The darkness was oppressive, and the cold was chilling Severus to the bone. His captors had made no effort to provide any elements of comfort. He could hear them, just outside the grove of trees where they had him tied. He couldn't move, he couldn't see, he could hardly breathe. They had came and dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night. Tara had been powerless and he could still hear her screams echoing in his mind, and he fought his emotions. He had no idea if she had been taken somewhere else. Was she being tortured? Was she still alive?

A bright light blinded him, and he squinted against it, painfully. It was him...it was Voldemort....

Severus sat straight up in bed, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. Tara woke up with a start, hearing his shout. She saw him sitting up, wearing an expression of fear--something she had never seen on his face before.

"Are you okay? Bad dream?" she asked, feeling her heart race. He looked at her and sighed. "Definitely a bad dream." Just then, he felt a tingle on his left forearm. Was it his imagination, just the effects of the dream? He rubbed it and Tara looked, puzzled.

"What is it?" she asked him. He shook his head. "Nothing. Just a bad dream is all." He laid down again and she cuddled against him and soon he heard her breathing slow down as she drifted off to sleep again. He never saw sleep again that night. The sun began to light the sky and he gave up and got out of bed. He decided to try making pancakes. He had seen Tara expertly flip them into the air so how hard could it be? Sure, he could use magic, but Tara seemed to have such a good time mixing them up by hand, he wanted to try it.

He padded out to the kitchen and put water on the stove for tea and fed Henry and Heidi, then took one of Tara's muggle cookbooks off the shelf and found directions to make pancakes. Tying on one of Tara's aprons, he surveyed the pantry and found all of the ingredients. With a satisfied grunt, he took the eggs and milk out of the refrigerator. "I need a bowl," he muttered. Where were the bowls? He opened up one cabinet that had all of the Tupperware in it, and it came tumbling out as soon as he started looking around and moving things. He found a large glass bowl which looked like the one Tara always used to mix pancake batter. The directions said to mix milk, eggs and oil first in a separate bowl. Bloody hell, he needed another bowl. Back to the Tupperware cabinet, and an avalanche of plastic lids and containers of various sizes and shapes tumbled out. He swore, then cursed himself for picking up Tara's choice swear words. Just then the tea kettle began whistling. Feeling overwhelmed, he flew to the stove to turn it off, then poured steaming water into his cup, positioning a tea bag so the string and tag would be on the outside of the cup.

His train of thought was completely derailed until he saw Henry leap into the Tupperware cabinet. "Oh no, Henry, come out of there!" On his hands and knees now, Severus reached for the large cat who came out reluctantly, and meowed in protest. Heidi ran up to Henry and got him in a headlock and tried to knock the large cat over. Severus stood up and sighed, as the two cats insisted on being underfoot, then they dashed off into the living room. "Now what was I doing...oh yes. The liquid ingredients..."

Now he had another dilemma, he had to find an eggbeater or that wire whisk Tara loved to use. He opened one drawer after another, removing contents and finally found the whisk.

"What the--"

Severus looked up to see that Tara had entered the kitchen. Tara was clearly miffed; it looked like an earthquake had rocked her normally tidy kitchen. Every drawer and cabinet were open and there was Tupperware all over the floor, contents of the drawers were all over the counters, and then her horror turned to laughter when she looked at her husband standing there wearing her apron with cats on it, holding a wire whisk, with flour in his hair. How did he always manage to get food in his hair?

"I thought I would cook breakfast. Now, get your Pepsi, and go sit," he said, opening the refrigerator to get a diet Pepsi. He handed it to her. "I'll clean up, I promise," he assured her.

"Okay. My God. Let a man in the kitchen and all hell breaks loose..." she said, taking her Pepsi. She went outside to the deck to have a clove.

Severus was whisking up the liquid ingredients, happily. This wasn't so hard...not at all. Next he combined the other ingredients and made a batter. It was kind of thick. But maybe that would make them fluffy, he thought, turning on the stove. He had seen her test the temperature of the pans by throwing some water droplets in, and that was no problem. Now where was the butter? He threw some butter in which danced happily on the hot pan, and then ladeled in some of the thick batter.

"Cook until you see bubbles appear on the surface, then flip the pancake over." Well, the problem was, he didn't see any bubbles appear, and pretty soon, the pancake was clearly burning. He flipped it over and yes, it was blackened, but not too badly. Or maybe it was. He cursed again, and removed the pancake from the pan, and flung it behind him so it would land in the sink. He stopped cold when he heard a crash.

Tara heard the shattering glass too; she put her cigarette out and hurried into the house. Severus was standing in the kitchen, staring in disbelief at the broken window above the sink.

"What the hell happened?" Tara asked.

"I burnt a pancake..."

"And you broke a window? I thought you didn't have problems with rage, Severus--Albus assured me--"

"I didn't break the window in a rage. I broke it with a pancake."

"You what?" Tara asked, not sure she had heard correctly.

"I burned a pancake and tossed it to the sink, it hit the window and--"

Tara burst out laughing. "You broke a window with a pancake. What did you put in the batter? Rocks? Severus, I think you'd better leave the pancake cooking to me." He stood aside sheepishly as she inspected the thick batter. It was worse than she thought. "Shit, what is this, cement?"

"I followed the recipe," he said innocently, pointing at the cookbook.

"Recipe? You made them from scratch?"

"Well, yes. Isn't that how--"

"Well you can, but I prefer this," she said, going to the pantry. She pulled out a box of Bisquick. "This is much easier, and foolproof. You broke a window with a pancake. This is going to be a great story to tell at Hogwarts," she laughed. "You want to fix that before we go on?" she said to his dangerous look.

He nodded and took his wand out to fix window. "Wait--not yet." Tara went outside and saw the carnage of glass and a charred pancake and took a picture with her digital camera. This was too funny. The picture came out great; complete with Sev's bewildered expression as he peered out through the broken pane of glass. "Are you finished?" he asked her. She nodded, still laughing, and he fixed the window.

Tara took over in the kitchen, and Severus marveled at how she flipped the pancakes in the air. "What do you think I am, some sort of muggle?" she asked him.

"Not at all." He sighed heavily, and sipped his tea.

Tara fixed them breakfast in no time flat, complete with bacon, sausage and freshly squeezed orange juice. They ate outside on the deck.

"I think you are going to fatten me up with your good cooking," Severus remarked.

"Good thing robes are in at Hogwarts!" Tara remarked. Since she had ended up cooking, he cleaned up the kitchen, with a little help from some domestic spells. He joined Tara out on the deck where she was smoking a clove.

"So what are we going to do today?" he asked her, sitting down. It was her turn to pick an activity.

"Oh I don't know. We could go out on the boat and fish. It won't be long before we have to start closing up the house for the winter," she remarked, "might as well enjoy our free time while we have it."

"I agree. I'm pretty tired, I didn't exactly sleep so well last night," he said, watching her take a deep drag from her cigarette.

"Oh yeah, that nightmare you had. Kept you awake afterwards?"

He nodded, his expression darkening. "I never got back to sleep."

"Well maybe you ought to take a nap. You can sleep on the boat," she offered. He thought that sounded good. They dressed, got their gear together and got out onto the boat. Severus was very relaxed and folded one of the seats down and was soon fast asleep.

Tara relaxed, deeply engrossed in a trashy romance novel while her fishing rod was sitting in the holder, waiting for dinner to swim by. Severus was in a deep sleep, snoring ever so slightly. He only snored when he was extremely tired, thankfully.

During the course of the afternoon, she caught a couple of trout, then turned around, hearing Severus use a word that she had never heard him say, and in his style of speaking, it was long and drawn out.

"Sev, I fear I am definitely influencing you badly," Tara said. "Although I never heard the F word spoken so elegantly though." He was sitting up, rubbing his left forearm. "I'm burnt I think," he said.

"No, you can't be. You put your stuff on earlier and you've been out in the sun so much the last couple of months, you shouldn't be susceptible. You certainly don't look burnt; if anything, you just look darker."

Severus had gotten a lot of color from so much time spent outdoors. He even had some deep red highlights in his hair showing up. He cursed again, realizing that there was something to the mark on his arm burning--and it was not from the sun. It was not his imagination either. He had to ignore it. Again. He had to make sure that he didn't worry Tara either. Unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Want a beer?" Tara asked. Though Severus had never been a beer drinker, he found that he did enjoy an ale while on the boat.

"I just woke up..."

"Just asking. An iced tea maybe?"

He nodded and she handed him an ice tea from the cooler. She grabbed a beer for herself and held hers up in a toast to him. He toasted her back, and glanced at his arm again. It was definitely burning. Just then Tara felt a fish on her line and began reeling it in. Severus got up to do his net duty which he always did, and netted the fish for her. He tried his best to ignore his arm...his call.

Tara thought Severus was strangely quiet that evening, but he sometimes got into his quiet moods, and the best thing to do was to let him have that, and any space he needed. Tara was the same way and respected that. She retreated to her loft where she was working on her computer class which she would be teaching that term. They only had a month left, and their last week in the house would be spent winterizing it, and putting the boat into dry dock storage for the winter. They planned to come back a couple of times that winter so they had to get a snowmobile and get it parked where the snowplows stopped plowing the roads; the only way to get to their house during the snowy months was on a snowmobile.

Tara was at the store which was about 10 miles away and had come back and heard a strange voice as she walked up the steps to the deck. She could hear Severus's voice, raised, and another man's voice. "I told you, that was years ago and I am not the same person!" she heard Severus protest. She stopped outside the door, hesitating, then noisily opened it, rattling her keys on purpose. "I'm home!" she said, musically.

She walked in to see a tall, thin man dressed in dark robes with a pointy face and light silvery hair. He looked at her with cold, steel gray eyes which made her feel immediately defensive.

"Lucious, this is my wife, Tara Hall. Tara, this is Lucious Malfoy," Severus said.

"Malfoy--as in Draco?" she asked. Lucious nodded. "My son."

He did not extend a hand to her, instead he turned to Severus once more. "If you know what's good for you, you'll come. Now."

Come where? Tara was alarmed and her stomach left. Was this man threatening Severus?

"I'm not going anywhere. Not now, not ever," Severus said firmly.

"I hope you don't regret that. Good day." The tall, evil looking man turned and strode out of the house and shut the door behind him. Tara put the groceries down, and stared silently at her husband. He rolled up the sleeve of his left hand.

"He's calling me. All of us," he explained.

"Calling who?" Tara asked. Severus's black eyes bore into her own.

"He has regained his strength. When he wanted to call the Deatheaters together, our dark mark would burn. Mine has been...I ignored it as usual."

"And Malfoy?"

"He found me. Us. Somehow."

"I'm not sure I get it..."

"Voldemort knows where I am."

Tara's knees buckled and Severus caught her as she lost consciousness. "I'm not going to let you take her!" he shouted...and he meant it.