Her feet managed to ghost over the soft spots in the staircase, avoiding even the slightest creak or groan, and she smirked as she opened the downstairs door. Vampiric grace and losing half a stone from being ill can be a blessing, I suppose. The door opened, and for the first time, Selene's eyes swept over the small, cramped, neglected living room.
Books lined the walls, taking up nearly every conceivable inch of the space. The floor space was taken up by a sofa, old and in dire need of refurbishing in her prejudicial judgment. Across from it, an old-fashioned armchair, equally threadbare and yet oddly comforting, was positioned to face the staircase she'd just stepped from. The fireplace blazed with a drowsy heat, and candles flickered in a lazy fashion from their sconces. Her bare feet tiptoed around the small room, sighting a threshold against one wall, a door leading outside on another.
She could not have imagined his home being any other way.
The curtains were drawn tight, and from the darkness of the room overall and that ever-present tug in her soul, she knew it was evening. Her stomach was aching, and for once, not for the sweet taste of her own blood. The scent of olive oil and garlic, mingling together in as familiar a scent as her own perfume, drifted from behind the threshold, and the subtle sounds of a spoon stirring drew her towards it like a Grecian Siren.
As Selene walked softly toward the room, her eyes swept over the small table, holding a pair of dishes and wine glasses. His back was to her, the white shirt contrasting with his ebony hair at his collar, a bowl beside him filled with romaine, radicchio, and endive, a bottle of vinaigrette nearby. A pot on the stove was boiling, and as she stood there, taking this all in with a mixture of shock and guilt, he reached for another small bowl, pouring the contents into the pan he was tending.
"Are you planning to stand in the doorway this entire time like a statue, or would you rather strike up a conversation?"
Selene's eyebrows went up. "I wasn't aware you even knew I was here."
His shoulders flexed as he shrugged, never turning towards her. "I smelled jasmine."
Her face immediately felt on fire.
Severus stirred the tomatoes, blending them into the sauce, while looking up to check the progress of the pasta in the larger pot. Cooking for one was easy enough to do. For two was a shade more awkward. It meant taking someone else's preferences and tastes into consideration. Just because she was Italian didn't mean she liked pasta at all. In fact, except for the remnants of a meal in a pub months ago, he had no idea what she liked to eat.
At least he knew her tastes where wine was concerned.
"I was going to bring your dinner upstairs, so you wouldn't have to come down. Didn't quite know if you were feeling up to it or not."
Her eyes hit the floor, looking at a knot in the wooden flooring. "I decided I've had enough of being an invalid for a while. Besides, Galileo sort of took over the bed. You know how cats are – they manage to take up more room than is explainable by logic and physics."
He actually laughed slightly, moving to allow the pot to levitate itself to the sink, straining the pasta and water contained within, finishing the sauce. "Your cat seems to defy all the conventional rules where felines and kneazles are concerned."
"You haven't a clue how true that statement is." Selene began to relax, slightly, the topic at least one that would not likely invoke embarrassing or awkward moments.
In other words, you still have no idea how to talk to someone the day after the two of you…
That's quite enough out of you tonight, thank you very much!
"You'll have to tell me sometime how you managed to befriend a kneazle. It isn't terribly often they attach themselves to someone as a simple housepet." Severus finally turned, a flick of his wrist making the pasta sail over to the table, serving itself, two piles of linguini appearing on the plates, as he poured the homemade pomodoro sauce over them both. "And I apologize for not asking you for your preferences for dinner, but I thought you needed your sleep. Besides, I haven't had a chance to actually go shopping. And I don't believe in house-elves."
Selene took one of the two plates, maneuvering things to allow for a pair of settings, walking around the table and past him, gathering the salad and dressing. "After everything you've done for me, the last thing I could do is criticize your choice of meals." Chianti poured into a pair of glasses, and Selene's chair slid out for her, waiting for her to settle herself down into it. Pulling on her skirt, straightening it, she sat down, her eyes watching him do the same. "Besides, it smells perfect."
The compliment made him grateful for the limited lighting. It hid the color displacing the pallor of his face. "Thank you."
The two ate in silence for a minute, the salad crisp and the pomodoro sauce just the right shade of tangy, before Selene laid her fork down for a moment. "Actually, she chose me."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Galileo. She chose me. In Hogsmeade, actually. On one of my walks home from the Three Broomsticks. She simply walked up to me, meowed loudly, and then followed me back to the castle, into the Hall, up the staircases, and that was that. I haven't been able to figure out why she chose me, but she did."
"Well, they say kneazles have amazing abilities to measure a person's worth. She must have thought you were deserving of her attention."
This time, it was her turn to flush in the candlelight.
"How's the meal?"
Selene smiled. "Wonderful, thank you. I wasn't aware you were an accomplished cook."
"It's not terribly different from brewing a potion."
"Yes, it is."
"How do you figure that?"
"I can't brew a potion to save my life. But I manage to cook rather well, truth be told."
"I'll have to let you cook for me once and see for myself."
"Agreed."
Their banter seemed to break the thin ice that they both had skirted along for the beginning of the meal, setting both of them at ease. It began to feel more like a comfortable, companionable meal, and less like the awkward 'morning after' that they both had dreaded. It was almost as if they had agreed on this avoidance in their conversation, planned out how not to discuss the night before, how to prolong the inevitable.
To both of them, it was a relief.
Selene's eyes swept over the small kitchen, taking in the muggle appliances. "It's been a while since I've seen an actual refrigerator."
His eyes widened. "How do you…?"
"I attended a Muggle university, remember?"
The memory of the comment came back to him. "I'd forgotten." Picking up his wine glass, he relaxed back into his chair, leaning a bit. "How did an Italian girl attending a Bulgarian wizarding school find her way to a Muggle university in Great Britain, anyway?"
Selene shrugged. "Well, La Stregoneria transferred me to Durmstrang, because there was no way I could attend school there. Too sunny. I burn within minutes, and I've never risked it to see if I could actually survive much longer than the time it takes me to turn pink. Durmstrang was the only place that would take me, so I went there. My Astronomy professor there, Novakoff, actually knew a squib who studied Astronomy with a Muggle research facility. He sent me to her after graduation, and she managed to falsify enough documentation to allow me to study there as her assistant."
Severus finished his glass of wine, pouring a second, offering to refill her glass as well. "Interesting. It's rare for our kind to actually study with and mingle with Muggles on any level."
"Rare, but well worth it. Muggles may not have all the documents and knowledge and talents that we do, but they have some rather interesting theories and ways to accomplish things." Selene leapt into the impromptu debate without any sense of hesitation. "It might not be a bad idea for more of our kind to study with Muggles more often. Might expand our worldviews."
"Oh, don't even tell me we're going to get into another debate about antiquated wizarding culture."
"Well, do you have anything more interesting to discuss?"
He had to admit, not really. In fact, the discussion, the heatedness of their potential debate, her quick wit and sarcastic commentary, all were subtly reminding him of why he had felt drawn to her in the first place.
Of course, last night's little escapades play absolutely no role in that whatsoever…
Do us all a favor and, for once, don't serve as my conscience, thank you.
He thought fast. "Well, we could always discuss your stance on the current educational reforms going on at the school."
Selene rolled her eyes. "Or not. That insanity doesn't qualify as educational reform. Seriously, I have never wanted to bite someone so hard in my entire adult life! She commandeered MY classroom and MY observatory, and proceeded to interrupt my lecture a round dozen times with the most asinine questions imaginable. And then, my review comes back 'satisfactory'. No bloody kidding." She seethed across the table, shooting down the glass of wine. "I've only been doing my job for over a dozen bloody years. Might have learned a thing or two since then..."
Selene's face paled, suddenly realizing she held a wine glass in her hands.
Severus dropped his fork. Oh bloody hell… that was pure genius on your part! Sure, let's serve her wine when she's just been poisoned with it. Gods above and below, Severus, when did you lose all of your intelligence?
Her eyes grew wide, and she looked across the table at him, the confident, strong, independent-minded woman disappearing before him, doubt and fear beginning to consume the depths of her deep brown eyes. "What if she…?"
He shook his head forcefully. "She didn't, Selene. She couldn't have. Umbridge isn't crafty enough to poison your wine. Besides, the wolfsbane wouldn't have affected a strigoii like this. She would have had no way of knowing you're a moroii. It wasn't her."
A lone hot tear trickled down her cheek, and Selene's reserve began to shatter as the question that had been wracking her brain for days finally slipped from her lips. "Then who did this to me?"
He was forced to admit the truth. "We don't know. We can't figure it out."
She looked up into his eyes, fighting to regain her composure. "I'm scared. What if this isn't an accident? What if someone wanted to hurt me? To…" She couldn't finish the words.
It took only two steps for Severus to maneuver around the table, taking her chin and lifting it up. "I promise you. You will be safe. No more poisoned wine. No one will hurt you. Ever again. Trust me."
Her smile was weak, but clear. "Of course I trust you. You keep your promises, remember?"
His heart stopped for a second, the complete honest trust in her words, her voice, her eyes, all shocking him senseless.
It's been a long time since you've seen such open trust, hasn't it?
Before he knew what he was doing, he'd bent forward, leaning down, his lips finding hers, salt and wine and a sweet sadness all mingling together on them.
Selene's eyes were swollen when she opened them, her head aching, as much from the wine as from the tears. The room was pitch black, silence invading the very foundations of the small, rickety house. The shift of the wind outside told her a storm was coming.
Of course, there already was one going on in her mind.
I'm letting him get too far in.
You're being silly.
Am I?
You haven't let anyone in for so long you don't know the difference anymore between too far and not far enough.
She had to reluctantly agree.
Selene slipped out of the warm bed, leaving him slumbering in twisted sheets, reaching silently for something to pull on over her body. The first things that her fingers found was his white linen shirt. The scent of cloves drifted up from the folds. With a lazy smile, she slipped into it. Pulling back the drapes at the window, she gazed out on the dark, moonless night, stars twinkling against black velvet. Small houses lined the streets, Muggle streetlights blinking along the horizon. While the house itself, and everything in it, felt so very like him, the neighborhood didn't. In fact, it was the last place she would ever have imagined him calling home.
Maybe that's the point.
Wrapping her arms around herself, Selene pressed her forehead on the cool glass, the chill of the winter cold seeping into her, soothing her headache. Somehow, the solitude of the moment, the quiet subtlety of being surrounded by darkness, the scent of cologne and perfume mingling around her, brought her a peace she rarely felt these days. Except on her tower, wine in hand.
And now, even that peace had been shattered.
Despite the exhaustion of her mind and soul, her body ached for activity, to be thinking and doing, to be alive and alert in this darkness. This was, as her mother had taught her years ago, the side of midnight few ever truly experienced. The side where the darkness opened quietly, where only the most lost souls walked, searching for their own twisted idea of peace.
With a forlorn glance, she turned her head to stare at the man sleeping quietly behind her.
He lived on the other side of midnight.
What chance does this have? Why pretend this can actually survive past this moment? If it hadn't been for the wine, if he hadn't been there, if Dumbledore hadn't ordered him to hide me away…
No one made him send you coffee. Or hold you for a second dance. No one made him come in for wine, or a conversation in a tavern, or a long walk home.
But he didn't know me then.
Maybe he knew you better than you know yourself.
Easy for you to say.
The day you look in the mirror and see more than a pair of fangs and an unusual sleep pattern is the day you'll discover who you truly are.
Forcing down the hot, bitter tears that tried to trickle down her cheeks, Selene turned back to the window, to the solace of the night sky. Instead, more questions raced through her already bewildered mind. Why hadn't he spurned her? Why did he simply accept what she was? It didn't make sense. So few in the wizarding world understood, or even cared to consider the differences between the living and the undead.
Fewer still would have voluntarily spent time alone with her.
Almost none would have shared a kiss, let alone their body, their bed, their home.
Severus Snape, you are a puzzle.
She could still remember Anatoli's shock, his outrage, when he finally realized what she was. So young, so foolish, so utterly desperate to feel connected to someone, anyone, even for only a few selfish, reckless, hours. The mistakes of the girl she once had been.
That girl died, bitter and alone and frightened, fourteen years ago. On a cold night much like this, when an elderly wizard Selene had never seen before came to take her from Azkaban, handing her the opportunity of her young and tragic lifetime.
Shelter. Protection. Anonymity.
Thus the masquerade began, as she took over for a rather grateful professor who had lost the passion of teaching, and began educating students not much younger than herself in the only true love she'd known.
She called it 'her tower' for more reasons than he would ever understand.
Selene became so entwined by the thoughts and memories that were crashing inside her that she never heard the creaking of the bed, the soft pad of the footsteps, or the whisper of sound from his breath. All she felt was a hand slide along her hip, a warm body press against her back, a breath caress her neck before lips settled above her pulse.
Her eyes closing, she let the curtain fall, shutting the snow and the cold and the lonely Muggle streets out of her world, and let him pull her back into his.
He watched her drift back into sleep, her breathing taking on its unique rhythmic pattern once again. After sitting at her bedside for days, then sharing his bed with her for two nights now, Severus felt he would recognize that soft, even, haltered pattern for the rest of his life.
He'd heard her at the window, the faint rustle of the curtain against the rough wood of the windowsill enough to pull him from the faint level of sleep he had been in. One eye had opened, cautiously, and in the darkness saw her, the white shirt contrasting with the tousled curtain of black hair. What shocked him most was that he'd never once felt her stir in the bed, let alone leave it altogether.
That scared him, to be perfectly honest.
It told him he trusted her.
Did you honestly think she would do you any harm? If so, you're a fool. She's had ample opportunities and never once acted. You're still alive, after all.
Wouldn't be the first time a woman's slipped in between my sheets and plotted my death all in the same night.
In case you actually need the reminder, she's not Bellatrix.
Fair enough. But still…
But nothing. For once, just shut up and quit looking for the hidden trap in the pretty package.
That would prove difficult, since looking for and finding the hidden traps had kept him alive this long.
He hadn't meant to get out of the bed, to join her at the window, to pull her back into his arms. But he had. Instinct had told him to. And it had just felt right, holding her again, feeling her turn in his arms, her face hiding in his shoulder, the scent of jasmine curling upward to him. It brought him a comfortable peace he hadn't known in years.
Her hair tangled around her, as her body curled in on itself, pulling the blankets tighter. Staring down at her, he brushed away some of the strands from her cheek, finally calm and in repose. She'd been so distraught at dinner, the memory of the wine and the wolfsbane and the lack of reason behind it all twisting her very soul. He'd felt the pain and confusion, the utter fear that this would happen again, that someone wanted to actually harm her.
He couldn't let her live in that fear. She didn't deserve it.
The wine and the tears had done more than just lower her defenses and bring out the protectiveness from his conscience. They'd talked, for what felt like hours, about everything and nothing all at once. He'd finally learned a little about her mother, how she'd been bitten by one of the strigoii vampiri when only a few weeks pregnant with Selene, which explained her existence as a moroii. It was why the moroii were rare in the first place – while the life force from a pregnant woman drew vampires like flames and moths, the newly-bitten woman often miscarried, the will to live drained from her.
Evidently, Selene's mother was a rather remarkable woman indeed.
She'd spoken so matter-of-factly when she told him how her father, upon her birth and seeing the tiniest of fangs in his only daughter's mouth, had left them both, and the entire family, forever. He had expected coldness, bitterness, maybe a bleak sadness in her voice, but instead, she radiated odd neutrality. Of course, it would make sense for her to see the situation objectively, to separate herself from the past, from what she couldn't possibly control.
Her voice had grown warm, however, when mentioning her favorite of her four brothers, the enigmatic Julius, whom she seemed to wrap her world around. From the lightness in her voice, this was the one who had teased Selene about her love for astronomy, her academic interests, the one who was as much friend as anything. To see her eyes light up, telling a tale involving Julius, herself, and a rather confused Muggle priest, told him much about the childhood Selene must have had. For once, he felt a twinge of loss for the childhood fate had cruelly given him.
He envied her, in a way. At least someone had loved the little girl she once had been.
However, she grew guarded and silent when he questioned her about the other three brothers. All he knew was there were twins, and an oldest one, who seemed to be the self-appointed father of the Sinistra children. He asked a simple question, about whether or not she felt she should owl them before Christmas Day.
That was when she turned in his arms, changing the topic of conversation completely from her past to her clearly in-the-present desires.
He couldn't bring himself to object.
His body now yearned for sleep, for a chance to rest tired muscles and let go of his anxiety. Sleep had been something he'd gotten precious little of during this night. Even though thoughts and worries concerning the woman beside him and where the last week would inevitably take them drifted through his mind, eventually even he couldn't resist the pull of slumber, the need to close his eyes and give in to sleep.
As he did, his arm reached out, pulling her closer, his body curving against hers, feeling her slip her hand in his, feeling content and connected to someone else for the first time in years.