Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the world. This is just an alternative storyline I'm exploring for purely recreational purposes. Got it?
A/N: Hello! Since my last creative hiccough, I've been itching to explore the definite frisson between Snape and Narcissa, which is almost canon-compatible if you read Snape's actions in the unbreakable vow scene as emotionally repressed, not just awkward or disapproving. This is a companion piece to "Have not, Want not?". The very end of that story just wrote itself really and segues into this one. However, both stories can be read individually. Read whatever you will into the title (and try to figure out how many different people could be behind the "their"), but it definitely ties into Lucius' perspective in "HnWn?". I might mention, for those of you who have not read anything else by me, that I am prone to writing introspection, so if that's not what you're after, you might be disappointed. Nevertheless, please enjoy and... review?
In their Place
She
It didn't need to be said. It shone out of every pore in her skin and radiated out of her every spoken breath. And when she had pulled on his arm, the night after his killing of Dumbledore in her son's place, out of impulse she had tried to hold him to thank him. With a gentleness she did not expect in his gestures, if not his expression, he had pushed her away and she had turned at the sound of her husband's footsteps echoing down the entrance hall of the manor, so familiar and recognisable, wondering if he had seen.
It had cost her so much. To go to him in the first place, with her sister tagging along, contradicting. She had expected him to refuse. After all, he didn't owe her anything. She had never taken notice of him when they were at school. Why should she have? He had been younger and had never, as far as she knew, done anything to stand out. As an adult, she had always suspected that he had attached himself to Lucius as a sycophant, somehow hoping for connections of some kind. Her appraisal of him had changed when her husband had informed her in passing that the man would be teaching their son potions and she had made a point of telling Draco that he would do well to pay close attention to his father's friend. For, despite her misgivings concerning his ulterior motives, she had always been aware of his ambition and his intellect.
Faced with him, with his perfect manners, which transcended the less than impressive setting that was his childhood home, she had thrown herself on his mercy with all the shameless courage motherhood had given her. And she had seen something in his dark stare. She fancied it was respect for her, as if he was seeing her for who she truly was for the first time. When their hands had gripped each other, hers had been clammy and shaky, his warm and firm.
As she returned home after that with her gob-smacked and silent sister, she found that she was missing the touch. She was caught up in thoughts of this man who had done what her son's father would not. At night, she dreamed of him, just standing in front of her. There. Honour-bound to her son. And to her. It was then she realised that her husband would never make her feel safe again. And she started to resent him for it with a vengeance, finding fault with all he did.
In the following months she didn't see Snape, and Draco began to tire of answering her enquiries about his potions skills. For she couldn't bring herself to ask about the man directly. It was enough for there to be a short line in Draco's letters to her about lessons being the same as usual amidst her son's other concerns. It wasn't until New Year's when Snape had been invited over for drinks that she found out he hadn't been teaching potions at all that year. She knew, then, that if she started asking about Defence against the Dark Arts classes regularly, her son would suspect. So she stayed silent. Waiting.
And then they were on her doorstep. Her son and the man who was no longer bound to her. She knew it was motherly to clasp her boy in her arms and lead him to the most comfortable sofa in the house, the one in her boudoir, away from the stately and more draughty sitting rooms. That it was befitting of her social status to have an elf bring tea for them instead of making it herself. That after the first embrace of welcome, she should keep her hands off her son's person so as not to undermine his manliness, although she could see the shock in his frightened child's eyes. But as she did all this, her mind was on the black-eyed man. The one who, it transpired soon enough had done the deed. The one who had followed them to her private chambers and stared into the fire, unreadable and unmoving, his hands grasped in front of his silent mouth. How she had wanted, then, to tell him he was worthy. He was brave. How she loved his devotion to her son. To her. At that moment, she would have given anything to be alone and to sit with him, and beckon for him to rest his head in her lap and sleep.
After that he became a more regular guest at the manor, sometimes staying the night when he was called in until late to serve as counsellor. It was she who urged him to stay, knowing what miserable and lonely lodgings awaited him.
On the night he brought her back her husband, no doubt in trouble after having had too much to drink in some godforsaken establishment, it became clear. Seeing them both next to each other, her still-handsome lecher and drunk of a husband and this man, who was nothing to look at and had nothing to lose, she could no longer keep up any sort of pretence that her feelings were only gratitude.
As unmoving as if made of ice, she met his gaze. Willing the dark man to perceive her innermost thoughts with one look, her desperate longing for him, so intense she felt it might cost her her reason. He turned away, disapparated and it was as if the room had become empty, although her husband was standing in front of her, apologising for being late and giving her some cock-and-bull explanation that she had no interest in.
She hushed him, gave him a perfunctory peck on the cheek, taking in the smell of his sweat and wood smoke, but not, she noticed, of alcohol or a woman. Looking over him she could only vaguely remember having loved him. She knew that she had, but the feeling was remote and irrelevant now that she wished so ardently for someone else to take his place. Alone in her chambers, she drew a deep breath and held it. It was a trick she had thought up as a girl, to help her forget unpleasantness and carry on. She waited until it became unbearable and when she felt herself go light-headed she made a pact with herself to forget both men. She exhaled, pretending she was ridding herself of more than just spent air. She was no longer a lover, barely still a mother. Soon she would be nothing, except a figure haunting her house as it became more and more the playground for the uncouth creatures and the depraved individuals her husband had been forced to let in by the Dark Lord.
She heard her husband climb the stairs, enter his bedroom and close the door. Let him sleep whatever he had done off. In the morning, she knew, he would try and fail to keep up appearances.
She lay shivering under the covers, feeling so empty she might cave in on herself. Until she heard a knock on the door.
He
He takes in a deep breath before knocking on her door.
It has taken him months of thinking, of weighing, of pinching the bridge of his nose in confusion, to bring him to her door. He has decided to give in because he can't bear those silent cries of hers he almost hears in his mind. They echo his own, but don't share the same cause.
Never in his life did he think he would be the object of such longing, such emotional craving, and, he realised tonight, such physical hunger. So he's allowed himself to give in. Not because he can't help himself, nor because he thinks it's a good idea, but because he wants to appease her and let her console him. This woman loves him, and he has never known the arms of the woman he –still- loves, and never will. But now, he thinks, he wants, at least once before the end, to know what it is to be in the arms of a woman in love. With him. He feels vindicated by the knowledge that this woman loves him for protecting her son while he, at the same time is protecting the son of the woman he loves.
They are both white flowers, these women. By their beauty and their names. It's a small thing, but every bridge he can build between the two helps him not to feel as if he is betraying them. Betraying the one by giving up his sacred grief that he will never have her and the other by giving her hope that she can have him, when he won't let her. 'Can't let her', he corrects himself. He has succeeded in saving her son, and he must continue saving the other woman's son. Though neither of them is his own.
He feels gratitude that Narcissa at least recognises his worth, for he is a better father, in a sense, than the others: one is dead, the other broken. Both useless. And he wonders, if Lily came back from beyond the veil, whether she too would recognise it. Whether she could love him for it.
Perhaps that's what he's been after: that once his time comes, she will greet him in the afterlife and see that in the end, he is more deserving than the man she chose over him.
But he knows that that's not how it works. Just as he won't let Narcissa take Lily's place in his heart, he knows he could never take James' in hers. He is a little unnerved by the thought that he might have taken Lucius' without wanting to.
He is so tired of it all. He doesn't care that Lucius is unfaithful. He is not going to do this to spite him. It is solely for her. Out of overwhelming pity for her. And gratitude. If he could, he would run away from it all and take her with him. She would follow, he knows. He suspects that if pushed, she would even follow him leaving her son behind, because she wanted the status and power Lucius could give her and never took interest in the source of those things until it moved into her house, giant snake and all. He feels for her, because she, like him, has realised her mistake. But to leave on her own is too much for her and she hasn't become aware yet that she wants to.
He knocks before he looses his nerve. And it makes him tremble more than any mission he has accomplished or any lie he has had to tell. The seconds between his knock and her answer are enough to set his adrenalin rushing and make his heart pound in a way he would not be able to conceal if he needed to.
The door opens and he sees her lit from behind, a halo of white-blond hair contrasting with the midnight blue of her silk dressing-gown. Her fragrance washes over him as she moves aside to let him in. It isn't just her, but her whole room that is welcoming him, its very air sharing the same dewy smell as her faultless skin. He realises he already knows this scent well.
They look at each other and they both are afraid, because silencing their feelings comes so much more naturally to them than letting them speak. Tentatively, he takes a step toward her and she sits down on the bed, drawing back the cover and patting a spot for him to sit beside her. It is enough to make his throat constrict, this gentle and modest invitation, so he sheds his outer robes, undoing button after button and leaves his boots by the door, ashamed to have brought such coarse things into so refined a room. Her eyes follow him, but it is as if she is looking past him into some other, unreal world. When he is in his shirt and breeches he comes over to her and sits down on the bed.
She lifts a hand to undo the kerchief at his neck and he catches it, out of reflex. She is startled, but unclasps the hand and kisses its palm. With reverence. She stands and undresses herself and that is all he needs to loose his remaining garments and fold her into his arms, their breaths mingling. He is embarrassed at how loud his is, coming in fast, deep rushes, hers barely audible but nevertheless setting her ribcage into rapid motion against him.
In that moment all thoughts of anyone else are banished. Together they settle themselves on the bed and stop caring about pretence. As she draws him in slickly he delights in her experience -her deft fingers and practised mouth- all of her being setting his body alight. He has never pretended to be an adept lover and he welcomes her attentions all the more, measuring them up against the few artless and joyless encounters he has had.
When it is over, they bathe. She washes him and the horrid thought crosses his mind that the next time he will be cleansed with the same care will be on the day his body is prepared for its final resting place. She dries him and he lets her appraise his nakedness, knowing himself to be far from beauteous. He sees the almost-worship in her eyes and regrets that it is muddied by so much sadness. This woman might have made him so happy once. If... If not for...
They go back to bed and he lays his head on her bosom, listening to her heart as she combs out his hair with her fingers. She is contented and he is close to being so too. He knows that soon he must leave. She hopes against hope he will stay, knowing he can't. When he moves to get up she grips his arm but looks away, unable to bear the thought that she must plead again. He settles his fingers on her chin, the gentlest of touches, and turns her face towards him. They look at each other and she sees all there is to see in his gaze, which is open and unguarded for once. Not a word has passed between them and none can, not for now.