Haunted

By Be Boring

Chapter 21: Someday Goodbye

"Ginny, dear, would you please get the dishes started?" Mrs. Weasley asked as she began covering the leftovers of Christmas dinner. Ginny, who was all too eager to have an excuse to use magic out of school now that she had celebrated her seventeenth birthday, almost carelessly flicked her wand at the table and directed the dishes to the sink. Everybody leaned back so that their plates didn't smack their chins as they passed.

"Showoff," Ron mumbled as he pushed himself away from the table. "Mum didn't let me do that so soon after I came of age."

Harry grinned. "That's because she learned her lesson with Fred and George."

Necia smiled automatically with Hermione, although she was feeling rather lazy at the moment with her stomach pleasantly stuffed to its bursting point. Turning to face her from his position across the table, Harry commented, "Well, we're here together after all."

Ginny stepped away from the sink and glanced at them curiously. "What are you guys talking about?"

Necia was mystified as well, until Harry explained, "Around last Christmas we were discussing where we would be a year from then, and we wondered if we would still get together at Christmas. Looks like we made it."

"I say that next year, we should all invade Necia's house," Ginny said as she returned to the table, leaving the dishes to roughly clean themselves in the sink. "Hopefully you'll actually have it finished by then," she teased.

Almost immediately after graduating from Hogwarts, Necia had been offered a job as a potion-maker for St. Mungo's. She had been thrilled, for it gave her the perfect excuse to move back into the house she had shared with her mother, although it didn't take long before she decided to make some changes. At first it had just been a few small things: rearranging some of the furniture in the living room, magically moving the counters around in the kitchen, re-landscaping outside. Finally, she just decided to take it all the way. Nearly the entire layout of the house was currently being redone by trained wizards, although they had Christmas off, which meant that her house was barely livable at the moment. She could still sleep in her bedroom, but she had to go out to eat. As difficult as it was to change the home she had grown up in, she just couldn't take the memory flashes every time she stepped into the kitchen. She could still see her mother on the floor, still see Lucius's furious eyes. In the end, she knew she just needed to take drastic measures to make sure the house wouldn't be capable of reminding her of that awful time, although she refused to change her mother's bedroom. That would remain as it was.

"If it's not, I'm hiring someone else. Even Fred and George would be able to remodel a house within a year, although it might not be safe."

"Don't even let them hear that idea," Ron shuddered. "Your house would be more dangerous than a Blast-Ended Skrewt." Because his N.E.W.T. scores hadn't been high enough for him to enter the Auror training program with Harry, Ron had been helping Fred and George at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. He managed most of their overseas orders.

Although Harry was now studying to be an Auror and Ginny was still at Hogwarts, they had managed to keep a fairly strong relationship. They met during Hogsmeade weekends if Harry was free and nearly wore Hedwig's feathers off sending her back and forth with their letters. So far during the Christmas holidays they had been inseparable.

Hermione was now a trainee Healer who was greatly impressing her superiors at St. Mungo's with how rapidly she was learning everything they presented to her. She always became rather red in the face when she mentioned that the Healer who supervised her was running out of things to teach her. She owned a comfortable little house not too far from the hospital, which Ron consequently spent a great deal of time at. Mrs. Weasley had confided to Ginny and Necia that he spent just as many nights there as he did at home. She was expecting him to move in with Hermione before too long.

'I wonder what Snape's doing tonight,' she wondered idly. Although just a matter of months earlier this would have been an odd thought for her, it was perfectly ordinary now. He had accepted a job identical to hers in Spain and, because he had the option to work out of his home, he bought a house outside of a miniscule village and spent nearly all of his time there. This was something she knew because she had visited him there.

That night after she had finally given in to the stress which the N.E.W.T.s had placed on her, she had expected everything to magically go away. At the time she thought that one night should have taken care of everything, but it hadn't been long before she realized that she couldn't have been more wrong. If anything, it had only intensified her need to be with him again because she had finally slept with him while in her right mind. Eventually, she learned through the other potion-makers she worked with that he had been hired in Spain. That one little piece of information had started everything.

She tried moving on with other men, but the only one that she had allowed herself to become serious with hadn't fulfilled her at all. It hadn't been terrible, but it left her feeling distinctly hollow, as though it had been missing something. At least that was easy enough to figure out. Snape had been exceedingly intense, it simply seemed to emanate from him, something that she didn't think anyone else would be able to compare with.

As goodbye hugs were passed around, Necia already knew she wasn't going home. Her bedroom was rather drafty right now anyway. Not that she needed that as an excuse, but she could taunt him with it when she arrived, using it as her flimsy reason not to go home and leave him alone. Besides, she knew perfectly well he didn't want her to leave. He just wouldn't want to talk, and that was fine with her. She wasn't to the stage in her life where she wanted a serious romantic relationship. She wasn't looking for a husband, she was simply looking for some sense of fulfillment, and if Severus Snape could provide it, then so be it.


Severus leaned back in his chair before the fire, letting the heat roll pleasantly over his face. Despite it being the holiday season, he had spent the better part of the day working on a Wolfsbane Potion that had been requested, but now that it was simmering, he was forcing himself to take a break. He had been extremely focused on his work today, more so than usual, and he was pretty sure he knew why. Usually at this time he was in the Porter's Inn, either seeking out a suitable blonde or already enjoying her. This was the first time in many years that he hadn't gone. But what would be the purpose? She was sure to come tonight, and she was much more satisfying than a blonde whore from the Porter's Inn.

Spain had been the ultimate escape for him; a place where he could relax and not have to worry about anything except earning his next paycheck, which was considerably larger than the one he had received at Hogwarts. Dumbledore visited occasionally, but more often than not he settled for writing letters. After all, Fawkes could deliver them much faster than an owl.

This house kept him beautifully isolated from the rest of the world, which was why he had been so taken aback when a knock echoed through the house in the beginning of September. Dumbledore was surely busy with students and the start of a new school year, so who else could possibly be visiting him? He had expected to find almost anyone but Necia Malfoy standing on his doorstep.

"Are you going to invite me in?" she asked lightly, peering around him to take a swift peek at his house.

"What are you doing here?" he asked coldly, closing the door until only his face could fill in the opening.

She shrugged and instead turned her attention to the doorstep she was standing on. "You know, you should really have a welcome mat. Most people do."

"That would indicate that I would welcome visitors, which I don't. How did you find out I was living here?"

"We're in the same line of work. I heard by word of mouth. If you don't want people finding out where you live, you shouldn't let the traveling potion-makers see your application."

He frowned. "It was Jeremiah, wasn't it?"

She nodded. "He mentioned it the last time he came to show us how to make a phlegm-evaporating potion."

Now his black eyes narrowed shrewdly. "Surely he didn't have my address memorized?"

She shrugged again. "No, but simply knowing where you work is more than enough to get started on tracking you down."

"And why would you bother to do that?"

"I was bored."

He scowled, but then opened the door for her and left her standing in the doorway as he returned to his office in the back of the house where he worked on most of his potions. When he had woken up alone after his last night with her, it had been a relief. It seemed like he finally had some level of closure. He had moved to Spain the following week in high spirits, actually smiling when he read the newspaper headlines declaring that the remaining Death Eaters had been sentenced to life in Azkaban. He had spent the rest of his time immersed in his work, not giving himself time to think about anything except for when he dreamed, which always seemed to focus on a combination of Cassandra and Necia, and now that Necia was here, he knew he wasn't going to send her away. She could only be here for one reason, and he certainly wasn't going to turn her down. Although she wasn't Cassandra, something about being with her left him far more satisfied than when he slept with random whores. Not to mention that she had deliberately sought him out. She was the only woman to ever do that.

Necia had spent a long time simply idling in his house while he pretended to ignore her, wondering how long it would take before she would make her wishes clear, but in the end, he had gone to her, surprising her with a fierce kiss as she was glancing inside his pitifully bare kitchen cupboards. Since that night, not only had she returned a fair number of times, but he had gone to her house twice. Those had been two horrendously stressful days of arguing with apothecaries who always seemed to misplace his orders, and he simply couldn't wait around for her next visit to relieve some stress. He had also been morbidly curious to see where Cassandra had lived, but by the time he arrived, Necia had already made a fair amount of changes to the house. She had been shocked to see him there, but like him, she didn't turn him away.

Their visits were random, sometimes distantly spaced and at other times rather frequent. Sometimes she spent the night, sometimes she didn't. Both times he had visited her house, he had stayed the night. They didn't talk much, unless they happened to notice a potion the other was working on, but for the most part their visits were physical. That suited him fine, he wasn't the conversational type, and as long as she continued to play along with it, he was content. Although there was nothing remotely sentimental in their relationship, and usually he had no idea when she would be coming again, he knew she would be here tonight.

As usual, he was right. The customary knock sounded from his front door and he casually pointed his wand at it to open it for her. Her familiar footsteps padded through the front hall until she stopped right behind his chair and leaned over it, her dark hair falling onto his shoulder.

"Merry Christmas, Sev," she whispered, leaning around the chair and pressing her lips eagerly against his. When she pulled back for a breath, she added, "We'll have to see about a Happy New Year as well."

As he followed her to the bedroom, he knew that someday this would have to come to an end. She was using him right now to satisfy needs that he was very capable of handling, keeping her sex life an entirely separate part of her life, one that didn't involve any affection. She saved that for the other people in her life. He was simply a giant toy for her, one that she would eventually tire of when she matured to the point of wanting someone to take care of her both physically and emotionally, which he would never be able to do. He didn't love her and would never be capable of loving her. But that didn't really matter now. For now, he wasn't alone, and that was what mattered more.