Snape walked down Diagon Alley, his robes billowing behind him. If anyone thought it strange that, he still wore his long, black frock-coat and cloak in the height of summer, no one remarked upon it, or even met his eyes. Severus Snape was not the sort of man that you would stop on the street in a casual manner. Even those that knew him well would only acknowledge him with a nod unless they had something specific to say.
He had several weeks before the start of the new term at Hogwarts; Diagon Alley was blissfully free of students as he left the Apothecary’s shop and headed for Flourish and Blotts. It was a chance for him to peruse the latest books in peace and perhaps pick up a few new texts that would be his only joy during the new term.
Snape glanced only briefly, at the stationary supply shop. The many brightly coloured plumes, and inks in every hue held no attraction for a man like Severus Snape. Quills, ink, and parchment he had in abundance. He would suppose that most people would think that he had enough books as well; however, one could never have enough books.
He slowed his pace as he approached the front of Flourish and Blotts. There standing and looking intently at the window display was a small child of about ten or eleven years old. She wore muggle clothing and her loose hair flowed to her waist in dark chocolate brown waves. Snape stepped forward a few paces and stopped cold, his heart contracted painfully as he saw the face of a ghost reflected in the window.
“Rosalind?”
"Here I stand alone
With this weight upon my heart
And it will not go away
The name left his lips before he could stop it. It was ridiculous of course; Rosalind was only a few months younger than Snape - his childhood friend, the girl next door. His mind spun as dizzying images of their youth came back to him. He could not bear to think of the last time he saw her, so instead he allowed the memory of their childhood summers to assault his brain:
“Severus!” she squealed as she threw herself into his arms. “Oh Severus I’ve missed you so much. How was Hogwarts? How was your journey? Did you get that new broom? When can we try it? I can’t wait to fly again.”
“Ros, slow down!” he smiled at her enthusiasm. “I have loads of homework I won’t have much time for anything else this summer.”
Snape wanted to impress her and show her that he was growing up and would therefore have no time for such foolishness but she would have none of it.
“Rubbish! Those assignments you Owled me about? I found, bookmarked, and read everything you need to know, I’ll explain it all to you, and then you’ll just have to write it up. So when are we going to try that new broom of yours?”
“You always were an insufferable know- it- all!” he laughed, wishing for the umpteenth time that she had been allowed to go to Hogwarts.
Snape remembered so clearly taking his broom up later that day, Rosalind as always screaming in his ear for him to go faster and higher. Back then, he had though that they would have been friends forever. She had been unstoppable as a teen, always talking, always asking questions, always laughing, and getting into more trouble than all the Weasley boys put together.
In my head I keep on looking back
Right back to the start
Wondering what it was that made you change
The memories shuffled in his brain and he closed his eyes to try to block from his mind his last memory of her tear-stained face. She had been nineteen then and so very beautiful but the light had gone from her eyes, replaced by utter hopelessness. In those last few weeks before she disappeared from his life he had been hard pressed to get more than a one-word answer from her.
“….that’s my Mother’s name…” said the small child looking up at him and interrupting his thoughts... Another child had joined her digging her in the ribs until she added. “….Sir.”
Snape was about to admonish the second child, but the words failed to come as he looked towards the second child. Looking at the second child, it was as if the very universe was conspiring against him, identical twins both wearing the face of his childhood sweetheart.
Well I tried
But I had to draw the line
And still this question keeps on spinning in my mind
Rosalind Scalan stared at the man talking to her children. For the briefest of moment she thought he was about to pick up her daughter and swing her round laughing with joy. The look he had given the child, a look that was so quickly hidden, was the same look he used to have for Rosalind when he returned home for the holidays.
She was completely unnerved by his reaction. For that one brief of moments she had seen the boy next door look out from the eyes of this imposing adult. She had been preparing for this moment for almost eleven years.
Rosalind had run away to hide in the Muggle World in the hopes of forgetting the Wizarding world, but Dumbledore had found her and explained that the twins’ names had appeared in Hogwart’s book, if it had not been for the twins she would never have returned. Now as she looked at Severus, she realized that a hundred years would not have been long enough to prepare her for this; to face him again was her ultimate nightmare.
As children, they had been the best of friends, despite his father’s disapproval. His time at Hogwarts proving the old adage that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ On her sixteenth birthday, they had kissed for the first time. On her eighteenth birthday they became lovers and for a few short months they seemed completely happy but the world was changing and he changed with it, leaving her behind.
For a while she had tried to fit in, but it had been destroying her, day by day stripping away her strength and pride. Finally, she lost the battle; she had thrown herself to her knees and begged him not to leave, but he slammed the door in her face leaving her sobbing on the floor. She could not save him. She barely had the strength to save herself, but she remembered that day with perfect and painful clarity:
What if I had never let you go
Would you be the man I used to know
“Severus Snape if you walk out that door, I won’t be here when you get back.” She had grabbed at his sleeve as he was heading for the door. He stepped away so quickly that she stumbled to the floor still holding on for all she was worth. “Please Severus….Please don’t go…Please…”
He had jerked his arm away and looked down at her in disgust.
“Of course you’ll still be here. Where else would you go? You are as pathetic as a House Elf, but not nearly as useful,” he sneered. “They are at least easy to get rid of when they become tiresome. If only getting rid of you was as easy as giving you an article of clothing.”
Rosalind collapsed to the floor sobbing as he slammed the door.
Their small house was in complete darkness by the time she finally managed to get up off that floor. She left through the same door that he had slammed in her face just a couple of hours before. She took nothing with her except the clothes on her back; she didn’t even put on shoes as she walked out of their home, and out of his life.
No, she had never expected to return to the Wizarding world, for years she had insisted that if her friends and family wanted to see her they would have to come to the Muggle World. Only twice had she broken that rule: once to tell her Father she was alive and once to attend a wedding. However, children had a way of changing things, so now she was back and about to face the man they she had left to avoid.
She took a deep, steadying breath.
“Hallo Severus, you look….well,” she said quietly. She had lied of course; he did not look well at all. He looked older but she had expected that he would. What she had not expected was for him to look ‘old.’ His greasy black hair showed not a trace of grey, nor was it thinning as so many men of his age had reason to bemoan. His carriage was upright, his back straight and strong, but he had the eyes of a man that had seen too much and laughed too little. It pulled at her heart in a way she had not thought possible considering their history.
His head snapped in her direction, his features perfectly schooled to give away nothing of his feelings on seeing her for the first time in over a decade and a half.
“I see you’ve already meet my children, but allow me to introduce you properly.” Rosalind said a smile firmly fixed on her face. “This is Freya and Kara. Girls, this is Professor Snape he will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts. He is also the head of Slytherin house.”
If I'd stayed
If you'd tried
If we could only turn back time
But I guess we'll never know
Snape allowed a curt nod towards Rosalind’s children, but he noted their reaction to the introduction. Was it the mention of his name or that he was head of Slytherin House that caused Freya to look defiant and Kara to look weary? As he would expect for the latest additions to a Pureblood line more ancient than his own, they mumbled a polite reply, whatever their fear maybe, they were clearly well brought up young ladies.
Rosalind looked uncomfortable at Snape’s prolonged silence, but he saw no reason to make things easy for her as he studied the woman she’d become. She had put on a little weight but it suited her, her hair was swept up in an chic knot, simple yet elegant jewellery that spoke of the old money that she came from without being flashy or vulgar. If she had worn robes, she would not have been out of place in Diagon Ally. Black jeans and a plain white T-shirt screamed definitely that she was not of this Wizarding World and saw no reason to conform to it.
“I swear my feet are about to drop off, so I’m going to the coffee shop…”
“Oh, Mum!” the twins chorused.
“….While you two go and choose your pets at the Magical Menagerie.”
“Thanks Mum… Goodbye Sir,” they said together, and then ran off in the direction of the shop.
“Walk, don’t run!” Rosalind called after them. “And stay together.”
She turned to look at Severus searching his face for some reaction to seeing her again, but he showed nothing. She smiled grimly; she hadn’t expected this to be easy.
“I really do need to sit down, would you care to join me for an iced tea?” she asked, still smiling at him... “I’m buying.”
Snape stared at her - this was unexpected. The woman had some nerve, he’d give her that much, how dare she act as if she was just an old friend that he’d lost touch with over the years …after all the trouble she caused.
Snape inclined his head and made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the coffeehouse. She gave a slight nod of acknowledgment of his mock gallant gesture and walked on, her eyes tracking the children’s progress down the street until she saw them enter the Magical Menagerie.
He found them a seat outside the coffeehouse where he could sit in the shade with his back to the wall and Rosalind would be able to watch for her children if they left the shop opposite. Rosalind went in to get their teas.
He had no doubt that she wanted something but could not imagine what she could want from him let alone what she thought he might be prepared to do for her. Only curiosity and the fact that they were in a public place stopped him from reaching for his wand and hexing her.
She returned with a tray and placed the promised tea in front of him, a coffee, and a large pastry in front of herself before sitting down putting the tray to one side, she flicked a napkin into place in her lap before she spoke.
“I’m surprised you accepted my invitation.”
“I am surprised that you had the nerve to ask.”
“Severus, we were friends for far longer than we were enemies.”
Snape wanted to grind his teeth at her casual use of his given name, as if she had the right to use it.
“An interesting choice of words,” he smiled maliciously. “It infers that you are some threat to me, which of course, you are not.”
She sipped her coffee wishing it were something stronger and considered her reply before making it. This was the first time she’d been to Diagon Alley in years; it hadn’t changed in all this time. The twins had visited often with their Grandfather, but Rosalind had never gone with them before. She let her eyes wander; it had a positively Dickensian feel to it, in places the Alley got so thin you could probably lean out a first floor window and shake hands with someone in the building opposite. The Alley was cobbled and uneven; something she had failed to remember when she put on court shoes with thin heals that morning. The road was wider here so close to Gringotts Bank and the entrance to Knockturn Alley, allowing the extra seating outside the Coffee shop without getting in the way of jostling crowds of Witches, Wizards, and Magical creatures. Goblins, Hags and the odd House Elf were not as out of place as she was in her Muggle clothing. Tearing her eyes away, she turned back to Snape.
“Severus, perhaps I should have said that we were friends for more years than we weren’t friends, even including my time in the Muggle World,” she said as evenly as she could manage.
“Are you really going to eat that?” he asked looking with distaste at the huge pastry in front of her.
“No, Severus, I decided that I might need something to converse with if you kept up the silent treatment.
A casual observer might have taken her last comment as sarcasm. It was meant as a joke certainly, but only he would ever understand it.
Snape paced back and forth in front of the stone bench in the middle of her mother’s Rose garden. It was freezing and he had been waiting for hours. He had told his Father that he was staying at Hogwarts over the Christmas break and he had told Hogwarts he was going home, taking a room at the Leaky Caldron just so he’d be able to Apperate here for her 16th Birthday. He couldn’t be at her party and risk it getting back to his Father but at least he would see her.
There must have been 300 guests in the ballroom and yet Ros had hardly danced, Snape had felt a wave of anger as he watched through the window, so many guests had filed past her without so much as word to the Birthday Girl. If only he could have been there standing by her side.
He watched as Amber Du Brite had finally spotted her sitting on her own and rushed over to her dragging her off to meet a group of Amber’s friends as if it were Amber’s party and not Rosalind’s. Amber attended Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and happily ignored the many Hogwarts student that had previously ignored Ros.
As much as Snape had longed to see Ros dance and enjoy herself he had felt resentful as Adrian Piers claimed her hand and led her to the dance floor.
Finally, after all her guest had left, Ros appeared at her bedroom window waving as she spotted him in the garden below. She stepped up onto the windowsill; at first, he thought that she was just showing off her new gown, but then she stepped off the sill and into midair. His heart in his throat he did the fasted charm of his life to slow her decent and let him catch her in his arms.
“You stupid chit! What do you think you are playing at? You could have been killed!”
Rosalind just smirked. “Oh like you’d ever let me fall,” she laughed.
He let her feet touch the ground but held her close and mumbled into her hair “Please don’t ever do that again, I don’t know what I would do with out you.”
Rosalind pushed him away and swore that all that Apparating must have addled his brain because he was acting so strangely. He cast a warming charm on the stone bench and wrapped his cloak around her—telling her off for leaving the house without hers. As usual, she ignored him and just demanded to see the food he’d brought for her.
“Mmm, Mmm, where ever did you get strawberries at this time of year? They are so ripe and juicy.” Ros said between mouthfuls. “I swear I don’t understand why Pureblood witches don’t eat in public. They must eat at school; you don’t have separate dinning halls do you? What is it with Purebloods, do they think all women stop eating at as soon as they leave school. Oooh Mmm, these are gorgeous!”
“Sometimes I think you are talking to your food rather than me,” he laughed and reached out to wipe some juice from her chin with his thumb. “This is probably why you don’t get to eat in public – just look at you.”
Ros blushed and grinned, “You are so right. I am talking to the food—it never teases me.”
She ate her fill and then they danced in the moonlight in-between the rose bushes. She looked truly happy for the first time that evening and his heart soared to think it was because of him.
“I know Dad means well but why does he keep trying? Tomorrow we will have hundreds of Owls thanking Dad and Gramps for such a wonderful ‘Christmas Ball’ with hardly a mention that it was my birthday. They all think they’re better than me just because they can do some foolish wand waving and mutter stupid incantations but they’re just a bunch of….of….of dunderheads!” she glared at Snape as he laughed at her outburst. “Severus, I’m going to leave there’s nothing for me here. I’m going to try the Muggle World.”
Snape stopped laughing, she couldn’t leave he wouldn’t let her, he didn’t want to live in a world with out her and he couldn’t live like a muggle. He put his hands on her shoulders and said pleadingly “But I’m here.”
“But for how long? Would I even see you once you leave Hogwarts? You’ll get a job, go on with your life, but what will I do – stay here and grow old just hoping that you might remember me and send the odd owl?”
“No…No, It won’t be like that!”
His lips descended on hers, for a moment she seemed frozen in his arms, and then she melted, her body moulding to his and he pulled her closer, never wanting to let her go. As first kisses go, it was unforgettable, so sweet, and full of yearning her mouth tasting of Champaign and strawberries and it seemed to promise him the world.
Suddenly she was pushing him away; she struggled free and turned her back on him her shoulders shaking under his cloak.
“I’m sorry; I thought…I hoped…”
“Don’t show me what I can’t have!” she choked-out. “It’s not fair…it’s cruel when the best I can hope for is that you’ll marry some-one that doesn’t hate me and I might just get to see you every once in a long while. It’s not fair…”
“I love you, Rosalind Castlemaine. I’ll never want anyone else,” he said earnestly. “I’ll become so powerful that it won’t matter what you are. No one will dare snub you again; I’ll make sure of that. I know these people, they are teaching me more than Hogwarts ever could and soon I’ll out strip them in knowledge and power. You’ll want for nothing and we’ll be together always.”
They stayed in the Rose garden until dawn, kissing, and holding on to each other. Eating strawberries and watching the fairies flitting in and out of the bushes and kissing again.
If only we could turn the hands of time
If I could take you back would you still be mine
“No decent pure blood woman would ever gorge herself in public!” Snape snapped, irritated at her ability to bring back that particular memory so easily, but she was not the only one that could illicit a reaction, Snape knew exactly how to twist the knife.
Rosalind removed the napkin from her lap and started to stand.
“But I’m not a decent pure-blood am I? This was a mistake,” she retorted the anger flaring in her eyes.
“Ros, sit down and finish your coffee. You wanted to ask me something—so ask,” he snapped.
Rosalind blinked; he called her ‘Ros.’ He had stopped calling her Ros a good couple of months before she’d found the strength to finally leave him. She sat down and started to put sugar into her coffee. One spoonful, stir clockwise four times. Second spoonful stir counter clockwise four times. The third and final spoonful went into the large mug and she stirred three times one way and exactly three times the other way. Removing her spoon from the white frothy coffee, she tapped it twice on the rim of the mug before placing it to one side.
Rosalind suppressed a smirk of her own, knowing full well that Severus was having a much harder battle to stop himself from curling his lip in disgust and letting rip with another biting comment.
She had all but forgotten all the subtle rituals of the Pureblood way of life. Rosalind had not given a second thought to buying the pastry or the large mug of coffee. No elegant, properly brought up, Pureblooded Witch would have done either. Her Mother would not have been caught dead consuming food in the middle of the street no matter how beautiful the sunshine, or how clean the tablecloths were. If she had stopped for coffee, a waiter would have served it in elegant bone china cups inside the shop.
Having realized her mistake Rosalind had decided to make the most of it, she hadn’t taken sugar for years now. However, every action of her little sugar ritual had been designed to annoy Severus. He would hated her choice to add sugar, that she had chosen white sugar rather than unrefined brown sugar, that she stirred it in such a precise pattern that she had expected him to snap completely on the second tap of the spoon on the rim of the mug. Clearly, Severus had learned some self-control over the years.
“Very well, Severus, I would like to know how my daughters will be treated at Hogwarts?” she asked looking directly in to his eyes.
“The daughters of Rosalind Castlemaine will not have an easy time of it at Hogwarts. They come from a family that is considered by many to be Blood traitors. They will have little magical ability and their Mother’s …er…status will not work in their favour.” Severus had chosen his words deliberately; even the hesitation was calculated to add to his scathing sarcasm.
“Oh please, do not hold back on my account, Severus! You can say it. You know you want to,” she purred contemptuously. “My status as what? As a ‘freak?’ As an ‘abomination,’ or you could have gone for my all time personal favourite ‘a filthy, pathetic Squib whose father should have done the Wizarding World a favour and drowned her at birth. I know full well how Hogwarts will treat them. I’ve prepared them for that. I want to how you will treat them?”
Severus said nothing he just stared impassively. She had quoted him cruel word for cruel word. However, he felt neither sorrow nor regret for those words. He said all that to her on that last day and had followed the comment by telling her that it was her fault that her Mother had died so young. That Madame Castlemaine had died from shame, at having produced such a useless and defective daughter.
“You are also quite wrong on several issues Severus. One, my name is no longer Castlemaine; it’s Scanlan and two” Rosalind glowed with pride as she added, “My daughters are powerfully magical, they did all the usual things, floating toys and so on but before they were seven, they had both apperated! Scared the life out of their father.”
“They can Apperate?” Severus asked in astonishment despite himself. He had never heard of a child so young having apperated. When Ros and Snape had been together one of his greatest fears had that any children they would have would be Squibbs just like her.
“It would be wrong to say they could, it’s not as if they can do it at will. Nevertheless, both them have – several times. In most cases, it was the twin thing. If one was hurt or upset the other would appear by her side no matter the distance.”
“Their father must have been a powerful Wizard. I was so sorry that things didn’t work out between you and Piers.”
“Piers? Their father’s muggle, not even Muggle Born - the magic comes from my side of the family. What has Piers got to do with it?” Rosalind blinked the confusion showing on her face.
“Oh, come now Rosalind, it’s a little late in the day to be playing the innocent. Did Piers not want a Squibb either? Such a shame that none of your little marriage fantasies came to pass,” Snape sneered his voice dripping with venom. How dare she have magical children and by a muggle no less!
Snape smiled callously, he had waited a long time to twist that particular knife.
But I had to draw the line
And still this question keeps on spinning in my mind
Rosalind started to laugh, after all these years the pieces finally fell into place. It was just so funny! All that pain, all that heartache and all for nothing. She laughed so hard that tear sprang to her eyes and people around them started to stare. Severus started to look uncomfortable, a pureblood witch would never make such a scene, but she just couldn’t seem to stop.
“You lied, didn’t you?” Rosalind hiccupped trying to gain control. “You Pratt- you lied to me!”
Snape glared at her and she started to laugh again.
“Of course I lied. I knew why you wouldn’t marry me. You lived with me but you could never give up your dream of him, could you? It was to my advantage to know and not to tell you, that way I had my revenge- treat you like a House–Elf and you never realized why, it was all you were fit for anyway!” He said viciously.
Rosalind heard the words but knew he lied, both then and now, and it took the sting out of his words. The fates had been cruel to them both.
“Severus, all these years I believed that I’d failed, that if I’d just acted differently, tried a little harder, stayed a little longer, we’d still be together. I wondered over and over what might have been if I hadn’t have walked away. I loved you so much, in some ways I still do.”
Snape snorted, he couldn’t believe she would say such a thing even now when she must have realized that he had seen the truth with the lies in her eyes.
Rosalind sighed.
“Severus – it wasn’t me that failed back then. It was you and your damned magic! I couldn’t save us - I couldn’t save you. Your belief in your magic was absolute, but it was wrong, so horribly wrong.”
Rosalind tried to blink back the tears that were burning her eyes as she remembered her daydreams of so long ago.
“They scare me Severus; you know that they hate me, everything about me. You can’t spend so much time with them and not start thinking the way they do. What if you start to believe them?”
“Never, you know I that I love you and I always will.” He opened his arms to her and she sank into his embrace.
Rosalind, despite his words, feared that he would start to regret being with her, become ashamed of her and her lack of magic. He would feel embarrassed because Purebloods like the Lestranges, the Blacks, and the Malfoys would look down on her. Already she had noticed changes in him, the odd comments here and there about half bloods and muggle borns. She always knew and hated that he had these thoughts, but never before had he said them in front of her. That had been his Father’s and his precious Slytherins influence on him over the years. Just how long would it been until he though of her in the same way.
Not all Purebloods felt the same way. Amber didn’t -neither did Piers! Their pureblood lines were as old as any in Europe.
Rosalind smiled, Amber and Piers were two of her closest friends, and they were meant for each other. Tomorrow Rosalind was going with Piers to pick out an engagement ring. She smiled at the thought of Piers begging her on bended knee to go with him.
“Get up you fool! You go down on one knee to Amber once you’ve got the ring remember,” she’d laughed. “Alright, alright! I’ll help, but you have to choose I’ll just stop you if you try and buy something horrendous.”
Then there were the many Owls from Amber asking about Piers – had he said anything? Did he really like her? She wasn’t imagining it was she. If he asks me, will you be my bride’s maid?
Rosalind dreamed of that wedding, perhaps more than Amber herself. The Pureblood wedding of the year, Amber would be beautiful and Rosalind would be part of it. Severus would see that Purebloods could accept her, if she could be given such an important role in a Pureblood ceremony then how could he doubt her. Amber would be beautiful and everyone would admire her, but Severus would see only Rosalind.
As the weeks went by, Snape became more, and more involved with the Lestranges, the Blacks, and the Malfoys and Rosalind’s daydreams had become more detailed and more vivid. Snape started to turn on Rosalind. He always seemed to be shouting, and demeaning her, and the worse it became the more she would retreat in to her fantasy of Piers and Amber’s wedding. She had hoped that if only Snape could see that, then he’d see that he was wrong and he’d become the man she used to know, the man she’d fell in love with.
“Well is your Legilimency any better now? Do you understand?” Rosalind let the tears fall. “I suspected that you were trying to look inside my mind, but you said no. I dreamed that at Piers and Amber's wedding, you would have eyes only for me, but instead you saw me at the Altar with Piers and no sign of Amber. I guessed you were lying, and I tried to avoid eye contact with you – I just thought you liked knowing how much your words hurt me. I thought you got off on it. I didn’t know you saw my daydreams, let alone that you didn’t understand them. I…I…Do you understand now?”
Rosalind looked into the eyes of her first love and saw the horror of recognition in them ….finally he knew.
Many roads to take
Some to joy
Some to heartache
Snape felt sick, he’d spent years trying to hate her. He’d spent years hating himself because he still loved her even though she’d been in love with someone else. But he’d been wrong, all this time he had been wrong!
The last time he saw her she’d been sobbing on the floor and he had left her there to go to the Dark Lord. That was the night he’d taken the Dark Mark and ruined his life. He’d been given his first mission that night, to prove his loyalty he had to go home and kill Rosalind.
Snape had walked for hours that night, knowing that he couldn’t do it. He would take her to Piers. In his sick little fantasy, Piers would reject her and Rosalind would realize the error of her ways and beg him to take her back, then they could run away together and eventually they would be happy again.
Anyone can lose their way
And if I said that we could turn it back
Right back to the start
Would you take the chance and make the change
When Snape finally went home the house was in darkness the door was open and she was gone. He hadn’t tried to find her or even report her as missing, it had been her Father and Grandfather that had done that. The Aurors had questioned him for hours then let him go.
He had admitted the truth to the Dark Lord but the Dark Lord laughed. The other Death Eaters had killed a muggle in Diagon Alley that night, probably the same girl, after all there was little to choose between a muggle and a Squibb.
The authorities hadn’t even found the body yet, Bellatrix had cackled gleefully over that. She had described the way they’d pushed the girl around and used hexes on her while she’d begged for her life. Snape’s mind worked furiously, it could not have been Rosalind she would never have begged, and she would have gone down fighting. Snape laughed – it could not have been her. He had tuned out Bellatrix’ voice but evidently he had laughed in the correct place; the Dark Lord nodded his approval.
What had he become, that these people would believe so easily that he would laugh at someone else’s pain? They believed him to be a monster just like them. He was a monster – the way he’d treated Rosalind.
Oh Merlin, she had begged! She had begged him not to go. He had spent the last three months belittling her and convincing her that she was nothing in the hope that she would be so dependant on him that she’d never leave. The old Ros would never have begged but now….
The body was found two days later and Mad-Eye Moody took Snape to the Morgue.
“Why am I here? You questioned me before; the stupid cow just ran off into the night.”
“Calm down lad! You’re just here to help with our enquiry, that’s all.” Moody’s gravely voice echoed around the tiled walls of the morgue in the basement of St. Mungo’s Hospital. “You clearly don’t give a toss about the girl, so you won’t be upset like her Father or Grandfather. No point in upsetting them more than they already are – ain’t a pretty sight this kind of spell damage. All I want is for you to identify the body, shouldn’t be too hard – you lived next door to her all your life, so it shouldn’t be too hard at all, especially as you didn’t even like her.”
Snape just stared defiantly at Moody as he opened one of the many vaults and slid a table out, the body covered with a white sheet.
“Come closer lad, you’ve got to get a good look!”
Snape wasn’t about to let the Auror intimidate him so he stepped closer. It couldn’t be Ros, he’d convinced himself of that, so how bad could it be. He let a sneer play about his lips as he said silkily, “Well anything I can do to help the Authorities.”
In turn, Moody let his disgust for the younger man show, before turning back to the body and reverently folding back the sheet.
“No!” screamed Snape feeling the bile rush to his mouth.
Moody thrust an empty metal wastepaper bin at Snape just in time for him to empty the contents of his stomach into it. Snape was on his knees panting, he wanted to run, but he didn’t have the strength to stand.
“So it’s not her then lad?” Moody demanded. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“No, I…I don’t know!”
“You lived with Rosalind Castlemaine for over a year and you don’t know if that’s her? Look again boy! How could you not know?”
Snape couldn’t bring himself to look. The killing curse could not have done that!
“No lad, not the killing curse, we don’t know if they used the Adava Kedavra on her. I hope for her sake that they did. Now that would be truly unforgivable to do that to her while she was still conscious,” Moody growled as if he had read Snape’s mind. “Now is that her? Did you do that to Rosalind Castlemaine?”
“No…No! I…could never…”
“Of course you could boy!” Moody grabbed Snape’s arm and pushed back his sleeve to reveal the Dark Mark. “This says you can and do! This is what it means to wear the morsmordre – that you can and will do that at your master’s whim and sometimes just because you enjoy it!”
Snape’s eye’s followed Moody’s out stretched arm to where he was pointing – to the body of a girl mutilated beyond recognition. He didn’t know if it was Ros or not, the Death Eaters had said that she was a nobody, it had all be so abstract to him with everyone around him laughing and joking. Now as he cowered on the floor he knew that the girl lying just a few feet away had been somebody, somebody real with hopes and dreams and fears; somebody who had not dissevered this. It could be Ros, he couldn’t be sure, he prayed to Merlin that it wasn’t, but he couldn’t be sure.
Moody had questioned him for what seemed like hours before Dumbledore came in and put a stop to it. All the time on the floor of morgue, the dead body of the nameless girl was silently accusing Snape every bit as much as Moody.
That night Snape told Dumbledore everything, and that night Snape joined the Order of the Phoenix and started his long penance.
If only we could turn the hands of time
If I could take you back would you still be mine
“Ros…I’m so sorry,” Snape whispered the words sounding strange to him, he was unused to apologising and he had never expected to need to apologise to her. “I was such a fool.”
The years seem to melt away as she reached out for his hand and laced her fingers in his.
“How can you bear to touch me after what I did?”
Ros swallowed and brushed away her tears with her other hand. For a moment, he didn’t think she would answer.
“Did my Father ever tell you why he didn’t give me up?” Snape shook his head unable to speak. “Gramps and he discussed it you know, many times before I was born. They knew already that I’d be a Squibb. They didn’t want a Squibb dangling from the illustrious Castlemaine family tree. Your Father told them as a ‘friend’ and a fellow Slytherin that I’d never be accepted. Mum was adamant that if he sent me away she would go too and he could never let her go so that was part of why he kept me, but it wasn’t the whole story.”
Rosalind pulled back her hand and stirred her coffee. It was practically cold now but she needed to do something with her hands.
'Cos I tried
But I had to draw the line
And still this question keep on spinning in my mind
“If I could take it back, I would. If I could get a time-turner I’d….”
“No!” Ros said firmly shaking her head sadly. “When I left you that night I wandered around the muggle world for weeks like a tramp, living on handouts and charity, sleeping under bridges and in shop doorways. I didn’t think I could get any lower than those last few days that we were together and I was right. As I wandered the streets of London, I came to realise that being a tramp was better than being with you, however much I loved you. I could not live like that. One day I saw a picture of you in a copy of the Daily Prophet; it was floating in the gutter. It said you had been taken in for questioning about my murder, so I went back and made Dad go to the Aurors. I was in a sorry state and I asked outright why he hadn’t given me up. He told me that you love the person not their magic, and the first time he held me, he knew he could never let me go and Gramps had felt the same. Your Father never really loved you enough, and that wouldn’t have changed even if you had all the power of Merlin himself.”
Snape nodded, had anyone else said that he would have hexed them. However, Ros knew the truth, even now when so many years were standing between them Ros knew him better than anyone else, and she had spoken the simple truth just as she always had.
“You loved me in spite of my lack of magic but I believe that you always felt cheated, that somehow it all would have been better if I’d been a true Witch. It was so easy for them to turn you away from me, even before your Legilimens. Eighteen years of friendship and love destroyed in just a few weeks or maybe in just one look. Even if we’d gone on, stayed together – married, I always would have felt as if you were doing me a favour.”
Ros took a sip of coffee and wondered how the sun had the temerity to shine on a day so full of painful memories. People passed within a few feet, going about their lives as if nothing was wrong, when quite the reverse was true. She took a deep breath.
Well I tried
But I had to draw the line
And still this question keeps on spinning in my mind
“Severus, you were the lesson I needed to learn. However much I loved you and my family, I always would have been incomplete if I’d stayed. I needed to leave to learn what it was like to depend on myself. It wasn’t easy, those first couple of years I was an empty shell, I tried to hate you, but I couldn’t. If you had asked me then I would have come back without a second thought.
But now even if you obliviated those three months I would not choose to go back. I learnt how to be strong and independent. Then I met Ben Scalan and found out what unconditional love really meant, later I had my beautiful children. I could never choose to give that up or myself as I am now. I’m not the same woman anymore – I like myself a whole lot better.”
Rosalind stood up, it was time to go, and Severus stood with her.
“I’m strong enough to say this now, and know that I will survive whatever you say in return. I missed you, Severus Snape. Even with my new family around me I still find myself thinking ‘I wonder what Severus would say to that’ or ‘if only Severus was here he’d keel over laughing.’ I think I will always miss you.”
What if I had never let you go
Would you be the man I used to know
If I'd stayed
If you'd tried
If we could only turn back time
But I guess we'll never know
Her eyes were shinning with unshed tears again as Snape caught her hand and pressed it to his lips.
“You asked me a question. Let me answer before you go,” he said, still holding her hand. “The daughters of Rosalind Castlemaine Scalan will not have an easy time at Hogwarts and they will doubtless hate me much of the time but I will ensure that they get a first class education. I promise you that I will protect them with my life, even from themselves. And I believe that Severus Snape will find it immensely difficult not to show favouritism to the daughters of his much missed and very beautiful friend, Rosalind Castlemaine Scanlan.”
Snape released her hand and it flew to her eyes to dash away the tears. Her face twitched with the effort to smile.
“Th…Thank you!” her voiced cracked with emotion and she nodded before turning away to go and find her daughters.
What if I had never let you go
Would I be the man you used to know
What if I had never walked away
'Cos I still love you more than I can say
If I'd stayed
If you'd tried
If we could only turn back time
But I guess we'll never know
We'll never know
A/N A huge thank you to beta babe extraordinaire Llewellyn McEllis for Beta reading for me.
The Song – ‘What if’ by Steve Mac and Wayne Hector
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