A/N: The title for this chapter is shamelessly stolen from the Leonard Cohen song of the same name. It seemed to fit. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. It was a good excuse to procrastinate on my exam revision! :p

38 - Tonight Will Be Fine

Severus was restless. Of course, that was nothing new. He'd never been the calmest of people, not in his own mind, and any peace and quiet he'd been able to get had been shattered as soon as he started on this whole mad idea of spying. While he hadn't ever considered himself the type to rely on other people, let alone to need their company, he was finding that maybe it wasn't as easy as it had always been. The spying was a big secret, big enough to choke him, and he didn't even need to talk about it, so much as to be around someone who he didn't have to worry about finding him out.

Laura hadn't talked to him since Runcorn and the Astronomy Tower. Well, she had – "Pass the dandelion root", "We're going to run out of Flubberworm", or "Could I borrow a little of your wormwood?" – but not really. Not meaningfully. He recognised that she was right not to, and in fact, the logical part of him was relieved she understood the danger enough to take that attitude, but no matter how hard he tried, he wasn't a logical being. He could compress it down as much as he liked, but there was still a wildly emotional core to him, and it was screaming she doesn't love you.

And he didn't need her to love him. So it should have been fine.

Except it wasn't.

NEWTs were looming. Thankfully, things had gone fairly quiet on the war front, and Severus had already decided it was time to take a break from passing on information before people started to get suspicious. Even so, he couldn't focus. He kept finding himself moving, jumpy and full of nervous energy, pacing or fidgeting. It seemed to go unnoticed, among the tension of every other NEWTs student in the place, but it scared him. He was losing control. He could feel himself slipping. He should have been able to stop it, it should have been fine.

Except it wasn't.

On that last raid, he'd come back dazed and aching, with a deep cut across his chest and a numb agony in his leg, and the first thing he'd done had been head to the library in the hope that she'd be there. He'd wanted to know that he was back, that he was alive, that he was fine.

Except he wasn't, and eventually even he had to admit to that.

He clung onto denial right through April, keeping his head down and trying with limited success to concentrate on his work. He had more immediate things to worry about than his own health, after all – NEWTs, the war, the future. Besides, he told himself, repeating it until it was lodged indeliably in his brain, he was fine. He was always, always fine. But the more he told himself that, the more it sounded like he was trying to convince himself, and the more he was certain that he couldn't keep it up. Still, he went on pretending, keeping his head bowed and his face stony as though he didn't feel like curling in a corner and shaking until the world went away.

At last, after his practical Potions exam – laughably easy, even in his reduced state – he gave up entirely. As he'd done to Lily all those months ago, he charmed the note so only Laura could read it, then sent it fluttering up to her dorm. We need to talk, Baines. Meet me by the sloe as soon as you can. Then, added after a couple of moments of struggle, Please. S.

Then he went outside to wait, settling into position hidden from the school, with his Charms notes open on his lap.

She was prompt, he'd give her that. "Why couldn't you tell me by note again?" she asked, sitting down beside him without waiting to be asked. She looked almost as tired as he did, he thought distantly, and her round face had gained deeper shadows and harsher contours lately. That stung a little. So did her brisk attitude.

"...It's not about that," he said, after a moment. "I'm not giving you intel while NEWTs are going on. Two a month is pushing it as it is."

"Okay," she said slowly, running her plump fingers through her hair. "What is it, then? You know you're risking us being seen, don't you?"

That felt like a dig. "Of course I know!" he snapped, sharper than he meant to. "What, you think you're the expert here? You're not the one risking your neck!"

She recoiled, hurt slamming down across her face, and Severus immediately regretted his tone. Taking a deep breath in through his nose, he struggled to bring himself under control as she moved to get up. "Don't leave," he said, quieter, reaching out for her hand. "I didn't mean it like that. I just..."

"I know." Sighing, Laura collapsed back down next to him. "But, Severus... I know," she repeated, trailing off, and looked at the Lake with clear misery tight in her expression. Severus wished he had some idea of how to make things better, but he'd never been any good at that kind of touchy-feely stuff. Instead of reaching out to touch her shoulder, as he wished he could, he drew his hand back and folded his fingers together over his knees, not looking at her.

"I," he started, and then fell silent again, not knowing what to say. It was there somewhere, building up behind the wall of fear and emotion, but he didn't have the words to make it real. Words, he thought bitterly, could be just as useless as people right when you needed them most. Against all his nature, just wanting to keep her there, he fell back on the old trick he'd always looked down on; small talk. "How was the test?"

"Potions?" She looked up, and he thought there was a hint of a smile around the tight corner of her mouth. "How do you think? It was Draughts of Living Death, for Rowena's sake. We perfected those six months ago."

"Ah." He remembered that. Nine months ago, before October, before Lily had taken things into her own hands, before all this mess. It was a curiously bittersweet memory, more laden with emotion than he'd expected; he and Laura, and the cool air of the Potions dungeons, and a bottle of Sopophorus beans. Crushing them had been her idea, one of a few she'd had that he'd co-opted as his own, and they'd stood there for hours, pressing down on knife blades, carefully mixing cauldron after cauldron of potion, testing it on the mice she'd bought for the purpose. They hadn't been co-conspirators then, hadn't been lovers, hadn't even been friends, but there'd been a congenial peace between them that had been horribly lacking for the last few months.

"Mine was Weedosoros," he said, when he became aware that he'd been staring wistfully into space for an embarrassingly long time. Laura laughed under her breath.

"Let me guess," she said, glancing sidelong at him. "The examiners couldn't contain their rapture." Poisons were what Severus excelled in, even more than other potions, and both of them knew it. "They'll probably mark you down for cheating, for it being better than the test sample they have."

He smiled. It was only a small smile, but it was the first one in weeks that he'd actually felt. "If they do, they might find some in their tea," he observed dryly. It was meant as a joke, but he could almost feel the temperature plummet, and both their smiles disappeared. "I didn't mean that," he mumbled, after a moment, and looked away. "Never mind. Meeting here was a stupid idea, you're right. I just wanted to..." To what? He honestly didn't know. He settled, a bit lamely, for "To congratulate you. On the exam I knew you would do well on. I'll see you in the exam room for the next one, I suppose."

"I miss you," Laura said clearly, then half-raised her hand to her mouth, looking guilty. "Oh, Merlin. I did not mean to say that aloud."

But for the first time in what felt like forever, some of the tightness was gone from Severus' chest. That was it. That was what he'd needed to say, and she'd gone and said it first. Somehow, that made it so much easier. He relaxed back against the sharp branches of the sloe bush, laughing weakly and throatily. "I miss you too," he managed, closing his eyes. "What happened?"

It was meant rhetorically. Laura didn't take it that way. "Well, you went into my head, made me feel like trash for invading my privacy without telling me you'd done even worse, acted like I was a useless pain in your behind, and let me think for months it was all my fault."

"...There was that, I suppose," Severus said, trying to mask both his regret and his irritation. He failed. "You're still angry at me, then?"

"Of course I am!" she spluttered, and shook her head, trying to catch her breath. Despite that, her hand seemed to have found its way almost accidentally onto his arm. "Then again," she said a little more cheerfully, after a moment, "I blackmailed you into risking your life, went against what you wanted to go to Spinner's End, and slapped you in the face. I suppose we've both done some pretty unforgivable things."

"Evans has got a lot to answer for," Severus agreed, and was answered with an eyebrow-raise almost sceptical enough to be one of his. Despite himself, he found that bizarrely reassuring. "Oh, all right. I suppose I have plenty to answer for as well. I don't suppose it would help to say I'm sorry?"

"More than you might expect," Laura said, but she didn't meet his eyes. "I'm sorry, too. But that's not enough to make it better. Even if we do miss each other."

"We'll be out of here soon." Severus risked a glance at her. "You don't even have to see me after we leave. You'll go and train in Healing, I'll... do whatever I do, and that will be that. I just wish we didn't have to keep avoiding each other while we're here." There. It was out.

"I know." Laura sighed, clasping her bag closer. Her hand was still on his arm, a gentle weight, just a reminder she was still there. He appreciated that, and the understanding it implied, but it wasn't enough. "But it's dangerous, you said so yourself. Even if I was sure I could forgive you."

Of course. In a strange way, that was a relief. It would almost have been scarier if things were easy; easy things were strange and foreign and couldn't be trusted. Even so, Severus felt his heart sink. "I know," he repeated, when she'd finished, and closed his eyes. "I just... is there anything we can do?"

"Are you asking me what to do?" Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "That's one for the books."

Severus bit down on the urge to say something cutting about her timing. Now, he grumbled mentally, wasn't really the time for her to become a joker. But he got the definite feeling that saying so would be about the worst thing he could possibly do. Instead, he just nodded curtly, feeling himself tense and wishing he had himself a little more under control than that.

Her fingers shifted, her thumb running little circles over the threadbare fabric of his sleeve. "We can try," she said eventually, quietly. "We can go back to what we were doing before. The dungeons. You still have Slughorn's key, don't you? We could revise together. It might even help."

"It might help," Severus echoed, and took a deep breath, nodding. "Of course. And..." He trailed off again. There was no way of saying it without sounding pathetic, or at least none he could think of. How could you possibly say and will you love me? without sounding like the weakest and most pitiable kind of person? There was no way, because it was weak, and it was pitiful.

Laura seemed to grasp some shadow of what he was thinking, though. Her hazel eyes held his for a moment, and he saw the glitter of unshed tears in them. "We can try," she said, so low he almost didn't hear her, and rested her head against his shoulder.

He didn't answer, not in words. But his hand came up to cover hers, long calloused fingers lacing through her plump ones, and he leant his head against hers. It wasn't over. He knew, deep down, that it had hardly even started, and the worst was yet to come. But, just for a moment, it almost felt manageable.

Neither of them saw Avery watching from the Forest. Neither of them saw his eyes narrow as he wheeled away.