The Name in Red **COMPLETE**

Hey everyone! I apologize so much for making you wait so long. As I’ve mentioned before, this last semester was absolutely terrible for me in terms of workload, frustration, and lack of sleep. I won’t make you wait any longer. Enjoy!


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The Name in Red.

Chapter 27: New Year’s Eve Surprises.
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Her head was pounding with extreme pain. She could barely move. She couldn’t open her eyes for fear of her head splitting open. After a few moments, she realized that her entire body was racked with pain, not just her head. It felt as if she was on fire from the inside out, an intense physical pain that wrenched and writhed all the way to her very core, making itself something more than physical… something strange… something… else.

Hours might have passed as she lay there, wherever she was, her form tensed in agony. When she finally opened her eyes, she wasn’t quite sure how long she had been lying there. In fact, she wasn’t quite sure that she knew where there was at all.

With a great deal of effort she righted herself into a sitting position. After several moments of blinking, her eyes finally focused themselves. It was dark, she realized. Very dark. From what little information she could gather on the peripheries of her vision, she was in a long hall which stretched out before her, the walls of which seemed to be lined with tall mirrors. She could dimly see her reflections, her many mirrored images, moving in precise tandem with her body as she struggled to stand.

Trembling, she stood. Her head was swimming. She felt strange, but she could not quite put her finger on it. Not bothering to give a second glance to the mirrors which lined the halls at her side, she strode forward, which seemed to be her only avenue of progress. The path stretched on before her, and she quickly found herself plodding along at a hurried walk, followed by a jog, and finally a full blown sprint. Where was she? Was she trapped here? The mirrored hall seemed to stretch on forever…

Her lungs burned as she gasped for air, running at full speed down the darkened hall. Finally she slowed as she caught sight of an end ahead of her, another gleaming surface which reflected her image as she broke her sprint, her heavy footfalls echoing loudly across the high, arched ceiling above her.

When she arrived before the mirror resting at the end of the hall, she doubled over, her hands resting on her knees as she panted heavily, trying to catch her breath. She spent a few minutes standing in this position, her long hair cascading down as she bent over. When she was finally breathing at a normal rate again, a quick toss of her head swung her long hair back over her shoulders, and she stood up straight.

Unfortunately, her breath was stolen away from her again as soon as she set eyes on the mirror resting before her.

Standing in the mirror where her reflection should have been was a frightening figure, altogether terrifying, yet familiar. It was her, she knew, but different somehow. The eyes that stared back at her were wide in a sort of rage, glowing a fiendish shade of red, and completely pupilless. The skin on her face was marred in places by strange, streak-like marks, almost as if someone had anointed her with a peculiar type of war paint in the same glowing shade of red. At her side, the strange mark on her wrist was glowing just as brightly. Her clothing was torn and shredded, and from the skin showing through, she could see other streaks of red cutting across her, on her arms and legs. Whatever the origin of these strange glowing marks, they seemed to be taking her over from the inside out, inch by inch…

“No!” she shouted, shutting her eyes tightly. Curling her hands into fists, they both shot forth, but before they made contact with the mirror’s silvery surface, she leapt backwards in surprise; the mirror had shattered on its own, and sharp, splintered shards rained down upon the floor like a glittering waterfall.

When the glass settled, she was momentarily relieved until she heard the sound of other mirrors shattering on their own further down the hall. She spun about on her heel, glancing back the way she had come. Somehow the hall was filling up with glass as every mirror shattered. Fear closed an icy hand around her throat, stopping her from screaming. She backed up against the wall behind her, into the empty frame that had shown her the terrifying vision of herself, raising her arms in a desperate attempt to shield herself from the wave of razor-sharp shards rushing to meet her…


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Her eyes shot open. She was gasping for air, and she could feel a cold sweat on her body. By what information her newly opened eyes could gather, she was no longer in the strange hall of shattered mirrors. Unfortunately, her eyes could gather little else; everything looked oddly blurry. With a squint, she could faintly see that the ceiling above her looked familiar.

“You are awake,” came the deep, comfortingly familiar voice from beside her.

“Severus,” the girl gasped, attempting to sit up, but a dull, throbbing pain that permeated her entire body prevented her from doing so. Instead she let her head fall to the side, squinting in confusion at the tall, dark mass of a figure seated beside the bed on which she lay. “Severus, I,” she began, her tone confused and startled, “I can’t see.”

Although she could not see it properly, Snape’s features instantly reshuffled themselves from a look of relief into a mixed expression of dread and confusion.

“What do you mean, you can’t see?” he asked for clarification, leaning forward to get a closer look at the girl, “Are you blind?” With his right hand, his wand was quickly grabbed up and pointed into all corners of the room without looking; it was now brightly lit by all of its lamps instead of just the dimly burning embers of the fire.

Sarah blinked in the new brightness, her sudden visual impairment becoming more obvious to her in the light. Snape’s features only became clear when he leaned in very close to her.

“No, I’m not blind,” she said, “But everything is… blurry. It’s not usually—hey!” she exclaimed, squinting in discomfort as a light from the tip of Snape’s wand was pointed directly into her right eye. A firm hand on her forehead steadied her as Snape examined her eyes wordlessly. “Can you see anything?”

After several moments of intense light shining directly into her eyes, Snape extinguished his wand and set it aside.

“No,” he said, “Not anything unusual, I am afraid.” The hand which had been placed on the girl’s forehead began slowly stroking her hair. The girl sighed, and silence passed between them.

Snape was still simply relieved that the girl had awoken, but Sarah felt as if an unspoken inquiry was growing in the silence, pressing itself upon her, unasked.

“I went back,” she spoke finally, her voice full of bitter disappointment, “I went back to see if my—if they would recognize me, somehow. It was stupid, I’m sorry, I--,”

Snape shushed her softly.

“The only thing stupid about what you did was not having me accompany you,” he spoke, his tone gentle but serious. “I promised to protect you, and you did not allow me to fulfill my promise.”

“I’m sorry,” the girl apologized again, “I had to know, and I thought that you might not—I mean, maybe you would have thought it was too--,” she stuttered, unsure of what exactly to say. She was certain that, if she had asked him, he would have forbidden her to go back.

“You were afraid that I would not allow you to return?” Snape asked.

“Well?” the girl pressed back at him, “Was I right?”

Snape’s dark eyes shifted back and forth in thought for a few moments. Perhaps the girl was correct.

“It was certainly a dangerous venture, in either case,” Snape explained slowly, “But if you had allowed me to come with you…” he did not complete his sentence.

“What then?” Sarah asked, sounding frustrated. “I tried to be as safe as possible, I took Harry’s cloak, but that guy,” she stressed in an irritated fashion, still ignorant of her opponent’s true nature, “Could see right through it, somehow.”

“That guy,” Snape repeated, sounding slightly odd using slang to which he was not accustomed, “Was a vampire. He was probably able to sense or smell the presence of human blood. He could not see through the cloak.”

“A vampire?” Sarah breathed in disbelief. She shut her eyes tightly, trying to remember what had happened, and as she did, she could not help but notice that Snape was suddenly stroking her hair more forcefully. She could remember the initial attack, and being injured, but after a certain point, everything seemed to be a blank. Then there came the dim memory of Snape and Harry showing up somehow, and then everything afterward was a blank as well. “What happened?” she asked him, opening her eyes again and gazing over at the dark, blurry figure seated at her bedside.

“Potter--,” Snape mentally scolded himself. Force of habit. “Harry and I arrived just in time. You were attacked by a vampire named Vincent, an old supporter of the Dark Lord who evidently survived the war unnoticed. You were apparently able to keep him at bay until we arrived, though not without significant injury.”

“I can tell,” Sarah groaned. Her entire body ached. Her eyes shot open again, however, as a more urgent question came to mind. “Severus, was anyone… bitten?”

“No,” Snape replied confidently. “Fortunately, no one was infected.”

Sarah sighed in relief. She did not know much of real vampirism, and what little knowledge she possessed of vampires from came from old Muggle horror movies and legends, but at least no one had been infected, as Snape had said.

“Harry,” Sarah spoke, “Is he okay?”

“He is fine,” Snape replied. He did not bother to elaborate on any injuries sustained by either himself or the boy, or how he had meticulously tested blood samples from each of them to be sure that none of them were infected. The boy no longer had a scratch on him, and he had taken great care to conceal his own injury from the vampire’s sword beneath his robes.

“The vampire,” Sarah began tentatively, having taken notice of the slight change in Snape’s demeanor when he spoke of the creature that had attacked her. “Did you… know him?”

Snape shut his eyes and swallowed hard; his Death Eater days were something which, with great effort, he had been trying for quite a long time to not recall.

“Know is too strong a word,” he said, his voice rooted in that familiar tone of seriousness in which it had been stuck for so long before the girl had become close to him. “I knew of him,” he explained, “And had seen him on more than a few occasions during meetings of the Dark Lord’s inner circle. He was head liaison to the vampires, valued allies to the Dark Lord’s ranks, but never truly allowed among the ranks of Death Eaters, as the Dark Lord viewed them to be less than human.” He bit his tongue, preventing himself from adding an afterthought of, which they are.

“Sort of like the werewolves?” the girl inquired.

“Precisely,” Snape replied. “They were an instrument of terror. Imagine the fear experienced by those who refused to cooperate with the Dark Lord when they were threatened with their loved ones being infected with lycanthropy or vampirism.”

For the pain in her body, Sarah did not nod, but she fully understood the power that such a threat would have. Squinting, she turned her head again to the blurry figure seated next to her, reaching out a hand toward him.

When Snape saw the gesture, he immediately clasped her hand in his own. Several more moments of silence passed between them.

“Severus,” the girl began tentatively after a while, “Do dreams-- do they mean anything?” she asked. She was fully aware of the stories Harry had told her, where his dreams had been so meaningful and poignant. She, however, was completely unused to having dreams that meant much of anything, but she could not shake the feeling that the dream she had just experienced was an important one, indeed.

Snape considered her for a moment. His own dreams, as well as those he had heard about the boy having, were on his mind.

“What do you mean?” he asked softly, continuing to stroke her hair while he held her hand.

“I had a dream, just now,” she said, “Before I woke up.” The girl’s eyes flickered back and forth as they searched for Snape’s in the blur that was her vision. He leaned closer to her, making them clear.

“Tell me about it,” he said soothingly, trying to coax it out of her before she could have second thoughts about discussing the dream. Dreams, as he knew all too well, could be so very important.

The girl took a deep breath.

“I was in a sort of hallway,” she started slowly, her voice soft. Her eyes were open wide, but now they stared off into the distance, unfocused, as if they were picturing what she described. “Full of mirrors. I got up and ran as far as I could, and when I came to the end of it, I stopped. There was a mirror at the end of the hall, but I was out of breath when I got there.”

The girl paused in her thoughts, hesitant to recall what she saw next. Snape, intrigued but also feeling a small amount of trepidation, leaned closer to her.

“What then?” He pressed, eager to hear the rest.

Sarah sighed again.

“When I finally caught my breath,” she continued, “I looked up at the mirror at the end of the hall that stood before me. I saw—I saw…,” she swallowed hard.

“What did you see?” Snape pressed, leaning even closer, his eyes full of concern.

“Myself,” Sarah spat out, her red eyes shaking frantically as she saw, swimming before her in her imagination, the frightening reflection she had seen of herself, “But I was… different. I was changed. I wasn’t myself anymore.”

Snape remained quiet, silently urging her to continue.

“I looked—different, scary,” the girl said, raising up her right arm as if to gaze upon the strange mark she bore, even though she could not see it clearly. “My eyes were completely red, and glowing… and I had red marks all over my body, kind of like this thing,” she said in disgust, the mark slightly visible even with her blurry sight. She swallowed hard once again, tilting her head toward Snape as she lowered her arm.

“Is that all?” Snape asked slowly, trying to mask his eagerness.

The girl shook her head as it lay upon the pillow.

“I was so afraid,” she continued, “Of what I saw in the mirror. I was going to smash it, but before I could, it broke on its own. After that, all of the other mirrors broke by themselves, too. The entire hall seemed to be filling up with glass. It was all going to hit me when I woke up,” she said.

“I see,” Snape responded, trying his best to envision the girl’s dream. He was sure that a dream like that had to mean something, but there was a reason why he had not studied dream interpretation. He spent several moments in silent contemplation before speaking again. “Do not let it bother you right now,” he said reassuringly, “And if it persists in troubling you, I know just the person to ask about it.”

“Alright,” the girl replied with a sigh, tightening her grip on Snape’s hand in an affectionate manner.

“You must be exhausted,” Snape said, picking up his wand once again and flicking it casually. The room once again darkened itself. “Please, rest.”

“Not without you,” the girl said with a smile.

“Very well,” he conceded, standing from the high-backed chair in which he had kept a silent vigil while watching over the girl. With a second flick of his wand toward the door, it swung shut, and he quickly divested of most of his clothing. Slowly sliding into bed beside the girl, he gently embraced her body so as to not cause her discomfort, all the while wincing at the throbbing pain emanating from the gash across his shoulder.


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A short while later, in the upstairs bedroom that had once belonged to Sirius Black, Harry was awake. He lay on his back, his arms crossed behind his head, resting on his pillow. The sheets were pulled down to his midsection, and the red-haired girl sleeping beside him had an arm draped across his bare chest. He knew she was asleep from her soft, even breathing. He stared up at the ceiling, unable to really see much in the darkness, his glasses lying on the night stand beside the bed. He stared up at nothing, troubled thoughts racing through his mind.

After the night’s events, a fresh fear had been awakened inside him. Someone, a vampire no less, had been waiting for Sarah to reappear at Archer Crescent. She was most definitely being hunted, but why? For what purpose? A deep dread filled him when he thought about what actions these mysterious people might take next in order to find her; they had already failed to ambush her twice, and he doubted that they would attempt to do so again. They were determined, and they would probably try something else.

In addition to this, another worry was racing through his mind. Twice now he had seen Sarah in that strange state; once on the night they discovered the family on Archer Crescent, and again tonight when he and Snape had arrived there to find her. Although her eyes had been alight, he hadn’t seen her do much of anything; what was more worrisome to him, however, was the way he had seen her mark glowing too. He wasn’t sure what it meant at all, but he was sure that it probably didn’t bode well. He also wasn’t sure if Snape had seen it. In all the worry of the aftermath, he had thought it best not to mention it.

“What is it?” came a soft, slightly-muffled voice at his side. Ginny had obviously sensed that he was not asleep.

“It’s nothing,” Harry said, unfolding one of his arms from behind his head and resting it gently on her form. “I’m just worried.”

“What about?” Ginny inquired, yawning as she gazed at Harry in the dark. “Snape tested each of you, everyone is going to be fine,” she said.

“It’s not that,” Harry replied, his voice laced with concern. “I’m worried about Sarah. I think--,” he paused for a moment, trying to find the right words, but he couldn’t think of any better way to say it, “I think there’s something wrong with her.”

“Bloody well right there’s something wrong with her,” Ginny said wryly, “She snuck off alone in the middle of the night to a place that she knew was probably being watched,” she finished. She then gave a frustrated sigh. Harry’s hand stroked her arm soothingly.

“Not that,” Harry said, unable to help himself as the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

“What, then?” Ginny asked, closing her eyes as she rested against him.

Harry remained silent. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he could not quite put his finger on it.

“I’m not sure, exactly,” he admitted, “But if you’d seen her on that night, and seen what she had done…,” he paused for a moment as he relived it in his mind, “I’m pretty sure she had gotten that way again tonight before we arrived. And then there’s the mark,” he continued, “It’s all just—strange.”

As Harry fell silent and continued to stare up at the dark ceiling, Ginny craned her neck toward him, planting a warm, soft kiss upon his cheek, and then resting her head upon his shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it right now,” she said. “You’ve been through enough tonight.”

Wordlessly agreeing with her, Harry tilted his head to the side, kissing her once on the forehead. Closing his eyes, he tried his best to fall asleep in spite of his troubled mind.


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When sunlight was finally streaming through the windows, Sarah found herself alone. In opening her eyes, she also found that her vision, while still markedly blurrier than normal, had improved a great deal from how they had been last night. Sitting up, she discovered that while her body still ached a bit, she was no longer in the same intense pain as before. The scent of food and coffee was lingering in the air. Knowing that breakfast must be on, she slid out of bed. After stretching, she headed downstairs.

Descending into the kitchen, she found everyone seated at the table. The long, thick wooden table was, as usual, laden with an inordinate amount of delicious-looking food. Her friends were seated around it, helping themselves, as Kreacher busied himself about the kitchen, cleaning and dusting as he went, observing contentedly as his breakfast was being enjoyed. Both Snape and Hermione were absorbed in their own copies of The Daily Prophet as they ate. Ron, completely engrossed in his food, listened on as Harry and Ginny chatted quietly.

When Sarah entered, Harry, seated facing the doorway, noticed her first.

“Good morning,” he said.

“’Morning,” Sarah replied, moving down the table and seating herself next to Snape, where an empty place was set and waiting for her.

Hermione lowered her paper briefly to glance at Sarah. Satisfied that she looked sound enough, she began reading again.

“Feeling better today?” she asked casually from behind a page of The Prophet.

“Much,” Sarah said, loading up her plate with food. She had to squint a bit to be sure of what she was actually putting on it.

“And your vision?” asked a deep, smooth voice. He did not glance up from his reading either.

“Better than last night, but still not one hundred percent,” Sarah said.

Harry, Ginny, and Ron all glanced over to Sarah, unable to look away from her strange red eyes; Hermione lowered her paper again as well.

“Vision?” Harry asked.

Sarah nodded once, but Snape spoke before she could.

“She seems to be suffering from a temporary vision impairment after the events of last night,” he said as calmly as possible, and casting a sort of sideways glance to the Granger girl, whom he instinctively knew might be alarmed. She did gasp a bit, but other than that, remained silent.

“Probably just from blood loss, or injury, or shock, you know,” said Ron nonchalantly with a shrug, his mouth half full of food, “I’m sure it’ll mend. Same thing happened to me one summer playing Quidditch in our yard. I reckon I couldn’t see straight for about a week after George hit me with a Bludger square in the--,”

Hermione cleared her throat sternly and gave him a most Hermione-ish look. Clearly she did not think this proper table conversation in light of recent events. Ron turned slightly pink and swallowed some of his food.

“I’m sure it’ll get better, at any rate,” he finished, tucking into another helping of breakfast.

“I hope so,” Sarah replied after having swallowed a gulp of pumpkin juice, “I’ve never had to wear glasses before. I don’t think I’d look very good in them.”

“It’s not all bad,” Harry spoke up, “That is, of course, as long as you don’t have anyone punching you on the nose constantly and breaking them,” he said, recalling how his glasses had always been broken courtesy of Dudley, until he had found out that he was a wizard.

Briefly, a frequented fantasy vision of himself punching James Potter in the face and breaking his glasses flitted through Snape’s mind.

Thankfully, just as Sarah had hoped, her vision greatly improved over the course of the next few days, to the point where she was fairly certain that it was back to normal. It was now New Year’s Eve, and all the occupants of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place were seated around the kitchen table just as they had been a few days ago, having just finished lunch.

“What shall we do today?” Hermione asked idly, still perusing her fresh copy of The Daily Prophet left over from breakfast.

“Something fun, I reckon,” said Ron, who received a vigorous nod of agreement from Ginny. Harry, meanwhile, suddenly looked as if he was deep in thought.

“I know!” he said excitedly, smiling brightly around the table, apparently quite pleased with his idea, “We’ve never taught Sarah how to conjure a Patronus, have we?”

Sarah shook her head in the negative. Snape glanced up at the boy, realizing that this was something he himself had neglected to teach her.

“Why don’t we have a go at it?” Harry suggested, glancing around the table again, and then finally meeting Snape’s black eyes, seeking his approval.

Snape nodded once.

“Very well,” he agreed, “We shall use the study.”

A while later, all of the furniture in the study in which Sarah and Snape slept had been carefully pushed aside to the walls, allowing the maximum amount of space for practicing the Patronus charm. Sarah stood eagerly, her wand at the ready. She had heard of Patronuses before, and what an important role they had played during the war, but she had never thought to ask how to create one of her own. Harry, who was quite practiced at teaching others to perform the Patronus, had already spent a short while lecturing about what a Patronus truly was, as well as what feelings were most vital in being able to produce a fully corporeal one. Snape was seated in a high-backed chair, watching the two of them, but mainly watching Sarah; Ginny, Ron, and Hermione were all seated on the sofa, which had been transfigured back into its original shape, rather than the form of the bed it had been assuming, in order to make more space. They were watching Sarah intently, curious about whether she would be able to produce a Patronus, and also about what form it might take.

When Harry finally finished speaking, he turned to his three friends seated upon the sofa.

“How about one of you show her how it’s done?” he asked, motioning to the center of the room, “So she can see.”

“Why don’t you do it?” Ron protested, “Yours is the best.” Both Ginny and Hermione gave tiny nods of agreement.

“Well, all right then,” Harry said. “Stand back,” he told Sarah, who shuffled aside to the wall, giving Harry as much space as possible.

“Expecto Patronum,” Harry spoke calmly, flicking his wand toward the center of the room. Compared to instances in the past, where it had taken a measurable amount of effort to focus his mind properly and produce the charm, it seemed all but effortless to him now; a bright, silvery, regal-looking stag erupted from the tip of his wand, landing deftly and silently in the center of the room. Sarah’s jaw dropped slightly as she watched it. It trotted in place for a moment before making a tiny circle, and then standing tall as it seemed to regard the room’s occupants. Harry smiled brightly at it. Snape, although Harry did not see, was wearing a tiny smirk.

After a few moments, Harry lowered his wand and gave a slight bow to the ethereal-looking creature, who, seeming to know that it had been dismissed, completely dissipated into thin air, leaving nothing behind but an awestruck Sarah.

“That was amazing,” she gawked, never having actually seen a Patronus for herself, let alone Harry’s, whose was quite more astonishing than most.

“Thanks,” Harry beamed, “It took loads of practice.”

“And I—I can do that?” Sarah said, still in utter amazement at the creature of other-worldly beauty that she had just seen.

“Sure you can,” Harry said encouragingly, “But don’t be disappointed if you don’t get it today. It’s a very difficult charm to learn.”

With this, Sarah began attempting to summon her own Patronus, but her attempts started out fairly unsuccessfully. To Harry’s surprise, she was very quickly able to produce a sizeable shield form, but she couldn’t quite get it to take shape. Every so often, Ginny or Hermione would point into the flowing silvery light with an excited squeak, swearing that they had seen a horn, or a paw, or a hoof take shape. Not long after, everyone, aside from Snape, had joined in on the practice session; a silvery otter was swimming its way through the room gracefully, and a beautiful horse with a flowing mane had its head tilted downward confusedly as a small silver terrier ran figure eights frantically between its legs. The room was full of happiness as they all laughed at the antics of their respective guardians. Harry had refrained from re-summoning his as he continued to try and fine-tune Sarah’s technique. Snape was still seated in the high-backed chair, his arms crossed as he watched.

“Severus,” Sarah spoke up after a while, “Where’s yours?” she asked.

“I’d rather not,” he replied, though not unkindly.

It had grown quite dark outside by the time Sarah made her next breakthrough. Ginny, Hermione, Ron, and even Snape, were all enjoying hot butterbeer that had been brought up for them by Kreacher, while Harry continued toiling with Sarah, determined to have her produce a Patronus. Finally, at about seven o’clock, Sarah shut her eyes tightly, filled herself with the happiest thoughts she could possibly imagine, and thrust her wand forward.

“Expecto Patronum!” she shouted. There was a soft, distant rumble that sounded almost like a roar, and the silvery light that emerged from her wand began swirling tumultuously, as if it was trying to take shape. Sarah’s eyes were still shut tight, and everyone else was watching excitedly. Unfortunately, the light fizzled away before it took shape.

“Again!” Harry shouted, “Quickly!”

Sarah clenched her teeth together hard in focus.

“Expecto Patronum!” she shouted again. This time, immediately, and to several surprised gasps, a large, sleek, fierce-looking lioness erupted from the tip of Sarah’s wand, her lithe form landing silently on the floor of the study, where she immediately began to pace back and forth in a very cat-like manner. Sarah knew she had been successful when she could see, through her eyelids, a silvery shimmer of light illuminating the room. She opened her eyes, grinning from ear to ear, as she beheld the Patronus that she herself had produced. She could hardly believe it. Perhaps it was all the happy thoughts she had produced in order to summon it, or perhaps it was the sheer amount of warm, positive energy exuded by the large, silvery cat, but she could not recall ever feeling so elated.

“Well done!” Ginny shouted with a smile, clapping her hands excitedly.

Hermione and Harry joined in the applause, Snape gave a pleased and approving nod, while Ron raised his glass of butterbeer on high.

“A Patronus fitting of a Gryffindor if ever I saw one,” he said happily, and then took a large swig.

“Hear, hear!” Ginny and Hermione cheered simultaneously, taking a drink. Even Snape drank to it, although discreetly.

A moment later, the lioness dissipated as though she were nothing more than a puff of smoke. Sarah was still standing quite still, her eyes fixed upon the spot where the lioness had faded, as if it were still standing there.

It was this joyous event that got their New Year’s Eve celebrations underway. The evening was spent in the study, the fire roaring brightly. Kreacher had apparently been able to sense when their celebration had got underway, and everyone was soon commenting that the amount of different types of food that Kreacher knew how to prepare was rivaled only by the staggering variety of wine and spirits that he was supplying them with. Sarah, who had quickly found herself enamored with the spirits of the wizarding world during her trip to the Leaky Cauldron, was enjoying herself immensely.

“Kreacher, where have you been keeping all of this?” Sarah asked amusedly when the elf brought yet another tray laden with beverages into the room and set it down upon the coffee table.

“Kreacher can’t reveal all of his secrets, miss,” the house-elf said coyly, giving Sarah a bow and backing out of the room.

“No wonder,” Ron said with a laugh, “From the looks of things, he’s afraid that you’ll drink him dry!”

“Oh, come on, I haven’t drank that--” Sarah hiccupped mid sentence, to uproarious laughter. “—much,” she finished, laughing. “Nevermind.”

When it was nearing midnight, Snape had excused himself to visit the washroom. A few moments later, Sarah had taken advantage of the fact that Harry, Ginny, and Ron were now in a deep discussion about Quidditch in order to follow him quietly. Hermione, never having been all that interested in Quidditch to begin with, eyed Sarah’s back knowingly as she watched her slink out of the room behind Snape.

Sarah stood out in the hall on the landing, her back leaned up against the wall next to the door of the washroom while she waited for Snape to emerge. It a few minutes later when the doorknob clicked, and Snape made his way back out into the hall. Slightly surprised by the girl’s presence, he stood up straight as he regarded her, an eyebrow quirked.

“I am sorry,” he said, “I was unaware that a line had formed, otherwise I would have been out more quickly.”

Sarah smiled up at him, standing up off of the wall.

“It’s not that,” Sarah assured him, “I was just thinking,” she began quietly, “What are we going to do at midnight?”

Snape’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “We shall ring in the New Year, of course. I believe you may have had enough to drink if you have forgotten that much.”

“No, no, I mean--,” she continued. Snape, she realized, might be completely unaware of the tradition of kissing at midnight. Perhaps it was a Muggle tradition? “You know, at midnight on New Year’s Eve, people usually kiss.”

“Oh, that,” Snape said. His expression suddenly became soft, and it seemed as if he wasn’t standing up quite so straight anymore as he craned his neck down toward the girl. “You mean, you wish to—in the presence of your friends?”

“Sure, why not?” Sarah replied confidently, “You heard Harry. Ginny and Hermione already know.”

“And the Weasley boy?” Snape inquired with a smirk. Granger, he knew, had accidentally been told about their relationship by Potter, and he could certainly hand it to the Weasley girl for being intuitive enough to guess it on her own, but Ronald, he knew, had probably not guessed a thing.

“He’ll get over it,” Sarah said dismissively.

“Not quite so easily, I am sure,” Snape reminded her.

“I know,” Sarah sighed, moving closer to him and wrapping her arms about his neck affectionately, “But everyone else knows. I’m sure once he figures that out everything will be just fine. Besides, he’s got Hermione. If anyone can talk some sense into him, she can.”

“I certainly do not wish, tonight, to have to perform any Unbreakable Vows upon the terms that no one reveal this to anyone else,” Snape drawled, placing his hands upon the girl’s waist and gazing meaningfully into her eyes.

“You won’t have to,” she assured him. “Even if you don’t, I trust them completely. So what do you say?”

Snape thought to himself for a moment before giving a small nod.

“If you wish it, it will be so,” he told her.

After the girl smiled brightly up at him, they parted, and headed back into the study.

“Where have you two been?” Ron spoke up at once, pointing to the large grandfather clock set against the wall on the far side of the room. He and Harry had dragged it down from the attic a bit earlier with much effort, as this was the same grandfather clock that had once shot heavy bolts at passersby. Luckily, no one had gotten any closer to it for the rest of the evening. “It’s almost time!”

Harry attempted to ignore the fact that Ginny and Hermione were both shooting him looks.

“So it is,” Snape remarked as he and Sarah entered the room.

Hermione and Ron were seated comfortably upon the sofa, and Harry sat with Ginny on the plush rug close to the fireplace. Sarah moved to sit near them, and quite unexpectedly to everyone but her, Snape did not seat himself in the high-backed chair once again, but instead followed her, seating himself in a most uncharacteristic manner upon the floor. Ron shrugged it off and took another swig of his drink, but Hermione and Ginny were now blushing slightly and trying their very best not to look at them. Harry, determined to diffuse the situation, glanced to the clock again.

“Look,” he said, trying to mask the slight nervousness in his voice as he watched the thin second hand of the clock ticking along quickly; he knew what Snape and Sarah must be up to, “Ten seconds.”

“Ten,” they all said.

A log in the fire popped loudly.

“Nine,”

There was a clanking of glass as Ron set his drink down.

“Eight,”

Another clank as Hermione set hers down as well.

“Seven,”

Ginny leaned closer to Harry.

“Six,”

Hermione leaned closer to Ron.

“Five,”

Sarah leaned closer to Snape.

“Four,”

Harry and Ginny smiled at one another.

“Three,”

Hermione put her hand in Ron’s.

“Two,”

A log in the fire shifted. The firelight flared.

“One,”

The clock began chiming midnight loudly. No one shouted ‘Happy New Year’ as all of the lips in the room were locked. Sarah felt her heart leap, and felt a new level of happiness as Snape kissed her passionately, (although not too passionately… he had decided that this would probably be obscene-looking enough to all of the other eyes in the room) in full view of her friends. Her eyes were closed, and she had no idea if anyone was watching them, but she was thrilled.

Harry and Ginny broke apart first, and smiled at one another again before Ginny looked curiously, with a blush, at the sight beside her. Harry, who had already seen it before, tried his best not to look. Instead he glanced over in Ron’s direction, preparing for the inevitable, just as he was breaking his kiss with Hermione.

“Happy New Year, Hermione, I--”, he began, but in the corner of his eye, caught sight of Sarah and Snape, who, despite all of the others in the room, were still kissing.

“OI!!”


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


A/N: There you have chapter 27! Ha ha, sorry to leave it at that, but I thought it would be a cute way to end the chapter. Silly Ron. I hope you enjoyed it. I definitely thought we needed a more lighthearted and happier chapter after some of the gruesome events in the last one. Be forewarned, though, the events of the next chapter may take a much darker turn!

Again, I apologize for the delay in updating. The semester was dreadful. I had a terrible class schedule which required me to wake up early every single weekday morning, (which is bad for my writing, since I usually do most of my writing late at night) and I had a pretty stressful workload. Thankfully, though, I am on winter break now. I will be aiming to have another chapter out before my break is over, and it will probably be more lengthy than this one (this one was a bit shorter than some of the more recent chapters which have gotten quite long). So don’t despair!

Thank you again for the reviews that I receive. They really keep me going. I would love to get some more!

Did you all get a chance to read “The Tales of Beedle the Bard”? It definitely gave me a much-needed HP fix, especially since I have been lamenting the fact that the Half-Blood Prince movie could be in theaters right now if WB weren’t such a bunch of greedy jerks who wanted a bigger box office draw. I did, however, get a sense of satisfaction when Beedle the Bard immediately knocked Twilight off the #1 spot on the Bestseller list. I’m sure the same thing would have happened at the box office of the movies had come out at the same time -.-

Also, did you hear about the Harry Potter Museum Exhibition?! I’m so excited about it! I’m sure it will be awesome.

As always, thank you SO much for reading, and please leave a review if you would be so kind. : )

Stay tuned!