Disclaimer: The piece of the book is-- Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. (love that book)

PART X: January- Muhammad.

The sunlight that was creeping through the window had little effect on the temperature of the room. The fire in the fireplace had long extinguished and the only hope Tonks had of keeping herself warm was the blankets and whatever body warmth she could get from the man next to her.

Severus laid next to her, his breathing slow and heavy as if appreciating every breath. She looked at him and bit her lips as her mind played back the events of the night before. If she wasn't afraid of disturbing him she would have giggled at the thought. Not because it was finny, but rather because it was not. What was going on between them was so dead serious that she thought that if she didn't have a laugh about it she would have crumbled from the anxiety she felt about the situation.

But she couldn't giggle just then, his eyes were still closed.

It was a night of first for them. She had never kissed him, she never let him hold her the way he did, he had never seen her body and she had certainly never seen his and though her imaginations strayed to it, he had never made love to her, but more importantly, she had never seen him asleep before. It was this that fascinated her the most. In this quiet state he seemed so vulnerable, lying there, maybe not even aware that the rest of the world was up and about or that she was looking at him with admiration.

Though she did not want to disturb him she felt a strong urge to touch him, being denied the privilege for so long. She was certain that if she just touched his hair he would be able to sleep unmolested.

She took her hands from beneath the blankets and let it hover over his hair that was shorter than she had ever seen him wear it. When she was quite sure that he was steady she let her fingers touch his raven strands parting it slightly with her fingers that must have been on the verge of freezing.

But she was hardly satisfied with this; his hair was not so much part of his person, just something growing from his head. So she moved her fingers lower still. She ran her index finger down the shape of his nose, that hook that she had come to appreciate as something only he could carry so well. Then, since she was already that far she let her fingers move down to touch his lips that were slightly parted.

She sighed because she wanted to feel his lips on hers again but that would have definitely roused him from his sleep. She took her hand and buried it under blankets once more to escape the cold, but as she did this she felt his hand grasp hers. A smirk crept on his face.

"Hey, you were awake this whole time," she exclaimed.

"Even in my sleep I can tell when someone is staring at me."

She could feel the red staining her cheeks but she fought through it. There was no need for her to feel embarrassed about anything anymore, he knew her totally, and she had nothing to hide from him, no secrets to speak of.

Knowing that he was awake she saw no problem in allowing herself to cling more closely to him for the warmth.

"Your hands are cold," he said. "Do you think we should move from here?"

"No, it's okay, let's just lay here and listen to the birds for a while."

He made a noise that could have been interpreted as laughter. "What birds, I haven't seen a bird here since November."

"So let's wait until spring."

He didn't respond he just kissed her on her forehead and pulled her closer making sure that his once free arm was wrapped tightly around her.

But they wouldn't have to wait until spring to hear the birds again. There, outside the window was a very loud and rather obnoxious barn owl tapping persistently on the glass.

"What the blood hell does that thing want?" Severus asked to no one in particular.

She looked at the owl that looked very familiar and groaned. "Oh no, I promised Molly at Christmas we'd stop by for New Years lunch as well." She read the pained expression on his face. "Sorry, can you let it in."

He let in the owl after grunting and complaining. The owl flew in excitedly and settled next to Tonks on the floor. She reached over and unattached the letter from his leg. The very moment she did this the owl flew out the window again and back into the cold. Severus shut the window the very instant.

She unfolded the letter that was short and read it aloud.

"Lunch is at twelve. Charlie is stopping by."

"Why does she feel the need to stress that Charlie is stopping by?"

The question didn't faze her. She looked over at him. "Oh, you know Molly is always trying to play matchmaker for me. I thought she had given up the idea of Charlie and I getting back together when I was with Remus but I guess not," She said shrugging.

He put his hands behind his head and looked up at her. "Are you going then?" he asked.

She smiled. "Correction, we are going."

"I thought you said you weren't going to drag me to anymore of these little get-together things again."

"But it will be different this time, things are so different now."

He blinked slowly. "But you can't speak to him… Charlie."

She thought it was a joke. "What?"

"Don't speak to him… or converse with him, whatever it is you want to call it."

She chuckled at this because she still thought that he was joking. "Well I can't not talk to him; he's a friend of mine."

"Well maybe you should loose this particular friend."

Okay it was becoming apparent that he was serious. "Severus, what are you on about?"

He got that serious look on his face, the one he would get when he was talking to a subordinate that was particularly pesky to him. "Well it wasn't pleasing to me to see him try to… well you know fully well what I'm referring to."

Her reaction was moving pass shock and awe to anger. "So is it your business to shoot down all my potential suitors." Maybe it was her imagination but was he actually angry with her

"Ben Stonewall, you seemed to enjoy it when I fired him."

"He was an ass, I would never fancy him."

"So you admit it then," he accused. "You could fancy Charlie."

"Are you forgetting the reason why I started a relationship with him in the first place?"

"Yes, but you once forgot about the feelings you had for me and look, it's coming to haunt you." He sighed as if he thought the whole argument was beneath him. "Nymphadora, there is nothing incredibly difficult about avoiding someone."

She was not going to argue with him, she was just going to make herself plain and hope that he got the idea. She looked him square in the eye. "Severus, I don't like being told what to do, surely you know that."

"Well Nymphadora, if you just do as I say then you can spare yourself the trauma of having me repeat it."

Her brows much have touched her hairline because she couldn't believe what he just said. "Oh…my…God," mouthed, looking at him like something foreign. "I can't deal with this right now," she declared tossing her hands up in the air in resignation. She tugged on one of the blankets, wrapped it around herself and got up from the place they were resting. She was going to get ready and she hoped by the time she was finished some sanity would have crept back into his brain.

-o-o-

"Oh Harry, this looks awful, what do you think happened?"

Hermione sat watching Tonks chatting up a storm with Charlie. She was looking at him and laughing at his jokes and tossing her head back to emphasize how funny she thought they were. Hermione thought the situation was odd because she always thought that Charlie was a bit insipid.

Mrs. Weasley was positively beaming and seemed to be thankful that her efforts were finally paying off. However, Severus sat in the corner in an arm chair, sipping on cider, looking at nothing and no one, being cautious that his eye should look Tonks' way. He had actually cornered Harry to have a word with him twice for the day in a pathetic attempt to look like he was not bothered by her talking to Charlie.

"They must have rowed," Harry said defeated. "Damn, just when I thought I had it covered."

-o-o-

Eight dreadful days and Eight agonising nights. That was how long it had been since things broke down between them.

She had decided to go against his wishes and do the very thing he asked her not to, and so scandalously as well. He couldn't decide who angered him more, her or Charlie. But the question only bothered him at the very moment of thier conversation because it dawned on him a day after the he couldn't stay mad at her. He wanted her too much.

She must have known because she went out of her way to deny him the very thing he wanted. In fact he didn't want much at all, if she would just consent to sit in the study with him and do the work she was hired to do then that would have been fine but if he couldn't find immediate use for her she would retire to her bedroom and not show her face until the following morning.

And when the morning came, she would sit opposite him on the table, (maybe to remind him how desirable she was) and eat in silence and not look at him even though she knew it was killing him that she would not talk to him.

But he persevered through it. He didn't think himself wrong at the time. Why should she be talking with other fellows around him, especially ones who she had sex with? No, it was too risky. Why didn't she see that?

But of course it wasn't a show of trust to demand that she limit her engagements to just him. In fact if she had requested the same thing of him he would think it was rather bold faced. But he would do it for her because he already loved her; that, combined with the fact that he didn't have much people he considered friends anyway. But she did have friends, some of them male and more handsome and younger than he ever could dream to be. And it was this that worried him the most. He felt severely inadequate, a problem that had plagued him all his life. He never felt good enough for anything or anyone. That must have been why he was always so possessive, he was afraid to loose what he did have. But she couldn't know this… he never told her. He could never tell her.

He sighed and turned in his bed and looked up at moon. He wondered if she was sleeping. He missed her... more than he ever thought it was possible to miss someone who lived under the same roof as him.

How could things get so awful after a night like that?

Why didn't she miss him as much as he missed her?

Why didn't she come to him? He always left his door slightly ajar as an invitation but she never came to him. However, if he walked by her room on a cold night he would see that her door had been shut on the inside and he would hear nothing but stillness beyond the door. She had been fine; she was sleeping fine without him. He was the only one who couldn't sleep, who felt the coldness of the separation.

And again yet another night had fallen on the manor and she still hadn't come to him. He even retired early in hopes that she would know that he was not particularly tired but instead she choose to go to the kitchens and talk Pince, a bloody grammatically challenged elf. He was frustrated.

He sat up and stared in the dark. "Well," he said, "if the mountain won't come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go the mountain."

Yes, that was the best thing to do. But he couldn't decide how to go about doing it. He couldn't knock on her door and just tell her that he missed her. No, he had to be there for a purpose, and for five minute his trouble was finding the purpose. Alas! He remembered that he didn't pay her for December.

He quickly summoned a cheque book and made out one to her. He decided to pay her in muggle money because it would have been awkward to present her with a sack of gold after what they shared.

He set off towards to her room in the pitch black. Having wondered down this corridor so much in the past week, he knew it well. He hesitated outside the door and then knocked.

"Who is it?" she provokingly asked from behind the door.

"Severus," he said, knowing she was taking joy in him having to announce himself and therefore his defeat. Who else could it be at the door but him.

"Come in, it's not locked."

He opened the door and walked in the room. He could see that she had taken the liberty of redecorating this room too. That was fine with him as long as he was not subjected to it.

She was on the bed, leaning against the head board with a book in her hand. "Sorry to disturb your reading but I just remembered that I didn't pay you for December."

"December?" she asked.

"Yes… December only." He handed her the cheque and she looked at it.

"Muggle money. Why?"

He shrugged. "Would you like it another way?"

"No, this is fine," she said and she took the cheque and buried it in her drawer next to her. He took the opportunity when her head was turned to walk around the bed and pretend to be interested in something he was seeing outside the window. She seemed to be ignoring him and getting back to her book. He glanced at her quickly to see that she was once again engrossed in what she was reading. She laughed at something and turned the page.

"What sort of book is that, can I ask?" he said.

She nodded. "It's a muggle book."

"Is it very amusing, what is it that made you laugh?"

She looked at him in the corner of her eyes, she was trying to determine where he was going with this. "Just the situation," she said eventually.

"Read it to me…please?" He edged closer to the bed and actually took a seat while she eyed him closely. So far he had succeeded on reaching the bed; it would take an arsenal of skills to actually get to touch her.

She turned the page back and sighed but read it aloud to him.

"Markham," said he in his usual quiet tone, "why do you quarrel with your friends, because you have been disappointed in one quarter? You have found your hopes defeated; but how am I to blame for it. I warned you beforehand, you know, but you would not—"

He said no more; for, impelled by some fiend at my elbow, I had seized my whip by the small end, and—swift and sudden as a flash of lightening— brought the other down upon his head.

She looked at him for his reaction. However it was lost on Severus the humour of the piece so he hardly reacted at all.

"You see," she said, "Markham is being taunted by a man who he thinks is the lover of his Helen, the woman he loves. So he struck him with a horse whip. The humour that you miss is that Markham is just making a complete idiot of himself because the man is actually Helen's brother, who is just protecting his sister's interest."

No doubt the book was brought out for this very reason. "Oh," he said.

"Do you approve of me reading this, or are you going to demand that I get another book that better suits your taste."

He should have known that she was not going to let him off without a word on the incident. But he was not going to argue. He could look back now and know how wrong he had been. "No he said, I wouldn't do that."

She made umm hmm noise and turned her head back to the book. She continued reading.

"Do you want me to leave?" he said.

"You're a grown man; I would never presume I can tell you what to do."

"Then I can stay?" he asked. She was torturing him.

"If you want," she said carelessly.

She didn't look at him she continued to read her book and every now and then she would laugh at another thing that she thought was funny, probably more of Mr. Markham making a fool of himself. He slouched down a little because at that very moment he felt like a fool, sitting up in bed next to a woman who was ignoring him on purpose and still not finding the strength to move from beside her.

"Nymphadora," he whispered."

"Severus," she replied.

"The first time I noticed that James fancied Lily I was thirteen. I felt sick because I was so sure that I didn't stand a chance then. Even though I knew her longer, he was superior to me in almost every aspect." She had stopped reading and closed the book. "But she promised me that she didn't care, that she thought he was an 'arrogant toe rag' and something that belong under a shoe and not in a school. But so fickle is the human mind, one minute she is swearing her hatred for him and the next she is accepting sonnets from him and marrying the bastard."

She looked at him and bit her lips. "Do you think I am some sort of capricious lass then, haven't I always been consistent in my feelings? They may have been postponed but they were still there."

He couldn't answer that question, he didn't know her feelings completely. "You need to understand Nymphadora, that good things always seem to slip right though by hands. It's like trying to hold on to grains of sand. You hold on tightly but still it manages to escape you."

She took his hand.

The impact this had on him he couldn't show but he felt his heart beat with life renewed. He allowed himself to move closer to her, inching slowly until she was in his arms. He felt coldness within him melting away. "I can say I am sorry but it wouldn't make a difference, I am what I am. I think I have wronged you beyond what you are aware of."

"How," she asked pressing his hands to her lips.

"I am an incredibly difficult man to be with, Nymphadora. I should have warned you before we attempted to make any commitments. I won't blame you if you decide that you can't deal with a broken man like me."

She breathed heavily. "I got into this with no sanguine notions about you. I know it will be difficult but I am willing to work hard for you. All I ask is that you try your hardest then I will do my part. Of course there will be times when you will think that I am a wicked woman-- like this week, but know that I am always thinking of you."

"But the demons… I have so many and they won't leave us alone, they'll come out of the wood work one by one."

"Then we'll fight them together, Severus."

"Even when you know all?" he asked.

"Even when I know all." She repeated.

He let the words hang in the air for a while, they were consuming him, wrapping around him tightly, filling his heart with warmth, joy and magic.

A/N: So I had to put this chapter in. It felt right since I changed the ending and all.