Chapter Four

Narcissa was glad she had waited until darkness fell.

She'd known that Severus lived in a Muggle town, when he wasn't at Hogwarts - he'd told her as much, on his visit after Lucius died, so she'd be able to find him if she needed him. But she hadn't known it was like this.

The mill seemed to lean in over the small town, its chimneys rising into the sky like clawing fingers. The town itself was small and shabby and dirty... and, she thought, as she hurried through the empty streets, it seemed to be fading. Almost ill, if a town could be ill. There were more boarded up windows and empty houses than she'd have expected. She was more than a little relieved when she reached the street named Spinner's End, and hurried a little more. She must be almost there...

The last house showed a light, and she looked and found the stone dragon, half-buried in greenery, that he'd said would be in the front garden. This was it. She bit her lip. It was a small, shabby house... but although it looked neglected now, it had been well cared for once. She might not be clever... although now that she'd had a chance to manage on her own for a while, she was starting to question that... but she was observant, and she remembered Snape at school, with his battered, worn things and old books. She doubted he'd have ever bought such a house... it must have been inherited, the home of parents or grandparents who could afford nothing better. No wonder he was so proud, so unwilling to accept charity or pity...

She slipped up the weedy path and tapped tentatively on the door. She hoped he was there - and that nobody else was.

After a moment the door opened a crack, and she pushed back her hood as he peered out, clutching the parcel she carried nervously. "Hello, Severus," she said a little shyly.

He blinked, opening the door wider. "Narcissa! Come in, please." He stepped aside, waving her into a small sitting room, so lined with books that it looked more like a library than a room in a private residence. He closed the door and turned to her, a small frown creasing is forehead. "Is something wrong? Are you in difficulties of some kind?"

"Yes," she admitted in a small voice. "And no. I'm... it's complicated." She felt disturbingly off-balance. She'd come here on impulse, remembering how reassuring and encouraging his mere presence had been when he'd come to visit her. She wasn't sure now how much to tell him - she hadn't thought it out in advance, and she wasn't at her best when she had to think on the fly. As much to buy time to think as anything else, she held out the parcel, blushing a little. "I... brought this for you. It's of no use to me, and I thought you might... like it."

He looked even more startled now, accepting the parcel a little uncertainly. "I... thank you. Please, sit down." He guided her to a worn but very comfortable chair, sitting down himself on a rather less-comfortable looking sofa to unwrap the package, which was wrapped in a length of soft woolen cloth - Narcissa had had no paper such as Muggles used, and no idea how to get any, so she'd decided that brown fabric would do as well as brown paper. He untied the string around it, and unwrapped the fabric... and when his face lit up, she knew she'd chosen her gift well. 'Ane Historie Of Potions', so old that no author's name graced the cover, was a rare and valuable book, or so she thought from its careful placement in a locked case in her former husband's library. And he was teaching Potions now, and she remembered that he'd always liked the subject. "Narcissa, this is... an extraordinary gift," he said softly, handling the book as gently and lovingly as if it were a child.

"I thought you'd put it to better use than leaving it to sit in a library, unread and unwanted," she said, smiling at his obvious pleasure. "Lucius had an enormous library, and I can't even read half of the books. It seemed a pity to let that one go to waste."

He nodded, and she saw that she'd taken the right tone... although he'd refuse an expensive gift on principle, if the giver knew its value, he would permit her to give away something she couldn't understand or use to keep it from being wasted. "Thank you. I will take great care of it." He wrapped it up again, laying it gently beside him on the sofa. "You said that you were in trouble, Narcissa, and yet you weren't. Is there something I can do to help?"

She looked down at her hands. She wasn't sure where to start, or how much to tell him. "I don't know if you can help. I..." She looked up at him, and the faint concern on his usually expressionless face decided her. Severus had come to help her when nobody else had, even Bella. She would lay out the whole problem for him, and he would tell her what to do. "Bella is going to do something," she said unhappily. "She - she thinks she can bring the Dark Lord back."

He went still, gazing at her with expressionless eyes as an eyebrow rose. "Oh?" he asked neutrally.

She'd expected that... she had her suspicions, about his true loyalties. But she could hardly expect him to just trust her, and she wasn't sure how to make him. She should say something clever, something that would show him that she could be trusted... "I don't want him to come back!" she blurted almost childishly, and then flushed, lowering her eyes to her hands again. "I don't want him to come back," she repeated in a whisper. "He'll be angry that Lucius is gone, and that I let the Aurors take some of his things away. And h-he might make me help him, and Draco too, when he's older. I like things the way they are, when I don't have to be frightened."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him relax slightly. Good. Again, she'd happened upon the right tack. "Did you tell Bellatrix this?" he asked quietly, his voice calm but no longer coldly neutral.

"No... she'd be angry. She'd make me help anyway." Narcissa shook her head. "I lied to her... I told her that the things you took away were still hidden there, that the Aurors hadn't found them. I said that he'd be very angry if I went away and left them unguarded, and she thought so too. But she told me what they were going to do."

"Which is?" he asked, leaning forward a little.

"She and some of the others... I don't know who, exactly... think that the Aurors are hiding something," she said softly. "That they know something, a way to bring him back. So tomorrow night, they're going to go after two of them - a married couple, their name is Longbottom - to try to make them talk. The usual way." She bit her lip, looking up and meeting his eyes again. "I don't care about them, not really," she admitted. "I don't like Aurors, anyway. But... they have a baby. A little boy, about Draco's age. Bella says they'll hurt him, to make his parents talk." Her lip trembled. "I don't want them to... he's just a baby, he hasn't done anything..." She'd been a little surprised herself, to realize how distressing the idea was. She knew that the Death Eaters had hurt and killed children before, and it hadn't bothered her then. But this... she kept picturing Draco, crying, being hurt, and she couldn't stand it. She couldn't let them hurt another little boy, just like her son.

Severus was looking a little surprised. "Narcissa - I've never heard you object to any of the Death Eaters' activities before," he said slowly. "And there have been children involved before now."

"This is different," she whispered, biting her lip. "It just is. How can I ever look my baby in the face again, knowing that I didn't try to stop a little boy just like him from being killed?"

He reached out, a calloused finger tipping her chin up so he could see her face. "You found a depth to which you are not willing to sink," he said softly. "Something that just goes too far."

She nodded, a tear trickling down her cheek. She was crying so much, lately. "Bella would say it's because I'm weak," she said softly. "Maybe I am. I don't care. I just... I can't do that, Severus. Plenty of other things, but not that. Not a baby."

He nodded slowly, and for a moment his face twisted in a bitter, unhappy expression. "I understand," he said quietly. "I am... familiar with the feeling." The anguished expression vanished as if it had never been there, and he gave her a thoughtful look. "What do you want me to do?"

"Tell Dumbledore. Or let me tell him, and make him believe me," she whispered. "He'll stop them. He won't let them do it."

"They'll be caught," he pointed out. "Bellatrix will almost certainly end up in Azkaban. Your own sister, Narcissa."

"I know." She thought of Draco, and set her jaw determinedly. "She's bringing it on herself. I won't stand by and let this happen, not even for her. She can't push me around anymore."

He laughed suddenly, quietly, although there wasn't much humour in it. "The worm turns, does it? You're tired of being ordered about?" He nodded. "Forgive me, Narcissa," he said gently. "But... I'll need to make sure you're telling me the truth."

She nodded. She didn't like this much, but she was used to it. He cupped her face lightly between his hands, turning it up to his, and she was a little startled at how gently he reached into her mind; her vision barely hazed, and he didn't pry. As soon as he'd confirmed that she was being truthful, he withdrew. "I'm sorry. But I had to be sure." And then he actually blushed a little, letting her go a little more quickly than necessary. "You were right about me," he added, looking away. "I... couldn't go on. It had gone too far."

"I understand." She smiled a little tentatively. "And... thank you. You'll help me stop them, won't you?"

"No," he said firmly. "I'll tell Dumbledore, he will stop them, and you'll go home to your son and stay safe, for his sake."

"Well, that's what I meant, really," she admitted, a little embarrassed. She looked up at him, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. Impulsively, she leaned over to rest a hand on his arm, and felt him shift uncomfortably. Good heavens. She hadn't expected this at all.

Men had been attracted to Narcissa before, of course. But she'd never been in a position to do anything but try to get rid of them. She and Lucius had gotten involved when she was still in her teens, and before that, Bella had been a rather zealous guardian of her virtue. Now... she was free. She could do anything she liked, and nobody could tell her not to. And he'd been so kind to her...

The sun was rising when Narcissa slipped out of the house into the isolated, overgrown back garden. Upstairs, Severus was sleeping soundly, his face vulnerable in sleep as it never was when he was awake. It had all gone very well... he'd been surprised, very, but he hadn't turned her down as she'd been half-afraid he would. Quite the contrary, and that thought brought a smile to her lips. It had gone very well.

And that probably would have been that, she thought, glancing up at the small window, if he hadn't then shocked the life out of her by actually holding her to him as he dozed off, smoothing her hair with a gentle hand. Sex Narcissa could more or less take in stride - she had done it before, after all. Tenderness, however fleeting, was something utterly outside her experience.

She looked up at the window again, not knowing how wistful her expression was as she Apparated away.