Outside in the hallway, Mika paused after shutting the door, every sense in her body saying to go back in and plead with Remus not to settle for this fate; that there had to be something they could do. But she knew better. Slowly, she began to make her way up the stairs, towards her rooms, her hearts heavier than she’d ever felt them. She paused before on the landing, the figures in the nearby portraits whispering condolences. If she was totally honest with herself, she had always known, deep down inside, that she was never meant to be with Remus Lupin. Her destiny lay elsewhere.
As she stood in the darkness at the top of the stairs, she watched Dumbledore go into the door out of which she had just exited, no doubt to do what she was not allowed to do any more: give solace to Remus Lupin.
As she continued her way up what seemed to be the longest set of stairs in creation, lightning flashed outside and thunder closely followed, shaking the ancient castle down to its deep dungeons. The thought of that being very appropriate at this moment flitted through her mind when she caught a movement on the dark landing above her. The dark figure turned around and the next lightning flash illuminated the face of Severus Snape.
“What are you doing here?” she said, a distinct edge to her voice. It was a cross between wanting to scream her lungs out and trying not to burst into tears.
“Mika, please… I am so sorry...” he began, moving towards her as she reached the landing. “I swear I had nothing to do with what’s happened. I would never do anything to make you so unhappy, please believe me,” he pleaded softly.
The time lord glared at him, fire and ice in her eyes. “I don’t know what to believe,” she said angrily and moved forward to pass, giving him as wide a berth as she could. “Just leave me alone.”
He watched her for a second, not really knowing what to do but feeling he could not let her just walk away.
“Mika!” he shouted, but still she did not stop. Snape then lunged forward and grabbed her by the arm, spinning her around to face him. He held her by her upper arms, just below the shoulders and shook her gently, forcing her to look into his eyes.
Snape's voice was deep and had a desperate edge. “Mika, you must believe me! Here, see for yourself…”
Suddenly she realised what he was going to do and a look of horror crossed her face.
“No, don’t, it’s too dangerous…”
But before the words were out, Snape had opened his mind completely to her. In that split second she saw all his memories as they poured into her mind; all the suffering and pain he’d endured all his life; all the ridicule and loneliness. She also saw what he had to keep hidden from the powerful mind of the evil Dark Lord. All his plots and plans and reasons for them, but even then, though she saw his deepest, most dangerous secrets, there was still one deeply buried thought that eluded her.
But there was no memory of casting and sending that curse. True, there was no love lost between he and Lupin, but neither was there any true malice in his soul. In a way he even felt sorry for Lupin and his lamentable fate. Snape was truly sorry for what had happened and had no knowledge at all of the curse.
They stood there for some time, the only two people in the world at that moment as far as they were concerned, oblivious of the raging storm outside. Lightning flashed again, illuminating the tear that now crept slowly down Mika’s pale cheek. Realising that he was still clutching onto her, Snape let Mika go and stood there, searching her face for some kind of reaction.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Volde…” she began but Snape hushed her with a finger to her lips.
“I know,” he said gently. “But I had to make you believe me. I…” he hesitated, unable to put into words what his heart screamed inside. “I just had to,” eventually came out.
“If you were educated in magic, in the dark arts especially,” he tried to explain, “you would realise as I did that this kind of curse could only have come from one being: the one who had bitten Lupin in the first place, thus the line about his 'master'. It could not have been me, nor anyone else in this school that cast it. Who delivered it, however, is another matter...” He let his voice trail off. He was just nervously filling the growing silence.
Mika began to shake her head slowly. “You really should not have done that,” she repeated softly. “Now you have put yourself in danger too.”
“I am always in danger, Mika,” he answered flatly.
For another few moments they stood, on the landing, lightning cutting through the darkness, both of them coming to terms with how things now were between them. Then slowly, Mika again turned and made her way back up the stairs, her own pain momentarily eclipsed by all she’d seen in Severus’ mind.
Snape remained where he was, watching her steadily climb until she melted into the darkness above. He sighed when he heard her door shut with a gentle thud, before turning and descending the stairs, letting his feet carry him where they may, wondering if he had done the right thing.
