AN: Hello again, lovelies!
I promise this chapter is as heavy as anything in this story will get.
The title is a nod to Philip Quast's version of Four Faded Walls. The lyrics don't all fit but the song makes me cry, so...
I hope you enjoy! x
2
These Four Faded Walls
Severus resists bringing her here for years on end, but eventually the desire to show her his roots overtakes him. Severus apparates with her hand in his, rather than her arm through his, as is their usual custom. She notes the change in him – she always does. The quirks of his manner are as familiar to her as the order of her powdered potion ingredients drawer.
She does not comment on the grungy street they land in, the evidence of an industry that's no longer able to support itself in the area. She remains silent at his side, eyes running over his profile contemplatively. While she stands silently beside him, Hecate ponders how very unlike their usual evening outing locations this one is. They have travelled to every continent in the dead of night, done unimaginable things. She wonders if there's some kind of venue concealed in one of these run-down old buildings. She wouldn't object to a drink, or three. And if it's to be three, then perhaps even a dance. But Severus' hand tightens around hers, and Hecate can feel tension rolling off him. Her impulse is to soothe him, but she remains in place, knowing he will speak when he's ready. It is certainly not the aura of a man about to spend an evening in a secret bar with his wife.
"This village is where I grew up." Severus says at long last, trying to quell the tension rearing in him at bringing her to this place. Sensing his discomfort Hecate draws nearer to him, winding her free hand around his upper arm.
The street they're on is perfectly symmetrical, each house a mirror of the one opposite it, each in the same state of disrepair. A layer of black grime coats the once red bricks. Hecate can imagine her husband here as a child, from the few scraps of information he's given her about his youth. However, she can only imagine a worn-down version of him, grey and diminished. She struggles to imagine the youth of the man she knows, imaginative and inventive, and, yes, passionate, being stimulated here.
Severus waves his wand and all the street lights are extinguished, leaving them in near total darkness. He would rather show her in the daylight, which is how he best knew the place, but the Death Eaters know his home, and he feels more at ease keeping her safe in the shadows.
He moves off without a word, and Hecate keeps close beside him. He leads her down the neglected and grimy streets until he stops before a property indistinguishable from every other on the street. He plays the gentleman, ushers her through a gate that's barely still on its hinges, before murmuring an incantation to open the door.
Hecate steps over the threshold delicately, her eyes travelling over the walls and doors, noting the absence of pictures, of all personal effects but for books.
"You've kept it after all these years?" Hecate asks softly, turning back to her husband.
"It has proven useful for certain assignations with my… after-hours colleagues." Her lip ticks at his euphemism for Death Eaters. She never asks for details of his assignments. She trusts that he will give her as many as he can, or wants to; but she is troubled that she didn't know something as significant as his continued ownership of his childhood home. She can see no sentimental reason for it. All the stories he's told her of his childhood indicated he had rather a miserable time here.
"Do you mind…" she trails her fingers absently over the edge of a walnut hall table before glancing back up at him. Her expression is carefully guarded, and he knows it. "How little I ask you about your evenings as a Death Eater?"
"I appreciate the escape." Hecate nods slightly at him, still analysing his gaze for evidence of mistruth. She finds none, finds that, as always, he is being honest with her. She holds out her hand for his, takes comfort in the familiar way he squeezes her fingers.
He takes her through the house, running a seemingly causal but carefully selected commentary on each part of the groaning building. How he hid in what was the lounge, which then became a makeshift library because of his mother's influence. The library is the room that most resembles the house Hecate and Severus share now – books on every surface, dark rich colours. Hecate feels almost at home in it, but there is the lingering, underlying feeling of danger about the place. She can't quite tell whether this is Severus' discomfort at being here, or the violence that has occurred here has seeped into the walls.
He tells her stories of his mother, teaching him little magical tricks, many of which he still utilises to this day. Hecate is running her fingers and gaze over the many books in the collection, when she remarks "I can't see any children's books." Severus tells her of his mother's aversion to children's stories, her refusal to tell him fairy tales, or anything that wasn't based in reality. To this day he has never heard the Tales of Beadle the Bard.
Hecate considers him. She had access to all sorts of fantastical tales as a child, she simply never placed any stock in them. The man her husband grew into seems such an inevitability after a childhood like his. Hecate herself was born serious, but she wonders if Severus simply had no choice.
But he speaks with warmth about his mother, affection lacing his anecdotes. These, however, seem to become darker the deeper into the house they journey. He points out the kitchen cupboard he most often hid in when his parents were fighting. Upstairs, he tells her of the time his father struck his mother across the face so hard she fell into a mirror and was badly lacerated. Hecate tries to be stoic throughout his tales, but this one breaks her resolve. She strokes his cheek to bring him out of his reverie, back to her. He drops his forehead to hers, and with closed eyes continues his tale. The sight that greeted him once he left the cupboard and ran into the room, his mother covered in blood, and almost shaking from the effort of healing herself in such a diminished state.
"I was too young to assist her."
Hecate moves her hand from his cheek to the back of his head, twining her fingers through his hair and wishing to be more comfort than she is. "You must have been terrified." She whispers. He opens his eyes to meet her gaze, tender and concerned and somehow, always, radiating absolute love for him.
He straightens, settles one of his own hands around her neck. His little finger sneaks its way beneath the collar of her dress, searching for her shoulder. "I suppose I was. I recall being shocked."
She runs her fingers softly through his hair, curving the length of it around his jaw. "I'm sure you were."
Severus moves his hands to the curve of her waist, grounding himself in her as best he can. Remembering himself as the little boy who lived in this house, the little boy who believed the only chance of happiness he had was Lily Evans. Severus can scarcely believe he has a wife now, a woman who loves him so genuinely. He takes her hand again, about to continue the tour, to show her where he slept as a child, when there is a frenzied knock on the door below. Severus is instantly furious with himself for bringing her here, for endangering her simply to unburden himself of the past. When he turns to her, he is calm but insistent. "You must leave."
"Severus – " Her tone is part warning, part protest. She doesn't want to leave him in a situation that has clearly taken him by surprise, a situation that may be dangerous. Severus cups her face again, turning her head so he's certain she's meeting his gaze. Without her realising it, Hecate's hand has risen to wrap around his.
"I have no time to argue with you, Cate. I will meet you at home." Severus kisses her firmly, in the way that tells her he will not be argued with. "I love you." Hecate kisses him again, while the banging begins again downstairs.
"And I love you." She murmurs, before vanishing out of his arms and into thin air.
Severus races down the stairs as quietly as possible, taking a moment to compose himself before opening the door on the enraged figure of Lucius Malfoy.
"Severus, what in Merlin's name took you so long? I might have been detected!"
"My apologies, Lucius." Severus admits him to the house and thanks whatever luck he has left in the world that his unexpected visitor was not someone more dangerous than Lucius Malfoy.
x
Hecate is checking the labels on their multitude of potion ingredients when Severus apparates back into their cottage. She is so tense with anxiety for him to return she nearly drops a phial of bee-sting slivers when he does. Carelessly, she returns the phial to their normally perfectly-ordered collection and crosses to her husband.
"Severus." She breathes as she sinks into his arms. He seems unharmed, and Hecate nearly trembles with relief. She searches his face for clues about the encounter before she asks him, hoping to read the situation before he can downplay it.
"Are you alright?" She asks once almost completely satisfied that he is. Severus nods and drops his forehead to hers. Their breathing quickly synchronises, their heart rates soon follows. Hecate is faced with the uncomfortable realisation that, perhaps it isn't respect for Severus' right to disclose information as he wishes that stops her asking him more about his work for Voldemort, but her own fear. Faced with tonight, Hecate realises some part of her is happier not being privy to all the logistical details of his assignments.
"Who?"
"Lucius. It was a straightforward problem." Hecate nods against him, noticing now how tightly she has fisted her hand in his ebony hair. Severus runs a hand soothingly up and down the length of her waist, waiting for the moment she begins to relax against him and finding it elusive. "I apologies for the abrupt end to our evening, Cate."
"You have nothing to apologise for." She whispers. Severus pecks her lips and releases her far too quickly for her taste.
"Why don't you sit down? I'll be in in a moment." Hecate doesn't argue with him, an indication of how shaken she is. She passes into their lounge room and takes up her usual place. Severus returns with two glasses of firewhiskey. That he poured them himself rather than summoning them with magic similarly shows how shaken he is by the experience. Surprising her again, Severus lifts his old chess set down from the shelf it lives upon, and begins setting up the board manually. Hecate watches him quietly, takes in the nimble fingers that have made some of the most complex potions known to wizard kind, the calm face she has spent so much of her time and not nearly enough of her time studying. His task complete, Severus settles opposite her.
"A lower risk diversion for the evening." He says, the corner of his mouth ticking in a half-hearted smile – a smile that is entirely for her benefit. She bends forward and touches her glass to his, glad of his proposed diversion.
And diverting it is, in the brutal way of wizard chess. Hecate's tiny black army does an admirable job. Near the end of the game she looks up at him, a wry, competitive smile playing about her lips. "Severus, you're at very real risk of losing your queen."
"I believe I won the queen some years ago." She rolls her eyes at him, but smiles to herself. Losing him seems like a much less tangible threat now than losing the game. He makes the best move he can to defend his queen, but it's insufficient. Hecate is about to set her bishop on his queen when suddenly she looks up at him again, no trace of humour in her now. "Severus?"
"Are you trying to prolong the agony, Cate?"
She ignores the question. "Will you take me there again one day?"
Severus studies his wife carefully, considers the memories he has of the house in Spinner's End, the unhappiness, the desperate desire to escape. He considers the danger he placed her in by taking her there, what might have happened to her had she been discovered.
"I think the past may be best left in the past now. The future is far more appealing." Hecate holds his gaze while he says this, reads all the many layers of subtext behind his words, and nods. At her command, his queen is dramatically slaughtered by her bishop, and his king is placed in check-mate. Hecate stretches and rises from her seat, a satisfied smile playing about your lips.
"Congratulations on your assassination of my queen, and subsequent victory."
Hecate smiles patiently at her husband, running her hand fondly along the backs of shoulders as she passes behind him. "I think you've rather missed the point, darling." Severus turns sharply to her, and she stills.
"At no point was my aim to destroy your queen." She bends to kiss him, and he is torn between revelling in the feeling of her mouth against his and needing to know the end of her thought. Her hand is still cupping his face when she straightens. She swipes a finger over his lips, teasing him cruelly. "My intention is only ever to protect my king."
With that, Hecate sweeps out of the room and into the bedroom, internally counting down the seconds (five) until her husband follows her, and the anxiety of the evening can truly melt away from them.