I returned to my flat. I felt exhausted, drained. Everything I had just heard broke my heart a hundred times. He had done so much and no one knew. No one could ever know. Not as long as he was alive. He had saved James and Lily's son on multiple occasions but he needed the boy to hate him so he treated him horribly. Voldemort had questioned Severus' loyalty since he left before he fell the last time. When he returned at the request of Dumbledore, the dark lord was suspicious. Together Severus and Dumbledore devised a plan that when the time came he would kill Dumbledore to assure Voldemort that Severus was truly a loyal servant. He had won back his trust and earned a position of power. The next year was going to be the hardest yet. Voldemort was building an army, finding recruits, and forming an attack plan.
Severus was trying to devise a plan to make sure Hogwarts students were safe without being found out. He was losing sleep, he was stretched too thin, and everyone that he had been close with hated him because of what he had done. The worst part was that Dumbledore told him that Harry Potter had to die. Severus had been so angry when he was told that he almost left but everything they had been working for would be lost. Their plan was bigger than Severus, Dumbledore, or Harry Potter. If one piece moved out of turn, the game was over. He continued forward, even knowing that the life he had sworn to protect was meant to end.
I could still feel the way he felt in my arms once his story was complete. His body shook with the sobs of an overwhelmed man aware of his own fate. As our time together stretched into the early morning, Severus ended it saying that others would wonder where he had been these few hours. He had no tasks to complete other than staying hidden. We made plans to meet at the same time in the same place in two days.
As I stood in my silent and dark living room I knew one thing for certain. I was still very much in love with Severus Snape and I would do anything to never lose him again.
I walked into the kitchen to get a drink of water before bed. The counters were clear and the sink was empty. My heart sank when I thought of Charlie and how I had left things with him. I chugged down a glass of water and headed to the bedroom.
I opened the door and saw the shape of Charlie laying under the covers. I felt a pang of guilt over where I have been, who I've been with, and how I lied to Charlie about all of it. I changed silently into my pyjamas before sliding under the covers. I turned on my side and looked at the clock. It was after one. These late nights were going to be the death of me or the beginning of a very serious caffeine addiction, maybe both.
Strong arms wrapped around my waist. Electricity pulsed through my body as lips pressed against the crook of my neck. "I'm sorry." Charlie's voice whispered in my ears sending delicious shivers through me. "I didn't mean to make you angry."
I turned over to face him. He wrapped his arm tightly around me, running his hand up my back and pressing his body against mine. He kissed me deeply and I was undone. A space deep inside me still hungered for him. I ran my hands under his t-shirt and ran my fingers along his side and around to his back. His muscles pressed against my fingers as he moved. He moved the strap of my tank top to the side pushing it off my shoulder before pressing his lips to the spot of flesh where it had been. His breathing was heavy, as was mine. I was ready for him to take me and surrender myself to the pleasure he could bring, but there was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind.
"Wait." I breathed. "I have something to tell you." He pulled back his lips and his hands stopped exploring my body. All of my senses screamed in disappointment when he stopped. "I, um, I didn't actually have a meeting tonight." My heart began pounding harder than it already was.
His brow furrowed as he tried to comprehend. "Where did you go?"
My throat went dry. What could I even say? I didn't want to lie to him but what could I say that wouldn't hurt him. Seeing Severus tonight made me realise that I still love him more than I had allowed myself to believe I did but I didn't want to lose Charlie. I loved him too. "I…" My brain was working overtime trying to find the right way to deliver this news. "Saw Severus Snape tonight." My mouth jumped the gun and blurted out the name.
There was a moment of silence. "The guy who just murdered your old headmaster?" He removed his hand from my hip.
My breath caught in my throat. "It's a bit more complicated than that."
Charlie shot upright into a sitting position and turned towards me. "How could it be more complicated than that? Is he or is he not a murderer?" I couldn't find the right words but hoisted myself slowly from the mattress so that I was sitting next to him. "Jesus, Ruby. What happened to 'you can't go back to him'? Why are you seeing him? Why are you lying to me about it? How long have you been doing this?"
"That's a lot of questions." I murmured. "Circumstances changed. What I thought to be true wasn't."
"Why are you being so fucking vague?" He raised his voice. I'd never heard him raise his voice before.
"I don't want to lie to you." I said, reaching for his hand. He pulled it back. "I'm telling you because tonight was the first night I met with him. I don't want to keep this from you."
"And I'm just supposed to be okay with it?" He spat.
"Of course not, I don't expect that of you but this isn't something I've been keeping from you. Like I said, tonight was the first time I met with him."
"First time?" he asked. "Are there going to be more times?"
"In two days." I whispered.
"Why?" he demanded.
"Because he is going through a lot and he could use a friend."
There was a moment of silence where Charlie scanned his eyes over me. "Did you sleep with him?"
"What? No, of course not."
"Do you want to?" I hesitated. "Goodbye, Ruby." He started sliding off the bed but I grabbed him by the arm.
"I don't know!" I shouted. "Charlie, stop. Please!"
"Do you expect me to give you permission to cheat on me?" he asked, whipping back around to face me. "What changed? Why are you suddenly able to go back to him?"
My mind was racing. "I don't want you to think I'm a monster." He stood staring at me, his eyebrow flicked up in a challenging manner. "If I tell you what changed then I have to tell you what I did in the first place and I never wanted you to know. I never thought you would need to know."
"What did you do?" His voice was calmer now but he kept his distance.
"I…erased his memories of me." The silence was stifling and I couldn't breathe. Charlie continued staring at me. I didn't know if he understood what I was saying. "There's a spell you can do that erases memories. You can effectively erase the entire existence of another person from someone's memories, making it like they were never there. That's how I broke it off with Severus. I made it like we, like I, never happened."
"So you gave the memories back?" he asked. "I wasn't enough for you so you went back to him and fixed his recollection?"
I shook my head. "I only wanted to know whether he really killed Dumbledore and I found out that he remembered me. I didn't know that he would have been able to retrieve the memories on his own. I should have, he's a skilled Legilimens."
"A what?" Charlie sat on the edge of the bed.
"There is a form of magic that revolves around the mind, accessing the mind. Usually you would use it to access the mind of another but he was able to figure out that his own memories were being hidden from him and he was able to retrieve them." I couldn't look at him.
"So now what?" I finally looked over to him. His head was hanging, his shoulders were slumped, he was defeated. "You're going to choose him, aren't you?"
I crawled across the bed and wrapped my arms around him from behind. I pressed my lips to the back of his shoulder. "I love you, Charlie. That's why I'm telling you all of this. I don't want to lie, I don't want to have secrets from you."
"I'm still going to go home." Charlie said after a long stretch of neither of us saying anything.
I wrapped my arms around him tighter. "You don't have to. Please. Stay."
"I do have to." He wriggled out of my grip. "I need some time to process all of this on my own."
"It's the middle of the night." I argued.
"I'll be fine." I watched him change into some of the more casual clothes he kept at my place. I already felt alone knowing that he was leaving. He walked back over to me and leaned down to give me a kiss on the cheek. "I'll call you tomorrow." I launched myself onto my knees and caught him by the shirt and pulled him close. I pressed my lips eagerly to his, as though my life depended on the action. I felt his hand press against the small of my back as he returned the kiss. "I love you. I'll call you tomorrow."
I watched him leave the room hoping he would change his mind and stay but that hope was dashed when I heard the door lock behind him.
The next day at work was a jumble of exhaustion and wandering thoughts. I found out how difficult it was to sleep without Charlie after having him near for so long. Even for the brief moments I was asleep, I was acutely aware of his absence and woke not long after entering sleep. His pillow smelled faintly of his cologne and using that allowed me a couple hours of uneasy slumber. I felt like a zombie, going through the motions of existence without being in a living state. Coffee only did so much, it seems like all it was doing was increasing my heart rate and making my mind race rather than actually bringing me to any level of awakeness. My overstimulated, over caffeinated brain kept repeating the same facts. Reasoning with itself over an issue no one asked it to. I love Charlie. I've always loved Severus. If Charlie came back today and asked me to stop seeing Severus, I would tell him no. I knew I would. At first this realisation surprised me but the more my brain repeated it, the more fact it became. I also hoped that he would never ask me to do that.
I arrived back home physically and mentally exhausted. The last couple late nights were catching up with me and I felt if I laid on the floor I could fall asleep, possibly even sleep where I stood. I threw my portkey on the entry table when I noticed that the kitchen light was on.
I sighed. "Susan, I'm way too tired for whatever gossip you have."
I entered the kitchen to find Charlie with a ridiculous number of takeaway bags. A cautious half smile tugged on the corner of his mouth. "I picked up dinner from your favourite Indian restaurant. Butter chicken, garlic naan, steamed rice, papadoms, and a ridiculous number of sides." There was a moment of silence where I just stared at him. "I'm sorry." He added, holding my eye contact.
"I thought you were going to call." I don't know why that was what I deemed an acceptable first thing to say in this moment. The colour drained from his face. He opened and closed his mouth trying to find words. "I'm sorry, that came out wrong. I didn't expect to see you. I didn't even expect you to call. I thought you'd still be angry."
"I'm not angry." he said, shaking his head. "I told you I just needed to process everything. I'm sorry if I made you think I was angry, I was just," His pause stretched as he searched for the right word. "Overwhelmed? Caught off guard?" He shrugged when the words didn't seem to say what he wanted them to. "I missed you. I wanted to see you. I told you that I would be here for as long as you wanted me. Do you still want me?"
I moved across the kitchen as quickly as though I had apparated to him. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling myself close. I felt his arms envelope me and I rested my head on his chest, his familiar heartbeat drumming in my ear. "I want you." I whispered.
Severus and I sat in the dimly lit Shrieking Shack. We were in the midst of a stretched silence.
"They're talking about appointing people to teach at Hogwarts." Severus said suddenly. "Bad people. The worst people."
"There aren't any open posts, are there?" I asked.
"That's what worries me." His face drained of colour and was white as new parchment. "I think the next step will be creating openings."
"Creating new courses?" I asked, curiously. "What subjects could be added?"
He shook his head, eyes downcast at the floor. "Ruby." He said my name in a pitying tone. He looked up at me, even in the dim light I could see the tears welling in his eyes and I understood what he meant by creating openings.
"No," I gasped. "They can't."
"What is stopping them?" he asked. "Do you think the Death Eaters would stop just shy of murder? Do you think the Dark Lord would value any life above his vision?"
"Surely you won't allow–" I started.
"I'm powerless to stop anything. As far as anyone knows, I am loyal to the Dark Lord and if I do anything that would even suggest that I am questioning him, that I am against his will, everything Dumbledore worked for, everything I worked for," he paused and looked at me. "Everything you sacrificed. Would be for nothing. I am valuable but I know that he will kill me without a second thought if he feels the need."
"Don't talk like that." I whispered.
"It's true, Ruby," he said softly, "I've accepted it. It's probably best if you acknowledge it. I have a role I must play. I cannot save everyone, not even myself."
"I can help." I said.
"No." His voice was stern and unbreakable. "Ruby, something is building. This whole situation will come to a point, a precipice. When it comes, I need you to stay away. I know what you are wont to do but I need you to keep yourself safe, keep yourself alive."
"What about you?" I asked. "If you're in danger–"
"I'm always in danger." his voice cracked. "Even having you here with me is more danger than I would like you to be in."
"I'm not leaving you." I objected.
I could see a smile take over his lips. "Which is why I have to allow it. You're far too headstrong."
"One of my better qualities, wouldn't you agree?" I said sarcastically.
"One of the most frustrating, I'd say." He looked over to me with a smug smirk. "Just promise me you won't do anything stupid if things get bad." I opened my mouth to argue. "Ruby, please." His eyes were wide and pleading. My argumentative side died in those dark pools.
"I promise." I muttered.
There was another stretch of silence where we studied each other's features. I wondered if he was studying me the same way I was studying him. Noting the differences the passage of time had created on his face, his hands, the shape of his body. His eyes though, were the same eyes I had memorised years ago. When they watched me, my breath still caught in my lungs and the butterflies in my stomach worked overtime. His lips were familiar terrain and if I stared at them for too long I wanted to kiss them. I suddenly became very aware that our meeting spot was where I had given myself to him. Where I had felt pain become pleasure, where I had become acquainted with the most intimate parts of him, where he had been so gentle with me. My back was pressed against the same couch it had been when he had found me after my manic breakdown. He was sitting in the same place, between me and the exit. I wondered if he had thought about that night when picking our meeting spot.
"Ruby." his voice snapped me out of my own imaginings.
"Hmm?" I questioned.
I watched him as he crawled across the floor before settling next to me, his back pressed against the couch. "Thank you for being here." He reached over and took one of my hands that was resting in my lap. He laced his fingers with mine. He lifted it slowly to his lips and gave the back of my hand a gentle kiss. My heart skipped at his touch.
"What are we going to do?" I asked. "Obviously we'll need to let You-Know-Who believe that he is in charge."
"I can't help but notice you keep using the word 'we'." Severus said, letting go of my hand. "I can't allow you to get involved in this. I already told you that allowing you to be here with me is putting you in more danger than I would like. We aren't going to do anything. I am going to do what I can as opportunities arise without drawing attention to my real intentions and you are going to remain a safe distance from everything dangerous which is basically…everything. I have extremely limited control over anything, please, let me have control over your safety."
I looked into his pleading eyes. "I want to help. You don't have to go through all of this alone."
"I know you want to help." he said, taking my hand again. "I would never forgive myself if I let you be a part of this and something happened to you. I've already considered you lost for a long time, don't make me lose you for real."
I looked over at him sitting next to me. His knees were bent, feet flat on the floor. He stared forward at the dingy wooden boards still holding onto my hand. I nudged his leg affectionately with my knee and squeezed his hand. "Well, when you say it like that." I tilted my head to the side, laying it on his shoulder. "I'll keep a safe distance from anything you deem dangerous, but," I pulled my head back to look at him. He turned his head to look back at me for my pending condition. "You have to promise me that you won't shut me out when things get difficult, or complicated, or scary. If you disappear, I will find you and I won't hesitate putting myself in danger to do it."
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I don't doubt that. I promise I won't shut you out."
