In the dark, he reached out and dragged a finger down her spine.
"I love you, Felicity," he said.
She was standing with Severus in the garden. It was a blustery, gray day, but neither of them cared. It was good to just feel the wind, and try to let it blow away their terrible luck.
"He said he loves me," Felicity said, looking away from Severus and hugging her arms around herself.
Severus's lips twisted into a strange little smile.
"And how does that make you feel?" he asked her.
"Sick to my stomach."
"Do you think he does?"
"Of course not. This is just another power play. He knows I'm not sick with obsession for him anymore, and he wants to get his control back. If he can't own me, he has nothing."
"Have you considered that he's telling the truth?"
"I considered it," she said, "for about 15 seconds, until my head stopped spinning and I remembered where I was."
"Lucius, what do you think you're doing to that girl? Telling her that you love her?"
"I don't remember inviting you back into my home, Severus."
They had come together in the entryway, Lucius apparently on his way out onto the porch, Severus on his way in.
"Felicity and Draco invited me; they've been pestering me with letters for weeks. As a matter of fact, I've been around a few times and you never seem to be here."
"Felicity isn't supposed to write letters."
"Oh, Draco does all the actual writing. They're very clever, those two."
"Yes, too clever. Very well, if the children want you here, you may stay."
"We weren't discussing whether or not I could stay."
"Weren't we?"
That night, Lucius invited Severus to stay for dinner, but only as a response to the fact that he was still there when the house-elves brought the food to the table. They all sat very uncomfortably - Lucius at the head of the table, Draco and Felicity on one side, Severus on the other – in complete silence. After the dinner plates had been cleared, as they waited for dessert, Lucius cleared his throat and placed his hands on the table.
"Felicity," he said.
"Lucius," she replied.
"There is something the Dark Lord and I have been talking about regarding you. Severus has been privy to some of the conversations, haven't you?"
"Lucius, I don't believe now is the time for this discussion," Severus said.
"I'll thank you not to undermine me in my own home, Severus. Now, Felicity, I doubt you're very happy here."
"What was your first clue?" she said. This was met with a very disapproving look.
"And since you've not produced any children," he continued, a flush rising up both her and Draco's necks, "he and I have thought that maybe it is time to return you to your…well, where would you return, Felicity?"
This was cruel. Felicity had often thought about where she could go if she somehow managed to escape the Manor. In the early days, Hogwarts was the obvious choice, but she knew that Hogwarts was now a very different place, and that she was far too old to go back there anyway. So where then? She had no home to speak of, besides where she sat. If Lucius didn't want her, her parents certainly wouldn't. Felicity couldn't ask so much of Roger; to take her back after she had been married to another man for years would be again, cruel. And from what she understood, all of her other friends were on the run. The world, based on what Draco told her, was only getting Darker.
"Hm," he said to her silence, "well, maybe that is something to be discussed another day. The Dark Lord would also request, obviously, that your memory of these years be completely wiped, and that you would take no material goods from the Manor. We can't have you selling secrets."
"But wouldn't Obliviating so much time from someone's memory be very risky?" she asked, finally managing to speak. "Don't people end up completely brain dead after something like that?"
"Oh yes," Lucius said, "there are certainly risks."
She looked down and concentrated on the dessert that had been set in front of her. A poached pear, swimming in slowly melting ice cream. Then she dared to glance up, and found Severus staring at her in a very unusual way. When their eyes met, he raised his eyebrows, and she could suddenly hear his voice deep inside her head.
The War may be over sooner than you think, it said. Resist the offer.
And then Severus's eyes snapped away, and the connection was gone. If Lucius noticed anything in this exchange, he did not say so. Draco, however, was looking very quizzically at them both.
"And if I refuse, Lucius?" she asked, picking up her spoon.
"If you refuse," he said, "life shall go on."