Eight - The Box Closes

Dumbledore greeted them in his study as if Severus showed up with a woman in his arms every day. He merely looked at them both, and held up his hand.

"I can see you are both quite distraught." He looked at Severus, who had sat Mimi down as if she were the most fragile of objects. "Severus, what is wrong?"

Haltingly, Severus told the Headmaster how suddenly the magic that Mimi had originally absorbed had begun to manifest itself.

"She has experienced the first three spells that I know of, but I fear more will be forthcoming," Severus said, looking down at Mimi. He turned back to Dumbledore, "Do you think – "

Severus' words died in his mouth. Dumbledore was looking at him with barely concealed dismay. "Oh, Severus. So soon?"

Severus froze at the frightened tone of the Headmaster's voice. "What are you talking about, Albus?"

Dumbledore touched Severus' collar. "Your shirt is not buttoned properly, Severus, and it has been carelessly tucked into your trousers. You have bedded this woman, have you not?"

Alarmed, Severus replied coolly, "What business it that of yours, Albus?"

Mimi looked at the two men and was more frightened for Severus than herself. Dumbledore's face was suffused with a fear that was rapidly morphing into anger, and she rose to defend her lover.

"Excuse me, Headmaster – "

"And you couldn't leave him alone long enough to let him do the deed, could you?" Dumbledore whirled to Mimi, and she visibly shrank back. "I should have waited to bring you here. I should have known the moment you arrived you would throw yourself at him like a love-struck fool!"

Mimi and Severus looked at each other, stunned. "Brought me here?" Mimi said. Her eyes narrowed. "It was you all along, wasn't it? You were the one who sent me the Sempra Deck in the first place!"

Dumbledore stood between the couple, anger and power radiating from him. Severus felt his stomach lurch. "Old man, what have you done? Why did you bring her here?" His anger rose to match Dumbledore's. "Why did you allow her to come, knowing she could be killed this way?"

The Headmaster turned to Severus. "She would have been perfectly fine if you two had been able to keep your hands off one another!" His eyes narrowed into icy blue chips. "How long have you been bedding her? How long did it take you, Severus, to pump her so full of your essences that you made her mortal here?"

Mimi cried out in anger, "What the fuck are you talking about, Dumbledore? How did Severus and I becoming lovers make this happen?" She hissed as another jinx took her legs out from under her, and Severus barely caught her before she crumpled to the floor. He hastily cancelled the spell.

Severus looked from Mimi to Dumbledore, and something like understanding dawned on his pale face. "My essences, Albus? The essences I placed in the Deck? They have something to do with this, don't they?"

Just then, Mimi doubled over as one of Severus' hexes hit her with the force of a punch in her stomach. She cried out in pain, and Severus held her, cancelling the spell, feeling helpless and terrified. Tears sprang to Mimi's eyes, and Severus gently brushed them away, holding her in an attempt to comfort and soothe her fears.

"Shh. It's alright, my brave girl. We'll find a way to stop this, I swear it." Unmindful of Dumbledore, Severus took her cold and nerveless fingers and warmed them with his kisses. "I will not lose you. I will not lose you because of my own fallibility."

He breathed harshly onto her white knuckles, "I cannot lose my only reason for living." Finally, Mimi fell back in the chair, weak and frightened.

Severus turned to Dumbledore, the fury in his eyes as great as the old man's. "Explain yourself, Albus, or by Merlin, I'll -"

"Stop, Severus." Dumbledore held his hand in a gesture of surrender. "This," he said, indicating Severus and Mimi, "was not a casual encounter, was it?"

Severus glowered at him. "I would think by now you know me better than that, Headmaster."

Dumbledore nodded. "Indeed. There is real depth of feeling here. I see it. And I owe you an explanation, if only for that." He sat down at his desk, looking tired and impossibly old.

He turned to Mimi, and made a complicated pattern in the air with his wand, chanting an incantation. Mimi relaxed somewhat, and her breathing calmed. Dumbledore finished the incantation, and turned to Severus.

"I have placed a temporary stasis spell over Miss Manderly. It will hold back the next series of spells for a short while." He looked defeated. "I believe I owe you both an apology, as well as an explanation."

Severus stood, and gently lifted Mimi into his arms. He turned and sat down on the chair, and drew her into his lap, where she lay against him like a weary child. Dumbledore watched them for a moment, then began.

"Severus, do you remember the night I summoned you, the night I was cursed with this?" Dumbledore held up his long, blackened hand. When Severus did not reply, Dumbledore pressed on. "I told you of my plan, that I must die, and that you must assist me. You were devastated, my boy, and when you left here, I knew I had destroyed your soul as much as the ring had destroyed mine.

"I watched you fade away with every passing day. I had killed you. Even Minerva remarked how wan and listless you'd become. You no longer spoke, you no longer listened, you no longer lived. I knew very soon you would no longer be of any use to me."

Mimi felt righteous anger flood her heart. That bastard! It didn't matter than he'd hurt Severus, or forced him into agreeing to take Dumbledore's life, or warped and twisted his heart until he could barely function! Oh, no, none of that was important, as long as the great Albus Dumbledore got his way. Mimi was so angry she could not speak, and Severus' grip on her waist tightened, and she felt in that gesture an entreaty to keep quiet.

Dumbledore went on speaking, almost to himself. "I knew I had caused this horrible, inconsolable resignation. I had taken away your will to live, dear boy, and I had to get it back. So I took your Sempra Deck, and I sent it out into the void, to your true, rightful mate. I thought..." The old man shook his head. "This illness... I am not sure exactly why I thought it would help you to carry on, but at the time, I truly was thinking only of your welfare."

Mimi and Severus looked at each other, astonished. Severus, confused, said, "How did the Deck know to go to Mimi? I made the Deck for Lily."

Something like the old warmth bled back into Dumbledore's blue eyes. "You created the Deck for your true love, Severus. Within that deck you placed your heart and soul, dear boy. Your very being was contained within the cards by your essence.

"The Deck was pure, because your virginal body was pure. And the deck knew. It knew your true mate."

"But why did it take so long for it to come to me?" Mimi asked. "Why didn't it find me as soon as you sent it, in this time frame?"

Dumbledore smiled. "Ah, because in 1997, you were not yet Severus' true mate. The Deck had to wait until it found what it sought. Until you were ready."

Severus' grip on Mimi's waist slackened. "So you just yanked her here, hoping she would keep me sweet long enough to kill you?" Severus' face twisted in disgust. "Merciful Nimue, Albus, you are cold-blooded bastard."

Dumbledore's eyes grew stormy again. "I brought her here, to see if she could give you back what I'd taken - your will to live. I will confess, I did not think you would become lovers so quickly. After all, Severus, you are almost forty, and were still a virgin man." He pretended not to see Severus' face flush with humiliation. Rather wryly, Dumbledore continued, "It seems Miss Manderly was more amourous and aggressive in her intentions than I originally expected."

"All this, and he has the nerve to call me promiscuous," Mimi said, through clenched teeth. "So what was your brilliant plan, Headmaster? I would keep Severus all shagged out and happy until you decided it was time to mark him as a murderer and send him out as the Greater Good's sacrificial lamb?"

"I had hoped for you to be his helpmate, to give him a reason to believe that there was life after all that would befall him." Dumbledore looked at the couple, his eyes filled with sadness. "I had not counted on you being impervious to our magic, Miss Manderly. It stood to reason, of course, but at the time, it seemed of little import.

"I should have known that, when you two became lovers, you would, in time, come in contact, shall we say, with the very essences that Severus infused into the Deck, to bind his soulmate to him. What I didn't realise is that the same essences that charged the cards would make you, in effect, on the same astral plane with the deck itself. Your very love for Severus ended your immortality here."

Severus said, "But this makes no sense! When did you ingest -" He stopped, a tint of pink flushing his pale cheeks. In a harsh whisper, so that the Headmaster could not hear him, he hissed, "You never ingested my urine, or my sweat."

Mimi was nodding sadly. "But I have, love."

Fighting tears, she looked into his eyes, and he whispered, "Legilimens." As gently as he could, he looked into her memory, and saw her before him, on her knees, reveling in his pleasure as she sucked his cock to his first orgasm with a woman. He could sense the bitter, sharp tang of his semen in her throat. Of course, it would have been combined with the few drops of urine, which always resided in the male urethra.

He saw her bending over him, kissing him as he wept the first time they made love. He could taste the salt of his tears and the saltier flavour of the sweat on his temples. And, of course, she had ingested the smear of blood that she'd kissed from his injured finger; the final catalyst to this horrible conclusion. Severus felt sick at the realization that something so precious as her kisses had brought all the pigeons home to roost.

His beautiful lover would be subjected to increasingly painful and crippling curses, one by one, until the final Avada, which would kill her. He could not Finite Incantatum that, no matter how hard he tried. They were on a runaway freight train, heading for an open gorge, and there was nothing that could be done to stop it.

Quietly, he withdrew from her mind, and together they put their arms around each other.

"Oh, gods," he sobbed. "I have killed you!"

"No, Severus! I'm the one who told you to hex me and curse me! I'm the one that taunted the Death Eaters!" She cupped his face with her tiny hands. "Severus, look at me."

When he raised his misery-filled eyes to her, she tried to smile. "I'm glad I was able to protect you! Bellatrix was torturing you! Voldemort would have killed you, then and there!" She tried to kiss his tears away. It no longer mattered how many or how few she drank; she was going to die anyway. For a moment, they held each other, each trying to come to terms with what the next few hours would bring.

"I will be here. I will be with you," he wept. "I will do what I can to take the pain away. I will stay with you until..." Severus felt as if his heart was being torn from his chest; he had never felt such desolation. The loss of Lily had been horrible; it was child's play next to this. The woman who loved him was going to die. He would lose her, and he knew he would die himself.

"There is, I believe, another way." The two of them turned to Dumbledore. They had quite forgotten he was in the room.

Severus looked at him in shock. "Merlin's balls, Albus, if there is a way to save her, do it!"

Dumbledore looked at Severus levelly. "I will have to send her back. Back into her own time and space."

Mimi gasped. "You were always able to send me back? But why – "

"On the day your arrived at Hogwarts, if I had told you I could return you to your rightful place, can you honestly tell me you would have stayed here?"

Mimi looked at Severus, and lowered her eyes. Dumbledore nodded. "I thought as much. I needed you here; I needed you to stay long enough to befriend Severus." He gave her a rueful glance. "Are you telling me that you would have rather gone back?"

Mimi was quiet for a long time. Finally, she looked at Severus. "No. I wouldn't have missed this for the world." Something like her old fighting spirit glinted in her sea-blue eyes. "I would have changed the rules a little, but – "

"I can send you back now, Miss Manderly. You will remember your time here, but you will have no physical repercussions from what happened."

Mimi looked at Dumbledore with dawning realisation. "Could you send us both back?" She looked at Severus with painful hope. "Could Severus come back with me?"

Dumbledore looked at her for a long time. Finally, he said, "He could. But he will not."

Mimi looked at him incredulously. "Why?" She looked from Dumbledore to Severus, who looked resigned. A swift, killing anger pierced her heart, and she started toward the Headmaster. "You heartless, heartless bastard! Why won't you give him a chance for a decent life?"

Dumbledore's eyes were cold, his expression stony. "He is needed here. He has a destiny to fulfill. He promised me years ago. Severus, you made your pact – "

"With the devil!" Mimi sobbed, and Severus took her in his arms.

"It is no use, Mimi." He looked like a man bleeding from an internal wound. "I have made my pact with the Headmaster." He lowered his head until their foreheads were touching. His voice was harsh and bitter. "You could beg him, but it would be of no use. I know. I have begged Albus for my soul since the night he told me I was to be his murderer."

He looked at Dumbledore, and the older wizard recoiled at the hatred he saw in Severus' face. It was the same look he would see three months later on the Astronomy Tower, and it was that same hatred that would allow Severus Snape to cast a curse he would utter once, and never again.

Severus felt as if a huge hole had opened at his feet, and he wanted more than anything to jump into it. No matter what, he would lose her. He straightened, and took a deep breath. "Albus, how long will the stasis charm stay in effect?" He was surprised at how steady his voice sounded to his own ears. He turned back to his lover. "I wish to say a proper goodbye. Alone."

Dumbledore nodded. "It will hold for perhaps three hours, but I must caution you that when it is lifted, I suspect that the respite between the spells will decrease exponentially. Time will be of the essence after the stasis charm is removed."

"Understood." He lifted Mimi into his arms, and Dumbledore himself administered the Floo Powder. "Severus Snape's chambers!"

Once they were alone, Mimi broke down completely, and Severus held her, feeling his own tears falling. He knew he would have to let her go, and he knew he would rather die himself than do it.

He kissed her lips and whispered against her mouth, "You must go back."

She was sobbing. "I don't want to leave without you, Severus." Her sweet eyes, the colour of a stormy sea, looked into his pleadingly. "I just found you. How I am supposed to live without you?" None of the hexes she'd experienced had hurt this much. "I love you. I can't live without you." If ever a woman's heart showed in her face, it was Mimi's. The pain of the impending Crucio could not, would not hurt this much. To find him, only to lose him again, was too much to bear.

Severus closed his eyes. When he spoke, he imbued all of his power and love into his beautiful voice, and prayed that Mimi could find some strength in it. It poured over her like honey, bittersweet and warm. "Mimi, I could not live knowing you had the chance to survive this, and did not because of me. I can carry on, knowing you are somewhere, out in the stars, living and breathing, and remembering me."

"I'll miss you too much," she sobbed, and he gathered his goddess in his arms, tears streaming from his eyes.

"I will find you," he whispered fiercely. "If Dumbledore could find a way to send the Sempra deck to you, I can find a way to return to you as well."

"Promise?" she said, her heart breaking, never to be mended again.

"I promise I'll try."

"Well," she sniffed, "that will have to do for now." She tried to smile. "But I'm holding you to that, Severus Snape!"

"Yes," he whispered, and touched his lips to hers. "Please hold me."

He carried her to his chambers, and laid her on his bed. "Oh, goddess." He smiled down at her. "Thank you for giving me the chance to touch heaven." He kissed her. "I do believe in love, now."

They wept, as they undressed one another, and bathed each other in their tears. They made love, first sweetly, then urgently, then desperately. Severus had never hoped to know the love he shared with Mimi. It had emboldened him, and given him strength. It had exhilarated him and freed him.

Knowing this was the last time he would hold his true mate, his soulmate, grieved him more than he could bear. It also comforted him, knowing that, even for the briefest of moments, he, Severus Snape, had held love in his grasping hand, and had been loved in return. And through their tears, their bodies memorized one another; drew patterns in the air, fashioned new constellations in the sky, and they told each other everything they wished the other to know. On this last night together, they were beautiful and perfect, and Mimi was his goddess, and Severus was her consort.

As they lay together, their bodies entwined, Severus sighed heavily. A muttered Tempus spell told him they had just over an hour before they were to return to the Headmaster's chambers. He tried to prepare himself to let her go, and thought of the long, agonising walk back to his chambers. Alone. Forever now, alone. Would Dumbledore offer some empty platitude, as he often did when Severus returned, broken and bloody from his audience with the darkness? Suddenly, he raised his head, then turned back to the door. "No."

Confused, Mimi looked up into his angular face. "What is it, Severus?"

He turned back to her. "It's too pat. This is Dumbledore we're talking about. Giving with one hand, taking away with the other. He won't just let you go." His face darkened. "He won't just let me go." Severus stood, and beckoned his lover to his side. "Come with me, love. We have one more thing we must do, before I have to return you to your time."

Severus' task had taken most of the last hour of their precious time together, but in the end, they were convinced it was the most important thing they had ever done.

They decided to walk from the Dungeons back to the Headmaster's study, to give themselves more time. It was a Hogsmeade weekend and Severus had thankfully not had to chaperone. The halls were almost deserted as he walked with his lover on this, their last journey together.

When they were in sight of Dumbledore's study, Mimi screamed in pain, and collapsed onto the floor. The stasis charm had failed, and Severus watched in sickened horror as spell after hex after jinx flared and disappeared over her body, quickly to be replaced with the next. As fast as he could cancel them, another stood in line ready to lance into her.

Severus swept her into his arms and was carrying her into the study when Bella's Crucio hit Mimi, and she fishtailed in Severus' arms, deaf, dumb and blind to everything but the stupefying pain of the Cruciatus Curse.

Together, Severus and Dumbledore managed to cancel the curse, leaving Mimi gasping and moaning in agony. Her pain-filled eyes mutely pleaded with Severus to help her, and he turned to Dumbledore, his eyes bleak with anguish.

"Do what you must, Albus! I cannot bear to see her in so much pain!"

"W-wait!" she cried, and held out her arms to him. Pulling him to her with surprising strength, Mimi whispered in his ear. "R-remember w-what you p-promised!" she stammered, shuddering with every breath. "Remember, Severus!"

"Yes, Mimi," he said, their eyes meeting. I will find you. I will be there. I will be ready. Severus kissed her passionately, then pulled her arms from around his neck and stepped away from her. "Do it, Albus," he said, gasping, holding his sides as if he, too, had been cursed. "Do it while I have the strength to let her go!"

Mimi saw the magic swirl from the tip of Dumbledore's wand, and the same blinding light that had split open the Sempra cards burst open behind her. "Go now, Miss Manderly," the Headmaster urged, pointing at the opening in time and space. "Go now, and the gods speed you home!"

She stepped through, and the opening between her world and theirs began to close. Mimi turned back to look at Severus one last time. Her heart felt as if it were shredding inside her chest. She could barely breathe.

Severus was crying. I will find you, he mouthed.

From behind him, Dumbledore swung his arm around, and pointed at Severus' back. "NO!" Mimi screamed, but it was too late, and just as Severus whirled around to face the Headmaster, the portal closed with a final SNAP! and the sound of Dumbledore's hoarse voice echoed in Mimi's mind, just as she felt herself falling down the rabbit hole again.

"Obliviate!"

Severus Snape strode back from the Headmaster's office, glowering at a set of second-years loitering in the hallway. "Get to your houses!" he barked, his robes billowing behind him as he stalked through the halls of Hogwarts.

He felt tired and muzzy; it had been a long, pointless day of chaperoning at Hogsmeade. It had certainly been unmemorable; he could not recall one damn thing about his day, other than it had been tedious and unfulfilling. Like most days, he morosely told himself. And to top it all off, he seemed to be coming down with a head cold; his eyes were red and his nose was full of snot. He'd take a Pepper-Up Potion in the morning.

He walked into his chambers, and poured himself a glass of Old Ogden's, relieved to be done with the dunderheads and brats for the day, and as he divested himself of his heavy over robe, he looked forward to a rare evening in peace. Merlin knows, he thought bitterly, you'll have few of those soon enough.

He threw his over-robe onto the back of his sofa with the careless air of one who knows they really should hang up a fine garment, but is too disgruntled to be arsed. He stared at it for a moment, then sighed and with a wave of his wand, sent it to carefully hang in his wardrobe.

He fell into his favourite chair with a grunt of resignation. He thought about getting pissed tonight, but decided against it. He had bloody Gryffindors for double DADA first thing in the morning; bad enough, but unbearable with a hangover and a head cold, even with Sober-Up Potion chasing the Pepper-Up.

He crossed his feet in front of him and took a long pull of his whiskey, grimacing as it made its fiery way down his throat. Something had been bothering him; he frowned as he tried to remember what it was. It was dancing just on the edge of his mind, and it disturbed him. It was as if... as if he'd had his memory altered.

He shrugged. More likely it was simply a case of his mind turning to mush after all these years of teaching and allowing himself to be royally fucked by Dumbledore and the Dark Lord. Ah, well, it would be over soon...

Severus sat up. No. Something was wrong. He could, in the immortal words of his Nan, feel it in his waters. Something was missing. He stood, and paced; sometimes this helped to jog his memory, if he was trying to remember some long-forgotten fact or potions recipe. He sighed; nothing was forthcoming.

He downed the contents of his glass, then went to the cupboard to pour another, and it was on his way to refill his glass that he noticed the quill on his writing desk. He had approached the drinks cupboard from a different direction when he first entered his chambers; it was only at this angle that he noticed his favourite quill, lying on the desk, as if carelessly left there in haste.

He never left this quill lying about. It was his favourite and best; he'd paid a lot of money for it and it wrote like a dream. Like many persons who could afford expensive items in their adult years after a childhood of abject poverty, Severus compulsively took care of his finer things, both material and magical. It was the same compulsion that made him hang up his over robe, when he would have liked to have been lazy and left it lying in a heap on his sofa.

His quill was just such an example of the meticulous care he took of his possessions. Wandlessly, he opened the secret drawer in his writing desk and retrieved the quill's slender wooden box. It reminded him of Ollivander's wand boxes. Severus had ever enjoyed the mysterious aspect of a box. It was one of many things he had in common with...

His head shot up. Now, that was a modified memory! Frantically, he looked around, wand out, to detect anyone in his chambers. Assuring himself that no interloper was in his room, Severus then decided to consult Madam Pomfrey. She had a bit of expertise in memory restoration; you didn't serve as Chief Mediwitch to a Wizarding School with a thriving Quidditch rivalry without learning how to counteract temporary amnesia. Bludgers played hell with short term memory.

He opened the quill's storage box to put it away for safekeeping, and froze. Inside the box were six small vials. Within swirled long, white whispy tendrils of what were obviously memories. He smiled grimly - he had been right; some of his memories were missing!

Severus looked around once again, then scooped up the box and its contents, and walked into his bedchamber. Another wandless spell opened a secret door behind his wardrobe. The Headmaster himself was unaware of this room. It contained Severus' private library and potions laboratory – and his Pensieve.

It was a small one and had cost a bloody fortune back when they were easy to find on the black market, but it was one of the best you could buy. Many was the night Severus had returned from a Dark Revel, and wishing he could dump his entire brain into it, to prevent him having to remember the things he'd witnessed.

He sat the tiny bottles on his Potions lab table, and peered at them with narrow eyes. Each was marked with a different letter: A, M, E, P, S, and R. Severus, ever a lover of puzzles, began to move the bottles like a conjurer switching balls and cups for an audience. It took very little time for him to put the bottles into the only logical order: SEMPRA. He felt a fierce little elation.

"Sempra. Always," he mused, aloud. With a dark little seductive chuckle, Severus purred, "Alright, Sempra, whoever you are. Reveal your secrets."

He opened the bottle marked with the "S" and poured its silvery contents into the bowl of the Pensieve, then lowered his face into the swirling mist.

Instantly, he was standing in this exact lab, and a woman was standing before him, a woman he had never seen before. She was diminutive, and lovely. Intelligence and wit shone from eyes the colour of the sea. Her black hair was as straight as his own, and she was smiling at him with such affection, it made his heart pound and his chest grow warm.

"Hello, Severus." There was sadness in her face, and he realized she had been crying. "You won't remember me right now, but that is why you are here. I hope this is the first of the bottles you've opened. You told me you'd figure out the labels spelled out "Sempra" too easily, but I didn't care."

She smiled again, and he could see she was fighting tears. "We set up this first memory to tell you what to do with the rest. If you are watching this, then Dumbledore has Obliviated you, or modified your memory, so that you will not recall the events of the past few weeks."

Severus saw himself in the memory walk to the woman and, to his shock, he kissed her passionately. Looking at the woman, he saw his memory-self wipe away her tears and he turned to look at Severus, as if he knew he would be standing there.

"Go through all these memories in the order of the word 'SEMPRA'. We knew he would probably try to erase my memories, so I put them in these vials for you to discover. Look at them here in the Pensieve first, then return them to me." He kissed the woman's forehead, and she closed her eyes. His memory-self said grimly, "I wasn't about to let Dumbledore wipe this out of my mind."

The woman looked up at the memory-Severus again, and love and sadness etched her face. She now turned to where Severus stood, watching the memory, and smiled at him.

"Let me reintroduce myself, Severus. I am Mimi Manderly." Her breath caught in a sob, and his memory-self brushed tears from her face, then from his own. "I'm your soulmate, and I love you more than life itself."