meet-and-greet | January 2016

[governors]

The Governors do this, sometimes; they hold a meet-and-greet for the new arrivals to help them get acclimated, and also to distract them from destroying their rooms. A message goes out to all the new arrivals informing them of a party with free food. Everyone likes free food, right?

In one of the recreation areas - sadly, not one of the ones accessible by slide - there are some chips, dip, some sodas and Solo cups, several large pizzas, and a surprising amount of Oreos.

Party.

Comments

[brewglory]

"I doubt my injuries could be repeated here, much less by a bottle of alcohol," he replied with a dry sort of humor - and as he spoke, he did something rather strange, at least as far as things went for Severus: his eyes strayed away from hers as he took a small drink of the similarly small dose of whiskey.

It had been a not-uncommon problem for him; in part, it was due to the injuries he had sustained just before finding himself transported here. However, the swiss cheese of his memory also played a role in it. When discussing past events, he often found himself straying from the conversation, analyzing bits of his memory that seemed to have faded to dull copies of themselves or disappeared entirely, trying to remember what had once been there.

It was a problem that would fade with time, when his injuries healed somewhat and he wasn't dealing with the double whammy, but the mind did odd things when one was ill.

Quickly, he recovered himself and his gaze snapped back to her. He lowered his drink. "You had something to tell me."

[traqueur]

Watching his eyes move from hers, Martha wondered where he'd gone in the middle of the conversation. Somehow, that didn't seem like him from everything she'd read, but one needed to wonder just how much of that was actual personality from him, and how much was being viewed through the mirror of Harry Potter's eleven-year-old dislike. Martha didn't press while he was gone, instead taking the opportunity to take a sip of the whiskey. Like everything else here, it was of excellent quality, and she wondered just how much the Governors were paying to try and keep them happy in this luxury prison. Well, or protective area, depending on how generous one was feeling during that moment.

But Severus Snape broke through her own thoughts with the reminder of why they were here, and she focused on him, not shrinking from the darkness of his eyes. While she was tempted to move into the familiar path of storyteller mode, Martha stopped herself. Doing it wouldn't be fair to him, considering this was his life and how people knew about it! She wouldn't want all the secrets about her known (everyone knowing she loved the Doctor when he couldn't have cared less would have quite possibly embarassed her to death.)

Taking a very matter of fact but sympathetic tone, Martha began to speak. She sounded as if she regretted this, even as she kept her eyes upon his own. If he had not jerked his hand away before, Martha would have placed her own upon his in the way she did when she needed to give bad news. "You know we're all pulled from different universes, yeah?" Without giving him the chance to answer the question, Martha continued, because she didn't want to get into a possible discussion about what the multiverses meant. "Well, in my universe, there's a series of very popular books." A beat, "and movies too, based on the books. The books are the story of Harry Potter's years at school, starting when he was eleven, and ending when he defeated Voldemort." She left out the epilogue, no one needed to hear about that!

"I know who you are because you're a major character in the books."

[brewglory]

All things considered, it wouldn't have been entirely out of line for Severus to throw a fit right then and there. It wasn't beyond him, and this news would have made anyone begin to seriously examine everything they knew about their world - and their choices. That didn't happen, however.

Her prodigious statement was met with an emotionless stare for a long moment, before, slowly, he raised an eyebrow at her. It wasn't that he didn't believe her, of course; no, he was still debating that one. She had known him, but she could have asked someone. She could have found the information the Governors had on him.

But sometimes, when there were hoofbeats, one had to consider zebras after all. Universes aside...Was it possible that there was a series of books based on the life of Harry Potter? Certainly. They might even be textbooks in his own world. So, who was to say there wasn't a fictional series sold to Muggles? And who was to say he wasn't in them? All right. Accepting that the books existed, what then did that mean for him if he was a 'major character'?

Was he a villain in these books, he wondered?

At long last, he settled for asking, "Should I be concerned?"

[traqueur]

"Concerned?" The word was mirrored back to him, and she just blinked for a second, wondering how he'd thought the books had gone. After all, if he had realized that they'd gotten to the end of the time at school, then he had to know... No. Her eyes moved to the bandages on his neck that the collar of his shirt half-hid and Martha realized something very important. The Governors had pulled him from the moment before he'd died, so perhaps he didn't realize what it was that he'd done. Still, even if he hadn't told Harry to take the memories, the intent had to have been there, hadn't it?

"No," she responded after a second, and she shook her head, a decision evident. "You don't need to be concerned. In the end, you were an anti-hero of sorts, fighting on the side of good even if you weren't exactly the nicest bloke about. You saved Harry; if it wasn't for you, then he would have lost and the wizarding world would have fallen to Voldemort and chaos. No, people shouldn't be coming after you for what you'd done under the guise of being a double agent."

Whatever else, Martha Jones could talk, couldn't she? When she wanted to, when she needed to, she found her voice quite easily now, and this was one of those times. She had told him the story without telling the story which was quite a feat for her. More than that, she was making him a promise, with the jutting out of her chin. "And if someone has a problem with it, then I'll tell them to sod off, because I remember the story."

[brewglory]

She talked about him as though he was a character in a book - and the more she talked, the more perplexity showed in his expression. What an odd sensation, to have a literary analysis repeated to him about himself. For a long moment, he simply stood there with his mostly-empty glass of whiskey, the holes in his neck and his memory more apparent to him now than usual, and stared.

Anti-hero?

More important than that, however: you saved Harry. Those words sank in and once more his gaze drifted off very slightly to the left. She knew not only the events of that evening - the injury, the memories - but what happened after he had been abducted. She knew Potter had somehow, somehow fumbled his way to success. And if her phrasing was anything to go by (in the end, were, weren't, had done, all past-tense), she also knew that Severus wouldn't have survived that night if the Governors hadn't intervened. Something to think about.

"I gave him something that night," he replied cautiously. It was an invitation for her to reveal just how much she actually knew about the few precious seconds before he'd been snatched away by the Governors - but also a can of worms he was rather unnerved to open. Was it possible she knew about the memories he'd given over to Potter?

[traqueur]

Once upon a time, Martha Jones had met Shakespeare, and she'd had the Doctor there (and the rather large crush she'd developed upon the alien) to keep her from acting like a complete moron. Here, she just had herself and her love of the Harry Potter series; acting like a moron seemed to be winning out even with her attempting to well... not be one. No, instead Martha was trying to distance herself and her gushing as much as possible.

Maybe she was doing too good of a job of it.

Accepting the invitation, Martha nodded quickly and solemnly. "You gave him your memories," the words came softly, and her fingers flexed to touch him once again, because each word brought her closer to the inevitable that she'd already given away with a use of tenses that she'd not even thought of, given the wibbly wobbly timey wimey nature of traveling in the TARDIS.

While she had been trying to keep some of the emotion from her voice, Martha couldn't help the low tones and sympathy that filled it when she mentioned what it was that had been contained in the flowing silver that had come from every pore in an effort to save Harry fulfill his promise. "It was your memories of Lily that got him to trust you, and then memories of Dumbledore actually telling you what Harry would need to do that would end up..." Winning seemed like a harsh thing to say, given how Severus Snape had laid down his life for Harry, so she settled for, "defeating Voldemort."

[brewglory]

Severus might have been satisfied - if not wholly comfortable - with the short answer. He hadn't expected her to start listing off the contents of those memories, and when she did, his eyes widened slightly in shock and not a little bit of horror. It hadn't been part of the plan for him to simply pour out the contents of his mind for Potter, but he'd known he was moments from dying. What was necessary had always trumped what he wanted.

To have those memories recited back to him by a stranger - evidence of hundreds, thousands, millions of strangers who could similarly recite back those memories - was harrowing, an unintentional violation of the privacy he held so sacred. She knew about -

Things he himself didn't know about. That was the worst part. If he had been home, he could reclaim those memories, but just as removing memories during Potter's Occlumency lessons had ensured they wouldn't be viewed in the event of an accident, letting loose his memories so close to death and abduction had been like cutting off a hand. They were in the possession of Lily's son - or, if he had missed capturing any of them - gone entirely, with only fragments remaining behind. Memories of memories, places where they once existed. Emotions remained from past experiences, but without explanation for why.

Martha Jones knew all those things he couldn't remember.

He felt dizzy.

He sank down into one of the seats, his glass held delicately in both hands.

[traqueur]

Seeing how pale he looked, Martha was concerned that there was something wrong other than simply the obvious. Guilt for letting him have the whiskey slipped into her thoughts and Martha moved closer to him on the sofa where he'd settled, one hand readying to slip below his wrist and take his pulse in order to make certain she didn't need to call for this place's version of an ambulance. This was a lot for anyone, never mind someone who had lost the memories Martha knew.

If she had know that he'd not remembered, that when he'd taken out those memories he'd lost them for good, Martha Jones would have kept her mouth shut. Alas, she'd been taken from a time before there was even the mention of a Pottermore, and when the Doctor had given her the seventh book, he'd neglected to tell her about it's existence, or indeed, that there would be an eighth story that would come out several years later. All Martha had to go on was the words she'd cherished and how she'd cried when she'd read them.

"Severus," Martha began, and then she instantly corrected herself to go with the more formal, "Mr. Snape," because perhaps she was personal enough already, "are you alright? Can I take your pulse, please?" Her fingers hovered over his pale skin and the glass, not quite touching them, just enough to give the illusion of warmth.

[brewglory]

He withdrew from her a little, moving his hand under the pretense of bringing it to his forehead. It had only been momentary, a slight tilting of the room that was now right again. He was fine, he told himself - but she was probably right about the alcohol. If he wasn't going to allow her to play doctor with his pulse, he could certainly make a small concession and let her have the glass back.

Drinking would only exacerbate what this conversation was doing to him.

He shook his head slowly, clearing it and at the same time rejecting her offer. "I'm fine." He wasn't. He knew he wasn't; his injuries hadn't even remotely healed, and who knew what long-term effects would come from Nagini's venom? Arthur Weasley had been less seriously injured by her, and he had been laid up for weeks.

"You have accomplished quite a feat," he commented after a beat had passed. As he continued, he handed over his glass, surrendering his right to drink for the remainder of the evening. "For once, I have absolutely no idea what to say."

[traqueur]

The glass wasn't his pulse, but she took it from him anyway, drawing back in order to set it on the table top before her attention was returned to him once more. He was using the same 'I'm fine' that Martha herself tended to use and she wondered if it rang as untrue for people who did the same thing as it was doing for Martha right now. All of her instincts were currently going on high speed, and she wanted to do nothing more than to rush him to be checked, but she also knew that he wouldn't appreciate her doing it.

Understanding what it meant for him to be silent, Martha herself remained so for a moment, her eyes on him and a look of concern etched on her face. She shouldn't have told him; she should have waited and let someone else do it, a doctor perhaps once they'd cleared him medically to have such a huge shock to his system. If someone told Martha about the year that wasn't, and how it had been entertainment, she would have had the same sort of mortified reaction that he did.

"I'm sorry," the words came quickly, and she pressed her hands together in order not to touch him. "I shouldn't have told you, not like that. It wasn't fair of me."

[brewglory]

"I can't imagine there is a good way to tell someone the information you did," he replied dryly. Now that the glass was gone, he found he wished he hadn't parted with it. There was still enough whiskey in that cup to dull some of the edges -

No, that wouldn't be wise right now. Perhaps later, when she wasn't around to regard him with such concern.

He spread his hands, indicating with gesture the pause in his speech was matched by one in thought while he tried to sort out how best to continue. She was a complete stranger - but that sort of thing went right out the window when a complete stranger was both a doctor and knew your entire life's story, didn't it? And when that person looked so worried on your behalf?

No. Again, no. He couldn't tell her that he was missing large fragments of himself. It was humiliating on its own, but to have her know things about him that he didn't? To have her in a position to hold those things over him, to blackmail him? He didn't know her, and he certainly didn't trust her. He needed to escape this conversation with minimal threat. "I'm sure you would agree I should rest."

[traqueur]

Martha watched him the entire time he was silent, the compassion and concern on her face only growing the longer the silence between them spread out. He was right of course, there was no good way to tell someone that people (especially her) knew about his past, and the wounds that were causing him such an issue at the present. A part of her, the doctor part, wanted to see his chart, to learn how he was being treated. Martha remembered the length of time that Arthur Weasley had suffered, and she was hoping (for his sake) that the period of being sick wasn't going to be as lengthy.

At the suggestion of rest, Martha nodded, her face forming into the countenance of her doctor self. The concern was still present of course, but it was more professional than personal. Martha, the woman who had just torn his life into bits and felt terrible about it was pressed aside for Dr. Jones and at least some professional distance. "Of course, Mr. Snape," she agreed calmly, and she rose to stand up.

To stand up and to offer a suggestion she didn't expect him to take but one she needed to make anyway, if only for her sake. "Do you want me to walk back with you, Mr. Snape." There was a question of just in case the small amount of liquor and the large amount of emotional upheaval had interferred with the healing process.