Please enjoy Chapter Thirty!
THIRTY
WE ARE AT 3-0
*mind blown*
Charlie shifted as Louisa's fingers braided her long, wet hair. Her long, manicured nails scratched comfortably at her scalp as she gathered sections. She shivered against the damp cotton gathered at the back of her neck, soaked by her washed locks.
"Feel a bit more human?"
The healer peered around to smile at her and Charlie hummed in agreement.
"I wish Dom were like that," Louisa said suddenly, her hands flicking a heavy braid into shape, "Snape is about as affectionate as a doxy, but Dom can be too," her voice trailed off.
"Too what?"
"Mushy."
Charlie wrinkled her nose, "I don't like that."
"Snape just does things for you because he thinks they'll make you happy. Like this gaudy comforter you like so much or finding that shampoo. They're not declarations of love and adoration, just quiet ones. Dom comes to the hospital with obnoxious bouquets of roses."
"You used to complain when Augustus didn't get you flowers," Charlie reminded her.
"I know. Maybe I've just gotten older. I want quieter love, maybe. It seems more genuine. I can see the things Snape does for you and know without doubt that he adores you. He doesn't need to bust through the door with the entire florist shop. It's more authentic."
There is extraordinarily little you could do that would shock me.
Warmth spread across Charlie's belly, making her shoulders shudder.
"Where is he?"
Creeping curiosity burrowed into her voice and Louisa grinned.
"Missing him already? He's off to Diagon Alley. I wanted some time with you today and he needed a few things."
"Diagon Alley?"
Charlie pulled forward, ignoring the noises of indignation Lou gasped as she haphazardly tied off her braid. Her eyes darted to the single novel sitting, dusty, on Snape's dresser. The last issue of Witch Weekly had told her several new books had been published by her favorite author. Stuck in bed for an unknown period of time, Charlie thought there was little she wouldn't be willing to do for a few books.
"Want something?"
"Maybe some books," Charlie's voice trailed off, "But Severus won't want to buy them. Barnaby Blott isn't capable of maintaining decorum."
Louisa snorted, "Severus would murder the Minister of Magic if you asked him to do it. Tell me which ones you want; I'll make a list."
Her nose wrinkled as she sorted through the disarray of her mind as Louisa scratched at a piece of parchment, smirking at the titles Charlie annotated.
"Do you think that's alright?"
"You need some properly disgusting smut to read in this marriage, Charlie," the healer quipped, "Your involuntary vow of celibacy is horrifying. I'll run it down for him. Anything else? I was going to grab a few things for you from Finch Street tonight to bring tomorrow."
Charlie shook her head and watched the blonde disappear from view.
She relaxed into the pillows with a steaming cup of oolong, breathing in the intoxicating fumes of properly brewed tea and reminded herself to ask Lou to get her one of the ginger biscuits when she returned.
No sooner had the thought trailed from her mind did a giggling witch appear in the doorway, galloping across the bedroom floor to collapse into the pile of pillows next to Charlie.
"Charlie, your husband is having impure thoughts about you."
Charlie choked on her tea, "He is not."
"I caught him. Smiling in the kitchen. He was thinking about you naked, it's safe to assume."
"No one is thinking about me naked, Lou, especially not Severus."
Louisa rolled her eyes, "Plenty of people envision you naked. I've caught Cian sporting a stiff wand for you on at least three occasions."
Incredulous eyes swiveled to stare at the giggling blonde witch at her side, "You did not."
"I did. At the Ministry Christmas party last year, a month ago when I came to take you to supper he had another one! You were coming out of the showers. I bet you he stole a look, the peeping tom."
A noise of horror left Charlie's lips.
"You have tits now, Charlie. You don't even need my inserts anymore. You even have better boobs than me, and I hate you a bit for it. The wizards pant after you in the Ministry corridors."
"Have you been drinking?"
"Not in the last few hours. Do you want some? It's too soon for you to have wine, and I think Snape only keeps firewhiskey. A butterbeer wouldn't hurt."
Charlie twisted, ignoring the smarting at her shoulder, "Severus Snape does not think of me naked, Lou. He's seen me naked plenty and hasn't said anything."
"Is he really the type to comment on your ass?"
"Your mother would be ashamed to see what's happened to your mouth."
"She already is," Lou winked at her, "But I know beyond a shadow of doubt that Snape has probably worked his wand thinking about you, if you know what I mean."
The blonde wagged her eyebrows suggestively.
"You're a disgusting person, Louisa Rosier."
"Just realistic, honey."
Charlie chewed her lip as they listened to the wireless.
Snape had never made a face at her body. She had lost count of the times he'd seen her naked – stripping her after each obscurus incident to check her for burns, changing hastily from Death Eater robes to their normal attire, changing her out of her leather skirt after her night with Louisa at the White Wyvern. His eyes had never lingered on her skin, instead, affixed on the task at hand. He had a mechanical way of it, she recalled. As though her body could be repulsive enough to not want to look.
"I sense negative thoughts in your mind."
Charlie wrinkled her nose, "Shut it."
"What are you thinking about?"
She could appreciate the straightforward way Lou asked her for her thoughts. It was not intrusive in the way Snape simply cracked open the door of her mind to peek around, or the interpretations Lupin made. She simply asked for them.
"He's seen me naked a lot, Lou. I think maybe I look a bit disgusting."
Lou raised a brow.
"Maybe I'm a little pretty. That auror asked me for drinks after the Christmas party. I guess he wouldn't do that if I were ugly. But Snape's seen me naked loads of times and he never really looks. I am a bit disgusting."
Charlie stared at the bandages of her legs, the creeping scars that marred her body. She knew they hid beneath the cotton nightgown, turning her back into a battlefield, her abdomen disfigured with thick straps of silvery and pink scars.
"You are not disgusting."
Louisa's voice was sharp when she spoke, her eyes narrowed.
"He doesn't look at you, Charlie, because your husband is respectful. Severus has never thought you were disgusting – not even for a moment. Wizards don't touch witches the way that man touched you if they think they're disgusting."
The healer's finger prodded her chest, "You are beautiful. If you went to the Ministry tomorrow, Dearborn would still sport a stiff wand for you. You have a body that only Merlin could make."
"But Severus," the prodding finger suddenly pressed against her lips.
"Snape is going to take you in a sinful manner once you're healed. I'll bet you a hundred galleons."
Charlie's cheeks burned as she pulled away from the blonde's mischievous eyes.
"I wonder if he's a virgin," Louisa mused as she fell back into the pillows, "He was high up enough that the Dark Lord would've taken care of him. Lucius says that they had all sorts of witches procured for the boys."
A frown passed Charlie's face. She could recall the witches that would come after their meetings, slinking into the laps of masked wizards with rouged lips and sultry, lined eyes. In those days, eligible witches had come out of the woodwork to come after Death Eaters. They traditionally held positions professionally that were well-paying and appropriate for their breeding. Charlie had seen Lucius engage in adultery more times than she cared to recall and could remember Severus disappearing up the staircase at Malfoy Manor with witches trailing after him.
He had been in the Dark Lord's closest circle. Plenty of witches had hungered after him, their greedy eyes on his position with the Death Eater ranks and the promises of riches the Dark Lord had promised them after his rise to power.
She chewed her cheek.
"He's not," she mumbled.
Lou's eyebrows shot into her bangs, "He isn't?"
"He's probably been with more people than I have," Charlie allowed.
"You've been with, what, four wizards? Actually, three. We won't count Scabior."
Charlie grimaced, "Please don't."
"So, he's probably experienced. That'll be nice for you. Regulus certainly knew how to make you purr, and he was hardly a man whore."
The dark-haired witch wrinkled her nose, "I don't like talking about having sex with Regulus in Snape's bed, Lou."
"Fair. But I wonder how he is. I'd never sleep with him, but he's your cup of tea, apparently."
Charlie recalled taught, hard muscle as her fingers had scratched at her husband's stomach that morning, her fingers spreading across the lean skin of his back. She knew the hardness of his arms and the thick veins that covered his hands, disappearing into long fingers.
Awkwardly, she cleared her throat.
"Now you're the one having sinful thoughts," Lou laughed.
Her cheeks colored as they listened to the wireless radio.
Her mouth opened several times before she clicked her jaw shut.
"Spit it out," Lou dropped the radio's volume, "What are you worrying about?"
"I don't know how to do things," Charlie muttered, "Like in bed."
"What do you mean, you don't know how to do things. What do you normally do?"
Charlie hesitated, "Just lay there? I mean, Regulus liked me on top. But Rabastan liked it when I was on my hands and knees-…"
"He did strike me as the type."
Her hand darted out to smack the blonde's leg as the healer burst into a fit of laughter.
"But Severus is probably more experienced? He's been with more witches, maybe, than Regulus? Sirius, well, you know. Rabastan was usually sloshed."
Louisa chewed on her lip, "What are you worried about, exactly?"
"Like what if I can't do the things he likes to do?"
"I need you to spit it out for me."
"What if he wants more than just… normal sex?"
The words squeaked from Charlotte's mouth as Louisa grinned widely.
"Like a blow job, Charlie? Are you thinking about giving your husband a blow job?"
Charlie covered her face with the tartan.
"You certainly move fast. Yesterday, you weren't sure if you loved him. Now you're talking about blow jobs. I like this version of you. It's nostalgic."
A groan left her mouth.
"You've given them before, Charlie. Stop your noises. It's not like we're discussing bondage."
"But what if I'm not good at them?"
"Well, did the boys ask you for another one?"
Her head nodded beneath the comforter.
"See, you're good at them. It isn't difficult. It's like sucking an ice lolly. Don't you read pornographic romance novels? Just do what they do in those."
"People don't actually do those things," Charlie retorted hotly, "They're just books."
"Someone had to do it for them to write about it, honey."
Charlie's cheeks burned when she dropped the comforter, "So people actually do those things?"
Louisa crossed the bedroom to pick up the romance novel sitting dustily on Snape's dresser. As she sat, her manicured fingers flipped through the pages until she dropped a French-tipped nail on a paragraph.
"I've done that."
She chewed on her lip as she skimmed pages, commenting, 'Done this', as she turned through chapters.
Charlie peered over her shoulder, "You've done that?"
"Of course. Dom lives for it. Frankly, Charlie, I'm disappointed in you. We've been friends for more than half our lives and you've never told me your sex life was so boring. No wonder you've been fucking miserable. I'm disappointed in Rabastan. I thought he was enough of a whore to give you a good time."
"He was drunk a lot," she mumbled.
Louisa snapped the book shut and turned to her.
"Severus probably doesn't care about any of this. He loves you – not in the idolizing way Regulus did, or the disgusting way Sirius did. If you want to be experimental or try something new, then just do it. He isn't going to complain, Charlie. Men never complain about these things. He'll be screaming thanks to Merlin."
Charlie's hands covered her face, "Please stop."
"I want all the juicy, sticky details, of course. Just try not to say his name too much."
"I don't wish to continue our friendship."
"Too bad, sugar tits. Move over, I want to listen to this show. Afterwards, I brought some polish to do your nails."
Desperate for her to stop, Charlie nodded aggressively in agreement and curled back into her nest of pillows. She could still drink in the smell of Snape's aftershave, and feel the heat of his hand pressing against her back.
A foreign yet familiar heat built, and she closed her eyes to will it away.
She had never thought of Severus Snape in a sexual manner. At least, she thought, not in earnest. Perhaps on nights that she had overindulged in firewhiskey, she had wondered what it would be like for him to touch her the way Regulus had, if he could build the tension and want in her in the same manner, and if it would leave her choking for air.
Her cheeks flamed.
It seemed too real now, she thought. The possibility could grow that one day, Severus would expect something from her. The idea filled her with fluttering, angry butterflies that too closely resembled nausea.
Would his hands hungrily touch her flesh, drawing her closer to desperately gasp at air? Or would he roll across the bed to sleep, his sweat-slicked back to her? Perhaps he would do neither and grunt as he left the room to grab a drink.
Louisa had told her that her relationships had been distorted – caught in the crossfire of need and want, sacrifice and desperation. Rabastan had been a necessary evil to stave the advances of her fellow Death Eaters as they reveled in drunken stupors and seized witches in the darkest hours of night and dragged them up the steps of Malfoy Manor. Their soft sobs had echoed in the empty, marble-floored corridors as she had slept underneath Rabastan's thick, hot whiskey-scented breath. She knew what wizards had been capable of under the influence of enough drink and riding the adrenaline of unadulterated violence. It blossomed under their flesh and sent them hungrily towards wants with no inhibition.
She had taken Rabastan to shield herself. The opportunity had arisen, and she had seized it. Now, she wondered if Severus knew that, too. If he knew that she had taken Lestrange to her bed to save her from the hungry grins beneath silver masks. No one had wanted to anger the short-fused French wizard with his whiskey-thick breath and borderline sociopathic psychosis.
A carefully selected, necessary evil.
Charlie had known he'd regularly be drunk enough that she could curse him if he made any attempt against her wishes. He was naïve enough to trust her sultriest stares and convince himself that she had chosen him for no other reason than she had wanted him.
The thought of him had made her skin crawl.
Perhaps that was what had driven her to the Leaky Cauldron to desperately claw at Sirius's belt, and pull herself into a safe, known place. Sirius, despite his flaws, had been honorable. She had loved his chivalry, even if it had so rarely fallen at her own feet.
Even if he was an end-game seeker, as Louisa had coined him, he had never extracted the noises from her those broken, used witches had. She had never climbed down the stairs of the Leaky Cauldron with blood dripping between her legs or a blackened eye.
He had been a soft break from the sharp edges of her life.
Something to take the edge off.
A sliver of sunlight in the darkness.
Severus would never do that to her, she thought.
He had called himself a bad man, she remembered, but he had retained some morality in the darkness of Malfoy Manor after a Death Eater revel. She had never seen any witches leave his bedroom at Malfoy Manor with bruises. They had all looked alike with dark, auburn hair, or bottle-green eyes. She had known he was replicating Lily and had never paid much attention to them after that.
Eventually, she thought, he must've run out of them.
The redheads were replaced with witches with hair like chocolate.
She stiffened.
No, she thought, he wouldn't, and willed the thought from her mind. She wasn't the sort of witch to be replicated for a wizard, in any scenario.
When the radio show ended, Louisa fished in her healer's bag and pulled a bottle of black polish. She made small talk as she filed Charlie's nails into shape, and applied smooth, clean lines of obsidian.
"When will I be able to get out of bed?"
Louisa bit her lip, her fingers hesitating over Charlie's index fingernail.
"Probably a week, maybe two. I want to see if you get sensation back in your leg. Even if it hurts, that doesn't mean you have authentic sensation in it. You'll have to be able to carry weight on it comfortably, but Severus makes a strong brew. I think a week should do it, but I don't want you to get your hopes up."
"Do you think it'll come back?"
Her eyes drifted to the bandaged leg. The pinkie and ring toe stuck out from the bandages, healed enough now to no longer require them. They held no pigmentation, just a cool, ashen white against the vibrant green of Snape's bedding.
"I don't know, truthfully. It's healing the way it ought to. I'm concerned about the toes, but you don't need feeling in those two for you to retain your balance. Most of that will come from your large toe and the ball of your feet. That's where all your balance lays. The muscle is going to be tricky, but it's regrowing nicely. We'll probably set you on some exercises to build it back up in a few days when the blisters have scabbed over."
"So, it'll stop smelling soon, then?"
Despite the incense burning on Snape's dresser, she could still smell the cooked meat of her flesh. When she had first awoken, she deliriously thought Severus had cooked a ham. It had been her leg.
"Tomorrow you'll notice most of the smell gone. It's mostly just lingering odor. We should open up the windows. We debrided all of that off two days ago, but you needed a good wash."
She wondered how Snape had managed to sleep in the bedroom, breathing in the smell of her cooked flesh.
"I think I'll bring my house elf tomorrow to do some cleaning for you. I think we just need to get these curtains washed and a good dusting. Severus hasn't let me bring Dottie over, or I would've already done it. The cobwebs downstairs are enough to give acromantulas a run for their money."
Charlie's nose wrinkled, "It's that bad?"
"Snape is good at many things, Charlie. Housekeeping has likely never been one of them."
"I always cleaned before I left for the summer."
Lou smiled as she resumed Charlie's nails, "You're such a cute housewife, Charlie."
"Am I supposed to go back to the Ministry once I'm better? Have you heard anything?"
Louisa froze, her blue eyes lifting up to her, "You want to go back there?"
"I don't know."
Charlie chewed her lip.
For two years, she had tried to become a Hit Witch. Perhaps it hadn't been for Dumbledore, or for Mad-Eye. She had wanted to be useful, and for a time, she thought she had made friendships at the Ministry. Though she knew now that Mad-Eye had likely encouraged those relationships – perhaps at the behest of Dumbledore – she had liked being busy each day. It had been better than sitting on the stone bench within Spinner's End garden, staring at the clouds and watching the days pass overhead.
It seemed a bit ridiculous to throw away the efforts she had made. Perhaps she could still be useful in some capacity there. Maybe Mad-Eye did, eventually, want to use her for her skill in possession. Perhaps it was all some orchestrated plot by Dumbledore to use her for the Order's means.
But would passing her days staring out the windows of the Ministry of Magic be any different? She would get paid for it, she thought, but she hardly needed the money. Walburga Black had died a year ago, leaving the Black fortune transferred to Charlotte's vault. She had been Regulus's widow, and there were no living, nor eligible, inheritors of the estate. Though, she had not been given Grimmauld Place. It was a small, soft reprieve, she allowed, to not be forced to re-enter that house.
"Charlie, Severus went to the Ministry of Magic two days ago, and blooded Moody's nose. I don't think they're expecting you to come back."
"He did what?"
"He went to the Ministry with that werewolf you adamantly spend so much time with, and he broke what little is left of Mad-Eye's nose. He was furious."
Charlie swallowed, "He did that?"
"Of course. They made you do all of that work for nothing, Charlie. Severus was not going to permit them to get away with that without a little bit of bloodshed. It's not in his nature. I supposed it's testament to his self-control that he didn't murder him, or Dearborn."
"Dearborn was there?"
"I thought Severus would have certainly exsanguinated him. I nearly prepped the trauma team for it."
Her eyes squeezed shut, "He didn't need to do that."
"Yes, he did, Charlie. Severus is your husband. He means something in our community. He fooled Dumbledore. What respect would he have with anyone if he allowed someone to make a fool out of his wife?"
Louisa paused, "I don't think you should go back. I'll support you if you do, and I'll mix up Dearborn's draughts the next time he comes in. We'll suddenly run out of pain tablets. I'll accidentally have to redo his bone-growing potions. I couldn't believe he fucking let them do that."
Quiet, soft fury laced the healer's voice, "No one is allowed to do that to you while I'm breathing."
Charlie wondered if there would be a point in time that others stopped needing to assume ownership over her fights. If she would stop needing Severus, Louisa, or Lupin to protect her. It would be nice, she thought, to not need them so much.
She hadn't always been so feeble, she thought.
There had been a time that wizards had scrambled from her path, flinched at the sight of her silver mask in a sea of them.
Severus had made her into a deadly, lethal force in the Dark Lord's numbers.
It had dissolved when Igor Karkaroff had named her to the Ministry of Magic. She had turned into a mouse, hunted by a hungry cat. Her reputation hadn't mattered to the Hit Wizards that had stalked her in London until Dumbledore had intervened.
That had been the second beginning, she knew.
The beginning of needing other people had been reborn, torn asunder from her desperately clawing hands that morphed her into a powerless, simpering witch. A whisper amongst the pureblooded community of how far one could fall from the Dark Lord's dark dynasty to domesticated and broken.
In the Ministry of Magic, people had begun to look at her that way. They had watched her in the corridors, their eyes nervous and wary when she was deployed with the others of her class. If she were simply Mad-Eye's pet, Charlie knew, that look would melt from their eyes. It would be replaced with knowing smiles and smirks and soft whispered venom in the corridors.
She knew they had already begun to believe she slept with Dearborn to get her last assignment.
The thoughts of wizards and witches were too simple. Their interests and fears waxed and waned before them. One day, they had huddled in dark alleyways and trembled at the sight of a wand pointed at them. The next, they had celebrated in the streets and sung drunken, loud songs of Bellatrix Lestrange's arrest. Though, if she stood before them, they would have likely pissed themselves.
Charlie didn't want people to cower at her in corridors or scuttle across the street from her in London.
She just wanted them to stop looking at her as though she were some pitiful creature.
Often, she caught herself creating what-if's in her mind. What if she had married Sirius? What if she had never been a Death Eater? What if Regulus hadn't died? What if her parents had lived?
They were foolish, lofty thoughts, she knew now.
There was no magic in existence to alter the dimensions of time in such a perfect way to mend every broken part of her.
No time-turner could alter her future into perfection.
Perfection, she knew, did not exist.
It waxed and waned the way the wizarding world's thoughts and attentions did.
On one day, it would be sitting in a cottage in Scotland with Sirius and a fat, orange tabby cat with a handful of children who sported dark hair and silver eyes.
Another, it would be in a gold-leaf wallpapered house, sipping tea with a long-eared house elf who baked her shortbread, waiting for her husband to come home.
Then, it would be laying beneath a green tartan comforter, the flesh of her husband pressed beneath her cheek as she drank the smell of peppermint and wintergreen aftershave. A husband who fit his broken pieces against her own like a tragically formed puzzle.
She wondered what would happen if she stopped creating what-if scenarios.
Charlie could accept that Mad-Eye wanted her for his own purposes, just as everyone else did. But would it be okay to suffer a few hours a day under his watchful, swiveling eye, to come home to a husband who expected nothing from her but brutal, unadulterated honesty and the smallest slivers of affection she could give him?
Was it okay, she pondered, to accept that everyone wanted her for their own means?
Author's Note: Thank you all for your lovely reviews of the last chapter! They truly mean so much to me. I apologize for getting this one out behind schedule, we were SO SWAMPED after Thanksgiving. I hope you all had a lovely holiday in the U.S., and that you are all staying safe and warm!
BRING YOUR HOUSE TO GLORY
TPMW HOUSE CUP
GRYFFINDOR - 230
HUFFLEPUFF - 160
RAVENCLAW - 120
SLYTHERIN - 180
Any review which mentions their House gets five points! This update's bonus points will be to all reviewers who mention their House and a magical creature!