Graihagh knew that Severus wouldn't be back downstairs for awhile; there was a finality in the way his door snapped that told her he was shutting her out again. She didn't know how to explain that there was nothing to be ashamed of, that she was flattered he'd enjoyed it so much. The last man she'd dated didn't even finish sometimes, and maybe it because he was off his head on something half the time, but she always wondered if it was her. If she just wasn't that attractive.

Anyway, she knew he wouldn't want to hear it. He needed some time to himself.

She went to the bathroom to wash and when she'd finished she fished a quill from the pocket of her robes, the one she'd given him as a blanket, and scratched out a note on an Aldi receipt she found on the kitchen counter, telling him she'd gone back to see some friends and not to worry.

The grounds were clear, just a few people here and there on their way to Hogsmeade, or off for a walk in the grounds. Rowle was dead or else seriously injured, she knew he was, she'd watched him fall, but just the same she kept her wand held out in front of her and scanned the grounds for anything suspicious. The angle of the sun told her it was about four in the afternoon, maybe a bit later. Had it been night she couldn't have come back here.

The front doors were open and she could hear the crowd inside before she'd even reached the courtyard. So it was safe. They wouldn't be celebrating if the war hadn't ended.

She almost believed it.

She pushed past crowds of people on her way up to the raised platform where the injured were resting. Milo had been alive when she left, but Madam Pomfrey didn't know if he'd make it.

Graihagh stepped around the stretchers and pallets as lightly as she could, so as not to disturb anyone, but she couldn't find him. Not surprising really, there were a lot of people there, she just needed to look harder. She strode over to Madam Pomfrey, who was resting on a step, a teacup in both hands, but someone touched her arm before she got there. She froze.

"It's just me," said Cate. There was a jagged red line on her lip but she was otherwise okay. "They've transferred Milo to St. Mungo's. Fynn's gone with him."

"Is he-"

Cate was sombre. "They don't know."

She wrapped her arms around Graihagh and she buried her face in her hair, screwing up her eyes, but it came out anyway.

"He'll make it," said Cate. "I know he will. They can fix anything."

And they would. They had to. He had to be okay. He'd made it this far, that had to mean something. She pulled away and wiped her nose with her sleeve. "What about Remus, have you seen him?"

"He and Tonks have been transferred to St. Mungo's too. I don't know how serious it is or anything."

They were alive, at least.

They sat down on the edge of the platform. "How're you holding up?" said Graihagh.

Cate gave her a dark look and her eyes flickered to a table not far from them where Adrian sat, one eye on his conversation and the other on them. "I can't seem to get away from him."

She didn't voice the threat out loud, but Graihagh moment Cate left the castle he'd be right behind, and there was hardly anyone left in the grounds to stop him. She should've thought of this, should've come to get her sooner.

"Come with me," she said, voicing aloud what she'd been thinking for weeks. "We'll go to the Ministry, get things sorted out. Then you can stay with me."

"In Douglas, you mean?"

"Yeah. If you want to."

Cate rocked forward and looked up at a mullioned window. "Well, I was sort of thinking I'd stay with mum for awhile, in Manchester. Shouldn't be too hard to find work there."

And I wouldn't be a burden on you. She didn't say it but that's what she'd been thinking, she was sure of it. Cate was the one who stayed too long, who invited herself over, who planned things without asking. And she'd learned the hard way not to. Learned to keep her hands quiet and use an inside voice and squelch her enthusiasm and stifle everything that made her the wonderful and annoying and slightly dotty person that she loved.

"I want you there. If you want to."

Cate watched a centaur stand up on unsteady legs and walk off the raised platform, rubbing a bandage on his flank. "Well, how about I think on it some more?"

"Sure." Graihagh scratched her nose and gazed around the hall as though she had no emotional investment whatsoever in the decision. As though she'd just asked what restaurant they should go to. And it was fine, really. She just thought, with Milo fighting for his life and Owain dead and things so up in the air with Severus it might be nice to have her there.

She'd missed her.

Cate attacked her in a two-armed hug that nearly knocked her backwards. "No matter what happens I'm coming to see you," she said. "I'm going to take over your flat and eat all the good food and leave a proper mess in your guest room."

Graihagh squeezed back. "Just so long as you don't flood the toilet again."

"It's been three years since I flushed a sandwich down the toilet, I think we're good." She pulled away and glanced up at the window again. "I'm so fuckin' ready for a change, d'you know what I mean?"

"I know." Graihagh was as giddy as Cate was, in her own quiet way. Except that her change was shut away in Spinner's End feeling unattractive for absolutely no reason.

"The thing is, I just got an owl from my brother. He wants me to spend the rest of the weekend with him. You don't mind, do you? I haven't seen him ages."

Because they'd been kept apart. Why hadn't she seen it? The quick visits, the anxiety to get back home, the half-hearted excuses whenever they'd try to make plans. "No, of course not. Just owl me when you're ready and we'll go to London."

They made their way out of the castle, wands at the ready, because sure enough, Adrian followed behind them, trying to engage them in conversation.

Cate fell back a little. "Maybe I owe him an explanation."

"You don't owe him shit."

"I know but..." She glanced back at him. "I wasn't all that easy to live with, was I, I slagged him off loads of times."

"Because he started shit. That's what they do, and then they make it out like it's your fault. You didn't deserve any of it."

Cate hugged her arms to her chest and stared out at the Whomping Willow. Graihagh couldn't wrap her head around the fact that she'd followed Harry through that narrow tunnel less than twelve hours ago. (Or was it longer? She'd lost all sense of time.)

"If I do this there's no going back."

Graihagh's head was so far away it took a few seconds to register what she'd said.

"Do you want to go back?"

Adrian caught them up and called her name, but Cate kept walking.

"No."

He called her name again. Begging.

Cate stopped and turned around and Graihagh didn't blame her, she would've done the same. He sounded so pained, it would've made anyone feel guilty.

They were the only three people in that part of the grounds. Cate reached for her wand on instinct, before she touched him, before she even spoke to him. And it was this, the culmination of years of living on a knife's edge, that seemed to stiffen her resolve. She muttered something to herself and kept on walking, and they didn't stop until they'd reached the Hog's Head.

"Where you going?" she said, and Graihagh realised she'd walked to the back alley without thinking, the footsteps made through muscle memory. But Aberforth wouldn't be there, he'd be up at the bar. She was so used to it as a forbidden place that the threshold might've covered in yellow caution tape. Do not enter. Not unless you enjoy being cursed to death by five different Death Eaters.

Cate led the way into the pub, wand raised, and Graihagh followed her.

The room was so hot that the grimy windows were fogged up and there wasn't any light coming in from the outside. The candles and lanterns gave it the dim yellow glow of a pub at night and the place was thick with smoke and with revelers, gesturing wildly and drinking deeply and throwing their arms round each other's shoulders. Things were so easy and open and normal. but Graihagh didn't trust it. Every black-hooded figure was a Death Eater, everyone who watched her walk in was a spy.

"Put that away girl, war's over," barked Abeforth from behind the bar. He was in three places at once, shouting at Cate while pouring a glass of something for the person in front of him and giving the evil eyeball to a squat man with matted ginger hair who was skulking in a corner. Graihagh suspected he was overwhelmed by all these people.

He stowed a bottle under the bar and walked over to them. "What's all this about?" he said. "Come to tell me you'd like to rent that room out another year?"

Graihagh laughed out loud, a giddy, unstable thing when she was so keyed-up, like it could turn to tears any second. "God, no." She fixed her eyes on him. She had to lift her head a bit, he was so tall. 6'2 at least.

"Thank you so much. For the shelter, the food, everything-"

"You want to pay me back, you can start by not getting sentimental with me."

Graihagh laughed again and reached into her pockets. She couldn't remember if she'd stashed any money bags away, but there might've been something there. "I have some money saved up, I can pay you-"

"Don't even think about it. You lost enough to me at cribbage to earn your keep, anyway."

"Are you sure?"

Someone yelled for the bartender and Aberforth told him to shut his bleeding cake hole. He held out his hand and Graihagh shook it. "Take care of yourself, now."

Except for those few people she was closest to, Graihagh preferred a light touch, handshakes and shoulder taps over hand-holding and hugs. But the things she felt for this man were too big to fit into such a small gesture. She wrapped her arms underneath his and squeezed.

Aberforth was as bony as Severus and just as taken aback to have her arms thrown around him, but he clapped her on the shoulder and didn't let go.

"I'll have a beer waiting, if you're ever in this part of the country."

"Hey, last time I checked I was ten galleons in the hole. You know I'll be back for another round."

Abeforth squeezed her shoulder and let go. "Good. More money for me then."

Cate stepped forwards and wrapped him up in a hug of her own. "And I want to hear more of those stories," she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Maybe it was just the heat or the flask of brandy he liked to sip from as he worked, but she could've sworn Aberforth was blushing.

"Shove off now, you're making me look soft."

Graihagh smirked as if to say his secret was safe with her, and she and Cate ducked into the alley and up the stairs to the hidden room to get their things. Cate didn't have much, just her blue holdall, but for Graihagh there were dozens of jars and bottles along the shelves, her mortar and pestle and brass scales, books and clothes and toiletries, Keith the millipede-all the things that had made that space feel like a home, suffocating as it was. She'd slept and bathed here, laughed, talked, cried, panicked, worked. Given up and kept on going. Fallen in love when she was least expecting it.

"Ready?" said Cate, when they'd managed to pack all Graihagh's things into a few valises, courtesy of her skill with charms. Had Graihagh been on her own she would've had to leave some of her things behind.

"Hold on."

She knelt down beside her bed and gripped the blanket Severus had conjured for her all those months ago, rubbing the grey wool between her thumb and forefinger. She folded it up into a square and tucked it under one arm. The flowers she'd dried and put in her field journal. Merlin, she was getting soft. Next thing she'd be re-watching Titanic at three in the morning and bawling her eyes out.

She took a last long look around the room, almost-but-not-quite bare of the things that had made it livable, like a flat on moving day, which in a way it was. She was like a plant in the dark here, she couldn't survive, but it was so hard to leave.

"It sort of grows on you, this place, doesn't it?" said Cate, taking in the boxes and barrels and the oak-plank walls and the lamp in the corner. The makeshift furniture and the mattresses on the floor. Severus and Remus might have just been there.

"Yeah. It does."

Cate squeezed her hand and they left the room for the last time.

Spinner's End wasn't much different in spring as it was in winter. There were no trees to mark the change of seasons, no gardens even, no one out for an evening walk. Nothing but brown and grey, soot-stained bricks and cracked cobblestones and a patch of pale sky above. A bleak place to grow up.

She remembered his house number, but it wouldn't have mattered if she hadn't. He'd left his own distinct touches on the place, the milk pan full of cat food on the front stoop and a sign for one of those Muggle home security systems that he'd probably nicked off someone. Three different locks on the door.

She gripped the brass door handle and knocked. He wouldn't be happy to see her. But he'd be more upset if she left, and she knew it.

Severus yanked back the curtains and undid each of the locks by hand. Click click click. Like the clack of his boots when he was in a sour mood.

But he was more shaken than angry, pale and sad. Graihagh reached up to touch his face but he stepped back, anticipating her question.

"I'm fine." He glanced down at the valises in her hand. "What are those for?"

Well. Here was something not covered by the usual rules of etiquette. What it rude to show up at the house of your sort-of-boyfriend whose life you'd just saved who was embarrassed by his perceived sexual inadequecies that weren't really inadequecies at all, only you hadn't explained this to him yet, and expect to stay a few days?

"Oh. Well. You know."

"Do I?"

"Okay, the thing is, I'm going back home to Mann but my friend has some business in London next week and I sort of need a place to stay until then." She punctuated her rambling with a weak smile.

Severus let out a little huff of air, so quiet she barely heard it, and pulled a resigned door handle. The towel she'd used to dry him off was crumpled beside the sofa, the cushions sagging from the memory of their bodies. The thing seemed to take up the whole room, they way she couldn't stop looking at it. Severus glanced at it too.

"So how's your neck?" she said, rather more loudly than she would've liked. She knew what he'd say before the words were even out of his mouth. It's fine.

"It's fine."

She adjusted the valises—they were getting heavy, digging into her hands—and glanced out the window. The Patronus. The one telling her parents to write. She'd sent it hours ago. "Have there been any owls for me?"

"No."

Nothing to panic about. Likely it was nothing. They just didn't have an owl to send, that was all. Owain must've been looking after her owl, Mona-which meant-

Severus said something she didn't hear.

"Sorry, what?"

"I'll show you to your room," he said, and Graihagh noted the use of your. Your room. Not our room. Like they hadn't made love just hours before.

She followed him to a staircase off the kitchen. The stairs was made of wood, narrow and steep, a treacherous climb for a toddler, with its constant threat of banged-up knees and splintered hands.

There were two rooms off the top landing, one on each side. He opened the door on the right, that lead to what must have been his parents' bedroom. There was no sign of them now, no photographs or knick-knacks or papers lying around. Double bed, oak wardrobe, yellow curtains on the window. That was it. No nightstand, even. The wallpaper was white, thick with pictures of green vines and birds. She supposed it was pretty at one time, but the years had left it faded and water-stained. There were cracks and bulges in the plaster behind it, she could tell.

Snape was already half-way down the stairs by the time she'd registered all this. She dropped the valises on the floor and pulled out the wool blanket Severus had conjured for her. She could do with a nap.

Only she couldn't fall asleep. She'd drift off, and remember her parents, how they still hadn't owled. She'd remember Milo, and Owain, and how she could've saved him if she'd only told Remus to put a Fidelius Charm on the shop. How it'd been her fault Rowle was after him in the first place. She didn't remember falling asleep.

She didn't know how she ended up in the landing. All she knew was black terror. She was dying. She couldn't see; it was pitch dark, it was happening already.

Bony arms wrapped around her and squeezed her tight. Severus.

"It's alright," he murmured. He helped her off the floor, heaving a little. He was still weak from losing so much blood. "Let's get you back to bed."

She didn't have to ask. Without a word he crawled into bed beside her and wrapped his arms around her, his face in her hair. He didn't want to sleep alone any more than she did.

She laced her fingers through his and cleared her mind of everything except his warm weight against her back.

Snape yanked the covers off himself and crept out of bed before he had time to touch her, to breathe her in. She'd stay a few days and go back to that island of hers and he'd promise to keep in touch and send her a letter every month until he conveniently forgot and she moved on to someone else. But why did the thought of her with someone else feel like grief?

And what was he to do with himself now? He was free now. No teaching, no spying, no lying, no running round trying to keep his cover. No Dumbledore, no Dark Lord. A blank canvas, a story he could write himself.

He was bloody terrified.

No one needed him.

He went to his bed and slept some more.

Someone was knocking at his door. He sat up and groped for his wand. "Who is it?" he called, only dimly aware of where he was. The room was warmer than the headmaster's study.

"It's just me," said Graihagh's voice. "Can I come in?"

Right. He was in his bedroom in Spinner's End and the war was over and she was staying with him a few days. He got out of bed and stepped into the hallway, closing his door behind him. "What is it?"

Graihagh glanced towards the door he'd just closed, like she was hoping to catch of glimpse of it. "I'm going to get some takeaway, d'you want anything?"

He hadn't eaten since the day before last, he was physically hungry, and rather weak. But he couldn't think of anything he wanted.

"Get whatever you like," he said. "I'll eat what's left over."

"Okay." She reached up and tapped her finger to his scar. She was always touching him, and he liked it. Needed it, even. Like those years untouched had left an empty space she could fill up. "It's healing nicely."

"That's good," he said, just to humour her. He kept his eyes fixed to a point just above her head. If he looked too closely at her face it was all over for him.

"Yeah," she said, in a way that told him this hadn't gone the way she'd expected. "I'll be back in a few."

"Alright."

She hesitated, her right arm raised, fingers stretched out, like she couldn't decide whether to touch him. Her eyes went to his lips.

Snape turned his face away, and she must've gotten the point. She turned and walked down the stairs, dressed in her Muggle clothes, the white top and jeans. They fit her well, showed off those gorgeous legs of hers.

No, he couldn't think of her that way. He pinched his arm.

There was a stack of books in his room. He picked one up and read a few pages before realising he hadn't remembered any of it. He picked up another one, paced the floor, stared out the window even though there was nothing to see except the house across the back alley. A family used to live there, the Moores. His mother was good friends with them, used to go over and play bridge in the evenings. She'd carved out a space for herself in this suffocating place, in the flowers and herbs she grew out back and the potions she made in the cellar. In the songs she'd sing while she did the wash and the afternoons spent with the neighbourhood women. Maybe he could find a place for himself here too. Only Spinner's End felt more like an ending than a beginning.

The thought was a small thing. Something he couldn't bring himself to express in words, but he felt it.

He was beginning to wish he'd never followed her voice.

Graihagh knocked on his door and he took the food from her without saying anything. Tikka masala and naan in a styofoam tray, with a black plastic fork. He used to like it a lot, ordered it every summer. Sometimes Burbage or someone would get some and bring it back to the staff room. He ate about half and sat on his bed with his back against the wall, staring at his shelves.

He must've drifted off. His neck ached and the sky outside his window was black. He closed the lid on the styrofoam container and took it downstairs to the kitchen. He was thirsty anyway, and didn't feel like summoning a glass even though that would've been quicker.

The lamp was lit in the sitting room and there was a bottle of Captain Morgan on the kitchen counter next to a six-pack of Tesco cola. Two of the cans were open, one empty.

Graihagh on the sofa with her legs curled up underneath her, staring at the bookcase like it was a television, a glass clutched in both hands.

She was drinking to get drunk, to get numb.

He wheeled about, gripped the bottle in his fist and dumped it down the sink. She was not going to do this to herself, she was not going to be his parents. He'd seen too many people kill themselves from the inside, and he'd be damned if he let it happen to her. He gripped the empty bottle by the neck and it took everything in his power not to smash it against the wall and watch it break into a thousand pieces. He needed the release.

Graihagh padded to the kitchen in her bare feet. "What are you doing? What-" She snatched the bottle. "Did you dump this?"

"No, I fancied a sip and drank the bottle in one go."

"Don't get smart with me, Sev'rus."

Her voice was loud, loose, the words slurred. He snatched the bottle back and narrowed his eyes at her. "Go sober up."

She stomped out of the kitchen and he half-ran up the stairs and sank into his bed, the anger turned inwards. Maybe he could sleep it off.

He understood why she'd done it, even if it was stupid. But what kind of life was this, that they had to numb themselves to get through it?

They slept until late in the afternoon, and got takeaway again-fish and chips, this time. Graihagh didn't say anything about the bottle he'd dumped down the sink, and neither did he. He suspected she was rather embarrassed about it, the way she wouldn't look at him long.

He took the food up to his room and read until the sky outside was dark. Graihagh knocked on his door.

"Can I come in?"

Snape went out into the landing and closed the door part way. "What is it?"

"I got an owl from my friend. We're staying in London a few days and then I'm going back home, so I might not see you for awhile."

She was standing much too close. Like she was waiting for him to wrap his arms around her and pull her into his bedroom. But that was absurd, she couldn't possibly have wanted him after his last two failures.

"And?"

She shot him a look that was half incredulous, half something else. Hurt, maybe. She reached for his hand.

"And I thought we could spend some time together."

"Doing what, exactly?"

"Oh. Well..." Her eyes flickered to his partially open door. "What do you like to do in the evenings?"

He held up the book he was reading. Which just happened to be the book on snake venom she'd given him.

Graihagh let go of his hand. "Oh. Well I like to read too so...maybe we could sit downstairs together."

Sweet Merlin, not that damn sofa again.

"I was just about to turn in, actually."

Graihagh brushed her hair back the way she did when she was flustered, leaving strands of it sticking up. "Yeah. Sure. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

She pivoted on her feet to walk away from him, but at the last second she wheeled about and gripped his face in her hands, kissing him on the lips. "I'll be downstairs if you change your mind."

He went back to his room, but his mind betrayed him, straying downstairs where he knew she was sitting with a book in hand, waiting. The seconds ticked down on his watch and he imagined each tick was ratcheting up her disappointment, though why on earth she'd be disappointed by his absence he had no idea. He picked up his book and went downstairs.

She was on the sofa with her legs tucked underneath her, like she'd been the night before, only this time she had a book in hand. Bridget Jones's Diary. He sat down in the armchair.

"Hey," she said, looking up from her book and smirking slightly.

"It's rather warm up there," said Snape.

"Sure."

They went back to their books and he sank lower in his chair and stretched his legs out. The lamp on the ceiling gave the room a deep orange glow and the room was quiet except the occasional rustle of the pages or a breathy little snort from Graihagh. Surprisingly peaceful, this, even if she kept watching him over her book. She didn't even try to hide it.

Sometime after the clock chimed one she closed her book and stood up.

"Think I'll turn in," she said. She smoothed back his hair and searched his face and he knew what it meant. That he was welcome to go with her. But he couldn't do it. She was leaving the next morning. Best to just let her go.

He could visualize her path through the house by the creak of her footsteps. Up the stairs, across the landing to her bedroom, which was right above him. She'd pull off her shirt and slip out of those jeans and just the thought of it made him hard, all the worse now that the memory of her body was so vivid he could feel it. He waited until the clock chimed two before he went upstairs, so he wouldn't be tempted.

She'd left her door open and she was crying, the sound muffled, like she was covered in a blanket or pillow. He stood outside the door but there really wasn't any question of not going in. He stepped into the room and sat down next to her. She buried her face in his chest.

"I got an owl from Fy-from Milo's partner today," she said, her voice muffled by his robes. "He's still critical."

"What curse was it?"

"Lightning curse."

"It's possible to survive it."

Graihagh sucked in her breath. "I know I should be grateful he didn't use a killing curse. But he wanted him to suffer, that's why he did this, isn't it? What if-" she sucked in her breath again-"what if the last thing he remembers-is being in pain?"

Snape pulled her closer. "Don't think that."

Graihagh wiped her eyes and her breathing became forced, like she was trying to control herself.

"I'm scared to go home," she said.

Snape rubbed her back. "I'm sure they're fine. You would've heard something."

"Yeah. Maybe."

She wiped her nose with his robes and he didn't have the heart to grumble about it.

"Stay with me," she said, closing her hand over his.

He didn't have it in him to say no. They crawled into bed and he lay on his back beside her, with enough space between them that they weren't touching, but she closed the distance anyway, lacing her fingers through his.

He woke as soon as it was light out and left her sleeping. He thought she'd knock on his door, come to say goodbye, but she didn't. The stairs creaked and the house shook a little as the front door closed and that was all. So she was angry with him. Good. That was the way to do it, just rip it off like a bandage.

He fell back asleep and woke a few hours later for a glass of water. On the kitchen counter was a lumpy white something he recognised instantly, because he'd never seen anything like it. Beside it was a note.

Whenever you need me

He picked up the bollan cross and held it in his hand.

A/N: Thanks for all the favourites/follows! And thank you PearlM21 for the review! The disappearance of his body must seem so strange to everyone, but he will be discovered. In the next few chapters he'll get some closure with old friends. The final chapter count will be 32, and I've got the next couple of chapters finished so I'll try to update a few times this week.