Disclaimer: i don't own Harry Potter. Nope, not me.

A/N: Yay for reviews!

I severely doubt I'll be holed up in my theatre for five days, but it would be a sin to put these two chapters up too far apart, because they kind of continue into one another… and also, it puts me at a perfect (cliffhanger-esque) stopping point, because… next chapter, to be posted whenever it is I get back, is the long-awaited lawsuit!

A wight called the Each Uisge gets a mention in this chapter. Just for the record, that's pronounced ech oosh-kya and it's a type of wight called a waterhorse. Basically, it lives in water and can appear as either a comely young man, or a magnificent horse. The Each Uisge is one of the lords of wights, and is also unseelie - essentially, very very evil! If you want to read a great book with wight-lore woven into it, read Cecilia Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynde trilogy.

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Severus, one hand over his nose, uncorked a bottle of Blood Clotting Potion and swallowed it in one gulp. His nose stopped bleeding almost immediately.

He regarded himself in the glass of one of his cabinets. His right eye was beginning to purple - he would have a spectacular black eye tomorrow. His nose was bent at an impossible angle, but it was, thanks to the Blood Clotting Potion, not spurting blood any more.

Severus took out his wand and touched the tip of it to his nose. "Naso Lineare!"

His nose straightened, knitting back together. He sighed. He hated to think how many times that spell had come in useful.

All those many you broke your nose in fisticuffs with the Marauders, an insidious little voice hissed. All those many times you were tortured by the Dark Lord.

How could he have ever thought he had anything to offer Helena?

His eyes fell on the box on his desk. He had not put it away before he went to Helena's room. Silently, he cursed Dumbledore for giving it to him.

Three golden W's were emblazoned on the lid, along with a motto. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

But the proprietors of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes had recently become determined to become useful to the Order of the Phoenix. Using the technology they had utilised to create the Extendable Ears, the Weasley twins had created a spying device far more insidious and hence, far more useful.

Espionage Insects.

In short, bugging.

Severus put his head in his hands. He was a Slytherin. He was cunning and he used the resources at hand to best advantage. But he still had a conscience.

He had just bugged Helena Seraphim's room, and now, morally, he was paying.

But that didn't stop him listening to what was going on in her room.

*

"Helena?"

There was a sound of sobbing. "B-Bill."

Footsteps crossed the room. "Oh, Helena, I'm sorry."

"I - I never imagined it would be like this." Helena's voice was muffled. She had her face buried in his shoulder, then. "Never, never."

"No-one would ever want it to be like that, dearest." Bill's voice was soothing, comforting. "I'm sorry."

"What for?" She sounded like she was smiling through her tears. "It's not your fault, Bill."

"But - maybe it is."

"Why would it be your fault?"

"I should never have just run off to Egypt and left you. I never should."

"But, Bill…" Helena's voice was quiet and calm, though the teary edge was still there. "You know that was your golden opportunity. It was what you had always wanted to do, be a Curse Breaker. And when Egypt offered - the richest branch of Gringotts in the world - you had to accept. It fulfilled all your dreams."

"Did it?"

"Didn't it?"

"Not all of them, Helena." Bill's voice was bitter, acerbic. "Not by a long shot."

"But -"

"I wanted to be a Curse Breaker, have no illusions about that," Bill interrupted her. "But I also wanted to be a husband. A father."

Helena drew in a breath sharply. "Bill -"

"Helena." His voice was desperate now, urgent. "I loved you all those years at school. You know that."

"Well… yes…"

"And I left you. For tombs in Egypt." There was a clunk, and the sound of pacing. "If I hadn't left you, we wouldn't have drifted apart. You wouldn't have gone to the temple. None of this would be happening." He laughed bitterly. "I left the living for the dead, Helena, and now you are paying the price."

"Bill, I never blamed you." There were more sounds as Helena rose. "I never begrudged you your dreams. Not for me. And I did always want to be a priestess. The wights marked me for it from an early age. You know that."

Bill laughed again, astringently. "We're a sad pair, aren't we? We let something truly special slide through our fingers for the sake of a career."

Helena laughed too, just as humourlessly. "I know, Bill. I know." There were sounds as they sat back down again. "And now I'm pregnant, and -"

"- I'm working a desk job in Gringotts," Bill said.

There was a pause. "Tell me about Fleur," Helena said softly.

"Fleur? Who told you about her?"

"I overheard your twin brothers talking about her," Helena replied. "Said you were giving her English lessons."

"Oh. Well, I am. She sits at the desk next to me. She's French, you see, and her English is - well, was, till I started tutoring her - shocking."

"They also said," Helena commented quietly, "that she was your girlfriend."

Bill snorted. "And you believed them? She's only nineteen. Far too young for me."

"So…"

"She's not my girlfriend, Helena." Bill's voice was insistent, low. "I teach her English. That's it."

"Oh."

There was another long pause. "Helena?"

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

Bill took a ragged breath. "I was listening outside. You know that."

"Yes."

"Well… I couldn't help overhearing… Snape said he'd marry you, if that was what you wanted. Is it -"

"What I want?"

"Well… yes."

"No, Bill. It is not what I want."

Bill exhaled. "Well... what is that you want?"

"I'm not sure." Helena's voice took on a dreamy quality. "I never imagined having a child till I was much older, if I ever had a child at all. My role models at the temple - Lily Potter and Regina Lupin, that is - both had children very young, and both met terrible ends. I wanted to steer away from that. I certainly never imagined having a child with Severus Snape. He was my teacher for a year, you know… he taught me fifth-year Potions. I dropped it after that, because I was rubbish at it. And I… I certainly never thought of him - that way. Even at the temple, after he had been cleansed and made the potion - he was terribly magnificent that night, Bill. I've never seen anything like it. He was like… like a Lord of Wights, and that is no mean feat. He was like the Each Uisge, but seelie. And even after I slept with him… I really thought nothing of it. I slept with a lot of men during my years at the temple. It was - at Beltane, at least - somewhat of a tradition. But a child… that I never expected. Never." Her voice drifted away. "And now… I don't know what am I to do. I have a great deal of respect for Severus Snape, but I don't want to marry him. But the child is as much his as mine. I don't know what am to do."

"I have a proposition for you, Helena," Bill said quietly. "Hear me out, all right?"

"All right."

Bill drew in a deep breath. "You know I love you, Helena. All those years in Egypt… not a day went past when I did not think of you. I loved you then, and I still do now." There was a sound as he dropped to his knees beside her. "Marry me, Helena."

"Wh - what?"

"I'll raise the child like my own," Bill said determinedly. "I'll be a father to him, even if he doesn't share my blood. Marry me, Helena. I love you, and I don't want to be apart from you, ever again."

"Bill…"

"Three times is magic," Bill whispered. "Marry me, Helena."

Her answer was barely more than a whisper. "Yes."

Severus was shaking. Too late did he recognise what he felt. "Helena," he murmured, his voice broken. "Helena."

The bad guy never gets the girl.

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