The Loss of Ours: Chapter 9

By Polexia Aphrodite

Notes: The "Aurora" mentioned in the beginning is Aurora Sinistra. Thanks to all those who have been reading and reviewing. Special thanks go to Mark Darcy, who kindly beta-read this chapter for me.

Late August, 1996:

The warmth of summer had lasted until the end of the month. Days before the weather snapped into the chilly, brisk temperatures of autumn, Severus had woken in the early, still-dark hours of the morning to the press of Louisa's lips against his collarbone.

Opening his eyes, he struggled against the indigo ambient light in the room to see the dark outline of her head against his shoulder. Her hand reached up, her fingers traced up his the side of his neck, pushing into his hair. The cool pads of her fingers against the skin of his scalp made his eyes close involuntarily and a soft sigh escape his lips.

She smiled against his chest, pressing her body fully against the side of his. She shifted, meeting her mouth to his neck, jawbone, and lips. Her hand moved lower, sliding under the cool, beige sheets. Need surged within him as he moved against her strokes. By the time her hips finally straddled his, he was overwhelmed.

Later, as he recovered, she rose slightly, an outstretched elbow and a hand, gleaming white against her dark hair, supported her head. She was silent for a long while, her eyes fixed on the rising and falling of his chest, waiting for his breathing to calm.

"Why didn't you tell me you got the Defence post?"

His head turned to face her, but the room was too dark to make out her features clearly.

"How do you know about that?"

"Aurora told me"

He frowned, "For a Slytherin, she's always been disturbingly candid."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she repeated quietly.

"It doesn't—," he hesitated, his expression growing tense, "You know as well as I do what that position means."

She shifted, her face turned away from his. The inability to see her reaction made frustration swell in his chest. He sensed his pupils dilate as he strained against the room's shadows, needing to see her face.

"You're leaving Hogwarts?" her voice was barely audible.

"I can't…I can't say. Not for certain."

She turned back to him, "Yes, you can. You know what's coming. Why aren't you telling me?"

He swallowed, soft light from the room's only window illuminated her face. But, now that he had her gaze fixed on him, he found himself unable to meet it.

He considered each word as it left his mouth to hang in the air between them, "It's just better that you don't know. I wish I didn't."

He heard her sigh, felt her arms circle his shoulders, sensed his arms coil around her bare back. He knew what it meant, that she understood, and that she wouldn't leave.

January, 1997:

Severus' concern for Draco's soul and continued innocence was the definition of superficiality. Were it not for Dumbledore's insistence, he would have been content to let history unfold. The only favors the elder Malfoy had ever performed for him had left him socially powerful, but it had lost him Lily, his self-respect, and his dignity. But he had tried to help Draco.

When he had tried and failed to consult Draco on the boy's plans after Slughorn's Christmas party, Louisa had asked for the chance to try deciphering his strategy.

"You? Why?" Severus had asked.

She had shrugged noncommittally.

"I—I know his mother. He might just feel more comfortable…," she waved her hand in the air, hoping that he would infer an appropriate conclusion to her sentence that she herself could not find.

He nodded, but she could see his jaw clench and unclench.

"You think he'll talk to you because you're pureblooded."

She shifted uncomfortably.

"You know," she began, "it's just how he was raised."

A single dark eyebrow climbed upward.

"And how you were raised, I would imagine," his voice was soft. His eyes met hers without any discernable expression.

She stalled, licking her lips slowly. He stepped closer, bending to place his mouth near her left ear.

"Think your blood's better than mine, Mrs. Snape?"

She could feel her pulse quicken, her heart rate increase.

Of course it is, she could hear Evan's response as though it were him next to her, The ancient Rosier bloodline would put any half-breed to shame.

Her head shook almost involuntarily, willing the offending thought away despite knowing that it was deeply, irreversibly ingrained in her conscious and unconscious mind.

She couldn't meet his penetrating gaze, but sensed him smirk slightly.

"Just as I thought," his tone was indiscernible, "but I suppose it's just how you were raised."

She raised her eyes to his then.

"Severus, it doesn't—that doesn't change anything. I can still-"

"I have a class," he interrupted with a brusque glance at his timepiece, "Talk to the boy. Doubt you'll have much luck though."

He was right.

By early spring, Louisa found herself feeling uncommonly happy. She knew that something was coming, her husband's constantly increasing attitudes of soberness and what seemed to be near-depression told her as much. But she had found a friend in Aurora Sinistra and, since Umbridge's departure had allowed her to move freely about the school, she had undertaken reasonably fulfilling work as Madam Pince's assistant in the library.

And there was something else. Something was different in the way Severus reacted to her. Gradually, in the privacy of their apartments, she was surprised to find him warming to her presence. He was suddenly more apt to ask her opinion on any number of subjects. She would find him pressing against her as they drifted to sleep, knowing that his gesture wasn't an effort to satisfy an uncontrollable sexual impulse, but an attempt to find human contact. After sixteen years, she was coming to feel that she had a husband.

April, 1997:

Perhaps I have changed my mind.

Walking with Dumbledore on Hogwarts' extensive grounds had tested the limits of Severus' ability to control his temper.

The truth was, he had had second thoughts. Those few moments when he had let himself seduce or be seduced by Louisa, had let himself hold her, had noticed her perfume or felt his heart leap at the sight of one of her rare, true smiles or barely suppressed a chuckle at one of her wry attempts at humour, they were all moments of weakness that had made him doubt his mission.

It was because of her that he had strange, wrong thoughts about a future in which he wasn't killed by an angry mob after murdering Dumbledore or condemned to die in Azkaban. Her presence inspired the dreams that tormented him with visions of undeserved happiness, warmth, and comfort that spawned sleepless nights.

He didn't realise how weak he had become until later that night, when he and Dumbledore sat alone in the Headmaster's office. Louisa had made him soft. She had made him into a man whose commitment could be questioned; a man whose commitment to Lily could be questioned.

He decided in that office that he would not let himself be tempted into forgetting her again. He would keep loving Lily. It was all he could trust himself to do.

Always.

Note: The last scene takes place during the flashback scenes in The Prince's Tale in Deathly Hallows. The italicized dialogue has been taken from the original text.