Borrowed time; Mattheo Riddle

Chapter 53

Bellas pov

I had forced Mattheo to let me join the next time he was meeting Serverus. The silence was loud as we knocked on the door and even louder when he finally did. He stared at me for a longing moment before opening the door wider so we could step inside. A cauldron was brewing on his desk and a notebook laid open beside it, his hand writing neat as always. 

When I turned my focus back to Mattheo and Serverus they seemed to be in a silent conversation maintaining a tense eye contact. I cleared my throat and their eyes slowly drifted over to me. "Sooo, I heard you have been working on something?". 

"We have" Severus responded seeming to be a bit on edge. 

"Well, show me" I said picking up his notebook and looking it over. 

Severus slowly walked over to his desk as I looked trough the pages. There were hundreds of pages containing new discoveries, failed attempts and a whole bunch of research. "How long have you been doing this?" I knew he had been trying to find a cure in the beginning but he told me he stoped, he promised me that he had. "You never stoped, did you?". 

"No" there was no regret in his voice and while I knew he did it because he loved me I was still hurt. "You lied to me. For almost a year you lied. I told you to stop, to accept my fate like I had"

I had appreciated Severus trying to find a cure but eventually it became too much.  He was falling apart spending every night trying to stop something we both knew couldn't be stopped. It  was tearing him apart day by day, he didn't see it but I did. 

"I would never forgive myself if I gave up that easily" his voice was strained but determined. "I'm sorry for lying to you, but I would do it again if it meant saving you life". The look in his eyes told me it would be useless to argue, he would'n stop until I was gone and as I looked over at Mattheo I could see the same determination in his. 

"Fine" They both looked shocked at my compliance, "But from this point in you two are gonna be one hundred procent honest with me and fill me in on everything you're doing here". They gave each other a sidewards glance seeming to silently communicate before looking back at me and agreeing. 

"Okay good, how long until this is done?" I asked referring to the potions currently brewing in the cauldron. 

"It should be done on Wednesday" Mattheo responded giving Severus another one of those weird looks. 

Mattheos pov

"She can't be here when we try the potion, she won't approve of our methods" Severus voice sounded in my mind. 

"I'm aware" I spoke back noticing the weird look Bellas was giving us. "I'll handle it" 

There's not a lot of people who knows legilimency so the only good use for it used to be reading peoples minds, but figuring out that professor Snape was skilled in the matter changed things. It became a good way of speaking about our meetings in public whitout others suspecting things. He had also thought me why I couldn't read Bellas mind, although he wasn't all to happy to find out I had tried. Apparently the curse inside her blocks of her mind, almost like the curse doesn't want anybody to know about it. 

Before Bella could ask more questions we agreed on meeting up on Wednesday to test the potion and then I half dragged her out of the room. 

~~~

Wednesday morning contained dubble potions lessons. I worked with Enzo on brewing a temporary memory loss potion while Bella and Pansy did some love potion thing at the other side of the table. Enzo was cutting the ingredients when I felt a tingling in my head. I looked over at Severus who gave me a discreet nod telling me it was him. I opened my mind allowing him access. 

"The potion is ready" His voice boomed in my head as I looked towards his office door knowing he hid it in there during classes. Bella was under the impression we would meet tonight to try it and I had yet to come up with an excuse for her to not come. 

I guess I'll have to improvise, "Good, we'll try it tonight"

"Bella?"

"I'll fix it. Tell us to stay behind after class". 

"You good man?" Enzo dragged my mind back as he poured some shit in the cauldron. "You looked a bit dozed of"

"I'm fine, just a lot on my mind" I said regaining focus on the potion we were doing. 

After class Severus asked Bella to stay behind knowing I would automatically too. Telling the others we would catch up later we headed to the front of the room. One's the last student had left Severus placed  a silencing charm on the room. "Tell her it isn't done until Friday" I spoke quickly to Severus before he began talking. 

"So? Is it done?" Bella asked. 

"No, I misinterpreted the time it would need to brew but I suspect it should be done on Friday" he told her playing along to my none existent plan. 

"So will meet up Friday instead then?" she asked not seeming to bothered.  

"Oh shit no that won't work" Bella looked at me confused before I continued. "It's your birthday on Friday, I have stuff planed" She looked a bit surprised taking a few seconds before speaking again. 

"Oh well maybe we could wait until Saturday to try it then?" 

"No need, you deserve to enjoy your birthday in peace. I'll try it out on my own and then we'll meet up Sunday evening" Severus spoke up saving my ass and when Bella seemed onboard with the plan we left to meet up with the others for lunch. 

Just as we were about to round the last corner to the great hall Bella grabbed my arm stopping me. "You know we don't have to do anything just because it's my birthday, I'm happy just spending the evening with you. It dosen't have to be a big thing"

"You birthday is the most important day to ever exist in my life. We're skipping the entire day of classes and I'm going to show you just how special you and the day you were born are to me, alright?".  A shy blush creeped up on her cheeks and I took that as I sign of agreement and leaned in to seal the deal with a kiss. 

Later that evening I snuck out of Bellas room as she was asleep and meet up with Severus. I felt bad for lying to her but she would never agree to what we did if she knew about the frogs. Her sweet soul would have freed them all and then cursed us both for ever hurting them. 

Severus was ready with the potion and cursed frog all laid out on the desk. We worked quickly injecting the frog with the potion and waiting patiently for any sign that it worked. After a few minutes my hope was dwelling, this shit wasn't gonna work. 

Just then the frog began twitching and my hope sparked back up only to be smashed down again when the frog fucking died.