I don't want to know where he is. I don't want to know what he's doing. I don't want to know what I should do about it. I don't want to know anything.

But I do know.

Thunder roars outside again, momentarily drowning out the heavy spattering of raindrops crashing into the windowpanes. A bus dashes past the window, its headlights glittering through the fine mist the drizzle leaves behind, its wheels sounding a muffled crunch, like the scratching of wet sand on tarmac.

I am safe inside, warmed by a blanket and hot chocolate and the crackling of the fire. I am comfortable except for the tight knot of worry and betrayal clenching and unclenching in my stomach; a snake coiling up inside me. It's our home, and I don't understand why he isn't here too, with me.

There's a bar in town, the type of place to go if you're free and single. Loud music, garish bursts of light spraying dim corners, sweaty bodies packed closely together. The men there are looking for one thing only. I'd bet good money that that's where he picks them up, leading them by the hand to a dingy back alley, or perhaps to their houses. Maybe he even walks with them along the canal, where he first told me he loved me.

He's promised me time and time again that he'd never do it again; promised me so many times that the disappointment no longer surprises me. And yet, despite how much he hurts me I stay with him, partly because I love him, partly because I still hope that he'll change. Mostly it's because I'm scared of him.

I hear the door clicking quietly shut. He starts when he sees me, looking ashamed, sheepish, guilty. He grasps his hands together behind his back. He's terribly sober.

"You told me you wouldn't do it again, Severus."

"I can't help it, sweetheart." He raises a hand to caress my cheek gently, an absently affectionate expression on his otherwise inscrutable face. When he kisses me I scrunch my eyes tightly shut. I don't want to be loved by such an ugly man.

He wanders upstairs to get washed and I keep my eyes closed. I raise my fingers to my cheek, where his touch left a smear of his latest victim's blood across my face, and a tear drips down to my wrist.