Tara's head hurt. She felt something cold and wet on her forehead and slowly she opened her eyes. She heard Severus saying something, then felt Noelle licking her nose. She sniffed the air and smelled the scent of clove cigarette smoke and wondered why she'd be smelling that indoors, and her eyes fluttered open. She saw Severus sitting there on the bed, looking at her.

"Severus--what happened?" she asked.

"You fainted. You're okay...I caught you" he began, and she realized she must be having a strange dream when she saw him pick up a half-smoked clove cigarette and take a deep drag from it.

"I must still be asleep," she said closing her eyes.

"Why do you say that?"

"Cos you're smoking. You don't smoke; well maybe you used to...bad muggle habit I thought. Let me know when I'm awake for real," she murmured, closing her eyes. She opened them again as the cloth was taken off her forehead. "You're awake for real," Severus told her.

She groaned and sat up, with Severus's assistance. Henry and Heidi were at the end of the bed looking at Tara, earnestly. Then what had happened came back to her, and she looked at Severus, who was, indeed, smoking. He crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray. "I'm getting dizzy, I should know better than to make myself ill," he muttered.

"I'm really a bad influence on you..." she began, referring to him smoking..."but what was that man doing here? What did he want? Is he a Deatheater too? I mean--you're not anymore--but you know what I meant..."

Severus nodded, and got up to answer the tea kettle in the kitchen, and came back with two cups of tea.

"This is better for us than those clove cigarettes, though less calming" he said, handing her a mug. "I agree. So...can you tell me what we do now?"

"If I knew, I'd tell you. I am not sure what we need to do. You've never had any training in the Defense Against Dark Arts. I could start to teach you, but there is so much to learn..."

"You know I learn quickly...but then again, this isn't a programming language," she said with a sigh, and picked up her pack of cloves which was on the end table. "I know they're not good for me, but like you said, more calming," she said, as he lit one for her.

"I think I'm going to settle for a good old fashioned prayer," she told him. "When the going gets rough, that's what I've always done. He has never let me down," she said, glancing heavenward.

She took a deep drag from her cigarette and exhaled. "Shouldn't be smoking in the house. It'll reek later..." she began, "unless you remember that spell to get rid of it."

"Of course...it's an easy one. I used it the other morning after the unfortunate pancake incident."

"Oh that's how you did it. Nothing worse than burnt pancakes...well maybe burnt popcorn. So...is there anything I can read?" she asked.

He nodded. "I've always been very interested in the Dark Arts. I'll be back." He went to his den and returned with a few books. "I think this will get you acquainted. It's hard to know where to start. With the juveniles, it's pretty straightforward. But the fact that you're not a juvenile and we're not dealing with a small issue here is going to make it difficult."

He left her to her reading and he notified Dumbledore via e-mail what had happened. For the next few days, they spent time getting her acquainted with various basics; it's all they could do.

It seemed like the best thing to do was to get the house ready to winterize and return to Hogwarts early. Severus already knew this and that was what Dumbledore advised in his e-mail back to them.

Severus was ill at ease, and he cursed himself at the fact that Tara was in danger and it was his doing. Maybe the entire marriage had been a mistake from the start. He was endangering the one soul in the universe for which he cared more than he could describe. One night he was out on the deck, looking at the stars, smoking one of Tara's clove cigarettes.

"Sev, are you out here?"

"Yes, I'm here." he replied, making the cigarette he was smoking vanish.

Tara came out, wearing a long, blue silk robe. She sniffed the air. "Sev, are you smoking again?"

"I don't smoke," he said simply. She stood up on tiptoe and sniffed him, much like Henry or Heidi would have.

"Uh huh. Okay so you say...these are tense times I suppose...but still. I feel guilty for bringing that back into your life..."

"Don't."

There were other things that were back in his life that were far more dangerous, as far as he was concerned, and she felt that. She peered off the deck. "Hope you don't start a forest fire..there was a big fire here back in 95 or 96...you can't just pitch--"

"I didn't, I made it disapparate."

"I should have known. What are you thinking about?"

He turned to her, knowingly. "Okay, stupid question," she remarked, and he put his arm around her waist and drew her close to his side.

"I never meant to hurt you...and now it seems inevitable..." he began.

"I've been studying though..." she said.

"Yes, but you know what you're up against."

She sighed. "Yes. I don't know what else to do."

"There is nothing else."

Just then they heard a strange sound, like a great wind. The trees they were looking at suddenly stirred as a great wind rushed through them. Tara felt her nerves stand on end and there in the sky above the lake was a beacon--it was the same as the mark on Severus's forearm. They both saw it. Severus gripped Tara's wrist.

"Tara, you have to go--" ..

"I'm not going anywhere without you!"

"Tara - listen to me. Go to your mom's. Take the cats. Go. Now. Do as I say!" The look in his eyes was nothing she had ever seen. She nodded obediently and they both ran inside the house. She immediately took the cats via floo powder to her mother's house, explaining "take care of them and let Dumbledore know that someone cast the dark mark in the sky!" and she left to return to the mountains, leaving her mother shaking.

Tara was in no way prepared for what she was about to encounter back in her mountain home. She tumbled out of the fireplace and immediately got to her feet, looking for Severus. He was nowhere in the house, and the house was silent. Where was he? She knew to be silent; she couldn't' help but feel that someone had been in the house. Yes, he said to go, take the cats, go to her mom's. He hadn't said not to come back...she wasn't being disobedient...

She tried to turn on a light and found that the power had been cut. Luckily, she had her wand. "Lumous." She was able to light her way around and couldn't find anything, and certainly no sign of Severus. Without her computer, she couldn't check e-mail to see if Albus had any ideas. Now what?

Her first talent she had shown was her telepathic tendencies. Concentrate, concentrate! she told herself. But then again, when she tried too hard, she couldn't get anywhere. Wine. Wine would make her calm down and get in touch. She remembered when she was younger and had smoked a certain herb. That really unlocked her telepathy, but she hadn't gone near that in years. Wine was the closest thing.

She poured herself a glass of wine and drank it down, then another, and lit a clove. Hopefully the calming effects of both would be with her soon...and lead her to Severus!