Steam
Mirren did not come in with Narcissa. "It isn't me he wishes to see," she explained, pushing her patient through his door.
Inside, the familiar room felt not so familiar at all. The usual immediate warmth she felt was less. Not gone, but less. For a moment, Narcissa faced the closed door quietly. She wasn't certain what she could expect. Was Severus even awake? Would he speak? Would he be cross? What if his memory is somehow compromised? What if -
"Narcissa?"
She turned at last. His voice - though familiar as ever - was worn and wounded. He sat up, bed magically adjusted to support him. There was more colour to him than she remembered, and less sheet. "Severus." She could hear the trepidation in her own voice.
Slowly, considering, he scratched at an edge of fresh bandage at his neck. Very thin. "My healer tells me...you have been a companion to me." He spoke slowly, as if controlling his breath.
She nodded, finally walking toward him. Closer, she discerned a thin sheen of perspiration on his chest and belly. "I have been. Of sorts."
"She says...your presence has been...reducing the fever."
"Yes. That is what she says." She had oh so many questions. It seemed there were innumerable things to say. But none of it seemed right…
"Come here then." Weakly, he gestured for her. "I'm burning alive."
Her cold called for his hot and she reached out. Wrapped a hand around his elbow. He returned the gesture and hissed a breath. Narcissa gasped. A flood of pure warmth traveled from his hand up her arm - the magic stronger than it had ever been during his sleep. "Oh, gods," she breathed.
Severus' jaw was slack. His eyes were closed. "Incredible," he murmured. Tugged. "Very tired."
Unable to resist his unspoken (insistent) invitation, Narcissa climbed awkwardly onto the bed beside him. His skin cooled beneath her hand and she felt her own body tingling with the return of heat. She'd not been tired herself, but his warmth soothed her into rest. His heat, the sound of his steady breath, and his certain heart beating. She was drifting pleasantly when she realized he smelled like home.
"There are some issues we need to address."
Mirren's tone was uncompromising, and Narcissa sighed patience as she poured tea. "What issues are those?" She handed Severus a cuppa, then prepared one for the doctor.
Anne took the offering gracefully. Placed it on Snape's serving table. "Well, I suppose the first involves the...unconventionality of this arrangement."
"What arrangement?" Severus asked. He was quite placid, and his voice was re-acquiring its former rich baritone.
Mirren blinked at them. Gestured to them. "This!" She insisted. "Look at yourselves!" The patients regarded each other. Snape sat in a borrowed wingback before his window. Narcissa perched on the arm of the chair.
"I see nothing unconventional." He intoned after a moment. Sipped his tea.
Mirren huffed. "Mr. Snape. You are a high profile patient here. Eventually, your existence will go public. I've managed to keep your consciousness mum for the last three days, but I'm afraid I must report your recovery to my own superiors soon. And when the Board gets involved…" She shook her head.
"What will happen?" Narcissa asked.
"They'll see I have two patients veritably...shacked up together here! Sharing a bed, for Merlin's sake! Surely you see the position this puts me in."
"Why should they know that?" Narcissa asked. "We're hardly hurting anyone."
"You should be concerned as well, you know." Mirren pointed at the Malfoy witch. "You're just as high profile. And they'll want to know why you've been here these weeks." Severus looked up at Narcissa. Narcissa looked down at her tea. Anne closed her eyes in recognition. "Oh, good gods. You haven't told him, have you?"
Narcissa made no reply. Surprisingly, it was Snape who had something to say. "She'll tell me in her own time. Are there other issues to address, Doctor?"
Mirren flicked at the parchment on her lap. "Issues of your treatment, yes. Your recovery. I have questions that involve a measure of doctor patient confidentiality -"
"Narcissa may be privy to any questions you may have."
"Snape, I'm trying to consider your dignity here. I doubt you want intimate information bandied about like a snitch."
"I believe our relationship is already on an intimate level," Narcissa murmured. "I have no secrets from Severus."
"Oh, I believe you do." Mirren said gravely. She was gathering her files. "And I think the two of you should discuss things. Tomorrow, I will interview you both seperately and decide a course of action for furthering your recoveries. And -"
"Don't treat us like children!" Narcissa bristled.
"And I will be compiling my notice to the Board of Governors that Mr. Snape is conscious again!" Mirren spoke over her patient, undeterred. Narcissa made to protest further, but Severus' hand on her arm calmed her.
"Do what you must, Doctor," he said. "And Narcissa and I will do what we must."
Mirren's lips were tight when she stood. "See that you do," she said. "I'll meet with you both after lunch tomorrow." She swept out the door.
Narcissa sighed. "She can be so damned infuriating."
"She's doing her job." Severus sighed. He tired easily. A damned inconvenience. "And she's right. About certain things."
Cissa glanced down at him. "I'm not keeping secrets from you, Severus."
"No, you're not. But I haven't asked you for truth, either."
"What is it you want to know?"
"Why are you here?"
She swallowed. Her teacup was empty. She studied the grounds as if she would find her destiny in the loose leaves there. "I...I had a problem. With potions."
"I recall you being a fairly talented potions student." His sarcasm did not exhaust as easily as his body did.
"You know what I mean."
"Mmm." He nodded. "I see. And I suppose Lucius was not so tolerant of your one vice as you were of his many?"
"Lucius is dead."
His face showed genuine surprise for the first time. "Ah."
"But Draco was most intolerant of my vice, as you so eloquently phrase."
"I'm sorry." He was not.
"No, you're not." She smiled ruefully. "And neither am I. Tell me the last morally justifying thing you recall Lucius doing."
There was a long moment of silence. The last time Severus had seen Lucius Malfoy, he'd been summoning Severus to his death at the fangs of Nagini. "It can't have been easy for you. All this time. After your trial. And Draco's."
"Draco fared far better than his father. And still does so." She stood. Tidied up their cups. Her fingers touched his shoulder fleetingly. She hesitated to ask… "What do you remember, Severus?"
His lip curled only slightly. "Everything."
She sat at his arm again. "Potter testified, you know. Exonerated you. He...he talked about your memories. I believe they were shown to select members of the Wizengamot."
He closed his eyes. "No doubt they were."
"I never knew. About Lily, that is. None of us did." She sniffed softly. "None of us knew you at all, Severus."
"Meant to be so." He said. Then he nudged her hip gently. "I'm tired."
She helped him to his feet. He needed less and less of her help lately. They made their way to his bed and laid down. severus closed his eyes at once, content to drift. But Narcissa stared at the ceiling, bothered.
"I'm jealous," she whispered suddenly. Felt suddenly.
"Whatever of?" His eyes opened again.
"You loved her, Severus."
"Naught to be jealous of," he muttered. Eyes closing again. "It was never truly love, after all."
Narcissa let him drift. But her face screwed up in contemplation. He'd loved the witch enough to pine his life away for her. To devote himself to her vengeance. To protect her son.
But then… He protected Draco, too. She regarded the wizard sleeping beside her. A sharp twinge of something stabbed beneath her heart. She pushed up from the bed. Gathered her thick blanket around her shoulders and quietly left the room.
She needed a little time to herself.
Mirren removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. It was late, but her mind was working too frantically for sleep. She scratched another notation on the parchment propped against her raised knees. There was an answering rustle in the bedclothes beside her.
"Would you please put that away and get some sleep?" Jane sat up. Kissed her shoulder.
"I have to phrase this perfectly, Jane. There will be so many questions. About Snape. About this...thing with the Malfoy witch." She threw up her hands. Her quill landed on the duvet between them. Jane quickly snagged it and set it aside.
"Just answer honestly. With integrity. Like you always do."
"I would, if I knew how to begin to explain their relationship. It's such a damn befuddling mystery."
Jane chewed her lip for a moment, accepted and exploited a rare embrace. "She told me something interesting the other day."
"Who?"
"The Malfoy witch. Narcissa."
Anne regarded her prodigy/lover with intense interest. "What do you mean? What did she say?"
"She said she once shared an Unbreakable Vow with him. With Snape. To protect her son." She shrugged. "I don't know. It got me thinking. Perhaps their magic is somehow linked because of that?"
"Hmmm." Mirren thought. "I suppose I can ask about that tomorrow. It definitely deserves considering." She kissed Jane's forehead, hedging for a deeper kiss. They cuddled into bedding together. "I considered the possibility…" She began to speak, but trailed off.
"What possibility?"
Mirren tisked as if dismissing her own idea. "I thought for a while that perhaps they'd been lovers. But knowing what we know of Snape's memories from Potter's testimony, that seems unlikely."
Jane kissed a bare breast. Set her hands to exploring. "I don't know. I think it's possible to be in love with someone and never even know it. Or to mistake something else entirely for love."
"Oh?" Anne tumbled the fey witch. "How do you mean?"
"Well, like us. Oh!" Jane gasped at the Healer's tickling touch.
"Explain." Mirren murmured against soft belly.
Jane sighed. "I thought you were an awful bitch for the longest time. Hated you."
Mirren looked up. "You hated me?"
"Well, you were exceedingly difficult to like." She chuckled. "Then even after I figured you out, I thought it was just lust."
"Lust is nice." Anne urged the nurse's legs apart. "Are you saying you mistook love for lust, then?"
"Yes, I suppose. Mmmmm." Jane arched into a sinful mouth. "Although I'd be lying if I were to say there wasn't still a heavy dose of lust…" She buried her fingers in Mirren's silky hair. "Gods, I love you."
Mirren was inclined to agree...and inclined to believe Jane's ideas deserved looking into.
Snape awoke boiling from a dream of fire. His sheets were soaked. Sleep pants and shirt stuck to his body. "Narcissa…"
He felt for the witch - his barometer - but she was gone. He squinted into the dimness of his room. Saw her nowhere. It wouldn't do. He sat up. Tugged at his soaking clothes. His mind was melting. "Narcissa," he whispered again.
A brief wave of dizziness when he stood. The floor was blissfully cold on the pads of his feet. He made way to his door and out. The corridors were empty and quiet. It was either very early, or very late.
He leaned against the door jamb to collect his bearings. To the right, a window. So many doors. A nurse's station a few feet away, but there was no one there to ask. He took the left. Occasionally steadied himself against the cool stone wall.
So many doors. Numbers. He had no idea where she was. Made his way on instinct alone to the door numbered 11. But that was the cool one. The one that sent a chill through his fingers. The one.
He pushed through it with no knock. No wards. Simply stumbled inside uninvited, unexpected. And she was there. Leapt from her fetal curl in a chair laden with blankets. "Severus!"
"I'm on fire," he gasped.
Her arms were ice, the embrace water. They combined yin and yang and he could practically hear the hiss of his cooling. "I'm so sorry," she was murmuring. "I thought it was getting better. I'm so sorry!"
He buried his face in her hair. They stumbled until she was braced against the wall and still in his arms. He touched her face, pushed her head to make her face him. "I need you," he growled. "I need you, witch!"
And so insanely - fueled by unseen flames - he kissed her. Rough. Left her moaning into his mouth. Her blankets fell away. Feet stumbled over the material as she maneuvered them, still connected at the face, to her bed where they fell weakly.
Steam. They vaporised into mist and condensed. Solidified in each other.
His kisses slowed. His body relaxed as hers did. "Severus," she whispered. Wonder. She rubbed at his sticky, sweaty forehead.
His breath slowed on her cotton-clad clavicle. "Forgive me," he said. "I can't…" And he couldn't. Couldn't explain what he didn't understand. Couldn't say what he didn't know.
"Shhh." She soothed him. "It's alright. I know." She did know. Didn't understand, either. Didn't understand the ache of want in her gut. The hot, sweet curl of fierce that had traversed her spine when his lips met hers.
But for now, it didn't matter. He was cooled and she was warmed and whatever there was that suited them to each other could remain a mystery so long as there was this perfect.
