After lunch they moved to a side room on the first floor, a sunroom with three walls of windows. They each sat in a floral overstuffed chair, he looking ill at ease about being asked to sit in such a thing. He waited, knowing once she was ready she would let him know that she would answer his questions.
She told him about the mountains that made for their view and she asked him if he needed anything to drink, all of this with the easy air of a hostess. And then, finally, her voice lower in tone, she said, "You've been waiting for answers about the final battle, Severus. I know."
"Tell me what happened, Minerva..." he said with as steady a voice as he could manage. In broad strokes, she outlined the battle, ending with finding him in the Shrieking Shack. She had skirted the issue they both knew. "Now just tell me, Minerva. Who died? Who's left?"
She stood and pushed at her hair as she made her way across the room to the mahogany table that held her whiskey hidden within. She poured a glass for him and one for her. She sipped at hers quickly. And finally she started. The list, the descriptions of the fights that had felled too many, took her about 15 minutes. When she finished, she walked back to where her whiskey bottle sat and placed her glass down on the table top. When she turned, she saw Severus held his head in his hands. "I've had my time to try to deal with my grief. Let me give you a little," she whispered as her hand met his shoulder and squeezed it gently. "I'll make sure there is a good dinner in the works for us and I'll be back."
When she returned she found him by the west window watching the sun hover low. "There is still more we have not talked about," he said to her reflection.
"Well, we'll talk about it later," she told him. "I know you are going to fight me on this, but I can see you are tired. You should rest before dinner." She gave him a look he had seen many times over the years, one that would brook no refusal.
With a sigh he acknowledged he didn't have the fight in him to resist.
"Good," she said, taking his arm. "I'll tuck you in," she told him, provoking his ire in a friendly way. Then she smiled at him. "And we can keep Niall from accusing me of running you down."
They had made it half way up the dark stairs when he stopped her progress, pulling her to a halt. "Tell me about Niall," he said in a suspicious tone.
She laughed and started pulling him up the stairs. "He's my son. He lives up at the main house. That's where his clinic is."
"He's your son?"
"Yes," she said as if the question was ridiculously silly. "I really thought you had figured that out."
He let her guide him into the room and then asked her, "Why did no one know about him?"
"Merlin, Severus!" she said and pointed to the bed, telling him to take a seat with that motion. "A lot of people know about him. You may not have, but it is not as if you ever asked me much about my private life." She paced over to the window. "And I always felt he was safer if he was not associated with me or his father...I didn't want things to be this way." She blew out a breath and turned to look out the window. "Everything was quite wonderfully, blessedly normal until ... until Voldemort and the killings."
"The first time, you mean?" he questioned gently.
"Yes. Gavin...Niall's father. My husband," she said the words as if she had not said them in a very long time. Then she gathered her breath again. "He was a member of the Order. When the Potters were killed and the Longbottoms left near death..." She turned and saw that Severus had gripped his forehead. He looked weary, almost shaken. He knew where this was going.
"He was soon targeted by..."
"Death Eaters," he supplied, spitting out the words.
"Yes. He was killed about two weeks after the Potters died. I left Hogwarts and Niall and I staid up here in seclusion."
He was on his feet now. "How can you have me here? How could you make Niall tend me?" There was rage and pain in his voice, but still she closed the distance between them and confronted him.
"You didn't do this, Severus. You are not responsible," she told him.
"But I..."
"Damn it, Severus! Stop it. You cannot be history's scapegoat. Do you think that maybe THIS is why I have been careful never to mention him to you before?" Her eyes flashed at him in anger. She stood in front of him shaking, looking into his pained black eyes until she could take it no more. "I don't want it to always be about the past, Severus," she said before brushing past him and out of the room.
When Minerva came back to get him for dinner she found him stretched out on the bed, his arm thrown over his eyes.
"Dinner is ready," she tried.
Slowly he sat up, but he made no move to stand. "I want to understand what is between us now."
"I can hardly answer that on my own," she told him gently, sitting next to him on the edge of the bed. "Just leave it be for a while, won't you, Severus?"
"I don't know that I should stay here. Emotionally, I'm out of control."
"Severus," she said cutting him off. "It's alright."
"No. It's not. You've put up with me for longer than you should have." He raised his hand slowly to her cheek and she closed her eyes at his touch. "I don't know what to do." His breathing was rough and audible. Abruptly, he pulled his hand back and told her, "I don't trust myself to do right by you and you can hardly want me here indefinitely."
"I understand that things are very confused right now. But do not tell me what I want," she told him in a hushed voice.
"The protection you placed on me... is it what I'm still feeling?" he said looking at his hands.
"I don't know," she said. "That spell was used where there was a... connection. It should not create a connection. It was normally part of a binding ceremony..."
"A binding ceremony?"
"Yes..." she said impatiently, trying to finish.
"Like a...?"
"Yes," she finished for him, "a wedding." He was looking like a fish starved for air. "Breathe, Severus. You were not unwittingly married to me. On that happy note," she said sarcastically, "could we please go to dinner?"
