Third Chance

“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous."    -Mary Shelley, Frankenstein 

Severus began to help around the Infirmary. He used his wheelchair a lot now, and didn’t even need the full use of both of his arms to move it. It was charmed so that it went wherever he wanted it to go. Quite nice, if you ask him.

Severus and Dahlia were curled up on the sofa, reading, in her quarters when someone pounded on the Infirmary doors. 

“Oh, heaven’s sake,” Dahlia said crossly. “It’s eleven at night!” 

She swung her legs over the coach. Severus scowled, cursing whoever that ruined their peaceful hour, and shifted slowly so that he could transfer into his wheelchair himself. 

Severus followed her into the Infirmary, where two students were standing in front of a very angry, very sleepy Minerva, who was still in her nightgown. 

He froze, momentarily afraid, yet forced himself to occlude those pesky thoughts away.

“Madam Skydancer, Professor Snape…” Minerva scowled down at the two students, who looked like a seventh year girl and a fifth year boy. 

The girl looked like she wasn't hurt, only indignant, with her black hair pulled back and clearly windswept. She had the most defiant, angry blue eyes he’d ever seen. Severus couldn’t help but think that he saw her before. If she really was a seventh year student, he realized with dread, then she might’ve been one of the students in his care when he was Headmaster.

Tearing his gaze away from the girl, he instead analyzed the boy- same silky black hair, although the boy’s eyes were softer, more gentle. 

The boy met his gaze and blushed, cradling a wrist close to his chest. 

The girl’s gaze swung over to Severus and she froze, her eyes widening. Seconds later, she blushed. The boy elbowed his sister with his good arm. 

Curious.

“These two, Ms. Audrey Franks and Mr. William Franks decided that it would be- rather amusing to stay up until eleven, hop onto their brooms, and launch stones for each other to catch. The constant crashing woke me up!” 

Minerva huffed. 

“Now, Ms. Audrey, as much as I admire your determination to, ah, keep your skills sharp, I do not allow this to happen at night!”

She finished this little rant with very red cheeks. 

“Er- Professor McGonagall?” Dahlia stood sort of confused next to Severus. 

“Yes, Madam Skydancer?”

“Do they have any injuries, or was this simply a complaint? I’m not Argus… if you’d like, I can call him for you, though, for detention?”

“Oh!” Minerva’s eyes seemed to clear as some of the anger was let out. “Oh, yes. William has a rather bad wrist break. Ms. Audrey insisted on staying behind to check on her brother.” She gave them both a severe look.

“Well, thanks, Professor McGonagall.” Dahlia smiled and gestured that she could leave.

“Hope we didn’t interrupt anything. And, you two? Twenty-five points, each , from Ravenclaw.” 

Minerva swept out of the room. 

“Well, let’s get you fixed, huh?” Dahlia walked forward. “Severus, I’ll need your Pain Potions, sorry. I’ll brew some tomorrow, don’t worry. It’s enough to last you the night.”

Severus nodded, gathered his thoughts so that they were targeted towards his bedroom, and the wheelchair moved there. 

He snatched one of the Pain Potions off of his bed stand and made his way back to Dahlia. 

“Toss it, will you?” She asked distractedly, still bent over her patient. Severus sighed, throwing the bottle over to her weakly with his right hand. He stared unhappily at the bottle as it fell to the ground. Even with all of his strength, the bottle could not, would not soar across the room like he wanted it to.

Dahlia flicked her wand and interrupted the fall of the vial. It zoomed over to her hands. Severus rolled his eyes- if she was going to accio it, then why even ask him to throw the bottle in the first place?

The girl was still staring at him. 

“There, that’s a good boy,” Dahlia said cheerfully. Severus snorted wheezily. She was talking to the boy as if he were a dog. 

“Trying out for the Quidditch team, or are you really on it?” Dahlia asked. 

Both children exchanged nervous glances. 

“I’m on it,” the girl said. “Will is trying out.”

Severus’s eyes narrowed. 

“Professor Snape, why don’t you entertain Audrey for a while, over there? It’ll be good.” Dahlia smiled encouragingly at him. Good for me to interact with strangers, not good for these two lying dunderheads, Severus thought bitterly. 

He maneuvered his chair over to the other side of the Infirmary. Audrey Franks followed. 

“So tell me, Ms. Franks, what really were you two doing?”

The girl gaped at him. Then her expression changed stormy. 

Severus automatically flinched. 

The girl lunged forward, a wand in her hand, her hair billowing behind her like a cloak…no, it was a cloak. Number 594, her tag said, hanging from her neck. The girl’s eyes grew wide and dark, wild and insane. The small, timid smirk morphed into a horrible, hideous smirk, stretching and twisting her features, making her look like a crazier, more maniacal Bellatrix Lestrange… Severus struggled to control his breath, trying to scream, or cry out-

“Professor Snape? Professor?” 

The terrible image faded at once. The girl waved her arms in front of his vision, trying to stop him from shaking. 

“Oh, good, I thought I’d lost you there.” Audrey Franks plopped down on the seat in front of him.

“No…sorry…I thought that…” Severus struggled to clear away that ugly image. 

“How’d you know that we weren’t practicing Quidditch?” Audrey asked quietly. “Mum and Dad say that I'm awesome at lying.”

“Well-” Severus took in a deep breath, trying to shove away his thoughts- “I’m an Legilimens. I can just… tell.”

She stared at him for a moment, and Severus’s heart fell- was his speech really that bad? 

“Oh,” she said quickly. The girl looked down solemnly. “If you must know, Professor, we were trying to, er, get into the Shrieking Shack through the Whomping Willow. The whole school knows about it, you see, and ever since the world found out that you’re- well, alive, everyone’s been trying to get down there. That place holds a lot of history, you see, and tonight, me and Will were trying to get down there. But, er- the tree attacked back, and it broke Will’s wrist. We must’ve woken Professor McGongall because we, ah, threw rocks at it.”

Audrey smiled at him sheepishly.

“I must say that you should not try to go there again,” Severus rasped quietly. 

“Sorry, what was that?” They both turned red, Audrey from confusion and Severus from self-loathing and embarrassment. 

“It’s not your fault,” he grunted. “It isn’t your fault that I’m too stupid and too weak to string together a sentence without breaking my vocal cords.” 

She definitely understood him this time. 

“Don’t say that, Professor.” She sat up straighter this time. “You aren’t stupid, or weak. Without you, we wouldn’t have won the war.”

“Wait. What was your name again?”

The girl looked at him, her gaze a mixture of sympathy and something else that he couldn’t place. 

“Audrey Franks, sir.”

“I know you,” Severus said raspily. “Audrey Franks.”

Severus cleared his throat, a painful sound which caused both of them to flinch. 

“Er- sir, you’re bleeding.”

Severus blinked, mildly shocked, and then sighed.

“I’ve talked more than I’ve screamed for the past three years,” he muttered, and then summoned a handkerchief- an amazing feat, considering that he didn’t have his wand.

Severus lifted the cloth to his long, jagged neck scar and dabbed at it. Sure enough, it was now spotted by red. 

“I thought it scarred,” Franks said. 

“I thought so too. I think I stretched it open.” Severus shrugged, wrapped the handkerchief around the neck, trying to get all of the blood away.

“Audrey Franks,” he said, closing his eyes and trying to get the memory out of his foggy, tangled mind. “Audrey Franks. Audrey Franks. Audrey Franks.”

“Headmaster Snape, Professor Alecto Carrow was found! A Ravenclaw- what was the half-blood’s name- oh, yes, Audrey Franks, that’s it! Professor Amycus Carrow is trying to get you down there, he’s going to give Franks a beating for hiding his sister!”

Severus- Headmaster at the time- followed a frazzled Draco Malfoy down to the castle grounds. 

For the next two hours, Severus was forced to stand and watch as Audrey Franks was tortured horribly by Amycus Carrow. 

He remembered the helplessness, the self-loathing. Another student nearly dead, because of him. Another person that marked his failure. Severus remembered the screams, and the thrashing, the flailing. And he could do nothing but try his best not to cry, or crumble, or break his stance, all while thinking: “I’m sorry.”

“Audrey Franks,” Severus whispered, his face ghostly pale now, stretched and strained. 

“Yes, sir. That would be me.”

“Why’d you do it?”

“She was horrid to us. Cruel, wicked. I didn’t want her hurting us anymore, so, well, I got rid of her. Nearly got rid of her.”

“I’m sorry,” he rasped. “I’m sorry for not stopping them.”

“Oh, nonsense. You couldn’t stop them, you had no choice.” Audrey shook it off carelessly. 

“No. I always had a choice, yet I obeyed Albus Dumbledore’s plan like a puppet.”

Severus rubbed his arm, rubbed where the word was etched into him. 

“I wanted to say that I admire you, Professor. I was going to visit you anyway, in St. Mungo’s… but since I now know that you’re here, I wanted to tell you. I admire your determination and your courage, Professor. I’d like to be like you when I get older. Maybe become an Auror- oh, no offense, I’m not saying that I would capture you or anything… Perhaps I would work with trolls, or goblins, or do other stuff in the Auror department. My point is, I admire you. Without you, the war wouldn’t be over.”

She gave him a small smile. 

“Oh.”

Severus turned uncharacteristically red. He wasn’t expecting this. He didn’t deserve this. Not him, the monster who was forced to laugh as the girl writhed in front of him. Not him, the wretch that didn’t do anything to help.

“I appreciate it,” he said quietly. 

“Of course! Oh, look, Will’s healed.” She stood, brushed out her skirt, and smiled again.

“Thank you. I think you’re the first person who’s ever said that they admire me.” Severus leaned back in his wheelchair, and then held out a thin, pale, cold white hand. 

Audrey took it, her own hand soft and warm. 

“I hope you get better soon, sir!”

Severus watched as she walked to her brother, examined his wrist, thanked Dahlia, and left the room. 

“Severus?”

He looked up, his eyes filled with tears. 

“What’s the matter, love?”

“I don’t deserve this,” he whispered, a single, traitorous tear dropping from his blind eye. “I don’t deserve the kindness, the nice words. I don’t deserve the soft bed. I don’t deserve the water I get when I’m thirsty, or the food when I’m hungry, or medicine when I hurt. I’m supposed to be in a cell right now, clinging on to life, rotting like my filthy father. I don’t deserve any of this, any of this kindness. I don’t deserve Hogwarts, Smethwyck- you.”

Severus took in a shuddering gasp, coughing as his throat irritated. 

“Oh, Severus.”

Dahlia leaned down, conjured bandages, and wrapped them around his now profusely bleeding neck. 

“You do deserve this kindness. You know what you didn’t deserve? You didn’t deserve that cell, or Macmillan, or all of the Death Eaters that tortured you. You’re a good man, Severus Snape. You’re healing. Look at you- you even talked to a stranger!”

“I had to watch her get tortured,” he sobbed, crying quite openly now.

Dahlia leaned closer and pulled him into a hug. 

“I’m horrible. I’m a wretch, a monster, a beast.”

“You’re healing, Severus, and you’re a good man. You’re only going to get better.”

Dahlia slowly lifted his thin, weak body up and placed him back on the sofa in her quarters. 

“What- where…”

His eyes focused and glazed over again. Dahlia knew that he was slowly drifting back into confusion. 

She sat down next to him, accioed Molly’s thick blanket, and wrapped his shaking body with it.

He looked far too old for a man that was only forty-one, his skin pale and sallow, dark circles hanging under his eyes. His hair, which used to be raven-black was now streaked with the occasional silver, blamed for three years of sickness, starvation, fear, and agony. 

But the injuries he sustained sometimes couldn’t be completely healed. There had to be Dark Magic behind them… and why he wasn’t telling this to Dahlia, she didn’t know. But she would respect his wishes, and wait until he was brave, or perhaps willing enough to tell her.