Oh my friend, my friend, don't ask me what your sacrifice was for!
Date: June 9, 2001
Time: 4:30 PM
Place: Spinner's End, upstairs in Mandy's room
Character(s) Involved: June, OPEN to any Spinner's End residents OR visitors (well-meaning or otherwise) who'd like to come find her up there.
Rating: PG to start
( There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief. ~ Aeschylus )
Time: 4:30 PM
Place: Spinner's End, upstairs in Mandy's room
Character(s) Involved: June, OPEN to any Spinner's End residents OR visitors (well-meaning or otherwise) who'd like to come find her up there.
Rating: PG to start
( There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief. ~ Aeschylus )
Her shy, blushing uncertainty and embarrassment when he'd grilled McLaggen like an over-protective father and then gave her a robe to take for a cover-up since she was going swimming - complete with a contraceptive potion in the pocket. He'd been alarmingly relieved when he'd found it later, when she returned his dressing-gown, completely unused.
Giggles pealed forth from his memory, clear and crisp like a bubbling mountain stream as she pointed with June to the ridiculously purple bow she'd pulled from a package and stuck to the top of his head.
The radiant smile of genuine pleasure when she'd opened the shimmering silvery-grey shawl he'd given her for Christmas, as well as numerous memories of her wearing the item in timid but very elegant concealment when she did go out of the house.
In truth, there weren't many. He hadn't known her as long as the others. Had he already forgotten some of their interactions? Unthinkable! Clutching the frame to his chest, he left the cellar in such a hurry as to barely pause to seal the door behind him before taking the stairs two at a time. Through the kitchen with a snarl at a house-elf trying to feed him, he took the next set of stairs just as quickly.
Mandy's room was scarcely ten paces down the hall from his. Perhaps, if he went in there, among her things, he might stimulate his memory and have more to add to the viewer.
Except that the door was open, and the room was not empty as he had expected to find it. Coming to an abrupt halt, his arms wrapped around the frame held against his chest as though afraid someone might see it or take it, he cleared his throat awkwardly.
"June. Mrs Finnigan. Excuse me." Stilted. Hoarse. The normally silken voice brittle. "I had not expected to find anyone..."
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"I know. I know, but... what good is any of it? I couldn't..." The words caught in her throat. I couldn't save her. She needed me and all I could do was... watch. No matter that they had done everything they could. No matter that, regardless of how she wracked her brain now, she still couldn't think of a single other thing they could have tried that might have prevented Mandy's death. June believed in the essential fairness of the universe. She believed that there was very little a person couldn't accomplish if they were willing to do whatever it took. No setback that couldn't be overcome with determination.
It wasn't fair that, with so many people doing everything in their power to save Mandy, they should have been so helpless. It wasn't right. She wanted to whine and throw a tantrum like a child. They would any of them have given their own lives to save Mandy's, so why wasn't there something they could do?
She wasn't sure which possibility tormented her more: that there had been something they'd missed, or that there hadn't. What kind of a world do we live in, where a person can suffer and die before our eyes in spite of all our love and efforts to help her?
Severus's entrance startled her out of her thoughts, which was probably fortunate. And she was startled, at least as much as he was. He'd scarcely been seen since they'd returned home yesterday.
But of course he'd expected to find this room empty. She hugged the blanket a little closer around her shoulders with her free hand. "Sorry." Her own voice was small and scarcely less brittle than his, although it hadn't been as silken to begin with. "We could leave..?"
Which offer would usually have been accompanied by immediately rising and pulling Charlotte toward the door. And she was willing, but she'd sunken so far into the oversized chair, or so it felt, that it was going to take a real act of will to get herself out. She thought about it, but the message didn't seem to be getting to her body quite like it should.
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"No. Unnecessary. I just...."
Uncharacteristically clumsy with his words, too lost even to be embarrassed, at this moment, at being seen by a relative stranger in this state of discomposure, his eyes landing upon a corner of dove-grey silk which hung on a hook near the wardrobe.
The shawl he had given her for Christmas.
His arms clutched convulsively over the frame pressed against his chest.
"I had wanted to...."
What? Jog his memory? Find clearer memories in here, where he might feel closer to her? Where he'd spent so much time with Ginevra in their first months of residence here, tending to her injuries?
Catching June's pain-filled gaze for a moment - quite probably a mirror to his own, he loosened his death-grip on the frame and turned it over. Mandy's muted giggle floated out of the room at that moment, as the images he'd already placed within continued their repetitive cycle.
Straightening his shoulders, suddenly wary and defensive, he felt the need to justify his actions. Clearly he had become weak - he was going 'soft', else death of one girl would not have devastated him so completely - but he did not need to display his weakness for all to see! He held the frame out to June, casting a sideways glance toward Mrs Finnigan as though daring her to mock him.
"The clarity and quality of the image is best if the memories are... clear to begin with. If you wish, you may add to it whenever you like."
He hadn't wanted, no needed to find a way to outwardly be able to focus on the positive recollections of the girl, to try - completely ineffectually - to banish the hideous images of her death from his mind. Of course not.
It was merely the preservation of information. Nothing more.
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She looked to the frame, just like Seamus' viewers. It was something she wished that she had had all those years ago. "She will not be forgotten about." she said, quietly to June.
She didn't know what to say to Snape. She just didn't look at him. She didn't blame him, she just didn't know what to say. Charlotte smoothed her hand over June's shoulder, aching for her. She didn't really know Mandy, but that didn't mean that such a young girl deserved to die for something that she couldn't possibly do. There wasn't anything that could be done. There was no saving the dead. Putting a stopper in death was just not possible. It was a part of life, but it was never easy.
She had been there, she had suffered the same sort of loss. Gabrielle, a few other friends, her parents.... her brother. She had all the experience, but it was still never easy to find the right things to say, because there was no right thing to say. "I can go if you want to 'ave time togezer." she said, quietly, looking between June and Snape.
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Mandy. Not as they had last seen her, battered and frightened, but normal. Moving about the house. Sitting at dinner. Giggling over Christmas presents with June herself like a pair of little girls. The memories held June almost transfixed; of course, he had created the viewers, but he could make one to do this? Her fingers brushed ever so lightly across Mandy's smiling face, the surface rippling faintly under her touch.
"This is... it's perfect," she managed, though even that word seemed inadequate to convey the feelings tumbling over each other inside her. "I didn't know you could... You'll have to show me how to add to it, please."
Still caught up in the viewer, she was shaken out of it once again by Charlotte's voice. Merlin, I really ought to get some sleep... But sleeping was unthinkable. "No, Charlotte, you don't have to go. We should..." What? Leave the room to Severus? Perhaps, but where else was there for her to go? Nowhere was free of grief; it choked the whole house like smoke. Mutely she held the viewer out to him again, eyes on the smooth black folds of his clothing.
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Once again his voice trailed away, unable to support itself in the discussion of trivialities. He would show her the process when the house was empty and quiet. For now, he was too self-conscious of his own distress.
"Please do not disturb yourselves." Stepping further into the room, he ran his fingers over the silken shawl, remembering the time he'd spent trying to choose an appropriate gift for her, remembering her delight in seeing it and the frequency with which she'd worn it.
Turning back to June, he silently accepted the frame again and headed back toward the door.
"Do not disturb yourselves," he repeated. "I should..." Make an appearance in the sitting room full of 'company', though whether he could bear to do that was unlikely. "Go."
He left the door in its previously slightly-ajar state and headed for the stairs, likely to return to the isolation of his lab.
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"Are you okay, June?" she asked, looking at her friend. She was a very touchy person. She liked to comfort her friends with hugs and things, but she wasn't sure it was right.
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