Chapter 8 - Repairing and Renewing

"You look like hell," Mur said, still smiling. She loved a good excuse to destroy something, even if it was only a door that could be fixed.

"You spend 2 months with Malfoy and see how you look!" Severus snapped.

Muriel shook her head and lifted her wand, still smiling. "Finite Incantum," she whispered. The spell hit him, and the illusion she'd placed on him at Malfoy Manor disappeared.

"That's why Draco was looking at me funny," he mumbled. He jumped up from the chair by the fireplace and went to stand by the window. He'd entirely forgotten about the illusion. It was very late and the stars were twinkling in a perfectly clear sky, but he didn't notice. All he saw was red.

"Sev, don't," she said quietly, following him.

He spun sharply, startling her. "Don't WHAT? Don't be hurt to find out that I've disappointed the last person alive whose opinion matters to me?" he hissed angrily. His jaw was set and his eyes flashed, but Mur wasn't sure if that was anger, or the beginnings of tears. She had never seen Severus cry, not even under the Crutiatus curse in their 6th year.

She chose her words very carefully as he glared at her, waiting. "If you had been nothing more than you appeared to be tonight, I would have been very disappointed in you. But you aren't. You're more than that. You're better than that. You always have been."

"Not always," he whispered, a haunted look in his eyes as he turned back to the window.

"When Papa took the mark, I didn't stop loving him. Even if you hadn't changed your mind and joined the Order, I would still love you." She paused as he turned around to look at her again. He could hardly help himself. Had she really just said that she loved him? "If you'd shown me nothing at all in the alley that night, I would still have let you go. I never stopped loving you, Sev." The room was silent except for their breathing. He stared at her for a long moment.

Finally he spoke again. "Perhaps you can explain how I managed to lose you to Black, if you still loved me so much." His voice was quiet and she recognized the danger in it. Severus was all cold fury, deceptively gentle. He had always been.

She sat down on the bed and pulled her knees up to her chest, gathering her courage. He needed to understand. "I was hurt – "

"YOU were hurt?!" It sounded like he had a lot more to say, but Muriel didn't appreciate being cut off.

"YES, SEVERUS, I WAS HURT! SILENCIO!" she hollered over the beginnings of his rage. He fell silent abruptly as she lowered her wand, staring at her. His lips were pressed into a thin line and he turned sharply back around to face the window.

"Imagine yourself in the Slytherin common room. Its 4 AM and the fire has died to almost nothing. The stones are sucking the heat out of the air. You sit down in one of those leather chairs you like so well, and shiver in the cold. Then someone wraps you in a warm fleece blanket. It only takes you a minute to realize that it's better and warmer than your bed, and you fall asleep again. The next night you get up a little earlier, and go down to the common room to sit under the blanket, and still earlier the next night. After fourteen years, you don't want to be anywhere else at all, except wrapped in that blanket."

She looked up at him. His back was still facing her. He had crossed his arms and his shoulders were rigid. "Then one day, you go to the common room and sit in your chair. But he only looks at you. There is no blanket. So you ask him about it. But he doesn't answer. You do everything short of BEG him for that blanket, but he acts like he doesn't understand. In the end, you go back to your room shivering, thinking that maybe the blanket just doesn't exist anymore."

Muriel could feel the tears running down her face as Severus finally turned back toward her, his eyes wearing the same haunted expression she'd seen earlier. "That's how a Legilimens feels when the man she loves learns Occlumency, Sev," she whispered, lowering her head onto her knees to hide her tears.

Severus stared at Muriel as she cried. He wanted to hold her, comfort her as he had always done. She'd said she still loved him. But there was something else he needed to know. He knelt beside the bed and waited. When her breathing evened out, he took a deep breath himself.

"If you needed to feel that, what difference would it have made if I'd kissed you two years earlier? I'd already taken the mark. I could never have opened my mind to you again, not safely." He paused, then added in an agonized whisper, "I still can't." That was the horrible truth. As a spy, his mind had to be completely secure. He couldn't give her back that blanket. It would open him up to the Dark Lord's scrutiny, and the Order couldn't afford that.

She didn't raise her head, and her voice was muffled as she answered. "Didn't you feel it, Sev? That night, when you kissed me, I could feel everything you felt. I could feel your need, y-your love. It was all still there, as long as your lips were on mine. If I had known, before Sirius, that there was any way to feel that from you again, even if it was only when you kissed me, I could never have fallen in love with him."

She looked up, her eyes filled with pain. "But by then it was too late. The choice was made, Severus. I couldn't come back to you and pretend I didn't love him anymore. But no matter how much he and I loved each other, I always missed you. He knew that."

There was a knock on the door and they both stood quickly, Muriel facing the fire. It was bad enough that Severus had seen her crying, no one else was going to. She heard Draco calling from the doorway.

"Professor Snape? Madam Pomfrey wants you to – "Draco stopped talking when Severus came to the door. The illusion had been removed, and it was obvious that he hadn't been hurt after all.

"It was nothing more than an illusion for your father's benefit, Draco. Tell Madam Pomfrey that I am fine," Severus said stiffly. Draco threw a glance at Muriel, who appeared to be very interested in the fire.

"Right," Draco said, backing out of the room. As soon as the door was closed, Severus placed a locking charm on it. He crossed the room in four long strides, and turned Muriel around by the shoulders.

She looked up at him. Her tears were gone, but he could see her lips quivering. She wanted –

He kissed her then, as forcefully as he had all those years ago. He could feel the wetness of her face against his, taste the salt of her tears. She was crying again, but not with pain or hurt. It didn't matter anymore who else she had loved. It didn't matter that they had been apart for 15 years. All that mattered was that his lips never leave hers again.

Muriel was flooded with emotion when their lips met. Stronger, more urgent than she remembered. She held him as tightly as she could, trying to make up for the years when she hadn't been able to hold him at all. She could spend the rest of her life this way, his hands clutching her waist and his lips pulling insistently at hers. It was what she had spent her childhood dreaming of. She trembled as she felt him leading her forward.

AN: Short hiatus (5 days) while I am out of town. Yes, the next chapter is the fun one. Sorry to keep you waiting. Thanks for hanging around.