Scene I

            For a moment he seized my hands, pressing them gently, regretfully.  The thought of the coming moment wrapped itself around this one.  Finally, his voice low and quiet, he spoke.

            "My transport will be here soon.  Can you help me pack?"

And so I buried myself, sending last instructions to my love so he might remember me upon the death or our togetherness.  I read countless ingredients and measurements written in tall, thin writing and placed vials into bags and boxes.  My mind worked twice as fast, unwilling to lose the time with him to a cursed, though necessary, chore.

 "Can I owl you?"

"No.  I can't have owls following me around, but you can send them to the Order and I'll get them later.  I'll owl you back.  The dragon's blood is one cupboard over."

Soft clinks resounded in the cavernous classroom as I removed a large, strangely shaped bottle from behind a door.

"Damn them," I murmured.  He turned around to look at me from his past ten feet away.  In one shuddered breath, he was close.

"Why?"  Questioning, but not angry or threatening, just curious.

I rested softly upon the freezing brick.  "For taking you."

He sighed, sympathizing for it truly was his pain, too.  He pulled the list from my hand and put the last few items into the suitcase.  Closing it and picking up a few others, he motioned for me to follow.

Stairs disappeared beneath us, elevating us from inside the earth to high above her.  The tight spiral opened to an observation tower I had never seen before.  Ancient stone with sentry gargoyles encased me. The bags that burdened Severus were dropped, gently, yet hastily, to the ground.

A warm hand burnt into mine for a moment, dismissing the cold air.  I thought it funny that this dead cold existed both above and below ground.

Artificial night filled his face with shadows.  The storm, finished raining, was now only a chilling dryness decorated with jealous lightning, striking out in all her beauty, choosing to destroy things she couldn't have. 

"Come with me."  I could almost have confused his voice for the wind.  Organic, low, nearly silent but to listening ears.

Another doorway closened and, behind it, another tightly wound set of stairs.  Our shoes made angry, resounding noises and quiet breaths echoed through the dimly torch-lit staircase.  A tiny door appeared, hiding itself behind the same dizzy dustiness that encased the corridor.  The dark shape of my love slipped inside.  I followed.

Darkness even more permanent and ancient dwelled in this room.   The dull light of the stairway caressed waxy leaves that the stone had long ago surrendered to.  Severus pulled a branch from near his shoulder.

A soft, shuddering sigh escaped from the vine and it collapsed, conceding to gravity and age, nothing more than a pile of dust as it blanketed the ground around us.

"It was a prophecy."  His eyes turned upon the bough. 

"Out of hallowed halls shall come a love made possible only by those things the lovers believe would pull them apart.  Happiness, long awaited, will live as the plant in the hidden tower dies."