Chapter Thirty-Three
Louisa Rosier drummed emerald manicured fingernails against a scratched and worn table, her eyes unfocused on a stone basement wall. After finishing with Charlotte, she'd waited until the witch had fallen into a loose slumber – exhausted from her stretches – and descended to bring the wizard a cup of tea.
He hadn't touched it, of course. She'd sugared it from habit, and it lay tepid on the table in a chipped cup, losing its tendrils of steam.
Her shift at St. Mungo's did not begin until evening, and she was happy to avoid Dominick for a few hours. He had taken to having lunch at her house, and while it had been entertaining in the beginning, it was beginning to lose its luster. The wizard was a bit stifling, she thought, or perhaps she had simply become accustomed to living alone.
"I know you are not here to request antiseptic, Rosier."
Broken from her thoughts, she threw a puzzled glance to the wizard standing across from her perch. He carefully watched a cauldron bubbling in front of him, his finger still placed on a line in what appeared to be an ancient textbook.
"I talked to her about it, like you asked."
The potion master made a noise of acknowledgement, his eyes watching the mixture as it began to give off a particularly sterile odor she had begun to think of as reassuring.
Surely, she'd spent too much time at the hospital.
"Resistant, of course. I don't suppose you have any other terrible secrets she doesn't know that we could entice her with?"
Severus snorted.
"Bribery won't work. She's not particularly materialistic, despite my best attempts of conversion."
"Every person has a price."
Louisa rolled her eyes.
She wondered if the wizard was truly as obtuse as he appeared. Surely, she thought, he did not think he could offer Charlie a set of pearls or a new pair of shoes. Monetarily, she was rather certain that Charlie still surpassed Snape's wealth, despite what little income she had managed to wrangle from the Ministry and the large sum she had spent on Finch Street. There was accumulated wealth, and that which came from old, family money.
Charlie certainly was familiar with old money, having come from a reputable pureblooded family and widowed from another. Though, Lou couldn't recall if she had managed to inherit any of the Black estate other than what Regulus had left in their vault.
"I'm worried about her."
The wizard made a noise of agreement as he removed the cauldron from its burner.
"She lives in a bedroom. She's lived there for months. I can't imagine it's very entertaining, despite how many books she's managed to accumulate up there. There's not much to live for, and you said before that it feeds on that."
Severus's dark eyes met hers, and his jaw tightened.
"I know that's not what you'd like to hear. I like to see her happy, Severus, and I know you give her some of that happiness. But eventually this little bubble you've made for her is going to break. She'll remember that she's living a half-life – one without family, a career, something to look forward to."
"Charlotte has a family."
Louisa sighed, "You and I grew up differently than she did. She had wonderful parents. I spent summers at their house – my parents spent most of the summer traveling. They were the oddest family I'd ever stayed with. Charlie and her mother were best friends. Can you imagine going from that, to the Black's?"
She watched him give a final, quick stir to the cauldron before beginning to sort through jars of ingredients.
"She has to have something to look forward to."
A grim line formed on Snape's mouth.
"Why aren't you moving things forward? I can't imagine it's wonderfully comfortable to be this stagnant right now."
"We are not stagnant," growled the wizard.
"Then what would you call it? Two people who love each other, who are married, but don't tell one another that they love each other or plan for their future together? You aren't even having sex, which I'm certain you don't care to discuss with me, but that says something, Sev. If not to you, it definitely does to Charlie."
Severus scowled, and Louisa wondered if it was simply a default expression of his. She could perhaps count on one hand the times she had seen Severus Snape smile, and nearly all of them had been in the presence of Charlotte, aside from perhaps one time she had caught him hexing Sirius in the corridor at Hogwarts.
She blinked, "It isn't Sirius, is it?"
Narrowed eyes met hers.
"Oh, come on Severus. You can't still possibly be comparing yourself to Sirius Black," she snorted.
"I do not compare myself to Black," sneered Snape.
"You most certainly do – and it'll cause nothing but heartache for you and Charlie. Surely you see the difference between your relationships."
By his silence, Louisa judged he likely did not.
"Sirius was terrible to Charlie. Willy and I would go blue in the face telling her, but she wouldn't be told."
"Then why did she go back to him?"
So that was the root of it, Louisa thought. He'd watched Charlie marry Regulus and live to what appeared to everyone to be a happy, loving marriage and promptly after his death, returned to Sirius. From an outside perspective, she pondered, it likely looked that way from the surface. She'd spent hours questioning the decision herself.
However, she recalled there had been several missteps on Charlie's part before she'd ended up back in the grips of the eldest Black brother. There'd been Lestrange, the sociopathic drunk, and a drunken evening with Scabior. She'd watched the dark-haired witch drown herself in firewhiskey and cheap gin, laying in bed until her eyes became framed with pruned, violet rings. Too many evenings had she been fetched from St. Mungo's to come fish Charlie from the alleyway behind the White Wyvern and held her hair back as she sobbed until she vomited.
They were moments she had done her best to forget.
"She was lost, Sev. She was in pieces and he was just something familiar to cling to."
She watched his jaw clench.
"He was never good for her – he never knew how to love anyone but himself and his friends. I watched him put her aside at every opportunity. He made fun of her – he bullied her – until she starved herself and ruined her hair attempting to straighten it every morning."
Louisa was well-read on the days of Charlie and Sirius. Each morning, she'd woken up to Charlie plastering some new concoction she'd sent for, having seen it in Witch Weekly, into her hair in an attempt to straighten it. She'd skipped breakfast and lunch and nibbled on little more than salads and boiled chicken until she was flat-chested. That had created only new problems, to which had been resolved with push-up bras and inserts.
But then, Sirius would be caught in a corridor with some leggy blonde from Gryffindor, and instead of placing blame squarely on the sole person responsible, Charlie turned on herself.
It was not that Sirius Black was a loathsome boy who toyed with her feelings and basked in her unending attention. Now, she knew that he was simply an unloved child who hadn't known how to love others. But she would be a liar if she determined she had forgiven him. After all, Lou had watched the older Black brother destroy her friend, and she had hated him for it.
"He wanted her when he wasn't allowed to have her and then didn't when it was expected of him. Don't compare yourself to Sirius. The rationale of it all was lost to everyone but Charlie."
Severus scowled.
"She was willing to risk everything for him that day in London," he muttered, "She would have, if I hadn't stopped her."
"I've always been a bit curious about that."
His eyes narrowed at her, "About what?"
"Why you put yourself in between those two then. It wasn't as if it were any benefit to you. At that point, the Dark Lord was gone, and Charlie wasn't useful to you anymore."
She watched him turn to return ingredients to a cupboard. He remained silent, and Lou resumed drumming her fingernails along the table.
Louisa wondered how it had to have felt.
At Hogwarts, she'd watched Severus frequently offer to help Charlie study or review her essays for Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts. She'd seen him watching her at Quidditch matches and lingering outside the common room when Charlie had snuck off to be with Sirius in the Astronomy Tower. Too often, she'd heard of Snape making excuses to visit her while Regulus was away. She'd watched the girls he'd brought up the stairs at Malfoy Manor change from fire-haired to those with shades of espresso.
Of course, she had wanted to be wrong.
Louisa had not wanted to think of Severus Snape and Charlie together. She'd been too satisfied in the easy smiles crossing the dark-haired witch's face with Regulus's ring on her finger. Warmth had spread through her each time the stocky wizard had pressed a kiss to Charlie's forehead, and giddiness had filled her belly as Charlie had gained weight and let her hair grow into its waves.
Under Regulus's blinding light, Charlie had stopped trying so desperately to be loved.
She hadn't wanted to think of someone else filling Regulus's space when he had been so terribly perfect.
When Severus had stepped in after Reg died, relief had flooded her. Guiltily, she had been thankful for someone else to share the burden of Charlie's grief. Lou had watched him transform Charlie from a broken, fitful creature sitting on the cusp of alcoholism to a calculating, calm witch. Under Severus, the Death Eaters had respected Charlie – they'd watched over her. Whether it was fear of Snape's wrath should they not or genuine respect, Louisa had not thought too hard over.
Though, she thought now, she wondered how severely Severus had threatened them.
"Charlotte's abilities secured my position with the Dark Lord. Beyond that, she lost any usefulness to me. I simply wanted her."
Lou blinked.
"You've forgotten I am a Legilimens, Rosier."
"You meant to tell me, Severus, that for years you thirsted after Charlie and did absolutely nothing about it? I never judged you for an imbecile, Severus."
The wizard's jaw clenched, and she watched a vein begin to work in his forehead.
"Why didn't you do something sooner?"
She found her voice rising several octaves.
"Excuse me?"
"All those years – why didn't you do anything? Regulus all but handed her to you. He told me you'd promised to take care of her. The second they showed up at that house, you should've told her everything."
Severus raised a brow, "With her dead husband's body still warm?"
"Charlie and Reg had a bizarre, platonic friendship that occasionally resulted in sex when Charlie felt sorry for him. I would've loved Charlie to have loved Regulus, but she didn't. But she was right there, and you didn't swoop in?"
Indignation filled her.
How many evenings had she spent the night sleeping alongside Charlie as she sobbed into her pillows? There had been grief for Regulus. Charlie was anything but heartless. But it had been a heavier grief that had sent her to firewhiskey, Lestrange and Scabior, and then back to Sirius.
It had been the loss of a dream.
"She went back to Sirius," spat the wizard suddenly, "You think it wasn't horrifically obvious? Lestrange may have been willfully ignorant – or perhaps he simply didn't care – but I knew!"
"She was lonely!"
Severus let loose a harsh laugh, "Lonely? Charlotte wasted all of what, perhaps, a few months before she went looking for him. How kindly, do you think, he took to the Dark Mark on her arm?"
Louisa knew how kindly he had taken it.
She knew that he'd thrown a bottle of firewhiskey in their room of the Leaky Cauldron and had screamed at Charlie for hours. He'd called her a traitor and a murderer. Lou had found her the next morning, curled into a ball on the floor with her eyes filled with broken blood vessels.
"I routinely risked my life for her, and what did she do? She went back to Black. But when he was gone and Karkaroff named her, she came to me."
Louisa's mouth tightened.
"She came here and slept with me, and it meant absolutely nothing to her," he spat, "Do excuse me if I choose to refrain from repeating what I suffered after she left."
For a moment, the room appeared to freeze.
"What?"
Severus's breaths were leaving him in harsh, erratic pants. Louisa doubted she had ever seen him so disheveled. It was not like Severus to be caught in his own emotions.
"You slept together? Like had sex?"
"Do you think we had a fucking nap?"
There had been a moment, before they'd gone for their hen night, she remembered. Charlie had mentioned going to Snape's after Karkaroff's trial, but she had said she couldn't remember much detail beyond that.
Lou, I was drunk, and I really doubt anything happened.
"I agreed with Dumbledore's idiotic plan because I had finally had her. Then, she tells me we're just friends. She doesn't even remember. Do you understand how that feels? I'd wanted her and watched everyone else have her – I'd listened to Lestrange's disgusting commentary about her – and then I finally had her and she didn't even want me!"
His chest heaved as he spoke, his eyes wild.
It made sense now, Louisa thought.
She, admittedly, could not understand how it could feel. She had never wanted any one for any particularly long amount of time. But she wondered how painful it would have been – to have wanted someone and cared for that person, protected them and watched over them, only to be considered an afterthought.
Lou was familiar with feeling like an afterthought.
She swallowed.
"Tell me, what happens when I stop being useful to her?"
Her mouth opened to respond and closed.
"She told me to love her – like I haven't for years – and that she loves me. But do you know why? Because she thought I needed a reason to let her stay. She didn't want to be alone!"
Oh Charlie, Louisa thought wearily, that foolish, stupid girl.
"You know that isn't entirely true, Severus."
The wizard snorted, turning to grab a set of vials.
"Charlie loves you. I know that she does."
He remained silent, sorting through a box of corks. Louisa watched the tremor in his hands as he worked and wondered if she had ever seen Severus Snape look so unnerved.
He'd said more to her in the last half-hour than he had likely done the entirety of their strange, bizarre alliance.
Of course, Severus was not who Louisa would have chosen for Charlie. He was everything Regulus had never been. Where Regulus had been warm and loving, Severus was cold and reserved. In every way, he was an unsuitable match for her friend. But at the root of it all, Louisa thought, no one had ever loved Charlie the way Severus loved her. In his love for her, he was patient. He was perhaps not kind – she doubted Severus was ever purposefully kind – but he could be thoughtful. Each time he'd gone into London, he'd returned with a stack of books for his wife. He'd bought her comfortable pajamas and brewed her favorite tea, despite detesting it himself. During the war, he had certainly sacrificed for her.
In turn, Charlie needed a man like Severus.
Whereas she could be hot-headed and too spontaneous, Severus was cool and calculating. If she stacked everything together, on parchment it was an oddly perfect match.
But in reality, she thought, it had become a mess of massive proportions.
There had likely never been a couple who struggled with communication to the depth to which Charlie and Severus struggled. Each thought the worst of themselves, and each other. They doubted each step forward and questioned every purpose and intention.
In a perfect world, she thought, Severus could have imaginably told Charlie in the beginning he had liked her. Perhaps during their years at Hogwarts, she wouldn't have reciprocated immediately. But maybe, then, there would've been a larger voice of reason. A different option could've changed things. The storm that had been Charlie and Sirius's relationship, perhaps, would not have dragged on for as long. In a different world, she could've made gagging noises as Charlie described losing her virginity to Severus, instead of cringing the way she had when she'd described it with Sirius.
Perfect worlds were impossibilities, Louisa knew.
But they were heart-wrenching to think about.
"In seventh year, when you started writing to her at Hogwarts, she'd stay up all night writing her reply to you. She'd go through half a package of parchment scratching so much of it out. She said she didn't want you to think she was stupid."
Severus paused.
"She was upset when you never met up again that summer, and when you stopped writing. She cried when you didn't come to her wedding."
Louisa shifted.
It felt like a betrayal, to spill her friend's secrets.
Charlie would forgive her for it, she thought, for this.
"Whenever you would come to meetings at their house, she would make me come over to help her pick out what to wear. Once, she thought she'd gained some weight, and made me tie her into a corset."
A smile pulled at her mouth, recalling the way Charlie had squawked as she pulled the corset strings back, demanding the blonde pull them tighter.
"After that night, she sent me to bring you to Malfoy Manor. Do you remember?"
Louisa had spent most of the evening attempting to remember which flat was Snape's before she'd broken down and dragged her brother from his bed to help her. Severus had answered the door, half-drunk, and Lou had promptly abducted him. At the Malfoy Manor, she'd shoved him into the bedroom where Narcissa was changing Charlie's bandages, and heard her friend sob in relief.
"She didn't want anyone but you. At that point, she could've asked me to get Sirius and I would've brought him for her – I'd have brought her Dumbledore in magenta pajamas, if I could have. But she wanted you, Severus."
Louisa picked at a deep scratch in the table.
"I don't think she's always thought of you as useful. I also don't think she only told you that she loves you because she's afraid of being alone. It's true – Charlie hates to be alone – but you didn't see her on the nights you didn't come back with the others after a raid. You didn't see the silly, small pieces that no one ever thought to mention."
"Then tell me."
His voice was soft and quiet, and a smile pulled at her mouth.
"She saved the paperweight you helped her pick out for Regulus when he got promoted. Of all the things in that house she could've salvaged, it was the one thing she kept in her pocket. She still has it – it's in her dresser at Finch Street. She kept that picture of you at the White Wyvern – the one with you and my brother – and doesn't wear red because she knows you hate it."
Severus paused in his sorting of corks, his shoulders stiff.
"When she left, she cried for weeks. Once, you left a set of pajamas at Finch Street, and she wore them around the house every day."
Louisa wondered if any of it mattered.
They were all tiny, obscure things.
The only one she knew he would care about would be the one Charlie would potentially be the most upset over.
She sighed, and decided it was worth the fall out. She could bribe Charlie later, she thought, with crystalized pineapple and a bottle of firewhiskey.
"Cian – Cian Dearborn? They got drunk together at the Leaky Cauldron about a year ago. Absolutely plastered, and he kissed her. I'd told her before to go for it. But she cried afterwards, and I had to take her here. We sat on the sidewalk outside until it was nearly morning. It was summer, and she wouldn't let me take her home until she saw you in the kitchen window."
Severus stiffened.
"I don't think someone does that for someone they just think is useful. I think people do that when they're sickeningly in love with another person they're upset with – who they think they couldn't ever have. I don't think Charlie ever thought she could have you – anyone, really. When you're so irrevocably focused on surviving, you stop thinking about trying to make yourself happy.
Louisa smiled.
"Sometimes, Severus, it's all between the lines."
Author's Note: Hello lovelies! Welcome back to regular updates! I've just finished writing Chapter 36, so we're definitely on a roll. I was gifted a large box of wax melts in Harry Potter scents from L3 Waxy Wonders and they have stoked the fires of my writing brain. I'm happy to be writing again. Thank you all so much for your sweet reviews. They really make my day. I'm glad you all are staying safe and healthy, and hope you continue to do so!
Warning: Chapter 34 will be posted later today (02.26.2021). It is pure, unadulterated smut. If you don't like to read smut, you can definitely skip over it without missing too much from the storyline and I'd be happy to give anyone a plot summary if you DM me. I have also not written any smut in a VERY LONG TIME, so please don't hate me for it! I'm looking for a smut beta reader but have come up pretty empty-handed at this point.
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