Disclaimer: JKR created all of the the characters and situation except for one major OC and a few minor ones. Snape's survival of the war is my only major AU plot twist.
A/N: This is a continuation of my story "A Year Between" and the first passage below is a flashback from that story. I don't think it's necessary to read the whole other story in order to understand this, but it couldn't hurt! Please feel free to review!
They arrived in twilight in a dingy mill sort of town.
"This is the best time of day, here, when you can't really see the dreariness of it." Severus sighed, walking her up a hill and onto a cobbled street. "Welcome, my dear, to Spinner's End...my childhood, and occasionally my adult, home."
He brought her into the house, stopping in the library, where he started a fire in the fireplace.
"What a wealth of books!" Barbara exclaimed. She curled up in the chair closest to the fire. He sat across from her and looked into the fire.
"This is where I promised Narcissa Malfoy that I would help her son kill Albus Dumbledore and where I promised that failing all else, I would do it myself, while Bellatrix Lestrange watched and acted as Bonder to an Unbreakable Vow. Peter Pettigrew was probably listening at a keyhole somewhere. Believe it or not, it still the nicest room in the house.
"I sit here and all of the worst things about my life come crashing back down upon me. I look at you and it's as if they never existed." There was something sarcastic in the way he was speaking and yet something else plaintive as well. Barbara wasn't sure where any of this came from nor where it was going.
"Would you like to live here? To raise our little one here?"
"You would, if I asked you, wouldn't you?" Definitely sarcasm.
"I'm sure we could make this our home and fill it with our love and happiness."
"It would be a challenge. As far as I remember, it's known precious little of either quality." There was something in his eyes as they looked into the fire that made her heart break for him.
He turned to his wife. "I've been talking to Kingsley...he's told me about Alice and Howard Prewett... You remember from our wedding? They're Slytherin and their parents were killed by Death Eaters who questioned their loyalties. They're in your club, of course you know them. I knew their parents, naturally, although they never did join the Death Eaters...What if we started with them?"
"They are wonderful children, but isn't that the cart before the horse?"
"No, actually, an owl came this morning. It looks like our offer is going to go through and we can move into the house in a couple of weeks."
"You mean the one in Hogsmeade?"
"Yes." He was smiling now, but the smile didn't go all the way up to his eyes.
"What about this house?"
"I think I'll keep it a little longer, but it is not really a home to me."
They sat in silence for a while. Barbara waited, trying to read the expression on her husband's face, but he was inscrutable. She had never in the year of their acquaintance seen him behave this way, so distant, so closed off. Finally he stood and put out the fire.
"Let's go home."
Barbara stood and put her hand on his arm. "What is it?"
"Just visiting the past." He pulled her close and buried his face in her shoulder. "The present is far preferable, and what will the future bring?" He took her hand and they left the house.
It was a warm night, a few weeks after midsummer, when two men came out of a pub looking as though they'd had quite a night. After getting out of sight, however, they walked quickly to a dark corner and disappeared.
They reappeared on a lane that lead to the home of one of the men.
"I'm not sure she'll be happy."
"She throws a mean hex, but she's not dangerous or anything."
The men came into the house laughing and joking. She was sitting on the middle of the sofa, facing the door, wearing a violet dressing gown.
"Hey, Barbara!"
With a flick of her wrist, she put her husband under a body bind curse. "I'll get to you, later." She pointed her wand straight at her best friend's chest and asked, "What's the last thing you said to me at my wedding?"
"As I recall, I whispered, 'I call godfather to your firstborn,' into your ear."
She lowered the wand but her demeanor didn't ease. "Hear me, and hear me well, Minister Shacklebolt." She spoke with a well-modulated tone. "You will not be godparent to any child of mine whose father is not living."
"Easy, Mama Bear..."
"Easy, nothing." Her eyes got narrow.
"Barbara, we did good work tonight. The sort of thing you would have loved." He paused for emphasis. "The sort of thing that's necessary."
"Yes, I'm sure I would have loved the part where you used that smooth voice of yours to convince a man to assist you in doing something dangerous and also to hide it from his wife. Save it for your next diplomatic incident. We're still friends, Kingsley, but for now you can leave any time you please."
"I'll talk to you when you're not acting crazy," said the Minister as he walked out of the house. A moment later they heard the soft popping noise that indicated he had disapparated.
"Finite incantatem."
Severus crossed his arms and pondered his wife. She looked up at him, exchanging glare for glare. "Wasn't that a bit rude?"
"Oh, dear, I'm guilty of bad manners. Whatever shall I do?" Obviously she would exchange sarcasm for sarcasm, too.
"Barbara...it was simple. You should have seen it."
"I did." It was barely audible.
He went on. "They just wanted me to talk to some Death Eaters and keep them from suspecting a trap and then the aurors showed up." He stopped and mentally backed up. "You saw it?"
Her hands were over her eyes. "Everything, or almost everything. When your heart was beating fast. I could feel that, too. I couldn't help you, I didn't know where you were, and I had to watch you put yourself in danger on a whim of Kingsley Shacklebolt. Why couldn't you at least tell me about it? There I was, filling out OWLs forms and enjoying a beautiful evening and suddenly there you were, filling my head, doing something dangerous. Without any warning.
"I've misjudged this horribly." He knelt next to the couch and tried to touch her but she flinched away. "I thought I should protect you from this. It wasn't a whim, Barbara. It was the death eaters who killed Alice and Howard's parents. You do recall that the kids watched from where they were hidden while their parents were tortured and murdered? These Death Eaters were wanted for other things, too."
"You told me that you were just going out for drinks and a chat."
"Well, that's how it started, really."
"That's not how it was, really. Don't try to fool me, I saw it! What if they were trying to trap you?"
"Can I say something?"
She looked up at him with one eyebrow lifted.
"I'm sorry. I should have known that I can't protect you from something like this. Kingsley didn't want anyone to know. He specifically didn't want me to mention it to you until we had tried it. The aurors don't even know that it's me. He didn't bring it up with the Order, either, if you noticed."
She flung herself at him, kissing him wildly. "If I lose you, what happens to me? You don't know how scared I was."
"I'm sorry. I'm still learning this." He took control of the kisses, making them gentler. "Barbara... my dear..."
"I need to be sure..."
He took her hands and kissed them. "Shh...my dear, not like this...this isn't like you...it's not like us..." He stopped her, getting up to sit on the couch, then folding her into his arms. "Sh, love, just let me hold you."
After a while she stopped trembling.
"What did Kingsley tell you after the last Order meeting to make you do this?"
"He said that some of the aurors had thought of this set-up, since the Death Eaters seem to think I'm going to help them. I agree to meet them, have a drink, and then the aurors show up and I vanish. These are people whom it's hard to find any other way."
"They're going to figure it out, eventually. Either that or the aurors will have to capture you, too."
"The uses are quite limited." He agreed. "I'm good at this, though. The chances are very small that I will be caught or hurt with so many aurors around. Please trust me. I'm also trying to find out if some of these Death Eaters really want to be former Death Eaters. They deserve the chance I have had."
"But we depend on you. I do, and the kids, and our baby..."
"I'm good at traveling between the two worlds. I did it before out of an obligation to Lily when I wanted to make restitution for her death. I'm doing it now for you and our family so that our life together won't know that fear."
He tilted her head up and kissed the tears. "Barbara, I've thought hard about this. What if there were not two worlds?"
"That's why we went to Spinner's End."
"Part of it. I wanted to see if I could remember how bad it was and you were there to remind me of how good our life is. I need to help fight to keep it this way. I promise, though, I won't do it in secret next time."
She pressed her head into his chest. "At least give me that."
He lifted her face and gently kissed her. "You said you needed to be sure?"
"I need to be sure that its you and that you are really here and safe, and that it's really you. You've been distant, preoccupied lately. I couldn't account for it."
"Let's find out." He kissed her more gently still this time and yet more deeply as well, and drew her up the stairs to their bedroom.
Later, they were clinging to each other and he thought she was asleep when she said, "I'm sorry. I guess we know now... you're better when I'm in danger than I am when you are."
"I at least was able to come help you when Lestrange was there. I don't know how I would handle it if I knew you were in danger and there was nothing I could do and no way to even find you. Did you really see it all?"
"Yes."
"I think that skill you don't like to talk about is at work, here, and I think I now understand Albus' comment about your heart being on your sleeve. We need to study this. I can't have you tearing yourself up. The kids and I depend on you, too."