I Was Younger Then

Feel Better?

"You are not listening, Dumbledore! Once the progression takes hold there will be no stopping it," Snape pressed, fury coursing through his veins as Dumbledore merely observed him with that placid smile of his, as though Snape were some child needing the enlightenment the old man would offer.

"I think you will find I have been listening, Severus, and rather, I think it's you who refuses to hear what it is that I'm saying, because there very much is a way to stop the curse, just not a way for you to do it for her."

"What is that supposed to mean," Snape said through gritted teeth, fingernails digging into the cushion of the chair he sat stiffly upon.

A flicker of impatience crossed Dumbledore's tired features, momentarily satisfying Snape. Perhaps he would finally give the subject matter the attention it was due.

"I do not discount that your skills have spared Penny terrible pain, and without them she would have likely succumbed to it; being on the receiving end of such help, I can say with authority, it is a gift most dearly cherished," Dumbledore said, motioning to his blackened hand.

Flattery would get him nowhere, Snape scowled inwardly.

"But—" Dumbledore pressed on a little more loudly when Snape made to interrupt him, "it is time to accept this is a journey Penny has to make alone."

"So I'm supposed to just sit back and enjoy the show of watching her be torn apart from within, am I?" Snape said sardonically, getting to his feet, unable to sit there like some silly student being reprimanded by the headmaster. Too often Snape had heeded Dumbledore's word, done as he was bade and made no complaints. But not today, he would not remain silent about this.

"Certainly not. What use would there have been in learning as much as you have you about the curse if not to give her the best chance of succeeding?"

A sharp glance as he paused his pacing, the sneer working its way across Snape's thin lips, "Because telling her that soon she will be fighting an unseen battle for her sanity will be such a welcome burden on top of the multitude she already carries," he said derisively.

"I can empathize with the fact that for what you possess in magical talent, you also lack in communication skills, but can you honestly tell me you do not see the value of empowering Penny? Fostering her own ability to believe in herself?"

"I have already told you, she is still harboring guilt over Black's death, and that insolent half-breed only fed it! Her mental state is more precarious than you will acknowledge, and I fear this will be precisely what finally sends it toppling," Snape replied, his own impatience being less polite than Dumbledore's and putting itself on full display.

It was endless circles with the old man, him presuming in his arrogance to understand the finer workings of the girl's mind better than he, he who had spent more hours than any other, observing, studying, and cursing it.

"It is lucky then that we are speaking of souls and not minds, and I am quite confident saying that Penny harbors a most uniquely resilient soul," Dumbledore smiled, steepling his fingers as he appraised the man before him, blue eyes sparkling with that infuriating refusal to just state things plainly.

"Again with the souls, Dumbledore?" Snape seethed, returning to his pacing or else he might resort to yelling. "It is her mind that—"

"You are a brilliant man, Severus, but I think even you must concede that my own studies have taken me further than you. So please do not ignore me when I impress upon you how it is her innermost nature we must be tending to now, because I suspect, and my hunches are very rarely wrong, that it is doubt that will be her undoing."