A BIG shout out to the following reviewers for their lovely reviews last week. Hufflepuff is starting to give Slytherin a run for their money.
rabradley09, Miss Luny, firstofhername, WeAreTheHearts, and YellowAsphodel
Sitting precariously alongside a pile of discarded clothing, Charlotte Snape stared at the empty closet in front of her and wondered when she had last found herself in such a predicament.
There were dresses in diverse shades of green, blouses with intentionally long sleeves, slacks that seemed to all need belts. Her nose wrinkled as she held up a pear-colored summer dress.
"Just pick something," Louisa retorted.
"I don't have anything to wear."
Louisa stood, and Charlotte did her best to not shade herself the same color of the garment she toted in her hand. The blue-eyed witch sported a pair of flashy pumps and a navy dress that hugged the witch's curves and gave a long look at her lengthy legs.
"Charlie," Louisa's voice was reprimanding, "Just. Pick. Something."
Perhaps it was simply because Charlotte could not recall the last time she had gone out for any recreational purpose. Perhaps it was because in the last two years, she had lost a startling amount of weight. It could have been all of these things, but one lay prominently at the forefront of her mind as she discarded the pear dress.
She was Severus Snape's wife now.
While married to Regulus, Charlotte had painstakingly ensured that she upheld her husband's image in public. She wore the finest dresses and had each item she purchased carefully tailored to her frame.
All of it had burned, of course. But Charlotte lamented that since the days of her first marriage, she had allowed her personal appearance to go somewhat awry.
She could not recall the last time she had been to a salon for a hair trim – choosing to shear the split ends with a pair of kitchen scissors over the sink – nor could she bear to look at the prominence of her collarbone, her ribs as they pressed against her milky skin.
Louisa was watching her.
It had been nearly a year since she had seen Louisa. In that time, it appeared as though her schoolmate hadn't changed a bit. She still wore her long hair with blunt bangs, her body still drew attention from the most loyal of wizards. The only difference it seemed that Louisa Rosier had made to her appearance since graduation was exchanging her tortoiseshell glasses for a pair of thick black frames that should have been hideous, but somehow framed the witch's high cheekbones and regal nose to something altogether beautiful.
Charlotte thought she would be sick.
"Do you still want to go?"
"Yes," Charlotte hurriedly interjected at her friend's lofty voice, "I want to go."
Louisa shifted her balance atop her heels, before nodding a bit to herself.
"Just throw something on. I have a plan."
Charlotte never liked Louisa's plans.
But in a matter of moments, the bespectacled witch had throttled her into the pear dress and a pair of flats and had thrown a cloak over her despite Charlotte's protests of the humid heat outdoors. In between Louisa dragging Charlotte from her bedroom, she heard Louisa promise Severus – in his basement, of course – to return Charlotte before sunrise.
It had appeared that somehow over the few days since Severus had written her schoolmate, the pair had begun some sort of unconventional friendship. Severus had evidently explained much of what Charlotte had simply hoped Louisa wouldn't notice.
Rather than allowing Charlotte to apparate herself -which still mostly resulted in loss of flesh or the occasional finger – Louisa simply seized her wrist and in a moment, they were outside the Leaky Cauldron. Charlotte shook off the remnants of nausea from apparating – which she truly hated – and allowed Louisa to once again seize her by the wrist and begin dragging her through the pub.
"Hello, Mrs. Snape, Ms. Rosier," Tom blinked at the powerhouse witch that dragged Charlotte between tables, "Everything alright?"
"Never you mind, Tom!"
Charlotte cringed at Louisa's barking voice and imagined if her school roommate treated her patients with such brutal force.
She probably did, Charlotte lamented.
"Where are we going, Lou?"
She cringed at the whining desperation in her voice as Louisa yanked her on to the bustling alleyway of Diagon Alley. The witch's vice-like grip was likely leaving bruises now, and Charlotte wondered if she was losing circulation in her fingers.
"First, we are buying you a new dress," Louisa stopped and held up a finger to silence Charlotte's protest, "One that fits. Then we are going to see Faustus – my stylist – to give you a proper haircut. My treat, of course."
"I can buy my own clothes-!" Charlotte's indignant voice was cut off as Louisa pressed a rigid finger against her lips.
"I know that you can afford your own clothes, and I know that you think you don't need to have much of a fuss made over you," Louisa had begun walking again, toting her alongside like a piece of refined luggage, "But you've lost at least three stone since I last saw you, and your hair looks like you've been attacked by a drunk doxy."
"A drunk doxy, Lou?"
"You know that I spent the majority of Magical Creatures snogging, Charlie."
Charlotte let out an undignified snort.
"You're Snape's wife now. Maybe that didn't mean anything while we were in school, but it means something now. Your husband made a fool out of Dumbledore, Charlie," Louisa was smiling, "And that still means something now, even if the war is over."
Twilfitt and Tatting's was perhaps the most overpriced clothing store in Diagon Alley. Its patrons consisted of the pureblooded crowd – as shown by its almost exclusive sale of Slytherin uniforms – and those with more galleons than sense. Charlotte had shopped there frequently during her marriage to Regulus, and although she had since made the exchange to the less-expensive Madam Malkin's, she could still appreciate the cashmere jumpers and bejeweled blouses.
Louisa dumped Charlotte into a crushed velvet armchair and disappeared within the racks.
"Someone measure her," the honey-haired witch shouted over a shelf of shoes, "The skinny one!"
A house-elf appeared beneath a stack of fabrics, toting a measuring tape.
Charlotte cringed.
It had been easy enough to ignore her weight loss. She had simply purchased more belts, and the loose-fitting clothing never seemed to bother Severus. No one had made a comment about the bagginess of her slacks or the way her blouses hung at her shoulders. But listening to the house elf – whom had not bothered to introduce itself – shouting Charlotte's measurements over to a witch in burgundy velvet robes – made her face slowly heat.
Louisa occasionally held a garment up for approval but did not seem to listen to much of what came from Charlotte's mouth. There had been an electric-green dress, a plum colored skirt, and Charlotte was not entirely sure what the banana-yellow garment had been. Just as she had begun to wonder if Louisa had started drinking prior to her arrival at Spinner's End, she was being shoved haphazardly into a dressing room.
"Put these on," Louisa stuffed an armload of clothing into Charlotte's hands, "Hurry it up, they'll charm it all to fit."
Charlotte stripped out of her dress and shifted in her underclothes to stare at the ensemble Louisa had picked out for her.
There was a sleeveless green dress – so dark it was nearly black – with a woven torso and loose leather skirt, cinched at the waist with a belt of woven silver snakes.
"I can't wear this," Charlotte hissed over the curtain, "It doesn't have any bloody sleeves, Lou."
In a moment, the honey-haired witch had stuffed herself into the small stall with her.
"Why do you need sleeves?"
Charlotte shoved her forearm in the witch's face. The Dark Mark was faded, but still as obvious as the day it was branded to her skin, "Did you forget about this?"
Louisa frowned, "No. Why do you need to hide it? We're going to the White Wyvern, Charlotte, not the Leaky Cauldron. No one will even notice it."
"I notice it," Charlotte insisted, "Everyone here will notice it."
Sighing, Louisa shook her head, "It's nothing to be ashamed of, Charlotte. You served the Dark Lord – you were given his Mark. How many other witches managed to get one? Just one – Bellatrix – and you aren't half as mad as her. My brother said you served the Dark Lord admirably, you shouldn't be ashamed of it, no matter how many people out here are proclaiming their love for mudbloods."
At times, Charlotte could forget.
Inside Spinner's End, words like mudblood didn't exist. Severus had never decorated his home unlike any other wizard residing in a muggle village. While they didn't have most muggle contraptions like a television or a vacuum-cleaner, Charlotte supposed that Severus's home was integrated enough.
Nearly every month, a member of the Order would pop in on Severus to ensure there were no charms missing from his bubble of defenses, and Lupin had been arriving at their doorstep nearly daily to ensure that Charlotte continued her lessons. No one had ever made a comment that their home looked specifically as though it belonged to Death Eaters.
But Louisa was different. Her brother had been killed by Alastor Moody in the raid upon the Ministry of Magic. Charlotte herself had dragged his body home to her. Louisa was raised with many of the ways that Charlotte herself had been raised while living in the Black household.
She wondered when she had stopped thinking of them as mudbloods.
Louisa would be suspicious if she had suddenly changed her outlook. For as long as Lou had known her, Charlotte had hated muggles. They had killed her parents, they killed each other and destroyed everything they had gotten their hands on. She had left Sirius because of muggles.
"I do not want to bring attention to Severus," Charlotte covered herself slowly, "To the Order."
Louisa seemed to accept this answer, nodding after a moment, and disappearing behind the curtains.
When she returned, she slid a pair of lace arm-warmers over Charlotte's forearms. The Mark wasn't entirely hidden, she supposed, but it was obscured enough for Diagon Alley's busy streets.
In Knockturn, no one would care.
By the time Charlotte had gathered up her own items and slipped into the pair of sky-high velvet pumps that Louisa had thrown at her, Louisa had already rung up several other bags of items and had ordered the house elf to deliver them to Spinner's End.
"For Mrs. Snape," Louisa was finishing her transaction, "Make sure they are taken in with those measurements."
"Louisa, I thought we agreed on one outfit," Charlotte began carefully, "One."
"Well, what are you supposed to wear next time?"
Charlotte scowled. She had forgotten too, perhaps, that Louisa's addiction to shopping was once akin to her own.
"You deserve nice things," Louisa continued as they stepped out to the calmer alleyway, "You've earned them."
Diagon Alley had emptied of student shoppers now, families enjoying cups of ice cream at Fortescue's or hurrying in to meet reservations in restaurants. Hogwarts would be starting the new term soon, Charlotte realized. An advertisement for half off first-year textbooks hung in Flourish & Blott's, and she paused to gaze into the bookstore as Louisa bought them a set of lemonades. Severus would be leaving to return to Hogwarts.
It made sense then, she realized, that he was suddenly too keen on ensuring Louisa was aware of her situation. That he would write to her schoolmate to make sure she had company – someone to look in on her – made Charlotte's throat tighten.
She had found herself somewhat angry thinking Severus had simply planned to get her out of the house. In the days between Charlotte and Louisa's conversation and today, she had tried her best to stay out of his way as much as she could manage. She had spent hours reading in the garden, rearranging things in her bedroom, or scrubbing the bathroom tiles. It had made sense at the time, she had thought, that Severus was getting sick of her. This had never been a part of their arrangement, after all.
That Severus had obviously cared enough to make sure she wouldn't be lonely – that he wasn't sick of her – made her suddenly want to cry.
It was a fleeting feeling, for as soon as she had begun to reach up to pinch her nose, Louisa had shoved a lavender lemonade from the stall in her hand and was leading her to their next destination.
Louisa's stylist Faustus was presumably the most colorful individual Charlotte had ever seen.
Charlotte was not sure the last time – if ever – she had seen a wizard with lilac hair.
"What have you done to your hair?"
As the wizard lamented over her chopped locks, now freed from their sloppy ponytail, Charlotte watched Louisa in the mirror behind her.
She wondered what Severus had written to her.
"Her husband has told me to ensure she comes home looking ravishing."
Charlotte rolled her eyes.
Severus would never put the words 'Charlotte' and 'ravishing' in the same sentence.
She doubted he had 'ravishing' in his vocabulary at all.
"He said something of the sort," Louisa had caught her eye roll.
Faustus set to her hair, coming in with chrome scissors and an electric pink comb. He tugged at knots and gasped at the hack job she had done in the last month with Severus's kitchen shears, as Louisa provided her opinion and occasional wink in the mirror.
Charlotte tried not to begrudge her.
It had been nearly a year since she had last seen Louisa, who had just gotten her license to begin practicing as a full-fledged healer. In the following months, Charlotte had stopped expecting replies to her own infrequent letters, and eventually they had tapered off.
Somewhere in the midst of Willie, Evan, and Severus, they had drifted.
Charlotte wondered if Louisa had met anyone at St. Mungo's, or if she had moved out of the flat she had in the wizarding area of London. She wondered if Lou still had Boa – the kitten she had gotten in Hogsmeade – and if she still liked to tear up her curtains the way she had to their dormitory. Over the course of thirty minutes of pondering, Charlotte came to the conclusion quite slowly.
She didn't know about anything in Louisa's life at all.
When Regulus had died, Charlotte had thrown herself into being useful. It had been a matter of survival, and Charlotte could perhaps blame her waning friendships on her situation. But it had been quite some time now, and Charlotte knew that the excuse would hold very little now.
Maybe that was why Severus had stepped in, she reasoned as she felt her hair growing in sections and shearing off in others under the careful manipulation of Faustus' wand.
The last time she had felt as though she belonged had been at Hogwarts, and Louisa was the last remnant of her school years alive.
They had shared a dormitory; their beds occasionally being shoved together to make one large one where they could pour out their conquests from Honeyduke's and exchange gossip in between chewy caramels. They had cried over their first crushes together – Louisa had gotten such a thing over Lucius Malfoy, and Charlotte had hungered after Rabastan Lestrange in their younger years – and had fallen in love for the first time together. Louisa had never turned her nose up when Charlotte had finally wrangled Sirius into getting serious with her, and Charlotte had never begrudged Louisa for dating William Wilkes – even if he was rather thick. For awhile they had shared it all with Wilhemina – Willie – but somewhere in between it had become Charlie and Lou.
Charlotte had missed her, she realized, as Louisa crunched her ice cubes and grinned at her from the mirror.
Louisa wasn't perfect – she called Tom a dirty squib – and she was a bit caught up in appearances, but Charlotte had been that way once, too. There was, of course, the other thing, too.
If the Dark Lord was truly meant to return, then Charlotte had to keep up appearances as well.
Snape had promised that Dumbledore could not keep them safe.
"What do you think?"
Charlotte stared at her reflection.
Her wavy dark hair had been kept long, brushing the underside of her breasts, and shorn at the top to make way for face-framing side-swept bangs that accented her cheekbones and round chin. She was somewhat pretty, she realized, turning her head to look at the soft highlights Faustus had charmed into her hair. She was still too thin, she reasoned, and her body had little fat to make the desirable curves that graced Louisa's figure, but she wasn't hideous.
Charlotte shifted in the seat as Louisa chatted with Faustus.
Snape had kept his appearances within the Dark Lord's ranks. He still went out monthly to have a drink with Lucius and the others and kept a relatively low-profile within the other side of the wizarding community. After all, no one knew what he had done.
Standing, Charlotte ran her fingers through her hair, feeling the softness of her tresses and found a smile flirting at the corners of her lips.
Charlotte could keep up her appearances, too. If Louisa wanted to give Charlotte a makeover, that wouldn't be such a bad thing – to be seen with Louisa Rosier, whose brother had died for the Dark Lord's cause – could give her just the right amount of cover to remain in good graces should he ever return.
"The White Wyvern!"
Louisa called down the dark turn towards Knockturn Alley, exchanging her previously vice-like grip on Charlotte's wrist to be joined at the elbows.
"Did you put them in?"
Charlotte raised a brow at Louisa's question, brought back from her thoughts.
"Put what in?"
Louisa groaned and dragged Charlotte towards the toilets.
"I put a pair in your bag, silly girl."
For the second time that evening, Charlotte found herself squashed into a stall – this one made smaller by the commode – with Louisa as the blue-eyed witch began digging through Charlotte's handbag.
"Put a pair of what?"
A shriek erupted from her mouth as Louisa's hand plunged down the front of Charlotte's dress.
"What are you doing?"
"Giving you boobs," Louisa retorted hotly, before stepping back to stare at her handiwork.
Charlotte stared down at her chest, and scowled, "You gave me boobs. Why?"
"Just because you're married, Charlie, doesn't mean you can't have a bit of fun."
"A bit of fun?" Charlotte deadpanned.
Louisa had shoved a pair of inserts into her bra, and while Charlotte surmised that the dress did appear a bit more form-fitting now, she questioned the price of it.
Severus would be horrified, she thought as Louisa adjusted her work.
Perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing.
A grin spread across her mouth and Charlotte's hands darted up to cover it.
"Don't you dare!"
Louisa snatched Charlotte's wrists, "You smile all you want tonight, darling. I'm taking you out."
An eruption of laughter escaped Charlotte's lips as Louisa joined her, dragging her from the stall to be leered at by a particularly gruesome looking wizard. Their giggles echoed across the darkness of Knockturn Alley, growing louder with each storefront passed until the two had desperately dissolved into tear-streaming snickers in front of the pub.
"Okay, game plan," Louisa quickly wiped her cheeks, "Give it to me."
"To drink," Charlotte said slowly.
"To drink until we are suitably and strongly inebriated."
"Yes."
"Until we are so drunk that apparation is entirely impossible and we must make the shame ride home in the Knight Bus."
Charlotte nodded.
"I will likely have to sleep over."
Charlotte agreed.
"To whiskey!"
"To wine!"
"And all the alcohol we can find!"
The pair dissolved in laughter, growing suspicious glances from leaving patrons.
Charlotte followed Louisa into the pub, her cheeks aching.
She could not recall the last time she had felt the sensation.
Her eyes followed Louisa as she side-stepped drunken wizards and inebriated witches, singing along with the ballad crying out from a radio.
It began with a pair of smoking shot glasses, brimming with Blishen's firewhiskey.
Later, Charlotte doubted that even under the influence of veritaserum could she divulge exactly what had followed.
There you are, lovelies! Chapter Nine is done!
I am currently working on Chapter Ten, and I hope I will upload it before the weekend ends. Keep and eye out and remember to hit that follow button for update alerts!
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