WARNING: This portion of the story contains very brief implications of adult content. If you don't like the idea of Severus getting any then I suggest you either skip it entirely or put yourself and some really hot guy in for him and his wife.

~!~

Lucy woke bright and early the next morning, humming to herself as usual. Today was going to be so fab it would redefine the word. She bent to retrieve a crumpled gum wrapper and instinctively put a hand over the neck of her low- cut shirt. As she stood again she realized that the necklace wasn't there. Brows furrowed, she turned to the bedside table, searching under piles of pictures for it. Then it hit her...all the memories came flooding back of that night at Headquarters, how it had been ripped from her body when she'd hit the floor. She could remember the quiet snap of the chain, even among the chaos and noise that had filled the board room.

She turned around and was met instantly with the faces of Macnair and Rodolphus Lestrange. She nearly screamed but instead put her energy into outrunning them to the door and slamming it on their scrambling fists. She forced their arms back inside and locked them both in her chambers, before rushing back down to the dungeons.

"Severus, come on, we've got to go!" She tugged at his arm as he turned from his desk where he had been reorganizing papers in preparation for first period. "Please, come on, let's go, let's just go..." She felt slightly weak from the surprise and the effort.

"What? Lucy, what are you talking about?" He noted this and tried to calm her.

"I don't have time to explain! Come on, please, they might break out of there!"

"They?" He was suddenly hit with the realization of what was happening, something he had been expecting for a number of years since his fall from the Circle.

"Let's go, Lucy." He pulled her to him and dashed upstairs and out of the dungeons, leaving things as they were. Dumbledore would understand. He didn't know how two Death Eaters had gotten into the castle, much less how or when the Lestranges had escaped from Azkaban, but he needed to protect them...to protect her.

He led her just off of the school grounds and they apparated. Lucy found herself outside a small, run-down hotel in a part of town she'd never been to. Severus was apparently familiar with it, however, since it only took him minutes to get them a room and to get her upstairs and into it.

She sat on the bed and stared out the window at the grey sky, watching the first drops of rain beginning to pour down. It was open and led out to a balcony, and reminded her of Italian back alleys. She brushed her hair off her shoulders, naked except for thin straps, and felt him touch her.

She turned to him as he took her waist and guided her gently down to the bed beside him, laying her body out next to his. He loved her form and loved everything about her. She had minute curves all in the correct places and he longed to experience again what they had once had.

She laid over on top of him and kissed him, feeling the hints of muscle in his stomach and arms as her hands glided gently over his body. She wanted the same thing he did; her body ached for it. She hadn't done anything of such a nature, not even kissed another man, since their breakup. He was her first and would be her last.

He moved her underneath him and braced himself, lifting off her tank top. She accepted this and took off her skirt as well, moving her hands back to his belt buckle as she undid it for him. He slipped these off and took off his shirt and underwear. She lifted up and allowed him to unhook her bra and shimmied out of her panties under the covers. Then she lay back down as the first bit of bittersweet pain came.

~!~

Lucy woke a few hours later and saw that the rain was still coming down, though it was more now. She felt something wet between her legs and saw that it was mostly half-dried blood. She always bled after they had sex. It was slightly abnormal, since her body wasn't all that young (although, like Narcissa's, it looked it) and it was hardly the first time they'd done this.

"Severus?" She whispered in the bleak gathering darkness. He had moved next to her and put his arm about her thin waist. He opened his eyes again and gave up trying to sleep.

"Haven't you slept at all?" She asked delicately.

"No." He shook his head. "I know you're scared, so I've been keeping an eye out to protect you."

She smiled gently. "Thank you."

He nodded. "Do you feel alright?"

"Yeah." She adjusted herself slightly in his arms. "I-I'm glad we did that. I missed it."

"Me too." He held her close and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "You have a beautiful body, you know that. It's nothing short of perfection. Like an angel." He breathed.

"I love you." She rolled over and kissed him, which he responded to quickly.

"So you're interested in making this relationship work?" He asked.

She looked up at him. "Of course I am." She smiled warmly and fell asleep again in his arms, ignoring the feel of cold rain on her bare shoulders.

~!~

"Where has she gone? She didn't tell me she was going anywhere. She always says when she's leaving to go somewhere else without me. She—" Lily nearly burst into tears as she sat on the floor of Dumbledore's office, ignoring James and his fervent attempts to comfort her. "Shh, Lily, you're going to stress out the baby..."

"I'm certain, Lily, that if Lucy had known she was leaving so soon that she would have mentioned it to someone. Remember, Severus is gone, too."

"Well, I don't care what happens to him! I want my best friend back!" Lily cried angrily.

"Evans! You're a breakthrough after all!" James nearly rejoiced.

"What are we going to do about them?" Blaze asked. "We can't just leave them out there, what with Voldemort and his cronies prowling around."

"Doesn't Lucy have any Slytherin friends?" Alexa asked, trying to be reasonable. Narcissa and Bellatrix came to pretty much everyone's minds at that moment, and a grimace was shared.

"Electra." Lily breathed.

"Who?" James and Blaze glanced down at her. It sounded like a stripper's stage name.

"You know, Electra Zabini. Punk-rock freakazoid? Lucy knew her in school, I think."

Alexa thought over Lily's words. "Didn't she used to hate our guts?"

"Yes! Yes! That's the one!" Lily echoed with strange triumph over the memory of an antagonist.

"Let's go see if she has any information." Alexa agreed.

"Wait a second." Blaze stopped her. "Are we quite sure that this girl isn't one of them?"

"No way." Lily dismissed this. "She was too good to ever be anyone's servant, or so she thought. Actually, she dreamed of being a wench for some dark prince. Had a thing for fetishes, that one."

James stared at her, as did everyone else.

"Get out of my way, I'm pregnant." She growled, pushing past them and leading the way out into the corridor.

~!~

"I must say, I never thought I'd find myself here." Alexa muttered thoughtfully as she gazed about the dark terraces that graced Knockturn Alley. Aside from a number of dark shops, unbeknownst to most of the wizarding world, there also existed a few large, dreary-looking manors and apartments along the backways and side streets. Among these was Lucius Malfoy's, Lucy's old home, and a little farther down the block there was Severus's inherited estate. The small group of Gryffindors headed down the wet cobblestone street until Lucy stopped in front of a tall apartment building, looking slightly run-down. She fumbled with a piece of parchment in one coat pocket and withdrew and opened it. "Yep, this is the place. It's number 602." She led the way up the stairs.

She ran her fingernails over the sleek Chinese dragon door knocker and lifted it, letting it drop to rap softly on the door. After a moment a woman answered. She was tall and slim and had straight, black hair with a medium amount of grease in it and several bright streaks of hot pink and lime green. She wore Muggle clothing; a black belly t-shirt with a picture of the Beatles on it and a chain with dog tags on it around her neck as well as baggy black pants and no shoes with black toenails. "What?" Electra snapped.

"Don't you remember me, Electra? I'm Lily Evans. I'm—"

"—a friend of Lucy's, I know. Yeah, I remember you. I used to torture you and your mudblood friends." She smirked. "What are you, a glutton for punishment? You know, for existing and all, polluting the earth, yadda yadda..."

"Now you wait a minute..." James stepped forward in Lily's defense. "Back off, Electra." Blaze chimed in angrily from behind, arm set firmly about Alexa's hips.

"What are you going to do, Potter, give me rabies?" She laughed coldly. "Yeah, Sevvie told me your little secret. You and your weird little friends and your little club."

James gritted his teeth, and Alexa chose that moment to step forward. "Um, hi, Electra...we need your help, actually."

Electra regarded her with an expression of curiosity. "Haven't met you, I don't think...if you're a friend of Lucy's, that'll do you good, and if you're not on the mudblood side we'll be great friends." She extended a hand, and Alexa shook it, caught a little off guard.

"But what's this about needing my help..." Electra regarded the gathering before her and narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "What's wrong with Lucy?"

~!~

"So let me get this straight." Electra sipped her can of beer as she stared across the clear top of her cheap dinner table at the others, all clutching coffee and hot cocoa. "The Dark Side's after Lucy, and so she and her boyfriend have run off and you don't know where they went?"

"Exactly." Alexa nodded. "And we haven't exactly got full confidences in Severus either..."

"Severus?" Electra nearly laughed. "Ladies, he's whipped if anyone ever was! Worse than Sirius Black after her, he is." James smirked. "No, really, he'd sooner hang himself than put her in harm's way."

Lily nodded. "Do you have any clue where they might have gone?"

"Not a single one." Electra shook her head, downing the rest of her morning brew. "Though Severus is an intelligent man, so I doubt he would have taken her anywhere familiar to anybody in the Circle. They're not at his place or her brother's or anything like that."

Lily sighed. "I'm not sure that really helps us."

"Well, don't get a stick up your butt at me, Evans, I put in my chips." She snarled, listening to their words behind her back.

Lily glanced at her. She'd heard that.

Alexa broke the tension. "Well, we'll just be going then."

"Proceed. Have a horrible day." Electra sat back down at the table, staring into the metal of her empty beer can silently.

Blaze closed the door behind him on this image and the four drifted back out into the street.

"Now what?" Alexa asked.

"Let's go back. They'll make it back eventually, right? I mean, you heard Zabini in there, Sev'll take care of her." James stated simply.

Lily took a moment to marvel at his use of a term somewhat close to Severus's real name before responding. "I, um, I don't know...I feel terrible leaving them out there on their own."

Alexa elbowed her lightly as they started back to Hogwarts. "They're not alone. They've got each other." She whispered.

~!~

NEXT CHAPTER: We find out what Lucy and Severus are up to! Will the gang reunite at last? Will James use Severus's correct title to his face? Will Alexa quit being so gosh darn understanding? Will Lily quit being so mean to Slytherins just because they live to torture her? We shall see...