In Sickness and In Health
All these characters and their world belong to J.K.R.
Chapter III
"Where did this come from Severus? A brothel?" Emmaline questioned, stroking the intricate silk tapestry as they dressed in relative privacy opposite an antique Chinese folding shade.
A hooked nose peered around the corner of the lacquered shutter, black eyes squinted, and then lips smirked, "From the home of a very famous concubine."
"Severus!" She fawned irritation at his peeking and pushed him back around the corner of the shade.
"Perhaps you remember when you're father gave it to me." His voice replied.
"Very funny," she answered sarcastically, smiling all the while. Then changing the subject, "However, is the most time that we've spent together since you were an apprentice to my father some twenty years ago."
Emmaline emerged from around blind; Severus was magically knotting his cravat. "Do you remember that summer, Severus?"
Turning to meet her eyes, looking extremely powerful and exquisitely masculine in his fitted frock coat and high Edwardian collar, he answered easily, "Vividly."
Emmaline adjusted his tie as Snape held completely still, taking in the beauty of the woman before him. "You were a very serious young man," she reminded him.
His now pleasant thoughts turned to darker memories, a time in his past that he wished he could forget. A time when he was still a skinny, greasy nobody wanting to be someone great, no matter what the cost. In the end, the cost had been too high. "I suppose I was."
"Very driven," she stroked a raven lock back from his face.
"I was ambitious to make something of my life; to prove my father wrong. I doubt I was different from many boys my age."
"You were always different."
Severus's muscles tensed. He was always different. He was the outcast, the dark, greasy, and often hated young man whose only talent had been his ability to brew potions. He still felt more at home with an steaming black caldron than he did with human company.
Voice low, and bitter, "You're not the first to my attention to that fact." Although, most people were much more blatant about his 'differences'.
With a jerk, he pulled away from her touch and began flipping through some papers in a drawer. Emma tensed her brows, still prodding over the mystery that made the man.
Parchment in hand, he finally turned back to her, voice lacking bravado, "Come, let's eat."
He was very quiet during breakfast, reading through his parchments, and she followed his lead wondering what she had said this morning to turn his mood from playful to sullen. She didn't much care for the quiet, sullen Snape. Hmmm…She'd have to work on changing that.
"As much fun as this is to watch you slurp porridge, what else are we doing today?"
Severus put down his papers, black eyes serious, "I do not slurp."
Her eyes narrowed, "Are you sure?"
Lips twitched, "Has anyone ever told you Emmaline Vance that you are rude."
"No, but do you think I am?" Her chin still held high.
"Most certainly."
"Well, Professor," a most innocent smiled crossed her lips, "Surely you're a master at discipline."
There was no missing the meaning in her voice and once again Severus was taken off balance. Sexual innuendos dropped almost too easily from her lips, but once again, he welcomed her game. She could certainly talk confidently, but he seriously doubted that she'd follow through, at least with him. No matter, let the games begin.
Severus leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs with easy confidence, however insincere. "And what kind of discipline do you prefer, Emmaline?" He stroked their conjoined hands with his thumb. "Poisons, curses, lashes, deprivation…" Suddenly, his play was becoming too real.
Leaning forward, green eyes piercing him, voice low, "Have you done those things?"
He looked away, and Emmaline saw something she never imagine she'd see from Severus—shame. "No…" His voice barely a whisper, "At least, not directly."
Willing himself to meet her eyes, fearing their judgment. "This is not where I intended for this conversation to lead," he finished, voice breathy.
She was dying to ask him why he did it and at the same time, she knew it was not her place to question his sins, at least not at this moment. Eyes responding directly to his honesty, "Nor did I. I'm sorry; I didn't mean to question you about your past."
Then laughing nervously, she turned her eyes away, fidgeting with her napkin, "I suppose you go through this every time you're with a new woman."
His brow still knotted at the unexpected brevity of their conversation. He could lie to her and say yes, but something deeper, this strange aching in his chest which also seemed to have a direct line of communication with his conscience told him to tell her the truth, or at least a little bit of truth. "No, I don't."
She replied with a slight, and embarrassed, "Oh."
Then something in him turned, he felt angered and annoyed with her questions and there had been many in the eight hours; too many. He turned reared his fangs, unleashed the venum; he was head of Slytherin after all. "Vance, my affairs with women are none of your business. And secondly, although, we may have 'lover's flu' and we're stuck together for another very dreary forty hours, this relationship," he gestured to their conjoined hands, "is exceedingly inconsequential to me regardless of the fact that you fancy me in love you." Puffing his chest out as he stood, "Furthermore, I find your company, which like most women's is centered on gossip, drudgery and self flattery; genuinely annoying."
"Well," Emmaline stood, back straight, chin held high, "You didn't seem to find my company so annoying when my hand was up your dressing gown."
His lips twisted in sneer, "I didn't say you weren't good for something."
'Pop' her slap reverberated on the stone walls of his chamber. "Mark that Severus, for it will be the last time you'll feel my hand upon your flesh."
They spent the remainder of the morning reading, he'd wanted to work on a new potion he'd been planning, but didn't want to risk her sabotaging it. Finally, they took a light lunch, where they continued not to talk. Eventually, Emma voiced she was tired and wanted a nap. He agreed to her request with a silent nod and went into the bedroom.
She unbuttoned the collar of her corseted dress and shot Severus a firm look of don't touch me.
He wasn't sure if actually heard the words through Occumancy or if her eyes were actually that intense. Either way, he felt a strange new tightening ache in his chest. He sighed, as he rubbed his chest.
"Stop moving, you're jerking the bed." Emma barked.
"It's my chest," he said a bit strangled.
Her lips tight, "You're probably having a heart attack." Then turning away from him, "Please endeavor to be quiet if you're going to die."
He looked longing on her beguiling form, a soft feminine physique that held a cruel heart and a sharp tongue. In many ways, she was like her father, his former mentor; the same quick wit, the same natural ease with potions and with words. Although, he had been four years her senior in school, he had noticed her even before he'd realized that Emmaline was his teacher's child.
He had been fifteen and a teaching assistant to her father and she a first year Ravenclaw with an affinity for smarting off to him. He laughed now as he remember her favorite line, one that she used on him for years, "Someday I will be better than you," she'd snap, turn on her heel and walk away.
After his own venture into the dark arts, it was several more years before he became reacquainted with Emmaline through the original Order. It was a chaotic time for everyone. He was shocked to learn that Professor Vance had become a victim of the LeStranges and Emmaline, whom he thought would have been a great potion master in her own right, was editing at Witch Weekly. It was a far cry from the brilliance that she'd possessed as a girl.
Another thirteen years passed, the Order reassembled, the two reacquainted for the third time. She'd been passable as a teenage girl, pretty as young adult, but thirty truly brought forth her beauty. Obviously skilled in the arts of female beguilement and womanly frippery, she shined. She was a whipcord of sophistication and intelligence. More than that, she had been his friend—something that was very rare in his life.
A little over a year ago, in Grimmald Place, a glass of champagne in hand, a blush in her cheek, "Severus Snape?" She smiled, green eyes burning him, she offered her hand, "So we meet again."
He stood, taking her hand; he bowed slightly, "Ms. Vance."
She laughed, and he felt somewhat annoyed.
"Please Severus, you know me too well for such formalities. Call me Emmaline."
Did he know her that well? He had been a student to her father, the master. But in the end, they had had a fallen out; the result of headstrong pupil and a wise teacher. He sighed as he said her name, "Emmaline. It is a pleasure."
"Come Severus. You must sit with me this evening and tell me what you've been doing these ten odd years."
And so he had joined her and they had talked and reminisced. He had even apologized for his behavior eighteen years ago and she brought him words of peace; reassuring him of her father's forgiveness of his youthful ignorance before he died. That knowledge was a gift more precious than gold; one of friendship and forgiveness.
Awaking from his day dream, he looked lovingly on her again. Rubbing his chest, he remembered what this painful emotion was; regret.
He couldn't sleep, but as soon as she awoke he suggested they take a walk in the gardens and she agreed. The summer sun hung low on the horizon and the fragrance of sweet rose and begonia wafted on the warm breeze. Every so often, Emma would pause, upturn a flower and closing her eyes, breathe in the fragrance.
Finally, after much emotional turmoil, Severus motioned to a decaying stone bench. "Would you sit with me?"
Without a word, she huffed, and seated herself on the bench.
He looked at her longingly, reminded himself of her worth, then swallowing hard, "I believe I owe you an apology." Had he ever spoken those words before, he wondered.
"I'm listening."
His heart raced and he desperately clung to his calm façade. Where should he start? "Emmaline; there haven't been any women in my bed besides you."
Her slanted, green eyes widened ever so slightly with surprise.
"You see, I've never spoken to anyone outside of Albus Dumbledore about that time in my life. And I've never had to speak about it with a woman because, my relationships with women have never reached that point of intimacy." He shuttered slightly at his vulnerability. He was laying a lot on the line for her.
"So you're not intimate with women," her brow knotted, honestly trying to grasp his inferences.
He sighed, trying to find the words to say what he meant, without literally saying it, "I've had relations with women, just not in my rooms and certainly nothing that goes beyond the ummm…momentary physical act."
"Oh." She obviously comprehended his meaning, but revealed little emotion regarding his venire relationships. "So you've had lovers, but you haven't had a friend."
Voice low, "Not until you. I suppose you're my first."
Cocking her head to the side, voice ironic, "Well, I haven't heard that in a long time."
He smiled slightly, "I deserved that pop earlier."
"You did," she echoed, their heads getting closer.
"Emmaline, I lied to you yesterday."
Voices lowering, "About what?"
Eyes dreamy, "About what I want in a woman."
They were inches away from one another, and she could feel the heat of his words against her cheek. "You see, I don't want just any woman, I want you."
Her lips brushed against his smooth jaw, as she whispered, "Didn't I tell you were in love with me?"
But he didn't answer as his lips pressed against her neck, planting searing kisses against the pale flesh of her racing pulse.
Responding to he desire she threw back her head, Severus pushed off her 'silly' hat and brown locks broke from their formal knot, and drifted around her shoulders. Immediately, his freehand massaged through her silky hair, as he continued to kiss her throat encouraged by gentle, wanting moans.
When suddenly, like a bad dream, a voice yelled, "Stop! Stop! Don't kiss her!"
It was Nymphadora Tonks.
Thanks for the reviews. I don't know if the sequel can ever be as brilliant as the opener. ;) lyra