The distance between Selene and Severus grew out of control. There was less and less of the companion-like comfort to be had between the two. Slowly, they began sleeping apart, spending less and less of their hours together.
Both hated it; both did nothing to stop it.
Galileo leapt into her lap as she sat at her desk, grading yet another set of essays. Her purring was calming and reassuring to her. It reminded her to take a break and relax. Pushing herself away from her desk, Selene groaned, her head aching.
A knock at the door at this hour of night caught her attention.
"I assumed you'd be sleeping."
Severus nodded. "I tried. Not bloody likely anymore."
Selene let him into her apartment, walking to the kitchen area and automatically pouring two glasses of wine, bringing them both to the living room, handing him one. "If it's not Umbridge and her bloody awful rules, it's the whispers in the faculty lounges. Am I right?"
He nodded. "That, and other things." Setting the wine glass down, he leaned forward. Enough hours had been spent pacing his office, trying to decide the best way to broach the question. "Why do I feel like we're talking from across this distance these days?"
Swallowing hard, Selene took a breath before letting the words pour out of her. "I don't know. It's complicated. It's like we both don't know where the other stands. I don't know what to say to you anymore. What to do. I don't want to have to choose. I don't want this war. I just want to study and teach and look at my stars, and everyone I care about wants to pull me one way or another, and I just don't want to be pulled. How can I choose, Severus? How am I expected to make a decision between right and wrong, when that means choosing between my family and the people I care about?"
He opened his mouth to answer. She didn't give him a chance.
"I care about you, alright? Is that what you've wanted to hear for all these months? I care. I respect you, I admire you, and I appreciate you. I enjoy spending time with you. Hell, I even enjoy sleeping with you! But I don't know if I love you, and even if I do, I don't know if I love you more than I love Claudius, or my brothers, or my mother. The only people I've ever truly loved are my family. How do I look at you and know that you lie every day to my brother, that you and he aren't the same? How do I choose? I can't, Severus. And because I can't make that choice, and because you can, and because everything's coming to be, it's tearing us all apart. So yes, we are talking across this distance. But I don't know if we can stop it."
Severus rubbed his face, trying to pull himself together. "What do I do, Selene? Do I do what I know is right, what I've been doing this entire time? Or do I turn my back on this all and step in line with your brother just to make this easier for you?"
"You follow your heart!" Selene shouted much louder than she expected to ever do. "You do what you want. You do what you believe is the right thing for you. You can't change for me anymore than I can change for you. I thought you knew that."
Lank black hair swept forward, shadowing his eyes from her gaze. "All I know is I care for you. I don't like knowing you're being pulled in these directions. I hate knowing that what I do could cause you more pain or frustration. It's never been my intention."
"But you've been doing it since before you ever sent me coffee in my office."
Her words summed everything they both knew was true.
"Do we still talk over the chasm, then, Selene?"
She bit her lip, her fangs showing in the candlelight. "I don't know."
"Neither do I."
Silence sat between them for long minutes, before Severus rose and left, never once saying what he had climbed seven floors of stairs to say.
Don't push me away…
As the door closed behind him, Selene threw her wine glass against it, glass shattering in all directions, red wine splashing against wall and carpeting, coloring it all in its wake.
All I want to do is follow you…
As the sun rose, the both of them sat in their homes, in equal silence, both hating themselves for not speaking their minds, both hating the other for not speaking first.
The sensation swarmed around Selene's mind, almost dropping her to her knees, as the telescope swerved on its pedastal, veering from the view of Mercury she'd been staring at moments before.
Anger. Fear. Loathing. Rage. Out. Out. OUT!
The emotions pounded against her conscience, the weight of them almost overpowering her. Forcing herself to move inside from the observatory, Selene took deep breaths, trying to close herself from them, to control them before they completely controlled her. The sensations were so real, so strong.
She had no doubt from whom they came.
Leaving papers and star maps scattered all over her work table, Selene flew out the door, her feet barely touching the stone steps as she whirled down them. It felt as if something was pulling her, dragging her, drawing her closer, like a needle to a magnet. The further down she raced, the more controlling the sensation got.
Finally, breathless and on edge from the waves of anger and panic slamming her mind, she shoved open a heavy door, her eyes growing wide at the sight. Glass covered the floor, tiny shards of it twinkling in the candlelight. Smears of foul-colored slime dotted the walls and floors every which way. A shimmering blue light came from a wide-rimmed bowl in the middle of the room, which illuminated a figure in black robes, his fingers gripping the bowl so tightly that she could make out the white of his knuckles from across the room.
"Get the hell out."
His voice didn't sound like him. It carried a wealth of pain barely kept below the surface.
"Not until you tell me what's wrong."
Her voice wasn't the one he expected to hear, and it wasn't until that moment that he caught the jasmine on the air. "Thought he'd have gone running for McGonagall, send her to chew me out seven ways from Sunday."
Selene didn't bother to ask who 'he' was. It didn't matter. Now that she was in the same room as him, other images crossed her mind, a jumble of pieces of memory and dream.
A woman leering over a small boy, her hair barely covering a bruised eye, returning the favor to the child.
A group of boys levitating balls of mud in the air, splattering a thin, gangly youth, robes and book covered in the slimy mess.
Staring out a window, longingly, watching children laughing and playing in the summer sunshine.
Watching a man pack his bags, walking away for the last time.
With a physical effort, Selene forced the images down, silencing her mind, staring at the man who clearly raged as silently as possible for him. "What happened?"
Severus didn't bother turning to her, the softness of her voice outright infuriating him. He never asked for pity, for understanding, for kindness or empathy. To hear it being offered to him was almost an insult. Who the hell was she to come storming into his world like a savior, trying to offer him comfort and solace?
You're being cruel. She didn't offer you anything. She asked a question.
I don't want to give her the answer.
You hypocritical . You forced her to turn to you when it was convenient for you. And now you shun her just because she wants to know.
I don't want to share this…
You made her let you in.
A list of dark, twisted oaths in various languages exploded from him, slamming the stone walls with their vehemence. Selene rolled her eyes, her patience being pushed to its breaking point. "Is that the best you can do? I can swear in more languages than that." Without letting him answer, she began steamrolling him. "Fine. Don't tell me what I already know. After all, it's not as if I couldn't hear your anger on the complete other corner of the castle."
When the office door slammed behind her, Severus finally let go of the pensieve.
Well, that went well…
With every step, Selene fumed.
That obstinate stubborn MAN! You would have thought I asked him his secret recipe for some illicit potion the way he snapped at me. It's not MY fault I could hear him...
But how often do you actually hear someone in anguish, let alone go flying out of your tower like banshees were on your heels?
That doesn't matter!
When are you going to admit it to yourself?
Admit what?
That you care...
Don't even say that! I don't…not like that…
Liar. You keep the truth from Claudius, even though you know it. You defied your family for him. You shared secrets in a dark room at night. Hell, woman, you know every star in the sky, but you can't decipher your own heart?
Selene stopped, hiding behind a stone statue in a dark hallway, leaning to catch her breath.
What if her conscience was right?
Half a castle away, a man in black robes had a similar argument with his own conscience. Holding a tattered paperback on a shelf in his living room, Severus flung himself into a chair in the corner, reading a pair of inscriptions. One written by a loving parent, the other by an idealistic young girl.
Didn't anyone teach you actions speak louder than words?
I guess I just always search for the hidden meaning in both.
When are you going to let go of a dream, Severus?
For almost an hour, the question hung in his mind, without a possible answer coming to mind. He had none. For the first time in years, the mind that had learned to pull solutions out of thin air, to be creative with his talent, to find the loophole in every twisted puzzle or complicated situation had no answer for a simple question asked by his own mind.
Or, if he were more honest with himself, he had the answer. He just didn't want to accept it.
Because of me, she hides. Because of her, I'm tied to an old man and his mission to save the world. Because of us, I shove away someone as lonely as I am.
When Severus Snape had made that choice, years ago, to play both sides against the other, he'd made himself several promises. To atone for his youth. To let go of the need for revenge. To ask forgiveness from a red-haired girl.
As much as he tried to convince himself he'd worked towards those goals, a woman who lived on her side of the night made it clear to him that he hadn't come close to meeting them.
If I can't keep promises to myself, how could I ever keep them to Selene?
Sleep never came, as his mind searched for a loophole that didn't exist.