Ancient Prophesy

Chapter 16

Hounds, a streak of pink and white,

Follow like a temptis baying...

Fires of Bel on every hillside,

Math, the Flower-Maiden making.

He was a wretched arse and he knew it. He could hear Hermione's infuriating tone echoing in his head. "Harry, you didn't just leave her there did you? Har-ry!"

Standing on the battlements of the West Tower, he looked down across the expanse of lawn and watched in shame as Raven slowed to a walk, and then stopped. She stood looking to the Forbidden Forest; from this height he couldn't exactly tell where, but it appeared to him that she no longer faced the front doors to the castle. As a matter of fact, it seemed she had turned in his direction following the West Wall of the castle, walking quickly toward the North border of the forest, back toward the Quidditch pitch. As she disappeared out of his line of sight, Harry moved to the other side of the tower and leaned over, waiting. She had walked right by the front doors, and if he was correct, she would emerge on this side of the castle, on the path leading down to the Quidditch pitch.

Raven must not have seen him up here. If she had, she hardly would have continued heading toward the Quidditch grounds and the forest beyond. Or would she? To see him follow, perhaps? She must be freezing by now and he hadn't even offered her his cloak for warmth. Where did she think she'd end up, walking away from the castle?

"Well Harry, you left her there! Cold...and wet...and right after telling her she was not alone." Hermione's voice chastised him once more, and he hung his head in shame as he realized just how big of an arse he really was. They had only kissed after all. He'd kissed girls before. There had been more then one willing to get to know him in ways he felt very uncomfortable with. For him mostly it had been superficial, teenage hormones and awkward attempts to fill a void in his life. Several times he had stopped very close to making foolish mistakes, ones he knew he would later regret. Care for no one--worry about no one.

Ginny had said it best to him at the beginning of his seventh year. She had come down to the common room late one evening to find him sitting alone by the fire, very confused, hot, and very bothered after a date with a Hufflepuff sixth year from which he had just escaped. "Harry, trust me. They don't want to be with you, they want to be with The Boy Who Lived. Those type of girls aren't worth that type of commitment."

"Ginny, she...she, well. Why do girls...? I barely know her well enough to ...and well, she wanted..." He had flushed deeper than he thought possible and tried to dash up the stairs before Ginny could stop him. But Ginny had thrown a Shield Charm in front of the stairs, stopping him in his tracks.

"Does more than deflect magic, Harry, you showed me that," she had said pointedly to him. "It also stops brothers really well when you want to talk to them."

"Yeah, well I'm not your brother! The hair and the scar should be your first clue!" he had shouted at her, something he hadn't done in ages.

"Yes, Harry, you are. Whether you want to be or not, you are. And I'll tell you the same thing Dad told Bill, and Bill told Charlie, and Charlie told Percy the Prat, and Percy told the twins..."

"I get it Ginny!" he had said dismissively, not really wanting at this point to be lectured by anyone. He didn't want to know that people cared. That way he wouldn't have to care back.

"...and Fred and George told Ron, and Ron told me. . . . Don't let anyone use you, you deserve better than that." She had finished with her eyes round and lips pursed in challenge, looking more like her mother by the second.

"Just when did you become the expert, Ginny?" he had snapped back at her, his anger now overcoming his embarrassment. Pulling his own wand he shattered the barrier before him with a speed and skill few wizards his age had mastered.

"Really Harry," she had answered him, a note of exasperation in her voice as she did so. "I think I might just know something about being used. I learned a hard lesson my first year here. Tom Riddle used me. Or have you managed to forget that from behind the walls you've put up around yourself? Nice to see you're as good at tearing them down as you are at putting them up," she had added with a toss of her head toward the stairwell. "I didn't listen to Ron, Harry, and it almost cost me my life. You and Ron gave me a second chance. Let me give something back to you. Stay true to who you are, Harry, and you won't make the same mistake I did. I thought I was alone and went looking for the wrong company. You're only alone if you make yourself that way."

He certainly had made himself alone tonight, like it or not. But how long could he remain that way? Did he want to remain so? Harry refused to let his imagination go any further when worrying about his friends. He needed them. As much as pushing them away would likely keep them safe, they had refused in the past, and would certainly continue to do so. And Harry understood deep down that the loneliness that already nearly engulfed him would likely be too much without them. Now, he couldn't keep Raven out of his thoughts and really wasn't sure he wanted to.

Mounting his broom, Harry pushed off from the parapet and hovered. His mind and body knew where he needed to go, but his instincts kept him hovering there, unable, even unwilling, to follow Raven. As he watched her silver figure flow closer to the edge of the darkened tree line, he knew he couldn't allow Raven to get any closer to the Forbidden Forest that had taken so much from him.

In frustration, he pushed his Firebolt into a steep dive parallel to the tower wall and banked to the north just inches from the ground. He could just make out Raven's form as she walked within the shadows cast by the forest's edge. She appeared to be watching something as she moved cautiously forward.

Harry had no idea what Raven saw, but clearly she had reached her destination as she stopped and crouched low to the ground, her shape and shadow disappearing into that of the trees as their darkness consumed her. He would have lost sight of her completely if not for the soft evening breeze carrying a cry of distress to his ears. Touching down to the dark ground as lightly as the shadows around him, Harry slid cautiously from his broom, wand drawn in response to both the alarming pain mounting behind his scar and the sight that lay before him.

Instinctively, he blocked the images of rage and hatred that had begun to filter into his mind's eye. He knew them to be a vestige of Voldemort's spent fury, and knew he must contain them, block them. Something had happened involving the Dark Lord. He watched as Raven knelt over a figure sprawled face down on the ground only meters from the edge of the forest. With her help, the cloaked figured struggled to push up from the ground, but only succeeded in collapsing back hard onto Raven's lap. As the hood from the figure's cloak fell back, Harry realized with a flash of understanding why his scar burned so intently.

"Lumos!" Radiance burst from Harry's wand and he held it high over the two figures now sprawled on the forest floor before him.

Raven's head snapped up in shock, but her body bent protectively over the prone form of Severus Snape, as if shielding him from some unknown magic.

"Harry! Christ, you scared me!" Her eyes, round as the moon above her, narrowed sharply. "Go away. Take your hero complex and go tilt at a windmill or something."

Dismissing Harry with a flutter of her long fingers, she turned her attention back to Snape, whose eyes had closed. His rapid breathing came in short gasps from his open mouth and Harry wondered if Snape even knew who held him.

The light from the wand revealed the harsh lines of Snape's face, drawn tight in pain. The tense, muscled contours of his jaw and brow were thrown in shadow, etching black lines into the pallor of his white skin while his open mouth and teeth shone red with blood.

"Either he bit his tongue, or he's spitting up blood," Raven said a bit less harshly than she had spoken moments before. "I need to get him up to Madam Pomfrey."

At these words, Snape shifted in Raven's arms and tried to pull away from her. As Raven supported him against her body Snape slowly reached an arm up and raised his trembling hand to touch the moisture spilling out from nose and mouth. He frowned at the blood that glistened wetly on his fingertips. "Damn. I thought...I stopped it," he muttered through a slackened jaw, then his eyes rolled back in his head as he lost consciousness, lips shining bright red in the light of Harry's wand.

"No, not to the Hospital Wing. No," Harry finally spoke, his voice sounding harsh to his own ears.

"Well what in the hell do you suggest I do with him then, Harry? Leave him here to bleed to death?"

"He'd rather die than let Pomfrey see him like this, Harry said shaking his head determinedly. "We need to get him to his own chambers and then find Dumbledore," he added, crouching down next to the unlikely pair before him.

Raven looked at him with feigned composure and then spoke, her lips curling into a sneer. "Fine, No problem! I'll just pull my wand out of my back pocket, then, with a swish and flick, I'll nonchalantly float him past the Slytherin common room without anyone there noticing. Next, I'll break into his room without setting off every one of the nasty spells he's placed on it and then whip up a magic potion of powdered root-of-what-not to stop his sorry ass from bleeding to death."

With a gentleness that contrasted her sharp tongue, Harry watched as Raven shifted Snape's heavy body to the cool night grass and then rose, a marble statue come to life, to tower over the two of them.

"Oh, wait," she snarled, patting her backside and breasts, "I must have left my wand in my other pocket."

All images of a marble goddess shattered as Harry lowered his own wand. With the shadow of the wood behind her, and the wand's light reflecting off the ground and upward along the length of her body, she stood silhouetted as Medusa, wind-tangled tresses still damp with lake water. Pale in the glow of the wand light, she trembled from either the night breeze blowing around them or her spent fury. Whatever the cause of her tremors, she suddenly looked the twin to the injured man lying at her feet. Harry's eyes traveled between the two of them and not for the first time he wondered just how Raven had ended up in Severus Snape's dungeon.

"Do they teach sarcasm in American schools or is it a family trait?" He bit back a further retort and then looked down at the unconscious form of his former professor. "No," he mumbled to himself, dismissing the thought. The impossibility of Ezmarelda Ravenclaw and Severus Snape...how could anyone care enough for Snape to...to? He shuddered at the idea and looked again at Raven, arms wrapped around her, shivering violently before him. Wouldn't Raven know? No, it just made no sense to him.

But then again, his opinion of Snape had changed over the years. The man known as Snivellus to his father, to Sirius and Remus, had grown into an imposing force that had saved Harry's life on more than one occasion. Harry wasn't even sure when he'd stopped hating Snape, but once he had learned of Snape's role as a spy, when Snape had exposed himself as a branded Death Eater to Fudge the night of the Triwizard Tournament, Harry had thought a great deal about the life Snape must live. With maturity, Harry even realized how much he had in common with Snape; neither of them had control over their lives any longer--Voldemort had that control, forcing each to fight in a private hell only they could understand. Now Raven stood here between the two of them. What type of hell would they lead her into?

So much was at stake. The translation of Helga's prophecy and the completion of Raven's birth chart could aid in the fight against Voldemort's Second Rising. Wouldn't Snape supply this information if he knew it? If he in fact was her father. No. Not even Snape could keep something like that from Dumbledore...or for that matter Voldemort. He was a skilled liar and an even better Occlumens, but to hide the fact that Raven was his daughter...not even Snape was that good. No.

Taking off his cloak, Harry closed the distance between he and Raven in a single stride, swirled it around her shoulders, and fastened it carefully. He'd be damned before he let Snape drag Raven down with the two of them. No, he'd kill the man himself before he let that happen.

"Raven, I'm...I'm sorry. I know that doesn't make it up to you...for the way I've been treating you...it's my problem not yours, and I won't...'

Raven reached a cool, trembling hand and touched his lips, startling him into silence. "But see, Harry, that's where you're wrong. I'm a part of this world now, and I see no way out of it except to see it through to the end. To Midsummer, at least. I never really believed in prophecies before, but now, after what I've read, after what I've seen, I can't dismiss Helga's words." She pulled her hand slowly away, clutching the cloak around her, and pulling the hood up over her damp hair.

Raven furrowed her brow, conjuring up a vision of Helga's journal thrown in anger down upon the dungeon bed, notes and translations scattered to its four corners. "Helga's birth charting, her Tarot readings... Harry, her journal even contains astrological readings for us both. They're spot on, right down to where Mars will be in another eight months. I've checked, Dumbledore's checked! I'm meant to be here whether I want to be or not."

Stopping, she looked down at the still body of Severus. "Help me get him down to his room and we'll talk about what I've found, Harry. You haven't given me a chance before, but you need to hear this. Please?"

She looked up at him imploringly, noting he was kneading his forehead as if uncertain whether to run from her or help her. "Really Harry, I'll keep my distance. I p-p-promise," she said, with a weak smile, her teeth now starting to chatter despite Harry's cloak clutched tightly around her. "I'm not looking for anything f-f-from you other than friendship. Ginny's been wonderful to me, but I can't discuss this with her," she rushed on, wiggling up and down in an effort to warm herself. "I wouldn't even know where to start."

Harry quickly pulled his hand down from his scar and shook his head. "I've seen your translations. Dumbledore and I have spoken. You see Raven, Helga's prophecy wasn't the only one the ministry was aware of. It may have been the first, but it certainly wasn't the last. The second one, a prophecy solely about me, Voldemort failed to get his hands on. We know he's read Helga's, but his translations are off because of your date of birth. No, it's not helping you I'm worried about. Nor is it that I'm in Helga's prophecy with you, it's him," he said, gesturing down at Snape's prone form in the grass. "He and I don't exactly have a history of mutual cooperation. Let's just say if Snape wakes up and sees me within ten feet of him, he won't be the only one bleeding."

Raven squatted down and brushed a lock of lank hair from Severus' face. "Really, Harry. I don't think he's in a condition to do much of anything right now."

Her hands were nearly as large as his own, Harry noted, though slender, finely boned, delicately touching Snape's cheek and brow, as if willing what little warmth she had into him.

"My hands are freezing, yet he feels cold next to them," she said, moving her hand into the wand light and wiping her fingers now stained with blood onto the damp night grass. "It looks like he's bleeding from his nose and his eyes as well. We've got to get him help."

Harry swallowed, seeing in memory his own blood wet on the robe of a Death Eater yanking him to his feet. Snape's sleeve. Snape's hand. That same hand had pressed something warm into the palm of his own hand sending Harry away from the blood, away from Voldemort, to land near death in a back alley of Hogsmeade.

Voldemort had done this to Snape, Harry was sure of it; the burning ache of his scar a testament to Voldemort's wrath. He had learned to block the connection with Voldemort, but something had happened tonight involving Snape and Harry could feel it, the pain searing into his skull, remnants of Voldemort's anger. Between the two of them enough blood had been shed. Muttering the words "Mobilicorpus," Harry stood back and watched as Snape's body rose like a grotesque puppet to hang limp, feet and head dangling inches from the ground.

~*~

Snape was no better, but neither was he visibly worse; the same labored breathing and rapid pulse persisted.

The two of them had brought an unconscious Severus into the castle with the help of Harry's Invisibility Cloak. Summoning the cloak from his room, Harry had covered Snape with it and had cursed the thought of his father's cloak once again put to use covering Severus Snape.

They had gained access to the castle without notice, but Snape's quarters had proven more of a challenge for Raven. Without her wand to channel away the wards placed upon the door, she found herself trying to absorb the magic with her body alone. Raven felt herself slipping into unconsciousness before the door lock would open; Harry had resorted to pulling Raven's hands away from it and had eased her to the floor before she had passed out completely. Looking to see that no one was watching, he had then delivering a firm kick to the door latch. Whether from the force of his kick, or Raven's magic, the doorframe had splintered and Harry had received nothing more than a sore foot for his actions.

They had laid Snape on his bed, arranging pillows and blankets around him the best they could, and Harry had set out to find Dumbledore. In keeping with the annoying tradition of not being in his office at the most inopportune times, Dumbledore was no where to be found, and Harry had rushed back to find Raven already hard at work, having rummaged though through Snape's meticulous cupboards. She had gathered ingredients as quickly as possible from both his classroom and from the cupboards along one wall belonging to what looked like a small private working lab. Harry stood watching as Raven unconsciously named the ingredients one by one, then crushed the dried roots and leaves in the small pestle on the tabletop.

"Valerian and catmint--reduces bruising, lowers blood pressure, sedative to reduce heart rate. Passionflower ground with honey. Honey...he never has any honey."

Harry watched as Raven tore from Snape's private chambers, returning only moments later with a small jar filled with a thick amber liquid.

The water began to rumble in the small cauldron set into Snape's fireplace and Harry watched as Raven poured the green and yellow powder from the mortar before her into a small square of cotton gauze. With a skill that fascinated him, Raven twisted the bundle into a small pouch and tied the opening shut with a piece of thread from the skein on the countertop of a small work area. Placing the bundle into a mug, followed by a large dollop of honey, she carefully gathered the small cauldron into the folds of the cloak still draped around her and poured the water over the herb mixture.

"Do you want me to go and get you some clothes?" Harry asked. Again, he thought to himself. It seemed to him he'd seen her more in a half dressed state than dressed.

"No, but you can get Severus undressed while I find something to wash the blood off," Raven said without looking at him. She was inhaling the infusion, its sweet, fragrant smell rising up with the steam. "It needs more meadowsweet," she said.

"What?" Harry answered her.

"I'm sorry, I was thinking out loud. Meadowsweet, I think you call it meadwort. Professor Sprout grows it for Madam Rosmerta to use in the mead she makes, but it is also the best thing next to white willow bark for pain relief if there is a danger of bleeding."

Harry's gaze followed Raven as she reached up into Snape's cupboard again. His cloak slipped back and hung behind her as she lithely retrieved the sought-after ingredient. What was revealed from under his shapeless cloak took his breath away. Her long neck and shoulders were graceful, her skin smooth and flawless and her curvaceous body athletic. As she nimbly turned toward him, her tattoo taunted him from her smooth, hard stomach. Black lace panties, barely covering her curvaceous hips, matched her bra, their high cut sides only adding to the length of her long, luscious legs. Damn, keeping her at a distance is going to be hard, he thought.

"Harry. Harry?" Raven's voice broke through to his coherent thoughts and he realized with a flush of heat that he had been gaping at her. She smiled shyly at him, a look he wouldn't have thought possible from her, and nodded toward Snape as she pulled the cloak back around herself.

"Snape? Clothes? Off? Not mine." Winking, she returned to her work measuring out an additional quantity of meadowsweet, adding it to the infusion.

Yes. Undress Snape. That would help him...her, Harry thought with a start. Casting several spells in rapid succession, Snape's bloody shirt and robes landed in a heap on the floor and several blankets covered him discreetly up to the shoulders.

Somewhere Raven had found cotton toweling and had torn several sections from it, dropping them into the hot water of the cauldron. Ringing one section out, she sprinkled a white powder on it and then sat at the edge of the bed, gingerly dabbing at Snape's face, uncertain of where to start. His eyes, nose and mouth were caked with clotted blood, but nowhere could she find any type of wound. It appeared to her as if he had simply bled out from every hole in his head.

Reaching under the blankets she found his hand and pulled his right arm out from beneath its gray folds. The nail beds, too, were filled with blood, all ten fingers looking as if a hammer had bruised them.

"Well, I'm certainly not gonna look any lower," Raven groused, wrinkling her brow in disgust. "You're a man; you do it."

"I'd rather kiss a skrewt!"

"What's that?"

"That's...NO! I didn't undress him completely," he added with a shocked look.

"Well at least check the beds of his toenails!"

"Take his boots off?"

"Oh, honestly, Harry! I can't believe you left his boots on." Raven pushed Harry out of the way and lifted the covers from the foot of the bed. Snape's normally polished boots were caked with dried mud, watermarks well past his ankles. "Not like him to walk...through...puddles," she strained as she pulled the boot off his foot. "Oh, Lord," she gasped, at the sight of the blood-saturated sock seeping red into the stark white of the bed sheets.

It took Raven several minutes to convince Harry to remove Snape's trousers and even longer for the two of them to wash both his face and feet. There were no wounds anywhere that they could find; Snape had apparently hemorrhaged from every opening from which blood could flow. She finished washing his right hand and reached over him, pulling his left from under the blanket, then stopped, suddenly still, as the image on Snape's arm stared up at her.

"Hmm, I never figured Snape for the tattoo type," she commented, running a long finger over the red skull etched deeply into his skin. "It's really quite a good one," she added, looking up at Harry.

Looking down at the repulsive mark to which Raven referred, Harry again felt the prickle of pain behind his scar as memories of a dark night in a distant graveyard flashed into his mind. He saw once more the Death Eaters who'd appeared in the graveyard for Voldemort's rebirth, their groveling fear tangible, their lust for power seeming to ooze from an evil surrounding them. The concept of knowing anyone who'd received the Dark Mark disgusted Harry, yet here he stood ready to defend the unconscious Snape, unable to stop himself from doing so.

"Actually, it's not good," he finally managed to say, "but it's not a tattoo, either," he added with a stern arch of one dark brow. "It's a brand...the mark of a Death Eater."

"My God," Raven said in soft disbelief, a current of shock flowing through her, at once making her both angry and dizzy with nausea. "But Dumbledore wouldn't...he...couldn't let...what Lupin and Ron said about trusting Snape. I thought Ron was exaggerating about him being a Death Eater," she stammered, for the first time losing her composure in front of Harry.

Under other circumstances Harry might have found it charming, but not now. Not about this. He watched as Raven stared at him, a rag stained dark with Snape's blood held tight in her fists.

"I all but called him a Death Eater to his face. I never really believed it, though! That he really could be one. Here, at Hogwarts," she stressed, her dark brows gathering down in a knot. "Dumbledore knows?"

Harry nodded silently.

"And you?''

He nodded again. She sat silently for a moment, straight and still as a stick of dynamite, a match laid one hairsbreadth from the fuse. Harry wondered just who she would blow at first.

"I don't understand," Raven mumbled, looking down at Snape. She took a deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips, looking Snape over closely. "Why?"

Harry didn't need to ask what she meant. He too had asked himself that very question about Snape.

"I'm sure at the time he thought his reasons were good. Can't say for sure seeing as he's never been one to explain anything." The thought of Severus Snape explaining anything to anyone caused Harry to shake his head and laugh inwardly. "Personally, I don't think he had any reason not to become one."

"But what is he doing here...in Hogwarts," she added with savage emphasis as she threw the bloody rag clenched in her fist into the fire. The force of her throw knocked sparks and ash everywhere, one half-flaming log rolling forward off the grate and onto the hearth.

Harry watched as Raven stood and moved to the log, a living thing smoldering amber at her feet. With a destructive kick from the ball of her bare foot, she propelled the log back into the fireplace, scattering ember and ash everywhere. Turning she faced Harry.

"So tell me," Raven said without moving away from the fire. "Which don't I understand, Death Eaters or Snape?"

Harry stood silent and watched Raven, her eyes a companion to the fire behind her, her smoldering anger, an echo to the flame blazing up within her.

"Raven, I can't explain Snape to you any more than I could explain Professor Dumbledore to you. Dumbledore trusts the man, and as much as I hate to admit it I owe Snape my life. He was there. When they took me to Voldemort. After Hagrid...after they killed him."

He couldn't continue--not yet. Breathing deeply to control his own emotions he reached out and took Raven's hand, drawing her to a chair beside the fire. She sat slowly, not looking at Harry, but at Severus, not even noticing that Harry had knelt before her and had taken her burned foot into his hands. Ash covered the bottom of her toes and white blisters had already risen to the surface of the skin.

"I'm sorry, I don't know any spells for burns. I should though, with the creatures Hagrid loved," Harry said quietly. He brushed as gently as possible at Raven's toes and she jumped, startled by the sudden awareness of Harry's warm hand around her ankle.

"What? Oh, a spell? Yes. I think it's Ignis Absentia. You flick the wand up on the second syllable like you're drawing out the fire and then snap your wrist to the right on sen, like you're casting it away."

The surprise on Harry's face must have shown, for Raven smiled shyly again and answered his unspoken question. "I burnt myself last week pulling one of his stupid cauldrons off of the big hearth fire." She threw Snape a hateful look and continued. "He was gracious enough to teach me the spell. He didn't have to, he could have just slapped a salve on the burn or sent me to Madame Pomfrey and been done with it, but he stopped what he was doing and taught me what spell to use. Of course afterward I got a lecture on safety! Ass," she added shaking her head then looked over at Snape again. "I actually thought for a minute he might be starting to like me."

She snorted at the idea and flushed with the realization that she had started to actually believe Snape could like anyone besides himself. She could not hide what lay behind the statement; her blue eyes, like troubled waters, looked down at Harry.

Harry could see the conflict that Snape's exposure as a Death Eater had caused. He quietly repeated the spell, then ran his hand carefully along her foot and calf, checking for any burns he may have missed. There were scratches and bites, which had started to bruise from the grindylow attack, and he healed those for her as well. Gathering her feet together, he set them carefully down across his own folded legs, wishing he could ease her mind as easily as the wounds on her legs and foot.

They sat in silence for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts, Raven staring at Snape, Harry at Raven. He found himself wondering why he sat here at her feet, not wanting to move. He had continued to caress her foot, though all traces of the burn had left it. It was soft and warm, safe in his hands and in complete opposition to the cold, unmoving, even dangerous man they sat in the room with.

"Snape doesn't like anyone, but that doesn't mean he's not liked," Harry finally said, breaking the stillness that had begun to surround them. "Dumbledore, of course, and even McGonagall respect him as a colleague, but what he does for the Order of The Phoenix matters the most. Since the night of Voldemort's return he has supplied the Order with information on the Dark Lord's activities, and his whereabouts, whenever possible. Anything that can help us outmaneuver Voldemort and his Death Eaters. At the same time, Voldemort drains Snape for information on Dumbledore's plans and my whereabouts. That, and a steady supply of the most volatile potions known to man," he added with disgust, narrowing his emerald eyes at the unconscious Snape.

"You're telling me he's a double agent, then?" Raven said, finally looking back at Harry.

"Something like that. Dumbledore's never been forthcoming with all the details, but I've seen enough to know what Snape does. First hand. He got me away from Voldemort. The last time. After they'd killed Hagrid.

"My God...he was there!" Raven said, leaning forward. Her feet slipped from Harry's hands and she sat forward in the chair, both terror and disgust etched clear upon her face. "And we're down here helping him?"

"No. Snape didn't ambush us...Malfoy of course, and Lestrange," Harry added in an expressionless voice. The full weight of that evening seemed to fall in upon him and he knew if he didn't distance himself he would be buried in the emotions he had tried so long to hold back. "I haven't had to kill anyone...yet...but I think I would have killed Snape with my bare hands if he'd been one of the three Death Eaters in the forest. No, they wouldn't use Snape, I've blocked his thoughts from my head for several years now. Voldemort would have known I could resist him." Harry felt himself slipping back into the horror of that night, feeling the raw pain break open within him, threatening to overwhelm and consume him.

But the anger he felt was stronger and he continued. "I did try...to kill Malfoy. When they released me from the Imperius...I went straight for him. Draco's father," he added seeing the look of question on her face. "Every time I prove Lucius is guilty of being a Death Eater, he worms his way out of it. It's my fault Hagrid is dead; and when I die I swear I'll do it taking Malfoy with me."

"Harry, no."

He had drawn his knees up under his chin and now held them tightly, screwing his face up to the burning feeling in the inner corner of each eye. The fire crackled softly behind him, warm on his back, casting red and yellow highlights on the stone walls of Snape's chamber, but Harry felt numb, cold to the world and all it held for him.

Raven slid slowly to the floor, reaching out to Harry, his cloak billowing out around them. The way he said when I die filled her with dread; she knew Harry believed what he said, believed that he wouldn't survive his next encounter with Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

"Don't talk like that, please," Raven whispered softly to him, wrapping her arms around him, cocooning them together in the warmth of his cloak. Harry couldn't help but feel alone, feel himself the sole cause of so much suffering. He didn't pull away from her, nor did he allow himself to move closer, he simply sat, letting her hold him, an anchor to humanity.

"Professor Snape and I have reached a truce in our hatred of one another," Harry continued. "I never understood fully how precarious a position he was in until last month. In the end they took me to Voldemort. Snape was there that night and I'm not sure who was more shocked at seeing the other, him or me. He couldn't help me. They would have murdered him on the spot if they thought for a minute he was not a loyal Death Eater. They all took their shots at me while Voldemort sat and watched...a snake waiting for the mouse to tire. Then Voldemort took his turn. A duel to the death. I really don't know how I held out on my own as long as I did, but in the end Snape managed to get me away from Voldemort."

Harry stopped, realizing as he did so that the tight hold he had kept on his emotions had loosened. His breath came more easily and the tears he felt running down his cheeks no longer caused him shame.

"There are moments in my life that have stamped themselves on my heart and brain. Like photographs--random images, mostly gruesome; a few though, are beautiful." He looked at her as he said this. A word was the only thing he could give her. He didn't know how to give anything else, for nothing like what he now felt had ever been given to him.

"For as long as I live, I'll recall the look on Snape's face as he leered down at me. Hatred. For me. For himself. Voldemort. All of it. I'd been hurled across the room by a curse and had landed at Snape's feet. He reached down and yanked me up, and as he did so he pressed something into the palm of my hand, a coin--I found out later. Then he whispered 'no matter what, don't let go' and blasted me with a hex that broke both my arms and left me sprawled at Voldemort's feet. That was it. I was done; my vision was going and Voldemort, though barely standing himself, was staring down at me ready to end the battle he had started eighteen years ago."

Raven's hold tightened and he leaned into her, allowing himself for the first time a comfort he had never felt before. He remained silent for a moment, breathing the earthy, deep scent of Raven in the snug refuge she had created for them. A hug from Mrs. Weasley was one thing, but this was quite another.

"The coin was a portkey. Before Voldemort could open his mouth to finish me off, I found myself slammed face down in the gravel of an alley behind the Hog's Head. I woke up two weeks later in the Hospital Wing, and had only been on my feet for about a week when Snape carried you in."

Sap in the pinewood crackled and popped, flooding them in a golden light, and Harry turned his head toward Raven knowing he would forever remember this moment as well; the healing warmth of her next to him, the fire hot on his neck, the tears cold on his cheeks. "I simply existed day to day, and there were some nights I wished Snape hadn't given me that coin...until you showed up."

A soft pink bloomed in Raven's cheeks making her look suddenly younger, and for a moment Harry was afraid he had gone too far, again. She moved suddenly, turning into him, the long white heat of her bare skin shifting against his hands, and he shuddered at the shock of it. She took his hands in her own and smiled at him, the warm light in her deep blue eyes making him feel that what he had shared with her, said to her, she had instinctively know all along.

"I'm glad I came," she whispered.

She was a part of him already, and no matter what he had to say, she wanted to hear his words for no reason other than that she cared about him. It didn't matter who he was, it didn't matter what his destiny was, it didn't even matter how dangerous a relationship with him would be, for the connection Helga had foretold was there and he could no longer deny it.

He had in fact seen the tenth and last Tarot card in Helga's journal. The sixth Aquarian notation of The Lovers; man and woman in a heart's embrace. A couple meant to join with each other, both physically as well as mentally. He wanted her; he wanted all of her; not just physical, not just in body. Everything, always. For years he had felt empty, half of something, something not yet made. She could make him whole.

Harry closed his eyes and breathed. His head was spinning slightly, and he felt giddy with a combination of lust and release of emotion. With no real notion of how it got there, Harry found his mouth on her mouth, the length of his body pressed to hers, only aware of the heat of her, burning like fever.

~*~

The first thing Snape became aware of was his whole body aching. He was shaking, his skin stiff and irritated, his heart racing fit to burst. Stirring a little, he became vaguely conscious of a comfortable softness beneath him and concluded it was a proper bed and not the forest floor upon which he lay. He also discovered that, bad as his body felt, movement made him feel infinitely worse. A familiar voice said something to him and he felt a cool cloth applied to the base of his neck. His eyes snapped open at the shock of being touched, then snapped shut, his face a grimace of pain as the firelight struck them. Making a move to sit up regardless of the numbing pain behind his eyes, he reached out a hand and pulled away the arm beneath his head.

"You be still!"

"Raven?" Snape whispered, his throat still thick with the tang of blood. "How...how long have I been out?"

"Long enough...drink."

The bed jarred as Raven sat next to him, and he grimaced once more at the pain grating through his skull from the movement.

"I'm not in the Hospital Wing?" he intoned through clenched teeth, knowing there would be not room for her to sit next to him on one of the hard, narrow beds found there.

"No, you're in your own room--nice digs by the way. Harry didn't think you'd want Madam Pomfrey to see you like this."

Snape felt a warm, wet cloth placed below his ear and then felt it moved down his neck. At once the stiffness around his neck began to ease as the dried blood began to dissolve with the water.

"Harry? Could you get me another clean one? This is about done for."

This time Snape did open his eyes. "Potter?"

Harry's face came into view, wet cloth in hand.

"Damn fool boy!" he spat out, trying once more to rise from bed. "Get out of here. NOW! Before you're seen! Both of you."

Raven stared at Snape incredulously as he collapsed back down. He paled more than Raven would have thought possible, the whiteness returning to the corners of his mouth. If he didn't start to bleed again from the movement, she felt like she was going to help it along with a swift punch to his hooked nose.

"You ungrateful ass," she said, standing, the healing infusion in her hand sloshing at the sudden movement. "We could have just as easily left you bleeding to death in the grass and..."

"You should have, then," he whispered coldly, through a grimace of pain.

Handing Raven the cloth, Harry looked Snape in the eyes and for a second thought he saw a pleading look flash through them. But it was gone now, and the cold fury normally reserved only for him replaced it.

"Get out."

The tension in the room stretched until it seemed it would snap and break before another word could be said.

"Well, see you at breakfast then," Harry answered sarcastically. "If you need anything else tonight, Raven, you know where to find me," Harry added, looking between the two of them. Turning, he made to leave.

"You're not going to let him bully you like that, are you?" Raven asked Harry, fixing Severus with a disgusted stare. "I'm not going anywhere until I'm certain he's not going to bleed to death."

Stopping at the door, Harry looked back at Raven standing tall and headstrong next to the prone form of Snape, just as obstinate, regardless of his injuries. Once more, he was struck by the remarkable similarity between the two. The intensity with which they glared at one another would have brought a lesser person to their knees. Not so with Raven and Snape. They were both forces in their own right. If the concentration of energy he stood watching were to ever coalesce together... Harry could only imagine the results.

"Goodnight, Raven. Professor Snape."

"Coward," Raven grumbled with a huff, setting the infusion down on the table.

Harry said nothing back to her, simply closing the door behind him.

Snape's eyes focused with difficulty on Raven. "I've heard Potter called a lot of things, but coward has never been one of them."

Raven shook her head in frustration and sat once more beside him. The bed jarred and Snape grimaced at the pain radiating through his skull from the movement. Reaching for the mug full of steaming liquid, Raven held it to his lips and simply said "Drink," fixing him with a stony stare every bit equal to his own.

Closing his eyes against the pain, he swallowed several mouthfuls before coming up for air.

"It's too sweet."

"Too bad," Raven sniped back, grateful that he felt well enough to make faces and complain.

"You left the willow bark out. Good," Snape mumbled quietly, sinking back against the arm she had slipped behind his head while assisting him with the drink.

"I'm not stupid," Raven added flatly, putting the potion to his lips once more. "You had blood oozing from every opening of your body. I didn't feel like explaining to Dumbledore how I helped you bleed to death by adding willow bark to the potion, no matter how tempting the impulse."

Snape cracked open his eyes and glanced at her briefly before speaking "I'm fine. You can go now." He closed his eyes and turned his head, slowly pulling away from Raven's arm, dismissing her.

"You're a lousy liar," Raven answered him, once more setting the potion down upon the table.

"I am not," he responded, surprising her in doing so.

"What," Raven challenged, "a liar, or lousy at it?"

Snape gave no response to this, which surprised her even more. He was in obvious pain; the line between his dark brows was fixed and sharp as though cleaved by a knife.

He groused loudly as she shifted closer to him and lifted his head into her lap. His eyelids popped open, wide with shock, then yet again snapped shut in a grimace of pain as the firelight struck them.

Clutching the blanket tight to his chest, he made a move to sit up regardless of the numbing pain radiating through him. His clothes were missing, he had no idea who had removed them, and under no circumstances would he allow her to touch him again.

"You be still," Raven squawked, and with her thumbs pinched the soft flesh of each earlobe, pulling him back down causing a strangled "Argk!" of fury to rise in his throat.

"I will not be forced to lie here in my own bed and be coddled by you!"

"Is it me or the coddling you hate?" She shifted her hold and began to apply pressure firmly to the base of Snape's skull and then just below the sockets of the eyes, pressing slowly along the ridge of his brows and temples. Snape made a low grumble of protest as she continued, but he didn't answer her question.

"Just slow your breathing, I've seen you do it before...especially with the first years," she murmured under her breath.

He raised one dark eyebrow at her in annoyance, snorted like a pinned bull, but then relaxed after a few minutes, his head heavy on her thigh.

Raven continued in silence, applying pressure to various points of Snape's face, neck and shoulders, watching as his face, no longer tight with pain, softened under the ministration of her fingers. The whiteness at the corners of his mouth had lessened considerably, either from Raven's potion or the acupressure she now employed. His breathing had calmed, and a pulse finally beat strong under her fingertips. From what she could see and feel, it appeared that Severus had dozed off.

Gently, Raven moved off Snape's bed and picked up the empty mug, her bare feet carrying her silently to the counter. She needed to refill the mug with fresh potion ingredients before she left. Instinctively, Raven knew if she left it on the table beside him, he would drink it when he woke.

She prepared a second batch of the infusion, this time adding valerian and lavender. Snape's blood pressure seemed to have stabilized enough for the sedatives to be used safely, and Raven wanted him to rest quietly for the remainder of the night should he awake in further pain before morning. She worked in silence, cleaned the work area and picked up the mug its infusion now steeped and ready to leave at Snape's bedside.

"Raven."

She jumped at the sound of Snape's coarse voice, and nearly dropped the mug. But his voice didn't have its usual silken acidity to it and she turned around looking at him questioningly, waiting for him to speak.

His black eyes held hers, unwavering, unblinking, but they had regained their mirrored surface, telling Raven nothing but what he wanted her to know. His face was cold and composed and he spoke slowly, struggling as if his words took a piece away from his very core as he spoke them.

"I do not...hate you."

"You have every right to," she answered him, looking down at the mug still shaking in her hands. She couldn't bear to watch him struggle to maintain who he was without losing himself totally to what he had to be. "I've been very unfair to you without knowing all the facts. Mum raised me better than that. I'm sorry for..." she paused, unable to put into words exactly the way she felt about everything Severus had done for her in the last two months. Arrogant, contemptuous, priggish, ill-mannered and quite possibly a lunatic, he knew his job as Potions Master. Not an easy man to deal with, Snape demanded the highest standards from himself; that fact had not been lost on her. She found herself striving to reach his standards, excelling under his tutelage and exceeding her own expectation just to spite him.

"You have done more for me than anyone here," she finally said, "teaching me, giving me a room to call my own, and I see now that my arrival at Hogwarts has placed far more of a burden on you than I realized. I've been selfish, behaving like a spoiled brat and...well I know how you deplore useless words, but I do mean it when I say I was wrong to judge you without first knowing you."

Severus moved as if to get up, then paused in the effort and lay back quickly, lips thinning in displeasure. His fingers touched the skin of his left forearm, tracing the outline of the mark upon it.

"Where are my clothes?" The bite had returned to his voice and Raven knew the truce between them was about up.

"I thought you would like them cleaned, so Harry had Dobby take them..."

"Do not ever presume to know me or know want I want, Ms. Ravenclaw."

Oh, yes the truce had broken and Raven felt Severus heave the barrier between them with a stony stare. "I know enough to realize that my being here has put you in danger," Raven answered him stoically.

She watched as his pale face flushed briefly, a certain sign of his weakened state of health. He never physically reacted to words, only his eyes at unguarded moments spoke to her.

"You know nothing, Raven."

The fire had burned low in the brazier. In the half-light, Snape's eyes shone as dark hollows, his whole body ridged with tension, a glimmering sheen of sweat appearing upon it.

"Stop sticking your nose into my private business," he spat, the desperation in his voice unlike anything she had heard from him before.

"But I think it just might be my business."

Snape felt a sudden brushfire of heat wash over him. Certainly she couldn't know. He had guarded every word, every thought; burying any and all emotions he felt when with Raven. Thoughts of Ezmarelda, thoughts of what his life might have been like with a loving wife and the daughter he now lay looking up at.

"And what do you know about it?" he answered her, realizing as he did so that he really didn't want her to answer his question.

"I've been working on the translations with Dumbledore. Helga's visions. She had quite a lot to say on the subject about the return of The Dark Lord," Raven added, pushing her loose hair out of her face. Walking back toward the fire, she set the mug of potion on the table next to Snape and looked down at him and the Dark Mark permanently branded on his arm as she passed. She stopped and stared bleakly into the dying flames, silent as she played the night's conversation with Harry over in her mind. Harry had held her for a few moments longer before the fire then had broken away from her, leaving them both breathless from the intensity of their embrace.

"Harry and I had time to talk while you were unconscious," she finally continued, turning and gesturing toward his arm, the skull upon it an unnatural red in the firelight. "About Helga's prophecy and Trelawney's prophecy...it seems the old quack occasionally knew what she was talking about..."

Raven arched a black brow at him and Snape's blood chilled instantly. The gesture was his own. She stood looking down at him, hair tousled and unwashed, Harry's black cloak pulled high around her neck. The firelight lent a violet hue to her eyes, darkening them to match his, black as sin.

"His role, your role, and what possible role I will play in Voldemort's destruction."

Raven had continued talking, and Snape closed his eyes to the sight of her. He heard her speak in a strange language, but one completely familiar to him, Old Anglisc--the language of the spells of old. She then repeated the words in English, translating for him the last words ever written by Helga Hufflepuff.

"The Thief of Death tastes his end on Litha's Midsummer Nights Eve. Thief of death...Voleur de Mort. Dumbledore said Helga would have known French... to call him that specifically, there's no doubt that she saw Voldemort in her vision." Her eyes traveled down the length of his arm, and Snape resisted the urge to pull it back under the cover.

"It's just, well, blaming you was very easy. From every thing I'd heard, everything I'd saw. Death Eaters killed my Mum, Severus, and I wanted someone to blame. Harry asked me not to blame you."

"I do not need Potter to offer up justification for my actions. Who and what I am, I have reasons for! However, what I do need is to be left alone. You should not be here. Go. Don't touch me, don't speak to me, don't help me, just go."

The sudden savagery with which Snape spoke startled Raven, but she stood her ground and continued.

"Voldemort did this to you, didn't he."

Snape remained silent.

"Why?" she pushed.

Opening his eyes he turned his head and looked up at her. "Because he can."

"If he finds me, he will kill me, won't he?" Raven asked, sounding more composed than she felt.

Again Snape tried to get up, only to be pushed back down by the stabbing pressure Raven applied to his collarbone.

"Be still or I'll put a body bind on you! I learned one today, you know."

Snape closed his eyes, willing every emotion rushing through him to still. "Raven, a body bind won't save you, not from Lord Voldemort. Leave. Now. Please."

The effort to get up started Snape bleeding again and Raven continued to watch him as drops of blood began to roll from the corner of each eye, a mockery of the emotions he would not allow himself to feel.

"Fine," she said, her voice finally trembling under the strain. "I added valerian and lavender to this one," she said gesturing to the mug. "Drink all of it. I filled your tub with hot water and several ingredients guaranteed to rid you of head and body aches and," she added scornfully in an attempt to gain control of her emotions, "make you smell pretty at the same time. I'm sure you will want to wash the rest of the blood off...your hands." Without another word she turned and made to leave the room.

Albus Dumbledore stood in the open door.

"Miss Ravenclaw." He nodded his head in acknowledgement and then looked around her to where Snape lay. "How is he?"

"Ask him yourself. Though I warn you, he is not the conversationalist right now."

Grey brows lifted in question, and he moved around Raven to step into the room.

A heavy sigh issued from a blood clogged nose. Rolling slowly to his side, Snape elbowed his way up, and opened his eyes. He blinked hard to clear his vision, causing additional tears of blood to roll down each cheek.

"What don't you understand about lying down?" Raven asked with frustration, as she moved away from the door and walked to the steaming cauldron left on the counter. Pulling out another cloth from within, she rung out the water and reached up into the cupboard containing the wild geranium powder. This time, she intended to add it directly to the infusion she had left for Snape rather than applying it to the rag, as she had done earlier in the evening.

"If this doesn't stop the bleeding then you'll have to come up with something on your own. I'm sure you have powdered wing-of-what-not stuck somewhere for just such an occasion."

Raven had let go of Harry's cloak, both rag and powder held out in her hands, and had moved to stand next to Snape, offering them out to him. He took neither; simply staring up at her, face blank. She stared back at him, and then with a resolute sigh, chucked the wet rag on the table beside him.

Dumbledore broke the silence first, clearing his throat as if to draw Raven's attention to something she had forgotten.

You appear to have lost your shoes again," Dumbledore said, casually glancing down at her bare feet. "And this time your clothes?" he added, resisting the urge to smile as his eyes traveled up the length of her.

Raven's brows drew together in question, then she flushed deeper than either man had seen her do before.

"Oh...oh, God!" She looked down, avoiding Dumbledores eyes and spun around pulling the cloak protectively around her. "The lake...Harry, he pulled me out...there was a big squid...oh, God. This is not what it looks like; I was with Harry, not Severus. I mean not with Harry...oh, God."

Dumbledore began to chuckle while Snape snatched up the cloth and swiped viciously at his face, smearing the blood more than removing it.

"And just what were you doing with Potter in the first place that required you removing your clothes?" Severus snarled.

"I went swimming!" she snarled back, spinning around to confront him.

"You have no business being out of this castle after dark!"

"It's a damn good thing I was!" Raven choked, half- strangled on her words. "Otherwise you'd still be out there dying in a pool of your own blood."

Dumbledore stepped between them with a piercing stare, picked up the mug from the table, and handed it to Raven. With a moderate push, he steered her away from Snape and toward the counter. Facing Snape, he laid his aged hands on each shoulder and spoke: "To lie down means to be in a horizontal position." With a gentler push than he had employed on Raven, Dumbledore eased Snape back and pulled the blanket up to his shoulders.

"You will both cease with the hostilities," Dumbledore said, looking between them. "Raven, thank you for looking after Severus. I assure you, though, I would not have allowed him to, as you so apply put it, 'die in a pool of his own blood'."

Snape's jaw clenched and he was white to the lips again, but he stared resolutely at the ceiling, looking at neither Dumbledore nor Raven.

"This evening, when Severus did not arrive at our arranged location, I knew something was amiss and I endeavored to locate him. My quest took me off the grounds, and for a time I was detained in my return. For that I apologize, Severus. Moody's position outside the manor had been compromised and a conflict ensued. Jacques Rocheleau was killed and Ron sustained an injury, though nothing St. Mungo's can not handle."

"What a shame," Snape mumbled sarcastically. "I warned them if Voldemort should choose tonight to meet, they must double the watch, but of course Moody doesn't trust my judgment on such matters."

"They did listen, Severus," Dumbledore answered, this time with a definite note of displeasure in his voice. "You know as well as I, that the trained Aurors are scattered too thin. And now with a Dementor attack, our forces are weakened and even thinner. No one deserves to die like that!" Dumbledore pulled the chair from beside the fire and sat down beside Snape who had suddenly turned, a look of revulsion on his face, to stare at Dumbledore.

"He set the Dementors on them?"

"Yes, and we were lucky to have Ron there or our losses would have been greater. He and Alastor were the only two who knew how to cast Patronus." Skilled hands sought pulse points along Snape's arm and in the hollow of his throat, as Dumbledore continued to examine him.

"Valerian, geranium and powered mummy, I think. You have the geranium I believe, Raven?"

Raven walked forward, handing both the potion and the geranium powder back to the Headmaster. She watched as he moved his wand counter clockwise above the mug, a powder of gray dust swirling down into the twirling liquid. He then added the geranium, and pressed the mug into Snape's hand.

"Drink. All of it." He sat and waited while Snape obediently drained the cup and then took it back from him. Within moments, the rapid rise and fall of Snape's chest had slowed and he seemed to be breathing easier again.

With Snape's condition stabilized, the headmaster continued. "I do have quick methods for locating staff while on the grounds of the school, Raven, and I used them as soon as I returned. I'll stay with Severus now."

Dumbledore smiled up at her, his lined face looking very old and tired. Raven knew he too needed rest, but also knew he would not leave Severus until certain the bleeding had stopped.

"I know you plan on meeting with Professor Sprout early this morning to gather plants from the forest. She has been quiet looking forward to showing you some of the local wild flora."

"Headmaster," Snape said, "do you think a trip into the forest...advisable?" His tone was not questioning, but rather disquieted; something in his face had shifted, leaving an unguarded look of concern upon it. "Raven has no more business being in the forest than she did being out this evening, in her underthings...with Potter no less."

Snape practically spat on the word Potter, and Raven felt herself bristle in his defense. "We have discussed the fact that my social life is none of your business, Severus. Where I go, and with whom I choose to go, is my concern. And if I desire to be in my underwear while out and about, then that's my business as well!" Her voice had risen, her emotions raw after the evening's events, and she drew breath to continue but stopped, as Snape rolled to his side, eyes blazing, and made to get up.

His features had contorted with fury. He tried to rise, fists tearing away the blanket that covered him, only to topple back, his gaze unfocused and face white and glazed with sweat. He continued, his voice tight with pain. "I told you your first night with me that you are my business. You are my charge and your protection is my business! What you do outside this castle shall be approved by me!"

"Severus, please! Raven, enough," Dumbledore said his annoyance with them clear in his voice. "Neither one of you is doing the other any good by this bickering."

"Headmaster, she is my...responsibility."

He sounded, Raven thought with bewilderment, almost apprehensive. She looked at Snape and saw an unfamiliar, imploring look in his eyes. His nose had begun to bleed profusely, and his fingers still clutching the cover, had also begun to ooze blood. And then the connection clicked into place.

"Voldemort. You told him, didn't you?"

Both men looked at her. Neither answered.

"Sir?" Raven said, dredging up the courage to say what she suspected, as if speaking her suspicions would in fact make them true. "You knew where he was going tonight and you were concerned when he failed to return. And now Severus doesn't want me out of the castle."

She looked both men in the eyes. The firelight reflected upon the silver of Dumbledore's eyebrows and beard, casting into shadow the lines gouged deeply into his face. His blue eyes hid nothing from her and she looked then to Snape for confirmation.

"He knows I'm here, and you're the one who told him, Severus. You two sold me out, didn't you?" She rounded on Dumbledore. "You asked me to trust him. To trust you. How could you?"

The only feeling more wretched and unbearable than guilt is the feeling of well-deserved guilt and Dumbledore knew the blame lay squarely with him. "Raven, the decision was mine, not Severus'. Tonight, he delivered to Voldemort the completed composite chart you and I produced, with the information, of course, altered enough to render it useless. It was only a matter of time before he learned of your arrival here. If Voldemort had found that Severus failed to inform him of your existence, to tell him of your birth, to tell him that you are in fact the White Witch of Helga's prophecy, he would have had Severus killed immediately."

He had not been looking at her as he spoke, but rather at Severus, and there was a tremor in his voice that gave witness to his age. Raven felt rather than heard her own tremors. Her knees were shaking and her hands had balled tight into fists. "So now what?" was all she could think to say.

Snape looked up at her, his black eyes impenetrable. "Now, you listen to me, so that I can continue to keep you alive," he said in an unfamiliar voice, low and intense, without a trace of sarcasm or sullenness. "The birth chart no longer is of use to him. Voldemort no longer wants or even needs information. His power has grown such that he takes what he wants, with little or no consequences for his actions. The only thing he wants now is immortality, and a White Witch can give him that. I stopped him tonight, but from this point on, nothing will stand in the way of his having you."

Author's notes:

Below is a copy of a letter I posted to a reader after he? Inquired as to my long delay between chapters.

Yes, I agree with you totally, my update record SUXS. But in my defense, there are several things you must consider. Real life bites in my opinion, royally. Unfortunately, I'm not an author as rich as the queen of England who can pay people to take care of her affairs. I'm a mother who has two young children to take care and who pays her bills by teaching high school. After work it is family stuff, dinner, homework the kids, baths, T.V/reading time then bed. Then the real work starts. Crap like laundry, cleaning, and grading papers/lessons to plan, tests to check, etc. If I grab a few hours on the computer at night, I'm thankful. I type up as much as I can before I close my eyes in exhaustion, much to the displeasure of my husband who has threatened on numerous occasions to BURN all my Ancient Prophecy notes so he doesn't have to share me with the computer every night.

In addition to this, Order of the Phoenix really set me back in August. Chapter 16 was written, but Ancient Prophecy was so very A/U, alternate universe, because of JKRs prophecy (mine's better by the way IMNSHO) that I had to decide if I was even going to finish. But as I mentioned above, I have AP written out in various stages of completion and to not finish would just be unforgivable considering the time and effort of both myself and other people who help me with AP. In other words my betas.

Betas are a whole 'nother story. You see I have dyslexia, which is an inability to take the words that are in your head and transpose them to paper properly. This also causes numerous spelling problems and difficulties with word endings such as plurals, ings, eds, etc. I just don't type them or write them correctly. Over the years, I have learned tricks and skills to compensate for this learning disability, but I do insist on having a beta go over my work before it even goes to my Sugar Quill beta.

This year, my Editor-in-Chief was in her last year of college, so from about March on she was very busy with school, having little to no time for Ancient Prophecy. A second beta offered her assistance and I graciously took her up on it, but we still were approaching June and OOtP rapidly.

We managed to get it posted just before my family vacation to Florida in July and of course my attendance at the HP Nimbus Symposium in Orlando. August was a wash, summer vacation, man, and I just had lost the heart to write. Writers block at its worse shakes you, causing you to question whether what you are doing is even worth it. You think your writing is crap. You think your story sucks swamp water and that your character is Mary Sue at her finest (anyone needs that explained e-mail me.) And then JKR and her dratted prophecy made mine so out of cannon that I told everyone at my Yahoo site Raven wasn't speaking to me anymore and went to live with my Editor-in-Chief, Wahlee.

Sugar Quill also requires a beta before your story can be posted. Even if you are on the professor's bookshelf, but that is fine by me because Jedi Boadicea has wonderful suggestions that I look forward to getting from her. The biggest problem here is JB SUXS when it comes to speed. She, too, has a full life and betas stories on the side just for the love of writing. Her own stories at one point went 11 months between up-dates and I think she's trying to force the title of slowest up-dater off on me. As a matter of fact she has had chapter 16 since before Thanksgiving. But I love and worship her and WANT her to beta so I'm as patient as I can be. Which isn't very....

So in other words, I have plenty of excuses and no solutions. I do post chapters to Y!G before they're betaed. I can tell you that the whole story is basically framed in. Sections are written and there are at this point 87 more pages typed up. These are portions of the other 15 or so chapters that when they came to me had to be written down. My first three Internet friends have read parts of them and convinced me to post at the Quill because they thought the story was worth reading. I shouldn't consider them friends any longer for getting me into this: Wahlee, Morgan and Wolf550e *big long wet raspberry blown your way.*

My e-mail is everywhere around here. If anyone wants me to e-mail them every time I update, e-mail me your address and I promise as I update I'll drop you a line.

Elizabeth