They walked to the main house for dinner down the muddy track. Spring was decidedly leaving its wet mark on things. They took their time, Minerva watching Severus discreetly to see if he showed any signs of tiring, Severus indulging every excuse to subtly touch her. Asha met them at the door. Severus stood back to allow Minerva to enter first and did his best to look like a deferential gentleman. His eyes on Minerva and a slight smile on his lips, it was, he found, an easy role in her company. He held her chair for her at dinner and she would touch his arm occasionally when she spoke. Their performance was indeed being scrutinized, he noted, when he caught Niall watching his mother.
Niall asked how Severus had been, his eyes on the man's hands. "You seem much better. I haven't noticed any tremors."
"Well, I think I have lit upon a restorative, so to speak," Severus commented enigmatically. This stopped conversation and both Asha and Niall looked first from Severus, then to Minerva. And back again.
After dinner, Asha excused herself to go check on the young patients upstairs. She did not like to miss a bedtime, she told them and headed up the stairs.
"Perhaps we should be going as well," Minerva suggested with a look first at Severus and then at Niall.
"It is late. We seem to have lingered over dinner," Severus agreed. Turning to Niall he said, formally, "Thank you, Niall, for dinner."
"Are you going to walk back?" Niall asked the pair.
"Perhaps we could Apparate back, Severus?" Minerva suggested.
"Fine," he said, but he looked a bit wary.
"I'll get your cloaks," Niall told them.
Severus bit at his lip to keep from laughing, as the scenario he and Minerva had discussed the previous day started unfolding before them. Minerva stepped closer to him to shush him, and he put a hand to the small of her back. He bent his head to her ear and whispered in his most measured and pleasing tones, "Now? Should I let him catch me snogging his mother now?"
Niall cleared his throat, appearing at the doorway just as Minerva reproachfully and playfully slapped Severus on the chest. "Right-o," he said in a strained voice as he handed them the cloaks, and helped his mother on with hers.
"Let's talk tomorrow, Niall," Minerva said.
"Yes. Good night, mum."
Minerva turned her eyes to Severus and said, "Ready? Hold tight."
Severus locked eyes with her and put his hands on her waist. Minerva immediately Apparated them to the upstairs hallway of the cottage.
Severus swayed a little as he became oriented. "I was dreading that a bit," he admitted. "The Apparating... all these things I'm doing for the first time since recovering."
She squeezed his hand. "Do you want to sleep with me tonight? Just sleep, I mean." He was beginning to see the meaning behind their having Apparated to the hallway between the two bedrooms. "If you'd sleep better on your own, I understand," she told him.
"I'd like to be with you," he said simply.
They got ready for bed in silence. Minerva was pulling her nightgown on when she heard Severus begin coughing in the bathroom.
"What is it, Severus?" Minerva called out.
He groaned. "Ah, it's this nerve tonic I've been working on. You remember at dinner I talked about a restorative."
"We all rather thought you meant me."
He stepped from the bathroom to look at her. "Do you think your romantic sensibilities are perhaps a bit overdeveloped?" He coughed again and shook his head violently as he reacted to the lingering taste in his mouth. "I've been doing some research. Asha got a number of books and supplies for me when you were gone. Most of what I've been working with are easily obtained ingredients."
"But it makes you gag?"
"Well, I think its the fish oil and sea salts. I've never particularly cared for either. The other ingredients seem innocuous enough. Perhaps it would be better if I didn't mix the chocolate in. Asha and Niall probably know some other tricks, ingredients that will not alter the efficacy of the main components, but will allow me to get this down... and well, keep it down."
"Fish oil, sea salts, and chocolate? I think I may be ill."
"My sentiments exactly. Of course, it may be that what's making me gag is the Kali Phosphoricum, knotgrass, hare's liver..."
"Wait, hare's liver? I would think that would exacerbate the nerve problems."
"I am working on the theory that the nerves need to be strengthened, not dulled. That's why the Calming Draught has been ineffective, I believe. It only results in lethargy while doing nothing for the tremors and other nerve problems. And I am not able to really combine the ingredients properly as the only cauldron I have is that battered old one that was in the trunk you brought here."
"Apparently, you should have packed better before your little near death experience, Severus," she said as she climbed into bed.
"Indeed."
"But you think this ... potion has helped."
"I'm fairly certain it has."
"I do not think that Niall and Asha would condone the idea of you experimenting on yourself," she pointed out.
"That is why I found it necessary to experiment on myself," he explained wryly.
"How Slytherin. Anyway, do brush your teeth very, very well, love, and then come to bed," she said dryly. "I will be careful not to jostle you and your repugnant contents."
He woke and she was already up and nearly dressed. She stood in front of an old full-length mirror doing the buttons at her blouse cuffs.
"Minerva?" he called.
"Aye? Yes, Severus?" She turned and saw him stretch sleepily. His pale chest was bare. The hair there was sparse. His dark locks were completely disheveled and she thought she saw some gray coming through. She moved closer to him, finally sitting on the edge of the bed, and reached for his hair.
"I hadn't noticed before, but I believe you are going gray at last, Severus," she commented.
He groaned. "Not 'at last,'" he said with his eyes closed. "I would say the charm that rendered my hair uniformly black was wearing off... 'at last.'"
"Well, I love it," she told him as her fingers played near his temple.
He opened his eyes slowly and rolled over on to his side so that he could touch her. "You should come back to bed," he said huskily.
His words riveted her. She felt nearly giddy inside as she slid her hand under the blankets to run it down his side. She smiled as she thought about him naked in her bed. Should I dally? she thought. Mmmm, yes.
"Oh, my," he managed later.
"I agree," she groaned.
"That was ... fast," he said sheepishly. "I had this notion that I could tease you for hours. But there was no way."
"Its not your fault, I'm too keen for you is all," she told him snuggling into the pillow. "As time goes on, you may get your chance," she said with a smile.
"I'm afraid I'll be no good at this," he said covering his eyes with his hands.
"On the contrary, you are quite good at this," she asserted suggestively.
"Well, thank you," he fired off with aplomb. "But I meant, no good at the 'as time goes on' part." He peeked at her to see if she was following his meaning. "The relationship part. I am in uncharted territory here. The women in my life have not been in my life for very long." He clarified caustically, "I did not usually find it necessary to use a calendar when calculating the length of my relationships."
"You don't have to explain, Severus. And you most certainly do not need to beat yourself up. And I hope you would not ask me to bemoan my past."
He looked at her wondering how to ask. "You didn't remarry," he intoned meaningfully.
"No. I was not against the idea. I like men. I like being in a relationship. But nothing worked out that way. I haven't been celibate all these years, if that is what you are asking. Although I was more celibate than I wanted to be," she complained. "I would be with someone for a while. A month or more. Hmmm," she said sadly, considering, "Or sometimes less. But it wasn't sustainable. Some men tumbled into my bed again and again over the years on something of a cicada's schedule," she mused. "But there was no one I fell in love with. Men I cared for deeply, but somehow never loved – not in the gut wrenching way that pulls you up short."
"Anyone I know?" he coaxed mischievously.
"Severus, such dangerous waters you tread," she scolded. "We worked at the same school for how many years? I would say that we know a great many of same people. So, I could ask you the same thing."
"I never slept with anyone on staff. Mostly, I... went elsewhere."
"Yes, but I am betting on a certain professor who visited from Durmstrang. I could see how she looked at you. She did more than look, too." He said nothing, but seem to grow uncomfortable. "I'm not trying to chastise you, Severus. I'm sorry," she told him with a hand to his arm. "All those years, even before I fell in love with you, I really hoped that you could be happy. I thought maybe she was someone who could make you feel that way."
"I'm not very good at happy." He rolled away a bit, casting his eyes to the ceiling, and seemed to relax. "I loved you, you know. For years."
"I wish I had known," she told him as she cast her arm across his chest to hug him gently. "I knew you liked to argue with me," she smiled. "To tease me, bait me. Play chess with me and even walk with me," she ticked off. "I felt I was someone you liked and trusted. But to be honest, I was all too sure that you felt... well, that I was a maternal figure."
"No," he said and gave a her a short laugh and a wicked grin. "That is definitely not how I saw you. But, I still felt like a Death Eater. I couldn't sully you. I couldn't face the things I had to do and have a relationship with you, our Perfect Minerva. I didn't expect you could love someone like me. Now, perhaps, I see that only you, my Perfect Minerva, could love someone like me."
"You need to stop calling me that. I never deserved that nickname."
"No, you never LIKED that nickname. You did deserve it," he countered. "Don't blame me, it was Rolanda who started it."
"That's a particularly juvenile defense," she said, failing to hide her amusement.
He rolled toward her now so that his face was very close to hers and he told her with a sly expression, "I had this fantasy that to make you fall in love with me, I would have to seduce you without you knowing it was me." She looked at him questioningly. "A sort of... Mask of Zorro thing."
"Mmmmmm," she purred appreciatively. "This is turning into a wonderful conversation. I do like fantasies. But I am afraid we really should get out of bed."
"You're right. Here Niall is afraid to come over because he might catch us in bed. It would be horrible if he was afraid to come over because he HAD caught us in bed."
"AT 11 AM no less. Up you go," she ordered with a push.
Now, my husband (the one who read the last semi steamy scene and wandered off dazed) is insisting that this chapter should have had MORE details of that sort. Hmmmm. Some people are never happy.
