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Two Sides Against the Middle by Rose of the West [Reviews - 1]

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Disclaimer: Except for some OCs, the characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of JK Rowling. This chapter falls within the time line of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. A short portion of the conversation between Albus and Severus is almost verbatim from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with some small changes to fit the flow of my story and my storyline better.

Winter passed uneventfully into spring. The Defense professor walked into his office after class one afternoon to see his wife sealing ampules over a flame on the work surface he used for private potions-making. She had made quite a few and was concentrated over her work when he walked in. She didn't realize he had come, and he watched for a moment as she worked. Then Emily compared her work to a list at her side and saw him.

“Class is over? I wonder, then, if you can either get these potions for me or make them.” She handed him a second list on which she had written eight or ten healing concoctions.

“Certainly, but don't you have brewers at St. Mungo's?”

“This isn't for St. Mungo's. It's for my private stores.”

Severus looked at the bag full of supplies, the counter top, and then his wife. “Emily, you must have close to twenty ampules, vials, and jars here. What is it all for?”

She blushed and he could see her trying to figure out a good fib. She finally elected to tell the truth. “I've been thinking about all the different ways you could be injured or hurt and I've been collecting antidotes, healing potions, and ointments for them all. I still lack the ones on that list.”

“Are you expecting to be by my side if I'm hurt?”

“It's the flaw in my plan, I admit, but I'm hoping that somehow I'll be near you or that I can get to you quickly. You can improve our odds. I have some first aids here that I think you should carry at all times.

“Blood-Replenishing Potion, Invigoration Draught, Murtlap Essence, Skelo-Gro—Emily, if I carry all of these, I'll be a walking medicine cabinet.” He caught himself from laughing when he saw her face.

“At least carry the Blood-Replenishing Potion, the Dittany, and the Murtlap Essence, please, Severus?” She was looking at him earnestly. “I worry. Every time I see an injury at the hospital, I wonder how I can protect you from the same thing. I wake up at night, remember something I saw in the first war, and try to remember exactly how I treated it. Please, just help me pull these things together and somehow, I don't know how, there will be a way for me to help you on the day that something bad happens.”

There was nothing Severus could do at that point but pull her into his arms and plant kisses on the top of her head. There was nothing to do but thank her for her preparations and promise to help her complete them. Her passion for him and his wellbeing could be so humbling, sometimes.




After an evening shift at the hospital, Emily stepped out of the fireplace at Hogwarts to discover her husband sprawled in his favorite chair in the sitting room. His robe was no where to be seen, and his shirt was half unbuttoned. His face was hidden by a washcloth. The cause of this uncharacteristic pose appeared to be the bottle of Old Ogden's sitting on the coffee table. From the litter on the table, it appeared the bottle had just been opened, but it was half to two thirds empty. The table also contained a copy of their sixth year potions text, opened to a seemingly random page.

“Tough day?”

“You wouldn't believe.” It was more of a groan than a statement.

Emily fetched a bottle of the appropriate restorative potion and brought him a dose. Severus took it gratefully, as she stood behind him and then removed the wash cloth and started rubbing his head. She worked her way down the back of his neck and then his shoulders before he started speaking.

“That book...all my notes...it's not mine.”

“What book?”

“Sixth year Potions. Do you remember, Borage's Advanced Potion Making? At the beginning of the year Horace asked to borrow my copy for a few weeks and then I got it back and didn't think about it. Now I see,” he said as he waved at the book on the table, “that I didn't get my own book back. The covers were removed and switched. Potter's been using my book all this time and trying out my spells.”

“They're mostly harmless.”

“I had Sectumsempra in it, on that very page.” He stabbed at the book with his finger as he said each of the last three words. The book lifted up and settled back onto the table as if ashamed of itself.

Emily gasped and her hands stopped their work. “What happened?”

“Malfoy and Potter, fighting as always, in a boy's bathroom this time. Draco was using Crucio, and Potter decided to try out Sectumsempra. He says he had no idea what it does. I have to believe that, just as I have to believe Draco was really using an Unforgivable.”

“Was he badly hurt?”

“I got there minutes after it happened. Peeves and Myrtle were screaming at the top of their lungs. Do ghosts have functioning lungs, Emily?” He twisted his head to look at her with his question. She smiled and shook her head. He waved his hand and twisted back around, allowing her to rub some more. “Draco will be fine, although there might be some light scars. Narcissa came immediately and is with him. She reamed me out and is looking for other people to yell at, too. If I had not been so close...”

“I don't see why you blame yourself.”

“I would never expect Potter to try to figure out what it does before he used it, but I don't know why the Granger girl didn't tell him.”

“He must not have shown it to her.”

His shoulders tensed back up as he brought his hands up and raked his fingers through his hair. “The irony of it, that Potter's son should use my spells. All year, Horace has been twitting me that he's never had a better Potions student, when now I know he's had a student who was exactly as good. Better, because those are my notes. I thought of those improvements to all the directions. Emily, will any of this ever end? Will they ever stop tormenting me?”

She knew whom he meant. “They were always jealous, and they did recognize good spells when they saw them.” She walked back around the chair and kissed him, then pulled him up. “You need your rest. Come to bed.”

“Now there's an idea...”

“Yes, my dear, it's a very good idea.”

She spoke soothingly to him and led him to the bedroom. He let her undress him and help him into his nightshirt. He lay against the pillows and made bold suggestions as she changed into her nightgown. He reached for her as she extinguished the candles, but readily acquiesced when she pulled him into her arms and started soothing his temples with her fingertips. He was snoring soundly long before she stopped rubbing.




It was late at night and the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor was arguing with the Headmaster. All of this time, his entire adult life, he had been working toward a goal. Now he was told something completely different. After everything else Dumbledore wanted him to do, he would have to somehow gain the boy's trust and then send that same boy to a terrible fate. This was not what Lily would want, Severus was sure. He gave vent to his distress.

“I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter—“

“But this is touching, Severus,” said Dumbledore seriously. “Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?”

“For him?” he shouted. “Expecto Patronum!

From the tip of his wand burst a silver doe: She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape.

“After all this time?”

Severus shrugged, refusing to meet the Headmaster's eyes.

“That's not the Patronus I've seen from you, lately. Do you care to explain how you cast that one and your normal one?”

Severus stood and took the Pensieve from its spot in the cupboard and placed it on the Headmaster's desk. He put his wand to his head and obtained a single strand of memory, which he placed within the Pensieve, all the while giving Dumbledore a look that dared him to explore the memory. The Headmaster dared.

He was dancing with Lily and she was perfectly happy to be with him. She wasn't complaining about his friends or scolding him for exploring the Dark Arts. She looked beautiful in her dress robes and she smiled up at him as she told him how delighted she was things had turned out so well. It was his most perfect memory of Lily.

An instant later the dancers shifted and Severus looked over on the dance floor to where the bride of the party danced with Sirius Black. It rankled, but Black would not spend the night with Emily. Severus looked down to the woman in his arms and decided to enjoy this perfect moment.


“You can produce a Patronus from that one short memory at your wedding, Severus?” The Headmaster looked speculatively at him while he retrieved his memory and placed it back in his mind.

“It was my moment of greatest happiness with her.”

“And your usual Patronus?”

“You're asking quite a bit, tonight.”

“Call it a dying wish.” The Headmaster didn't notice the stricken look on the other man's face.

Severus sighed and placed a different memory within the Pensieve.

He was a young man, placing a sleeping infant into her crib and then standing next to it, looking with love upon his daughter. An instant later he became aware of her standing in the doorway and turned. He couldn't speak, she was so beautiful. Her hair shone and her skin glowed. The teal lace gown was new and he could do nothing but look for a few minutes.

She seemed a little worried. “My body is so different, now—“

“I'm nervous, too. I've never made love to the woman I know I love, before. It will be a first time for both of us.”

Her eyes shone as he walked toward her and took her hand. Together they walked to their own bedroom and stood beside the bed. He almost didn't know what to do with his hands and finally used them to lift her face to his lips. He kissed her everywhere, her eyes, her forehead, her chin, and finally her lips.

His hands knew what they were doing now and they caressed her throat before moving down to her shoulders. Her arms went around him as they continued kissing. His hands tangled in the thin straps and then he eased her down to the bed as the gown fell into a pool of lace on the floor.


Dumbledore returned to his chair. “That ended rather abruptly.” He noticed that Severus hastened to return this memory to his mind.

“The portion I care to show you ends abruptly. The full memory is still ongoing.”

“Both memories are really about your wife.”

“The second one is the reason I do anything anymore. It's all for the life we hope to share when this is over and for the life we are able to share now. The first one is about what I once hoped of Lily and is more illusion than reality. It reminds me of just how mistaken I once was and the debt I owe. I need it to have a reason to help you help Harry Potter, although now I question the wisdom of that.”

“If all goes as I hope, and if the mistakes your dark master have made have the effects I think they will, all will be well, Severus.”

“How can all be well if the boy dies?”

“If it is as I suspect, then somehow I think he survives, too.”




Severus was in bed, but not asleep when Emily returned from the hospital. She quietly prepared herself for bed and slid next to him. As she kissed him goodnight, he rolled toward her and started kissing her passionately, pulling at her nightgown and hoping that she would be willing. She helped him with her nightgown and then with his nightshirt and then abandoned herself to his caresses and desires.

He held her tightly as she went to sleep. Death would be his companion from now on, but somehow she held it at bay. When they were together she brought him life, and not just in the form of their children. When he looked into her eyes, he caught glimpses of the world they would have if they could just get past the current troubles.




The next afternoon, Emily arrived at home to see Severus putting her clothes in a trunk.

“What are you doing?”

“I have a detention with Potter tomorrow morning.”

“So you're packing up my things? Would it be obtuse to ask how they are connected?”

“I have duties on Sunday, so the entire weekend will be a waste. You may as well leave in the morning.”

“Leave for where?”

“Brendon's things are packed.”

“Excuse me, but I'm not going anywhere unless you tell me what is going on.”

Severus pulled his head from a closet. “You have to leave.”

“I'm not going anywhere without you. Severus, stop, and tell me what is going on.”

She pulled him onto the bed next to her and held his hands. He looked at her and then looked away, his hair falling over his face. “It's going to be soon, Emily. I really have to do it, and it will be soon.”

She reached out her hand to brush his hair out of his face, but he shied away from her touch and her hand stopped. “Are you sure?”

He took her hand and kissed the palm of it hungrily, before setting it in her lap and moving away from her again. “Albus is sure of it. He was giving me directions last night. I think they were meant to be final directions. What I must do to Lily's son... Emily, I deserve to die just for thinking about doing all these things I have to do. What I will deserve for doing them is unspeakable. I can't have you here. I'll have to run as soon as I—as soon as it happens, and they might come after you. I don't know where this will end, I just hope I can protect you and the children...”

“Please stop.” She turned his face so that she could look into his eyes and then took his hands again. “If you want us to go tomorrow, then we will. I can pack up later. Let's just enjoy this evening, if it's all we have. We should eat our dinner, and then we need to get Brendon settled for the night, and then...”

“And then...” he repeated, suddenly reaching over to her face and kissing her passionately.

A/N: Thank you for reading! Thank you especially to Trickie Woo, who has beta read all of this for me.

Two Sides Against the Middle by Rose of the West [Reviews - 1]

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