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Here we have Installment #2 of the Severus-angst fest, with cameos made by some Weasleys. Enjoy!

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It was some time before Severus managed to rouse himself from his torpor. You have a duty to do, Severus, he scolded himself, and you will damn well do it. You can wallow in your own pathetic grief later.

"Are you ready?" Helena asked him quietly.

"Yes," he answered, not looking at her. He could not bring himself to look at her.

"I gathered your possessions - not that you brought many," Helena told him.

"Thankyou," he said brusquely, taking the bundle from her hands rather more roughly than he needed.

"You're welcome."

"Have you sorted out all the things you need to sort out?"

"Yes. Diana will act in my name while I am gone."

"Good. Do you know the way to Hogsmeade?"

For the first time, he saw a priestess of Arachne look taken aback. "Severus -"

"It's Professor Snape to you," he said sharply.

"- don't think I'm going to let you Apparate!" Helena's face was shocked.

"I'd like to see you stop me!"

"You'll splinch yourself!"

"No I will not!" Severus growled. "Do you know the way to Hogsmeade, or do I have to show you?"

She lowered her head. "I know the way."

"Good," Severus said sharply, and Disapparated.

*

He did not think he would ever let Helena know how close she had been to being right. He had almost splinched himself, and only his sheer anger and determination to prove her wrong had let him hold himself together.

He stood under the awning of the Three Broomsticks. It was market day in Hogsmeade, by the looks of it, and all the local shopkeepers were out in full force - as well as shopkeepers that were not local.

Fred or George Weasley - he could not tell which one - waved at him from a brightly coloured stall selling what he knew were joke products. Ginny Weasley was beside him - clearly his sales assistant for the day. "Hi, Professor Snape!"

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose with his left hand. This was not turning out to be a good day.

A quiet pop! beside him announced the arrival of Helena. He hated to think what whichever of the Weasley twins it was - he assumed the other was still in Diagon Alley - would have to say to that.

"My, my, my, Professor Snape!" The Weasley twin was in front of him now, leaving Ginny to tend the stall. "You sly old dog! Seeing a woman on the side and not telling us!"

"Fifteen points from Gryffindor, Weasley," Severus's snapped automatically, and instantly regretted it.

The Weasley twin waggled his finger in Severus's face. "I don't think you can do that to me any more, Professor!" He stuck his hand out to Helena. "Hello, Professor Snape's girlfriend. I'm George Weasley, his favourite student, until I left school."

Helena smiled at him and took his hand. "I am Helena Seraphim," she answered.

"And not my girlfriend," Severus muttered. No, a snide little voice said in his mind. Not your girlfriend. Just the only woman you've slept with for almost two decades.

George had a glint of mischief in his eye that Severus dreaded. "So, Miss Seraphim -"

"Please call me Helena," Helena interrupted.

George beamed. "Familiarity is always best, particularly if you'll be part of the dear old Snape family tree any time soon. Helena, then. What is it that you see in ol' Sev here?"

"Sev?!" Severus exploded.

George tipped Helena a massive wink. "He's an old softy underneath that crotchety exterior," he said.

Helena smiled. "I'll keep it in mind."

"I hear he's a great fan of Celestina Warbeck."

"I know what to get him as a birthday present, then."

"WEASLEY!"

George looked at him innocently. "Yes, Professor?"

"Get out of my sight before I strangle you with my bare hands!"

"Remember - it's all a façade!" George whispered to Helena, then he Apparated back to his stall.

Severus opened the door of the Three Broomsticks. "Get inside," he ordered Helena shortly.

I am going to tear George Weasley into pieces with my bare hands, he thought vehemently as he made his way towards the fireplace, Helena behind him.

Madam Rosmerta came hurrying up to him. "Flooing to Hogwarts, then, Professor Snape?"

"Yes," he told her shortly, "and so is Miss Seraphim." He shoved eleven Sickles roughly into her hands.

Madam Rosmerta beamed. "So you've found yourself a lady at last, Professor! I'm so glad -"

Severus cut her off by seizing a pinch of Floo powder from the jar she held in her hands and tossing it into the fire. "My office at Hogwarts!" he snapped, then stepped into the flames.

This is really not a good day, he thought.

*

His office was comfortingly familiar as he stepped out the flames. Normally, he hated it - contrary to popular belief, slimy things in jars were not his preferred form of decoration, nor a dungeon his favoured habitation. But it was a reminder of his life, of the austere life he had been leading and would still be leading, if not for -

Helena stepped out of the fire behind him.

"Go," he ordered her, his back to her.

"Go where?"

"Anywhere. Away from here."

"Why?"

Now he did turn to face her. "Because I cannot stand the sight of you!"

She raised her eyebrows. "That's pleasant."

He smacked his hand down on his desk with such force that his neatly stacked piles of parchment jumped and scattered themselves. "For sixteen years I stayed away from women. Stayed away for her." He was shaking with fury. "And then, you had to come along with your bloody narcotics and drug me up and make me break that promise I made to myself. You destroyed me."

"I don't believe I forced the potion down your throat, Severus," Helena said sharply.

"It's Professor Snape to you," he snarled.

"Why?"

The question threw him. "Why what?"

"Why keep such a stupid vow for sixteen years?" Helena too was shaking, shaking with some strong emotion that he had not seen in her before. Before, she had been the epitome of serenity. Now, her eyes were flashing with passion. "Do you think Regina would have held you to it?"

"I loved her!" Regina who bore another man's child, the snide little voice whispered in his mind.

Helena's grey eyes bore into his and he had the unnerving sensation she could see into his soul. "If you think she would have held you to it," she said slowly, "you never knew her at all."

And with that, she stepped out of his office and slammed the door, leaving Severus, shaken, alone again.

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