a soft place to fall // Severus Snape x OC

009 ❁ Nights in White Satin

A/N: Hey!! Last chapter of year 2 :))) Things pick up in a big way for 3, I'm so excited for that one. Thanks for tuning in. Excuse my tired author eyes as usual. TW: Mentions of past torture and hospitalization. Thanks for reading and interact if you enjoy xx

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Wren recalled ethereal sheets of bright white. Miles and miles of billowing drapes in layers that felt like thin veils pulled over the eyes. Thought she was finally dead. Finally boarding the last train to see her parents. They must be waiting somewhere. Watching her every slip and tumble. The sheets caressed her skin with a certain brand of aching tenderness. As if she might never get enough.

This was better.

St. Mungo's was a resting place for too many witches and wizards. Whether they moved onto the next life or were trapped in their bodies that were shells. Tombs. They pumped Wren with so many potions to soothe the pains, she had to be detoxed from them after leaving. Dumbledore and Minerva held her like a baby as she sobbed and puked. Sweated them out in a new bedroom by an echoing shore. Long before the summer she was brought to Hogwarts.

Tending the plants again was good for her. Healthy. Productive. Safe. Wren took back to her studies like a duck to water. Wrote her Herbology books in solitude. Nothing to do in St. Mungo's either but read and beg for more. Her quiet time between leaving the hospital and coming to Hogwarts was a mystery to the staff.

They certainly speculated about all of it.

"She'll have some bad scarring on her back," a nurse uttered to Albus just beyond the sheets of white. Thinking Wren was fast asleep at the time. Minerva at his side. Still and pointed silhouettes. "Her mind...well, it's complicated. She remembers. She does. All of it. She just...She hasn't said a thing more since the first night. We think she'll make a recovery. Luckier than most. Her moods were an issue, we're uncertain if she's level but there is progress. They just took the muzzle off last week-"

Wren wasn't sure how lucky she was. If this was a fair standard. Just because she had a heart that functioned, she was lucky. Felt so bare.

"We'll keep this up. The visits. Minerva said they finished a game of chess today. She's beginning to engage with the world more. Just give it some time," Dumbledore sighed, weight tipping down his shoulders. At that point, Wren closed her eyes to just dream herself away. Back into graceful flowing white sheets. Dancing around her body in endless ripples.

They took her away like magic.

Similar also to the ones that hung around her parent's bed. Pretty drapes Wren loved to play in while her mother got ready at her vanity. They had a good life. Father was a successful songwriter from London. Mother's family was from Thailand. Grandparents designed the most beautiful jewelry pieces. Passed all their beauty and knowledge and business savvy nature to her mother who carried it well.

They never even fought that she married a man who wasn't what they pictured. Maybe not as successful. Bit of a scrappy rebel. They were just happy because their daughter thrived, just how they taught her. And they loved their grandbaby more than anything before they passed. Wren was so loved growing up, she forgot what it might be to be unloved. Maybe she was luckier than most. Not everyone could touch that.

"Maybe it sounds vain, I finally designed a necklace I couldn't bear to part with," her mother posed in the mirror. Black opals gleaming around her neck. A tasteful sort of strange piece that Wren never forgot. The jewels now in her ornate wand. Mother giggled and held it up to Wren teetering over. "Your father's going to be home from the studio soon, my sweet."

They didn't question how the vivid plants around the house seemed to grow and flourish too well when Wren was about. The happiest child there was. Wren giggled, racing to crawl onto the bed and hide behind a fallen curtain.