Ch 28

Between Us Two

It was undignified. It was undignified, and there were a hundred more pressing things he needed to be doing.

Hermione being involved in at least the top fifty-seven.

Instead he was hiding from women and children, a fugitive in his own home. He was sneaking, yes sneaking, down his own hallways. He rubbed the mark on his hand reflexively. He wanted— no needed to go to her. But to break the Dumbledore's warding would call down damnation on his head more effectively than Hermione pointing at him, screaming rapist. Not that he didn't feel like one. He couldn't even walk down that hallway without Potter or that Weasley girl and her brother eyeing him like he would go mad and try bursting in there to rape her again. Christ.

So he had to wait, utterly in the dark. No one would speak to him except to interrogate him. So he kept out of the way and he stewed.

Would she scream if she saw him as most of the Weasleys believed? Would she be screaming inside so only he could hear her cries? Would that make it worse? Would she ever forgive him for forcing her to stay?

Had he hurt her? He never had the chance to ask. Would she answer him truthfully?

He'd overheard Potter's girlfriend, say she cringed whenever people approached her too quickly or spoke too loud. She'd never done so before. She had never flinched away from harmless interactions. He was dangerous. She was right to be wary of him. But of Molly? Minerva? The girls who kept her bedside? She was of sterner stuff than that.

Was it because of him? Had he broken something in her?

She'd wanted to go. And he was a selfish bastard for making her stay… live with this, live with him.

He pressed the faintly gleaming red lion on his palm. Did she know? Was she scared? Why couldn't he see her, and touch her hand, and tell her… everything would be alright, because he would make it alright. He'd forced her to live with the situation… he would make things right. She must be so very angry. He didn't think she would try again… but without seeing her he had no way of gauging her. If she were left alone… he worried.

Did she understand… what he understood, because it was in his mind, woven into his power, the power he had stolen from her soul?

Was it in her too? Imprints left from his magic flowing through her body, through her heart, thicker than blood. Did she blame him? She had known, known better than he, the consequence of their choice. And had preferred quietly falling asleep to the damning proof she was trapped forever at the side of…a killer… a dangerous, unprincipled, cruel, old man.

He told himself she had known what she was getting into… but she was so strong, could bear so much.

What reason had she to bear anything else?

She had sacrificed all things, just short of her life, for them, if one could really call what she had left a life worth living. He had already forced her hand, who was he, or anyone, to tell her she must accept that with a docile smile? Accept it like a dumb, blind creature, unable to understand its fate. She was not like Potter, the lamb lead to slaughter. She was too perceptive, too aware. She was the golden lioness, a sphinx, all knowing, tearing out her heart that her children might live from the sacrifice of her body.

He would understand if she hated him for what he had done. Yes, she had agreed, but that was before, before he had hurt her and used her and bound her to him like chattel, before he had ruthlessly cut off her final path of retreat.

Damn… Doubly damned.

He was worse than Dumbledore. Fuck your tormentor or damn the world. At least she'd had the chance to say no, even if all involved knew she would not do it. He'd not even given her the illusion of choice. He had simply decreed she would live, because he knew better than she.

Christ. He was a fool, and a cruel one at that.


Just when he thought sanctuary had been reached… the Lovegood girl was in his lab.

He came up short in the doorway, eyeing the girl. She was just standing there, staring, not at him, but ostensibly at the dust motes swirling though the narrow streams of sunlight. He was not quite sure how to react to her. This one had not confronted him as the Weasley girl, and the French woman had. In fact, he had not seen her at all apart from a moment or two in the hallway.

So he settled for staring blankly at her.

Why was she here? What did she want?

"Professor," she greeted.

"Miss Lovegood."

The girl gave one of her whimsical smiles, utterly unconcerned by his cold countenance, "Hermione wanted you to read this."

She extended a small piece of rolled parchment.

He took the message and closed it in his hand, staring pointedly at Lovegood in the vain hope she would vacate his lab.

She didn't move, "She said she wanted an answer," she piped up when he made no move to read it.

Glancing once at the girl, Snape opened his palm. Grasping the string he felt a small charm brush his fingers, harmless, a recognition ward. At his touch the string unraveled and he unrolled the parchment scrap.

Please come

1pm

HG

Succinct, to the point. Nothing to tell him anything of her mind… only what was necessary. He did not have to ask if she would be as alone as she could manage, or if she had circumvented the barrier. She would not have requested if both Mrs. Weasley and Dumbledore had not been thwarted.

He looked up at the shining blonde girl who was still smiling at him. Why did Lovegood keep smiling? He was the traitor. He was a cold hearted bastard. He had hurt Hermione.

"Yes."

Lovegood smiled even more broadly, "That will make her smile."

And then she was gone before he could ask what in Merlin's name she meant.


Hermione watched Mrs. Weasley brew up another cup of tea. She was steeping it doubly long. She thought the extra caffeine would keep her awake… it had been two days since the twins had introduced her to comatose cozies. Those boys were godsends.

Luna was holding her mug gingerly and like Hermione pretending to sip at the dark beverage. Even the fumes were making them drowsy.

After several minutes Mrs. Weasley slumped forward in a dead faint. Almost immediately she began to snore. Hermione smiled broadly.

"Luna, you need to go," she said looking across at her friend.

Luna smiled, "I think I'll stick around."

"Luna," Hermione began patiently, "There are things between us that… You have to trust me."

"I do, just let me watch for a little while."

Hermione stared at her coldly, putting perhaps more steel into her gaze than was wise to bring to bear on the girl. It was so easy to forget sometimes she was no longer dealing with killers and traitors.

But Luna was stronger than Hermione suspected and held her gaze not with equal steel as another might but with a patient smile. As if to say, I care for you, you won't be rid of me so easily as that.

"If the Flutterwogs don't run from him, I'll go," she assured mysteriously.

So Hermione bowed her head, gracefully accepting her defeat. Luna would stay until she was satisfied. She would stay, but stay quietly to judge a man for a lifetime of sacrifice, and double dealing, and treachery, and death, and a moment's spark of kindness toward a woman whom he owed nothing.

Snape did not enter with a knock. Hermione did not expect him to. He was silent, which let Hermione know he felt watched, only the hardly perceptible brush of his robes along the doorframe as the wood flooring here somehow muffled the usual tap scrape of well worn leather boots under the weight of a full grown man.

His dark eyes flickered first to her, then outward to the most immediate threat, Mrs. Weasley and then the unknown entity, Lovegood. His face remained fixed, in his perpetual grimace, his eyes cold and empty. Slowly, they returned to the woman propped up in his bed. She looked exhausted and too thin swallowed up by the bed. In the fine lines of her face he read uncertainty, just a lick of fear. For her he let his features thaw to mere apathy.

"You severed the barrier. You shouldn't have pushed your magic so soon," he admonished indifferently.

She shrugged, holding her tongue, not trusting herself to speak. She would either curse him or cry, so silence was best. Instead she beckoned him out of the doorway with a flick of her right hand. She was careful to keep her left pressed flat to the blankets, curled in a fist. The door shut and Snape touched his wand, "Muffliato,"

His eyes again flicked from her face to the Lovegood girl, judging her reaction.

"Severus," Hermione breathed, "What—"

She opened her left hand, from a distance he could only make out a small black mark. Slowly he approached, if he noticed the silent assassin's grace with which he habitually moved, or how this seemed to unnerve their watcher he didn't correct the behavior.

He was too absorbed in watching the woman on his bed, analyzing every minute shift in her expression, her breath, how her extended hand trembled slightly with muscle fatigue…or fear. He paused again beside her, noting how she tilted her head back to keep her eyes focused on his, how they did not stray. How her breath fluttered in her breast, and her shoulders tensed to have him looming at her side.

He extended his left hand, letting her make the choice to touch. She did not hesitate to place her hand in his, letting him turn her small palm and study the black serpent. Her fingers stiffened slightly when he passed his thumb over the mark. Perfectly smooth, like his, the mark was actually beneath the first few layers of skin. He suppressed the desire to smile, somehow he suspected that even if he were to attempt to excise the mark, he would find it impressed upon bone. He quickly banished the satisfaction some base part of him felt to know that she was irrevocably his…

Damn, she was right.

"What?" she began again, falling quiet when he opened his right hand revealing the red lioness.

"Oh… oh, handfasted. I suppose I should have seen that given…given…"

He squeezed her hand reassuringly, apology in his touch, but his face was still blank, wary of their watcher, wary of his own reaction to her warm trembling hand in his… She quieted, but the traces of doubt didn't leave her bright amber eyes.

"Severus…are you angry with me?" she mumbled too low for Luna to catch the words, her too bright eyes fixed straight ahead.

Without thinking of Lovegood he reached up and brushed her cheek with careful fingers forcing her eyes to his. He shook his head minutely.

He understood the lure of letting the pain of it go. He understood the draw of the emptiness, when the madness of the world was closing in.

She cast a look at the other girl, "Please Luna,"

The other girl nodded gravely, "As you wish, I wasn't really worried, since the sunslips like him too," and in moment they were alone.

"Severus, just for a little can we get out of here?"

He nodded. He owed her far too high a debt to deny her, "Can you walk?"

She shook her head in the negative.

"May I?" he inquired as he bent to lift her. He understood he was no longer allowed to touch her without her consent, not even if he only meant to help her, especially not then. Not when her eyes were so large, and wary, utterly focused on him. He could not trust his intentions.

She smiled and nodded looping her arms around his neck. He should have known. It had been foolish of him to doubt her. She had given her word not to condemn him. And for reasons unknown to him she was still extending her trust. Despite what he did, despite…

She felt too light, as if she had lost weight in the week since he had seen her last. He held her very gingerly, he did not, could not trust himself. It didn't help that she had used her leverage to press herself up against him. He could feel her warm hands against the back of his neck, her cheek nestled against the base of his throat. He wanted to tell her he wouldn't drop her, and that there was no need to cling… but that would risk her actually letting go.

He suspected he might be tempted to hold her in place were she to pull away.

"This is bad," she murmured.

He almost flinched. Somehow she knew. She always knew what he was thinking, and now she knew his shame. He didn't trust himself to respond.


Oh my good lord, everyone, I am so sorry, I've been moving into my new apartment and starting classes and time just got away from me. Lordy. Apologies again, here's a short bit that I got done and more to come later I promise.

Much love all, and a bit more luna to love on.