Miracle of Miracles, Part Two
Part One is here.
Severus' repressed memories start reasserting themselves, and the visitors from his past make themselves useful in various ways...
When Snape next saw Harry Potter again, it was several hours later.
The fight had long since been ended, and Hjordis Halvorson was snoring in her sleep. But Severus' head was still in her lap, and she still had a hand on his wound -- both hands, in fact. Julie and Severus were both alternating between dozing and wakefulness, but they confined their communications to mental transmissions for the most part to spare their energies. Sarah Norton had passed around sandwiches and coffee (she'd brought a Thermos), so hunger wasn't an issue. And everyone there knew how to wait.
They chose to wait because they didn't want to have to explain themselves to people who would be understandably wand-happy after the events of the past few days (weeks? months?). They also didn't want to risk moving Severus, not when they could take perfectly good care of him right where he was. Better for them to get him back on his feet, which they could do given another few hours, and then go on to help out Poppy in the hospital wing.
In the intervening time, they all reintroduced themselves to the person they'd last seen as a skinny boy of fourteen. There was a bit of catching up to do.
The Nortons still had their farm, though they'd given up on the corn and beans aside from what they could sell to fine-dining establishments in Rushford and Lanesboro and even Rochester, which thanks to the presence of the Mayo Clinic had a number of fancy restaurants. Instead, they were focused on the cows and the berries and the orchards, and even (with Hjordis' help) did a bit of bed-and-breakfast business from the burgeoning tourist industry.
Becky had gone on to get a degree in chemistry and a teaching certificate; Severus laughed out loud when he'd heard this: "At last, I have my revenge on you, Brat." "Hey, who better than a reformed brat to whip brats in line?" was her reply. She was dating a fellow teacher named Brian Gunderson, and was planning on a September wedding.
And then there was Julie.
The memories of her both soothed and ached as they came creeping back. It was not unlike finding and losing Lily all over again. Except that this time, he'd found Julie again -- or she'd found him. Or Potter had found them both, to be scrupulously precise.
And unlike with Lily, it was obvious, even to him, so unlucky where women were concerned, that Julie still loved him with every fibre of her being. She, like him with Lily, had never found anyone else. Losing him, he found to his great astonishment, had affected her as had nothing else in her life. She had dropped her plans for the theatre and gone into medicine instead, though as a psychiatrist instead of a nurse like her Gran; if she couldn't have saved Severus from his aunt, she could at least save other young boys and girls. Her manifesting bloodstopper powers shortly after his being taken away helped influence her decision.
It was all so very overwhelming, he thought to himself as he looked at Julie's face, relaxed in a semi-slumber. He would need a bit of time to absorb it all, and see how he felt about it. For the first time, he got an inkling of how it must have felt for Lily, to have been on the receiving end of adoration one didn't realize existed.
His ruminations were interrupted by John Norton, the man who had moved Heaven and Earth to be his legal father. The man who was here at the Shrieking Shack, standing watch over him and the others. The man who though of humble birth could show Albus Dumbledore a thing or two about upright behavior.
"Look sharp, everyone," Norton said, peering out the window. "Harry's coming, and he's got company."
Severus' repressed memories start reasserting themselves, and the visitors from his past make themselves useful in various ways...
When Snape next saw Harry Potter again, it was several hours later.
The fight had long since been ended, and Hjordis Halvorson was snoring in her sleep. But Severus' head was still in her lap, and she still had a hand on his wound -- both hands, in fact. Julie and Severus were both alternating between dozing and wakefulness, but they confined their communications to mental transmissions for the most part to spare their energies. Sarah Norton had passed around sandwiches and coffee (she'd brought a Thermos), so hunger wasn't an issue. And everyone there knew how to wait.
They chose to wait because they didn't want to have to explain themselves to people who would be understandably wand-happy after the events of the past few days (weeks? months?). They also didn't want to risk moving Severus, not when they could take perfectly good care of him right where he was. Better for them to get him back on his feet, which they could do given another few hours, and then go on to help out Poppy in the hospital wing.
In the intervening time, they all reintroduced themselves to the person they'd last seen as a skinny boy of fourteen. There was a bit of catching up to do.
The Nortons still had their farm, though they'd given up on the corn and beans aside from what they could sell to fine-dining establishments in Rushford and Lanesboro and even Rochester, which thanks to the presence of the Mayo Clinic had a number of fancy restaurants. Instead, they were focused on the cows and the berries and the orchards, and even (with Hjordis' help) did a bit of bed-and-breakfast business from the burgeoning tourist industry.
Becky had gone on to get a degree in chemistry and a teaching certificate; Severus laughed out loud when he'd heard this: "At last, I have my revenge on you, Brat." "Hey, who better than a reformed brat to whip brats in line?" was her reply. She was dating a fellow teacher named Brian Gunderson, and was planning on a September wedding.
And then there was Julie.
The memories of her both soothed and ached as they came creeping back. It was not unlike finding and losing Lily all over again. Except that this time, he'd found Julie again -- or she'd found him. Or Potter had found them both, to be scrupulously precise.
And unlike with Lily, it was obvious, even to him, so unlucky where women were concerned, that Julie still loved him with every fibre of her being. She, like him with Lily, had never found anyone else. Losing him, he found to his great astonishment, had affected her as had nothing else in her life. She had dropped her plans for the theatre and gone into medicine instead, though as a psychiatrist instead of a nurse like her Gran; if she couldn't have saved Severus from his aunt, she could at least save other young boys and girls. Her manifesting bloodstopper powers shortly after his being taken away helped influence her decision.
It was all so very overwhelming, he thought to himself as he looked at Julie's face, relaxed in a semi-slumber. He would need a bit of time to absorb it all, and see how he felt about it. For the first time, he got an inkling of how it must have felt for Lily, to have been on the receiving end of adoration one didn't realize existed.
His ruminations were interrupted by John Norton, the man who had moved Heaven and Earth to be his legal father. The man who was here at the Shrieking Shack, standing watch over him and the others. The man who though of humble birth could show Albus Dumbledore a thing or two about upright behavior.
"Look sharp, everyone," Norton said, peering out the window. "Harry's coming, and he's got company."