Forgiveness

This chapter was beta'ed by Drusilla of Perfect Imagination.

Forgiveness

Chapter 7

Early the next day, Severus met the Doctor coming out of her bungalow. She smiled and waved. “Spane, have you had breakfast yet?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Severus answered with a slight inclination of his head.

She laughed, tossing her hair out of her face, the auburn waves glowing gold in the early light. “We're not at work yet; it's Antonia. Come with me to the canteen. I haven't had my coffee and I'm a bear without it. I suppose you drink tea?”

“Only in the evening,” he answered. He was unused to having to make small-talk. Over the years he had avoided the denizens of Hogwarts by assuming duties that would take him away from the other teachers. He had also avoided most students at all costs. He chanced a glance at the woman beside him, and noted the same probing gaze on her face as the evening before. He said in desperation for something to break her focused consideration, “I suppose I could join you for a cup of coffee.”

“Don't make it sound like a punishment,” she said as she began walking toward a small building at the end of the row of cottages. “You know, if you don't want to cook all the time, the canteen is open to the kids, too. We have a pretty good staff of freed Brownies.”

“Brownies?” Severus was momentarily at a loss.

The doctor laughed aloud. “Oh yeah, you guys call them house-elves. The ones in the States have been manumitted. The Thirteenth Ammendment, the way it was worded, freed all slaves. I don't think that was the intention, but I read that within minutes of its ratification, the whole race of domestic elves was presented with clothes. There was quite a rebellion over that. Most of the Brownies went back to England, but a few stayed on. Most that did, were hybrids between Leprechauns or native wood sprites and house-elves.”

“I see,” Severus said. They had come to the door, and Severus opened it for the doctor to pass, with a slight bow.

“Oh, thanks.” She entered and held the door open with her hand, gesturing for him to enter with her. “Just don't think that Brownies will act like the house-elves in England. They don't take orders well. Requests are fine, and gifts are helpful if you offend them.”

They entered a cavernous, obviously charmed room. The interior was functional at best, with tan walls and industrial tiles of indeterminate colour. The furnishings were eclectic in the range of styles displayed. The doctor grimaced. “It's not much, but we call it home. Come on, I'll show you around.”

After a short, uneventful tour in which Severus was introduced to the Brownie staff, the doctor ushered him to a table in the middle of the hall. The blissful look on her face as she sipped her black coffee amused Severus. He spooned sugar into his cup and joined her. After moments of silence between them, she asked, “You said you studied under two Potions Masters; how did that happen?”

&*&*&

“Severus, wake up.” Lucius' voice broke through the nightmare of death and destruction that Severus dreamed. Severus struggled to sit up, his mind still seeing his father's face, still smelling the noxious miasma of his death. The Dreamless Sleep was not working anymore. It had been three months since he had taken care of his duty to his mother, and he had since been plagued by nightmares every night. Malfoy had invited him to stay at the Manor during his final Easter break from Hogwarts, to enable him to better serve the Dark Lord. Severus stretched his long limbs and opened his eyes to the very troubled face of his friend. The blond wizard asked, “What the bloody hell is this?”

Malfoy, who rarely cursed, the act being too coarse for a man of his social standing, was glowering at Severus, holding a cobalt potions bottle in his hand. “That, Lucius, is a bottle. Is that why you woke me?”

“Don't be an arse, Severus. I know this potion. Did you use it?” the older wizard demanded, his voice nearly breaking on the last words.

“Why do I suspect you already have the answer?” Severus shrugged, not able to meet the other man's eyes. “And if I did?”

“The night of the party, when you found out about your father, you had already used it, hadn't you?” Lucius' concern irritated Severus, as had everything these past three months. “Why?”

Severus answered, with feigned diffidence, “I had some unpleasant business to which I had to attend.”

“You took it to kill him, didn't you?” Lucius flung the bottle away. It landed with a soft thud against the silk-covered wall. “Merlin's bollocks, Severus, do you know what Veradunus* Potion can do to you? It can kill your soul or cause you to go mad with remorse after it wears off.”

“I can read, Lucius. I thought it worth the risk.” Severus made to get out of bed.

“You'll end up like Bellatrix. Or worse... Him.” Both men knew not to speak ill of the Dark Lord at any time, even in the vaguest of terms. That his friend did, spoke of his alarm. Lucius pinned Severus against the bed, his hand around his upper arm. “You're leaving England at the end of the term. I've accepted the apprenticeship for you with Maisters Ursus Major and Minor in Bavaria. I have arranged for you to have funds available at Gringotts out of my own accounts. If service to the Dark Lord means you have to risk madness and the death of your soul, Severus, then the price is too high.”

“It was no service to the Dark Lord that I performed, and you know it,” Severus hissed as he shook his friend's hand off. “My mother asked it of me.”

“The bitch,” Lucius spat.

Severus sighed. “That she was, but she was the only one that gave a tinker's damn about me.”

“I care, Severus,” Lucius whispered as he ran a hand over his chest, as if to rub away a transient pain.

“Do you, Lucius? I always assumed you kept me around to make you look better. Magnanimous Lucius Malfoy, who allows the ugly half-blood to eat at his table, like a kept monkey. Oh, but I forgot, my blood status is too much of an embarassment to your wife,” Severus scoffed, his voice mocking. “How will you use this latest gesture to your advantage? Will my penury be the topic of pitied conversation over dinner parties? Or will you use my skill to further your position in the ranks of our Brethren? Leave off, Lucius, I've known you too long to believe your protestations of devotion.”

“Believe what you will of me, Severus, but know that I will not allow you to destroy yourself,” Lucius said, his voice a mocking caress. “I need to know that you are available if things go pear-shaped. You will leave at the end of the term, and I will explain your absence to the Dark Lord.”

&*&*&

The doctor was waiting, coffee in hand, for his reply. He shook himself from his reverie.

“I was fortunate in the friends I had. One acted as patron and sponsored me with two of the best Potions Masters in Europe, a father and son who took only two other apprentices in their long careers,” Severus answered steadily. Then asked, wanting to change the topic from himself and his past, “Tell me, is it common practice for Healers to also become physicians in this country, Dr. Dance?”

“Antonia, and not really.” The doctor began spreading cream cheese on her bagel, not meeting his eyes. “My father is a Muggle. He insisted that I receive private tutoring in Muggle sciences and arts. When I became interested in becoming a Healer, it was just a natural extension for me to get my medical degree also. Great Britain had just started a programme and so I interned at Queen's Hospital and St. Mungo's. Thank God for Time-Turners.”

“Ah, yes, Mr. McGowan did say you spent time in England.” Severus nodded, taking another sip of the bitter-sweet brew.

The doctor's face went blank for a moment as she said carefully, “Brick has a big mouth.”

“I did not mean to pry.” Severus was taken aback at the woman's sudden mood shift. Merlin knew, he would not appreciate enquiry into his past activities any more than the doctor seemed to relish them.

She bit viciously into the bagel, chewed and swallowed, before saying, “I know you didn't mean to get nosey, but I may as well tell you, just to get the B.S. out of the way. I was imprisoned at Azkaban after the Voldemort war. I was a member of a team of physicians and Healers from the World Health Organization after my internship. We had volunteered on several missions before: one in Rwanda; another in Somalia. We worked with curse victims . When WHO asked for volunteers to help in Great Britain, my team went. We were at the Battle of Hogwarts, and got caught behind the lines. My fiance and several other Healers died when we were attacked by Acromantulas, of all things. In the confusion after the battle, the rest of us were incarcerated by the Ministry of Magic. I stayed on for a few months after my release to tend to the injured prisoners. I wasn't very popular.”

“I am sorry for your troubles,” Severus said, at a loss for anything more comforting to say.

“No need to be, unless you were there when I got captured,” she said, her tone bitter. “You weren't were you?”

Severus did not blink as he said, “No, I was occupied elsewhere at the time.”

&*&*&

Severus spent the better part of the morning attempting to organise the Potions laboratory. The former occupant of the suite of rooms had left it in complete disarray. The doctor had asked a Brownie to be at his disposal if he needed. After several hours of pointless shuffling of detritus from one area to the other, Severus finally threw up his hands in despair. A small, low-voiced query from the corner of the room startled him.

“Does the Potions Master give up?” a small brown creature, much like a house-elf, but without the irritating cringing, asked. “We would be happy to help him, if given the proper gifts.”

“No, I bloody well do not give up,” Severus barked to the creature's great amusement. “Furthermore, I will not give you a gift for doing a job to which you were assigned.”

It twittered, a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. “I is thinking this Potion's Master is different from the last one. I is also thinking that the Dark Mark this one carries has a different meaning than the Potions Master's before.”

“Do not attempt to blackmail me.” Severus cast his eyes down to his completely cloth-encased left arm then glared at the creature, who merely smiled as its bulging eyes and thin lips took on a sly cast.

The creature bowed mockingly, its head brushing the floor. “No, never blackmail, you is a man of many secrets, no doubt about that, it is not this Brownie's place to tell anyone about them. I is only wanting us to understand each other. I is Mari, and I is telling you not to expect cringing foolishness from me. We is Freed Brownies here, not like those enslaved in your homeland.”

“So I've been informed,” Severus said sourly, turning back to the jumble of ingredients before him. “You may tell the other creatures that I have been made aware of your status. Leave now.”

The irritating creature remained. “You is not liking Mari, but she will remain. Severus Snape is a great man, even amongst us Freed Brownies.”

“Do not ever utter that name again,” Severus hissed as he moved to tower over the creature menacingly. “There is no one by that name here, only Russell Spane.”

The Brownie laughed. “As I said before, Mari is keeping your secrets. I is only here to help the great man no matter what name he uses.”

“Well get busy then, and do not bollocks things up any further than they already are,” Severus snapped. He turned back to his work, slightly uneasy about the creature's knowledge of his secrets.

&*&*&

The Old Woman was making fry bread again, her hands beating the rhythmic slapping noises that Severus had grown used to over the last months. A hot breeze blew in the room, a zephyr wind that brought ill-tidings. Severus sipped his tea, an iced concoction the Old Woman preferred over the more civilised and entirely too hot ambrosia Severus favoured. He felt the ice clink against his teeth, still painful from the visit he had made to the dentist this afternoon while the Old Woman was at Rapid City Regional Hospital confirming her own diagnosis. “Boy, you haven't asked my what the doctor said."

“Is there a need?” Severus asked dryly. “You already had the diagnosis by the Rosebud Clinic, and I had a Healer come for you. You are dying. There are no questions.”

The words were bitter in his mouth, ashes and bile. He hated her at the moment for coaxing him to feel something for her and the two children, only to have the tender feelings ripped from his breast, once more.

“You're a hard one, ennit?” she said, her hands still patting dough industriously, her mouth curved in a thin smile. “I know a lot of people hurt you bad, boy, but I need you to pull yourself together for them two in there. I want you to watch them for me while I do my dyin', cause I think you're the one they love the most.”

'Love.” Severus hurled the world form his mouth. “No one has ever loved me, Old Woman. Manipulated me, used me, discarded me, yes. Love? No. Find someone else to whom you can spoon that pabulum.”

“You tellin' me you don't feel nothin' for them two?” The Old Woman carefully placed the dough in the iron frying pan, so the grease would not pop.

“I made it my career to feel nothing for anyone, except maybe mild contempt.” Severus took another sip of tea, growing used to the pain.

"Boy, I dreamed last night of a white man with white hair that cried like a baby when he was told you died.” the Old Woman said, turning the bread. “He was a bad man that done bad things, but he cared for you, like a brother. I know. I seen it.”

Severus wanted to scoff but knew the Old Woman was, more often than not, speaking the truth. Lucius was yet another one of the long list of people he had failed. The wizard stood, knocking back the iced-tea in one smooth draw. “I will do what I must, Madam. When the time comes, I will take the children with me. Do not ask for more from me; I cannot give it.”

She pulled the bread out of the hot grease and handed it to him on a paper plate. “Here; the first one's always for you.”

&*&*&

Severus came home dirty and tired from his day's labours. The Brownie, Mari, accompanied him to the house, whittering on about taking care of the children and cooking a proper meal. No doubt the breed had inherited traits designed specifically to irritate Severus. He turned to the creature as he opened the front door. “I will suffer your presence only so long as you remain silent.”

Mari's ears drooped, as her English counterparts’ might, but the warning gleam in her eye was wholly her own. “You is going to owe plenty of gifts by the time you leave here.”

Joseph Pony was stirring pancake batter when he saw her and he gave a little yelp. “Uncle 'Rus, how did you come to bring a Chapa spirit home?”

“I is not Chapa, I is Mari. Chapa was my many greats-grandfather.” The Brownie looked at the boy, affronted. “You is the shunkawakhan chinkshi**, where is the wichahpi**?”

Joseph Pony pushed the whisk in the batter, avidly scanning Mari as if she were a delight to behold. “She's in her room. Can you tell Chapa thunkashila** where we are, we would like to honour him.”

The Brownie scowled. “Is that all you wish, Little Pony? Why not ask for brother Hare or Spider to come and grant all your dirty wishes. Move aside. You is ruining the food.”

Severus retreated down the hall, amused at the reverence the Brownie evoked in Joseph Pony. He pushed open the door to Stella's room after knocking. She was asleep, the pustules from the night before now suppurating. He retrieved the Anti-Itch cream from the bedside table and sat next to her. She cracked her eyes open and smiled beatifically. “Daddy, you're home.”

She stretched luxuriously then hugged him. “I missed you.”

“And I you, my dear,” Severus said over the constriction in his throat. “Do you need any of the cream to be applied?”

“No, Joseph Pony did it a little while ago.” She scrunched her face. “You stink like Joseph Pony when he brews.”

He gave a little one-sided smile. “I know. Rest, and I will wake you for dinner.”

“Kiss me,” Stella demanded, pushing her pocked face toward him.

He leaned over and placed his lips on her cheek, suddenly feeling breathless and irritated. After an endless moment, he pulled away. “That is enough, my dear. Your demands would try a saint.”

Joseph Pony said from the hall, “And you know he ain't no saint, Stella.”

The older wizard and the young witch shared a smile between them. Joseph Pony stuck his head in the room. “Hey, squirt, Uncle 'Rus brought home a guest. Chapa's grand-daughter is here and she's cooking supper for us.”

“No way!” Stella shouted, as Severus stood and went to the bathroom. He could hear the two bantering good-naturedly until he closed the door.



*Veradunus -a: A Celto-Gallic god with two aspects. The female form, Veraduna and the male form Veradunus, have two possible interpretations of the name: Utter Darkness, wero= utter, dun= brown/dark, or d'no= defender giving rise to the second interpretation Utter defender or fortress. I liked the name because of the duality of meaning.

*From: geocities dot com/opzel57/g3.html:

Chapa is a Lakota beaver spirit who is lord of domesticity, labor and preparation.

**From elexicon dot com /Lakota/iyapi/words2.html:

shunkawakhan chinkshi: Horse son (Joseph Pony's name.)

wichahpi: Star (Stella)

Chapa thunkashila: Grandfather Beaver.



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