Chapter 25 - Awakening

BEGINNING OF SHADOWS PART 2

Asha's stomach dropped. She'd just been thrown from an aeroplane of ignorance and was plummeting towards the cold, hard truth. Blood drained from her face. She forgot how to breathe.

"Five years!" Snape hissed incredulously.

"When... what... how..." Asha's lips moved but made no sound.

"How is that possible?" Snape growled, taking several furious steps towards Dumbledore, "that would make her, what, twenty? Twenty-one? Impossible. Look at her."

"No, Severus," said Dumbledore, "You look at her."

So Severus did. He looked at her. Truly looked at her. And what he saw made his skin crawl.

The girl appeared exactly as she always had. But even in her uncharacteristically volatile state, it was clear as day that Asha was not fifteen. In fact, she didn't even look like an adolescent. Her face was narrow with defined cheekbones, void of puppy fat. Her eyes were older than Severus remembered; they seemed to possess a depth and perceptiveness he had not seen before.

He scanned her body. Her womanly curves were made subtle by her tall, slim figure... but they were there. He watched as Asha turned away from his scrutinising gaze and grasped the edge of a bookcase with a shaky hand. Even in her current near-hysterical state, the girl moved with a controlled grace that no adolescent could possess. How could he have been so blind? How had everyone been so blind? Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by Asha, who turned to Albus and spoke in an unexpectedly composed manner.

"They were from just before I came to Hogwarts, weren't they? The memories you wiped," she said. With an unknown source of internal strength, Asha had pushed away her fear and pulled her scrambled thoughts together. The thing was, it all made sense. She had been so tall when she first arrived, she had always felt out of place with the other students, and the period of her life between Cole's death and her arrival and Hogwarts had always been a vague blur that she had put down to shock.

"Not wiped, Asha," replied Dumbledore with a twinkle in his eyes, "if I had merely obliviated them, you would not be in the state you are now. They are still within the confines of your mind, I only blocked your access of them. I always intended to return your memories to you - that was essential. I just hadn't planned on it being this soon."

He brought a hand to his bearded chin and pressed the knuckle of his forefinger to his lips. His gaze was on Asha, but she could tell his mind was deep in matters far more complex than what was directly in front of him.

"Will you give them to me?" Asha asked quietly. She would fight for those memories if she had to. Even if Dumbledore had had a good reason for it, that didn't change the fact that he had stolen a quarter of her life from her.

Severus wasn't fooled by Asha's calm voice. When Dumbledore didn't look like he was going to respond, Severus saw Asha's eyes flash dangerously as she subtly placed a hand in her pocket, no doubt tightening her fingers around her wand. He felt a surge of pride and protectiveness over the girl. Before she could do anything stupid, Severus let loose the anger that he had been holding back.

Asha was just about to ask the most terrifying and pressing question of all - Why had he taken her memories? - when Snape rounded on Dumbledore: "How could you use such dangerous and experimental magic on a student!?" he snarled with a rage he didn't bother to suppress. "If this is what I think it is, her mind has been at risk for weeks! She is as close as she can be to remembering and severing the connections, Albus!"

Totally unperturbed by Snape's confrontation, Dumbledore whispered to himself: "Yes, let us waste no more time."

He walked briskly over to a blank section of wall and began murmuring incantations under his breath. At the same time, he held his wand between his thumb and forefinger and performed a series of complex movements. Severus and Asha watched him with a similar intensity and suspicion.

Finally, the headmaster fell silent and with a final rotation of his wrist, cracks formed in the smooth stone and a single brick slid noiselessly from the wall. It floated towards Dumbledore. His fingers brushed through the material as if it were a hologram and from it, he pulled a small glass vial.

As Dumbledore returned the wall to its original state, Asha slid her wand from her pocket. Severus watched her out of the corner of his eye but said nothing. As Dumbledore turned to face them, Asha gave her wand the faintest twitch and suddenly the vial wrenched itself from Dumbledore's hand and hurtled across the room.

As soon as Asha caught it, she cast an enchantment over it which would prevent Dumbledore from summoning it back. Dumbledore didn't look at all surprised. When he made no move to retaliate, Asha glanced down at the vial. It contained and clear liquid with swirling clouds of sparkling silver.

"Be very careful with that, Asha," cautioned Dumbledore.

"What is it?" she asked bluntly.

"What, indeed," Snape echoed quietly, looking at the vial with narrowed eyes.

"It is a... magic-infused potion, for want of a better word," said Dumbledore, "drinking it will dissolve the magic which is currently concealing the memories. But, Asha, you must listen to me when I say, do not drink it all at -"

Without hesitation, Asha popped off the cork with her thumb and flung her head back, tipping the strange liquid down her throat. Snape lunged forward to stop her but froze halfway, realising it was already too late. Dumbledore simply winced; he knew this was only to be expected.

Asha swallowed, expecting to feel the potion hit the back of her throat. Instead, she experienced the most curious sensation. It was as if at the touch of her tongue, the liquid transformed into energy and radiated up through the roof of her mouth and into her mind.

Losing all sense of her surroundings, Asha stumbled backwards and her wand slipped from her fingers. Dumbledore waved his hand causing an armchair to slide across the room, into which Asha collapsed. Inside her head the fog lifted. Every thought became piercingly sharp to the point where Asha felt her head was going to split open. A part of her was suddenly unlocked. She felt whole again. The feeling of wrongness that she had always sensed in herself melted away as old neural pathways were unblocked and allowed to flow freely. Memories surged through her mind's eye. They were jumbled and fragmented but they amounted to the same story. A story that Asha wondered how on earth she could have ever forgotten...

Cole was dead. He had been hit by a bus in front of her very eyes. She could not bear to stay at St Andrews Orphanage a second longer. How could she survive the pain of existing there without her brother? So that night, she ran away. Asha lived on the streets, evading the police and search parties for weeks. At just eleven years old she stole and pickpocketed, slowly moving further and further away from the place she had once called home.

Hungry and freezing, one night she came across a homeless community on the outskirts of Waitara, a small coastal town. A group of a dozen people - men and women of all ages - gathered around a roaring bonfire. That was the night she met Crash. He was a sandy-haired seventeen-year-old boy with a free-spirit and a wide smile. He lived in an abandoned shipping container 100 km further up the coast, along with the others in his line of work. He got his name as a result of his side business - aiding in insurance fraud by facilitating 'hit and run' road accidents for his clients.

He listened to Asha's story and took her in under his wing. Crash's own mother had died from a drug overdose when he was fourteen and his father was nowhere to be seen. He understood her need to run; to hide. He also knew how she could earn refuge. When dressed in a frilly pink dress, Asha could easily pull off looking like an eight or nine-year-old, and street-smart kids were exactly what Crash's business partners needed for distributing their products - weed, MDA and occasionally coke.

So Asha stayed hidden with the small community on the west coast of New Zealand. The Container Crew became her family. They taught her the tricks of the trade and how to defend herself. She partied with them, drank with them and smoked with them. Though she was always very careful not to do anything that would risk her admission to the hospital or police station. If she was brought back onto the grid, she would be sent straight back into the foster system.

Meanwhile, she channelled all her grief and anger into focussing on controlling her 'power'. Just months before Cole died, she and her twin had discovered their strange and wonderful abilities. They could move objects without touching them; cause patches of grass to wither and die; carve marks into trees without a knife. She and Cole would steal away into the forest behind the orphanage at every opportunity to practice and experiment. Of all the secrets they'd shared over the years, this was their biggest.

After Cole died, Asha dedicated the next five years of her life to refining these powers. It was something for her to focus on; a place for her to channel her grief for her brother without truly feeling it.

Eventually she shared her secret with Crash, but no one else. By that point, Asha was fourteen and she and Crash had become far more than just friends. She trusted him almost as deeply as she had trusted Cole.

Cole...

It had been far longer since Asha had last seen her brother than she'd thought a second ago. Nine years since he'd died. It hurt. And the vivid memories of their months practising magic together just before he died. Dumbledore had taken those too. It had been the best times of their lives. But remembering them also hurt. It was too much. Asha strained to pull herself away from the past.

She slowly opened her eyes. She was in Dumbledore's office. The whole world felt strange. Her life before Hogwarts now felt so real and concrete, but everything after that felt like a dream. It was as if she had been living someone else's life for the past four years, or like she'd been woken from a trace. Grief, fear and nausea pulsed through her. She realised she was fiercely gripping the arms of her chair.

But at the same time she felt incredible; like she'd taken a huge breath of fresh air after living in a dungeon for years. Her mind now had a clarity that was sharper than she had thought possible. Most importantly, she felt like she knew who she was again. The horrible feelings of fragility and instability had washed away. She felt strong and in control once more. She was also angry.

Severus watched as Asha's grip on the armchair softened and she stood up. Her eyes blazed with a dark fire. They met with his, before sweeping the room to glare at Albus. In a split second, Asha thrust her arm to the side and lunged at Dumbledore. Her wand, which had been lying on the floor, flew into her hand. She pressed it against Dumbledore's throat and backed him into the wall. He made no attempt to defend himself.

"Why did you do this to me?" Asha hissed at him through clenched teeth. Severus could hear the pain in her voice. The potions master made no attempt to restrain her; he knew Albus could easily defend himself if he desired.

"Asha, I'm am so sorry," Dumbledore said in a voice that was surprisingly collected, though a single tear rolled down his cheek.

"ANSWER ME!" Asha yelled, pressing her wand hard into his wrinkled skin. Her attention was suddenly diverted as Snape spoke. In the few seconds of her fiery rage, she had almost forgotten he was there.

"You already know why, Asha," Snape said carefully. Asha said nothing. Snape moved towards her and wrapped his fingers around her wrists, attempting to draw her away from Dumbledore. She did not relent, though a lump had formed in her throat so large it was hard to breathe. Snape looked into her determined eyes as she refused to look back at him, instead keeping her gaze fixed on the perfectly calm face of Dumbledore.

"Asha, you know why," Severus insisted in a deep murmur. He had finally worked it out. It was the only explanation, and it was the perfect explanation.

Snape's breath tickled Asha's ear. She wished he would back off. Wished he would shut up. Wished the world would freeze and time would cease to progress.

When she still didn't move, Severus said, "Your father."

Asha felt like she was going to be sick. She finally allowed Snape to gently pull her wand away from Dumbledore's throat and draw her hand off the old man's chest. Unable to look at anyone anymore, she pocketed her wand and walked over to the window, placing her hands on the sill.

Severus watched her, then met Dumbledore's eyes. The headmaster gave him a look. Severus wandered over to the shadow of a bookcase where he stood silently, his hands clasped behind his back. He was very interested to hear what Albus had to say.

"The answer to your question is long and complex, Asha," said Dumbledore, "And you have every right to hear it. I am certain that at this instant you feel what I have done to you is unforgivable. My hope is that once you have heard the full account of events, you will understand that I did what I did because I thought it the very best option, even if you do not agree."

Asha stared unseeingly out the window. The sun was high in the sky, concealed behind a thick dark cloud which cast a grey shadow over the snowy grounds. Asha didn't move a muscle. She didn't want to miss a single word of what Dumbledore was about to say.

The headmaster took a seat at his desk and closed his eyes.

"Your mother," he began, "was a very powerful European witch called Wyetta Kovac."

Under normal circumstances, Asha would've been thrilled to learn of her mother, but not now. She was numb. Until a minute ago, almost her entire life had been a lie.

"I always assumed my mother was a Muggle," she said, still staring out the window. Her voice was hard and emotionless. "Why else would she drop us off at a Muggle orphanage in the middle of a Muggle country?"

Dumbledore didn't answer her question, knowing that soon enough she would understand.

"Wyetta was one of the first people in the world to openly fight against Voldemort," he said.

Asha stiffened. She had never heard anyone say You-Know-Who's name aloud. It didn't scare her to say it, but she'd never used it, in respect for those who had suffered the consequences of his cruelty.

"In the early 1970s," continued Dumbledore, "when Voldemort was gathering followers throughout Europe, Wyetta was tracking him and feeding crucial information to various people, including myself. In 1973 she was finally caught, and..." Dumbledore steeled himself, "and she was sexually assaulted by Voldemort himself."

Asha grimaced and pressed her fingertips into the cracks between the bricks of the window sill.

"I am sorry to put it so plainly," Dumbledore said gently, "you may have heard of Voldemort's tendency to assault his victims. He was always very careful about killing them afterwards to ensure he produced no children; offspring who could eventually rise to power and threaten his intended immortal reign.

"In this case, however, the European Order of Defence intervened just at the right moment. A momentous battle ensued on the outskirts of Paris and Wyetta escaped. As she had been working closely with me, she ran to London and I helped her go into hiding. She was now the number one target that Voldemort wanted dead."

Asha tried to swallow but her mouth had gone bone dry. This was her mother Dumbledore was talking about. Her mother. And... her stomach gave a stab of nausea so intense she became lightheaded... her father.

"A few months later," - she realised Dumbledore was still speaking - "Wyetta discovered she was pregnant and was faced with an impossible choice. It was certain that the conception was a result of Voldemort's assault. Once born, the child would both be in danger, and be a danger. However, like any mother, Wyetta quickly developed a strong sense of love and protection for her unborn child."

Dumbledore let out a breath. Recalling these events were deeply painful for him. And knowing Asha was taking this all in only made his pain ten times sharper. But, the time had come. She needed to know, no matter how much it hurt her. It was the way of the world.

"Wyetta decided the baby would need to be hidden, and most importantly, never exposed to the magical world, in case the child would ever follow the same path its father did. I strongly disagreed with her decision. With both parents of such immense magical ability, I believed it was paramount that the child learn to control their power. But, ultimately it was her choice that mattered.

"She travelled to New Zealand, a small country on the other side of the world with no known wizarding community. She could not apparate while so heavily pregnant, and with the control Voldemort had gained over country borders, her journey was long and perilous.

"For many weeks, she felt she was being followed. Hence, when she finally gave birth in the back of a warehouse she wrapped up the infants, put them on the doorstep of an orphanage and fled. It is my belief that up until the birth, she had not known she was carrying twins.

"The Death Eater who had been close on Wyetta's tail chased her into the surrounding hills." Dumbledore paused, and Asha knew why. The story was coming to a close and there was only one ending in sight. She let her insides turn to stone, refusing to feel.

"He eventually killed her with Fiendfyre," he said, his voice suddenly soft and grim. "He saw her burnt corpse with a pregnant belly and assumed his work was done."

Asha turned to face Dumbledore.

"You said it was my mother's choice that mattered - not to expose me to the Wizarding World - yet here I am at Hogwarts." Her voice was hard and accusing. "If you were going to disobey her, why not do it when I was eleven like everyone else?"

Dumbledore sat upright, propping his elbows on the desk and looking intently at Asha.

"I was always willing to adhere to Wyetta's choice, if it was safe for you," he said.

"What do you mean if it was safe?" said Asha cooly, but Severus already knew exactly what Albus was referring to.

"It can be a very dangerous course to repress a young witch or wizard's magical abilities, for many reasons," replied Dumbledore. "I made sure to observe you over the years, knowing that if your magic surfaced to a certain threshold, it would be crucial for you to come to Hogwarts and learn how to properly control it." A pained look crossed his face. "I should have watched you more closely. I didn't expect the emergence of your abilities to be so rapid. I was foolish."

Asha didn't hear Dumbledore's last sentence; she was too busy thinking about the one before it.

"Abilities..." she breathed. Then her eyes widened and she looked down at her hands like she was seeing them for the first time. She placed her wand on the bookcase and cast her eyes around the room. Her gaze settled on the stack of tomes on Dumbledore's desk.

Tentatively she raised her right hand. Like a well-practiced muscle movement, she produced an internal pulse of energy. The topmost book zoomed across the office and thudded into her hand.

Severus' frown deepened almost to the point of becoming a scowl. Though he had already inferred that Asha's dangerous and sporadic wandless magic had developed during these five years before Hogwarts, he hadn't so much as dreamed she could've acquired such control. How could a mere child have developed this sort of magical mastery without even knowing of magic's existence?

Asha's eyes blazed. She dropped the book. A millisecond before it hit the ground, it slowed and it landed softly on the stone without a sound.

Before Severus had time to process what he was seeing, Asha directed her palm at the glass cabinet beside the window. She snatched her fist closed and the large glass door shattered. Severus flinched. Thousands of tiny fragments tinkled across the floor and eventually stilled.

Albus had once told Severus that the Dark Lord had gained incomparable control of his powers at a very young age, but Severus had never imagined Voldemort's abilities could've been to such an extent as this. But... perhaps it wasn't, Severus thought. Perhaps this was just Asha.... her parentage, time, and grief being the perfect ingredients to brew this extraordinary skill at such a young and inexperienced age.

He watched her pick up a quill from the bookshelf. With a flourish of her hand, it stood upright in her palm. A second later the quill burst into a blue flame. Nothing of the feather remained, and yet the ball of fire burned ceaselessly as if fuelled by her very skin.

Watching her closely, Dumbledore said, "A few months into 1986, you and Cole, for whatever reason, unlocked your magic."

Severus saw a shadow cross Asha's eyes. The blue flame died in her hand.

"How do you know that?" she growled, turning to face Dumbledore. In a flash, her anger was back. "How could you possibly know that? We never did it in public. Did you have people spying on us? Following us?"

Dumbledore suddenly looked very sad.

"I, along with everyone else in the wizarding community, believed New Zealand to be a completely Muggle country. As it turned out, this was not the case. A very old witch resides in the forest which extends behind your orphanage. As a rule, she lives an exclusively solitary life. A rule she has only broken a handful of times.

"By chance, she stumbled upon two children at the edge of the forest performing extraordinary magic for their age. From what I understand, she reached out to an acquaintance in the Wizarding World in order to find out who they were, what they were doing in New Zealand and, most importantly, what they were doing in her forest.

"Those who heard her story quickly came to the only somewhat likely explanation. From there, word travelled across Europe that Voldemort's offspring had lived. And many, many people wanted those children dead. It-"

"No..." whispered Asha, her mind racing a million miles a second. "It was a bus, just a bus, just an accident!"

"I'm so sorry, Asha. It was not an accident. Despite my frequent observations of you, the first I heard of your abilities was from the same source as the rest of the wizarding world. I couldn't get there in time. I-"

"But it doesn't make sense!" she yelled, "Why did only he die? Why am I alive? Why didn't they just use the killing curse?"

"You've got to understand that these people who hunted you were not Death Eaters - they believed what they were doing was right and wanted to abide by the Statute of Secrecy."

"THEY WERE PLANNING ON MURDERING TWO CHILDREN," Asha roared, "YET THEY FELT THE STATUTE OF FUCKING SECRECY WAS A CRUCIAL LAW TO UPHOLD!?" She couldn't believe her ears.

"And it is thanks to that fact that you are alive today," Dumbledore said with a glittering fierceness. "The bewitched vehicle missed you, and once the accident had taken place, Cole's killer made the mistake of deciding to wait a few hours to get you alone. That was all the chance you needed to run."

Asha took a few steps backwards and gripped the back of an armchair to steady herself. She didn't know how much more information she could take. But Dumbledore wasn't finished.

"When I heard of what the woods witch had seen, I immediately travelled to St Andrews to bring you and Cole to Hogwarts," he said, "but when I arrived Cole was already gone and you had all but vanished. But New Zealand is a small country and you were only a child so I assumed you would be easy to find. My real worry was finding you before anyone else did... before revenge seekers and peace protectors could kill you as well.

"So the race was on. But my inability to locate you was astounding. How could an eleven-year-old child evade an entire town's police force, let alone a search conducted by myself and many others aided by magic? I know at least a dozen witches and wizards who hunted you for months, quite possibly even longer. I looked for you for years."

Dumbledore gave Asha a searching look. "Do you remember how I found you?"

She furrowed her brows, searching her suddenly expanded past. She came across a section of her memories that resisted her access. For a second she thought Dumbledore had hidden them from her like the others. But then she broke through the haze. Her breath caught in her throat.

Severus watched shrewdly as Asha's whole body suddenly went stiff and a look of pure fear flashed across her face. She slowly raised a shaking arm, bringing her hand behind her neck and placing it down the back of her shirt. Severus was perplexed. Then the realisation dawned on him. The scar. Asha winced and shook her head as tried to rid herself of horrific thoughts.

"The Muggles reported it as a gas explosion," said Dumbledore, "But as soon as I saw it in the newspaper, I knew I had found you."

"Crash!" Asha yelled so suddenly that Severus jumped and spun around looking for some kind of threat. "What happened to Crash?" she demanded - almost pleaded. "Is he in prison? Is he... is he dead?" Within the span of a sentence Asha's shout had diminished to a whisper.

"He is perfectly fine," Dumbledore assured her.

"I want to see him," she said immediately, before breathing, "oh my god... he'd be twenty-six now... What does he think happened to me? Do you know where he is? I want to see him now."

Severus held his breath. He had a sinking feeling he knew was coming.

"You can't see him, Asha," said Dumbledore gently. He got up from his desk and made his way towards her.

"WHY THE FUCK NOT?" she bellowed, backing away from him. Dumbledore stopped trying to approach her.

"It was for your own safety," he said, "Crash knew of your abilities. I couldn't risk even a rumour of your existence."

A tiny whimper escaped Asha's mouth and she collapsed into a chair, hugging herself and staring at Dumbledore's feet.

"I obliterated all memory of you, Asha," he said, "I am so sorry."

"Well give him his memories back," she responded in a tight voice, "like you've just done for me."

"You know that's not possible," said Dumbledore softly, "The magic I used on you is different to Obliviate. Your memories still remained in your mind, obscured, inaccessible. Your partner's memories were wiped... destroyed."

Severus noted the headmaster's choice of words: 'Partner'... So, this 'Crash' was a boyfriend, he finally realised, and a serious boyfriend it seemed. Asha now looked to be fighting back tears which Severus was surprised hadn't been falling sooner.

Rage. Rage and pain. That was all Asha felt. Deep down she understood why Dumbledore did what he did. But Dumbledore had stolen Crash from her. He'd stolen her person. The only person she'd had a true connection with since Cole. And not just him. Dumbledore had stolen her memory of him. She was beyond logic. Beyond reason.

"Why didn't you just kill me?" she hissed viciously. Severus almost winced at her pure, gut-wrenching anguish.

Asha couldn't stand to be in that office any longer. She couldn't bear the pity in Dumbledore's glassy eyes for a second more. She summoned her wand from the bookcase with such a force that it would later bruise her hand, and stormed out the door.

*

A/N: Wow. This chapter was SO hard to write!! It's kinda a complex plot for something that's only really a backstory and not super relevant to the SSxOC, so I tried to keep it 'short'. In my brain there's a lot of detail to this backstory (Asha's hobo, drug dealing, magic-learning adventures could be a book in itself lol) but I know no one gives many fucks about the details cause we're here for Severus, not my made-up character lel

I could definitely pretty please do with some feedback on which bits got tedious/boring/confusing in this chapter. It's very hard to see things from a reader's perspective when the whole plot is already in my head!!

Ps: i read The Cursed Child for the first time after i had started writing this story (sidenote: the Snape section of that book is like it's straight out of a fanfic haha) and i was like ratties my whole 'voldy's daughter' concept ain't original 😂😂