare at the mark on her wrist.

"Sarah," he said at last, "Do you... do you want to go back?"

Harry's inquiry tore Sarah's eyes away from her wrist. The red eyes met the green. Harry had to steady himself slightly again when he caught sight of them. He still found them unnerving.

"Go back?" Sarah asked, quirking a brow.

"You know," Harry continued, "Go back... to the house on Archer Crescent."

"Oh," Sarah replied. The tone of her voice became even more melancholy, and her eyes found their way back to the mark on her wrist. "Why bother," she stated simply, and then said no more.

"It's," Harry started, but he wasn't quite sure what to say, yet again. "It's your... your...,"

"Family?" Sarah spoke up again. Her eyes shot back to Harry's, and she now sounded loud and angry. "So what? That family on Archer Crescent might be related to me by blood, I won't deny that, but I'll be willing to bet you anything that they don't even know that I exist, and going back there isn't going to tell me exactly why that is."

Harry straightened up in his chair as she spoke. She sounded angry, and with those red eyes staring back at him, she somehow looked wild and dangerous. The changed eye color would definitely take some getting used to on his part. After another moment of silence, Sarah looked back to the mark on her arm, and Harry sighed.

"It might be a good place to start," Harry said quietly, recollecting his own journey of self-discovery, now almost exactly a year in the past, "Going back to Godric's Hollow--,"

"Almost got you killed," Sarah interrupted forcibly again, her bright red eyes darting back to Harry's green ones, "If I remember the story you told me correctly. I'm not going back to that house as long as there are probably people there waiting to ambush me for whatever reason."

Sarah turned away again, and Harry remained silent, prepared for more of her verbal onslaught. As far as he was concerned, he deserved it. It felt as if it were his fault, after all. But she did not speak again. Instead, after several more moments of silence, she glanced back at him. Her expression had softened considerably; the bright red eyes, which only a moment ago had looked wild and dangerous, now looked troubled and pained.

"I'm sorry," she said, sounding defeated. "I'm sorry, Harry. I just--,"

"It's alright," Harry said, leaning into the girl where she sat propped up on her pillows and giving her a gentle hug. He was deathly afraid of somehow aggravating her injuries, and he would have only Snape to answer to for that. "It's not your fault. It's mine."

Once Harry had drawn back from the hug to sit up in his high-backed chair, Sarah looked up at him again.

"No," she said firmly, shaking her head at him, "It's not your fault. And it's not mine, either. But it's definitely someone's fault, and we just don't know whose."

When she said this, Harry looked into her eyes once again. She definitely looked calmer now, but there was still something that Harry could not quite put his finger on. It was as if the danger and wildness that she had displayed only moments before was now lurking quietly beneath the surface, gazing out at him. He thought to himself for a long moment before he opened his mouth to speak again.

"Are you... I mean," he took a deep breath, "Would you still be willing to try and find out whose fault it is?"

Sarah looked him over. There was another long pause. He looked so utterly sincere in his desire to bring her justice; to bring her an explanation of some kind. She was once again sure in her assertion that she had never before, in her entire life, met someone who was so willing to give of themselves for the sake of others, than Harry Potter was. It only took her another quick glance at the underside of her wrist to give her the answer that she sought.

"Yes," she replied, her voice strong. Her gaze became steely. She gave only a single nod, but it was so full of conviction that Harry could not help himself but smile.

Inside their minds, they had both reached the same conclusion simultaneously: they had both gone too far, and suffered far too much, to go back on their mission now. They needed to find out the reasons behind everything. They needed to find the explanations. Clearly there was something going on here, something much bigger than a simple clerical mistake at the Ministry, and they intended to find out what it was. The difficult part would be figuring out where to start again.

Harry extended his right hand to Sarah, and she extended hers in kind. For a moment, they shared a sort of handshake, full of camaraderie... that was until Sarah's eyes again fell upon the mark on her wrist, and she quickly recoiled her hand from Harry's, as if she were afraid that she might infect him with something.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, realizing what she had just done. "I didn't mean,--"

"It's alright," Harry assured her. He even went so far as to reach out and grasp her right wrist in his hand again, running his fingers over the strange mark without fear. "See? No harm done."

Sarah nodded silently, and breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment, she had been concerned that somehow she would have been unable to use her right arm or hand ever again without inflicting some kind of terrible damage that she would not recall the next day. With her eyes once again on her wrist, she spoke. When she did, her eyes darted momentarily to a small spot just above and between Harry's eyes.

His scar.

This did not go unnoticed by Harry.

"What does it mean?" she asked, her eyes on her own mark.

Harry examined the mark as well, and answered her honestly.

"I'd be lying if I told you I had any idea what it could possibly mean," he said with a sigh. "I'm sorry."

Sarah nodded, but did not remain silent for long.

"Do you think that Severus might--," she began.

Snape was still standing just outside the door, his back pressed firmly up against the wall as he listened to the conversation inside the room. For a moment, he could not stop himself from realizing how strangely similar it was to him eavesdropping on an unwittingly prophecy-giving Sybill Trelawney inside the Hog's Head so many years ago. Pushing the thought out of his mind, he could no longer remain hidden when he heard the girl mention his name. He stepped out of the shadows and into the light flooding out of the door, making himself plainly visible to the room's occupants.

"No, I do not," he said gently, slowly making his way inside the room. "For the time being, at least."

When Snape entered the room, the pair of red eyes, as well as the green, were on him immediately. Sarah's eyes and expression lightened considerably to see him. Harry, on the other hand, was trying to remain looking as casual as possible. It was an old habit of his, and one that would not die easily. He could not help himself from wondering about just how long Snape had been listening outside the door, and what he had heard. Having him hear the details of Sarah's apparent lapse in memory about the events of the previous night did not concern him at all. In fact, he was eager to learn what could possibly have caused it, and he was thinking that perhaps Snape would know why. Their agreement to continue to investigate matters, however, was a different story. Snape would most certainly not approve of Harry leading Sarah into more possibly life-threatening situations in their quest to uncover whatever the truth might be.

"Until we find out exactly what it means," Snape continued, aware of the girl's pleasure at his arrival, as well as Potter's apparent worry and suspicion, "You would do well to keep the bandages on it in order to hide it from sight, unless you plan on going back to school and trying to convince everyone that you spontaneously visited a tattoo parlor over the winter holidays."

"Good idea," Sarah agreed, grabbing up the bandages which had concealed the mark before Harry had unwrapped them. She carefully wrapped them about her wrist again, hiding the mark from view.

"And her eyes?" Harry inquired, all too eager to have Sarah's eyes return to a normal-looking brown instead of a frightening shade of red. He was mostly used to it by now, but somehow it still made him feel slightly uneasy.

"Ah, yes," Snape agreed, stepping closer to the bed on which Sarah lay.

From inside his robes, Snape drew out his wand, directing it toward Sarah's eyes. While Harry watched, he thought comically of how few people would indeed feel comfortable and secure with Severus Snape pointing a wand square at their face. After a moment, Snape flicked his wrist in an attempt to reapply the glamour charm which had concealed Sarah's red eyes for the past few months. She had grown quite used to the application of the charm, and had even learned to apply it herself. It now caused her minimal discomfort, if any.

When Snape flicked his wrist however, Sarah winced immediately, her eyes shut tight.

"Agh," she groaned, making fists of her hands and bringing them to her eyes in order to rub them. "That didn't feel so good," she said. She recalled how, the very first time Snape had surreptitiously applied the charm to her eyes without her knowledge, it had burned and tingled slightly. Her eyes had burned again, even more intense than when the charm had first been applied.

When she opened her eyes again, they were still red. She blinked up at Snape, who was standing before the foot of the bed, aware that her eyes had not changed color as intended. At her side, Harry looked concerned, but she did not glance over at him.

"What?" she asked.

Before anyone replied, Snape flicked his wrist again, his wand waving slightly in the direction of the girl's eyes. Again, she winced tightly. This time, she bared her teeth and hissed in pain.

"Ouch!" she exclaimed. "What the hell is the problem?" she asked, growing impatient with the additional discomfort. She had enough pain to deal with already due to the deep werewolf scratches.

"I apologize," Snape said quickly, "The glamour charm. It seems to," he paused, searching for words, "Not want to stick."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked, sounding frightened. She blinked at Snape again, and then turned to Harry. Harry's expression of concern did not do anything to reassure her.

"Your eyes are still red," Harry explained calmly.

"What?" Sarah spat with surprise, her gaze darting between Snape and Harry, hoping desperately that one of them was pulling her leg. The charm had never failed to work before. If it refused to work for whatever reason, walking around the Wizarding world with red eyes that could apparently not be concealed any longer would be a whole new challenge. She didn't doubt that her friends would still accept her, but it was everyone else that she was worried about.

Snape and Harry continued to look back at her wordlessly. They wore matching expressions consisting of a mixture of confusion and concern.

"Oh great," Sarah groaned, cupping her face in her hands, and hiding her eyes in the process, "Hello, nice to meet you, my name is Sarah Garrend, I'm the freak with Voldemort-eyes."

Harry could not stifle a laugh.

"Not quite," he tried to reassure her. "Except for when they glow, so don't go doing any of that again."

"It's not like I tried to," Sarah said, sitting up straight again. When she did, she winced at the pain in her collarbone. No doubt the claw marks left by Fenrir Greyback were giving her extreme discomfort.

This did not go unnoticed by Snape, who cleared his throat loudly. Both Harry and Sarah looked up at him again.

"If you do not mind, Pott--," he corrected himself with considerable conscious effort again, "Harry, I believe it is time to treat Sarah's wounds again, and I would like her to get some more rest."

Harry nodded obediently, rising from the high-backed chair which Snape had been occupying while he watched over the girl during her rest.

"You may speak again tomorrow," Snape went on, nodding once at the girl, "You should be well enough to get out of bed by then."

Harry moved toward the door, passing Snape as he made his way over to the chair by the side of the bed. Before leaving, Harry turned and bade both of them goodnight.

When Harry was gone, Snape took a seat in the chair beside the bed, and Sarah straightened up a little more against her pile of pillows.

"I hate this," she said, her hands moving to the buttons on the front of her overlarge, borrowed robes.

"I know," Snape replied, his voice gentle. He reached inside his robes again. He put his wand away, but also drew out the jar of salve and a fresh swab. "But it must be done unless you wish them to scar very badly, or not heal at all."

Sarah sighed resignedly, having opened her robes enough to reveal her collarbone. Snape leaned over her and began dabbing the foul-smelling salve onto her wounds. Despite the fact that he was being infinitely more gentle in treating her wounds as opposed to the boy's, she still flinched and winced in pain every time the swab touched her. Dipping the swab in the salve again, he set the jar down on the side table, freeing his left hand. As his right hand worked on her wounds, he softly caressed the side of her face with his left in order to soothe her. Perhaps it would help to take her mind off of the pain.

His own mind, he realized, was still extremely troubled about what he had overheard from the hallway. As he looked down into the girl's face, she appeared to be greatly troubled as well; her red eyes were unfocused and staring blankly as she attempted to ignore the stinging pain of the salve.

"You really don't remember," Snape said softly, "Do you." His black eyes were on her, and full of concern. Concern not only for what had happened to her, but for the fact that he had just admitted to eavesdropping on a significant portion of her conversation with the boy.

"I don't," Sarah affirmed. When she replied, her eyes came into focus again, meeting his gaze. She did not appear upset by his obvious admittance of eavesdropping. "I don't remember any of it. Why wouldn't I remember doing those things?"

"I am afraid I do not know," Snape replied truthfully, still gently dabbing her wounds. His eyes turned away from the girl's gaze to monitor his work. "I wish that I did."

The girl remained silent. When he had finished treating her wounds, he set the swab aside. Looking into her eyes, he could still plainly see how bothered she was by it. He leaned over her again, caressing the side of her face with the back of his right hand.

"Do not let it trouble you," he told her, "Stranger things have happened."

Instead of replying, the girl sat up a bit more, bringing herself closer to him and capturing his lips in a searing kiss. Snape's eyes opened wide for a moment in surprise, but quickly closed in contentment as he leaned down further, returning the girl's kiss tenfold and pressing her back down into her pillows. Before he knew it, they were kissing passionately; the first kiss that they had shared since he had thrown her out of his office on that painful day. Ever since then, he had ached to touch her again with every fiber of his being. All of his pent-up passion was made apparent in their kiss. Her left hand had found its way into his hair, bringing him even closer. He could not possibly kiss her deeply enough. Without thinking, he had brought himself off of the chair and was now lying on top of her. The room was quickly filled with the sounds of their heated breathing and quiet moans.

In their impassioned moment, however, Snape had pushed on the girl too firmly with his own body in his ardor. She tensed instantly, and the left hand which had found its way into his hair went stiff. When Snape drew back from their kiss, she gave a sharp intake of breath. Her eyes were shut tight in a wince. Snape rolled off of her immediately, sitting up beside her on the bed. He was panting as he looked the girl over, but it did not take long to find the obvious source of her discomfort; her wounds were still exposed on her left collarbone. He must have brushed against them or put too much pressure on the area during the heat of the moment. When the girl's pain subsided, she was panting as well. She looked up at him, her eyes pleading.

"Are you alright?" Snape asked her once he had regained enough of his breath to speak.

The girl nodded quickly a few times. Her face was prettily flushed. She reached out for him again, trying to bring him back to her.

"No," Snape breathed quickly, still panting a little, "Not yet." When her hand reached him, he took it, enclosing it in both of his own.

"Why not?" Sarah complained, still trying to catch her own breath.

The corner of Snape's lip curled up slightly. The girl had just suffered a nearly paralyzing amount of pain because of their passion, but still wanted to keep going.

"You know full well why not, you silly girl," he breathed, still holding her hand tightly in his own, "You have quite clearly suffered enough injury already, and I will not play any part in putting your body in any more... undue stress... that might contribute to your pain."

Sarah gave a heaving, overly dramatic sigh.

"Also," Snape went on, his eyes flicking over to the door, "The door is open, and if your friend were to walk by, I don't think any amount of Obliviation spells would be able to cure him of the trauma."

Sarah could not help but laugh, and when she did, Snape's lip curled up a bit more. Making the girl smile and laugh filled that strange place deep inside his chest with warmth.

"When, then?" Sarah asked. As badly as he had wanted her, she too wanted him just as much. Without his presence, she had suffered a deprivation beyond measure, in so many ways.

"Soon," Snape promised, eyeing the wounds on her collarbone again, "When they do not pain you so much anymore, and when your entire body is feeling well."

"Alright," Sarah sighed, sounding disappointed but not unhappy.

"You need to rest more now, after all," Snape said, leaving the bed and walking toward the door, "Let me get something to assist you in sleeping."

Snape was gone for only a moment before he returned, holding a small bottle of Sleeping Draught. He approached the bed, handing it to the girl.

"Just a sip should do it," he explained, watching as he waited for the girl to drink.

Sarah unsealed the bottle and took a quick swig of it before resealing it and handing it back to him.

"Stay with me," she said as their hands met over the bottle of Sleeping Draught.

Snape, who hadn't been planning on leaving in the first place, took the small bottle from her and set it aside next to the jar of salve.

"Very well," he said, taking a seat in the chair next to the bed.

"No, not there," the girl protested, "Here," she said, patting the empty portion of bed next to her.

Snape nodded once, rising from the chair and making his way around to the other side of the bed. As he went, he drew his wand out of his robes. Flicking it about the room, he extinguished the lights. Reaching the other side of the bed, he tucked his wand back into his robes. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he kicked his shoes off unceremoniously. Then, he lay himself down gently beside the girl. When he was still, he could already tell from her breathing that the Sleeping Draught was setting in. Still, he heard her give a contented sigh when she felt him on the bed next to her. Snape gave a contented sigh of his own, lying there in the darkness, listening to the girl breathing lightly as she drifted off to sleep.


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A/N: There you have chapter 24! I hope you enjoyed it :) Sorry to tease you with a tiny bit of citrus there! Don't worry, there will be another nice lemony treat again soon, probably in the next chapter.

Thank you so much for the reviews that I have been getting, especially from the people who took a lot of effort to seek out my story again once it was lost amongst the sea of other random M/F stories since the OC categories have gone away. I really, really appreciate them. They make it all worthwhile! I am greatly heartened when I see that so many people are enjoying my story so much.

Again, if you want me to add you to my update notification list, make sure you leave me a review with your e-mail address, or e-mail me at Raug397@yahoo.com, and I'll send you an e-mail notification every time I add a new chapter. This will make it a lot easier to know when I've added a new chapter instead of having to dig through all the other stories in the hopes of seeing if I've updated yet or not!

As always, thank you for reading. Leave a review if you would be so kind :)

**6/1/2008 A/N** Hey everyone, I forgot to mention when adding this latest chapter, that even though I'm out of school for the summer now, the addition of the next chapter will probably end up being a bit delayed because I am going on vacation later this week =) I'll only be gone for 2 and 1/2 weeks though, so don't freak out and think that it's some huge, long vacation. I've started working on chapter 25 but I'm not sure I'll be able to have it ready-to-post before I leave. Just wanted to let you all know so you don't think I'm leaving you high and dry. Chapter 25 will just be a little late in coming, but not TOO late. :) Thank you for your patience, I know it's hard!