Chapter Title from "Silver Springs" by Fleetwood Mac

Snape jumped to his feet when he heard Umbridge's door open. He had almost dozed off right there in the hallway, a fact that surprised him since he was normally so alert at all times. He had expended a great deal of energy today between the staff meeting, Rhiannon's bedroom, and their duel in the Room of Requirement. As beautiful and tantalizing as the girl was, fastened head to toe in her modest, virginal attire, Snape honestly hoped she would just want to rest tonight.

She nearly ran to him after exiting Umbridge's office, slipping her arms around his neck as if they'd been apart for days rather than a matter of minutes.

"I did it," she whispered gleefully. "She likes me!"

Snape's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure Dolores Umbridge liking you is a compliment, but I am glad you achieved the task at hand. So she will not be challenging your post at Hogwarts?"

Rhiannon shook her head as they began their descent to the dungeons. "Nope, good to go. Unless she catches us snogging," she said. "Then I'm out."

Snape stopped. "Did she really say that?"

Rhiannon laughed. "Yes. She was rather preoccupied with the idea of you and me."

"Disgusting," he muttered.

Rhiannon laced her fingers with his and pulled him down the stairs. "Come on, Severus, you know when folks see two gorgeous people like us together, their minds can't help but wander. I told you earlier today, there are plenty of females in this castle more than a little curious as to what's under Professor Snape's robes..."

She was obviously in one of her more flirtatious moods this evening. He would have a hard time fighting her off. But if she thought the idea of Umbridge imagining them together would turn him on, she had a long way to go.

"I should punish you for even putting the idea of sex and that revolting woman in the same sentence," Snape told her, opening the door to his quarters. He waved his wand to light the lanterns on the wall and start a fire.

Rhiannon's arms were around his neck again, her green eyes lustful as they looked into his. "Yes, please punish me, Professor."

He raised an eyebrow. "I owe you several punishments now, I believe. This latest, the one for your crude and juvenile sex jokes, and the most severe of all, for lying to me." He grabbed the back of her hair and gave it a small tug as a preview.

"What did I lie about?"

Snape cleared his throat. "You said you were ready."

"I was ready. Could you not see that? Feel it?" Rhiannon teased, running the tip of her tongue over his lips.

Snape pushed her away so hard she landed on the leather sofa, her eyes wide with shock.

"I didn't mean your cunt," he growled. "Your mind and your heart were not mine. One can easily give the body, but you gave your soul, with your mind and heart knowingly elsewhere. Now you're going to have to deal with the disconnect— the brokenness, the confusion."

Rhiannon rose to her feet again. "Now just a minute, Severus Snape. No one ever knows where the hell your mind is, but don't tell me for one second that you have given your heart to me. Everyone knows that is not true."

"Everyone knows that Severus Snape doesn't have a heart to give, yes, same old story," he spat, tearing at his outer robes to remove them. He suddenly felt very hot.

"That is not what I meant. Everyone who knows you knows that your heart will never belong to me because it already belongs to someone else." Rhiannon shrank back once she said the words, obviously afraid of how he would strike back.

Severus sat on one of the armchairs opposite of the sofa where Rhiannon had fallen moments before, his head in his hands.

Gods, I would have had more energy for sex than for this conversation, he thought.

"Black told you?" he asked, not sure how else to begin.

Rhiannon bit her lip and nodded. "But I want to hear it from you. And...why you hate him. Sirius. He said it's all connected. I heard his side, but I need to know yours."

She was standing, now hovering over him in anticipation. He looked up at her wearily.

"Rhiannon, I'm exhausted. Can this wait?"

The girl gently pushed him back on the chair, easing herself onto his lap. Her arms back around his neck, one hand trailing up into his hair, her legs curled around him. Her face was bent toward his, not seeking to kiss him, but her eyes searching his.

"Just tell me what you can," she whispered. "It's important for me to understand."

Snape honestly just wanted to tell her it was nothing. Because it was, wasn't it? Dead and gone. But Rhiannon was right. Their bond would always be incomplete, and the witch was smart enough to know it wasn't only her fault. Though Snape himself hadn't even thought about it that way. All he could see up until now were angry flashes of green as his jealously raged over Sirius Black. He figured the easiest thing to do was start with that part of her question.

"Sirius Black was a pompous, immature imbecile who got high off the suffering of others less fortunate than himself. It was no wonder the entire wizarding world believed he was a murderer; I could have told every one of them about the time he actually tried to murder me, simply because teasing and humiliating the poor, smart, quiet, strange kid just wasn't doing it for him anymore. So homicide seemed to be his next drug of choice."

Rhiannon just stared at him. "Are you joking right now, Severus? Because I don't..."

"Does this sound like a joke to you?" Severus felt like his blood was boiling. He was too far down the road to stop, but he knew telling this story to Black's infatuated lover would be like expecting sympathy from a brick wall.

"No, it doesn't," Rhiannon answered quietly, tucking his hair behind his ear. Snape wanted to push her hand away but he forced himself to be still.

"When we were in school, Remus Lupin would go to the Shrieking Shack every time he transformed into a werewolf. I of course did not know at the time— only a select few staff and the blessed Marauders knew. The only way to enter the Shack is to know how to get past the Whomping Willow. I had noticed their comings and goings and was curious — and suspicious. I hated the fact that their merry little band could flagrantly break dozens of school rules without any consequence— in fact they often had the support of Dumbledore and therefore other staff by default. It was infuriating. They had noticed that I was onto them, and your beloved thought it would be fun to give me the secret to getting past the Willow, when Lupin was actively transforming. He sent me in there to be attacked and die, or to be attacked and become a beast myself. The idiot Potter decided to have a shred of human decency that night and come after me before anything transpired, much to your lover's disappointment."

"Please don't call him my 'lover,'" Rhiannon whispered, her fingers toying with the collar of his white shirt. "He's not. I will probably never see him again."

Snape scoffed. "And that breaks your heart, doesn't it?"

"Does your heart not still break for her?" she returned, insistent that this conversation would not just be about her barriers to their relationship but also his. "But no. Like I told you earlier today, I can't feel for him like I used to. It's like he's a dream. Or in some other plane of existence that I can't reach. I can only think about him. I can't feel."

Rhiannon seemed confused, hurt, and frustrated. Severus knew he shouldn't have given into his desire so soon. He should have remained strong and waited until the time was right before taking her. She was likely going to waver in this tenuous plane of existence she described forever, with the magic of their bond less than perfectly formed. But his drive to have her had been overwhelming. It had started the moment he first touched her back in July and had grown steadily more unbearable every day. When Severus had been inside her he couldn't just be content with what they had — he had to go all the way — had to fulfill whatever destiny required them to be bound to one another. He hated himself for his weakness.

"Don't hate yourself, Severus," she said quietly. Her hand had drifted downward from his collar and was now inside his shirt, playing with the few dark hairs scattered across his chest. Snape froze at her words.

"I'm sorry," she said before he could reprimand her. "I stopped fighting it. I just think that right now we should be in each other's heads. The bond seems to want us to, right? Maybe it would make this easier?"

Snape fixed his gaze on the creamy, flawless skin of her cheek and leaned in to run his lips over it. It was a random compulsion probably out of touch with the moment, but Rhiannon closed her eyes at the contact. She opened them again quickly though, seeming to will herself not to get carried away into the physical right now.

"If you can't talk about Lily, just think it," she insisted. "Only let me see what you want me to see."

"I don't want you to see any of it." His voice cracked, and he detested the sound of his own vulnerability.

"Then don't try to sort it out," Rhiannon advised gently. "Just feel it. I will see what I will."

Snape shook his head, face contorted in embarrassment and pain. Rhiannon said nothing more, instead resting her head in the crook of his neck, apparently waiting for him to be ready to let go. She was sixteen years his junior, but her emotional maturity in matters of sex and love sometimes exceeded his. She was content to let feelings and relationships unfold as they would, no walls, no restrictions. He knew he could learn from her, but it was enormously difficult.

Rhiannon waited patiently to see what Severus was willing to show her, content on his lap, feeling his warmth, breathing in the smell of his neck. She was convinced that this very conversation was the way forward for them— laying bare and acknowledging the reality of Sirius and Lily, moving forward somehow together in spite of it. Perhaps their bond would be imperfect and incomplete, as Severus feared, but Rhiannon knew that transparency regarding its flaws was preferable to secrecy and silence.

Snape's mind was a blank wall of static in that moment, much like the old No-Maj television her mother had owned when she was a little girl when it was tuned to the wrong channel. He was purposely occluding, out of fear, defiance, or both. Rhiannon kept her own mind open, letting him feel comfort and acceptance there, should he choose to tune in. She tried to focus on the feeling she got whenever she was convinced that she was meant to love both men— not the guilt that would come first, but the eventual peace and assurance she found once she understood that two different people could offer things that one person needed, that feelings could co-exist, and that one was not always a threat to the other. It wasn't most people's reality, but it was hers.

As she concentrated on this truth and slowly felt Snape tap into it as he entered her mind, she felt the shield blocking her feelings for Sirius begin to crumble. They were now wrinkled with the new realization that Sirius was not a shining white knight; he was just as gray as a double agent Death Eater, or the daughter of Lord Voldemort. Together the three of them were a messy triangle of light and dark, of love and hate, and of powerful magical energies.

Images of beautiful, vibrant red hair flowed into her mind, flowers, a smile, a gentle hand, soft eyes. Harry's eyes, but the unmistakable sparkle of divine feminine at their centers. A cool summer breeze, the smell of books and parchment, rays of sunshine and sounds of rustling trees. Laughter. Stirrings of young love. Rhiannon felt a brief ache at the realization that she had never felt this feeling as a youth; her only knowledge of true love had come with the messy trappings of adulthood, sex, and wizarding wars. She enjoyed the way this felt, even if it was stemming from Severus's mind rather than her own. She understood the power it held over him. It was a beautiful drug.

The gentle reverie soon turned darker. Snape was hanging upside down, dangling at the beckon call of James Potter's wand. Rhiannon immediately recognized the dancing eyes and laughter of Sirius in the background— even as a teenager he was gorgeous. She tried to focus on the uneasy feeling his gleeful, vengeful look gave her and not the quickening she felt at seeing his youthful handsomeness.

Teenage Snape's robes had fallen away and revealed old, faded underpants. The crowd that had gathered by the lake cackled at his compromised state. James Potter seemed positively high with the power emanating from his wand. Rhiannon felt the weight of Severus's embarrassment and the heat in his cheeks. It wretched her stomach.

A teenage Lily threatened James with her own wand, commanding him to let Snape down. They exchanged verbal spars, James flirting, Lily threatening. Rhiannon could tell she reviled James's behavior but not James himself. Snape knew too. James finally muttered the counter curse and released Snape to the ground with a thud.

"There you go," James mocked, as Severus struggled to stand. "You're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus."

"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!" Snape spat back. Rhiannon could clearly tell the awful words came from embarrassment and self-defense, not malicious intent. But the spectators clearly could not; they were horrified.

The memory faded into an even darker gray haze. Severus and Lily were now in the Gryffindor common room, Rhiannon assumed from the decor.

"I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just-"

"Slipped out?" There was no pity in Lily's voice. "It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends- you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?"

Snape opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.

"I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."

"No- listen, I didn't mean-"

"- to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?"

The static came back again. Severus was breathless, as if bringing forth the memory for Rhiannon's benefit had taken every last ounce of energy from him. Rhiannon felt tears welling behind her eyes. It was hard being confronted all at once by the flaws of both men she loved. She did a mental double take. She had never admitted to herself that she loved Severus before. The thought had just come to her, but it was mired in complication. She wiped the sweat from his temple, feeling his pain, and she knew that her connection to him was some sort of love, messy as it may be.

She had some answers about Lily now. She felt the pull of his love for her, so she knew what she was up against.

Not against, she corrected herself. She had an idea of what she needed to harmonize with in order to make Severus complete. That was the better way of looking at it. But asking him to "harmonize" with Sirius Black, she knew, was all but impossible.

Severus opened his eyes to her, silently begging to rest. Rhiannon lifted herself from his lap, pulling him to stand. "Let's put you to bed," she said with a smile. "And I mean to sleep."

He gave a half smile in return. "Thank you. We will revisit your punishments another day."

She laughed. "Yes, we most certainly will." They walked into his Slytherin bedroom, his bed a silvery green wish that she still longed to fulfill. On his bedside table was his bottle of Eros Absentia from their last brewing session, a twin to the also-untouched bottle sitting atop hers. Rhiannon traced it with an absent-minded finger, wondering what purpose it really served now that they had finally come together.

"You may have it," Snape said to her in a low, reluctant voice. Rhiannon looked at him quizzically.

"Send it to him. I'm giving you my blessing, so it shouldn't have any negative effects."

After what she had just seen, Rhiannon truly didn't understand how he could even offer such a thing.

"I'm not doing it for him," Snape emphasized. "I felt what you feel, just now. Although I cannot understand it, I also cannot deprive you of it. I want you to be happy, and to feel whole."

Rhiannon wasn't sure how to respond. The prospect of uniting with Sirius across the distance was undoubtedly thrilling, as was the idea of being the Authority this time, driving and controlling the pleasure she and Sirius would experience. But she could no longer see either wizard in simple terms after tonight. It was no longer Sirius Black, the heroic Gryffindor, the "right" choice, the "good" choice. Nor Severus Snape, the dark and mysterious Death Eater, the "bad," even frightening choice. Loving them meant coming to terms with the whole wizard in both cases, and reevaluating her own feelings. Using the potion seemed like a trivial game when she should be taking the whole situation much more seriously.

"I might," she finally said. "Thank you. For giving me the choice."

Snape gave a slight nod. "You're welcome. I don't want you to make any decisions about your feelings without all the evidence. Even if that means giving you back to him in some way, as much as I detest the thought." He looked away darkly, and she knew he was back in the past once again, feeling the hatred in his veins.

"What about you?" Rhiannon asked. "What chance do I honestly have of ever having your heart?"

Snape sighed sharply. "It's different, Rhiannon. Lily is dead. There is no decision to be made."

"Love is always a decision," she corrected. "And love doesn't die when we do."

He rubbed his head tiredly. "I don't know, Rhiannon. As I said earlier today, 'you and I,' whatever that may be, will take time. I can't answer you tonight."

"Fair enough," she responded softly. Her heart was heavy but she understood some things couldn't be rushed. She gripped the ruby red bottle in hand and departed for her own room. "Good night, Severus. I hope you rest well."

"You too, Rhiannon. Things will look better tomorrow. Perhaps we will venture out. Hogsmeade?"

She beamed, a thrill shooting through her. "Yes! Most definitely."

Snape smiled, obviously satisfied that he was finally able to give her something to look forward to.

Once alone in her room, Rhiannon sat at her small writing desk, eyeing her quill. Did she dare send the vial to Sirius? It was probably foolish, but it was also an adventure, and she was never one to turn down anything exciting and new. She imagined the delight she would feel being the one to introduce him to such new and sensual magic, and the happiness he would feel with something to brighten his long and dreary days as a prisoner in a place he hated. Yes, she had to do it. She set aside any guilt she had over Severus; he had blessed it, after all, and began writing instructions to Sirius to use it at 9:00 p.m. Monday evening. That would give time for an owl to deliver, and give her and Snape tomorrow night together after their trip to Hogsmeade. Snape's vague promises of 'punishments' tickled her insides with a thrill just as delectable as the idea of exploring the potion with Sirius.

The two wizards were going to be the death of her, killing her exquisitely.