All of you are wonderful, and your reviews this week have cheered me up immensely! Please enjoy Chapter Six!

Charlotte had not heard the door close behind her before Severus had a vice-like grip on her wrist and was dragging her up the stairs.

She protested as his fingernails dug into her skin, but the broad-shouldered wizard was unmoved. He opened the door to their guest bedroom and shoved her inside haphazardly. She stumbled and landed sprawled across the bed.

Righting herself, she turned to open her mouth in protest when Severus held a hand up, his nostrils flaring.

"Rookwood, Charlotte?"

Charlotte's mouth clicked shut.

"After months of instructing you in occlumency, I expected you to learn that there is no time in which someone will not attempt to gain entry to your thoughts. I doubt a single member of the Order doesn't know about your plan to blackmail Rookwood with Bellatrix and run away to Boston."

Severus Snape was capable of being incredibly frightening when he chose to be.

He paced in the room, throwing his broad hands into his long hair and took shaking breaths.

"Dumbledore can't keep us safe, Severus," she hissed.

His dark eyes were upon her, "No, Charlotte, he cannot."

"Dumbledore can merely keep us under watch," Severus's voice had grown calmer, "But he cannot protect us. There are other things in place which will prevent him from doing so."

"What other things?"

Severus remained silent.

"You told them about me. About the magic."

"I did."

Startled, Charlotte stood, "Why would you tell them?"

"Obscurials are dangerous, Charlotte. There is a reason Grindelwald was fascinated by them."

Charlotte's hands fisted together, "I know it's dangerous."

"And yet at no moment were you so inclined to discuss this with me?"

"When was I supposed to do that, Snape? Over the many letters we don't exchange while you're at Hogwarts, or the hours of time we spend together when you come back?"

This time, Severus fell silent, his jaw clenched.

"You don't even ask for me to check in. We might be married, but there is nothing marital about our relationship. I give you precisely what you asked for – no inclination that I lived here, zero expectations that this will develop beyond our relationship, and absolute fucking celibacy."

Her breaths were coming hotly now, "I've done precisely what you've asked of me."

"And I have not?"

"Why did you agree to this?"

Severus stared at her.

"There's nothing in it for you. There's no gold or properties, businesses or status. You don't ask for anything from me. I can see where the benefit of it for me was – I needed a fucking babysitter, evidently – but what was the benefit for you?"

"I agreed to the arrangement as it was made by Dumbledore."

"DUMBLEDORE. You and fucking Dumbledore, plotting away somewhere. You told them to watch me. You told them there was something wrong with me. Don't you dare try to lie to me, Severus, because as broken and as irreparable as my occlumency may be to you, I assure you I am still a fucking legilimens."

"You dare threaten me?"

Severus began to take slow, measured steps towards her, "You will not threaten me in my house."

"Then you will tell me, Severus. Tell me what was so fucking appealing about being married to me? Was it some pact you made with Regulus?"

Severus's face was darkening as he walked towards her, and Charlotte found herself backing up until her knees hit the bedframe.

"We weren't close in school," she continued, but her voice was wavering, "It's not like we were friends."

She sat on the bed as Severus loomed over her, his eyes thin slits of rage.

"You will not question me, wife," he whispered, and his voice was like soft thunder.

"Then let me go! Let me go to Boston!"

Severus gripped her chin, "You will not leave this house."

His fingers were hard, and his eyes did not waver.

But Charlotte had never been especially tactful, and a sick feeling had filled the pit of her stomach.

When Dumbledore had suggested she marry Severus, Charlotte had assumed that it was because Severus had lost all of his money to the Ministry of Magic after his trials. Charlotte had still had a sizable inheritance and would stand to assume what was left of the Black vaults in Gringott's. She had made the assumption that at some point, Severus would need financial assistance. But when he had never asked for it, her mind had wandered elsewhere.

But Severus had never been interested in any form of intimacy. He never seemed to notice whether or not she cleaned the house on Spinner's End, and he requested no other favors of her. In the end, Charlotte had decided that perhaps Dumbledore had simply wanted an eye kept on her for her actions in the war, and with Severus working at Hogwarts, it was a perfect opportunity. She thought that perhaps Dumbledore had struck a bargain with Severus in convincing him to marry her.

Now, Charlotte felt ill.

Severus was still a professor of potions, when everyone knew that he wanted the position in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Clearly, that had not been any motivation on Snape's part.

No, the only logical purpose could be the one that had made bile begin to fill her throat.

Severus had always hated him, after all.

"It was Sirius, wasn't it?"

When his eyes flickered, Charlotte found her lips twisting.

"You married me to get back at Sirius?"

She stood, roughly shoving him away from her, "You married me to get back at fucking Sirius?"

The bedside lamp exploded.

"Of course, I should've known. All those raids, all those fucking nights you were helping me. You wanted him to find out, didn't you?"

"Do not presume to tell me what motivated my actions."

Charlotte twisted away from him, walking towards the door.

"You will not leave this house, Charlotte."

"You married me as a sick joke to get back at Sirius. What did you expect? Did you send him an invitation to our Ministry office wedding? I'm sure the dementors love to deliver wedding invitations."

"Charlotte, calm yourself."

"I am perfectly fucking calm."

It would stand to make sense that Severus had married her to get back at Sirius. After all, their whirlwind of a romance had caused plenty of controversy at Hogwarts. Very few people had been pleased that Sirius, a Gryffindor, had linked himself to Charlotte, a Slytherin. The only people who had been even remotely pleased with the development were those who assumed Charlotte could convince Sirius to come back to his pureblood roots and do away with his newfound friends.

Severus had certainly received a brute amount of torture at the hands of Sirius.

"I am not going to discuss this with you further."

Standing, Severus moved towards the door and Charlotte seized his shoulder.

In moments, she was inside of his head.

Images raced behind her eyes.

When Severus seized her wrist and severed their connection, his face was contorted in rage.

"Go to bed, now."

"Severus, I'm sorry."

Her eyes were burning from the images, and she felt more nauseated from what she had seen than her own feelings of rage.

"Go to bed," he snarled, and slammed the door behind him.

As Charlotte slipped between the sheets of the guest bed, she heard objects shattering downstairs.

She pictured him moving through the kitchen as she heard cabinets slamming open and moving for the bottle of firewhiskey. She envisioned him pouring a large glass before moving to his arm chair before the fireplace.

Charlotte had known that Sirius was cruel to Severus. During her lessons in occlumency, Severus had chosen to train her in Legilimency as well. It was only rational that every once in a while, her teacher would slip up and she would end somewhere inside of his mind.

She had known about the incident with Lily Evans, and throughout her time with Severus, she had learned that the wizard had loved her immensely. There had been snippets of them as children, playing at the park; there had been visions of them sitting beside the lake at Hogwarts, studying together.

Sirius, Severus, and their lot had been a year ahead of Charlotte. She hadn't had much to do with Severus at school, other than occasionally seeking his help for a paper in Potions. He had been more of Regulus' friend, though even that was a leap.

But what she had seen tonight made her feel ill.

Despite having grown up with the Black boys, Charlotte never knew how much cruelty Sirius was capable of until just moments ago.

Charlotte had seen him urging Severus to risk his life, and she knew that Sirius was not foolish enough to be unaware of the danger. A fifth year against a werewolf, however capable Severus may have been, was no laughing matter. If James had not arrived, Severus would be dead.

She had seen other fleeting memories. Sirius practicing charms on Severus to make his nose grow, flaunting the other witches he had dated in the Great Hall, even making a show – unbeknownst to her – of having Charlotte sitting on his lap in the library. Each moment had been categorically created, she realized, to ensure that Severus was aware of how totally isolated he really was.

Wrapping her arms around her torso as the destruction downstairs resumed once more, Charlotte let out a shuddering breath.

Charlotte had loved Sirius, perhaps a bit blindly. He had made every flaw she had ever noticed of herself turn into something to beautiful. Not a day went by that he hadn't attempted to lift her spirits in some way, and every first she had belonged to him. In her mind, Sirius had always been the savior.

Now, that image was muddied.

She had loved Sirius for his kindness and his unwavering sense of righteousness. From every recollection she had, Sirius had always tried to do the right thing.

But Sirius had tried to, albeit indirectly, kill Severus. Simply because he disliked him.

There had been no purpose to Sirius's hatred of Snape – there was no particular moment or grudge to be held. It was blind dislike. Perhaps it was because of the way Snape looked, or how well he had done in school, or simply that he was a Slytherin. But beneath all the fabricated reasons she could think of, none of them justified the attempted murder of a schoolmate simply because he was there.

Charlotte had killed during the war.

Though she had always justified it in her mind as orders by the Dark Lord. There had been no blind murder; every killing curse that had left her wand had been at the instruction of her master. She had, for years, allowed this thought to comfort her. She was no Bellatrix, after all, she had reasoned.

But Sirius had no reason at all.

Carefully, as the violence beneath her stilled, Charlotte slipped from the bedsheets.

She silently moved through the house, descending the stairs as her eyes burned.

Charlotte had never been bullied in school. With Regulus in Slytherin, and Sirius in Gryffindor, no one had dared to cross the Black brothers by bullying her. She had been a short, tiny girl with thick glasses and two frizzy braids until Walburga had gotten her hands on her in the third year. The opportunities to tease her had been perhaps endless.

Though Walburga had solved the need for glasses and had introduced Charlotte to hair care, eventually she had grown and developed as all women eventually do. She supposed she had been a bit of a catch, considering the other options. Though she was still thin and had little curve to write home about, Charlotte had always considered herself relatively pretty.

She could have told Sirius to leave Snape alone, she reasoned, as she descended the stairs.

Sitting in his arm chair, Severus drank deeply from his tumbler of firewhiskey.

His pale arms and hands were scratched from the thrown glassware she carefully sidestepped, and he had rolled his sleeves to his elbows, showing toned, muscled forearms.

He ignored her until she stood before him, and only glanced her way when she took the glass of whiskey from his hand and sat on the coffee table.

"I'm sorry, Sev," she whispered, her voice trembling.

"Shut up, Fraser."

His voice slurred as he reached for the glass in her hands and plucked it from her fingers.

"I don't want your fucking pity."

She watched him take a large swallow of the liquor.

"I married you," he began slowly, "Because of everything available to him – and it was really everything he could have had – he wanted you."

Severus pointed a drunken fingertip at her.

"And there Dumbledore was, offering you up. He said you needed someone to look after you."

He took another long drink, "And I wanted Black to fucking suffer."

"I'm sorry."

"I took you in, when you were a Death Eater. I let everyone know you were my student."

"I know."

"Just so that he would find out, and he did, you know. He knew that you were mine."

Charlotte watched him silently.

"I wonder what the great Sirius Black thought. You married his younger brother. You became a Death Eater. You were my student. Then, you married me."

Severus was staring at her, "Do you think no one has told him by now? You are my wife, Charlotte, and you will not forget it."

Charlotte reached for his glass and took a small sip.

"You're not going to Boston."

"No, I'm not," she whispered.

"You'll stay here, with me."

Perhaps if Charlotte had been as drunken as her husband or had not been listening to him but staring at the destruction of their home around them, Charlotte would not have heard the words leave his mouth. Though each syllable had been a command, there was a whisper in his voice that was something more.

With me.

"I'll stay."

Severus was watching her as she handed him back his glass, and she moved carefully to the kitchen to fetch the bottle of whiskey in the cabinet.

"Why did you come down here?"

His words were slurred now, and Charlotte stared at the large gap in the bottle that had appeared since his destruction began hours ago.

"Because I'm your wife," she answered softly, "But more so, because I think I'm your only friend, too."

Severus snorted.

"I didn't have any place to go, you know. No one would rent to me. I couldn't get a job. Gringott's had sealed my vaults."

She poured herself a glass of the smoking liquor.

"Dumbledore said that I should marry you, and that all these problems would go away. And they did."

Carefully, she stepped over a broken plate and moved back to her seat. She glanced around the pictures that had been thrown from the mantle, the books that had haphazardly landed on the rug.

"Because I became a fucking martyr."

They sat in silence for several moments.

"I'm scared," she whispered finally.

"You should be," he answered after several moments.

"Will you help me again?"

Severus was watching her now as she swirled her glass filled with liquor.

"You're not going to run off to Rookwood?"

"No."

"I always fucking hated Rookwood," Severus muttered drunkenly, and Charlotte hid a smile in her sleeve, "He was an idiot to name Bellatrix."

Charlotte leaned back on her palm, carefully balancing her glass on her lap.

"The Dark Lord will not touch you," Severus muttered quietly.

She watched him as he refilled his glass from the bottle she had carried over.

"I married you perhaps for revenge against Sirius Black," he mused, "But there were other reasons."

"And those are?"

She was feeling her cheeks beginning to warm from the liquor as Severus leaned forward. For a moment, she had the impulse to lean forward.

"Because I fucking wanted you."

And perhaps it was the liquor she had consumed, or the heat from the fireplace that Severus had started despite it being July, or that the entire day was clouding her judgement.

But Charlotte Snape leaned forward and pressed her lips against her husband's.

Yaaay! I had a hard time writing this chapter, but please let me know what you think. For all of my readers who are celebrating, Happy Easter 2019!