ENIGMA

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

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

Fantasy/Drama

This story is rated R/M.

ENIGMA

Chapter 006: Apt Pupil

Jessica had been cooped up in a part of the infirmary used for matters necessitating quarantine, not that anyone could really recall such drastic measures ever being needed at Hogwarts. For two weeks she’d listened clandestinely at students and faculty with any number of strange complaints and ailments from behind a closed and locked door. One stormy Saturday Harry Potter was brought in amidst howls of outrage though apparently he himself was unconscious. Jessica could barely make out what was being said, but the one word that stuck out was ‘Dementors’.

Her blood ran cold and she recalled the chapter from the third book detailing how Dark creatures called Dementors had invaded the Quidditch pitch and caused Potter to fall from his broom during a match; more than one spectator had likely thought he’d met an untimely end. The weather surely didn’t help, she thought as she looked outside at the deluge of wind and rain hammering it down. She was lonely, very lonely and longed for some company.

Lupin had seemingly vanished, but looking at the calendar on the wall it was obvious he was locked away for his monthly transformation. At least he only had to deal with being a wolf, since Snape was brewing the Wolfsbane Potion which prevented Lupin from turning into a full-fledged werewolf. She could only wonder what both men would make of just how much she knew of their past, present and uncertain future.

Snape.

It had been almost a week since Jessica had seen the Potions Master. It seemed so strange that he, of all people, would call on her and ask her to trust him. Trust didn’t come easy for her and she sure as hell didn’t think it came easy for him either given what she thought she knew about the man. Why – why did he ask that? What did he want? Did she need to be as wary of him as others here seemed to be? Dumbledore wasn’t – but Dumbledore was supposedly the Greatest Wizard of the Age and most important he was using Snape; that was the difference.

Jessica swore under her breath. She hated knowing so much or at least seeming to know so much. More than anything she detested having to monitor and weigh every word. She had almost slipped up a couple times, and it was driving her to despair that this wasn’t a dream that she could just wake up from. If only it were that simple. What she wouldn’t give for the Time Turner that she knew Hermione Granger was in possession of. Then again, a fat lot of good it would do her – it couldn’t get her back to where she’d come from.

Where exactly was it that she had come from?

How did it happen?

Why her?

And why was it that a non-magical person like her could see and experience this world?

The more Jessica obsessed over her predicament overwhelmed by loneliness, the more she was reminded of just how insignificant she was and how much she had truly lost.

…xxxXXXxxx…

It was late, far too late to be calling on anyone – even at Hogwarts. But Snape had had his hands full with the rigors of his job teaching Potions and being the Head of Slytherin House. Add the expected complications with playing watcher over Harry Potter as he’d had to for the last few years and it was no wonder he did not have any semblance of a life, not that he’d ever had.

Life.

He had forfeited his right to a real life long ago. And not just the once.

Twice.

Twice he had sold his now-shattered soul to the highest bidder and twice he had paid a price. Too heavy a price for his taste, but then he was certain there were many who would argue the exact opposite. His mind strayed to the stranger in their midst. No, it had stopped straying; the sporadic contemplation had transformed itself into something more certain and purposeful. There were too many unanswered questions – but only two mattered.

It was those two which drove Severus Snape to seek out the company of the only known Muggle to have ever set foot in the wizarding world – and live.

…xxxXXXxxx…

He wanted to be tough with her – dammit he should be tough with her. She was nothing to him, really; nothing. She was here for the foreseeable future, no question. By the time McGonagall got done with her, Jessica Newkirk would barely remember that she was not born to this world. She would settle into her new life – a new life that had nothing to do with him. She would have nothing to do with him and in kind could expect the same as everyone else from him…Nothing.

Having convinced himself that no good could come of associating with Jessica Newkirk regardless of the answers she might hold to his questions, Professor Snape found himself hesitating outside of her room in the infirmary. A room – he wouldn’t have wished that airless cell she was locked in on a house-elf. He cursed himself, thinking what business was it of his? The woman was damned lucky to even still be alive.

Dumbledore wasn’t exactly the kindly old wise sage that everyone else held him up to be.

And in the Headmaster’s service, one’s life was as he dictated. Jessica Newkirk would find that out for herself, Snape was sure of it. But she was alive, and no less because of Dumbledore’s apparent mercy. But the Headmaster wanted answers as well, despite all appearances to the contrary. Miss Newkirk was a pawn, a very valuable and useful pawn, perhaps even more than he with his nefarious ties to the Dark Lord.

But was she?

Was she really?

The woman didn’t known any more than the rest of them about her most peculiar predicament; even he was no dunderhead such as to believe otherwise. There was something about her, however. And that unknown something is what convinced Snape to not return to his quarters and instead step through the door.

…xxxXXXxxx…

Jessica was tucked up in bed, sipping the last of the healing draughts she’d been prescribed by him. Her healing had come along well thanks to the efforts of the school’s most hated resident. Even a squib would have rudimentary knowledge of spells, potions, transfiguration and charms work so she had studying the texts that students would have read when she was at school as McGonagall instructed. Given Jessica’s age, she would have been in the same year as Snape and Lupin; which was also the same year as James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and Lily Evans (who had married James not long after leaving school if Jessica’s guesswork was right). Tonight was no different than any other night or day had been since she’d been locked away in her prison, supposedly for her own good: she studied – morning, noon, night and late night all she did was study.

“You look much better, Miss Newkirk,” came a soft voice interrupting her note-taking.

Jessica had several large parchment-filled books and was still struggling to get comfortable with using a quill to write with. She hated it; she hated it beyond belief. What she hated even more was not having her laptop. In fan fiction everything always worked out so that protagonists had modern accoutrements at the school: ballpoint pens, laser printers, stereo systems, computers. Hell – they had all manner of makes and models of things that hadn’t even been bloody invented during the timeline of Harry Potter’s years as a Hogwarts student. No such luck in this nightmare that was her life now.

“Oh, um – thank you, Professor,” she said rubbing her eyes and then her temples.

“Is your head bothering you?”

“Just my eyes – the doctor keeps saying I need reading glasses…” Jessica’s face fell; it was yet another reference to another time and place; a time and place that no longer had anything to do with her. There was nowhere to sit but on her bed, she closed the big notebook she had been writing in and the Potions text she had been making notes from and placed them on the floor.

“What is the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?” Snape asked sitting on the edge of the bed as there was no other furniture in the room save a small table next to the bed. One false move and he would end up on the floor. A most undignified position that he was determined would not be his fate.

“There is no difference: they are the same plant which also goes by the name of Aconite…” she replied casually. Any Harry Potter fan could have reeled that off the top of their head – as it was part of Snape’s very first verbal assault on Harry Potter in his first potions class.

Snape sniffed and continued asking questions for the next half hour. Jessica didn’t do too badly – she only missed 7 out of 50. She was very pleased with herself, as she’d had ample time to study for her exam and had worked hard, although the exam wasn’t supposed to be until the following morning. She worked harder than a lot of students enrolled at the school and that impressed the few who knew of her and served as her tutors.

It wasn’t in the Potions Master’s nature to offer praise and true to form, he didn’t. There was a reason for that; but as with most things concerning Snape – there was a reason for everything he did and did not do.

Just like Jessica.

He reviewed the questions she’d gotten wrong after recording her mark in a ledger and gave her even more assignments. So used was he to complaining and muttering that her acquiescent silence almost unnerved him. No matter how hard or difficult he was, she was always polite. Even when he sensed the resentment he knew was there – Jessica Newkirk gave him the respect he was due as one of her tutors. The more polite she was the more work she was given by him.

Snape was nothing less than merciless with her and once again she was unfailingly even tempered. He was so taken aback that he forgot about the original purpose of his visit.

“Is there anything else?” Jessica asked quietly as she finished noting all the essays he wanted finished over the next two days. He did not care and it did not matter that she was overloaded already; his work was just as important as anyone else’s. He made those and a number of other scathing remarks. Still there was no reaction, just note-taking.

Snape looked down his nose at the stranger and her stacks of books. Even Granger would have cracked under this much pressure, that insufferable know-it-all Gryffindor swot. He’d enjoyed making her crack many times and still did. That made sense to him – and his formidable instincts told him something was not right about this.

“Why do you take it!” he hissed. “Why do you not react when provoked!”

“What good would it do me except to bring more of what I don’t want or need my way, Professor? I don’t have the advantage in this situation – the best I can do is get stuck in and keep my head down. I hate this, ok; I hate being stuck up here like some kind of Rapunzel locked away from the world. But what choice do I have? By rights you people should just do away with me apparently – I’ve heard Pomfrey – it’s what she would do. She would have offed me and not thought twice about it. And when all is said and done Dumbledore could do just that she says. Once the mystery is solved – he won’t be so stupid such as to let me get out of here not even if it was to make it back only to be killed by those maniacs… And he won’t take a chance that tampering with my memories could give only a temporary result. I heard her – this is my life now as much as I really don’t want it to be – it’s my life for as long as your Headmaster allows me to be here!”

Jessica threw the last remaining book on her bed to the floor, not caring how petulant it seemed. Her eye stung from unshed tears and she realised she was telling the truth. Truth was stranger than fiction and the truth was that more than anything, Jessica Newkirk wanted to anywhere but here.

…xxxXXXxxx…

A month later Jessica was fully healed and it was McGonagall who showed her to her new home at Hogwarts. She was being housed in a rather discreet location that would afford her a great deal of privacy away from prying eyes and enquiring minds. The stranger followed politely as McGonagall showed her around the rooms. Despite the huge numbers of rooms in the castle, Jessica was not given anything that was particularly spacious; the old one bedroom flat in Fulham was bigger than what would be her home within these walls. But she couldn’t complain. Things could have been much worse.

“I hope you will find your accommodation satisfactory,” McGonagall said crisply.

The rooms were bland and threadbare. Only the basics were set out and it was clear that Jessica would have to make do until she could afford to spruce things up if she so chose. Once a stranger, always a stranger, Jessica thought. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She listened for the tell-tale sound of the click of the locks once McGonagall crossed the threshold and then threw herself down on the old sofa that sat near the unlit fireplace in the sitting room.

Only after McGonagall’s footsteps faded away did it occur to her that perhaps the last thing Dumbledore or any of them really wanted was for her to feel like Hogwarts, and by extension their world, was now truly her home.

…xxxXXXxxx…

Snape walked sullenly across the grounds one cold, windswept Friday afternoon just before the Christmas holidays. As tended to be the case these days, his mind wandered back to the stranger – the wonder that was Jessica Newkirk. She was miraculous and had not a clue just how special she was. But of course, the Headmaster was very determined to continue with his charade until all options had been exhausted.

Dumbledore was no closer to finding out how Jessica Newkirk managed to survive traveling through the Stones than when she’d first tumbled into their midst. And now Miss Newkirk was proving to be quite the student, though given the circumstances she had very little choice.

There was still that something about her despite her palpable unhappiness. That something caused the Potions Master to think of her though it really was not prudent to do so. He kicked out frustratedly and his foot connected with something that wasn’t a rock or bit of debris. From the ensuing howls of pain it seemed that some poor unfortunate creature that no doubt had wandered too far from its home in the Forbidden Forest.

Snape snarled a few curses under his breath and then bent down to see what damage he’d done. He looked at the creature with wide eyes once he recognised it for what it was.

“Hagrid – for Merlin’s sake!” he hissed loudly as he scooped up the shivering little bundle of purple fluff that was now crying and tucked it under his robes. Unknown to him, the woman who preyed on his mind watched from her sitting room window.

The Potions Master turned around sharply and walked down a winding path that took him down to the hut where Hagrid lived. The Groundsman was the resident expert on magical creatures – certainly more knowledgeable than the actual Care of Magical Creatures Professor who was too long in the tooth to be teaching anymore.

Jessica watched discreetly from her window as Professor Snape made his way to Hagrid’s and pounded on the door. Hagrid opened the door and then suddenly seemed quite alarmed. He ushered the professor in and she barely made out Snape placing the little ball of fluff on the table before the door was shut.

She walked back to her sofa and sat down, but found she could no longer concentrate on the Charms essay she was supposed to finish. Her mind wandered to the scene that she had just witnessed. It wouldn’t do to come over with fan-girly thoughts about it. Snape was just doing what anyone would, of course he was. There was nothing more to what he’d just done than him doing the right thing. But the easiest thing he could have done, and the one thing that another type of person might have done would have been to just leave the unfortunate creature out in the freezing cold to die from its injuries.

Severus Snape was a lot of things, many of them not very nice, but he wasn’t what he was all those years ago – in the time of the First War of Voldemort in the Wizarding world. He wasn’t a cold-hearted Death Eater who only existed to do his Master’s bidding. She really wanted to believe that – though given certain events in Book 6 she could easily think otherwise.

“You don’t know that,” she admonished herself out loud. “You don’t know anything about him or anyone else…fucking Rapunzel locked up in her goddamn ivory tower!”

Jessica swept her books from the low table in front of her and then curled up on the sofa. She had not been sleeping for very long when there was a knock at her door. She reluctantly opened her eyes to the sight of a tall, thin figure in black crossing her threshold carrying a small basket, frowning at the books and quills strewn across the floor…she’d obviously had a fit a temper.

Snape didn’t quite know what to say and just thrust the basket at her. Jessica looked at him wearily and then took the basket. As she peered beneath a makeshift blanket, she recognised the little purple ball of fluff resting peacefully.

The Potions Master looked around the room. If ever a room screamed out ‘depression’ it was this room – almost a mirror image to his own in Slytherin House.

“It is not impossible to gain some practical experience with magical creatures,” Snape finally said by way of an excuse as he gestured idly to the basket. “And you will find such experience useful…”

Jessica didn’t look at him as she gently stroked the little fluff and heard a distinct breezy sigh from it.

“Right,” she replied, though she had serious doubts about the explanation she was being provided with. It wasn’t like Snape to take so long in saying whatever he wanted said. “Looks like a Jarvey to me…”

Snape quirked an eyebrow. “Very good…”

Jessica held back a smirk. “I’ll call him Harvey…”

“Harvey the Jarvey?”

Snape rolled his eyes and for the first time since arriving Jessica laughed. The more she looked at the cringing Potions Master the harder she laughed.

“As you know so little but are easily amused, it would seem a change of scenery would do you good,” Snape said as the corners of his mouth twitched.

“Go on – you know you want to,” Jessica roared crying with laughter at how much he was restraining himself from smiling. It was obvious to her that he wanted to.

“Miss Newkirk…”

“Can’t deduct points from me, Professor…”

“Astute observation; but I can leave you here to further amuse yourself.”

“RIGHT!”

“I take it you have come to your senses?”

“Are you…are you asking me out, Professor?”

Snape looked irritated and folded his arms across his chest.

“I am taking you out – I don’t see anyone else here.”

“Gee, thanks…”

Jessica picked up the little fluffy ball and held it close to her, gently stroking its back. The Jarvey settled on her chest, uncurling slightly and resting its round head on dainty paws that were more like fingers. She looked at it closely.

“He looks like a Teletubby and very furry one at that…only without the thingy at the top of his head”

“A what?”

“Teletubby – Teletubbies was a very popular children’s tv programme years ago aimed at toddlers It was rubbish really; the characters spoke this baby language in these tiny baby voices and there was no point to any of the episodes I had a peep at. And there was nothing educational about it – maybe that’s why the kiddies went mad for them. Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Po…god almighty even their names were stupid…Over the hills and far away, the Teletubbies come to play…”

“Mummy?” came a pitiful little squeak.

Jessica nearly dropped the poor thing from shock. “Jesus Christ – he sounds like one too!”

“Mummy?” the Jarvey asked again tearfully.

“Severus – he’s lost isn’t he? Harvey can’t be more than a baby…”

“It is true that he is an infant,” Snape said thoughtfully, though inwardly he was recovering from the shock of hearing his name from her lips for the first time. Coming from her it sounded – nice. “But to have been on the grounds as he was it seems a reasonable assumption that he was cast out and left to die.”

“That’s horrible!” Jessica said as she looked tenderly at the crying creature. “Why…?”

“He is unusually small and quite gentle, traits most unbecoming to his kind. Suffice it to say he was rejected for being weak. Hagrid can provide more information on the subject.”

“Mummy?”

“He seems to be rather attached to you Miss Newkirk.”

Jessica opened her mouth in astonishment. She had read about Jarveys and was well aware of their fragility in infancy, their ferociousness notwithstanding. Hagrid must be very good with creatures, she thought, for Harvey to still be alive. This Jarvey would never be the fearsome, rude, aggressive menace that his kind generally was. He was an anomaly in this world – just like she was.

“No child should be left to fend for themselves,” she muttered. “He was abandoned relatively recently then; he couldn’t have survived for very long on his own. He needs his mother…a mother…he needs someone to look after him.”

His face unreadable, Snape nodded and then sat down next to her.

“I’ll take care of you,” she said softly cradling the trembling little ball and gently rocking it to sleep.

“Your instincts are sound ones,” Snape said quietly after a time watching them. “It would seem you have quite a gift in empathy and caring, Miss Newkirk.”

Jessica smiled faintly and then began to sing softly. Snape watched as the Jarvey was lulled into a deep slumber.

“Another gift…” Snape muttered.

Jessica looked at him questioningly.

“Your voice,” the Potions Master said softly, looking away from her.

Without thinking twice about it Jessica Newkirk leaned over, turned his face to hers and gave Professor Snape a kiss; his first in a very long time.