Severus and the Skye

1

“Obliviate!”

The word still rings in my ears, even after all this time. Three years can change so much, but it can’t change them taking her from me, watching her bright eyes b\ecome clouded by confusion as she stared at me, the fear replaced by bafflement. Her fingers slipped from mine and she backed away and out of my life as they watched, hoping that their plan had worked. Leaving me to burn in my fury. None of them survived. 

I would have fought the Dark Lord himself had it meant reversing the spell but he was the reason they took her, to force me back to his side while we awaited his return. He had already fallen and the underbelly of the world had decided his ideas should live on, his power shouldn’t disappear with him. 

They knew I wouldn’t follow, not with her by my side. She had changed everything, smoothed my sharp edges. She was a half-blood like myself, her mother a muggle. I had wrapped myself around her, formed to all her curves and nothing else mattered beyond that. The shadows could creep and the world could burn as long as she was beside me.

Then they took her, and what’s more, they left everything else. She knew who she was, the spell was perfectly formulated to only remove me. I feel I may have had an easier time had she been completely wiped clean of even herself, but no, only me. They shattered the crystal ball we had built around ourselves, threw it to the ground with the mighty force of greed and the want of power.

I only remember the blind rage as she walked away, the lost look in her eyes where love and devotion had once been. I murdered them all, including Gibbon, and I don’t regret an ounce of it. I would not hesitate to do it again.

I tried to follow her but she screamed as if I were a monster, all talons and teeth and none of the warmth she had known. The warmth she had instilled and created and nurtured. 

I attempted to find her, follow her to the end of the earth if only to see her again. I have traveled to Italy, Russia, Brazil, and even America. I have begged each Ministry or Embassy to tell me of her existence, but each one sends me away with no information. It’s as if she has disappeared, completely wiped away her old life, but that doesn’t seem like something she would do. 

My fingers tighten around my quill as if it’s her hair and I could pull her closer, light the fire in her blue eyes as they sparkle up at me. I can almost feel the golden strands between the webbing of my fingers, shining like the riches they are. I have never been a wealthy man but I held everything of value in the world in my palm each time it was planted firmly on her throat like a necklace.

A knock sounds on the door to my classroom, pulling me back from the brink of my despair. I bid them to enter and Minerva slips into view, her hands locked together and folded into the layers of her velvet green robes, “Severus, I assume Dumbledore has already told you of the apprentice you will be taking on,” she says as she makes her way to my desk.

”Unfortunately,” I mutter. I have no need for an apprentice and for all the money in the world, I wouldn’t take one willingly. 

She slips a crooked smile across her lips, pulling the wrinkles on her face with it, “Actually I think you’ll be exceptionally pleased with the arrangement. Miss Fox is a wonderful young woman, she was a pupil of mine,” she straightens her back and the excitement practically radiates off of her.

My heart stops if only for a beat, caught in a vice. The quill in my hand snaps, the noise lost in the static that is my mind at the moment. Minerva’s brow quirks as she watches the plethora of emotions sweep across my face, the greatest of them being need. I’ve worked with this woman long enough that she can read me, even when my face is blank, “He found her?”

She nods and a wide smile replaces the small crooked one, dancing into her eyes, “Skye,” she says quietly, “Her name is Skye, she changed it.”

”That’s why I couldn’t find her,” I sigh, speaking more to myself than Minerva. I’ve risen to my feet and placed my palms flat on my desk, it’s the only thing holding me steady, keeping me grounded, “How is she?”

”She’s fine, Severus. She’s thrilled to meet the new potion master,” her face slips for only a moment, not long enough to pull me back into the pit but long enough to remind me that it exists.

I was a fool to let hope wash over me, run its fingers over my nerves. One of us will be meeting the other for the first time, shaking hands with a stranger, while the other will be desperately wishing they were experiencing the same sensation. 

“Come to the Great Hall for dinner, you should eat.”

”When will she get here?”

”She’s due tomorrow, after breakfast,” says Minerva, and suddenly tomorrow can’t come fast enough.