A/N: This was going to be the last chapter, but I think Severus and Antonia have a lot more story left. I don't own anyone but Antonia and her off-spring. Tessie, thanks for being a faithful reviewer. Amanita Lestrange, your continued reviewing has been helpful. And, of course, Tempesta, you are my muse. To everyone else: thanks for reading. I've had close to 1000 hits before I put this part up. Now, if I could get a little feedback on what you all think of it…
She'll make me wish that I'd never been born… What makes her think that I don't wish for that every single day? Snape thought as he stared into the red-orange flames of the fireplace. Death Eater… the words reverberated in his head, over and over again. And he'd never be free of it. He pushed up the sleeve and looked at the Dark Mark on his arm. That mark had once been the thing that kept him going, but now that mark made him wish that he died in the Auror raids against the Dark Lord, rather than sitting here and feeling this way now.
The door to his bedroom slowly. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
He just shook his head. "Go, Antonia." His voice was void of all emotion.
"I can't," she replied, her voice cracking with emotion. She walked over to the fireplace and sat down beside her lover. "I can't just walk out on you. I can't leave you alone."
"Do you know how I felt when you referred to me as Death Eater?" he hissed.
Tears filled her blue eyes as she nodded. "Yes."
"You don't know anything. Maybe you never did."
"I know. I know exactly what I did to you. I took the moment in your life that you hated yourself for the most, and I threw it back up in your face. I ripped off the band aid and rubbed salt in the wound. I was cruel."
"Am I that big of a monster in your eyes? Do you feel that I need you to inflict additional suffering upon me to atone for my sins?"
"No, far from it. I look at you, and I see the most brilliant mind that the world could offer me. I see someone who can be so kind and loving. I see someone who has suffered a greater pain than any of us can ever imagine. I see the man that I lo… I see you. Not the you that you throw at the world when you're being so very defensive and angry. But the real you."
"And it's not enough for you."
"How could you think that? Do you know how badly I ached when you said what you said to me by the lake?" she cried. "Do you think I would have felt that way if you weren't all that I ever wanted?"
"I don't understand! What did I do?"
"Beautiful. Beautiful Antonia, with a face that would make Helen of Troy envious," she spat. "Nothing matters to you but my face. When I grow old and wrinkled, you won't want to be around me anymore. Do you know how that kills me? Every time I remember those words, I die inside. I know that you'll leave me, just like David would have if he didn't die, just like every other man that's wanted me."
He turned to her, a look of astonishment etched across his sallow face. "Is that what you think? Do you honestly believe that I could be attracted to beauty alone? Antonia, you are beautiful. You're so beautiful that it hurts to look at you. And you'll always be beautiful, whether your skin is like silk or like leather. It goes beyond your face and your body. It's the way your eyes light up when you're happy. It's the way you laugh. It's the cadence of your speech when you scream at me. It's everything about you. You're physically beautiful, as well, but that's just the icing on the cake." Then he mumbled, "I don't understand how someone like you could want someone like me."
She smiled angelically at him. "Because I lo… Because I care for you in a way that defies logic. I don't care that you were a Death Eater. I understand why you did it. And it had nothing to do with Voldemort." Her smile took on a hint of sadness, and the sparkle left her eyes. "I know that you'll never feel the same way about me that I do about you. I know that you're still in love with Lily Evans. But I'm willing to settle for what you're willing to give me. I can never have all of you. I know that. And I accept it."
"Lily? Darling, Lily Evans Potter was a childhood crush that I coveted. She was a shining example of everything that I could never have. Lily is a thing of the past. She's dead, and she and James died together. And she had this look in her eye whenever she saw him that I never thought would be directed at me. I've found someone that I wa… That I care for."
"But… but the password to the hidden passage to your bedchamber… Lily Snape."
"I've changed the password," he whispered.
She remembered the mad scientist's dialogue earlier in the evening. "You realize that the guardian of your passage is absolutely nuts, right?"
He laughed, and took her in his arms. "You do know how to spoil a moment, don't you, my love?"
She looked up at him with wide blue eyes. "Did you mean that?"
"That you know how to spoil a moment? Of course."
"No, the other part…"
He nodded. "I—I love you, Antonia Delaney."
She kissed him with such an intensity that they both fell over on the rug. "I love you, Severus Snape."
"Do you? Do you really? Or am I just another man that turned your head for a microsecond?"
She smiled adoringly at him. "Severus, you turned my head fifteen years ago, and it never turned away. The others? They just kept me entertained. But I know now that I was just waiting for you to get your head out of your ass."
"I will never understand why you love me," he whispered, stroking her cheek affectionately. "I haven't become some great man. I haven't learned to adore the Gryffindors. They're still a bunch of fucking little pukes. And I'd still like to see Harry Potter run down by one of Hagrid's blast-ended skrewts."
She shrugged. "To love is to love. There's no rhyme or reason to it. I just know that I do, and I have. I cared for David, but I never did forget you." The blond witch changed the subject entirely. "So, what did you change that password to, anyway?
He pulled her into his lap and nuzzled her neck. "My Antonia."