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Coming of Age (Female Potter)	By : stargazer67 Category: HP Canon Characters paired with Original Characters > Het - Male/Female Views: 11694 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 14
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- 16
The next memory finds Snape standing alone in his room late at night, looking out the window in complete dejection – looking almost as if he’s considering hurling himself from it. As she moves closer to him, a parchment on his desk flutters and catches her eye, and she stops for a moment to read it.
It’s a poem of sorts, and once again she’s surprised; she never really thought of him composing poetry. She’s not even sure who it is ‘to’, at first she thinks maybe her mother, but some of the verses don’t quite fit.
A million stars were circling, in the world above my head

As I drifted back in memory, to all the things we said

Returning my attention, to the pain that I’d denied

It was never my intention…to ever say goodbye…
Maybe I could have won this war – maybe I could have changed

If only wisdom courted me, and not this fear and shame

The ties that bind and bless the soul, have bound me up in chains

Your love cuts through my weakened heart, and memories twist the blade
I thought of you, and nothing more – I needed nothing else

I cried the day you left me, I should never have allowed myself

To feel this way
I wonder where you sleep at night, I wonder where you’ve been

I envy all your family, I envy all your friends

The answer looms in front of me, and though I cannot see

I believe in ancient promises – I believe that I am free
But love comes as a great offense, like innocence betrayed

I don’t think you’ll recognize me, on the other side of day

But then…I never felt this way…
A million eyes were watching, from the world above my head

And I swear they saw right through me, the life that I have led

The stranger enters quietly, braves the heat and cold

Through a deep, dark, haunted passageway, that leads into the soul
Let no-one be mistaken, death makes memories of us all

It’s the purpose that confounds me…I should never have allowed myself

To feel this way...
["To Feel This Way", words and music 1992 by Michael Been/The Call]
She looks back up as she sees movement out of the corner of her eye; he has finally turned away from the window, sighing. He picks up the parchment and looks at it, re-reading it; then holds it to the fire, a solitary tear sliding down his face as he watches it burn.
In the last memory, she sees Snape in the Headmaster’s office at Hogwarts. He is trying to keep the Carrows in check as they propose all manner of evil things against the students and even other staff; it’s clear to her that he has a very fine line to walk between protecting the students, and not letting on to the Death Eaters that he is in fact protecting them.
After the Carrows leave the office, he sits down, hangs his head in his hands and cries out to Dumbledore’s portrait, saying that he can’t do this alone, it’s too hard and he’s exhausted; and Dumbledore tells him that perhaps it’s time he sought some comfort and support from the only person left to him who was ever willing to give it, the only person that he was ever fully at peace with and that he knows he can trust not to betray his deepest secrets.
Snape lifts his head with hope for a moment, but his head bows again as he says that he cannot possibly face her, now; he could not bear the rejection that he knows will be in her eyes, and would not be able to withstand it long enough to even begin to try to explain any of it to her.
Dumbledore suggests it might be easier if he shows her first, rather than trying to tell her. Snape says that won’t help because he’s sure she won’t look at it, but Dumbledore smiles and says that she will – he’s ensured that she’ll have to. Snape looks at him for a long time, obviously wanting to ask but in the end deciding that it doesn’t matter, and she sees him begin to pull out memories and put them into the flask that was delivered to her today.
The Pensieve finally grows dark and she pulls out of it, thoughts whirling in her mind and feeling completely turned upside down and inside out. Phineas is back and gently clears his throat, and she turns, seeing again a very kindly and sympathetic look on his face. He says that if and when she is ready to see Snape, all she has to do is tell him and he’ll deliver the message.
She says she needs to think about it for a little while, and he nods his understanding, and after suggesting that she also burn the letter he sent with the flask (which she immediately does, understanding now the lack of information in the letter itself and the precautions he took with the memories the flask contained), he departs again, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
She sits, thinking, as the day moves on; she is surprised when she comes back to herself to find the room completely dark, and has to create a light with her wand to be able to see to move around. When she finally goes to bed, still undecided, two images keep chasing each other in her mind; the first, of him holding her mother, and weeping as though his own life was over.
She felt exactly the same over Sirius’s death of course, but there was one very big difference. What makes his sorrow all the more remarkable, is that he loved a woman so deeply who did not and never would love him back the same way. A woman he knew he would never have, who chose his greatest tormentor over him, yet he still loved her that much anyway. She wonders to herself if she’d still have loved Sirius that much and for that long, under the same sort of circumstances; she’s not entirely sure that she could have.
The other image is of him trying to hold it together at Hogwarts, and having no-one to lean on or talk to, except the prior headmaster’s portraits. The loyal staff hate him, the students loathe him, even while he’s risking his life to protect all of them; and he must constantly be on guard not to give away his true loyalties.
Evie is not sure she’d ever have that kind of strength – for all that Sirius was always praising her for her backbone and composure, she still doesn’t think she could have borne up even for a single day under that kind of strain.
This finally decides her – Snape helped her every time when she needed it most, even risked his own life for her, and asked nothing in return; in fact not even allowing her to know she was being helped until after Sirius died, rejecting even the gratitude she’d have given him back then, if she’d known.
She thinks about the courage it took him to come to her and reveal his own terrible pain after Sirius died; just so she would know that she was not alone. And she thinks about the courage and incredible amount of trust that it took him to reveal everything he’s just sent her today; he has laid his whole soul bare to her, this man who has always kept everyone at as great a distance as possible. She gets dressed and goes back downstairs, calling for Phineas to tell Snape that she will see him.
- 14
- 15
- 16
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Coming of Age (Female Potter)