Gloaming Part Two
The Way That You Look At Me Now Makes Me Wish I Was You

AN: I'm really sorry for the terrible French in the previous chapter. Despite my best efforts I cannot remember how to say more than three things in French, and none of them are useful in the least. Also, regarding Arienette, I promise you here and now that she is not a Mary Sue. What assurance can I offer? Well, none really, except my word. She is not a person I am overly fond of; quite frankly she gives me the creeps. However, she is a part of the plot, and I do need her. So…please believe me when I tell you that she's not going to become some half veela exotic dancer plot twist. And if you like her, that's cool. Thank you.
I.

Malfoy Manor is a white building stretching up three stories and an attic. It has a set of dungeons that rival Hogwarts', complete with torture chamber and barred cells and, of course, a top-notch potions lab. Lucius Malfoy met his sticky end years ago, as Snape reminds us with a toothy grin. His wife, never a branded Death Eater, lingers in the Manor, roaming massive empty expanses of land inside and around the Manor. There's a courtyard, Snape tells us, which was once considered one of the Wizarding World's most beautiful locations. Since Voldemort's first rise it has fallen into disrepair, into crumbling stone fountains and broken marble statues hiding beneath a jungle of exotic and overgrown weeds.

Arienette pulls the car into a huge circle drive in front of the Manor, once used for carriages at the Malfoys' many social events, Snape whispers in my ear, and we get out and head up the huge stone steps of the porch. The grass on the lawn is overgrown, tangled in on itself. The Doric columns supporting the porch roof are chipped and grey, like an ancient ruin.

I'm expecting a house elf to open the doors, so I'm surprised when the lady of the house appears before us, her blonde hair short, her slim shoulders slumped. She's dressed all in white; white skirt reaching to the floor, white blouse, bare white feet and hands. Her eyes are a pale grey, blinking out at us like they've had the colour washed out. A strand of diamonds glitters demonically around her neck.

"What do you want, Severus?"

"Narcissa, my dear, it is always a pleasure to chat with you, but I really must insist that you let us in at once."

She sniffs haughtily, looking us up and down. "A Muggle? I'd heard rumours about you, Severus, but I didn't think it possible you'd have sunk this low." She shakes her head. "No. I will not allow a Muggle in my husband's house."

As she begins to shut the door, Severus sneaks a boot forward and into the doorjamb. "Don't fool yourself Narcissa. How many Muggles do you think Lucius took on as lovers? Did you even have a key to all the rooms in this house? How many did he forbid you access to? Besides," his voice smoothes as he glances back at Arienette. "Arienette is no ordinary Muggle."

"Be that as it may, I will not have you three tromping through my house destroying everything I have worked so hard to keep in order."

"I need access to the lab, Narcissa. It is a matter of the utmost importance. I'm sure even you can appreciate that." He sneers, his face twisting up in a way that strikes me as so familiar it is almost comforting. Beside me, Arienette stiffens. I feel like smirking. She doesn't recognize this Snape; he's not her suave and glowing golden boy of youth now.

"You're welcome to come in, Severus. You and the boy. She stays outside," Narcissa's grey eyes narrow, "like a dog."

I expect him to scream at her. His face looks like he wants to. Instead he takes a step back, expressionless again. Arienette is still tense as a board beside me. "You'll let us all in," he says, his voice low and dangerous. "This concerns you every bit as much as it concerns these two. You remember, I am sure, a certain experiment of Avery and your husband's." Her eyes grow wider and he smirks. "Yes, of course you do. I'm sure you remember everything about it, from the stench creeping up the dungeon stairs to the screams to the disappearing house elves. And I'm sure you remember how strongly Lucius objected to your setting foot outside your bedroom door."

He steps closer, putting one gloves hand on her shoulder as he leans in to speak. I can just catch his words. "Or how upset he was when you disobeyed, sneaking downstairs like a wayward schoolgirl in your white slippers. The way he lashed out at you. I'm sure you remember something of that. You've still got the scars."

She steps back, shivering and opening the door resentfully. "Fine," she says hastily. "Fine you may all stay. What difference does it make now he is dead? Burn down the house for all I care. Just do what you must and leave me alone."

"Thank you, Lady Malfoy," Snape says, with the barest hint of sarcasm before shoving his way through the door with Arienette and I following close behind.

* * *

Snape shows us to our rooms. I get the feeling that he knows his way around this place very well. Narcissa, for her part, is doing everything in her power to pretend we don't exist. Snape's picked out three rooms next to one another on the third floor. It comforts me a great deal to know I won't be spending the night with him again. It comforts me more than I like to admit that he won't be spending the night with Arienette.

Arienette has barricaded herself in her room, in fact. She seemed terribly shaken up after Narcissa's frigid welcome, though I think her anger was directed more at Snape than at our ungracious hostess. I'm not sure why, but I think Snape senses it as well, his mouth drawn in an angry line and his eyes vacant of that playful sadism that was such a vital part of him not so long ago. He opens the door to my room and ushers me in.

"I'll see what I can do about getting you some clothing," he says, inspecting the dusty expanse of the oak wardrobe. "For now try on anything you can find in this room or my own, and if it fits you're welcome to keep it. Narcissa probably won't notice."

"Whose clothes are they?" I wrinkle my nose, pulling out a blue jacket about three sizes too big for me.

"They were Lucius'. And mine. And various other Death Eater's. Oh, Merlin, that was Knott's." He chuckles and takes a paisley button up shirt from the wardrobe. "There should be robes in here somewhere…here we go." He pulls out an armful of dusty but doubtlessly expensive robes, spreading them over the bed. "There are more in my room. Take anything you want."

"Snape?" I take a step toward him, suddenly exhausted. "What am I doing here?"

He smiles, sadly, and brings his hand up to cradle the side of my face. "You're helping me save the world."

"I don't want to be kept in the dark any longer," I tell him vehemently. "I'm sick of your secrets and lies."

"I would tell you everything," he says soothingly, "if I thought that I could trust you."

"If I give myself to you completely? If I swear myself to you, unwaveringly? Then what?" I lean into his touch, eyes shut, blood pounding through my head. What am I saying?

"Then we would both be miserable."

* * *

The courtyard is a wreck, as expected. The air inside is too close, too stuffy. Snape has been locked in the dungeon lab for an hour, and I've just about gone mad going through old clothes. So here I am, reluctantly dressed in Death Eatery finery, in the decaying courtyard of a dead enemy.

The season seems suddenly not applicable. I'm overdressed. Narcissa must have the Manor charmed, or at least this courtyard garden, because it feels humid, hot, a constant jungle summer in this disintegrating paradise. Shedding my heavy outer cloak I take a look around at the cracks in the stone path, the ruined fountain and broken marble birdbath. "Why not have the house elves fix it?" I mutter to myself.

"Why not indeed," she answers, stepping out from a clutter of wisteria and dogwood. Startled, I step backward. Her eyes run over me coolly, calculatingly. "Avery's shirt. Lucius' robe and tie. Let me guess; you've gotten into Snape's trousers?" She raises a blonde eyebrow.

I stare, blankly, unsure of what to say. She looks younger than I'd expected. She looks like she's in her mid-thirties, which doesn't add up. Lucius was in his mid forties when he died five years ago, and Snape himself would be in his early forties if it weren't for the damned charms he's wearing. She's too young and too pretty to be trapped someplace like this.

"Have you ever heard of tulips?" Narcissa fingers a dark red petal delicately. "They open up to catch the sunlight, cast apart their petals in an attempt to stay alive, to bask in light. But, over time, they get older and weaker, too used to staying open. And then they can't close, ever again, and fall apart until there's nothing left." She pauses, looking up at me from behind her choppy blonde locks.

"Fascinating?" I offer.

"You want to know if I've gone mad," she says, running a small white hand over the cool edge of a cracked statue. "Frankly, I think you're mad to follow a lunatic like Severus."

"Believe me, I agree with you," I mutter. "I don't suppose you'll tell me what's going on?"

She raises her eyebrow again. "You mean you don't know?"

"He showed up at my door on Christmas with his girlfriend and dragged me across the continent insisting we were saving the world."

"Why'd you go with him then, hmm?" She sighs, smoothing her skirt with an irritated gesture and shifting her weight from one leg to the other. "He is, you know. Saving the world."

"From what? How? I don't understand anything that's happened."

"During the beginning of the first war," she says, with a dreamy sort of expression. "They were just like kids. The Death Eaters, by and large, were teenagers, Lucius being the one obvious exception. They were geniuses though, all of them, in one subject or another. Avery had a good mind for equations and ingredients, a good memory. Knott was known for his transfiguration skills. Lucius was an excellent manipulator, and very capable when given the right orders. Severus, you know, was the potions prodigy. Everyone had their skill to use in aiding the cause.

"They would spend months holed up here, during Ministry raids. The Ministry couldn't reach outside the country as easily then as it can now, so they were all safe here. Lucius would throw drinking parties to keep them entertained, and they'd travel a few miles to the village down the road and wreak general havoc. Those were the good days of the war, the fun days. Everyone safe and happy, no one worried or upset." She sighs wistfully. "I was just a little thing then, one of his more recent acquisitions, but I knew when he was happy.

"Well, one night they got to thinking. Maybe they could combine all their talents, make something so huge and terrifying that Voldemort would praise them for it. I think they wanted to frighten their leader a little as well. So they locked themselves up in the dungeons and got to work.

"After the first day I started noticing the smell. It was hideous, a rotting meat sort of stench rising up the stairs. It made me dizzy, smelling it too long. Lucius emerged that first night, looking worn out and messy, and ordered me to stay in my bed chambers until he gave word that I could come out again. I didn't know why, thought he was upset over something. From the house elves I gathered bits of information though. They were making…something…in the dungeons." She shivers, clutching her arms.

"It wasn't long before I couldn't take not knowing. I wanted to find out what was happening down there, what they were doing. So I crept downstairs, trying not to make any sound. The smell was worse than before. The lights downstairs were all off, curtains drawn, totally silent. As I stood at the foot of the stairs I could hear whispers though, coming from the dungeons.

"I crept closer, still silent. They were talking excitedly downstairs. Lucius' voice rang out. 'It's the perfect weapon. It can never be used against us,' he said. 'I say we put it into use at once.'

" 'What about Voldemort?' Avery's voice wavered up to me. 'You're talking treason. It'll kill him. His father…'

" 'Fuck Voldemort,' Lucius replied. 'He can't stop this. Do you want to serve a mudblood?'

" 'Then what about your wife?' Severus asked. 'Or your son? Or Bellatrix? We can't use this now. Not yet. Not until we have more control over its effects.'

"I had walked down the first few stairs to hear them better, and I must have set off an alarm, because the next thing I knew they went silent, and then Lucius came racing out, wand raised. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, and he looked like a frenzied beast. I thought at first that he didn't recognize me," her voice cracks. "He hit me hard. I was used to hexes, but not physical violence. Not something that left marks like that. And he just kept saying, 'You don't know what you could have done. You don't know.'

"The other Death Eaters had come up to watch by this point, and I think he might have killed me if Severus hadn't pulled him off. His fingers left bruises all up my arm, and he'd clawed through my night shift, right through to my skin and he'd ripped apart my back. There are scars…"

She falters, her voice drifting off into silence as she wrings her hands. "What did they make?" I hear myself ask.

She looks up, a thin smile on her face. "Severus and Lucius explained it to me later, after the others had gone home. It was something between a virus and a beast. Severus and Avery had developed a virus that targeted only those with Muggle blood. Mudbloods and Muggles were the most obvious victims, but it was more refined than that. Anyone with less than pure blood would be in danger. No matter how small the trace, they were still at risk. That's why I was in danger of it," she smiles sourly.

"Pure blood is hard to find. Nearly all the true purebloods have been killed, thanks to the exterminations of Death Eaters. It was a little family secret. Back in the Dark Ages my family line was tainted. One of my ancestors bred with a young witch whose family came from Greece. They were a good lineage, but it was later discovered that there had, at one time, been an infiltration of half blood into their own. The impurity was carried by my mother, who passed it on to my sisters and I, who, in turn, passed it onto our children. Those of us that have children. Lucius didn't know until after I was pregnant, or he never would have stood for it. It's so far removed you'd think it wouldn't count, but it does.

"The virus itself was hideous. Knott, Bellatrix, and Mulciber had acquired and enchanted a half dozen mermaid foetuses. Nasty, smelling things. I'll never know how they got them. At any rate, they put them into stasis until Severus and Avery had created the viral strain, and then the foetuses were injected, made hosts to the disease. They were put back into stasis, inactive until such a time as they were needed.

"The mermaid foetuses were not affected by the virus. Their blood was immune. However, they could pass the disease along via touch. Everything and anything they touched was infected. And the virus has a one hundred percent fatality. The plan was to wait, to keep things undercover until an antidote could be developed, should it be needed, and then to unleash the monstrosity upon the world.

"The foetuses were lost, gradually. Lucius wanted to keep them all under lock and key in the dungeons, but Severus needed one to develop an antidote. He claimed to have written a flaw into the equation so that the virus was not invincible. However, he has not, to my knowledge, created a cure. I don't know what happened to four of them. One remains in the dungeons here, and I assume that it is upon this foetus that Severus, so completely pure and immune, is working to develop a cure. To save your life, I suppose, or that Muggle's. Not mine."

I'm frozen where I stand. Snape's confession comes back to me, the mermaid foetus my seventh year…. My mother had been a Muggle born. I shiver with a renewed sense of dread.

Narcissa is smirking at me. "You look good in those clothes," she tells me. "It's a pity you weren't born pure."

II.

Arienette won't come out of her room. After Narcissa's little revelation I lock myself in and wait for something to happen. Of course, nothing does, and the day passes more slowly in my room than in the world outside it. I wander the corridors for hours, thinking about the Aryan Death Eater youth and imagining the cream of the crop gone horribly wrong. Then I try to get Arienette to come out and talk to me, maybe reveal a few more of Snape's secrets, but she's not about to talk. She must know what we're here for.

I go downstairs and sit at the dining room table, staring ahead and not thinking of anything that's happening. I think about London instead, and what people must be thinking. Ron is probably furious at me right now. He's usually furious at me, and he'll be even more so if he or Alarbus have been trying to get hold of me.

Alarbus, of course, is probably shrugging this aside with a graceful little move of his shoulders, smiling awkwardly and saying that it isn't important. It was fun while it lasted. He made me no promises, gave me no words of love. This is stupid. If I had half a brain I'd be in London, curled up in front of my fire in his arms, not even having to pretend that I was content. If I had half a brain Snape wouldn't be alive to kidnap me.

That's a terrifying thought, I realise. A world without Snape would be a world I don't want to live in. He's my one remaining enemy, now that Voldemort is gone. And Ron is right, I'm only alive when I'm fighting with him. Just being near him I feel myself transformed, the drudgery of the past months sliding away in his arrogant smiles and his finely tailored jacket. His leather gloves, his long legs. I want to kill him, but I know I never could. I want to fuck him, but that may be even less possible.

The clock's just chimed eight o'clock when he comes staggering out of the dungeons and breezes past me without a word. I wait a few minutes, then follow him up to his room and knock on the door. There's no answer but the sound of running water. I try the handle. Unlocked.

His room already looks lived in, somehow. The window is opened, letting in a draft, and the white curtains blow lightly. There's a picture on his bedside table from which Lucius Malfoy smiles and waves, as unspeakably young as Snape appears. I tear my eyes away from it, looking toward the open bathroom door from which I can hear the shower. I contemplate interrupting him and demanding to be sent home, but decide against it and sit down, dejectedly, on the bed.

When he comes out with his thick blue towel wrapped around his hips and his hair dripping he takes a disinterested look at me before turning to the closet and selecting a pair of slacks and a black robe. He moves to the chest of drawers and begins rifling through them.

"Did Narcissa tell you everything you want to know?" he asks, back turned to me.

"No," I say. "But I don't imagine you'll tell me anything more."

"I'll tell you this much," he says, turning around and brushing his hair out of his eyes with an angry, agitated movement. "You'd better stop acting like such an arrogant little bastard."

"Or else what?" I narrow my eyes. "I learned from the best, after all."

"I told you before, Harry. There's more to me than glares and sneers and snide, inappropriate remarks. My persona doesn't fit you. Go back to being that adorable little orphan risking his life every other week." He slams the drawer shut and fixes me with a glare.

"You hated me then," I remind him.

"At least you were alive then. What do you think you are now? Some noble little fighting machine? No, you wouldn't think you were noble now. Then you had honor and pride and those thousand other make believe rewards for your suffering. You were special. Different. Now what are you? You've let the world beat you. You've let me beat you!" He snorts, glaring down his nose at me. "It's disgusting."

"I'm sorry I displease you," I hiss, feeling the onslaught of angry, indignant tears. "Why don't I just leave? You can talk with Narcissa about old times and when you're done Arienette and I will just be locked in our rooms waiting to go. How's that sound? Is that what you want?" It takes me a moment to realise I'm screaming at him.

"What I want is for you to wake up and realise how absurd you're acting! You could have everything."

"I could," I admit. "If you didn't keep popping up and taking it away."

"Don't lie to yourself. If I hadn't shown up you'd have spent Christmas alone, and the rest of your vacation avoiding your friends and eating cold take away." He sneers. "You remind me of myself."

"Fuck you!" I shriek. "I'm not you! Everyone keeps saying it. Everyone keeps implying it. 'Gee, Harry, you seem down lately.' 'Don't stand like that, you look like Snape.' 'Gosh, you're so sarcastic lately.' Fuck you all! I'm not you!" I can feel hot tears running down my flushed cheek, the anger I feel pounding through me.

Snape, strangely, is smiling down at me. "That's a good start," he says, reaching out a hand and wiping away a tear. I feel all hollowed out, everything released with my screams. I just shiver, letting him pet me softly, whisper into my ear as he sits down beside me on the bed.

"Snape," I begin, meaning to demand an explanation.

"You called me 'Severus', once," he says, brushing my jaw with his fingers. "That one night. Do you remember?"

I chuckle through my tears, wiping agitatedly at my face. "Kind of hard to forget."

Then he's kissing me, before I can even think of something snarky to say. I tense for a second, then sigh, relaxing into his touch, my arms moving up to wind around his neck as my mouth opens under his. He sucks my lower lip briefly, then flicks his tongue over it, pushing closer against me, his hands still framing my face. I sigh again, giving up and giving in as his tongue runs over the roof of my mouth in a hot, demanding caress.

When he pulls away again I feel like I've got stars in my eyes. Everything is glittering, like light reflecting on fresh snow. His eyes, dark with his age, glint especially bright. My mouth feels bruised, wet. I bring one hand to my lips uncertainly, trying to maintain eye contact with him.

His eyes shift away from mine uncertainly. "I shouldn't be doing this with you," he mutters, moving to stand up. I grab his hand, forcing him to remain beside me. "Harry…"

"Stop," I say, my voice hoarse. "I want you."

* * *

I think he stays awake all night, but I'm not sure. I just know that he's awake when I fall asleep curled up in his arms, and he's awake when I wake up in the same position.

Whether he slept or not, he kisses me good morning before retreating to the bathroom for a shower, and emerges again fully dressed. With a muttered, "Don't lay in bed all day," he's out the door and I know I won't see him for the rest of the day.

The prospect of getting up is horrible. I envision another day of wandering listlessly from room to room, poking through boxes of photographs and fraying robes, piecing together a vision of what youth must have been like for Snape. I can understand now why he wants a second go at it. I'd really like to go outside, but I'm too afraid of running into Narcissa again. Merlin knows what secrets she has, just dying to be told. I don't want to know anymore than I have to.

I get up, shower in Snape's bathroom, and dress. Walking back to my room I pause. Arienette's door is slightly ajar.

I'm not sure I want to talk to her. I'm pretty sure I hate her. So I've no idea why I do it, but I push open the door and go inside, glancing about before saying her name.

"What do you want?" She steps out of the bathroom wearing a red silk dress. I don't bother thinking of where it came from. She might have plucked it out of the air for all the difference it makes to me. Odds are good it belonged to Mrs. Lestrange, but I'm not going to dwell on that right now. We're all dressing up like Death Eaters, like a grand old masquerade.

I'd like to stand her beside Narcissa, red and white, the colours of life and death, pleasure and purity, blood and bone. Muggle and flawed pureblood.

"Will you tell me about you and Snape?" No use beating around the bush, I figure.

She smiles, her good spirits apparently restored. "What about us?"

"How'd you meet?"

She sighs. "I was twenty three when we met in the spring of 1999. He was young and charming, and I was working as a fortuneteller with a traveling carnival. He came in and asked to have his palm read." She smiles, remembering. "He didn't put much stock in those things, but he seemed to be amused by it. He struck me as odd because I knew he believed in magic, but he didn't believe in this."

"How did you know?" I ask.

"I just knew. I know things," she shrugs. "I know you slept with him last night."

I feel my face grow red at her words. "Are you jealous?"

"Non. Of course not," she says, smiling. "Why should I be? We are not lovers."

"But-"

"We were never lovers," she continues, choosing her words carefully. "Or else, we were tentative lovers. More than anything we have been partners. He needed someone like me and I needed someone like him, and we just latched onto one another and went from there." She smiles gently at me. "You don't have to understand."

"Why didn't I see you last time I saw him?" I ask. "He said you left him when you found out he was a wizard."

Unexpectedly, she laughs. "Found out? I knew from the beginning. From the moment I saw him I sensed it on his skin and in his blood.

"We were living in Belfast, but he knew you were coming. I told him. So we left and he sent me to stay with some friends while he engaged you."

"How did you know I was coming?"

"I told you," her eyes glitter. "I know things."

III.

The days fall into an easy pattern of waiting. I wake up and wait for Snape to finish work. I drift from room to room, place to place, in and out of doors. I sift through old memories, never mine, listening to old stories and thumbing through old photo albums, reliving other people's pasts. Narcissa's past, or Arienette's. I eat whatever the house elves offer me. I dress in dead men's clothing.

Snape emerges after dark and then it's rush and tumble, with few words between us because my tongue is dried up from disuse and his will only cut. I cling to him in sleep and wake up in his arms. And life keeps on like this.

On the third night I try to talk to him afterwards, warm in his embrace. I say something that's been eating at my mind. "Does Narcissa use a glamour?"

"No," he sighs. "No, she's exactly as young as she looks. Lucius always had a touch of pedophilia."

So we don't talk anymore.

After a week I think we'll never leave. I don't care. I amuse myself during the day by walking through the long corridors and rooms, or trying to see if I can get Arienette and Narcissa in the same room at once. They repel each other like magnets. We're hanging like melting clocks, like dust in the air, becoming a part of the Manor, something unused and forgotten, archaic relics of another age, when he comes bursting up the stairs exclaiming eureka.

The cure. We gaze at it hungrily. A neutralizing agent made from the blood of the enemy. Components of the virus dwell in it, and there's only one way to test it.

I recall learning in Muggle school that when a vaccination for small pox was developed it was almost as deadly as the disease.

Narcissa turns up her nose. "I suggest you find someone else to be your guinea pig."

Arienette goes white, her voice wavering. "Is it safe?"

I say nothing; just reach forward for the vial. He reluctantly releases it into my hand and I steel myself for whatever may come next. I offer him a smile that feels more like a grimace. "When have you ever gotten a potion wrong?"

He says nothing, and I shrug, uncorking the vial and sniffing it. I wrinkle my nose; it smells like sulfur. I look up again, around myself one last time. Then I close my eyes and tip my head back, trying not to inhale as I swallow the liquid and set the vial down on the table.

Snape releases a deep breath. I feel the same, maybe a little dizzier. "How do you feel?" he asks, moving closer to support me. "Harry?"

I shake my head and the edges of the world blur. "I…I don't know." I turn, and my feet fall out from under me. "I want to lie down."

"Of course."

* * *

It feels like wading through fire. No. It feels like drifting on a calm blue sea. No. It feels like sandpaper and ashes. It feels like being shredded alive. It feels like having my heart frozen. It feels like burning, drowning, hanging, bleeding, screaming, crying no.

No.

It feels like nothing. It feels like being dead.

Snape's voice slides down into my dreams. "…keep his temperature down. If you can get him to drink…" I moan and turn away from it, my ears exploding with the muted sound. I feel hands on me, and open my eyes momentarily to see only a pair of black eyes. Nothing to do with me. I want to go back to drifting.

Sirius is here with me, smiling in that way that never reaches his eyes. "If he lives through the night," he says, "then he's more of a miracle than anyone has claimed!" Then he opens his arms and flies away, and I'm left on the ground, reaching up to touch the heel of his boot.

"Take me with you," I plead. "Don't leave me here. Please don't leave me here."

"Harry, Harry," says a low voice, and I spin round to see Snape, smiling in his young skin, moving like a panther kitten all sinew and strength. "Call me Severus."

I reach out a hand that passes right through his chest, draw it back and realise he's got nothing inside. I'm talking to air. And he goes up like smoke from a candle, and I'm left with nothing but myself, just alone again and it feels like the inside of a whale. Like a lion's mouth or the flames of a furnace. A garden that never changes is the way he looks to me.

When I open my eyes again Narcissa is sitting in a chair by the window, gazing out at the lawn. I make a noise and she turns to me, her eyes wet and grey as seals. "Don't die on us, child," she orders, because women like her can only order. "You are what you are, but we're fond of what you're becoming." And then I fall back asleep, if I was ever awake at all.

I dream about colours and places, and people and things. Smiles. After a time I've run out of things to dream of, and there is only darkness, and his voice. "I think he's coming out of it. Harry? Harry?"

I blink, unsure of whether or not this is still a dream. "Severus?" My voice is cracked and dry, and someone hands me a glass of cool water. There's a pause before anyone says anything, and I can hear a sharp inhalation.

"Harry? Can you hear me?" I nod, and then regret it as it mixes up my head. "You've been out for three days. Do you know where you are?"

A dream, I want to say. My mouth forms around the words, "Malfoy Manor."

"Yes, very good." His hand runs over my forehead in a soothing gesture. "You should be okay now." I hear him stand, then pause at the door. When he speaks again he sounds just like the way I remember from Hogwarts. "Congratulations; you've survived another bout with heroism."