FIC: It Does Not Do to Dwell on Dreams (PG)
Title: It Does Not Do to Dwell on Dreams
Type: Fic
Age-Range Category: Three
Pairing: Severus Snape/Original Female Character
Author: delphipsmith
Beta(s): ND and G - thanks :)
Rating: PG
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): None.
Summary: In the months that follow Lily's death, Snape realizes that wallowing in grief and guilt is hurting more than just himself.
Prologue: Almost Time
As the battered black Austin Metro swung towards the kerb, a chorus of teasing comments rose from the other working girls.
"Jewel, honey, it's your sugar daddy, here for a little trick or treat!"
"Make sure he's got some candy for you, Jules!"
As the car rolled to a stop. Ebony, who was closest, glanced into the open window and called out cheekily, "Same old costume - all 'e needs is some fake fangs and a cape and 'e'd fit right in tonight!"
The good-natured shouts brought a smile to Jewel's face despite the chilly October air that crept under her thigh-high skirt and raised goose bumps on the exposed tops of her breasts. Skin-tight and low-cut might be good for business, but it didn't do much for warmth or comfort. With a tart instruction to the other girls to "shut your gobs, all of you", she tossed back her long red hair then pulled out a compact to check her lipstick. Satisfied, she snapped it shut and dropped it into her bag. As she did so her fingers brushed the small glass vial. She hadn't been sure he'd come tonight, but she was ready.
She stepped towards the car, stiletto heels clicking on the pavement, and opened the door. "Happy Halloween, John. Nice to see you again." She got in and closed the door, giving a silent thanks that he'd put the heat on. He was nice that way - small courtesies.
"And you, Jewel. " The tall, dark-haired man in the driver's seat inclined his head in greeting, then spun the steering wheel and the car moved away into the dark night, leaving the other girls to await the next customer.
As the welcome warmth began to soak into her legs and fingers, she looked over at him. Dark hair longer than most men wore, unreadable black eyes, pale skin, long-fingered hands, dressed - as always - in black. She laughed.
He gave her a quick glance. "What?"
"They're right. All you need is a cape and some fangs and you'd make a perfect Dracula."
He shook his head. "I will never understand the Mu-female fascination with vampires. If you ever actually met one, you'd run screaming."
Watching his hands on the wheel, she felt a tingle of anticipation. Despite knowing that the night would end as it always did, with his putting fifty pounds on the chest of drawers in some cheap hotel as payment for services rendered, something about him touched her heart. It always had, right from the first.
Part 1: The First Time
She'd been about ready to give it up for the night and go back to the flat she shared with Joy, one of the other working girls and the closest thing she had to a friend, when she saw the car parked at the kerb. It was dented and rusting, but tomorrow was the end of November and Jewel was still a hundred pounds short on her rent, so she sauntered up to the open window on the driver's side and looked in.
He was slumped forward, forehead resting on his arms which were crossed atop the steering wheel. Long black hair hid his face. She thought for a moment he was drunk, or passed out, but the tension radiating from him suggested hyperawareness rather than unconsciousness.
"Hi there, hon, you lookin' for a good time?"
At the sound of her voice he raised his head and fixed her with night-black eyes. "Do I look like a man who is looking for a good time?"
His voice was striking: measured, low, with a silky, sensual quality that froze her tongue for a moment. Then she saw the desolation in his face, and said the first thing that came into her head. "No. You look like a man who's just lost his best friend."
He gave a short, bitter laugh. "Very perceptive. I suppose I have, although it would be more accurate to say that I lost her years ago."
Touched in spite of herself but trying not to show it, Jewel reverted to her customary seductive tone, what she thought of as ho-speak. "I can be your new best friend, hon. Ask anybody, I'm the best friend around."
He closed his eyes. "Don't," he said, and there was a world of pain in the single short syllable.
"Don't what?" she said, startled out of character.
"Don't pretend. I am fed to the teeth with pretence and hypocrisy just now." He opened his eyes and looked at her bleakly. "How much?"
She swallowed the sympathetic words that had jumped to her lips. Business was business. "Tenner for a hand job, thirty for a blow. Fifty if you want to climb in the back seat and do it proper."
He started the car. "Get in."
"Why?"
"My self-disgust does not extend to purgatorial rear seats. There's an hotel round the corner."
Eight minutes later he was dropping the key to the shabby room (no ID required, hourly rates posted on the inside of the door) on top of a scarred chest of drawers. The room was dim, lit only by a small lamp with a fly-specked yellow shade. She closed the door behind her and waited, hesitant, for him to turn around or tell her what he wanted, but he simply stood there motionless as if those few moments of decision had exhausted him.
"What's your name?" she said gently.
"What do you usually call men who pick you up?" he snapped.
Something told her that the contempt in his voice was for himself, not for her. Well, it wouldn't be the first time she'd had a man use her to try to forget. "Tricks. Johns, I suppose."
"John, then. That will do." He turned around. "And you?"
"Jewel."
"Jewel." He reached out a hand and pulled her to him, looking down at her with unreadable dark eyes. Standing close, she could see his face was strained and tired, tight with some emotion held in check. He touched her hair briefly, twining a red strand around his fingers, then bent to kiss her. She was surprised - most of the men she went with were in a hurry to just yank their trousers down and get it over with. At first the touch of his lips was brief, perfunctory, but she felt herself responding to him, sensing a need in him beyond the simply sexual. She pressed against him, wanting more, wanting to give more, and suddenly as if something inside him had broken he let out a sound that was half a sob and half a curse, wrapping both arms around her and holding her tight like a man starved for human touch. The lights went out, untouched by any hand, but Jewel didn't notice.
***
To her surprise he fell asleep afterwards. In sleep the lines of tension were smoothed away; he looked younger, almost boyish. Quietly, so as not to wake him, she slipped out from under the thin coverlet and groped in the darkness for her scattered clothing, then went into the tiny bathroom. When she came out he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his face haggard in the dim light from the window.
He cleared his throat. "The money's on the table. Take it," he added, seeing her hesitation. "I know you need it."
She picked up the bills, twice what she had asked for, and slid them into her bag. "Thanks." She slung her bag over her shoulder and went to the door, then stopped. "Look, I don't usually ask my clients questions about their personal life, but…will you be alright?"
"I doubt it." His hands clenched on the edge of the mattress. "I killed the woman I love. I don't know how to come back from that. Or whether I should even try."
Part 2: The Times Between
Severus kept coming back to Jewel. He couldn't say why - perhaps a mix of gratitude and fear. Gratitude that she had been on that particular street, on that particular night, when he had been mere moments away from a quick spell that would have ended his grief permanently, and superstitious fear that if he let her go, his Jewel, his talisman, the despair that had nearly swallowed him would come back and finish the job.
The second time he told her, as much as he could tell a Muggle, about Lily. What had happened. How much he loved her. How her death had broken him so completely. Then he tried to simply give the girl money, but she threw it in his face, saying that if she wanted charity she'd go down the dole office. She was a working girl who did a day's work for a day's pay, and only interested in a fair trade of value for value. When he thought about it later, he had to admit he was relieved. After the past year or so, he had a new appreciation for simplicity, a lack of strings and complications. This way was better. It wasn't as though she'd expect anything from him.
Before he knew it, once a week like clockwork he was Apparating from Hogwarts to the garage near Spinner's End, and twenty minutes later he was turning his car down her street.
***
"Why do you do this?" he asked as they lay in bed the fourth or fifth time they were together, not in disgust or condemnation, but in simple curiosity. "For a living, I mean."
She shrugged, long red hair falling over her bare shoulders. "Men born with strong backs and big shoulders, they go to the docks or the warehouses and nobody asks them why."
"You're saying you're simply making a good use of your assets?"
Exactly." She took a sip of the amber liquid in her glass. "What did you say this is called?"
"Firewhisky."
"It's good." She took another sip and licked her lips. "What about you? Why do you keep coming back?"
"Because I don't have to pretend with you, nor you with me."
She frowned. "Pretend to care?"
"No. Pretend that what we have is something it isn't."
She smiled, then rolled onto her back and drizzled Firewhisky across her breasts. "Lick me here."
***
"Were you a soldier?"
"Why do you ask?"
"I've known a few. They all have that look around the eyes. Like they're always waiting for the next explosion."
***
"So, tell me more about Lily," she said, sometime in the third or fourth month of their time together. "What was she like?"
"I don't want to talk about her, and then…" He gestured towards the bed.
"You think it's disrespectful?"
"No. Yes. Not just to her - to you."
She moved towards him until she was close enough to feel the heat of his body, and looked at him thoughtfully. "You're a strange one, you are."
He brushed her hair back from her face. "Not strange. Just trying not to damage my soul any more than it is already."
***
One night, as she got up to go the bathroom, she stepped on something that rolled underfoot, nearly sending her to the floor. She stumbled, then reached down and picked it up. "Weird." She turned it over, examining it closely. "Where do you suppose this stick came from?"
Quick as a snake, he snatched it from her. "Don't touch that! Is it broken?!"
She put her hands on her hips. "Well excuse me. Possessive much?"
Having satisfied himself his wand was unharmed, he slid it into the pocket of his jacket that hung on the back of the chair. "It's special," he said gruffly. "More than it appears. A weapon, a tool, a means of communication."
"Oh, so it's a Swiss Army stick. Has it got a little camera in it, or a pointy thing you can use to poison people?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "Wait a minute. Are you a spy?"
He laughed, the first true laugh he'd managed in a long time. "I was, for a time. Now I teach, er, chemistry."
"Where?"
"Nowhere you've ever heard of, I promise you." He reached out to twist a strand of her hair around his finger. "I love this color. Don't ever change it."
"Lily's colour," she said flatly,
He dropped his hand. "I am what I am, Jewel. There isn't much left of me. When Lily died, she took my heart with her."
With a visible effort, she threw off her discontent. "Well," she said in a teasing voice, dropping onto the bed neside him and sliding her hand up his thigh. "Let's see what you can do with this special stick."
***
Late one night near the end of summer, half-asleep, he felt her slip out of bed and saw her go to the table by the window where his wallet lay. He watched through half-closed eyes as she opened it and rifled through it, ignoring the Muggle money, looking curiously at the Knuts, Sickles, and heavy five-Galleon piece. And then she went very still and Severus knew what she had found: A much-thumbed photograph, soft and worn from frequent handling, of a red-haired girl smiling and waving, with "Lily" written on the back.
She sat for a long time, gazing down at it, and Severus wondered what she made of the moving image. She would be unable to ask him, he knew, without admitting what she had done. Finally she replaced it carefully in his wallet and came back to bed. She made no sound, but Severus could feel the shaking of the bed and knew she was crying. But he could think of nothing to say that would not hurt her more.
Part 3: The Nick of Time
Later, it occurred to Jewel to wonder about the nature of luck, and timing, and chance. If she hadn't dropped her bag at that exact moment, and if it the crowd in Piccadilly Circus hadn't been so thick that she couldn't see what she was reaching for, things would have been very different. As it was, she did drop her bag, she did reach down blindly to pick it up, and the moment her groping fingers touched it she felt a strange sensation, as if someone had caught a hook somewhere behind her navel and given it a yank.
The next thing she knew she was in a long bustling street that looked like something out of a Dickens novel. Eyes wide and mouth agape, she walked slowly down the center of the street, trying to take it all in.
Men and women, boys and girls, in long robes of many colors strolled up and down. Owls blinked at her from hanging cages outside something called Eeylops Owl Emporium. Stacked outside another shop were bins filled with small white balls with black dots ("Eels' eyes, 100/75 sickles")" and small leathery pointed things ("Batwings, 5 knuts/doz."). Several young people were crowded around a plate glass window behind which were...twig brooms? Jewel shook her head and walked on. She was tempted by one shop with a sign that read "Flourish & Blotts" whose windows were piled with books with intriguing titles, and looking into Ollivander's ("Makers of Fine Wands") she saw on display dozens of things that resembled the one John kept in his pocket. So...it really was a magic wand? Was that possible?
Robes, telescopes, cauldrons, sentient plants, complicated silver and brass instruments with bits that spun and sparked, goose feathers which could apparently be used for writing…the sheer number of strange and beautiful things was overwhelming. And yet, bits and pieces were also oddly familiar. The currency, for example - she'd seen it on those coins of John's. Those wands at Ollivanders.
Halfway up she saw a small sign, slightly askew, that read "Knockturn Alley." Curious, she turned down the narrow, twisting cobblestone way that it indicated. The atmosphere here was very different, the shops darker and dingier and far fewer people.
"Fingernails, dearie?"
She jerked back as an old woman with stringy grey hair appeared before her. "No, thanks."
"Sure? They're very fresh." The old woman waved a brown paper packet in her face. "These here come from a hanged man. Harvested last night."
"No, really." Eager to escape, Jewel turned and entered the first shop she saw. A tall cadaverous-looking man, blue eyes startling in his dark-skinned face, rose from his stool as she entered.
"May I help you?"
"Just, er, just looking," Jewel said, trying to look as if she knew what she were doing. Shelves all along the walls were filled with bottles, flasks, and vials of every size, color and material imaginable, and beneath a glass counter were ranged more of the same. Tied to the neck of each was a tiny label written in spidery letters, and beside each was a small explanatory placard: "Veritaserum: The Truth Will Out, But Sometimes It Needs a Little Help," read one, and another "Draught of Living Death: Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Asleep."
Fascinated, she moved slowly along the glass case. Wolfsbane Potion. Confusing Concoction. "All these things, they really do what they say?"
The man raised his eyebrows. "Mutatis Mutandis prides itself on using only the finest ingredients, madam. We have been in the business since the eighth century. Our potions are one hundred percent guaranteed, without question."
"What's that one?" she said, pointing at a small vial of dark-green glass, its red wax seal stamped with a butterfly. The placard beside it read, "Polyjuice Potion: Be the Change You Wish to See."
"Ah yes." The man took the vial from beneath the case and presented it to her on his open palm. "Polyjuice Potion. The tiniest added ingredient to customize it, and you may become anyone you wish, from the Minister of Magic to that ranting crone outside our door."
"Added ingredient?"
"With standard Polyjuice, a hair, a nail clipping, even an eyelash. With this, our special enhanced formula unique to Mutatis Mutandis, even less is needed."
The photograph John carried in his wallet flashed into her mind. "Will it work with a photograph?"
The shopman pursed his lips, considering. "Perhaps, if the photograph were recent enough. Do you know when it was taken?'
Jewel did a quick mental calculation. "Within the last five years, I think."
He inclined his head. "That should be well within the parameters. Does madam wish to purchase this item?"
Jewel bit her lip. "How much?"
"Fifty galleons, madam."
She had no idea what that might mean in pounds. "I've been, er, away for a while and I don't have the right currency…"
"Regrettable." The man opened the glass case to replace the vial.
"Wait!" She thought of John, of how he spoke of Lily. Of the broken look in his eyes. "Would you take something in trade?"
"What does madam have?"
She thought of what was in her bag - a lipstick, some change, a few sticks of gum. Nothing of any possible value. Desperately she reached into her pocket, finding only her nephew's yo-yo - she'd been teaching him tricks with it at her sister's the day before. "This?"
The man eyed it. "What does it do?"
With a practiced motion Jewel spun the little disc and ran through her repertoire: sleeper, forward pass, around the world, rock the baby, pinwheel, ending with a lindy loop. By the time she finished the man's eyes were wide. "Astonishing. Where did you obtain this marvel?"
"Tesco's."
"How exotic."
She set the yo-yo down on the counter. "It's yours, in exchange for the Polyjuice. Do we have a deal?"
"Indeed." He handed her the potion without taking his eyes off the yo-yo.
Clutching the vial, Jewel backed out of the shop before he could ask any awkward questions, and ran quickly up the cobblestoned street into the busier, brighter atmosphere of Diagon Alley. Just as she was breathing a sigh of relief, a voice accosted her.
"Excuse me, madam?"
Instinctively she dropped the vial into her pocket before turning around. Looking down she saw a small man, about three feet tall, with enormous eyebrows and a bushy mustache. He wore robes of a deep purple, with a large badge bearing the letters "DMAC." Cops were cops, apparently, here as much as in her own world. "Is there a problem? I only just got here, and-"
"My dear young woman, you're not supposed to be here at all," said the little man, looking seriously flustered. "Why, you're a Muggle."
"If that's some new fancy word for tart, you can just belt up," she said with some heat. "I've as good a right to be here as anyone!"
He reached for her bag. "If I might just have this -"
Jewel snatched it away. "No you may not!"
"But it's not yours, it's a Portkey!"
She glanced down in confusion, noticing only then that it wasn't her bag. This one was a darker leather and much more worn. "I don't understand. What's a Porky?"
"A Portkey." The man heaved a sigh. "Look, it doesn't matter. It was meant for someone else. I have your bag right here, if you'll just take it, and then I'll be more than happy to ensure you get home safely, yes? No harm, no foul. Of course we'll have to modify your memory-"
She jerked back the Porky thing just as he was about to seize it. "Oh no, I don't think so. I like my memories just the way they are. You want this back?" She held it high over his head. "Then you don't touch my memories."
The little man glanced around in a shifty manner, then held up his arm. "Oh, very well. Here, take hold."
Warily she put her arm through his, and sixty seconds later she was alone in the midst of Piccadilly Circus, a vial of Polyjuice Potion in her pocket and a plan forming in her head.
Part 4: The Last Time
In the cheap, shabby room that had become, for her, a place of both intense joy and intense heartache, John drew her towards him for a kiss. She returned it, then broke away. "Bathroom," she said. "Be right back."
She locked the flimsy door behind her, took the vial from her bag, and sat down on the edge of the tub, her heart racing. She remembered Joy, the night before, looking at her sadly. "Jewel, honey, you already get his money. Don't try for his heart. That only happens in fairy tales."
She clenched her fist around the little bottle, staring at herself in the mirror. With a quick moment she drew out the tiny cork, dropped in the torn fragments of photograph, and swallowed the contents.
A bolt of pain shot through her stomach and she let out an involuntary cry.
"Jewel?" she heard John's voice. "Are you alright?"
"Yes...fine," she managed. She bent over, bracing one hand on the sink and curling the other around her midsection. Her entire body felt as though it were being slowly run through a mangle.
Slowly the feeling faded. Jewel took a deep breath and slowly straightened up. She looked at herself in the mirror, turning her head from side to side, fingers tracing the contours of the unfamiliar face. Her hair was the same, still thick and straight and dark red, but her cheekbones were more prominent, her nose slightly longer, and she was a good four inches taller. But the most striking change was her eyes, which were now an emerald green.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.
***
Severus heard the door open and turned around, and his heart nearly stopped. Lily was walking towards him, Lily with her green eyes like emeralds, the familiar half-smile on her face.
As incapable of movement as if he'd been Petrificused, he stood frozen as she came closer, pressing her body against his, her breath warm on his cheek. She put her arms around his neck, one hand tangling in his hair, wide green eyes searching his. Slowly, almost without conscious volition, he encircled her waist as he'd so often dreamed of doing. He closed his eyes and inhaled; her hair smelled of strawberries, just as he remembered. An inarticulate sound escaped him.
"I love you," she whispered, and kissed him, and for one brief moment he allowed himself to fall into the kiss, to believe, to pretend. Her lips were sweet, her body firm and eager beneath his hands, and she was Lily, she was everything he had ever wanted, everything he had loved and lost, given back to him in some indescribable act of grace.
"No," he said hoarsely, grasping her shoulders and moving her gently but firmly away from him. "Oh, Jewel, no. Not this."
She looked at him, stricken. "Don't...don't you like it? I thought-"
His heart, which he had thought hardened and desolate beyond salvation, broke open at the confusion and pain on her face, so like Lily's when he had hurled that hateful word at her so long ago. What had he done? How could he have been so selfish? He had worn his grief and anger like armor, protecting him from life itself.
She turned away, biting her lip. "I just wanted to help you."
"You have," he said gently, feeling the last of the numbness that had encased him since that terrible night in Godric's Hollow finally melt away. "I was walking into death the first night we met, and you stopped me. But Jewel, I've wasted that gift if all I do is stop."
"Is that what we've been doing? Stopping?" she said with an effort at lightness, her back to him.
"It's what I've been doing," he said seriously. "I stopped, and I tried to make the world stop with me. But stopping just short of death isn't enough. I have to turn my back on it and walk away."
She turned around, and thank Circe the potion was already fading and she was Jewel again. "Alright, you walk, then, John," she said, managing a saucy smile, and he thought it was the bravest thing he'd ever seen. "But don't be surprised if one of these days you turn a corner and see me coming towards you."
"If I do," Severus said, "I promise you: I shall not turn my back and walk away."