Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to J.K. Rowling and various companies. Any others belong to myself. This is written for entertainment purposes only, not for financial gain. No copyright infringement intended.
Note: Thanks to everyone who's read and enjoyed my first fic based on the Harry Potter universe. You guys are great!
Enjoy!
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Old Habits
Chapter 4
A crashing, clanging racket shocked Celeste from deep sleep.
"Damn poltergeist!" she swore aloud. "He'd better be long gone by the time I get out there!"
She scrambled out of bed, pausing only to throw a dressing robe over her night clothes. The din outside her door was less now but not gone. Automatically she picked up her wand and a can of pepper spray. She shook her head at herself and put the spray back down.
"Too long with Muggles," she muttered, and flung the heavy door open.
"That's it, Peeves! I'll call the Baron and Dumbledore both here, right now, if you don't stop—"
Her exclamation was choked off as she saw the rude ghost was no where in the corridor. Instead, a very distraught suit of armor was grudgingly supporting Professor Snape.
"Severus!" Quickly she crossed the hall to him. "What are you doing here? It's the middle of the night!"
He attempted to answer, but only managed to slur something at her.
"Well, come inside before someone sees you. You—" she tapped the suit of armor lightly, "—can let him go. I'll help him now. Thank you very much."
With a sigh of relief, it complied. Celeste, thankful the corridor was narrow and Snape was thin, braced herself against him and eased him to her room. His drunken uncoordinated gait made it difficult.
Once inside she set him on a chaise lounge in front of the hearth. In two movements she locked the door behind her and commanded a fire to light.
"Oh Severus," she whispered, watching him.
"Celeste," he mouthed. He screwed his face in determination and said aloud, "Need to see you. Right now! Know you hate me. But I . . . tell you. Tell you . . .."
"You need to be sobered up," Celeste told him. "Then we'll talk about whatever could be so important that you made a tanked spectacle of yourself in the hallway. Okay?"
"S'okay."
Celeste left him for a moment. When she returned, she forced two small tablets into one of his hands and a glass of water in the other.
"Wass?"
"I'm no potions master, but I can do some things. Extra special aspirin, Severus. Take them both and you'll feel better."
With no hesitation he swallowed the pills. He didn't use the water. Celeste reflected on how easily he trusted her. She sighed and sat on the floor in front of the chaise lounge, staring at the fire until he came around.
Her wait was short. Within fifteen minutes, Severus carefully set the full glass of water on the floor beside her. She turned to him.
"I've made quite a fool of myself today, haven't I?" he said quietly, not looking at her. "Several times."
She didn't answer.
That unnerved him. He cleared his throat before continuing.
"I . . . I came to say I'm sorry."
Celeste very carefully took his hand. She replied, "I understand—"
Snape jerked his hand away. "No you don't," he interrupted sharply. The characteristic bitterness was back in his voice. "You don't understand at all. It's not just for today, for my actions your first trip back to Hogwarts. I'm sorry for all these years. For everything. You can't understand!"
She took his hand back. "Then tell me."
Hurt and rage, his constant companions, swirled dangerously close the tip of his tongue. It was easier to lash out, to hold everyone at bay with sarcasm and the undeniable attitude he was superior. He opened his mouth to snarl a venomous response—
Celeste watched him without blinking.
—and instead the apologies and explanations that he had always yearned to tell her spilled from his lips. Once he started, it was hard to stop. There was an urgency to get it all out, bring all the blackness bottled inside into the light for her to see.
She let him talk and talk with few interruptions. At the end of an hour, after the narration of his Death Eater activity and his dawning abhorrence of their practices, interspersed with remorse of being who he was, his throat was parched and his eyes burning. Celeste handed him a cup of sweet hot tea. He hadn't noticed her brew it. He accepted it gratefully.
As he drank, she said, "Severus, I know you have more you want to tell me. But you're exhausted. Why don't you stay the night here, on the lounge. After you sleep you can go on with everything else."
His black eyes glanced quickly into hers. "I'm afraid . . ." he began, desperately, "I'm afraid if I stop I'll never be able to start again. I'd like to finish it now."
His tone was wretched. Celeste relented with a nod. With no warning, Severus stood up. He offered a shaking hand to her.
"Will you come off the floor? Will you sit with me?"
With a slight hesitation, she nodded again, and grasped his hand. Pulling herself up, she gave him a gentle shove and moved to his position on the chair. He looked surprised.
"Hey, if you're going to talk the rest of the night, I'm going to be comfortable," she shrugged. "So you too. Take off that heavy robe. Did you even know you were still wearing it?'
It was his teaching gown. He hadn't.
Still looking dumbfounded, Snape slowly removed the outer garment. Standing in only his pants and shirt, the room was suddenly chilly. It didn't last long, however; Celeste reached for him and pulled him down on the chaise in front of her.
Snape sat stiffly with his back to her, between her legs, even as she wrapped her arms around his stomach.
He jumped as her breath hit his neck, near his right ear. "Relax, Big Bad, I won't bite," she told him softly.
"Why are you forcing me to sit like this? After all I've done to you . . . you must hate me. You're torturing me, aren't you, and taking sadistic pleasure from it!" he exploded, startling her. His voice was as stiff as his back.
Celeste considered before answering. "No," she drawled, "you asked me to sit, and I wanted to be comfortable."
"You hate me," he repeated with finality.
"I don't hate you."
He turned sharply to her, his black eyes flashing in the firelight. His voice was soft but challenging. "How can you not?"
Again she sighed. "I was devastated when you didn't come back, Severus. I heard rumors you'd joined the Death Eaters, and I refused to believe them, but you didn't return and you didn't write and eventually . . . I realized it was true."
An arrogant triumphant look replaced the fury in his face.
"I wanted to come back to Britain, to find you. My friends wouldn't let me. They knew it was suicide to come back here. They told me once a person joined You-Know-Who, they were gone forever; that there was no reason to come back. I knew they were right.
"I still received all the newspapers. Your name was cleared, but by then so many years had passed without talking to you I didn't even know how to start contact again. And you didn't try to get in touch with me."
"I didn't know how either," he said under his breath.
Celeste continued without interruption. "My friends thought I was crazy—once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater, they said. And I was caught up in work . . .." She gave herself a shake. "So. The point is, deep down inside I didn't give up hope for you. And it's been so long, even my anger and grief of you not coming back mellowed out.
"I don't hate you now, Big Bad. For awhile I did, but I let it go."
Severus had turned away from her during her answer. His eyes lost their anger, lost their triumph, and were hooded.
"You trust too easily," he muttered.
"And who simply swallowed two unknown pills when I handed them to him?" she retorted loudly.
He barely muzzled an insolent, "I was drunk!" and wisely clenched his teeth.
It became apparent he still wouldn't lean back against her, but she didn't release him. After a few minutes of silence she suggested, "Why don't you go on? Please."
He had to wet his lips before continuing. Once he started again, though, the urgency drove him again to get it out. Get it all out. And little by little, in degrees, he eased back against her. Now he was telling her of his decision to leave the Death Eater ranks, of wild fantasies to flee to America, of suicide to escape, of Albus Dumbledore's solution. Of the defeat of Voldemort by Harry Potter, and how he believed he'd be free of the Dark Mark forevermore. Of the horrible pain that consumed his being when it blazed black again during the Triwizard Tournament the previous year.
Here Severus stopped. He realized Celeste's fingers were lightly caressing the skin of his left inner forearm. A shudder passed through him, and the pressure of her chin was on his shoulder.
"I shouldn't have made you come back," she told him.
He took a sideways glance at her. "What?"
"You came back to England because I insisted. Because I thought you should see your father again. You hated him, Severus, for everything he did to you, but you came back here because of me. If you hadn't, maybe . . .."
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe Lucius Malfoy wouldn't have tempted you back to You-Know-Who."
"Celeste," he replied, his voice steady, "Lucius Malfoy hadn't forgotten me. It
wasn't coincidence he found me here when I returned. If I hadn't, they would have found another way to bring me back. Or they would have followed me across the Atlantic, and forced me to make good on my promise.
"And that would have been infinitely worse, because then they'd have had you too."
"I wouldn't have joined the Death Eaters!" she blurted.
She caught the sadness on his face as he said, "I know. I meant you wouldn't be here now."
There wasn't much to say after that.
They sat silently for a bit, Severus watching but not seeing the fire and Celeste
watching him. Eventually, biting her lip, she rested her cheek on the back of his neck. A slight tightening of his shoulders warned her she'd best proceed carefully.
"This is nice," she whispered, then even quieter, "Severus, I missed you."
He didn't answer. The rigidity of his posture didn't ease.
Celeste cursed herself, and forced a laugh. "Well, that was incredibly awkward. I'm sorry. And that usually means it's time for me to back-pedal and you to make a hasty retreat. So please, feel free to go. I won't be insulted It's late anyway. Maybe we can have breakfast together later, if it's not too weird—"
"Celeste, stop babbling."
Severus was watching her with unreadable eyes.
"Oh!" she faltered. "I'm sorry, I was just—"
A raised eyebrow stopped her this time. A second passed.
"I've missed you too," he admitted humbly. "I wish I could have back all those years."
". . . yeah."
He settled against her comfortably again, and she held him securely. By the time the fire was out, the morning sun had just begun to creep in the windows, and they were both asleep.
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