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They were fine loafers, made of Italian leather and lined with something extraordinarily comfortable.
The trousers were neatly ironed, a clear starched pleat drawn down the center of each leg.
Even his belt met his station, the buckle something heavy and engraved with runes.
His legs were rather long, she noted as she stared at the chair newly propped up.
She tried not to look at the swinging heels beside them.
She's gone, Charlotte whispered to the hesitant mind, She's dead.
Everything is gone.
The long leg took one step upon the mahogany chair, the loafer sunk into the upholstery.
Gone.
Carefully, his fingers slipped around the rope.
It will all be over soon.
The scream cut through the night like an arrow hitting a target. Charlotte sat upright in bed, her hands clawing around her throat for an invisible noose. Her breaths came to her in flutters, and she stared around the room as a black tendril of smoke sucked into her mouth as she gasped for breath.
It felt as though several minutes had passed as she choked for air before Severus swung her bedroom door open, wand lit and drawn.
His eyes carefully cleared the room before he let them rest on her.
For the seventh night in a row, Charlotte dreamt of Mr. and Mrs. Winger.
"It was coming out, Severus," she sobbed, "It was trying to come out again."
Severus pinched the bridge of his nose.
He took a long, measured breath.
"Charlotte, I know you are against taking potions," he held up his hand to mute her protest, "But in the morning, I will go to Diagon Alley and I will be purchasing ingredients to begin the Dreamless Sleep Potion."
Charlotte let her mouth close, protests dying in her throat.
"I need sleep, Charlotte," he continued, "And so do you."
As he began to clean the destruction her night terror had caused in her bedroom, Charlotte slipped away from Severus and closed herself in the bathroom.
She took slow, steady breaths in through her mouth and out through her nose as she stared at her reflection.
Her coffee-colored hair was damp with sweat and matted to her head, her hazel eyes bloodshot and ringed with dark circles. In the last week, she had accumulated only a mere few hours of sleep before waking in the midst of a night terror, and clearly by the look of Severus's face, he was feeling the effects of exhaustion as well.
Charlotte rinsed her face off and took several minutes to comb through the rat's nest her hair had become before leaning against the bathroom door. Severus would have given up on any attempt of sleep by now, she thought, and would be downstairs putting the kettle on.
Her eyes began to sting.
She knew that upon descending to the kitchen, Severus would question her lessons with Remus.
After all, after a week, she supposed there ought to have been some sign of improvement.
However, Charlotte didn't know how to tell Severus that although she attended each lesson with Lupin, she made every effort to use the absolute minimum of magic required.
Remus had begun to grow frustrated. She could barely summon the goblet from one side of the fireplace mantle to the other. When he had decided to move to a lighter object – a quill – she had recalculated and adjusted to ensure that a similar result would be drawn with that, as well.
Dumbledore had advised she needed to start using her magic.
Charlotte was determined not to.
She supplemented her lessons with using basic cleaning charms in her house chores, and occasionally did a wand wave to dry her hair or close a window. But Charlotte could not help with each swish or flick of her wrist, to see the color of Lupin's face draining as she told him the darkest part of her.
She was an abomination.
It made sense, she surmised, that it would be Mr. and Mrs. Winger that haunted her sleep. After all, despite the two deaths she had caused prior, they were perhaps her most important murders.
They were the first she had killed with possession.
Charlotte shuddered.
She recalled the days leading up to Snape's decision to teach her the art of possession. There had been several raids in Diagon Alley, and one in the Ministry of Magic. The Dark Lord had wanted to obtain some object from the Ministry's vaults, and Charlotte had been called as a last-ditch reinforcement to a losing battle.
When she had arrived, Alastor Moody was in the midst of a duel with Evan Rosier, and Snape had taken Marlene McKinnon. They had been wand-locked in sparking spells and crackling curses, and Charlotte had dove in head-first, her hands clammy and cold. The Dark Lord had never called upon her for such large-scale raids, but Charlotte could note a battle in the throngs of defeat when she saw one.
At some point, Moody had killed Rosier. Charlotte recalled seeing her schoolmate's body hit the marble floor of the Ministry, and her breath catch in her lungs. It had just been long enough for her eyes to be drawn away from her own duel, for something to catch her in her middle.
She recalled crawling across the sprays of sparks to grab Rosier's hand, determined to bring his body back to Louisa, and her legs not quite working properly. When her hand had enclosed on his cold one, she had apparated and something had scorched her belly like a hot branding iron.
When she landed in the Malfoy Manor, Rosier landed on top of her. Perhaps those moments had counted, she thought, when Louisa had screamed at seeing the corpse of her brother. There had been a whirlwind of movement, and at some point, she recalled Narcissa screaming about blood.
Charlotte had thought Narcissa meant Rosier, but she had glanced to Evan's body – hit with a killing curse, the only bloody part of him was a cut on his lip – until she saw Narcissa pointing at her.
Later, Charlotte would learn that when she turned to look at Evan dropping to the floor dead in front of her, that Severus had turned to ensure she was paying attention to her own duel. But there had been a moment – a critical moment – in which Marlene McKinnon had rebounded the curse Severus had thrown at her into Severus's shield charm, which had then propelled it directly into an unintended target.
Charlotte.
The charm had eviscerated her abdomen, cutting through the soft flesh of her belly and tearing through delicate organs and entrails. She had taken one look at the gore of her torso and her eyes had promptly rolled to the back of her head.
It had taken Louisa, Severus, and Rabastan to close her wounds. But Louisa was only a trainee healer, Severus a potions master, and Rabastan was something altogether different. Charlotte did not know precisely what had occurred in the hours after she had landed on the floor of Malfoy Manor, but she remembered what Louisa had told her afterwards.
I couldn't fix everything, Charlotte – they were just so damaged.
Charlotte sat on the bathroom floor, welcoming the cool of tile against her hot skin.
At some point during those hours, Severus had spoken to the Dark Lord and obtained permission to begin instructing Charlotte in possession.
Perhaps it was misplaced guilt.
Perhaps it was because Charlotte was simply unsuited to dueling.
Perhaps it was a number of things.
But Charlotte had been given forty-eight hours for rest and recovery, and her lessons had begun.
At first, she had struggled. After all she had struggled plenty with Occlumency and Legilimency before she had found her niche. It was about emptying the mind, and Charlotte had eventually managed to do this by picturing a basin of water slowly freezing.
Possession was the opposite. It was an empty basin, slowly filling.
Whereas the Dark Lord had been capable of full-body possession, Charlotte had never managed to get so far. She could never manage the aspect of physical possession, and her body had always needed to be locked away safely somewhere while her mind wandered about.
In the beginning, she had needed objects.
Mr. and Mrs. Winger had vehemently opposed the Dark Lord. Mr. Winger was a writer for the Daily Prophet, and lived in London with his wife and son, Talbott. Charlotte briefly had recalled reading several articles written by Mr. Winger where he had made several comments – albeit correct ones, Charlotte would later learn – about the Dark Lord's intentions for the wizarding community. Specifically, she recalled, about his own bloodlines.
When Charlotte had been given the quill, she thought nothing of it. Her first duty was to learn who the quill belonged to, and she had been eager to prove that she was capable of being useful.
Charlotte had been desperate to be useful.
It was simple to learn that the quill belonged to Mr. Winger. It had only taken several moments for her to seize his mind and rummage through a desk to find something that sparked familiarity in the consciousness of her first victim. She had found it on several article clippings – Winger – written clearly and precisely at the bottom of each cut.
The Dark Lord had requested her to discover what Mr. Winger knew about his parents, and Charlotte had spent several days before she could find where Winger had stowed away those thoughts – his mind, she remembered, was rather orderly – and she had given the Dark Lord the information with the eagerness of a dog awaiting praise.
Rather than praise – for he was not capable of it – the Dark Lord had requested her to dispose of them.
For days, Charlotte had debated what to do. But soon, the Dark Lord would be demanding results. He had instructed it was to look like a suicide, and Charlotte did not want to approach Severus and ask for his assistance. She wanted to be useful, after all.
She was unsure when the thought came to her, to use possession to slowly burn the file-cabinets within the mind of Mr. Winger, or how she had managed to make the leap from his mind to his wife. It had taken only perhaps a few hours, and the deed was done.
After, she recalled standing and feeling light-headed, and promptly vomited into Narcissa's potted hydrangea.
However, the entire thing had been viewed a failure. Charlotte had been unable to find the boy Talbott, and as a result, she endured several hours of the Cruciatus Curse.
She had not failed again.
Charlotte wondered what had happened to that boy.
Carefully, she picked herself up from the bathroom floor and rinsed her face a second time with lukewarm water from the tap.
She lifted her loose t-shirt up and stared at her belly.
The scar crawled across her like a claw mark. The first laid horizontally four fingerbreadths from the top of her belly button. The deepest had cut straight through. Louisa had lamented at the dark purple marks, and Charlotte had done her best not to appear bothered. After all, they were perfectly acceptable to the alternative. But Charlotte hated them.
She hated those purple dents and fissures on her abdomen, and she hated the brand that stood as a fly on milk upon her forearm.
The bathroom mirror cracked.
Charlotte stared at her fractured reflection as she let the t-shirt drop and lifted her wand.
It was not an altogether incorrect representation of her, she thought, as she studiously watched her mirrored image. There was a brokenness, she mused, as her lips whispered a repairing charm.
She watched her duplicate's cracked seams blend together and for perhaps several moments, she regretted there was no similar charm for the mind.
By the time she had washed and dressed herself for the day, Severus had left.
The house felt altogether empty, and Charlotte sat upon the sofa and stared at the ashes which would need sweeping later in the fireplace.
Talbott Winger.
It seemed rather stupid, she thought, that later she had learned the boy was an animagus and had merely flown out of the house. She had learned through her error that animagi had two separate consciousnesses; one of human, the other of creature. It had plagued her for weeks afterward, as she scrambled to try and determine how to ensnare the mind of animagi – determined to right her grievous error – but she had been unsuccessful.
There could be no rightful apology, she surmised.
No letter delivered by owl would salve the wound she had created.
No unexpected visit would shake the pain she had produced.
What she had done was unforgiveable.
The fireplace roared to life and Charlotte blinked.
Louisa had always been a beautiful witch. She had long, thick honey brown hair and ocean-blue eyes, with a long, refined nose and high cheekbones.
Her face peered at Charlotte through the flames.
"Charlie?"
"Lou!"
Charlotte leaned forward in her position, a smile pulling at her lips.
It was a rare treat to hear from Louisa, who was now a trained healer at St. Mungo's.
"Your husband sent me an owl this morning," Charlotte stiffened, "He seemed keen on us having a hen night. I didn't think Severus knew what a hen night was," Louisa laughed charcoal dust.
"Did he specifically say, 'hen night'?" Charlotte was curious.
"No, but I got the general message to get you out of that muggle dump," Charlotte cringed at Louisa's words and hoped the witch hadn't noticed, "Do you feel up to drinks this Friday? I was thinking the White Wyvern – like old times."
In their freshly graduated days, Charlotte and Louisa had gone to the White Wyvern nearly every weekend. The pub in Knockturn Alley was filled more with the younger crowd of Death Eaters then – the older ones usually slinking off to Moribund's.
It was there that Charlotte hesitated.
"I'll have to ask Severus," she began slowly, "To make sure we don't have anything on Friday."
Louisa seemed to raise an elegant coal brow within the flames.
"You'll have to ask Severus?"
"Well, yes, Louisa – he's my husband," her voice drifted.
"Since when did that ever stop you? Reg used to have to drag you out by your cloak on weekends and you still came. Think of the fire whiskey, Charlie!"
Her excitement was a bit contagious, and Charlotte shifted on her perch upon the sofa.
"I'll talk to him tonight and send you an owl. Will you be at work?"
"When am I not?"
Charlotte grinned, "Too true."
"Well, send me an owl when Snape comes home - I have a patient, got to run!"
In an instant, she had disappeared in the ash.
It was not that Charlotte doubted Severus would allow her to go, she thought as she lifted to her feet. If Severus had written to Louisa – whom he generally disliked, to be noted – then he obviously was outweighing the cons of having Charlotte out in the general public.
But Severus had likely made the assumption that Louisa, now being a generally acceptable member of wizarding society, would like a pub like the Leaky Cauldron. Louisa Rosier, however generally acceptable she may try to be, still was a pureblooded witch. Her brother had died for the Dark Lord's cause – a deadly duel between himself and Mad-Eye Moody, which Charlotte herself had witnessed – and there would always be a bitter edge to her because of it.
She busied herself with cleaning the remnants of Severus's morning tea and fixed herself a sandwich while she pondered. It was several hours before Severus arrived home, covered in a light sprinkling of rain and absolutely reeking of odorous ingredients.
"Where have you been off to?"
A dithering look was cast her way as Severus removed his damp cloak, "Diagon Alley."
"But you've been gone hours."
"I had several tasks that needed attending there."
Severus dropped a paper shopping bag onto the table in front of her.
She peered at it curiously, "What is it?"
"Open it," he retorted as he began to unpack his other items of glittering beetle eyes and lacewing flies.
Wrapped discreetly in thin tissue paper was a beautiful dark leather-bound book. The front cover was heavy, inlaid with a mirror wrapped in silver enamel serpents, and the pages were lined in vibrant emerald ink. It was perhaps the most Slytherin piece of stationary she had ever held.
"It's a journal?"
Severus snorted, "Why would I purchase you a journal?"
Charlotte peered at her reflection in the book's mirror before glancing in the bag to find its twin hiding in another sheet of tissue.
"Term will be starting in a few weeks," Severus reminded her, "This is how you will communicate with me while I am at Hogwarts."
"How does it work?"
Charlotte turned the heavy book over to investigate further.
"The mirror will remain open, if you wish. You may write me letters and I will receive them instantly in my own copy, and they will remain there for several days at a time should I be late in my replies."
Severus was watching her carefully, "To close it at any time – press your wand to the cover and say, 'Dormiens anguis', and it will close the mirror."
Slowly, a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
"Thank you, Severus," she said finally.
Severus turned to retreat to his basement, but Charlotte hastily stood.
"Louisa came in the floo today, to ask me out for drinks Friday."
Charlotte could give him credit for feigning innocence, she supposed, as his eyebrows raised minimally in mocked surprise.
"She wants to go to the White Wyvern – in Knockturn Alley."
"I am aware."
Charlotte hesitated, "I haven't been around them, since the war, really. I'm not sure-," Charlotte was cut off as Severus narrowed his eyes.
"They are aware that you are my wife, Charlotte."
She tried to not look as confused as she felt, "But the Death Eaters."
"Whereas you may have had questionable rank, Charlotte, I did not."
Charlotte closed her mouth.
If the Death Eaters knew she had married Severus, then he had told them. Their ceremony had been unannounced, held in a small office at the Ministry. For the better part of two years, Charlotte doubted anyone had cared enough to look up what had happened to her after the Dark Lord fell. As Severus had said, she was not necessarily important, and most Death Eaters tried to only associate with as few of their comrades as possible outside of raids and other meetings.
It drew less unwanted attention.
"Go out, Charlotte. Try to enjoy yourself."
Charlotte watched him retreat to his basement.
If Charlotte had been worried about being seen by other Death Eaters in Knockturn Alley, her fear was quelled now. No one had ever had the necessary backbone to upset Snape intentionally. She doubted anyone would want to catch the potion master's attention by upsetting his wife.
No, she thought finally as she held the leather bound book to her chest, no one would question Charlotte Snape the way they would have if she were still Charlotte Fraser.
I'm terribly sorry for the late update. I'm in the midst of a cross-country move and it seems like every time I sit down to write I've forgotten what I'm supposed to be writing! Thank you all for your patience.
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