A big thanks for your support and encouragement in this story to the following writers and their wonderful stories:
rickfan37 who has written Snape In Love;
Gwenn who has written Redemption,
Spider (not here yet)
and last and definitely not least The Stars Hold Nine Serpents who has written Un Livre des Herbes Foncées, A Dark Herbal
Where Your Loyalties Lie
Chapter fifteen
When she entered his office at two o'clock, it was without hesitation, though she was shaking inwardly. Determined not to give him the satisfaction of cowering before him, she stood on her dignity. Her dignity had short shrift with him however, as he immediately thrust her into her chair and placed himself opposite with a notebook and a quill in his lap and glared at her. He also had a small piece of manuscript that he had not risked giving to her yet and he held it protectively in one hand. Eventually, as the fire snapped and popped beside them, and she had calmed down somewhat, he leant forward.
"Take this," he snarled, and placed the precious fine fragment into her hand and sat back, waiting. The look on his face and the impatient rustling of his robe made her shiver. She swallowed, then attempted to breathe slowly, staring down at the parchment. She could feel the tide of the Phoenix song faint and rising within her, coming stronger, rising and she started to judder, to sweat. She broke away from the sound.
"I don't want to be opened. I don't want to be healed. I want my armour!" she cried. "It's safer that way. Otherwise" and she glared at him, "you get taken in."
What were those emotions passing over his mask?
The mask that had lately begun to peel.
"Elrin – I – "
"Can you" she seethed, "in all honesty, say that you have not been affected by your overwhelming desire to prize open the secrets of the manuscripts?"
He hesitated, and she folded her arms triumphantly.
"There. I can sit here all day, all year and I will not open for you. You can rage all you want."
There was, in his body, a reflection of the fact that he had made a decision, and he knelt down in front of her upon the carpet, holding both of her wrists, his face dark.
"Elrin, understand this, the manuscripts are not 'mine', they belong to the community, to the community that wants peace and prosperity and wisdom. They are a part of me and I believe they are a part of you. . The parchments are hidden within my blood, but they not mine alone as they are everyone else's' at the same time. They are not separate things, objects, they are a part of your skin, of your heartblood, of your soul, of your loved ones, of our enemies, of our society, of our nations, of our wider world."
She stared at him, then recovered.
"I don't have a world. I don't know what world I am in. I am a visitor, a stranger, an interloper."
He looked away, and then back towards her. "Answer carefully: did you not feel more like a stranger in your own land? Have you felt our world to be so different, so alien to your own heart? Have you felt, in your inner self to be truly a stranger?"
"No, I do not, but I don't know how I got here and so I could be taken back any minute. Imagine to yourself: what if this world is all false; what if it's all a dream and it's gone tomorrow? What if I had put my all, my life, my sacrifice into it, my heartblood into it, how would I then feel? To be left with a grey world."
"If you don't do this," he said, "not for me, but for everyone here, you may have that situation here, only believe me, much, much, much worse. In fact you may pray for the return of the grey world as a wonderful paradise." She suddenly remembered Voldemort's chill and his desolate breath.
He took a deep breath, and the grip on her wrists tightened.
"Two things I have to say to you."
"Could you relax your grip a little? It hurts." He released them immediately upon standing up and she rubbed them and there was a part of her that wanted him to remain close, but wild elf horses would not get her to admit it. He paced a little in front of her and the fire.
"I think," he began, "I may know how you came here." This was a shock and she stared into the flames, almost afraid to know. "I realized it last night. It was something I had forgotten." There was an awkward note in his voice.
"Some time ago, about this time last year, I did an – ancient family ritual to call someone to help me translate the manuscript." Her head shot up. He was not looking at her as he continued to pace. "It was more a prayer than a summoning."
So he had called her.
"I was….I was also…." and stopped. This was obviously difficult for him to say, so she remained silent. The idea of him finding words to say so extraordinary that she waited without interruption.
Good.
"I was also in need – of a companion." He stopped. "Oh, that wasn't part of the ritual," he said swiftly turning towards her, his fingers splayed together, "that would not have been appropriate for the ritual, but I realize now that that was an element of my own desire that went into the mix, though I can only see that now with hindsight. I was in a weakened state I believe." He said the last almost shamefully. Her eyes widened at this. She had been with him until up to then.
"Weakened! You believe having a 'companion' is weak?"
He knelt down in front of her again. "In my position, yes, definitely. It is too dangerous. For the Work against the Dark Arts, as well as for the other person concerned."
"Has it occurred to you that it might be of benefit instead?"
"No."
"What is the second thing?"
"It is part of the first." Again, he exhibited symptoms of discomfort.
There's no way I'm going to make this easy for you.
"Only you have penetrated my defences," he looked away as he spoke. A fast and able tongue when dominating, but with his own private emotions, he was slow and reserved. "I did not sleep with you for what I wanted from you. I did that because I desired to, because of my own – private - longing."
"So you called me – and then you were furious about what you received?"
He blinked, not following her logic.
"I called you," he continued, "but Deep Magic brought you. I had forgotten that I had done it. It seemed a brief, though imperative ritual in an eventful, stress filled time and I gave no more thought to it. So on your arrival I did not connect the two, until now." He sighed, "I can only remember feeling so confounded when you first arrived in Albus' office. I had such intense rage at someone I knew was significant, who spoke to me on an inner level I could not even begin to comprehend. I could not read you, but I could tell that there was something about you that was going to disrupt my life, maybe even disturb the school for which I have been dedicated to for so long, it being my lifeline, my everything, since – since being a Death Eater. I who was all darkness and grief and guilt could not imagine that someone could think of me other than that of a pariah. I suspected the disturbance was going to be on a personal basis and I did not want to be disrupted. I had enough on my plate, and I was stubborn. I had no reason to believe in the goodness of myself, and so I leapt to the negative conclusion. It had to be one or the other that I knew. Added to the fact that there was no way of knowing where you had come from, and whether your intentions were for good or ill. And it is true you have disrupted me."
"I have disrupted your life? I see no change," she said.
"No? No change on the outside perhaps, of routine, of duty, but on the inside…"
"Tell me."
He balked at saying more, "All I can say is, is that you have disrupted me."
"How could you possibly relate to someone like me? I am nothing. I am basically a Muggle."
"No, no," he said and tenderly took her hands in his, and she felt the shock of their warmth and he bent his head so she would not see his face fully and spoke more into her lap, so that she was looking at his black hair, shining from the firelight.
"You are everything. You are special. You have something I do not, or have forgotten, or never had. You have depths I have not dared to plummet; you have heights I have not dreamt of. Whatever environment you came out of has not touched you. You were always destined for here. You have always belonged here. Otherwise you could not have come. It would have been against the laws of Deep Magic."
Elrin had been a passenger all her life, had been a receiver of what life had thrown at her up to this point. All the evolving forces in the universe had been pushing her to make a jump, a leap across into fidelity and to embrace her fate, her destiny and this one tiny step of movement, though apparently insignificant, took her into something of her own choosing, of her own declaration, her own belief in existence and though invisible, it took her life and claimed it, and she no longer belonged to herself, but yet had never been more herself. In short, she surrendered.
"Severus, come here," and with tears that burned down her cheeks, she leant forward and with a freed hand, took his face and pressed her own to his and searched hungrily for his mouth.
"Elrin," he whispered, his mouth half open on hers, "I love you."
She grasped him and looked into the two deep pits of pain that were his eyes to see the truth of it and saw heaven and hell beside one another, in a soul so particular, so distinctive, so conscious, so beautiful that the tears flowed even faster from her eyes. He did not even collect them, so engaged was he.
"Make love to me," she said.
Lifting himself up to his full height with his darkness and his robes rustling about him, he held out his hand for her. Assuming that he was escorting her into his rooms, she said as she stood up, "No, in here, where you work, where your life's work is." This hit home to him, and looked around at the cold floor and the thin carpet by the fire and the chairs. Using his wand, he transformed the chairs to a wide couch so that it's southern aspect faced the fireplace and draped soft golden kilims over the cool of the leather, then placed a Silencing Charm with several wards on the door. As she stood waiting, she watched curiously as he gathered several items to place on small tables at the east and the west of the couch, bringing silver bowls of clean water, incense and herbs. As she looked at him enquiringly, he said "Dragons Blood and Frankincense for protection, Gardenia, Lavender and Copal to ease hurt after a quarrel." Sprays of early spring flowers he brought and put into thin vases, and he changed the colours of them until he had decided on white and purple arranged north and south. Then with his wand, finished with a levitation of small candles at each end and lit both incense and candles.
When he had finished, they stood holding each other in front of the fire, her arms wrapped round on the inside of his robe, and when he went to take it off, she stopped him. "Please keep it on," and though he tilted his head questioningly, he did as she asked. She could smell the school on him as well as his own scent and she burrowed into his darkness and he looked down at her in awe. Taking her hair in his hands, he kissed the glinting strands and closed his eyes, and leant his chin on her head, and then enfolding her with his arms, dipped down his head and squeezed his love for her. In the depths of him, she stirred and began to unbutton his frockcoat, slowly, one by one, until the last button at the top was done, and his white shirt was revealed like a blaze of light on a dark night, and she began to undo that as well, until she searched for the origin of the warmth beneath that. The layers were peeled, and the fruit lay bare under her hands. Then she began to feel his hardness against her stomach and she pressed against him, glad and happy, and lifted her head for the snake to strike down to her and he took her mouth with his own, and thrust inside which shook her groin with a thump of tenderness and desire. He began to remove her bodice, and he managed to do so by himself this time, having worked out what was where and lifted it above her head and then, instead of taking her skirt off, lifted it up and removed her knickers over her thighs with the flat of his hands down to her feet. His hands ranged over her breasts beneath the blouse and then insinuated his hands under to the swollen flesh underneath and she moved herself against his hands to press her nipples against his fingers and groaned quietly into his chest.
"My love," she said, "Oh, my love, I am so sorry, I have missed you."
"Shh, he hissed silkily, "No need. Come here," and he took her round the waist and placed her on the couch so that she was lying down, and lifted her skirt up high. She gazed up at him as he moved her about and cursed herself for her passivity, but all her will seemed to be in abeyance as if hypnotised into a trance. She just wanted him and wanted him and wanted him: she could not get enough of seeing him, sensing him, smelling him, thinking him, drowning in him.
Be thou my secret centre, my heart & my tongue! O splendrous serpent! They are as upon the earth; I am Heaven."
He swallowed as he saw her face and bent down to kiss her on the forehead, then moved down to where her skirt had revealed herself to him, and bending down, plunged his tongue in to the source of her own desire and made her cry out loud and grasp his hair urgently.
"Ahhh, Severus…."
"Well, might you cry to me," he growled wickedly, as he manoeuvred his mouth and his tongue to torment and entrance her. "You will have to be punished, my lady"
Gently and firmly he impelled his way round her softness, and circling into her with his fingers until she felt she might scream with the joy and the terrible ache to have him and by now was a rampant disarray of desire, and he leaned back, pleased. The second he stopped, she craved him openly without shame and he undid his trouser buttons, took his trousers and pants off and knelt over her, his robes getting in the way a little, but since she had requested them, arranged them for his convenience and so he covered her like a great shadow and she lifted into it in ecstasy. He slid his hands round her skin under the clothes and kissed the gentle roundness of her stomach, and sought the back of her thighs and her delicately soft ear lobes and then finally, sought her wetness and slowly, gently entered her and her panting rose and encircling him with her arms, abandoned her body to his infiltration. She breathed in the heat of him, the smoothness of him, the angles of him, the vulnerability of him, the astonishment of him, the smell of him, the tautness of him, the predictability of him, the unpredictability of him, the dangerousness of him, the containment of him, the shield of him, the precision of him, the inner and outer fire of him, the deep integrity of him, the sensual power of him, the bondage of him, the ferocity of him, the unknown kindness of him, the controlled focus of him, the hiddeness of him and the deep pain of him.
" I love you, I love you Severus" she said to those black eyes and that steady face and then left trails of kisses on him where she could reach, on his neck, on his chest deep within his open shirt, on his cheeks and on his nose and on the luxurious curve of his mouth.
And he drank in her love like a dying man in a waterless desert.
She is uplifted in thine heart; and the kisses of the stars rain hard upon thy body.
Bear up in thy rapture, fall not in swoon of the excellent kisses!
Slowly, slowly, he dove in and out, until she reopened her eyes to watch him and he had his eyes fixed on hers and the dark pools spoke his need and of his giving. He began a rhythm where both of them breathed nearly together, and his propulsion gradually increased, and she could see the wisps of incense surrounding them and the lights from the candles flickering against him to make an intoxicating mix of the senses. Her heart, full to bursting with love for him and her body following its' desire to contain all of him, began to vibrate without her volition. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, so she did not stop and although he slowed for a second or two, he appeared not to be adversely affected, so she allowed the sound to increase a little until he gasped and he could feel it within himself. Hers' was clearer; his had to find its way through the labyrinth of pain throughout his heart, but it snaked its way into every dark corner of his body until he felt that he would burst with the strength and with the beauty of it. It was the same energy that had coursed through his veins when he had grasped her in the corridor, it was the same blast of expansive feeling, rooted in the centre of his chest and swelled until it reached every microrganism of his bodily existence and further beyond his body. It enveloped everything and everyone in lovingness, in devotion, in partnership, in joining, in the desire and pain for union and in its absolute completion. He almost stopped what he was doing as it was so overpowering, but the force fired his body to the ends of his nerve endings, and so he stayed with the energy and rode it. She, seeing him pause, managed to reach out and gently grasp his balls with her hands and he cursed and increased the depths of his breath, and widened his eyes at her and with one hand, stroked where he could find entrance below her fine curled hair, and is was her turn to groan and buck under him. Smiling with satisfaction at having her under his control, he then bent to kiss her open mouth, his hair covering both of them and then began to take his strength and his solidity to a more potent level until she was gasping loud and strong against him and it seemed like they were one in their union, that the heart vibration still sounded in his blood and that it spoke of things he had never experienced in that lifetime and it was as if he were newborn into another world. Then as he felt her opening up inside, he plunged good and hard and watched her wide eyed and flushed, jerk against him and he felt her squeeze him inside and he exploded into her and he crashed through an invisible barrier of his heart, one that had been erected for a long, long time and felt his heartblood spill out to mingle in both their souls.
For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union.