Hello lovelies! I'm sorry for the late post. It appears my moving company has lost my PC computer and my original documents, so I am reworking my plot map. Save the excuses, I will do my best to update as soon as I come home from my business trip! Thank you for your patience, and please enjoy Chapter 12!

"No."

Severus furrowed his brow. Exasperation tugged at his lips and pulled them into a scowl, "What do you mean, 'no'?"

"No, I don't understand," Charlotte whispered.

Something was flopping about in her chest - like the sensation of attempting to blow a balloon with a hole in it. It fluttered there, slapping against her ribcage, and making her ears ring.

"I've never been like her, Severus. I'm not like her."

"What nonsense are you talking about now, Charlotte?"

"Lily."

The name hovered between them like a knife, ready to cut down the mangled balloon slapping in Charlotte's chest; the one that made his eyes look dark diamonds and gave sparks to her belly when she spotted him rolling his sleeves over toned, lean forearms.

In every one of their legilimency lessons, her face had sprung up in his mind. It was not often that Charlotte had been able to crack through the barriers to infiltrate her mentor's defenses. She could still recall her bottle-green eyes and the way sunlight caught that red hair, though Charlotte could count on two hands the number of times she had seen Lily Evans.

"I do not wish to talk of Lily Evans."

Charlotte questioned whether she should correct him.

Lily Potter.

She recalled the day in Hogwarts when Severus had returned to the common room of Slytherin with bloodshot eyes and a streaming nose. She had heard the rumors of him standing for hours each day outside of Gryffindor's Fat Lady portrait, waiting for the redheaded girl to appear.

Back then, Charlotte supposed she had felt as though he were being foolish.

Perhaps it was not until she was watching Sirius become more and more a Gryffindor - more of James' - than he was hers. She could still remember the moment she realized that Sirius no longer belonged to her. If Severus loved Lily as much, Charlotte supposed it would have been much the same.

"You never want to talk about much of anything, Severus," Charlotte replied instead.

Her voice was soft and if the wizard had not been staring directly at her, he would not have heard her.

Severus watched her, "What would you like to talk about, Charlotte?"

A stone had lodged itself into her throat, encumbering her ability to swallow and stretching the muscles at the back of her mouth. Charlotte did not want to cry again - it irritated him, clearly - but her eyes could not work collectively enough to keep the welling of tears at bay.

"You married me to get back at Sirius. You keep me here because I'm yours. But why am I supposed to stay, Severus? We served our purposes to one another. You don't owe me anything. I wanted things in this life. I wanted them so badly I killed for them. Now, I have nothing," her voice had gone shrill, rising octaves that stung her ears and heated her cheeks.

"You hardly have nothing," Severus scoffed.

A flutter of rage flapped against her.

"Money? You think I care about how much money I have?"

"You have never wanted for anything, Charlotte."

If Charlotte had noticed the goosebumps crawling from her elbows, she would have stopped herself.

She would have known better.

"I wanted a family," her voice snarled, "I wanted a family more than anything in this world! You had one with those idiots in Slytherin. You had one with the Dark Lord. Fuck, you even have one with Dumbledore!"

"Do you want to see my childhood, Charlotte? It wasn't crushed-velvet comforters and Walburga sending her house elf up each night to give me hot milk," Severus's voice was raising into a thunderous octave, "Do you want to see it?"

The fireplace flames had begun to climb, the heat within was nearly unbearable.

But Charlotte could not stop herself.

"You had Lily," Charlotte stepped forward and shoved her index finger into her husband's chest.

"Lily is dead, Charlotte," Severus's eyes were thin slits, "And I had been dead to her for years."

"So please do not presume to ask me if I understand what you mean when you say that I am yours - you've never fucking wanted me either, other than to satisfy some sick fantasy of revenge against Sirius Black."

It was just the fleeting feeling, like ice pressed to a burn that made her eyes widen.

"You belong to me," Severus was saying, but the witch could not hear him.

Unlike before, there was no fractionated reality. Charlotte saw nothing of what occured in the living room between their heated argument after that moment. She did not see Severus step towards her with an angry snarl across his face only to see that the whites of her eyes had turned obsidian, and that a thin tendril of black smoke had begun to slither from her chest.

Charlotte saw none of it.

It was warm in the abyss.

Her eyes opened to blackness

"Hello?" her voice echoed.

"Mummy?"

The feeling slammed into her without hesitation. It scorched her very bones.

A strangled noise escaped her mouth.

A black-haired boy peered up at her, and Charlotte supposed she had never wanted anything more in her lifetime.

"Mummy, where is daddy?"

Charlotte wanted to answer the boy, who was peering up at her with soft grey eyes, his wet thumb secured against his cheek. She wanted to touch him, her fingers ached as they stretched from her palms. Her voice remained caught in her throat, where a thousand pebbles suffocated her.

"Daddy!"

Charlotte wanted to turn as she felt familiar hands spread fingers over her hips and thick arms wrap around her waist. The firm body that pressed against her felt as soothing as a warm bath, and Charlotte never wanted to leave it.

She never wanted to know who it belonged to.

"C'mon Charlie, we'll be late. Lily will pitch a fit. Where are the boy's shoes?"

She would have known that voice from miles away, caught it in the screaming of a crowd.

Charlotte stared down at the tiny bare feet in front of hers, and begged for time to stand still, just this once.

"Love, come on! It's Christmas Eve! Even the floo is going to have traffic at this rate."

Sirius twisted her around, and his soft grey eyes turned her slowly thudding heart into a racehorse.

He planted a soft kiss on her forehead and released her, appearing to have found their son's trainers.

Their son.

She followed him as he planted the boy on a bench and ruffled his hair.

"I want to see Uncle Prongs, Daddy," the boy giggled as Sirius tickled his tiny feet, "And Uncle Moony."

"Soon," Sirius promised, "We have to wait for mummy."

The pair suddenly stood in front of a fireplace.

It looked strangely like the one in 12 Grimmauld Street. She stepped forward to inspect it and saw photographs appearing on its ledge.

Charlotte had a family.

There were moving photographs of her and the child on a carousel, of Sirius and her kissing beneath a cherry-red bridge. Pictures of the boy and a little bespectacled toddler hugging on tiny broomsticks, and the boy nearly wringing the neck of an exceptionally curly black dog.

"Charlie, babe, let's go."

Sirius was holding out a dripping handful of powder.

It looked perhaps a bit off, she thought, as it oozed from between the fingers which held it out to her.

She hesitated.

"We have to tell James and Lily first, Charlie. I want them to know first."

"Tell them what?"

Her voice was breathless as it finally battled through the stones lodged in her esophagus.

"About the baby!"

The little boy giggled and reached out his hands to press against her belly.

"I hope this one's a girl," Sirius whispered in her ear, "I want her to look just like you."

He held out the oozing, ebony goo in his hand.

Charlotte reached for it.

In the abyss, it was warm.

Charlotte's eyes opened.

A pair of dark orbs, speckled in silver and gray stared down at her from a soot-streaked face. His short curtain of black hair surrounded the space between them.

Severus's body was caged around her, his hands pressing her wrists to the floor beneath them. His body trembled, and Charlotte could not look away from his eyes.

For a wail had begun in her throat, starting as small as a speck of sand as it worked its way up through her throat, turning to a pebble, a stone, until it spilled from her in a keening cry.

It scorched her eyelids, and streamed from her eyes. Her chest burned and ached, and her hands felt immeasurably empty.

"Let me go back," Her voice screamed out as she clawed her way from her husband, "Send me back."

Severus grabbed at her, crushing her back to his chest.

"I wanted it," she sobbed as he tightened his grip, "I needed it."

Charlotte did not care that there were seven other bodies in the room and that her summer dress was streaked with ashes and scorch marks. She did not care that her hair had been singed, or that her face - her body - was mottled with bruises.

"Let me go back, Sev, let me go back," she screamed, "I wanted them!"

Severus's arms were immobile in their vice-like grip. He did not appear to care as her fingernails dug into the tender flesh of his forearms.

Instead, her husband stood, dragging her with him.

"Lupin, get me a draught."

"You're going to drug her, Severus?"

Molly Weasley's voice trembled.

At the redhead's words, Charlotte screamed.

"Let me go back. Let me go back. LET ME GO BACK!"

Severus's hand clapped over her mouth as he began to drag her up the stairs. Her tears streamed over the backs of his fingers, leaking down his wrist.

They went past her bedroom, turning the hallway into his own. When her legs gave out from beneath her choked sobs, Severus caught the backs of her knees with his free arm and carried her shaking body.

He deposited her in the center of his wide bed.

"Do. Not. Move," his voice was velvet thunder.

Charlotte answered in a sob.

As he disappeared into a closet, Charlotte watched Lupin come in through the door carrying a vial. Her breath hitched and she found herself shaking her head.

"Lupin, turn around," barked Severus, returning from the closet.

Lupin obeyed, and Severus walked forward to pull off her singed summer dress. His fingers were gentle, but the fabric was stuck to her at her shoulder, and she stiffened as he pulled it from her flesh.

"No, don't look," he murmured as she turned her head, "Just keep looking at the door."

Charlotte nodded stiffly, and Severus carefully buttoned a long shirt over her torso.

"I want to go back, Sev," she whimpered as he took a vial from Lupin.

"Go back where, Charlie?"

Severus turned icy eyes onto Lupin, but carefully inspected the label of his vial and uncorked it.

"I had a family there," she hiccuped, "A real one. I had a real family, Moony."

Regulus's eyes widened, "Where?"

"Where I go. I had a family. The one I've always wanted," she croaked.

"You have a family here, Charlie," Lupin soothed, "You have Severus, and me, and Molly. A whole family is downstairs who loves you."

The noise that escaped her mouth was inhuman.

"Don't lie to me. No one down there loves me."

Lupin opened his mouth to argue, and Severus held up a hand.

"Everyone who has ever loved me is dead, Moony. Dead or just as good as dead."

Severus grabbed her chin and forced her to look in his eyes.

Her own streamed with hot tears.

"I am unlovable. I am death. I need to die, Severus."

His eyes narrowed, "No."

"Please let me go, Sev. Please. I don't want to be here anymore. I can't. I can't do it anymore."

Quickly, his fingers unhinged her jaw and shoved the vial in her mouth.

"You do not get that choice, Charlotte."

His hands held her mouth shut until she swallowed.

"I just want to go. Why won't you let me go?"

"Go to sleep, Charlotte."

"JUST LET ME GO!"

Her hands clapped over her ears as the wailing sobs erupted from her throat. It felt as though a scoop had been dug out of her chest, inserting a pain that would not leave.

Severus grabbed her hands and forced them in front of her.

"Look at me," he snarled and his eyes were narrowed slits.

Charlotte's body trembled, fighting the quick effects of the potion. She did not want her eyes to droop or her body to become limp.

She wanted to go back to the abyss, where it was warm, and where she was wanted.

Where she had a family.

"Is that what you want, Charlotte?"

Her eyes still streamed with scalding liquid, her jaw shook and twisted her lips.

Charlotte stared at the smoke as it began to bubble between her breasts.

"They want me to come back, Severus," she whimpered.

Severus looked at her hands and watched as the obsidian vapor inhaled and exhaled through her skin. It hovered on her fingertips, and hugged her palms before disappearing.

"Charlotte, an obscurus will taunt you with lies and promises," Severus said softly, "It wants to get out. You must remember that."

"I HAD A FAMILY!"

Her scream cut through the room, her sobs renewed in her throat.

"I had a family and you've stolen it from me - just like you've done everything - you turned me into a monster for your sick and twisted revenge. You used me, just like they did."

Severus's eyes widened, and for a moment Charlotte questioned if she had imagined it.

"You lied - you said I mattered. You wanted me to understand," she was screaming now, unlike the shouting done hours before. The venom in her words burned her mouth and stung her tongue.

"Charlotte, Severus has taken care of you-!" Remus stepped forward to argue, his brows drawn.

"He took care to make me untouchable to anyone but himself!"

Remus watched her as she angrily palmed away her tears.

"You're no better than him," Charlotte hiccuped, "You're not better than him."

Severus had remained silent.

His eyes had never left her streaming ones, his hands still held vice grips on her wrists.

He dropped them and stood, turning his back on her.

"If you feel this way," his voice was velvet thunder, "When I leave for Hogwarts in six days, you will pack your things and leave."

"You don't have to wait," Charlotte spat, "I'll leave in the morning."

Severus stood, his back to her for several moments as Remus stared in disbelief.

"Would you like a divorce, then?"

"I'll send you the damn papers," she snarled.

As Severus left the room, for a moment Charlotte's anger froze. She listened to his footsteps across the creaking wood floor and her breath hitched.

Perhaps she wanted him to argue - to throw Remus from the room and demand they hold no more grudges - or perhaps she wanted him to say he was sorry. Perhaps she wanted him to beg for her to stay, to insist or demand she not leave the house, threaten her.

But Severus Snape had never begged a soul for his own desires, and words said could not be unspoken now.

I hope you loved or hated it! Please let me know what you think in the reviews. They truly make my day.

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Show your House pride!