Hopes and Time turners

Turn to page 394...

I woke up in the hospital bed, still dazed and kind of distraught because of the previous events. My Mum and Dad were asleep in chairs next to my bed, my dad muttering in his sleep about something. I snuck out of my bed, careful not to wake them up, and ran to the window. It was probably about 3 am when I stuck my head out, and the January air bit my cheeks like the blast ended skrewts we were tending to in care of magical creatures. (Shudder) 

"Rose, you're awake! go back to bed so that I can make sure you are alright." Busted. I turned around to see a concerned Madame Pomfrey holding a tray of syringes, like the ones used for giving shots, and some potion. I went back to my bed and she told me to hold still while she gave me the shot. I am not a fan of needles, so I cringed when I felt the pinch signaling the needle was in my arm. 

"That was a calming potion, it will help you after what you just went through." I did feel a little calmer. I got into bed and just stared at the ceiling for the next few hours. I didn't want to wake my parents up, they sounded worried when I heard bits of their voices while I was drifting into artificial sleep...

My mum suddenly woke up. "Rose? Thank goodness you're alright! When Lily owled us about that dream..." She hugged me and as she did so, my dad woke up. He joined the hug, and after that it wasn't just the potion that was making me calmer. I asked them what was going on, and they only had a little more information than I did, and that came from Madame Pomfrey, who told them there was some skin trauma on my forehead, no surprises there. 

"How are things going for you two?" I tried to change the subject, but my father stopped me and said, "Rose, I know what you're trying to do, and it won't work. We want to make sure that you are all right before talking about anything else." My mum nodded in agreement. 

"What happened in the dream?" my mum asked, concerned. "Well, she's found a way to spy on me. She tried it for the first time last night, but I was in the middle of a scar dream, so it was useless. You can't tell me much, unfortunately. She can get into my mind now, so that would be a problem." My Dad stiffened and my Mum turned pale. 

"My department will look into this to see if we can close this connection." My dad was in his "no one will mess with me while I do this" mode. "I'm thinking occlumency." I inwardly groaned. I love my Mum, but that sounded like torture. And I know torture. That's what got me into this mess in the first place. 

"Hermione, the only living person that could teach Rose occlumency is none other than Harry, who barely knows anything." I nodded vigorously at this idea. I did not want to learn, but my Mum was determined. "Oh NO" I mumbled to myself. This was going to happen wether I want it to or not. 

And within a week I was sitting in a secluded classroom  in the north wing of the school. My Mum had pulled some strings to schedule this. I didn't even get lucky enough to get my uncle. 

Guess who I got?

If your guess was the ghost of Severus Snape, then you are correct. My Mum had applied to have him taken from the archway in the department of Mysteries every Monday night. Right then, I was feeling a little shorted for having no say in this. 

Just then an angry Severus Snape slunk into the room, giving me the stink eye as he did so. My dad mouthed an apology to me as he led him in, and my mum gave me double thumbs up. The ghost sat down in the chair across from me. 

"Weasley, Granger, if you know what's good for your daughter you'd leave right this moment;" The ghost snapped. He turned his attention to me once they had left. "Occlumency, as you may already know, knowing your egghead mum, is the ability to block someone's attempt to get into your mind." I already didn't like him much. He heavily criticized me and my attempts to block him from getting into my mind. 

He stopped when he hit the memory of me and Scorpius kissing on the roof on new years. 

I wanted to scream. Snape looked at me, obviously not expecting what he had just seen. 

"Your homework is reading and annotating page 394 of this book." He handed me a book, the spine almost six inches thick. 

I left the classroom, where Harry was waiting for me. "How was it?"He asked me sympathetically. "Well..." I didn't want to tell him too much, due to the fact he was my dad's best friend and my dad would freak if he found out his little girl kissed a boy. "Ah. I see. I wish some of the memories he saw were not seen by him." I love my Uncle. He's so understanding about this whole thing. 

I left for the common room, mumbled the password at the fat lady and ran up the stairs to the girls dorms. I pulled out the page I was supposed to annotate and got to work. Severus Snape was good at teaching, but I wished he hadn't seen that memory. 

I started dozing off in a common room chair until I heard this:

"Rose Granger Weasley. You can do nothing. Accept or die."

Everything went black.