Disclaimer: Except for an OC, the characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of JK Rowling.

Warning: Includes discussion about abuse and not completely consentual sex. It's fairly mild, but it's there.

The next morning they lay on the beach under a giant umbrella, enjoying an occasional swim and the nearness of each other. A stray thought bit at Katherine and she traced a finger along Severus's arm.

"There have been more men than I would like to admit to."

"I know."

"I don't know how I fell into it. There was Cyrus, of course, but then there were others. First there was the dueling instructor at the academy. He called me a 'frigid bitch,' but I just didn't know what I was doing. I don't think he understood. Then there was my first partner when I worked for Magical Investigation in the US. It kind of went from there. Occasionally it helped a case, although it was never the man I was investigating, before."

Impatience crossed his face as he drew away from her. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I just wanted you to know... No one has ever touched me as deeply as you have."

He smiled and pulled her close, nudging his hips against hers. "Really?"

She chuckled. "I didn't mean like that! Although, since you mention it, your abilities, and—oh yes—your equipment, are divine." She looked at him seriously. "I meant that I have strong feelings for you. It's a bit of a problem."

"How so?" He leaned up and looked down at her.

"Well, when things are finally back to normal, a time will come when I will probably have to turn you in to the authorities. I don't know how I'm going to do it."

"Then don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't turn me in."

"I can't see a way to avoid it. If you could only explain what happened to me... please?"

"There's no explanation." He pulled her into his arms. "Here, there's nothing but us. When things are back to normal, no matter who wins, come back to my island, Katherine. Come be with me. You know I've been a Death Eater, and I've done everything that entails.

"There have been quite a few women for me, too. I have taken care that none have suffered because of me. That has included making sure there were no children."

"What about the night—"

"Ah, New Years Eve was the one exception. I was surprised by you. I didn't expect you to crash the ball, nor to come so quickly to my bed. It was the only time in my life that I've ever been fully caught up in the moment." He played with the tie to her bikini bottom. "You are different for me, too. I can trust you; I don't think I could even have trusted Lily with the things you know. You're the only one I ever even imagined bringing here, and you fit. Come back when the rest of it is all over. Neither of us will truly fit in to either world, regardless of who wins. Let's just drop everything and come here."

Indecision was fluttering across her face and he realized it was the best he would get just then. He smiled and leaned in to kiss her. Their bathing suits seemed to melt away as they suddenly couldn't get close enough. Their time together was getting short and they desperately wanted to make as much of it as possible.

Katherine looked up at a saner moment and realized that the sun was in a far different position. "It's a good thing your Hogwarts robes are so concealing," she laughed. "Otherwise you would have some explaining to do about the odd tan you seem to have back here." She stroked his legs.

Severus rolled around, pulling Katherine on top of him. "We'll just have to get you the matching tan." Madness seized them again and they stayed under the umbrella until Bonaparte summoned them to dinner.

Their time together was passing from a search for advantage into an expression of affection. Later that evening, they sat on the balcony adjoining the bedroom in a large lounge chair. They watched the moon, while idly caressing each other and making light conversation.

"Why did you keep the badger key chain?" Katherine asked.

"You don't ask why I took it."

"All right then, why did you take it?"

"I took it on a dare from Rosier. He told me to see if I could get something small from you without your noticing."

"So why did you keep it?"

He looked a bit caught out. "Well, once I had succeeded in doing that, I tripped or bumped several other students and took trinkets. Then one day Dumbledore noticed and took me to his office. He told me that the Dark Lord, even before he was a student, would do things to people and then take small trophies. I found ways to give them all back except yours. Yours is the one that proves I could do it, you see. Now I've given yours back to you as well."

Katherine looked at him and pondered what she had just learned. He chose, while a student, not to do something that would make him like the Tedious One and yet he still became one of that man's followers. "You're such an enigma."

"If I keep you guessing, does that mean you will continue to come see me?" He was gratified to see her blush. "So how did the coltish Katie Asher become the self-confident Katherine Stanton?" Severus asked, teasingly.

Katherine pulled away and sat up straight. "Do you really want to know?"

"You know everything about me, now."

"I'm not sure that's true." She looked at him and sighed. "All right. The first time I knew my father hated magic, I was five years old. Dad was yelling at Mum because she used a spell instead of starch on his shirts and he could always tell the difference. I wanted him to stop yelling at her, so I took my dolly out into the living room and made it dance. I had just discovered that I could do it that day. Dad called me an evil monster and hit Mum with the back of his hand. He didn't know until then that I was magical, too. He told her it was her fault for producing me."

Snape's hands tightened into fists. He knew this story all too well.

"After that, I hid my magic as well as I could, but it was too late. My parents constantly quarreled over me. Father wanted me to be 'normal,' whatever that meant, and Mum wanted me to do what I wanted. You got a glimpse at breakfast yesterday. He used physical forms of persuasion and therefore generally got what he wanted.

"When my Hogwarts letter came, Mum had to sneak me out of the house to get my things. Uncle Sonny came and took us to Diagon Alley so we could shop. He was actually Mum's cousin, and he looked out for her whenever he could. I later learned that he provided the funds, too. On the day when I had to meet the Hogwarts Express, Uncle Sonny picked me up and saw me off. I never quite found out what my mother must have suffered after we left her there alone.

"I was accepted into the Auror program during my seventh year at Hogwarts. My mistake was in going home before I went to London."

"What did your father do?" He wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

"Mum didn't know about it, but Dad had promised me to the owner of a local tavern in exchange for having his bar bill erased. On the morning after I got home, I woke up to see my father holding a white dress and telling me to hurry. I spent about five minutes arguing, but he told me he'd kill Mum if I didn't do it." Katherine looked up with a white face. Severus could see lines drawn in it. "He was slowly killing her anyway, but I couldn't let it happen like that. Uncle Sonny had to be away, so he couldn't help right then. There was nothing I could do, so that day I became Mrs. Cyrus Stanton."

Severus reached to touch her, but Katherine slid away and curled up, pulling her knees to her chest and straightening her dressing down over them. "I wasn't quite eighteen yet. I had no idea—I had no experience before my wedding night. I had heard the girls at school talking and thought that it would somehow be special. Cyrus wasn't drunk and awful like my father. He was nice enough, even if at twenty-five he was a bit too old. That is, I thought he was nice enough. He took me to his apartment and ripped the dress off, and quickly discovered just how young and inexperienced I was.

"Cyrus, of course, thought that was wonderful. He promised Father he could have free drinks forever after that night." She shivered. "It hurt... Somehow I got used to it. I found a job as a clerk in a store and made a little money for myself. It didn't last long. Where my father turned to drink, Cyrus turned to the ponies...and anything else he could place a bet on. He took my earnings from me, and when I didn't immediately hand them over, he—well, I think you can guess what he did. He was excited when he first realized about my magic, but after I explained to him about Gamp's Law and he realized I couldn't just make him money, he was as bad as my father about it."

His hands clenched again as he sat beside her. Having asked for this story, he couldn't tell her to stop, now. "I don't know how it could possibly happen in such a hateful home, but I became pregnant." Katherine looked up. "Is it odd that I could be happy about carrying a child when I feared and hated the father so much? The baby was something for me to love. I had this foolish thought, that if I could have Cyrus's child he would stop the gambling...and the other things. I even thought maybe we could start to have a halfway decent marriage. Nothing really changed, though. Oh, he bragged to the boys at the bar about how manly he was, but that was it. And then—"

Katherine buried her face in her knees. She didn't speak for a minute, and when she did, Severus could barely hear her. "I was about five months along. I needed to pay the midwife, so I went to her one night straight from work with my wages to give her a partial payment. Cyrus met me at the door of our flat. It was a walk-up. He was so angry that I didn't have any money with me that he hit me and slammed me against the wall. I fell down the stairs and woke up in a Muggle hospital.

"Mum and Uncle Sonny were there. They sat with me while the doctor told me about things like broken ribs. It took him a long time to get to the point, but the doctor finally told me that the baby had been lost and that it would take a miracle for me to get pregnant again."

Katherine looked up with a look like flint in her eyes. "Cyrus was with my father in the hallway and asked the doctor if the baby was a boy or girl. The doctor told him it was a boy. Cyrus swore and yelled that I was useless and he would kill me for letting his son die. Everyone could hear him. He slammed into my room with my father right behind him and Uncle Sonny killed them. He simply lifted his wand and killed my husband and then my father with Unforgivable Curses.

"When I got better, it was arranged that I could train as an Auror after all, but I would have to go to the United States. It was around the time that You-know-who was killed, and Magical Law Enforcement was a bit dodgy right then. You no doubt know the rest from the files about me. That's how I went from being such a silly girl to what you see now."

As Katherine finished her narrative, she bowed her face toward her knees, again. For several minutes neither spoke. A shudder ran through her body. Severus stood and picked her up.

He carried her back into the bedroom and laid her on the bed. Katherine lay quietly as Severus massaged and caressed her. As he ran his hands over her skin, he located the various scars. He had always assumed that they had come from her training or her job, but now knew better. He knew how certain marks were made. As he found the scars, he whispered into them and and kissed them.

The tears started running down her face when he reached the few marks that gave evidence of her son. He finished and held her in his arms as the quiet weeping became open crying and then great shuddering sobs. He stroked her hair all the while, crooning comforting sounds to her.

"I don't know why I did that," she said when she finally regained control. "I never cried the whole time it was happening."

"What happened to your Uncle Sonny?"

"Kingsley tried to hush everything up, but he had to go to Azkaban. Since they were Muggles, it was an assumed attack on Muggles. Dumbledore managed to get him moved into the Janus Thickey ward at St. Mungo's as a criminally insane patient. It was another reason I had to go to across the ocean for my training... the supposed taint."

"Where's your mum?"

"She had been fading away for some time. It had been years since she had done any magic other than the very simplest of household spells, and she hardly used those any more because Dad hated it so much. When Dad was killed, she started failing. It was as if, as if—" Katherine didn't know how to put it.

"As if she had only stayed alive out of a spiteful desire to outlast him."

Katherine looked up in surprise. "That's exactly it."

"That's how it was for my mother, too. She died shortly after my father."

"My mother died not long after all of that happened, right after I started training in New England. I never cried for her, either. I wasn't there and it seemed so unreal."

He held her some more. He thought she might go to sleep, but when he leaned down to kiss her forehead she raised her face to his and invited his kisses and more. The dynamic of their caresses somehow changed. Katherine abandoned herself to Severus and while he enjoyed the power it gave him, he was awed by a need to give to her before he took for himself.

His kisses were filled with gentleness and sought to draw out her desires. He kissed her endlessly, making her feel adored. His caresses were light and careful and when his lips followed his hands, she sighed with a new bliss that overcame her. She leaned up to touch him and he let her explore his body. She wanted to know him and find his hurts. As he had done earlier, she kissed every scar that was found by her fingertips. She stroked his face and ran her fingers through his hair. He held his breath as she lightly traced the outline of his Dark Mark. Suddenly the moment came in which they could no longer wait.

Though they knew well the mechanics of the act, this experience was new to them and every caress or motion became different from anything either had known before. Even as Katherine welcomed Severus into her body, she also took him into her heart. A new sort of ecstasy settled upon them as they finished and for the first time they slept clasped together. Katherine was held securely in arms that understood her pain. Simply by encircling her, those arms seemed to pledge that they would prevent that sort of hurt from happening to her again.

After breakfast, they would travel back to England and go their separate ways again. Katherine looked across the table at the man reading a newspaper and wished they could stay on the island forever. Whatever happened in real life, the cottage in her daydream would forever afterwards be an island villa. She slid a small box across the table.

He looked around his paper. "What's this?" He opened it and found a Golden Snitch.

"It's the one from the Quidditch match last summer. It will open for you since you're the one who caught it. I was trying to think of anything in the world that would be appropriate to put inside, but I finally decided that you will probably have the best thing on hand. I've charmed it to fly from your pockets to somewhere near your hands if you are ever in great need."

He looked thoughtful. "I think I know exactly what to put in it. Thank you." She smiled in relief and he smiled back. "Why is this so important to you?"

"I decided... that is I think... I mean—" She took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. "I just hope that you will be given that chance to discover whether you can find love a second time."

He stood up and walked around the table. He took her hand and lifted her to stand next to him. "Katherine, if I find it, will I find you, too?"

She was barely breathing, but looked into his eyes without flinching. "If you want me."

He crushed her to him, more savagely than they had ever embraced. She didn't mind. "Why now?" he asked the universe. He kissed her, over and over, until the clock in the hallway chimed the hour he had set for departure.

He took her hand and they went back outside to Apparate back to a quiet part of the bigger island. They spoke of inconsequential things as they looked for a viable object to make a Portkey. He described his plans for the end of the school year while she described visiting her various flats and apartments to decide which to sell. At last they found something and within minutes were back on English soil. From there they Apparated, he to Hogwarts and she to the apartment where she had very nearly died so many years before.

The Headmaster returned to his office with mixed feelings. He was filled with a sort of hope for a future with the witch who had somehow displaced Lily in his life. He was also concerned that the future might not let them be together.

The previous Headmaster was quick to greet him. "Hello, Severus, how was your trip?" asked the portrait of Dumbledore.

"It was..." He couldn't finish it. The portraits all turned to look at him. "I think she told me everything. She finally trusts me." He looked back up at Dumbledore's portrait. "Was there really nothing that could be done for her injuries? I think they haunt her."

Dumbledore sighed. "She refused to go to St. Mungo's, Poppy was far too busy to look at her just then, and the other young wizard I knew who was skilled at many forms of Healing was grieving at an undisclosed location."

Severus had the grace to look embarrassed. "I needed it at that time, but I'm starting to think it was a colossal waste."

"Don't look at it that way. If you had met her then you would not have loved her. She was a frightened child and the angry young man you were would never have looked upon her as you do now."

Snape sighed. "That may be, but what choices since then might have been different? For the first time since Lily died, Albus, I want to live. I want to survive this war and build a future."

"You have the means, don't you?"

"I suppose." Snape's arm was tingling, which drew him into another train of thought. "I have to carefully reconstruct my thoughts, Albus. The witch broke through everything and my mind is a mess. Some of our experiences, however, will be the sort of thing he's looking for, and much that she has told me is actually useful... I felt such rage toward her father and husband, that if they were not already dead I would search for them."

The Headmaster in the portrait regarded the man walking toward the private rooms. There was nothing he could do beyond offering a word of advice and that was not wanted at the moment.

Kingsley Shacklebolt let himself into Katherine's apartment and was greeted by the business end of her wand. "Have you lost your mind?" he asked.

"What did I name my son?" she demanded.

"Salvatore, after your Uncle Sonny," he responded easily. "I'm going to assume that only you would know to ask that question and consider that you're not a trap. Why would you think to ask that question today of all days?"

Katherine went back to the couch and sat down. "I've succeeded with him. If the Ministry were working in its normal way, he would turn himself in and make a full confession. I'm sure of it."

Kingsley sat on a chair across from her. "You've gotten him to fall for you to the point that he would face the Dementor's kiss?"

"Yes, I think so," she answered.

"That's incredible, Katherine, but I have to say that's cold. I've done some hard-hearted things, but I don't think I could ever do what you did to accomplish that."

She smiled and looked a bit hopeless. "It doesn't matter."

"Because of the way things are now, you mean? We're going to win this war, you know, and then we will be in control of the Ministry again."

She shook her head. "It still doesn't matter."

He looked at her and saw the red rings around her eyes. "Why not?" he asked, gently.

She looked up. "It doesn't matter because if he ever tries to turn himself in, I will give my life if necessary to prevent it."

Kingsley looked at her over folded hands for a slow beat. "It's like that?"

"Yes."

"How did this happen?"

"He knows everything about me, and he doesn't mind. He still wants me."

"How long ago did you see him?"

"I spent two days with him. He owns an entire island in the Mediterranean. We got back three days ago."

"And when you were gone you... just talked a lot?" Kingsly asked.

"Don't be daft," Katherine said with a knowing smile. "We did talk about a great many things and suddenly I remembered what I was like all those years ago. I was such a foolish little girl, thinking it would all come out right somehow. I'll never be that little girl again, but somehow I'm not the woman I became after all of that, either. She's lost to me right now, too. I guess it's a good thing my reputation is smashed to bits. The thought of taking a case and all that might come with it sickens and frightens me."

"Did he tell you what happened?"

"No, but somehow I know I'm right about it, and I'm sure there's still a little of the Elixir of Life."

"How can you know that?"

"Because I obliquely told him that if he ever needs it I hope he uses it and he just as obliquely said he would."

"You know that if you two ever have kids you will need to learn how to state things explicitly."

Katherine laughed as tears came from her eyes. "I guess it's just as well that we'll never have them."

Kingsley stood and crossed over to the couch so he could put an arm around her. "What have you done since you got back?"

She looked around. "Pretty much what I'm doing right now."

"Most women eat ice cream by the pint when going through this sort of thing."

"I don't have any ice cream, and I just want to be with him."

"You can't, right now. If things are as you say they are, he needs to be able to act alone."

"I know, I know. Kingsley, this isn't my fight, but I want to be there to help. How do I know if something important is happening?"

He dropped a coin into her hand. "Here, carry this."

She looked at it. "A Galleon?"

"It's not real money. Harry Potter's friend Hermione figured out how to charm these. Keep it in a pocket and when you feel it get warm, look at it. A place and perhaps a time will be listed on the one side. That's where the action will be. In the meanwhile, I need to check in with some others. You should get dressed for work and do what you do best."

A/N: Thank you, kind reviewers! Thanks as always to Mark Darcy for beta reading.