Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

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
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Together, they travel to meet Voldemort. Voldemort sends out the Killing Curse and Evie does not resist – waking to find herself in an odd and somewhat insubstantial version of what appears to be King’s Cross station, with Dumbledore and Snape both waiting there for her. And a piteous mewling thing on the floor under a bench that she looks away from quickly, that she assumes was the portion of Voldemort that lived within her.
She rushes into Severus’s arms, and he holds her close for a long time. Finally she disengages and turns to Dumbledore, who says, “You did well, Evie. I am more proud of you than I can tell you.”
Evie says, “Thank you, Professor. It cost us all heavily, though; Fred Weasley, Tonks, to name a few.” Dumbledore nods sadly and then Evie adds, “I didn’t expect the afterlife to look like King’s Cross station, however…”
Dumbledore laughs for a moment and then grows serious and says, “This isn’t the afterlife; this is the way station for you, if you will.” Evie looks confused and Dumbledore says, “You still have a choice, Evie. You can go on; or you can go back.”
Evie and Severus both look at him, astonished. Evie thinks about what this means, and doesn’t like the conclusion she comes to; but knows that it’s the right one even though it breaks her heart. Finally, she looks with infinite sadness at Dumbledore and says “It’s not over, though, is it…Nagini still lives. Voldemort still lives.” Dumbledore nods, also sadly, and withdraws into the mists - leaving her with Severus.
She almost can’t look at Severus, but he takes her hand and when she looks at him, she sees the love in his eyes as well as the understanding of the decision she’s come to, that she hasn't even voiced yet. He says, “I know, my love. My first thought, when Dumbledore told me what you’d have to do, was to Apparate you away somewhere that no-one would ever find us. But we’d have had to leave the children behind, in a world where Voldemort was still a threat to them as well as to everyone else.”
She looks down and tries to suppress a sob as he goes on, “Ultimately, I couldn’t choose to do that even though I wanted it with all my heart, even though the thought of losing you was tearing my heart and soul to pieces. And I know that’s also why you must go back, now. We will pay the price, but we will not count the cost – it’s the right thing to do, and we both know it.” He caresses her face and adds, “Besides, it’s not forever; it’s just for now.”
She begins to weep and he holds her close until she’s recovered a bit. Looking into her eyes again, Severus says, “Be strong, Evie. And give my love to Albus.”
Evie replies, “I will, every day. I love you so much, Severus, and I don’t know how I’m going to go on without you. But I promise I’ll do my best, for both of you.”
Severus nods and adds rather enigmatically, “Remus is a good man, Evie. I’m sure he’ll help watch over you and Albus both.” Evie is a bit confused but he just smiles and holds her close again, murmuring softly that he’ll miss this most of all, until they can be together again.
Letting go of her finally, he says “I will be waiting for you, when your time comes again. And even now, my heart will still be with you always, even though my body is not.” Evie tells him again how much she loves him and will miss him, and they hold one another tightly, kissing fiercely, as everything begins to dissolve around her. She can still feel his lips on hers as she wakes up in Hagrid’s arms, being carried up the steps of Hogwarts just as Neville kills Nagini with the Sword of Gryffindor.

She confronts Voldemort again, and as she reaches for her wand, Severus's wand (that was also still in her pocket) seems to leap into her hand of its own volition. She remembers what Ollivander said to her both about the wand choosing the wizard, and also about wands accepting new owners. She decides that there's a small measure of justice in using Severus's wand against his own killer, instead of the one she'd taken from Malfoy after hers had been broken.
Also recalling what Dumbledore once told her, about concentrating on how she and Voldemort are different rather than how they were the same, she puts all the love she felt for Severus into her spell-casting and it lends her tremendous power. So powerful is it that she can almost sense Severus standing next to her, in a dueling stance and throwing his own considerable power against Voldemort along with her.
She can't actually see him there and doesn't know if some part of him is actually there, or whether she's just imagining it vividly enough, or it's just a small infusion of himself that had likely seeped deeply into his wand over the years; but whatever it is, it gives her heart. Just before she dispatches Voldemort for good, she can feel his surprise (through the connection between their opposing spells) that he hadn’t detected that particular weakness (which would always be the only thing love ever was to him) in Severus before he killed him, and his dismay that he could have used it against them both if he had.

Once it’s over and Voldemort is gone, she just feels empty while nearly everyone around her is rejoicing. She is at a loss for where to go or what to do, but there are funerals still to attend to; Tonks, Fred, and Severus especially. Ron and Hermione are still lost enough in their own grief over Fred and Tonks not to question why she grieves so over Severus; she’ll tell them one day, now that there is no danger in anyone knowing, but for now it’s just too painful.
Even through his own grief, Remus does his best to comfort Evie as Severus is laid to rest. After the funeral, they hold one another for a long time and weep inconsolably for the ones they have lost. Finally everyone begins to make their way to their own homes, sad or joyful as the case may be.
She goes home, alone, and the house feels so empty; like Dementors are hiding in the walls and there can never be any happiness there again. An hour or so after she's arrived, Minerva McGonagall also arrives, with a box of some of Severus’s things from his rooms at the school, that she thought Evie might want to have. Evie takes the box and begins to weep, and McGonagall embraces her and even begins to cry a little herself. When they’re cried out, Minerva takes her leave and says that if Evie needs anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Evie nods, not sure what she could ask for that would really help, but appreciating the offer all the same. McGonagall was not quite like a mother to her while she was at school, but still close; maybe like a favorite aunt, someone she always felt she could talk to without being judged unfairly. Evie is glad at least that McGonagall got to see them together, got to see in a way that few others did what kind of man he really was; more than most, she understands what Evie has really lost, in fact what the whole wizarding world has lost.
Evie takes the box into the study and thinks for a moment before she opens it, picturing him in his surroundings at Hogwarts. Back to the time when she didn’t have a clue what he was really like, when she despised and feared him by turns. It's hard for her to imagine having disliked him, now; it's hard for her to picture the way he was then because so many more memories had overlaid the earlier ones.
Finally she turns to the box and begins to unpack it, not finding much – Snape never invested much of himself into his rooms at Hogwarts, in fact until they got together he’d never really invested much of himself anywhere.
She finds a key to his vault at Gringotts, and a key to his place at Spinner’s End. Under those she finds some newspaper clippings; one of her mother and father’s death, and then quite a few about her that go back quite a ways.
Towards the bottom of the stack she finds a photo of her that she was never even aware had been taken, and she isn’t sure who even took it, much less how (or when) he got a copy of it. In it, she is standing alone on the covered bridge, looking out towards the setting sun; her face lifted, eyes steady, and hair blowing lightly in the breeze. She can’t even recall that moment herself, really; it’s clear that it was around her fifth or sixth year, but more than that she can’t tell. There’s no camera in the box, so she can only assume that someone else took it, but she still has no idea how he ended up with it.
In the bottom of the box is what appears to be a blank parchment. When she picks it up however, words begin to appear, much as the Marauder’s Map when activated. It’s another poem, but somehow he’s also infused it with memories and emotions, which she can see and feel strongly as she reads. It’s not quite as immersive or animated as what memories are like in a Pensieve, more like a series of snapshots of moments in time, and the emotions that went with them. She wonders if McGonagall also saw this, but somehow she is certain that it was keyed only to the two of them; it was probably just in with the clippings and so escaped being discarded.
By the associated memories, it was written sometime after the night when he stayed after they’d had too much wine; in fact possibly on that night. She sees the mental snapshot of him awake, looking at her sleeping form tenderly before he goes, and she is overcome by the thought that he felt that way about her, as far back as that.
I lie awake at night, listening to you sleeping

I hear the darkness breathe, and the rain against the window

After all this time…cynical and jaded

All the stones are diamonds

And all the blues have faded
Everything I’ve been through

All I’ve seen and heard

I’ve spent so much of my life

In the spiritual Third World

But you came, and brought the rain here…
Something waiting to happen

Something learning to fly

We can talk, without talking

From inside to inside

I have waited to feel this

For the whole of my life…
We took ourselves apart, we talked about our faces

You said you didn’t like yours…I said I disagreed…
And I keep the pieces separate

I clutch them in my coat

The jigsaw of an angel

I can do when I feel low
From emptiness and dryness, the famine of our days

I watch the heavens open, and wash it all away

You came and brought the rain here…
Something waiting to happen

Something learning to fly

On the edge of exploding

Something warm and alive

Something waiting to happen

Anytime that you like
I have waited to feel this

For the whole of my life…
[words and music 1991 by Marillion]
The images and feelings that come along with the words make her sob anew, she had no idea that he felt that way, that early on. She weeps for the lost time they might have had, and for the feeling he put into the page so strongly, that is not only in the words but infused into the parchment itself. The feeling of standing on a precipice, of something wonderful about to happen that he feels and hopes is almost within reach; something he’d always longed for but had never really expected to have. That she was like the rain in the desert that his heart had become, the quenching, cooling draught that leaves behind a profusion of blossoming flowers in what only moments before looked like a barren wasteland; life and beauty that was always there, just invisibly waiting for that one thing to unlock it. That she was his secret strength and joy, and that he’d waited his whole life for that feeling, for someone he could love who would love him back just as much.
It also makes her certain that the first poem she saw in the Pensieve, the one he’d committed to the fire (lest it be found inadvertently, she suspects) was also about her. That he’d wanted her to see his fear and doubts about himself and paths he’d taken, his love and longing for her and admission that he had never wanted to leave her, his jealousy over people who were able to be around her when he could not be. His acknowledgement of how much she’d opened up within him; that even she likely wasn’t going to recognize him once it was out in the open. His initial rejection of the idea of love finding him as well, calling it a great offense and telling himself that he should never have allowed himself to have feelings for her, but at the same time acknowledging that the only reason he felt that way was because he’d lost her and not because she didn’t deserve to have a place in his heart.

[Author's note: Okay, I promise I am not stuck in the early 90's music-wise, was only coincidence that the ones I wanted to use were all from the same couple of years. I also have to stop and give a tip of the hat here to rickfan37 for making me want to infuse a bit of music into the story in the first place. I had read her story "Snape in Love" (http://hp.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=14305 - it's also on the regular fanfiction site) nearly a decade ago elsewhere on the web, and besides having enjoyed it thoroughly at the time, it also reintroduced me to another good and underrated band I'd forgotten about (Spock's Beard), so that was a nice side bonus.
Thanks for the positive ratings so far; this story started out intended just for one person (other than myself) to read and was initially a bare 20 or so pages. But it just seemed to take on a life of its own as it went, seemed to want to expand itself outward every time I would read back over it. I have really enjoyed the journey so far and just decided on a whim to share it.]
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Coming of Age (Female Potter)