Chapter Five

I slept, finally, just as light had begun to slide through the infinitesimal space between shade and casement. It was a restless snooze, fretful and frustrating and layered with a sense of dread. After an hour, I admitted defeat, rolled over, got out of bed and stumbled into the shower.

My overheated skin welcomed the blast of cool water so that I could almost feel my pores opening to drink it in. Truth, uninvited and unwelcome, rained down on my head along with the water, and I sighed as I acknowledged to myself that I had slept deeply before that feverish morning half-sleep. I know I had, because I remembered every detail of the dream.

I had dreamt of my Dark Mark, burning crisp against my pale skin, and I had dreamt of her scars, every one of them. I knew through instinct that Rufus had overlooked the raised lines of flesh, accepted them as naturally as he did the permanent reminders he bore of close-fought Quidditch matches. But he did not adore her scars as I did. He hadn't talked over the history of each one as it was caressed and committed to memory, as I had done. She had not kissed his bruises before lovemaking, as she had always kissed my Dark Mark, as part of our personal ritual. The history of our marked bodies was bound up in the history of our struggles and triumphs over each other and ourselves. They were the touchstone of our separate but similar pasts, the record of how we had become who we were, and had served as tactile illustrations to the stories we had whispered to each other in the tense, sibilant nights, while all around us Death Eaters gathered power.

Closing my eyes, I placed both palms and my forehead against the cool tile, and, concentrating on the water pattering against my back, tried to stop acting like an adolescent boy with a BeWitchHim lingerie catalog. It didn't work. As a matter of fact, that idea brought up memories of Viviane's fine linen undergarments, warm from her skin and so fine you could see the flesh glowing beneath. It was no use. With an irritated sigh over the vagaries of owning a male body, I did what needed to be done, finished my morning ablutions, and padded back into the bedroom to choose my attire for that day.

Dark trousers, ivory linen shirt, dark woolen blazer. I dressed without thinking about it, my thoughts still in the grip of the dream, even if my body no longer was. Dropping into a chair, I placed my elbows on the desk and hid my face in my hands. I knew I needed to shake myself out of the mental cataract I was in; I could not afford to let myself get drawn back into her maelstrom. I had my life. I had Hogwarts, and a decent laboratory, and grudging fear and respect from both the school faculty and certain areas of the Ministry. It was a life I could only have dreamed of, twenty years ago, and I intended to keep it.

Lupin,

Sometimes, being a gentleman is not its own reward, no matter what Filius always said. Considering the dubious traffic constantly scurrying between the back entrance of Hogwarts and his bedroom, one could certainly accuse him of hypocrisy in such matters.

So, if I rejected her and left her and told her all she did not want to hear, why did I spend last night dreaming of things that you absolutely wouldn't want to know the details of? Or perhaps you would, but I'm not going to elaborate. Most people wouldn't want to hear about the details of their best friend's sexual practices, but considering you were in a relationship with Sirius Black for so many years, one can never assume normalcy.

Damn. Damn her, damn you, damn this wretched city.

Severus.

The lure of toast and tea drew me out of my room. As I descended the oversized staircase, a massive stone creation with broad, short steps, I spotted a wastebasket lurking in a corner of the landing. I crumpled one of the two letters I'd written to Lupin and tossed it in, and tucked the other into my pocket, to give to the concierge to post. I was finished, here. I was finished with her. She would sulk for at least three more days, and by that time I meant to be gone. I was ready to leave Prague and get back to Hogwarts. I smiled as I thought of the dismay that would ripple through my Potions classes when I and not Llewellyn, that specious, permissive fool, walked in, weeks before I was supposed to return. There were plenty of Gryffindor House points to be retroactively subtracted, of that I was sure, and a great deal of material to be added to the homework, in order to make up lost ground.

I turned into the lobby, stone, again, vaulted and crowded with overcarved and overstuffed chairs, armoires, cabinets and useless bits of china that covered every available surface. The witch at the desk, who was also the owner, had execrable taste and a deplorable tendency to collect things. I handed her my letter and turned to walk down into the breakfast parlor, located in the vaults of the building. As I turned, movement caught my eye, and with a shock I saw Viviane just rising from one of the chairs.

With my usual luck, the overcrowded surroundings only emphasized her elegance, making her stark, spare features a welcome relief amidst the chaos of middle-class trinkets. She was pale, her blue-gray jumper bringing out the blue in her skin, and she looked confused and very nearly shy. I stared at her, fascinated. Whether she was Devereaux, Chance or Calloway, Viviane was never, nor would I ever expect her to be, shy. Oh, she tried to act the ingénue the first night I kissed her, in a garden long since destroyed, but it had been a singularly ineffective performance. This, however, was real, and I stood still without saying anything, waiting to see what she would do next.

She stood as still as the china shepardess frozen in a cavort near her left elbow. "Severus, I came to apologize, for-"Glancing at the woman at the desk, she looked again at me and said, "would you join me for a walk?"

The dark smudges under her eyes showed the sort of weariness that I felt. "Perhaps, Viviane, we should walk in different directions from now on. I-"

Taking two long strides towards me, she said in an urgent, quiet tone, "I'm sorry I threw myself at your head last night. You weren't right in what you said, but in how you felt - well, I can understand. I'm not of much use to anyone right now, even to myself. But on the quay, when I looked up and saw you, something in me healed, even if I didn't let that show." The corners of her mouth lifted, but she looked away from me. The hotel owner who had been eavesdropping through a surreptitious Expanding Ear charm, leaned forward in breathless interest, waiting for my answer.

I grasped Viviane's forearm, the wool covering her skin so warm and supple that I had to stop myself from caressing it. "Viviane, you said what you came here to say. I think it best that I return to Hogwarts, and you continue to do whatever it is you're doing. Ten years, dead husbands, dead friends, and untold amounts of water eddying around piles of unstable bridges...we should leave it there."

"One last walk, please, Severus." She looked at me with narrow eyes, unaccustomed to pleading. "So much rampaging eau de coeur deserves at least a farewell promenade."

In spite of myself and her and this most uncomfortable situation, I laughed. As usual, she was wrong, but managed quite successfully to make wrong sound attractive.

"Where would you like to go?" I asked, wondering about ulterior motives and labyrinthian plans to somehow get me back to her hotel room. Naturally, she didn't answer, but took possession of my arm and lead me out into the street. Naturally, she walked straight to the pub that was the gateway between our world and the Muggle side of Prague. Unlike most cities, this gateway also had a Muggle entrance, and nary a glance was vouchsafed from the old men at the bar as witches and wizards appeared through a solid wall to take a seat. The Muggles here were immune to sudden, inexplicable changes of all kinds.

"Viviane, I want breakfast, but greasy pub eggs are not to my taste."

"Don't worry, I'll take you someplace more suited to your delicate palate," she said, pushing through the crowds of students and clerks, all waiting for food and absorbed in newspapers of at least a half-dozen languages.

Off we went through the crooked streets. It was cloudy, making the pastel colors on the houses deep and secretive, even with their shutters flung open for the day. We walked for some time until we were well away from the central square, and she pulled me into a glass-fronted building with the oversized doors so ubiquitous in Prague.

Inside, it was heaven. Warm light glowed off of wooden floors and walls painted soft shades of gold and green, or was absorbed by the wood of bookcases and the leather of overstuffed chairs. The air smelled of pastries and books and coffee and, underneath that, perfect, fresh tea. I nearly fainted with desire.

By the time I'd recovered, Viviane had us ensconced at a table, with coffee, tea, a pile of newspapers and an assortment of croissants and scones. Without a word, she poured herself some coffee and settled in behind the Daily Telegraph.

"You read that piece of trash?" I asked, in between delirious sips of the best tea I'd had since leaving Hogwarts.

"I love it," she said, rattling the paper. "The strange things Muggles do to each other makes me feel somewhat better about the wizarding world. Besides, their Ministries are just as clueless as ours."

"Mmmmm," I replied, succumbing to the spell of the place. We sat there for hours - how many I do not know - slowly drinking and nibbling our pastries and exchanging comments on items found in our reading. Much of the time we were silent. Strange, how I had forgotten one of the things I liked best about her. Of all the women I have ever known, she has the capacity for silence if there is nothing she wants to say.

Just as I was getting restless, Viviane put down her paper. "Shall we end this where we began it?"she asked.

"The quay?" I glanced out of the window. It was still gray and cloudy, but it didn't look like it was going to rain anytime soon. "That seems fitting." I stood up as she sorted through her Muggle money to pay the bill, and so we left.

We walked, not touching, back through the streets towards the Vltava. As always, the castle bristled on the hill across the river; the dark stone of the cathedral looked even more sinister against the white walls of the palace on this day. I had no idea what I was going to say to her in parting, nor could I think of anything appropriate. Viviane was the distillated presence of everything inappropriate in my life.

Separately, we made our way down the treacherous staircase to the quay, and sat down, exactly three inches apart, on a bench opposite the castle. "Are you going to cut off all contact, or will you start answering my letters?" Viviane murmured, looking straight ahead. "If not, are there any last questions or comments you'd like to make?"

I leaned back and folded my hands loosely on my thighs. Did I want to correspond with her? Against all of my expectations and wishes, I'd found that talking to her was both stimulating and enjoyable, unlike the years of painful recrimination I'd been throwing at her in the privacy of my room at Hogwarts. But it concerned Viviane, and thus was subject to change. She interrupted my musings by entwining her fingers in mine. "Severus, I must tell you something," she whispered. "It is rather important." I opened my eyes, peering at her suspiciously.

"We won," she said. "Voldemort was defeated, and we won. I just thought you'd like to know."

I didn't rise to her stupid joke. There were reasons I was not galloping around like a fool, overjoyed at the outcome. "The wizard population won. Hogwarts won. Some of us resigned ourselves to a lifetime of mediocrity, and the promulgation of mediocrity all around us. I wonder, sometimes, if every exceptional talent that comes along turns out so badly. Even Dumbledore made tragic mistakes, and he wasn't the wizard Riddle was, or even Grindewald, the man he defeated in his prime. Slytherin House is now so weighed down with guilt and fear of greatness that even those that have the talent will not rise to meet it."

Viviane shrugged. "Sometimes, you have to adapt yourself to a changed world. I ended up the wife of an Irish bounder, and enjoyed it beyond words. A fate I never envisioned, but I accepted it." She flashed a hot, naughty grin. "Acceptance is easier when the sex is so good. You were put in the worst spot during the war; tolerated by one side, used by the other, and distrusted by both. You deserved better. You deserve better. Why not leave Hogwarts and seek out your greatness now, while you still have years ahead of you? It's a big world, Severus, and you've seen so little of it."

Staring down at our hands, I turned hers over and stroked the veins along her inner wrist. "How is it that you found two men to love you so? It isn't fair, and I don't see - "My voice trailed off. I wasn't sure what I wanted to say.

"I lost both of them in the end, and here I am, sitting with you on a foreign quay."

"Ah. Yes, you are."

I paused in my strokes, and left my fingers lightly on her wrist. Her pulse, strong and steady, beat through her skin. When she spoke, for the first time since that meeting on the quay, her voice was unsteady.

"Did you visit Lucius in your travels across Europe?"

I sat up, shocked at the name I hadn't heard for so long. "Malfoy? No, why should I? Are you mad, to think I'd search out a man responsible for so much destruction?"

My eyes widened as I realized what she had implied. "You have? You've gone to visit Malfoy? You paid a social call to the man who-"

Her hand tightened upon mine. "Malfoy lost everything he cared for. His son dead, his wife dead by her own hand, himself defeated at every turn. Lucius was an enemy, but a worthy enemy, and I hate to see him wasted in his grief, as he now is. He is the end of an old, once proud family. It would have been fitter for him to have died at the point of an Ollivander wand, defiant to the last, it would have been kinder to have lost his mind in exile. That he is alive and sane is his greatest tragedy."

My mouth twisted in the old, malignant feeling Malfoy could always arouse in me. "And he soothed you in your grief, is that it?

"Severus, you can be so thickheaded. No, I wanted to talk to someone who remembered how it all was before. That brief space of time we all had, to go about teaching and reading and holding our silly feasts and fighting our silly quarrels. It was important for me, and I could tell he was compelled to participate in the memories, even though they lacerated his soul. I got a bit of revenge mixed in with my reminiscences."

She went back to staring at the castle.

"What sort of memories were you so eager to relive?" I asked, wondering why she needed to do so; after all, she had always been dismissive about her time at Hogwarts.

"All sorts of things." Her soft green eyes grew even softer. "The onion soup Albus insisted on serving at feasts - remember how messy the cheese was? The lovely way the gardens were lit-"

"You never seemed to appreciate them. You were always running off into the shrubbery for one reason or another."

"Mostly involving you, you ungrateful man. Remus continually beating me at chess, my first few months there, when you were trying to get me fired. The Drooling Curse craze that went around and drove Minerva to distraction for the first and only time. I think she had a horror of drool. The shape of the terrace, and the way the lamps of the Hinkypunks would start to dot the lawn after sunset. Malhereuse on his perch near the big window, and the pile of cushions near the fire in my office."

I found that her head had come to rest against my temple, and her shoulder had wriggled beneath mine. I turned my head a little, so that my cheekbone brushed her hair, and despite myself, responded to her.

"I miss that room of yours. It was destroyed, you know, with most of Ravenclaw Tower. Remember when I came across you on the steps of the terrace, drenched in dragon's blood?"

"Mmmm. I was so relieved it was you and not someone else. You didn't seem the type to be taken aback by a blood-covered, distraught witch. I was feeling so isolated, so strange at Hogwarts those first months. Hated teaching, hated the routine, hated being bound to one place, and yet-"

We fell silent again. I shut my eyes, and felt the oddest sensation steal over my body. It was some time before I was able to analyze it and pin down the specifics, because I had not felt so in many years. A combination of peace, familiarity, comradery, freedom crept up my spine and settled somewhere in my eyelids, causing them to shut halfway as my back relaxed against the bench. I never visited the places in my heart that Viviane was calling up; the people and the times they lived through were gone forever and there was no use in repining, so I'd shut their memories away. Thinking of their loss enraged me, and I was too tired for rage. Odd, how their recollection in her voice was a salve, not a violent ripping away of half-healed scars.

My head fell sideways to rest against hers, and we sat with clasped hands, either silent and listening to boat horns and honking geese, or laughing over some particularly absurd memory to which one or the other of us gave voice. Through it all, I wondered if I could sustain this heady rapport with her beyond the seductive atmosphere of Prague, or if, once back in our familiar worlds, we would descend back into the madness our relationship had become so long ago.

Finally, she squeezed my hand, and her lips brushed my temple. "Severus, I think it's time for me to get back to my hotel. It is nearly dinnertime, and I'm starving. Will you walk back with me?"

We walked back towards her hotel, along narrow, crooked streets. Lost in our memories, we had forgotten the clouds. Suddenly, a few drops of water fell, then the storm broke and cold autumn rain poured down upon the city. As one, we fled towards the shelter of a church door, set in a narrow niche topped by a gothic pointed arch. Leaning against the red door, the damp smell of moldy black stone enfolded our senses as we stared out at the water smacking against pavement. I risked a glance at her. Her hair was damp, her skin gloriously flushed by the water and the run to shelter. She looked over and caught my eye, and her eyebrows twitched.

I do not know who moved first, but we slid into an embrace. I knew, in the detached part of myself, the risk of spiraling back into the past and into disaster but I couldn't feel it. There was an absence of the driving need to react and destroy that had characterized our relationship, and I was simply holding Viviane, warm and attractive and calm, in a doorway as a veil of rain cut us off from the rest of the world.

I awoke to light flickering through the red curtain of vines overhanging the window. Across the wooden floor, yellow and crimson leaves were scattered amidst small pools of water, blown through the open casement during the storm. Above me, more leaves were caught in the glittering cascades of crystal dangling from the chandelier. I remained motionless except for a tensing of muscle and the motion of my eyes. They slid sideways. Was she? She was, still asleep and tangled in hair and linen. I closed my eyes again and relaxed into the strange mattress that Viviane called a futon. It was too stark for my liking, but admittedly very comfortable, especially with the oversized pillows and soft sheets.

It was almost like waking to a stranger. The night before, we had done what we had done a hundred times before, only this time it hadn't been an act of defiance against death or loss or each other. For the first time, I felt the victory that Viviane had promised me on the quay. We had won. For the first time, I felt as if survival was cheaply grasped, and that living was the only reward worth fighting for. The idea made me restless, and I turned to her, sliding my arm around her waist. With a sigh of contentment, she curled up against me, burrowing into my body with a murmured, "Warm."

So long, it had been so long since I had been voluntarily touched. Not that I'd encouraged it. I began to smooth her long, untidy hair, the hair I had wound around my wrists the night before, in order to draw her closer to me. That led to more memories of the night, only interrupted by her voice.

"Fun, wasn't it?" Her impudent eyes were peering at me as she rested her chin on my chest. "Fine job you did at renunciation, after the show you put on in the café. I'm glad to see you've lost some of your talent for self-inflicted misery."

It was so familiar, yet so devoid of the poison that had filtered through our past that I began to laugh, and found I couldn't stop. The sleep deprivation was taking its toll. The shocked look on Viviane's face made it worse. Finally, I managed to gasp out a request for coffee.

"Excellent idea, Severus," she said, a hint of annoyance shading her voice. After her call to room service, she turned back to me. "Really, it isn't that funny."

"Oh, but it is," I said, finally calm. "That I was so naive as to fall into your trap amazes me, but the elaborate steps you took to ensnare me is flattering; murdering your husband, covering it up as a Quidditch accident, enlisting Lupin as intermediary, embarking on a long European trip, seducing me in the doorway of a church-"

I was saved from destruction by the arrival of the coffee. Viviane did have her priorities.

"You kissed me first, darling," she said between sips. "Your desperate attempts to chase me down as soon as you found my husband had died is romantic, if characteristically inappropriate."

Setting aside my cup, I waited until she set hers down and pulled her towards me, pinning her underneath my body in order to give her no means of escape. "But seriously, Viviane, once you finish what you planned to do in Europe, we can prepare for your return to Hogwarts. Ravenclaw Tower is destroyed, but I'm sure we could find rooms-"

I was nearly deafened by her shriek. It sounded horrified.

"You...you cannot possibly imagine that I'd ever - are you mad, to think - yes, you must be unhinged. Hogwarts? I'm not setting foot anywhere near the place, much less live there. Oh Severus, what were you thinking?" She began to giggle. "What would I do there? Become the new Divinations teacher? Open a pub? Become a Quidditch teacher and kill off half the students?"

She rolled me onto my back with a well-placed push, then bent over to brush my nose with hers, suddenly very serious. "I've got a small piece of land in the south of France, with a villa that overlooks the Mediterranean. It's got a small vineyard attached, that makes very good wine, with a few charms to counter the salt in the atmosphere. When Hogwarts is not in session, you can find me there. I know you'll never leave that damnable place; you'll end up like Binns and terrorize students till the end of time, but while you're still corporeal, I want you to come to me. Will you? Perhaps, too, during the Christmas holidays?"

I reached up to push the hair from her face. Had it all come to this, so simple, so easy, a mere word? It had. I said the word, and kissed her.

Dear Lupin,

I've applied for three more weeks of leave. Why come back, only to have to fail an entire class because Llewellyn is such a wretched case? Do stop by and make sure the Potions classroom is still standing and if you have time, bite Annabella Weasley. It will save the entire faculty at Hogwarts years of trouble. If you get caught, I'm sure the Ministry will let you off, now that you are part of the inner circle. Let Sprout know that I'm going to test last year's classes at the start of next term and if they fail, they will be doing extra work for the next year to catch up.

We're at the Devereaux summer villa near Eze. Rather a spectacular place, but I suppose the old French families felt the need for display, even in their vacation homes. Viviane is busy herding servants around; she's being very fussy about my rooms. Oh, and she has decided to become a vitner, and spends the most of her time reading up on the subject. The vineyard connected to the villa has been neglected since her parents were killed but she wants to bring it back. She should be a natural wine grower, since she drinks enough of the product.

She even tried to help me by fixing up an old pavilion I'd planned to use as a Potions laboratory. Unfortunately, she blew it up instead. I heard the explosion, and when I ran out to see what had happened, she managed to divert one of my very best tantrums by admitting for the first time that she loved me. It was not the most romantic of situations, considering the soot and the pieces of wood tangled in her hair, but I found her rather charming, nonetheless.

At the moment, the sun is setting over the sea, and Viviane is at her desk on the other side of the fireplace. She keeps glancing up to catch my eye, and by her smile I'm quite sure she's also writing to you an entirely fictional and romanticized account of our meetings. Knowing her as you do, I'm sure you'll take what she says with a gallon of wolfsbane. It is strange, after so many years, to have her within arms' reach. She has been my colleague, my lover, my savior, my nemesis, my princess, my warrior, my partner and my friend. Now, she is simply mine, on her own time and terms. One could say I was a lucky man.

Severus Snape

The End.