I'm back! Check the author's note at the end for an update and enjoy Chapter Thirty-Two!
"Charlotte, dearest."
Charlotte's eyes cracked open as Walburga crossed her bedroom. Behind her, Kreacher toted a tray of breakfast, a pot of tea steamed the air with honeyed scents of oolong.
"I had such a wonderful idea this morning."
Charlotte frowned, sitting up as Kreacher deposited the tray across her lap and began pouring a cup of tea with a generous spoonful of sugar.
"What if we arranged for Miss Rosier and Miss Wilkes to accompany you to London? You could shop for your school things in Diagon Alley, perhaps get yourself a few treats?"
Charlotte blinked, "Treats?"
"Yes, dear. I know you've been after a few novels at Flourish and Blott's. I've written Mrs. Wilkes and Mrs. Rosier this morning to see if they're amicable to drop the girls off."
The air felt thinner.
Walburga had never offered to arrange a visit with Louisa and Wilhemina. Typically, she encouraged quite the opposite. She had called Wilhemina a blood traitor and insisted that Louisa was too promiscuous to keep in her company. After Charlotte had come home with fluorescent pink nail varnish in her fifth year, Walburga had banned her from spending the night away from home.
"Regulus told me everything."
The Mistress of House Black sat at the edge of her bed, crossing her petite heels.
Charlotte's fingers froze, poised over a piece of toast, "Told you what?"
Walburga's thin lips stretched into a smile as she pushed a crystal dish generously filled with jam towards her.
"There was never a reason to hide your relationship from me, Charlotte. Of course, I approve. You're like my own blood daughter. I couldn't be more pleased."
"You couldn't?"
Walburga's smile widened, "I am just so happy you've made this decision. It's for the best. You will have security with Regulus. He's been guaranteed a position with the Ministry if he passes his NEWT classes, and now, you won't have to take that position once you graduate."
Charlotte's jaw ceased chewing.
"It'd be a bit distasteful, frankly. Who would manage your home while Regulus is working?"
"Manage my home?"
Walburga's smile tightened, "Do you think it's so simple to keep an efficiently running home? Once you have children, you'll understand the work it takes."
"Children?"
"I am quite looking forward to grandchildren. They'll be gorgeous, I'm sure. With your eyes and Regulus's hair," Walburga's smile, for a moment, seemed genuine, "We need new faces on our tapestry."
New blood, Charlotte thought darkly.
"A witch's greatest gift to her husband, Charlotte, is children. An assured future for his bloodline. Regulus is our last opportunity to ensure the House of Black continues."
Charlotte wondered if Walburga forcefully forgot she had an elder son, who carried the same name. A son whom, she thought wryly, would have no difficulty spreading the family bloodline to the far reaches of Britain.
He'd certainly put in the practice.
"Eat up, dearest. Regulus has offered to escort you into London once you've come downstairs."
The toast in Charlotte's mouth tasted like sawdust as she chewed. She recalled Wilhelmina's words in the second-hand robe shop. The only deviation from her picture of the morning after Charlotte's descent into disgrace was that Kreacher had neglected to massage her toes. She certainly wasn't complaining.
When Regulus appeared, she was still distracted in thought, her mouth still overworking a piece of toast, her fingers crumbling its remains upon the china.
"I'm getting a pint with Lucius and the others in Knockturn Alley, while you and the girls shop," he began, and stopped as his eyes rested on her face, "Is it alright, then, if I tell them?"
"What did you tell your mother?"
Charlotte's eyes landed on his face, hovering on the sharp angles. She felt her cheeks color as she recalled the previous night, the way his thin lips had moaned her name.
"I told her that we're in love and want to be together."
"What about Sirius?"
Regulus's pewter eyes darkened, "What about Sirius?"
"She didn't ask for any explanation?"
"Mother doesn't like to hear about him, Charlie, and certainly not in conjunction with you."
"Then what did she say?"
The younger brother climbed into her bed alongside her, and Charlotte's eyes darted to the door.
"Mother wants us to marry after we graduate. She said we'll have your inheritance, and Father is going to make arrangements for us. She wants to plan it over the holiday."
Charlotte felt her stomach drop.
Perhaps it had been naïve of her to think Walburga would not immediately seize upon the opportunity when it landed on her lap. She did not, however, imagine it would happen so quickly.
"What did you tell her?"
Her voice cracked and Regulus turned, the grin dimpling his cheeks sliding away from its place.
"Charlie, this is what we wanted. We wanted to get out of here, didn't we?"
Charlotte nodded, eyes stinging.
Regulus crawled across her, his thumbs pressing against her cheeks.
"I'll be a good husband to you, Charlie-bell. I love you," his forehead pressed against hers, "It'll be okay."
"I'll never get to do anything."
She would never get to be anything.
There would be no applications to fill upon graduation. There would be no apprenticeship at the Ministry or the reopening of her father's apothecary.
There would be nothing.
"You'll get to be free," his nose pressed against her own, his breath smelling of spearmint and English breakfast, "We'll both be free."
Regulus's thumbs smeared the tears upon her cheeks as his pewter eyes bore into her own, and Charlotte's trembling breaths evened to soft hiccupping gulps.
"Do I really get to go to London by myself?"
A barking laugh escaped Regulus's mouth, and he leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. She tried to stifle the urge to stiffen as his lips moved against hers, his fingers lost in her hair.
"Yes, love, you get to go to London. Get dressed."
He slipped from the bed, taking the tray with him.
"Can I tell them, then?"
Charlotte blinked, "Tell them what?"
"That you're mine?"
Mine.
Not hers. Not her own.
His.
"Sure."
It was inevitable, after all.
In London, Wilhemina and Louisa gasped and laughed as she retold the events of the previous night. She recalled the noises of protest Antonin had made at Walburga's refusal to allow him upstairs to wish her goodnight; the way Walburga had hovered outside Regulus's door as his fingers combed through her hair while she read a book she had fished from his shelf.
They finished their tea and spent the afternoon rifling through books at Flourish and Blott's, until Charlotte had filled her basket with novels to last the first part of term and Wilhemina and Louisa had groaned their protest. She declined following them into the next dress shop, making her way across the alley to Slug & Jitter's, in search of the final school items from her NEWT Potion's list.
She filled her basket with jars and packets of mandrake root and boomslang skin and grimaced at the price of bezoars. Walburga had padded her coin purse that morning with a wink. Charlotte knew Mother wouldn't want her spending her extra galleons on ingredients for Potions, especially not for ones outside of her school list. She frowned as she let her finger drop.
Her eyes roamed the shop in search of the display of scale weights – Slughorn's measurements would require at least an additional three to be added to her set – until her eyes landed on a familiar dark-haired figure measuring lacewing flies.
"Severus?"
Charlotte rolled in bed until she met a warm figure, her arms stretching to envelope the firm body, and her face pressed into flesh.
"Severus?"
A familiar, large hand went to her hair. She felt his fingers slide through the locks as they came to rest at the base of her skull and lifted her head to meet his dark eyes.
"Good morning," she yawned, "How did you sleep?"
The wizard leaned down and pressed his lips against hers, his mouth hungry.
Charlotte did not protest.
She liked waking up in bed alongside the wizard, though it had grown infrequent. As the days and weeks passed, too often she woke alone in bed, listening to her husband descending the stairs to work in the basement. Whatever misgivings she had gathered to think a sabbatical meant actually taking one, Severus did not hold. He had replenished nearly all of their stores of potions and had begun brewing especially difficult concoctions with the excuse of sending them to Madame Pomphrey.
Apparently the Quidditch season had become especially brutal.
The scarring on her legs had reduced to silvery, webbed scars. Her right leg ached in the damp – which, in Spinner's End, was frequent and inevitable – but had otherwise resumed most of its mobility. She struggled with the stairs and occasionally the limb prickled as though it had fallen asleep, and her foot would feel as if it were merely dead weight.
Louisa was optimistic that would end after a few more weeks of exercises.
Severus separated from her to take a breath, and Charlotte suspected he would make his excuses to return to the basement. Madame Pomphrey had sent an owl requesting a new shipment of antiseptic, and Charlotte wondered how so many students managed to injure themselves with such frequency.
Instead, the wizard's hands slid down her silk nightgown to grip her thighs and pulled her forcefully over him until her knees straddled his hips. His mouth landed at her throat, and Charlotte felt her toes curl as his teeth scraped the skin beneath her jaw.
His hands spread, rising from her thighs to grip her waist, and his name escaped her lips as he sucked and nibbled at the flesh of her neck.
Charlotte felt his hand reach to grip the back of her head and pull her back to his hungry mouth, his tongue scraped against hers and she felt a familiar ache between her legs begin to grow. Through the thin fabric of her nightclothes, she could feel the flannel of his pajamas tighten against a forming bulge.
He rolled, pressing her back into the mattress, his knee firmly planted between her legs as he feasted upon her mouth.
Only when she was desperate for air did he separate, sitting up with sharp, harsh breaths through his nose.
The ache between her legs had grown to a painful degree and she pressed herself against the knee placed between her thighs, watching as Snape's eyes darkened to obsidian.
"Severus?"
Severus's jaw tightened and he slid from the bed, "Pomphrey needs that antiseptic this evening. Louisa will be here later to help with your exercises."
Charlotte felt her stomach drop.
"What?"
Too quickly, the wizard left the bedroom.
Six.
Charlotte's eyes burned.
Six times, he had made her ache and leave her wanting. Each time, he had a different excuse. Pomphrey needed potions. Horace had complained about another student. Moody had sent him another threatening owl. An Order member had information. The muggle post man had gotten stuck in the repelling charm.
Her personal favorite had been that he had left the stove on.
Perhaps he had been lying, she thought. Maybe her husband had found her repulsive.
Charlotte sniffed sharply through her nose as she sat up.
Her fingers went to her swollen mouth and she sunk her teeth into a loosened cuticle.
No, she reminded herself as she chewed, Severus wouldn't do any of those things if he found her repulsive, right?
Groaning, Charlotte slipped from bed and tested her leg. The skin prickled across her shin as she carefully applied her weight and scowled as she felt numbness gathering in her toes. Outside, a deluge of rain had started, pinging against the window glass.
Downstairs, she could hear Severus moving around in the kitchen. There was a characteristic metallic cling as he set the kettle on the stove and shuffling as he went through the cupboards. They were nearly out of tea, and Charlotte suspected his next excuse would be just that.
She dressed in a pair of Snape's sweatpants, and a loose t-shirt from his drawers. Her clothes, they had found, were too form-fitting for the exercises Louisa came to do with her each morning. Leather collected unpleasant amounts of sweat beneath her knees, and dragon-skin chaffed her legs.
Magic healed most maladies. It could weave together broken flesh and concrete together broken bones. Louisa had spent many afternoons in bed with Charlotte, attempting to discern what had made her wounds so difficult to heal. They had fallen to the same conclusion.
Fiendfyre.
Charlotte could recall the chimaera that afternoon as it had pressed into her shoulders, his fanged maw hanging over her head, dripping embers.
It was a particular favorite of Death Eaters, as it had been nearly impossible to extinguish once it had begun; each creature requiring its own incantation to dissolve to ash. Charlotte had watched it consume Diagon Alley during the war, and several homes of the Wizengamot.
She had watched it destroy her own.
Since adjusting their strategy for her wounds with such information in mind, the bloodied blisters of her legs had dissolved to silvery scars. A pitted, mangled mess had been left of her right leg, but Louisa was hopeful that with time, it would smooth away. Severus spent each night rubbing tins of salve into her flesh, pouring concoctions of his own making over the scars. Charlotte suspected it did little, but it appeared to give him something to do. He needed to feel useful, she reminded herself, just as she did.
Nor Louisa or Charlotte had ascertained how the fiendfyre could be born from memory alone. The spell was not one she had ever cast on her own, though she had learned it during her time serving the Dark Lord.
On the other hand, Severus believed the obscurus itself was responsible. That somehow, the smoke beneath her skin was learning.
It was getting smarter.
Charlotte heard Severus opening the door and the familiar lilt of Louisa's voice downstairs and shook her head. Quickly, she turned away from the mirror hanging above Snape's dresser and felt her foot catch on the rug. Her cane slipped from her fingers and she met the floor with an undignified yelp.
"Charlie?"
Thunder on the stairs sounded as she reached for the cane, feeling the numbness of her toes spread up her leg to hover just beneath her knee, like a too-tight sock.
Severus appeared first, his eyes wide as he caught sight of her sprawled on the floor in an attempt to reach the bedframe and hoist herself up, her other arm spread towards the cane, resting halfway beneath the dresser.
His hands fit beneath her arms and lifted her with ease. Once righted, his fingers smoothed over her back and hips, his eyes checking her face for any flinch or expression of discomfort.
"Are you alright?"
Louisa had evidently ditched her stilettos at the door, padding across the room barefooted with toenails painted in emerald varnish.
"My stupid foot went numb again and caught on the rug."
Severus glanced down at the curled edge of the rug and frowned.
"I dropped my cane and couldn't catch myself."
Louisa stooped to snag it from beneath the dresser, a sour expression on her face, "The numbness, is it gone now?"
Charlotte's eyes narrowed, "No, it's gone up my leg now. This is supposed to be getting better, Lou. We get up at the crack of dawn every morning to do these damn exercises because it's supposed to make it better. It's not getting better."
To her dismay, her eyes began to burn.
"I'm going to just be another one of those crippled women whose husbands don't touch them and die a spinster above the Leaky Cauldron with seventy-nine cats!"
Louisa blinked, "I'm not sure Tom would allow seventy-nine cats, nor do I believe you'd fit them all in with you without a hefty expanding charm."
"That's not the point!"
Her voice rose several octaves.
"When's this supposed to be over with, Lou? You keep saying weeks. It's been weeks. No, it's been months. If it isn't going to get any better, then tell me so I stop expecting it!"
Louisa sighed, "Charlie. It's going to get better. You nearly burned that leg off entirely. It's going to take time to heal. I don't suspect you'll become a spinster with too many cats. I suspect that by spring, it'll just be a bit of scarring."
Fat tears spilled over Charlotte's cheeks, "Spring? There's months left of this?"
"I don't like to give timelines for healing. It could be less than that, but in all honesty, it's taking longer than I expected it to. We don't often heal fiendfyre. I don't have anyone to ask at St. Mungo's, without it causing some suspicion. Severus and I have been researching this on our own, and I think that's taken longer than any of us wanted."
A sob escaped her lips, and she felt Snape's hands tighten around her waist.
"But I wouldn't lie to you about this, Charlie. You'll get better. I don't think you'll be a professional Quidditch player, but I suspect you've never explored that particular career path."
Severus smoothed a thumb over her cheek, catching tears as a cold laugh escaped her mouth.
"And, frankly, I've told you you're cleared for sexual activity. So, unless, Severus, you would like to have a chat about erectile dysfunction, I don't quite understand the delay."
Charlotte watched her husband's jaw tighten.
"It's actually my professional opinion that you ought to fuck your wife, Severus. Merlin knows she could use a good tumble."
Comic relief had always been Louisa's strong point, Charlotte recalled, as she watched Severus turn his head away from them.
"Am I no longer needed?"
His voice was tight.
"I've got everything from here. Put a pot of tea on, please! I brought some buns from the bakery near Finch Street. I suspected we might need them today, and I am often right."
Rolling her eyes, Charlotte reached up to smear tears across her cheeks as Severus left the room. She dropped to sit on the bed with a groan and glared at the blonde across from her.
"You really had to do that?"
Louisa smirked, "Of course."
Sitting next to her, the healer hoisted Charlotte's deadened limb to her lap. She made quick work of sliding up her pant leg to inspect the scarring, fishing her wand from a coat pocket.
Downstairs, Charlotte could hear the beginnings of the kettle being set on for a pot of tea. They were out of oolong, she recalled, with a soured mouth.
She disliked most herbal teas. Oolong had been her mother's favorite. Severus, on the other hand, preferred black tea. When she had eventually managed to venture down to the kitchen on her own, she had been surprised to find a large tin of oolong in the cupboard. Severus had disliked it, and the tin hadn't been particularly new.
It reminded me of you.
His words had vibrated through her cheek, her face pressed against the skin of his chest as she had asked him.
I missed you.
Charlotte was certain a colony of pixies had taken residence in her belly as her good foot's toes curled, recalling the way her cheeks had warmed at his words.
"Thinking of Snape naked? Would you like a moment to take care of yourself, or should we start your exercises?"
Her hand darted out to smack the blonde's arm.
As always, Louisa's routine began with stretching. A half hour of stretching, to be precise. She tried not to draw conclusions as the blonde repeatedly checked her pocket watch.
Each morning, she woke early to start her regimen with Lou. It was a hassle for her old schoolmate to travel from the city to Spinner's End every day before she began her shift at work. Lou had been promoted to the head healer's position in St. Mungo's maternity ward. Now blessed with regular working hours, she was no longer able to swap shifts with others at work to cover her if Charlotte needed her. Thankfully, she rarely did.
She could now go to the bathroom by herself and manage to walk short distances with the help of her cane. Though she sometimes still needed Severus to help her out of the tub, she could bathe herself without assistance.
After stretching, Louisa would hook a wide, large elastic band to the bed post and put Charlotte through a range of movements. She'd fit her foot into the band and have to stretch the band several times, until she broke into a light sweat and they moved to the other to give her right one a break.
Severus left the tea tray on his dresser with a grunt of acknowledgement of their thanks,.
Charlotte let her foot drop and lifted her hands to wipe the thin layer of sweat from her forehead, grimacing as her fingers came away wet.
"You were able to do twice the reps you did last week," Lou bit into a frosted bun studded with raisins.
She made a noise of agreement as she reached for the glass of water on her bedside table.
"What about the wand work? Any progress?"
A grimace crossed Charlotte's face, "Hardly."
Louisa chewed silently; her cornflower eyes focused on Charlotte's face.
Later, she would go down the stairs and receive a full report from Severus. It was a poorly kept secret between the two. Snape's basement door creaked too loudly, and the venting from his workspace lead directly through the washroom.
There, she had heard her husband tell Lou of her lack of progress. She had attempted, several days after the incident, to summon a blanket from the cupboard. It had promptly caught fire. The blaze had taken Severus several minutes to extinguish, and the repairs had taken hours. Each time she used her wand, an uncomfortable heat gathered beneath her skin like a fever. She had felt ill for days after, and since had kept her wand waving to an absolute minimum. Though she felt required to appease Snape when he requested demonstrations, she wondered if he could sense the hesitation bubbling through her.
The fear.
Her wand lay unused in the drawer, despite the increasing post from the Ministry of Magic, demanding her return. Mad-Eye had opted to demand her formal resignation, and Charlotte doubted he would accept it even if she had written it. The auror had thrown about words in his previous letters about "wasted finances" on her training and a "moral obligation".
No doubt lingered in her that Mad-Eye had simply recruited her for the position as a Hit Witch so that she could later be of use to the Order.
She was, to them, invaluable.
If the Dark Lord returned, though Albus insisted it was simply a matter of when, she would have unadulterated access to his Death Eaters. Though possession could be done without trinkets, it became more difficult the longer the distance stretched. For longer distances, she had required something – a pocket watch, a hairbrush, even a lucky knut someone had carried about in their pocket. Familiarity made things simpler. With Pettigrew, she recalled, she hadn't needed anything.
The Order would of course find such access useful. In the war, the Ministry of Magic had struggled to determine what areas were being targeted, who was wanted by the Dark Lord's ranks. In her hands, such information would be simple to obtain.
She wouldn't even have to ask.
Of course, Mad-Eye had not questioned the fallout to Charlotte. On a scale weighing such balances, she would rise every time.
"What if you attempted another possession?"
She flinched at the harsh stare Charlotte threw her.
"It worked last time, didn't it?"
"Who do you suppose would be willing to allow me to possess them?"
Lou shrugged, "I would."
Charlotte knew she offered without knowing the repercussions.
Every secret Louisa had ever kept would be unveiled to her possessor. Each nasty thought she had ever had creep into her mind, every distasteful word she had ever spoken, Charlotte would know. It was an offer to which the consequences would be too great.
Perhaps not to Lou, she thought.
Louisa would be almost entirely unaware of it occurring until afterwards. She would, perhaps, feel a bit of humiliation as she thought of something Charlotte had hovered too long over while exploring her mind. A second-hand disgust at her own behavior. A moment of guilt. Over time, it would dissipate to the sort of embarrassment one felt while reading a cringe-worthy chapter of a book.
For Charlotte, it would not be so simple.
It was not something she was particularly proud to admit, not even to herself. But as she had learned in her last breach of another's mind, she would judge Louisa for it. Her judgement would not be entirely consciously done. It would linger in her mind, and a piece of Louisa would come back with her.
She could start calling muggleborns "mudbloods" again or start an addiction to stilettos and gin.
The unknowns hovered there, and Charlotte was terrified of them.
"It isn't that simple."
Her words came sharply, and Louisa paused as she picked a raisin from her breakfast, rolling the dried fruit between her manicured, emerald fingernails.
"Then what about Severus?"
"What about Severus?"
The blonde shrugged, "You've possessed him before, loads of times. You used to practice on him."
It wasn't untrue. During her training, he had been the only viable option. A master of Legilimency and Occlumens, he had been the only one willing to allow her access to his mind, and the only one capable of withstanding her cracking into it. His mind was a comfortable, calming maze. She knew every turn and twist within it, and the echoing silence of its halls.
During the war, it had been her safe haven. A mind that was free of terror and hatred, Severus's brain had been like a cool bath. She had certainly picked up several of his traits – her preference for eagle feather quills, her distaste for lamb, her love of scalding hot showers.
The only thing she had inherited from Severus which had been met with chagrin was his dislike for chocolate. She could now only eat it in small quantities whereas previously she had gathered a reputation in their dormitory for hoarding Honeydukes chocolate bars in her wardrobe.
Charlotte scowled, "It would be different now."
"You know about every terrible thing he's ever done now. The two of you are so similar that you wouldn't necessarily take any unwanted traits back with you once it was through. Maybe you'd even get better at Legilimency or brew a better pot of tea."
Snorting, Charlotte rolled her eyes.
"Or maybe you would love yourself the way that he does."
Author's Note: Phew. This update took much longer than I ever expected it to. As some of you know, I was sick in December. By the time I finally got back onto my feet, we were given the news that my father-in-law has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. We immediately packed up the car and drove across the country to stay with him and my sister-in-laws to get him set up for chemo. Silver lining - I got to see my brother, who I hadn't seen since our wedding! After being there for over a month, it was time to return home but it took a few grueling long days in the car to get back and feeling terrible that we were leaving in the first place. I'm grateful that I don't work and get to be a full-time student. I've been accepted into grad school to begin in October and am doubling up on my classes to graduate in time to start! A big, full plate is in my hands.
However, this story will always be my happy place - and you, my lovely reviewers, bring me so much joy. Thank you so much for all of you who checked on me and shot me a DM, or left a lovely review. They mean the world to me. I am hoping for regular updates moving forward, but life happens to all of us. I hope you all are staying safe, warm, and healthy. Please check my profile for updates on when the next chapters will be up, I will be posting estimated dates there.
BRING YOUR HOUSE TO GLORY!
For every person that leaves their House in their review, you win five points towards the House Cup! Our bonus for this chapter of an additional five points will be for each review that mentions their House, and what their favorite subject at Hogwarts would have been had your letter not gotten lost in the owl post.
TPMW House Cup
Gryffindor - 295
Ravenclaw - 120
Hufflepuff - 200
Slytherin - 220