A special shout-out this week to some of the longest reviews I think I've ever seen come out of TMPW! Thank you MusesOwnMyMind, OneWhoReadsTooMuch, Onesinglebird, and of course, the OG, MissLuny. You made my entire week a bit shinier.
Please enjoy Chapter Twenty Nine.
Severus willed his gasping breaths to still as he sucked in air through his mouth.
Ash caked his tongue, and he opened his stinging eyes to look down at the limp figure in his hands. Her eyes were wide and unblinking.
He'd watched her screams burst the blood vessels of her eyes, turning the whites a shocking shade of red and setting off the bronze specks in her irises. His own name still rang in his ears.
"Charlotte?"
Severus had caged himself over her as an unseen force had blistered her skin and set her clothes aflame. He'd used his own body to extinguish the embers, hissing as she thrashed beneath him like a wild animal, her screams turning to guttural animalistic noises.
He'd shouted for her, his mouth flying spit as he fought over the howling wind that had brought obsidian clouds filled with sparks until her shrieks had strangled in her own throat, her arms thrashing as she fought a monster he couldn't seize with his own hands.
Until she'd gone stiff, and the noises had stopped. A wheeze rattled her chest.
The air had stilled.
Behind him, he heard someone make a strangled noise. Severus turned wild eyes to Remus Lupin standing at his garden gate, the wizard ashen faced as his hands gripped the iron with whitening knuckles.
Behind him, he could see the others – the ones he had entrusted her to.
"Is she dead?"
A noise left Lupin's mouth as he stumbled through the gate.
"Someone get Louisa Rosier at St. Mungo's," his hoarse voice snarled, "Go!"
Arthur Weasley turned, and a crack rang through the air as he apparated.
Snape's legs protested as he dragged himself to his knees and Charlotte rolled in his arms like a limp animal. His stomach heaved and bile climbed his aching throat.
"Severus, she doesn't look right," Remus choked.
Molly had grabbed him, pulling him away from his staggering steps.
"Someone help me," he growled at them, adjusting his wife's weight, "I need to get her upstairs before the aurors get here."
A pair of hands – one missing fingers – reached out for her and Snape passed Charlotte into Cian Dearborn's grip. His legs ached as he stood, catching his own weight after he'd pressed his for so long into hers.
"Get her upstairs."
Cian hesitated, looking at the black flesh of her legs.
"Upstairs, Dearborn, are you deaf?"
The venom in his voice spilled in hot, singing moisture to his eyes.
Quickly, the auror moved forward. He crossed the blackened sidewalk and passed through the door as Severus sucked in a breath, his heart hammering in his chest.
He could still feel her, he reminded himself.
She was in the abyss, fighting the smoke that choked her lungs and whispered in her ears.
He seized handfuls of vials from his kitchen drawers, climbing the steps as they rattled and clinked together in his arms.
Dittany.
Tins of burn paste.
Calming Draught.
Murtlap Essence.
Oculus Potion.
He dropped them onto the bed alongside his wife, his breath rattling in his chest.
"Snape, she's dying. We have to take her to the hospital. I don't think there's anything to be done for her. Look at her legs."
Severus stared at the charred flesh of his wife's calves.
"They can make her comfortable."
"They'll send her to Azkaban," Snape growled.
Her red eyes had closed, the fans of her eyelashes pressed against her soot-streaked, bloodless cheeks.
Thundering on the stairs sounded behind him, and Louisa Rosier shoved him as she crossed the room to stop in front of his bed. Her chest heaved as she panted, her eyes darting between the witch's burned legs and the whiteness of her face before her fingers darted to sort through Snape's potion vials.
"I need hot water, Severus," Louisa spoke quietly, "Do you have any star grass salve? Antiseptic?"
The wizard nodded.
His legs ached as he descended the stairs. Mechanically, he turned to the kitchen. Molly had already set his kettle on the stove. A basin of water steamed on the counter.
"Thank you, Molly," he said, his voice cracking.
"Arthur's gone for Albus, Severus. Emmeline's watching the children. Tell me what you need."
Severus sucked in a breath of air, "I can't see very well. I need the star grass salve and antiseptic from that cabinet."
His eyes stung as he watched Molly poke around in the cabinet that held potions he hadn't had need for since the war. Habit had kept him brewing them, replenishing expired stock. Her hands filled with glass bottles of yellow antiseptic and dusty tins of salve.
"I'll take these up," she said quickly, and pressed something into his hand.
The handkerchief greyed and bloomed pink where it touched his hands.
He felt his legs shake, and he seated himself on the cool wooden floor of the kitchen, sliding against the wall as his hands trembled.
"Snape?"
A broken noise left his mouth.
If this was what it was like to love Charlotte Fraser, he wanted it to stop. He didn't want to feel the very bones of his chest trying to split apart to fit the ache that filled him.
Sudden, wailing screams cut through the still air, and his hands pressed against his ears.
Louisa had started debriding Charlotte's legs.
Severus sucked in a mouthful of air as his eyes opened. For a moment, his eyes darted around the room, his chest hammering.
Panic filled him, drying his mouth, and seizing his lungs until his eyes found purchase at the slumbering, curled figure beside him. The warmth of her body had spread across the bedsheets as he crawled closer to her, his breaths turning to soft pants as he watched the rise and fall of her chest.
He turned into her, his fingers reaching for her face.
She looked too tiny while she slept.
There was more to her now than when she had left his care. Soft fat smoothed the muscles of her arms and legs, brought a curve to her hip and a swell to her chest. She looked as close as he could remember her being during that last summer in Slug and Jitters. Her coffee colored hair shot through with threads of warm chestnut and mahogany spilled around her to accentuate the milkiness to her skin, the soft dusting of freckles across her snub nose.
His thumb ran over the cupid's bow of her pink lip, and the panic began to ebb away. Her soft breath brushed across his skin, warming the clammy sweat of his knuckle.
For several moments, he wanted to wake her.
He wanted to see her thick lashes open to show him reddened whites and bright, bronze-shot amber irises to calm the thundering of his heart. He wanted to see the sleepy smile spread across her face as it had when she had curled against his leg.
Her face held the ghost of it, a dimple still pressed into her cheek.
The animalistic screams haunted his eardrums, and his finger stilled on her mouth. Noises like that weren't meant to come from someone with a freckled nose and dimpled cheeks, who stared at him with sleepy amber eyes and spoke three words he hadn't known he wanted.
I love you.
Severus didn't know the warmth that had filled his ribcage and send an aching bolt through him.
It was a foreign feeling.
He wanted her to say it again, he thought, to see if it did it once more. He found that he did not particularly care whether she had used it to shackle him to her. Charlotte was naïve enough to not acknowledge that he'd welded them together days ago.
Once he started, he recalled, he couldn't stop.
There was truly little she could do to tear him from her now. He'd forged it the moment she had screamed for him in his garden.
His head fell forward until his forehead pressed against the top of her hair, sucking in deep breaths through his nostrils. She smelled like him, laying between his sheets, and washed with his soap.
Charlotte stirred in her sleep and he stiffened. Her hands moved beneath the green tartan, until her nails scratched the skin of his stomach, and her palms smoothed across the flesh of his back, pulling herself flush against his torso. Her face pressed into his neck, and a soft, sleepy noise left her lips and vibrated against the apple of his throat.
A bolt ran through him.
He hadn't wanted to see Regulus Black rake his hands over his wife's body. But in the crevices of her dreams, he found more of her than he ever had in conversation. Charlotte's dialogues were carefully articulated, crafted in her mind before they separated from her tongue. She'd spent her life crossing eggshells, mindful of every word that left her mouth. It was rare that sentences escaped her that she hadn't pondered the consequences of.
Charlotte never would have told him about Dolohov or Walburga. Or Black. His mouth soured as he thought of Black's face peering at her outside of the Leaky Cauldron, the way his eyes had grown incredulous as she had left.
His nose pressed against Charlotte's hair, his jaw tightening.
Black had never deserved her. He'd watched Charlotte clamber after him as he left her laughing with the others – the Marauders – and saw how Black had swept his hand from her grasp as though she had something contagious. He had wondered why Charlotte, who could have at that time had her pick of her classmates, had chosen to desperately chase after Black.
Severus had always thought maybe it was for the same reasons all the girls had lusted after Black. He had been good-looking, a star beater on the Gryffindor quidditch team. Girls liked that sort of thing during their time at Hogwarts – they still did, he recalled from his own students.
But Charlotte had chased after him because he had been her firsts – the first touches of affection had come from his hands since her parents' deaths. She had simply not known any better. In their House, children didn't come to Hogwarts knowing affection or love. Not during those years.
Severus wasn't much different, but he'd had Lily.
Lily who had easily held his hand as she dragged him across the playground outside of Spinner's End and cried for him when he skinned his knees on the sidewalk. She'd bought him licorice wands and eagle quills from Hogsmeade, knowing he had nothing to spend of his own. Lily hadn't been selfish – there hadn't been a reason for her affection. There had been no purpose to it. It had simply bloomed from her. Severus had never had a Regulus or a Sirius in his life to teach him the burning sun of love or the effects of its neglect. But Charlotte hadn't had Lily.
Perhaps that was how someone loved another person, he thought. Lily hadn't loved him beyond their cautious, tumultuous friendship. He'd been a brother to her, despite his feeble, adolescent attempts to change her mind.
He recalled the horrified expression on Charlotte's face when he had returned to the bedroom after his monologue.
For a moment, he had questioned his ease. He had made himself comfortable in the way he'd been living in the two years of her absence. His fingers had reached to rebutton his shirt, only to find a smile pulling at the corners of her cupid's bow lips, the dimple reforming at her cheek.
Foolish woman, he thought, as he sucked in the smell of her hair.
He'd found every answer he had sought from Lily in her mind. The way she noticed the tension in his shoulders and her brow would furrow in worry. How she had stumbled upon his forgotten pajama bottoms at Finch Street and felt it consume her like waves of grief.
Charlotte Fraser loved him, he thought, as an unwilling smile pulled at his mouth.
She didn't know it, perhaps.
He hadn't known it in his bones until he'd felt her dying against his chest, the way she had screamed for him in the abyss.
One he started, he recalled, he couldn't stop.
His lips brushed the tendrils of her hair until light crept through curtains and washed the slate-grey walls with warmth. His throat constricted as he slipped himself from her reaching arms and padded across the floor to dress.
Louisa would be arriving to change Charlotte's bandages, and he was not fond of the idea of the witch barging in to startle his wife awake. She would shrink from him, the way she had always done. He wasn't up to it, he thought, recalling her guttural screams in his dreams.
Instead, he dressed and shaved in silence within the washroom, waiting for Louisa to let herself in the front door – she would not be told not to – and come barging up the stairs with her infernal stilettos as she'd done every morning for the last three days.
"Severus," her familiar voice called as he heard the doorknob of his front door slam against his wall, "It's me!"
As if anyone else would be permitted to break into his home.
Severus snorted as he adjusted the rolled sleeves of his shirt and listened for the familiar clacking of the blonde's heels on his stairwell.
"How'd she do last night?"
"No incident," he responded, his voice cool, "She's still sleeping."
Louisa grinned, flashing pearly teeth, "Wonderful. No nightmares?"
Severus recalled the warmth in her thoughts when he'd pressed against her mind. It was a soft, comforting feeling, like the sun in spring. Nothing treacherous had whispered at her ears or furrowed her brow. Tremors had not shaken her limbs in the night, as they had the night prior. She hadn't woken screaming in the early hours of dawn until he had pried her mouth apart long enough to force-feed her a sleeping draught.
"None," he answered, and a smirk pulled at his lips.
A manicured brow rose on the healer's face, "Did you whisper sweet nothings at her all night?"
"Hardly."
"I'll get her up. I think she'll want a wash today. Are you up to helping me?"
Two days ago, he had balked at the idea. His hands had trembled at the thought of seeing Charlotte's charred flesh in its entirety under the scrutinizing blue eyes of her closest friend. Instead, Louisa had brought Clarice Waters with her. Clarice had been dating Evan Rosier, he recalled, before Moody had killed him that night in the Ministry.
The pair had made quick work of her sponge wash, coming back to his washroom to spill basins of pink water into the tub.
"Clarice is covering my shift for the day so I could spend more time with Charlie," Louisa quipped, "I thought you might have some errands to run. I'll keep her company."
Severus made a noise of agreement.
He had been neglecting his brewing over the summer, and his stores of antiseptic were nearly depleted. He could replenish his stores of calming draughts and add a few flasks of Girding Potion to build Charlotte's endurance. It would be useful when she got back on her feet.
"Can you get her up for me? I'll go get my basins ready."
Charlotte's brow was furrowed when he returned to their bed, her hands pressed against the cooled sheets where his body had lain. He leaned forward to straighten the shoulder of her nightgown.
"Charlotte," he hummed her name.
"You left," she mumbled, her voice thick and soft with sleep, "I thought you said you wouldn't."
The bolt struck through him again, and the air he sucked in through his nose felt somehow thinner.
"Louisa is here," his fingers brushed coffee locks from her cheek.
"So," she grumbled, her eyelids cracking open to reveal the red shine replacing the whites of her eyes, turning the amber irises to gold, "You were comfy."
Severus sat on the bed as his stomach tightened. She needed to stop, he thought. The words that spilled from her mouth were too cautiously selfish, her eyes so desperately needy. He drank them in greedily.
"Charlie, are you up?"
She pulled away from him as Louisa pushed through the bedroom door, balancing a steaming basin on her hip, her shoulder toting a black healer's bag.
Louisa set the steaming water on the bedside table as Charlie drew herself as far upright as she could manage. Severus fished his pillow to prop behind her, and she sleepily smiled at her.
"Go ahead downstairs, Sev. It'll take me a bit to get these ones off of her. We've got a bit more crust to these than we've had in the last few days," Louisa was inspecting her legs, "An excellent sign. Could you make us some tea?"
Severus escaped from the room as his stomach twisted.
Severus, I'm not trained enough to do this sort of thing, Louisa had sobbed to him at Malfoy Manor.
He could not recall the guttural snarl he had retorted at her, his hands pressing against Charlotte's eviscerated flesh, his nails touching the soft fat protruding though through her disfigured skin.
Now, Louisa, a full-fledged healer, had more refinement.
She did not uncork bottles of dittany with her teeth and splash them over wounds and scream in frustration when the smallest of tears feebly knit together. She did not wipe sweat from her forehead with bloodied hands, leaving smears of blood like rouge across her skin.
Severus set to refilling the kettle, straining to hear any sound of discomfort from his bedroom above the faucet's noise.
The worst of her legs had been done those first two days, he recalled. When Louisa had cut away the dead, cooked flesh surrounding his wife's calves and set to softly singing incantations that undercut Charlotte's guttural wails. She had talked to Charlotte, distracting her with talk of her most recent outing with Dominick Avery. Louisa no longer sobbed in panic and begged Merlin to keep her classmate breathing. Now, she took her tea after she had worked and hummed songs to her unconscious friend, floating on the effects of sleeping draughts. Merlin hardly came to discussion.
He leaned against the counter as he waited for the kettle's whistle, feeling the aftereffects of tension bring soreness to his shoulders and neck, and blur his eyes with exhaustion. In the last three days, he had hardly slept. The thought of awakening next to a cold, stiff body had kept his eyes open and his body taught with vigilance. Now, his muscles ached.
Severus made a mental note to brew a cauldron of Invigoration Draught and wondered how long Louisa would stay with Charlotte. His brewing list had grown and would now take several hours. He did not want Charlotte alone with her thoughts in their bedroom, pondering next steps.
He could not comfortably support her if she returned to Mad Eye and the Ministry, though he questioned whether she would want to. The veil of trust had been lifted to see the sinister intent beneath. Dumbledore had obliged his demand for a sabbatical through the holidays, but he was not ignorant to believe Charlotte would be cured over months.
It would take years to fuse the fissures, he knew now.
There was no simplicity of having Charlotte perform magic that had given seed to the beast within her. It would take measured, continuous efforts. Albus had given some bit of truth that night at the Order of the Phoenix's table. She would need to belong – not simply feel that way.
Severus shifted on his feet as he watched the steam puff feebly at the kettle's spout.
Louisa had demanded Severus take her to St. Mungo's and allow them to complete fertility treatments on her. She had ordered him to give Charlotte a child of her own. He knew that Charlotte did not need a child to feel as though she belonged, though she had desperately chased after the idea for the entirety of her adult life. She wanted one, he allowed, but she did not truly need one.
It was dangerous, he reminded himself, for Charlotte to have a child as an obscurial. The likelihood of her passing it to the fetus was profound in all of his research on the subject. But all the tomes within Hogwarts' library had not given any strong statistic. Charlotte was an anomaly. It was not within the norm for an adult to form an obscurial.
Charlotte's trauma is profound, Severus. It broke her very core beliefs. It destroyed all the silver linings in her life. I don't believe Charlotte has hoped for a future in years, her days are spent merely surviving.
Severus scowled, hearing Lupin's voice in his ears.
It had been the werewolf who demanded he take sabbatical when Albus had refused to allow him to take Charlotte with him to Hogwarts when the new term began.
Something about it being dangerous to students, he recalled.
When the kettle whistled, he pulled it from the stove and poured it into the chipped tea pot, sprinkling a heaping spoon of oolong into the hot water. After a brief search through the cupboards, he located a tin of biscuits Molly had sent the day prior.
He crossed his ankles, leaning against the scratched counter as he waited for the tea to reach temperature, tightening his mouth.
He reminded himself to steel his expression. It mattered little to him what Charlotte looked like on the surface. Too easily could he recall her blinding smiling in Slug and Jitters the summer before her last year at Hogwarts, the way the light hit her hair and made it look like the richest espresso. Severus would not forget the pull of her cupid's bow mouth or the warmth of her amber eyes.
Whoever had described them as simply hazel, he thought, deserved to be served a heavy dose of the Cruciatus.
It did not bother him that her body was maimed, disfigured by her disease and the war. Too easily could he recall every moment in which he caught himself staring at her, caught off-guard by her profound presence. Even Lily, he thought briefly, had not exuded warmth the way Charlotte had. Not under the darkness that hovered above her. It was a warmth that could singe the hair from his fingers and could soothe the deepest hurt. A dangerous, fickle warmth.
Charlotte would care, he reminded himself.
She would search for disgust in his dark eyes, the line above her brows resurfacing as she judged every expression that could cross his face and damn herself for each of them.
Too easily could Severus recall the day he had been sitting in the library, studying for his NEWTs and heard Black make a snide joke about Charlotte's weight.
Another razor-sharp edge in her brokenness that could not be buffed away.
He carried the teapot and biscuits up the stairs and affixed his expression in place as he entered their bedroom. His eyes did not search for his wife's as he set the plate upon his dresser, but instead caught the movement of Louisa's elbows as she unwound the last piece of bandage from Charlotte's knee.
The left leg was relatively normal. Its flesh had regrown and knitted itself. A small scar had burrowed itself behind her knee, but Severus reasoned that it could be excused away. If she chose to, she could easily hide it away with longer dress or trousers.
The right was another story.
Two toes had needed amputation, but Severus had refused to allow Louisa to take a knife to them. They were wrinkled and white now, lacking any pigmentation. The same color splashed across her leg, creeping up the back of her calf to burrow itself behind her knee. Scarring was framed in purple, thick blisters – several cracked and oozing with bloodied serum. They, too, would join the smattering of silver scars across her creamy skin, and in turn join the increasing number of battlefield remnants on his wife's body.
"Alright, Charlie, let's get you seated up a bit. I'm going to take off your night gown, Severus is going to hold you up. Tell me if anything hurts, alright? We can dampen it, so it comes off easier."
Charlotte's ashen face nodded.
Severus crossed the room to seat himself at her back, sliding a hand up the back of her lifted nightgown to gently rest at the dip between her shoulder blades. Louisa worked slowly, her fingers rolling the cotton in small increments, pausing to watch Charlotte's face as she worked. Only at the shoulder, where the serum had crusted at her shoulder did a flinch cross her face. Quickly, Louisa pressed a wet washcloth to the fabric of her night down, waiting until it was properly soaked before lifting the garment over her head.
"There we are, beautiful. Look how well you're healing," Louisa hummed, leaning over to check Charlotte's bandages and begin unwrapping her shoulder, "This one won't need to be redone. I think it'll be alright to leave open. No lifting anything until it finishes up."
Charlotte stiffly jerked her head.
Severus could feel her trembling beneath his hand at her back, around his forearm wrapped around her waist as Louisa created a lather between a vibrant green bar of soap and washcloth. He let her rest against him, moving his hand from her back to pull her hair over her shoulder, and allowed his finger to brush the wing of her collarbone.
"Please don't look," Charlotte whispered, "Just don't look at me."
Severus tightened his jaw.
"Charlotte, you are beautiful. Most of these will be gone in a few months. I spoke to Madam McCarty – she's the department head of our burn center – and she's given me several ideas. I think we'll have you right as rain in a year or two – we might be able to reduce the ones on your back, as well."
A sob left Charlotte's throat, "A year or two?"
"Oh, honey," and Louisa's eyes filled.
Severus reached between the two for the washcloth and carefully began washing his wife's shoulders. The water sluiced down her scarred back, gathering in the dimpling scars on her right shoulder. He worked quickly and efficiently as Louisa gathered Charlotte's hands between her own and made soothing noises as she shook beneath his working hands.
"Let's do her hair, Sev," Louisa's eyes were locked to Charlotte's, her mouth tight, "I'll braid it for her."
"Take her for a moment," Severus muttered, "I'll change out the water."
He took the basin, the water now a muddied pink, and slipped from the damp sheets beneath him. His eyes did not turn back to his wife as he walked to the bathroom to empty the basin, and downstairs to refill it with steaming water from the faucet.
A quick look in the kitchen sink cupboard gave him reward and he fished the bottles of shampoo and conditioner Charlotte had left behind when she had abruptly left Spinner's End two years ago. He doubted that these things expired, his eyes searching the bottles for an expiration date.
Louisa smiled when he passed her the bottles, and he took to carefully wetting Charlotte's long hair.
Severus knew his wife was particularly vain about her hair.
After the first night, he had stared at Charlotte's burned, ragged hair and asked if Louisa could do anything with it. He could recall how she would curl up on the sofa, running her long fingers through the coffee waves, her nose buried in one of her infernal romance novels. The healer had returned the next day with a few notes from her hairdresser and grown Charlotte's hair to a length he thought she would find suitable, brushing the dip of her lower back.
He lathered the thickly scented gel into her hair, taking care to massage the foam behind her ears, his fingers rubbing slow, deep circles into her scalp. A smirk pulled at his mouth when an appreciative noise left Charlotte's mouth.
"I bet that feels wonderful," Louisa smiled, her eyes crinkling, "It sounds like it does."
"Marry a potion's master, Lou," Charlotte hummed, "They're talented with their hands."
"How talented?"
The blonde witch wagged her eyebrows and Severus snorted. A creeping redness had started at Charlotte's ears.
"Lou!"
"I'm simply curious whether I should leave Dom in pursuit of one of Sev's colleagues. He's delightful with his fingers, but I'm wondering if there is improvement to be made."
"You're making me uncomfortable."
"I'm sure your husband can fix that for you."
Charlotte's arm darted out to swat at her schoolfriend, a bubbling laugh splitting her mouth.
"No sexual activity until these are sealed up. Healer's orders, I'm afraid. It'll build the tension. You'll thank me for it later, I imagine."
The noise of indignation that left his wife's mouth pulled another smirk to his lips as she smacked the healer's leg.
Severus rinsed her hair and applied a generous dollop of conditioner to her locks, combing it through with his fingers. The pair of witches chatted in earnest as he worked, and his chest eased in tension, the muscle at his jaw began to relax. Louisa threw him a look of appreciation as he rinsed the final product from her hair.
"How does some tea sound?"
The wizard left the chatting witches as Louisa poured cups of oolong, emptying the basin a second time in the bathtub before moving downstairs to store it beneath the sink.
In the stillness of the kitchen, he allowed himself to break the cool façade of his face.
His nose stung as he raked clawed fingers through his hair.
The scent of cooked meat lingered in his nostrils, the flashes of her maimed shoulder and disfigured leg branded behind his eyelids. Her broken voice echoed in his mind.
Please don't look.
Did she not understand, he wondered? She could be without a leg, had Louisa not arrived so quickly. She could be dead, buried at the Fraser plot in Scotland. There would not be enough looks of her to fill the greediness within him, the thirst for her eyes, the hunger for her fleeting smiles. He cared little about the scars that collected on her porcelain skin. Severus could still recall the blackness that swallowed her eyes as her head fell back in possession, the whites consumed by pitch.
In possession, his wife swallowed the light.
He could smell the static in the air, the metallic odor that filled the room when she returned to her body, obsidian replaced with amber shot with bronze. Severus could envision the way her body's muscles grew taught, pressing against her skin as her lips mouthed words he had taught her.
Unus ex amino.
Os ex ossibus meis.
Spiro tibi respiare.
Tibi respirare et spiritus meus.
Few witches were capable of possession. It was a dark magic filled with wizards. In the forbidden section in the library within Hogwarts, he had found only two other witches in history who had successfully performed a possession and returned to their bodies with minds intact.
Too often, they fractured in the magic's currents.
She had slid back into her body like a serpent, her body regaining her mind as she straightened her contours, her thick lashes blinking away the remnants of pitch. His ears could still find the soft, stretching sigh as her breath released from her lungs and the loose, languid way she moved as she recalled the movement of her own flesh and bone.
Charlotte had been beautiful in her terror.
The thought troubled him now, he realized. Too often had he watched her body stretch as she filled her victim's mind, her body stretching back until her hair brushed the floor behind her, her arms limp and taught at her sides. He had watched the seams of her muscles press against her skin in the ghosts of her movements within another's body and smelled the metallic static that sparked around her and found his mouth go dry. A part of him had found delight in her prowess within another's consciousness, had grown hot as she returned to her body, his fingers twitching to touch her as obsidian drained from her eyes.
In St. Mungo's, he had been caught off-guard at the blackness returning to those eyes. His chest filling with a foreign matter as her mouth formed words of sinister familiarity.
He was not a good man, he recalled as he gathered himself. A good man did not look at a witch consumed with dark magic and find a great and terrible beauty.
The corners of his mouth pulled.
But she had been beautiful, he recalled, splitting minds like a knife through butter. It had begun his want of her – a witch capable of deeds as malevolent as his own.
"Charlie asked if you could pick up these books for her," Louisa appeared at the staircase's bottom, "I made the list for her. Are you going to brew more antiseptic?"
She raised a brow as Severus tucked away his thoughts.
"Are you having inappropriate thoughts about your wife, Severus?"
A mischievous grin pulled her lips from her pearly teeth.
"I hardly think any thoughts of my wife could be misconstrued as inappropriate, Louisa."
"You were, weren't you?"
Severus snorted, plucking the list from the healer's outstretched hands.
"You dirty bastard," Louisa laughed, "I'm telling her."
"You will not," the wizard snapped.
"I'm going to. It'll make her warm and fuzzy for you when you come home."
Louisa winked as she darted up the stairs.
He scowled as he gathered his wand and coin purse, thrusting Charlotte's book list into his trouser pocket. He could imagine the look on Barnaby Blott's face as he paid for the novels. There would be talk at Hogwarts when he returned after holiday – Severus Snape purchasing smutty romance novels for his wife to read.
Pomona would never allow him to survive it.
Diagon Alley was overflowing with students, and Snape grimaced as he side-stepped students energized by sugar and steaming cups of overpriced coffee. He made his purchases at Slug and Jitters, making noises of agreement at the chatter inflicted upon him by the shopkeeper. Barnaby Blott was suitably red-faced as he purchased Charlotte's novels – one titled The Wizard's Wand – and it was not long before he had made a short stop in Eeylop's for a bag of food and he found himself standing awkwardly outside of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.
The nightgowns they'd been dressing Charlotte in had been his mother's. They were matronly, floral cotton pieces with frayed, threadbare lace.
Charlotte was a bit vain, he knew, recalling the small collection of fitted muggle jeans she had acquired at Finch Street, and the blouses with plunging necklines that had drawn scowls to his face. He had not enjoyed the idea of other wizards peering at his wife's cleavage, never mind how estranged they had been.
He grimaced at the jingle of the shop's door, announcing his entrance as he walked to the back of the store where Madam Malkin stored witch's nightclothes. He peered at the racks of lace and satin and cursed himself for several moments.
This was an errand better suited to Louisa, who knew what Charlotte liked and would be comfortable enough for her to wear with her bandages. Severus knew that any nightclothes would need to be short enough to accommodate the longer dressing on her right leg but modest enough that she wouldn't sleep on the opposite end of the bed from him, hiding beneath the tartan with red cheeks.
Even if the color against Charlotte's skin pleased him, he slept better with the witch against his skin, breathing in the smell of her hair.
"Severus," Madam Malkin greeted, her eyes crinkled, "Are you a bit lost?"
Snape cleared his throat, "I need something for my wife."
The platinum-haired witch blinked, "Your wife?"
"Yes. I believe you have her measurements," Severus recalled Malkin's tag in several of Charlotte's robes, "She needs nightclothes."
"You're still married?"
Madam Malkin's voice trailed off as she fixed her startled expression with a small smile.
"Do you have her measurements? Or should I go to Twilfitt and Tatting's? I was under the impression Charlotte had begun purchasing her robes here."
The witch cleared her throat, "No, of course we have Charlotte's measurements. What is she looking for?"
Severus stared at the witch.
"Let's take a peek at our options. If nothing is to your liking, I can have something sewn up for you."
Sorting through the rack, Octavia Malkin pulled a lacy green night gown out for inspection.
"This is similar to what she purchased a few weeks ago."
Severus's mouth twitched, "A bit more modest. She's on bedrest."
"Oh dear, not something with those dark wizards? I've heard such wonderful things from my son. He's in auror training at the Ministry."
When several moments of awkward silence passed, Octavia pulled several other items until Severus caught the sight of a dark green nightgown. It would be just above Charlotte's knees, and a green so dark it was nearly black. It had thin, crossed straps across the back, and was trimmed with silver thread.
"Something like that one, will do," he muttered, pointing at the garment.
Octavia smiled, "Wonderful taste, Severus. I have it in several other shades. I'll pick a few and have them added to Charlotte's account."
"I'll be paying for them," Severus interjected curtly, "If you have a pair of slippers for her, as well."
Bobbing her head, Octavia pulled several other colors from the rack and went to the front of the store. Severus grimaced as he took the brightly colored bag from the witch.
"Tell Charlotte I hope she's back on her feet soon. I've got a new leather set that would look scrumptious on her."
Severus grumbled as he left the heavily perfumed store, and quickly made his way to an apparation point outside the Leaky Cauldron.
When he returned to Spinner's End, he left the silver bag at the kitchen, and descended within the basement to set to his brewing.
He wondered what Charlotte had told people about their separation. Too easily, he thought, Octavia had concluded that they were divorced. How many others had drawn similar ideas?
Narcissa and Lucius had accepted that Charlotte and Severus had simply drastically different schedules. It had made sense, Narcissa had commented, for Charlotte to want a grander home in London than Spinner's End. Lucius had been hounding him for the last year to sell his parents' home and move to Finch Street full time. Severus had found that most in their social circle had been equally accepting. In pureblooded society, it was not uncommon for spouses to be estranged or live separately when there were no children. It would likely draw more questions now that they were residing together.
But outside of their circle, he questioned the thoughts of Charlotte's colleagues within the Ministry. Cian Dearborn, he recalled, had certainly lingered around long enough after Louisa had settled Charlotte for the first night. He had caught every longing glance the wizard had cast up his stairwell.
Severus scowled.
He did not like the idea of others pondering the stability of his marriage. Charlotte had changed her name at the Ministry of Magic to her maiden name. It did not particularly bother him. He did not mind that his bastard father had failed to permanently attach his name to Severus's wife. But the thought of Cian Dearborn eyeing the curves of his wife filled him with fever and murderous thoughts.
He resolved himself to take Charlotte into Diagon Alley. A promise of more ungodly novels from Flourish and Blott's would get her out of the house, and a bribe of candied pineapple would keep her there for a suitable amount of time that the gossip mill would begin turning. Severus made a note to frequently touch her in public.
His thoughts alternated between the assassination of Cian Dearborn and the smiles that would birth the dimples of Charlotte's cheeks as she hungrily feasted her eyes on the stacked romance novels, and how candied pineapple would taste coming from her cupid's bow lips.
Author's Note: AH! I made my promise a reality! We have an update that is ACTUALLY ON TIME! Phew. Sorry that it's late in the day. I will be trying to post an update on every Friday/Saturday moving forward. That being said, I am currently working in retail so pending on my schedule, those days will switch off and on. But I have told Mr. Kestrel that I am writing four hours a week or I am not allowed any Starbucks, so I think it'll happen... My addiction to over-priced coffee is too great.
I love writing chapters in Snape's perspective, and would like to know how you like them as well! Do we want chapters with other perspectives? Do we want them to stop all together? Let me know what you'd like to see. I've tried to start throwing in more flashbacks where appropriate, as I've noticed you have been requesting a bit more of those. Thank you all SO much. I can't believe we're almost at 700 reviews. It's been a bit of a shock to me, having started this story over a year ago now and I do get a bit misty-eyed seeing so many of our OG reviewers pop up every week. From the bottom of my heart, I am so grateful for each and every one of you. I hope you are safe, healthy, and ramping up for the holidays.
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