Professor Linyaari walked down an empty hall of Hogwarts. She had been there for a week and this was the first time she had walked down these halls. She hadn't seen any of the teachers, save Dumbledore and McGonagall, and she suspected that none of the teachers even knew she was there. None of the Arithmancy kids had talked about their new teacher, and for that Rose was thankful of. Her foot-steps clicked on the stone floor as her long, black, silk dress played at her feet. Nothing could ever overcome the feeling of walking through your past.
Professor Snape, however, had spent so much of his life in these hallways that it didn't seem so much like a walk through his past as a home and safe-haven. So as he wandered through various hallways during this particular night, patrolling to make sure that no students were up past curfew, his thoughts were relatively calm. They turned to the next day's lessons, ways to torture the Gryffindors (or at least give his own house a running chance against Dumbledore's favorites), Harry Potter, James Potter, the Marauders Map (which would be awfully useful in allowing him to see who was up and where. Night patrolling would be done with), to various other things that just seemed to connect themselves to his train of thought.
Rose concentrated on her feet as she walked down the hallways; it had been so long since she had walked in Hogwarts. Her pale complexion seemed to glow in the small light. Green eyes sparkling as she thought of happy thoughts and then started to sing, her voice drifting through the halls, in a beautiful lullaby. "We're the pleasures of the night time that fade at down, selling pleasures of the night time, 'til night is gone. And then when the party's over, everybody's gone away. We stare at an empty day, what is there to do or say..."
Severus heard the song, the corridors were awfully quiet around this time of night and it connected itself to his thoughts rather easily, a sadistic grin made its way across his face. 'Poor Remus, he's never going to stop being taunted by anyone for the mistake of taking the leading role in that play.' The grin stayed in place as he subconsciously followed the song toward its source, and wound up bumping straight into her, reeling in shock. "You're here?" he managed to ask.
Rose took a couple of steps back and looked at Severus. "Yes." Her voice still had the familiar musical quality (formed by too much singing) that he remembered, but other wise she had changed entirely. Her eyes were dim and her long blonde hair was faded and pale. She looked as though she had not seen the sun for a long time and she had not eaten for an even longer time. The black dress was very loose and flowed easily in the halls. "Yes." She repeated quietly with the ghost of a smile on her thin rosy lips.
"And redundant as ever?" he smiled slightly; Rose was actually one of the few people he associated with happiness. Still, she looked different, and he wondered how much her personality had changed over 16 years from the happy, carefree (relatively), teenaged girl he had once known. He decided that a conversation would eventually have to take place in between the two of them and he might as well get it over with that night. "So, how have you been?" he asked.
"Fine enough," Rose said, a smile finally appearing on her lips. She found it amusing that he hadn't changed very much within all the years that she hadn't seen him. She was still a couple of inches shorter then the man. He still had the pale skin, dark, unreadable eyes, and long black greasy hair. He still seemed like an older brother to her. "How have you been, Sev?" She asked.
"I've been fine; everything's become rather boring, really, that is, until recently. Teaching is just routine, and Hogwarts is relatively safe." he said. 'Come on, open up already. I know you've changed but I really do want to know what's happened to you.' "Sev, huh? Still sticking to an old nickname, 'Corna?"
"Teaching. We always had to excel at the same things." Rose sighed inwardly as her heart started to beat faster due to nervousness. "It's nice to see someone from the past. Sev....." She stopped and looked in Severus's eyes, searching for something. 'I know you want to know things, but I don't want to talk here, or now.' She sighed again. "Yep, still sticking to the old."
Severus smirked. "You sigh too often, you always have. Now, there seems to be a few things to clear up, so when do you want to talk?" 'I've put up with not knowing for 16 years, I can wait a little bit longer. Or rather, I can put up with you being closed off for as long as necessary, but then you really must open up and just say whatever it is that's haunted you enough to make this much of a difference on you.'
"Tomorrow. I will talk tomorrow, after classes." Rose nodded. "And that makes me think of a song. But At the moment, I'm tired and will head off to bed soon." She took Severus's hand, her skin was cold, very cold. "I missed you." She smiled and ran her fingers through his. "I really missed my big brother."
"Anything will cue you into a song," Severus said while rolling his eyes. Then he smiled. "I rather miss your singing," he commented, then rather hesitantly added, "And everything else about you, Sis'" he shivered at the coldness of her skin but decided that that too could wait until tomorrow. "Shall I escort you back to your office?" then he realized that he wouldn't have a clue where it was, "What do you teach, anyway?"
"I'm glad to hear you missed me." Rose smiled. "Escort me, please. I teach Arithmancy." She laughed and started to walk, still holding his hand and as she walked and sing as she went along. "I feel your fingers, brushing my shoulders. Your tempting touch, as it tingles my spine. Watching your eyes, as they invade my soul. Forbidden pleasures I'm afraid to make mine. At the touch of your hand, at the sound of your voice, at the moment your eyes meet mine. I am out of my mind, I am out of control. With feelings I can't define." And she stopped as her part of the song ended.
Severus chuckled a little and whispered into her ear, "I thought I was more like a brother to you." He took up his cue none the less, considering Remus wasn't there to take Hyde's character up. "It's a sin with no name, like a tiger to tame, And my senses proclaim, it’s a dangerous game." He paused for a moment, he was supposed to. Then he started into the next verse, "A darker dream that has no ending. Something unreal, that you want to be true."
Rose smiled as she heard him sing Remus's part. She stopped walking for a moment. "Are you suggesting that you are more then just a brother to me?" She bushed some hair out of his face and put her hand on his cheek. "If that is true, and with it being so close to the full moon, I might just kiss you right here." She smiled and started to go closer to Severus, teasing him, and probably playing the wrong part for the song. "A strange romance, Out of a mystery tail!"
"The frightened princess doesn't know what to do!" He filled the gap in singing with talking. "No, you're still my little sister, and the one who started the song." Back to singing. . . "Does she just run away? Does she risk it and stay? Either way there's no way to win!" . . . and talking, "Aren't you playing the wrong part?"
"All I know is I'm lost, and I'm counting the cost. My emotions are in a spin. And though no one's to blame." Rose smiled and moved away from Severus. "Ah, Am I being to seductive for your liking?" She smiled, saying it with a very slight Slavic accent for effect, and continued to walk down the hall, and coming to a door, which she opened and let Severus in.
"It's a crime and a shame." Severus stepped inside and heard the door shut behind him. That was Rose; an open door could easily drive her insane. "No, you're just too seductive for comfort."
Rose nodded and stopped the song. "We'll have to continue tomorrow. Stop by any time you want, know that you know where I am, after all. Although you shouldn't be too surprised if I just show up on your door . . . um, step, sometime soon. 'Night." Rose reached up and kissed Severus on the cheek, then opened the door and let Severus leave, shutting the door behind him
Severus walked back to his own quarters humming "The World Has Gone Insane". His shift was over by now, and the song seemed to match, what with people that he hadn't seen in forever just suddenly showing up. Sadly, this made plotting to torture Harry considerably harder. Rose, by flaunting the purity of a unicorn (whether she wanted to or not), could make people feel like they really should be happier, sing more often, and all in al be kinder. Strange creature, she was.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
Occlumency Club
Join if you dare
Wednesday Nights
In the Occlumency class room
Join if you dare
Wednesday Nights
In the Occlumency class room
So read the sign inviting the school to the newly created Occlumency club. It was the third year for the soon to be Marauders and this was the news around the school. The sign had been up for quite a while, and already there had been two meetings of the club, slowly people filing out as they figured it wasn’t for them. The ones who were left were the Slytherins and Ravenclaws, and just a few Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors who truly were determined to learn occlumency.
Rose passed by the bulletin board for about the millionth time that night. That Wednesday night when everyone seemed to be out or in their dorm rooms. Only Lily, Dimela, Rose, and some few first years were actually in the common room. Rose stopped and looked at the sign, pulled some blonde curls out of her eyes, and then kept on pacing.
“Come on Rosie, go. When I went with you the first night you completely loved it.” Dimela said after a little while of watching this sight.
“Rose, you can survive one night without us. Just find some random guy to pair off with, it could be good for your love life. You always seemed like the type to date Ravenclaws anyway,” Lily encouraged.
“And then you can come back and tell us all about it, and we’ll make fun of you when you really know that we love you dearly and will be so glad because you will be happy.” Dimela laughed. “I’ll even push you all the way there if I need to.”
Rose stopped pacing and looked at her two friends. “Okay, I’ll go, but when I come back completely embarrassed and crying, it’s your fault.” She grabbed her book bag, slung it around her shoulders, and then walked out of the hole and down the hall, down a flight of stairs, and then into the Occlumency class room.
The classroom was not by any means filled with students, but the twenty or so kids in it managed to talk loudly enough amongst themselves to make up a reasonable crowd. The sixth year Ravenclaw prefect was desperately trying to hush the crowd. As Rose walked in, he cast a voice magnifying charm on himself. “Okay, people, settle down and pair off, this is supposed to be about mind reading, this much talking shouldn’t be necessary. I’ll wait exactly one minute before pairing off the loners and starting this thing.”
Rose had walked in and walked around the outer rim of the classroom, then sat down next to certain Slytherin boy with greasy hair and a long nose, and paler than pale skin. She looked around realizing that no one she know was there, which wasn’t too surprising.
The Ravenclaw prefect walked along the rows of students and nodded his approval. “Now that I think we’re down to the kids who are willing to take this seriously, we’ll stop focusing on organizing the mind and obscuring parts of it, and instead try to defend our minds against someone trying to read your thoughts. Now, I want the partner facing the world map to try to get into the mind of the partner facing the diagram of the brain and find out their name. After you’ve done this, try to get to their front most thoughts and don’t be surprised if they’re just thinking about trying to block you. Partners facing the diagram, please make a reasonable attempt to block them. Go!”
Rose looked behind the guy she was facing and found that she was the one facing the diagram. She sighed and managed to think about a huge hand waving hello to this guy and blocking off all of her thoughts as she tried to actually get a non-animated block up.
The guy closed his eyes and attempted to sort of move into her mind. At first he was entirely unsuccessful, but he soon saw a gigantic waving hand overtaking all of his senses. He giggled slightly and then refocused to try to see what was behind the huge hand.
Rose had managed to get up a weak wall in front of her thoughts, and soon the huge hand left her mind, after saying adieu. The wall itself was strong enough to keep the boy from seeing her thoughts, but not from hearing them. The thoughts were of course completely random sounding, as the most prominent sound was a song, “Turn back ‘o man. For swear thy foolish ways. All now is earth and none may count her days . . .” And it went on, mostly the “Turn back ‘o man” part repeating, as if that was how she was managing to put up the block.
The boy actually attempted at this point to send whatever random thoughts or lines or songs he could come up with up with into her mind, hoping to interrupt the repetition and get her to let her wall down for a moment.
She giggled a bit and the wall started to crumble.
He almost sighed with relief as he quickly searched for the girl’s name.
Once Rose realized her wall was gone she started to bombard the boy with random thoughts and names to confuse him. “Lily, Purple, Ice cream!, You scream!, James, I’m a guy, Slytherin scum, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Alice, In, Wonder, land, I am queen, uh . . ., Mary . . .” And so the train of randomness continued.
The boy waited patiently for the correct name, though he wasn’t quite sure how he’d identify it.
Rose finally got an idea and after a while of her train she started to pry into the boy’s mind when he wasn’t expecting it.
The boy made a very strong attempt to momentarily think of himself only as “the boy” and tried to use her preoccupation to get at her name, or at least to find something so personal to her that she would be forced to return to her own mind.
The struggle between the minds continued until the Ravenclaw in charge finally told them all that it was time to go. At that point every one started to file out and yet Rose and “the boy” were still left staring blankly at each other. After every one was gone and the night was far enough along that Rose was starting to get tired she left the boys mind and tried to push him from her’s.
He made one last desperate attempt to find her name, but then retreated. “That was fun,” he commented.
“Oh yes, it was, Boy.” Rose responded, picking back up her book bag and looking at him. “Who are you?”
“Severus Snape, also known as that kid who knows all the curses, and you?”
“You have quiet a long name, kid who knows all the curses.” She laughed and walked to the door and looked back at him. “Now If I told you who I was that would just defeat the purpose of this whole night.” She winked and left the room, happier then she had been when she first entered.
The boy idly pondered over the word “rose” for a little while, then shrugged it off and left to return to the Slytherin dorms, sure that he had found the one truly intelligent Gryffindor.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
The next day, around dinner time, Rose stepped out of her office and pulled her robe tightly around her thin figure and the see-through blue dress she was wearing. She walked slowly past the Gryffindor common room and down the stairs, wondering where Severus would be at that moment. As she walked she hummed "In His Eyes" and she concentrated on her feet and the clicks of her steps on the stone.
A group of 6th year Ravenclaws went wide-eyed the moment that they saw their Arithmancy teacher with some sort of see through blue dress dragging along the ground under her robes.
Rose just smiled and continued to walk, not very far from the Ravenclaws, who were still staring at her, Rose ran into Severus and smiled once she saw him. "Thank Merlin it's you," she said, looking back at the Ravenclaw group and then to Severus again.
Severus glared at the Ravenclaws, readily telling them that he would find a way to dock points from their house and give them detention if they didn't bugger off and stop staring at Rose. They went away and he laughed. "Maybe you should choose some more school appropriate clothes instead of setting a bad example for the children. We all know they don't need it."
"Well at this point in my life I’m poorer than dirt and am stuck wearing all of my grandmothers old clothing, she, being a witch, doesn’t have many normal clothes. So unless you carry around spare clothing that would fit me . . .” Rose shrugged. "Can we go down to your office?" she asked, her eyes begging, like back when she was 17 and Sirius and her would do puppy dog faces together.
Severus rolled his eyes at the patented puppy dog face. "Sure," he said simply as he turned around and led the way to the dungeons. "And, by the way, the puppy dog face has no real effect; I just don't feel like walking up 5 floors of staircases."
"Okay." She smiled and followed him, loyally. Once they got to the office she sat down and looked around, while subconsciously humming the end of "in His Eyes." Once the song ended Rose looked up at Severus, "It's nice down here. But I suppose that you would like to ask me questions now. I promise that what ever I answer will be the truth." She smiled and pulled her legs up to her chest, then watched Severus.
He sat down on a chair, "And no saying 'no comment', okay?"
"Okay. I promise."
"Good, so what have you been doing for the past 16 years?"
"No comment," Rose said jokingly, and then got serious. "For the beginning of it I traveled a lot, and then when I came back to London I went and stayed with Dimela. I mostly just was in plays for that time, and that didn't give me much money. Soon we went broke and had to split. So I went to Dumbledore and he got me a place to stay for a while, as I looked for a job. And that’s about all."
"All right. And Dimela, what has she been doing?"
"Dimela.... well, Dimela, she's been working very close to Fudge." Rose smiled, and fiddled her thumbs, looking down at the ground.
"Discreet, are we? What's she doing?"
"What's who doing?" Rose said with a sly smile. She looked back up at Severus and leaned forward in her chair. "She's a Lucy."
Severus went wide eyed and sat there for a little while.
Rose sat and watched him, waiting for some kind of reaction from the man.
"She's a WHAT? HOW DID SHE WIND UP SINKING THAT LOW?"
Rose backed up into her chair and looked at Severus. "Um, well she's a Prostitute. And I don't know how she ending up sinking that low. It's not like I'm happy about it."
"How long has she been . . .?"
"One year."
"Okay. Just a moment while I try to swallow that," and so he tried, and failed, and wound up not blinking for about a minute.
"Severus, are you okay?" Rose asked uneasily.
"No," said Severus. "Anyway, how's your love life been?"
"Fine, I guess." Rose shrugged. "I've had boyfriends come and go, it's really just a way of life for me now, I haven't ever found the guy that's just for me."
Severus decided to shrug that off. " Dimela's within the last year is obvious, but before then?"
Rose paused for a moment before answering, "Dimela never really had a love life."
"Wow, only you then. Quite strange how that works out."
"Now how's that strange?" Rose asked raising an eyebrow and smiling.
"Well, you see how basically everyone who was in a year close to ours wound up with dramatic tragedy ruining their lives. And yet, somehow, you have managed to get a love life, survive, and not go insane while the Potters died, the Longbottoms got tortured to insanity, the Weasleys have been completely broke and have seven kids, a whole bunch of other people have died, and those remaining have no love life whatsoever."
"Okay. Sure. So what about you? Now that you’ve asked me about everything, what are you?" Rose put her hand, subconsciencly on the death eater mark. "How have you been?" She smiled.
"I'm a double crossing traitor and a spy, but as long as everyone thinks I’m on their side no one cares. I'm also a teacher, probably the one most despised by everyone except the Slytherins. Other than an annoyance of a conscious, though, I'm fine."
Rose laughed, "You are one of the most wonderful people that I have ever met, and yet everyone else seems to hate you." She smiled and stroked his cheek.
"Yes, for most of us, not much has changed."
"Yes." She smiled and continued to stroke his cheek.
Harry walked in. Snape unceremoniously pushed Rose away. Harry's mind tried to register what had just been going on.
Rose stood up quickly and bowed her head to Harry and Severus, then walked out of the room and shut the door, she sunk down beside the door, with an embarrassed smile. She laughed nervously and shook her head, then walked away.
Snape said, "Just a moment,” dumped that thought into the pensive, and decided to leave it there. "Alright, Harry, clear your mind. Ready?"
"Um, no, I can't really clear my mind," Harry responded.
"Then dump the thought in the pensive and let's get on with this lesson." Harry did as Snape said and he (Harry) had actually managed to make a bit of progress at it by the end of the night.
