Chapter 21 Turning Pages
Myriam's eyes questioned Geneviève.
„Stay, dear! It will be easier for him when he recovers his senses and feels he is not alone….. ", the elder woman said gently. She understood exactly what kind of feelings existed between Myriam and Severus for so long now. Sometimes she thought, that she knew perhaps even better then the two themselves.
Geneviève motionned her husband and Albus Dumbledore out of Severus' rooms in the Northern Tower of Montmuran. She felt exhausted and drained but nevertheless relieved. The broken collarbone was neatly fixed. He'd be numb and stiff for a day or two, but there shouldn't be any more pain. The old scars on his back had been more of a problem. It had taken her some time to figure out what the Dark One had done to create this bloody mess that would not allow itself to be mended with even the strongest healing spell. He had used his wand like a knife! And with the wand that had tortured and killed so much, Voldemort had employed a tool full of poison and dark magic.
But Snape's mother was not only a Healer and an accomplished Potions Mistress. She was also a gifted Herbologist: Symphytium officinale was powerful remedy if one knew how to use the plant. It was a notorious double edged sword - as all members of the Boraginaceae family, but if the roots and leaves were correctly distiled into a tincture, they did not only inhibit the infection of a wound, they also stimulated the natural healing process spectacularly and relieved pain. He'd have to endure a bandaged back for some few days only...
„Let him in peace now, will you!", Geneviève ordered Dumbledore and her husband with a cutting voice that did not tolerate the slightest contradiction, when she realized that both men - yearning for information from Severus first direct encounter with Voldemort after thirteen years - hesitated. Then she closed the door firmly shut and left the rest to Myriam's discretion.
Considering the fact that her son was strong and physically fit, Geneviève knew that he'd be back on his feet within 24 hours at longest. She was nevertheless conscious that more often then not the memories of pain were the real handicap for speedy recovery. When Severus had returned from the first war with Voldemort, it had taken her hardly a months to come to an end with his festering wounds, the cracked ribs, a sever pneumonia, malnutrition and all the other physical signs of brutal interogators and detention methods close to Medieval standards. But none of her crafty potions, powerful prayers and currative herbs had been able to eradicate the aftereffects from inumberable Cruciatus Curses maintained on him for too long. Cruciatus Curses did not show up on ones body, they scared ones soul! And Severus stubborn refusal to talk about the dungeons of the Ministry and the death row of Askaban had made things worse then. Myriam had tonight perhaps a better chance then anybody else, to make Severus let go his memories and turn the page!
„I need a minimum of three fingers of something terribly strong and alcoholic now!", she made Aurelian and Albus, who were both dead silent advance towards the central wing of the fortress and away from Severus' tower.
Geneviève, the healer and Potions Mistress, completely detached from her emotions of being a mother in that very special case of Severus, whom she'd rather entrusted to the care of a colleague if there had not been dire emergency, only to protect herself from seeing her child suffer, was intrigued by how shocked those two grown up males, both with tough war experience had been, when it had come to face this very reality of reopened hostilities with Voldemort, the monster of their past.
Albus himself and Alastor Moody - Mad-Eyed Moody- had sent Severus easy handed and in cold blood to receive the Dark Mark burned into his flesh fifteen years ago. There had been no choice, but to take a complete outsider with a totally different background and training to infiltrate the ranks of Voldemort.
All others who'd ever given a try to approach the Dark Lord had not even survived a forthnight after having been accepted into his ranks. Most of them had died terrible deaths, some had simply disappeared from the surface of the world, never to reappear again.
Severus with his down to earth approach, a absolutely non-magic elite soldier's training and his apprehension forged under the command of dear Claude Fillon, that to save many sometimes it is necessary to kill a few, had kept his cover for two long years.
And when the remainders of Voldemort's rank and file had started to stir again and spread mayhew three years after the Dark Lord's fall, Albus and Alastor had naturally turned back to her son with his experience and untarnished 'reputation' as a dark wizard to reintegrate their ranks. They had had strange feelings that all was not over and that problems would soon begin again.
Sev had accepted only half-heartedly to re-enter the game, but their own French Ministry of Magic and Patrick Delacour de Saint Germain pushed him, not to spoil his talents on non-magic intelligence work in the non-magic „Service Action"(1)of the non-magic DGSE just because he enjoyed poking his magic nose in the profane non-magic science of bio-chemistry. And Merlin himself had had a word with her son! When Dumbledore finally dealt in one of the very best Potions Labs in Europe including the Hogwarts Collection of Alchemy Treaties which was second only to the Prague Collection at the Hradçin, Severus had finally given in.
The predicted big troubles with the Dark Side started almost instantaneously, when young Harry Potter left his miserable childhood and his muggle relatives for a first school term at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft. Unfortunatelly, the boy started the same year, Lucius Malfoy's viscious brood had come to that place, making Severus' life even more difficult, because now he was under constant and direct observation by one of the worst dark wizards the British Isles ever had produced.
And contrary to many other dark ones, Malfoy senior was cunning, highly intelligent and elusive to the point of having made most normal and honorable magic folks forget his gory past and loyalties.
When Albus Dumbledore had asked Severus only five weeks ago - in cold blood and fully calculating his bet- to return with the Death Eaters and actively reintegrate the services of the Dark Lord, he had been fully aware that this step would mean either death or suffering and physical harm for the young one. But these clear and present dangers had been abstract notions, at best ........for Albus and Moody! They were thinking ........in terms of .......strategy!
Genevieve gave a small sigh and shook her head. The mother deep inside was very angry with Dumbledore who played a dangerous and wicked game of chess against Voldemort. Even deeper inside she was furious with Aurelian, her own husband, who had given Severus all these damned traits of character that made him so terribly efficient in that game of survival that was war! And last, but not least she fumed against Sev himself......Geneviève called a house elf and asked for a bottle of Calvados(2) and three glasses………….She'd need more then three fingers of that beverage tonight, not to shout at these foolish males and their foolish hero playing!
Myriam looked down for a while on Severus. His breathing was by now more regular and firmer. The blood had been washed off, the ugly wounds on his back were mercifully hidden under clean white bandages. Genevieve had administered a solid potion to help him recover from this night' dreadful trial. He was still pale, but it was not this ashen colour of a walking corpse. She pulled off her dark blue silken night gown and slipped under the sheets.
Carefully, not to wake him, she moved her body close to his. Her arms cuddled around his lean, muscular frame, holding him as tigh and firm as she could. With great relief she registered his unconscious reaction to the warmth of her touch: He turned around and buried his face against her shoulder, his hands found their way down to her slender waist. His tense muscles relaxed more and more and the trembling -aftereffect of repeated Cruciatus Curses maintained for to long - ebbed down.
She dug her face into his raven black hair and closed her eyes.She had been terrified when he had crumbled into her arms in the dark. She had been in the Medieval Garden until long after midnight. Sitting by herself with a cup of tea, trying to banish the fear from her mind. When Severus had suddenly left the diner table without saying a word of excuse or explanation, she had felt almost physically that his Dark Mark was burning. Voldemort was summoning his Death Eaters!
Myriam felt a slight caress over her back. Gently she was pulled closer. She had the impression that Severus was slowly returning to the world of the living, not fully conscious but no longer totally numbed and drowned in pain. She slipped a soft kiss on his forehead, then she worked her way slowly down to his lips. Although it was pitch dark in the bedroom and she could not see, she felt that he'd opened his eyes. She felt them on her skin and they were warm and loving.
He returned Myriams kiss very gently, telling her in a language without words, that he desired to bring her even closer, that he trusted her so much that he was willing to give himself up to her, even in his present half-conscious and vulnerable state.
Severus could have told her these things, but his heart commanded, that words were but volatile and void. Under the present circumstances and knowing that the final battle with Voldemort had just begun and that its outcome was more then uncertain, he would never ever dare to say certain things. He understood that his own future was unclear and hidden in the mist. Although he had inherited powers to see, he was unable to see for himself and as Myriam had been to closely linked to him for too long, he could not see for her either.
His refusal to speak of love was the strongest magic he had to protect her from what may come. It was even stronger then a Fidelius Charm. He had to be sure that she was far away and unattainable for the monster that was the Dark One. Knowing her close to the eternal rings of stone, the wards of Montmuran and the protective forests of Brocéliande allowed him to do what he had to do without risking any unforgivable mistake.............His hand caressed her small, firm breasts, then it moved down to her flat belly.
She shivered slightly and opened her tighs just enough to allow him in.
Her body trembled and she let his lips go, digging her face back into his long silky raven hair. Silent tears of relief made their way down Myriam's cheeks. All she felt were trust and affection and his desire to please her. There was not even a hint of dispair or attemt to take just a moment of comfort. He knew exactly what he was doing and what he wanted her to understand. Myriam allowed herself to let completely go now, to abandon herself and to simply accept this trust of his. She was no longer frightened of his reaction, if she'd dare to touch these wounds of another war that had been freshly reopened, because she realized that this time he had not broken to pieces. He simply turned the page and continued with his life.
1. The military component of the French DGSE -Direction Générale dela Sécurité Exterieur (MI 6 equivalent); these soldiers are not only employed in so-called ‚dirty jobs' in the field of human intelligence.Some of them have very solid scientific background in high-tech fields like information technologies, bio-chemistry or nuclear physics.
2. 2A very strong alcoholic beverage from apples, habitually aged in an oak casket. Homegrown brands on farms in Normandy and Brittany can touch the 70% mark.