Note: I don't own the characters, just the plot. This is the post-HBP sequel to "The Seventh Sister" and contains HBP spoilers. I hope you like it and I hope you review! Oh, and remember that the parts in italics are Snape's point of view.

Chapter One: In Which a Certain Man Reveals that He Hasn't Changed at All

Celaene looked down at her hand where the silver ring shone on one of the fingers of her left hand. She took a deep breath and slipped it off her hand, fighting tears as it fell to the stone floor with a ringing clatter. She couldn't believe it… didn't want to believe it… But there was Dumbledore's body, still lying sprawled out in the grass outside her window. Celaene's tower was in ruins and she couldn't stand to be in it any longer. She crossed the room, leaving her wedding band on the floor, and left.

It was still there when he came back, lying on the floor where she'd dropped it. He bent and picked it up, staring at in ambivalence. He would have to leave, and soon, or he'd risk having to duel with the Minister of Magic himself—something that he could certainly win, but it wouldn't be pleasant, and it wouldn't be a particularly good idea. They didn't understand—none of them, because he doubted Celaene would—and it would need time for him to convince them of his reasons. Still clutching the ring in the fist that bore its match, he swept out of the room.

She didn't know where to go… Celaene passed the crowd around Dumbledore's body, passed the Whomping Willow, and kept going, taking the road that led to Hogsmeade.

He killed Dumbledore. He—the one who she thought had changed, the one she thought she could trust—had killed Albus Dumbledore. After all these years… She wiped tears angrily out of her eyes and kept walking through the shadows towards the village. Once through the gates, she heard people, felt them press against her.

"Is it true? Is he dead?"

She didn't answer.

"Really? Tell us!"

She just kept walking.

"You're a professor at the school! Surely you know the truth!"

Celaene waved her wand impatiently, shoving them unceremoniously away from her. She walked to the very outskirts of the village where none of them followed her and slumped down in the grass, staring miserably at the stars, hoping that they could provide comfort for her one more time, but doubting it. The thought came back again and again, echoing in her head: He killed Albus. So calmly… Just killed him.

He knew where she would have gone—in Hogsmeade, there was an open field at the outskirts of the village where she would go to watch the stars. He had gone with her once in the summer and there they had made love, sprawled out on the grass, out in the open, not caring if anyone was watching or not. It made him ache deep in his chest as he followed the trail, covered by an invisibility spell.

It turned out that the invisibility spell was quite useless; he ended up taking it off when he realized he'd have to shove so many people out of the way anyway. They screamed to see him looking so furious and holding his wand out threateningly, not hesitating it to thrust them out of the way occasionally.

Severus began to run when he felt the Aurors' presence behind him, but it was really of no matter to him; he was there. She had her back to him. She was shaking.

"Celaene?"

She stood up and turned furiously to him. "You killed him," she said, her voice shaking with emotion. "After everything he did for you, everything he did for us all, you killed him."

"Celaene, please listen to me: I had to!"

"No, you didn't!" She didn't want to hear it. "You told me, Severus, you told me once. You said, 'I wouldn't kill another living thing'. But you did…" She felt the hot tears stinging her eyes and running down her cheeks.

"I didn't want to," he protested.

"Then why did you?" She turned away from him.

"Cella, my—" whispered Severus, reaching his hand out to her.

"Don't call me that," she interrupted. He had used his pet name for her, that secret nickname he had only ever used before when they were in bed together. There were people coming now. She let them come until an Auror, reaching her before they got to Severus, grabbed her shoulders and pushed her, saying, "Out of the way, ma'am, he's dangerous—"

She thrust them away from her with the same spell she'd used on the villagers. They fought against the wall she had created, but none of them got through.

"You're evil, Severus, you haven't changed at all," she said flatly.

"I'm not."

"You are," she insisted.

"Cella!" He reached out to her again and she noticed with a jolt that was more painful than she thought it would be that he still wore his ring.

"I told you not to call me that!" She whipped out her wand in anger and sadness and made a slashing movement in the air. A deep cut opened across his chest and she did it again and again until he was shaking, shivering with pain as blood poured onto the ground. Still, he did not take his eyes off of her. She collapsed into tears again, though she still did not let through any of the crowd of people trying to get to her.

Severus's body was in agony but it was nothing to what was going on in his heart and mind. I can deal with Dumbledore's loss if only I can have my wife, he thought desperately. He forced himself to take a step towards her… then another, and another. He sank to the ground beside her: she had her face buried in her knees, which were drawn up to her chest. With one hand, he clutched his bleeding chest; with the other, he touched her shoulder.

"Celaene Andromeda Sinistra Snape," he pronounced with difficulty, "I'm the same man you loved and you are too intelligent to believe otherwise."

"You've changed," said the Astronomy professor, shaking out of his grip.

"I have not." It was a struggle just to breathe, let alone speak. He was panting, visibly shaking. Bleeding to death.

"You have," she insisted vehemently. "I didn't marry a murderer."

He recoiled as if she had struck him with a whip. "I killed long before I ever had you," he said through gritted teeth, now seeing not her but the blank eyes of his first victim—his father, Tobias Snape. "I'm no different now than I was that first night, Cella…" He coughed out blood and she gasped, apparently not having realized the extent of her damage.

Celaene saw the blood and gasped. She grabbed her wand just in time and closed the deep slashes across his body. He shuddered and she made a complicated jabbing motion with the slender ivory wand. Severus lay still where he had fallen on the grass, looking up at the sky.

One of his pale hands pointed weakly up at the sky. "Mars is bright and Venus is dim. I know what it means and I won't push you, Cella." He took a deep breath and continued: "But I want you to keep this—" he pushed his left hand towards her, "so you won't forget."

His hand was balled into a fist, his muscles unable to move because of such extensive blood loss. She pried his fingers open and, with a tiny sob, she recognized her wedding ring. She picked it up but did not put it on.

Celaene jumped at the touch on her shoulder. In the wave of emotion that had hit her when he'd given back her ring, she'd lost the concentration on her shielding spell.

"Ma'am, it's okay, we're going to take him to Azkaban. We'll lock him up, don't worry," said a voice soothingly in her ear. "Your husband will be kept safely away from you, never see you again."

"Never… what?" she shrieked suddenly. Celaene struggled as two Ministry officials picked her up and began to carry her away. One of them tried to stun her but he missed. She was still saying over and over, "No, you can't, don't take him, he's—"

But they never got to hear what he was because they suddenly dropped her as if they'd been burned. She hit the ground hard but didn't register the pain. Someone tried to pick her up again. She rolled out of their grasp and hurried back to Severus. Aurors were bending over him now, trying to get him, but he was too powerful of a wizard for them to be able to easily. She knew that he was using dangerous, nonverbal wandless magic that would drain all of his remaining strength before beginning to tap the energy that kept him alive. His black eyes met hers for barely more than a second, but it was enough—she grasped his hand tightly around the wrist, raised her wand, and Disapparated, dragging him with her.