Chapter Thirty-Seven
Severus willed his legs to move at a tempered, even pace. His shoes sloshed through the swamp surrounding the Weasley home. Frigid water squelched between his toes.
Somewhere in the reeds, he could hear her.
Rattling, ragged breaths left her as she tripped and clambered over the softened mud of the marsh. He imagined her numbed foot catching on every stone, twisting on every tree root. In his chest, his heart hammered an uneven rhythm, his eyes flickered back to the lopsided house behind them.
Distance.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
He was not so unobservant to see that Dearborn and Lupin had followed them from Molly and Arthur's front door. They had watched as Charlotte dropped her cane on the frosted lawn and lurched forward, her hands pressed over her nose and mouth.
A conscious effort to create distance.
The air was thinly scented with the smell of woodsmoke. While innocent enough perhaps on its own, the odor was unnerving in the wet, damp marsh around the Burrow. It made the hairs on his arms raise to points; a different chill bathed over his skin.
When the reeds cleared, he allowed himself to think back to her words at Molly's table.
Nightmares did not seem an accurate depiction.
They seemed paltry.
Trivial.
Nightmares did not make vomit rise in his throat in panic until he swallowed rapidly against the impending sick. It did not make his breath stutter in his lungs as he took in a breath of air that smelt of roasted flesh and soot.
A simple child's worry did not swallow the whites of his wife's eyes with pitch until nothing but a ring of bronze remained. It did not send blood dribbling from her nose to linger with the thick, black fog dripping from her nostrils. Nightmares did not cause the Dark Lord's possessor to rake her fingernails down her forearms in jagged, red lines as she sucked in ragged, stuttering breaths.
Severus was not ignorant to believe that the sight of her would cause his former associates some discomfort. Plenty had been muttered in their rank of then, Charlotte Black. She was immoral. A sociopath. Heartless. Cruel.
Perhaps it should have bothered him that he looked at her and saw nothing but great and terrible beauty.
The air crackled with lighting embers, but her jaw was tight and firm. She blinked rapidly as she took gulping, shuddered breaths.
Charlotte was arguably the oldest obscurial ever documented. Though the circumstances surrounding the parasite's birth in her body were certainly not in alignment with the children normally plagued by such beasts. It was no strange curiosity to him, but a reminder of the choices he had made to stand in the Weasley's marsh in the dead of winter, watching his wife struggle against a foe he could not simply murder.
She was the oldest obscurial because Severus doubted that any other witch or wizard he had known in his life would have survived as long. He doubted the thin bands of their sanity would have tolerated such unending strain.
Charlotte survived because her body had become a vessel for her suffering. It had acclimated to each bone that broke under the parasite's will. She had the tolerance for pain that would have disturbed him further, had it not become so useful. Her mind had taken it and used it as a whetstone.
There was little resemblance to the witch he had watched be dragged through the streets of London on her knees to beg for her life.
Or the one who had peered over his shoulder in the forbidden section of the library in Hogwarts.
Lucius Malfoy, certainly, would not have run through marsh waters in December on a maimed leg in an attempt to create enough distance between himself and the Weasley home to reduce the possibility of damage, or injury to its occupants.
Severus was not certain that he would have, either.
His wife's lips moved in quick, rapid whispers.
On some nights, when she had grown tired of her exercises with Louisa or irritable at her involuntary leave, he could hear her pacing the hallway outside their bedroom door. If he had been a different man, her excited, rapid whispering in the dark would have made his blood run cold.
Instead, he had laid in their bed and listened to her war against the parasite in her body. He wondered if it was a conscious being – if it spoke to her in her own mind like a true hallucination or if it were rather simply a feeling.
I have a family.
I have a home.
I have friends.
A constant chant of conviction left her lips.
His shoes sloshed through the frigid water, his numbed toes cramping. He ignored the tiny sparks of pain as embers blew against his face in the chilled air. When he reached her, he did not hesitate to wrap his arms around her violently trembling figure and tuck her freezing, wet body into the confines of his coat. He did not flinch when her obsidian eyes lifted to his face.
His hands slid up to cup her cheeks, his thumbs brushed beneath the eyes of pitch to smear the mascara-tainted tears across her cheekbones. She was not terrifying to him, not even as he breathed in the faint smell of fiendfyre. It was a different smelling smoke, one that crackled with something sinister and cloyingly sweet.
With each trembling, bubbling breath through her running nose, he watched the black of her eyes leak away.
"There you are," he murmured, fixing his botched job of removing the smeared mascara from her cheeks, "Are you ready to return home?"
Her forehead dropped to his chest, her muscles softening.
"I'm sorry," her voice whimpered.
Severus ignored the cold that had numbed his toes, the faint mildew smell that lingered in the swamp, and the panting breaths somewhere in the reeds of Lupin and Dearborn, hopefully, lost and disoriented in the rising fog.
"There's nothing to be sorry for," he pressed his lips to her hair, "Nothing for you to be sorry for."
Her cane was discarded somewhere on the Weasley's lawn. Charlotte's thin body leaned into him like dead weight, and a brief lingering touch to her hip discovered the reason for her trembling.
Adjusting his coat, Severus stooped to wrap his arms around the backs of his wife's thighs. Her arms instinctively circled his neck. A cold nose pressed against his collarbone as she buried her face into the warmth beneath his coat. Snape's mouth twitched in satisfaction at the soft sigh that slipped from her reddened lips and knew the words she would speak before she spoke them.
"You smell nice," Charlotte murmured.
Perhaps he should have cared. On paper, Severus Snape knew he ought to be concerned that Lupin and Dearborn were likely utterly lost in the reeds. As a member of the Order of the Phoenix, he had sworn to look after his associates within its rank. More so, he had promised Albus. Their disoriented footsteps filled his ears, but he felt nothing but warm, tingling satisfaction.
For the first time in many years, he had listened to Charlotte stand her ground. More so, she had been utterly defiant. As he adjusted his grip on his wife, Severus tucked Mad Eye's expression at the Burrow table in a crevice of his mind for another day as he apparated home.
One when he desired great amusement.
"I threatened to blow up Azkaban," Charlotte whispered after their arrival at Spinner's End.
Severus snorted as he side-stepped through the gate, watching Charlotte's dripping boots narrowly miss the iron latch, "Not an altogether bad idea."
Charlotte tucked herself further into his coat as he took the walkway to the front door, his arms comfortably snug around her legs. In the house, he hesitated to deposit her on the kitchen counter, his feet not willing to take the few steps away from her shivering body to fetch her a towel in the hall closet. Instead, he kicked off his squelching shoes and padded up the stairs in soaking socks that squeaked on every step. Severus deposited Charlotte upon the toilet in their bathroom, moving to strip her from her wet clothes. The odor of mildew, now in the heated house, assaulted his nose as he unlaced her boots swiftly and pulled them from her legs.
"Am I making a mistake?"
Her voice mumbled across the tiled bathroom as he adjusted the faucets to a steaming stream.
His jaw tightened.
For weeks, they had discussed options for the future. Severus understood now. His wife wanted – needed – to see a future for herself. She needed to have a tangible goal in front of her to hold onto as she fought the beast inside her. Severus had been unable to promise her a family – at times, he doubted Charlotte would be capable of childbirth after the obscurus was finished – but he could give her a life filled with the things she had hoped for as a young girl.
Things like a home, a business, a job.
Things like love.
Albeit a quiet kind.
The Fraser Apothecary had been a simple resolution. Charlotte had been left the deed to the property in Walburga's will. Though there was little but a charred shell remaining of her family's legacy, there were enough resources to build it back.
After all, he thought wryly, it was what she had wanted to do. He had lost count of the times Charlotte had changed her mind as to what she planned to do after graduation. There had been the apprenticeship through the Ministry, which had disappeared under Walburga's watchful eye. Upon graduation, of course, all her options had disappeared the moment the Blacks posted an announcement of their son's engagement to the Fraser girl.
She had become a trophy.
A pedestaled, shining object left beneath the glaring light of the sun until she tarnished and discolored.
Research had been conducted quietly, while she lived out her sentence in their bedroom. Snape had gone to several of his older contacts, and a few more newly acquired. He was not surprised to see that with a few, shrewd encouragements laced with thinly veiled threats, most of his contacts had agreed to open contracts with Charlotte, should she reopen her father's apothecary. There would be a small, respectable income after the first few years. He did not doubt that under Charlotte's care, the apothecary would flourish. Fraser Apothecary had been known for decades as the premier vendor in Knockturn Alley for anything related to brewing.
With a small arsenal of counters to any possible excuse he thought Charlotte could imagine, he had partnered with Louisa.
Severus had expected protests.
He had expected resistance.
Hesitance, perhaps.
He had not quite expected for his wife to burst into tears and throw her arms around him, sobbing thanks between questions. Was he sure? Was it really alright?
Perhaps then, he had known how thirsty Charlotte Fraser had become. Dehydrated from her battles, she wanted just a sliver of promise for something better. Something that would be worth it all, in the end.
An opportunity to prove herself capable.
For several days, she had holed herself up in the burnt remains of her family's legacy. With Louisa, they had hatched together plans.
Severus was arguably surprised at the efficiency she had concocted. Shelves were organized by category and alphabetically, much like he kept his stores at home. An open office for brewing in front of a large picture window for eyes to peer into from the street. In addition to the long list of ingredients she had hatched together with him, she would offer a few simple brews. Pepper up potions and salves – things her father had taught her to brew when she barely stood at his knees.
Paired with her knowledge of being an apothecary owner's daughter, her marriage to a potion's master had given her a unique perspective. It glimmered through in her business plan, her organization, the ingredients, and the prices for which she would offer them. But the hard work and dedication were her own. As was the tiny sparkle in her eyes, the quiet bounce to her step as she kissed his cheek and darted out the door with Louisa to spend another afternoon in Knockturn Alley.
"No," Severus answered, "You're not making a mistake."
Severus doubted a better decision had ever been made.
He kissed her forehead as he helped her into the shower.
After weeks of Charlotte being able to shower independently, he indulged himself in her company. It mattered little that the tub was obviously not built for two grown adults. He didn't require personal space. Thick scents of rosemary and peppermint filled the steaming room as he lathered his wife's hair and scrubbed tiny bits of marsh algae from between her toes. His lips pressed against her skin as he worked, tracing the silvery scars on her body like they were magnetized.
Snape bundled his wife into a towel and carried her to their bedroom, ignoring her giggling protests that she could walk on her own. He liked the solid weight of her in his arms, a quiet reminder that she was – despite what had been said at the table – getting better. Healthier.
He dressed her in his clothes, the nightgowns from Madam Malkin's forgotten in the chilly January air.
Severus had discovered she was more alluring in his clothes, anyway.
By the time he turned to dress and return to bed, Charlotte had procured his copy of the Daily Prophet and had shoved her nose into one of her infernal romance novels. As he slipped between the sheets, her legs moved to tangle themselves around his. A hum of satisfaction left her, and his mouth twitched as he opened his paper.
"When are you opening?"
Charlotte's head tilted, her eyes focusing on their closed bedroom door.
It wasn't until Louisa mentioned moving back to Finch Street that Severus discovered her hesitation in returning to the grand London home. Severus, she said, did not have a basement at Finch Street. He would have to return to Spinner's End to do his work. Charlotte, she argued, liked having her husband close by. She liked climbing down the stairs to bring him steaming cups of tea and help him measure ingredients.
In turn, he was surprised to enjoy her company there. Severus did not often enjoy brewing with others. But he did not need to guide or instruct Charlotte. She reached for things as soon as the thought entered his mind, went to the cabinet to replace things before he asked.
Perhaps it could be stocked up to how often they spent milling about in each other's minds through occlumency and legilimency.
"Not until May or June, I think," Charlotte mused, her voice thoughtful, "Louisa and I picked out fixtures yesterday, but they're back-ordered. So are the shelves I wanted."
Her nose wrinkled, "I suppose I could've picked others, but I really liked them."
When Louisa offered to assist Charlotte in redesigning the Fraser Apothecary, Severus had worried the healer would take control. Louisa was, admittedly, a talented decorator. Charlotte's home in London was a testament to that, as was her own home.
But he wanted the Fraser Apothecary to be entirely and utterly Charlotte's. He wanted her eyes to light up anytime someone complimented the shop. He wanted her to be able to claim every credit that was due to her.
Charlotte, he mused to himself with a smirk, had a bit of a praise kink.
"Why did you like them?"
As he listened to her leap into an excited, adamant explanation of the ingenuity of her shelf selection – they had built-in drawers – he couldn't help the feeling of warmth filling his gut.
She was happy.
His wife liked going to Knockturn Alley every damned, frigid day to sit on the soot-covered floor and spread out catalogs and paint samples. Her dimpled smile was on full display when she returned home each evening, despite the tiredness in her eyes and the stiffness in her leg.
"I want to see it before I go back to Hogwarts," Severus leaned over to adjust the blanket over her legs.
Charlotte's mouth twisted in a grimace, "But it's a mess. They've only just finished the flooring and there are paint samples on all the walls."
Severus snorted.
"How terrible," he mused, humor in his voice, "Paint samples. Scandalous."
He watched Charlotte's face spread into incredulity, "Are you making fun of me?"
An indignant noise left her mouth as she lunged across the mattress at him. Severus dropped his copy of the Prophet to the floor as she climbed into his lap. Her wiggling fingers affixed themselves against his ribcage.
Severus had never been ticklish a day in his life.
He raised a brow at her.
"You're so mean," Charlotte huffed, leaning back on his thighs, and crossing her arms.
He reached out to tuck a lock of damp hair behind her ear, "How awful for you."
Charlotte rearranged herself until she was laying on top of him. She tangled their legs together as she wrapped her arms around his torso. Her face pressed into the space above his collarbone. Soft breaths ruffled his hair.
"Read your stupid paper, Sev," Charlotte grumbled, "I'm not moving. This is your punishment."
Leaning to fetch his paper from the floor, he smirked.
As he shook it out to locate his abandoned article, he felt her shift over him into something more comfortable. After several minutes, the ruffling at his hair evened. Her chest rose and fell with unhindered, silent sleep.
When his eyes grew tired, he tucked the newspaper into his nightstand drawer. He waved his wand at the overhead light and let darkness blanket the bedroom.
During Charlotte's absence, he left the bedroom largely unchanged. He had, after a time, replaced the bedding after an unfortunate incident with his tea, but the room had otherwise remained the same as she had left it. He could, in those moments, pretend that she was simply spending the night away at Louisa's. The loss of her ached less. When Charlotte began to change things once more, at first, he was resistant. He didn't want a new mattress or new drapes.
But as months progressed from summer to fall and then into winter, their bedroom changed with it. It was practical, he thought. She had decided to remain at Spinner's End while he was home and would return to Finch Street after he went back to Hogwarts. It was only natural that she wanted their home to be comfortable and to her tastes.
He was most surprised when she replaced the tartan bedding. It had been something of a peace treaty between them – an understanding.
Now, an dark olive linen duvet covered a thick, fluffy comforter. The silvery drapes were replaced with natural linen curtains. His dark bedroom came alive with tiny houseplants, sunlight, and the glowing, dimpled smile of his wife.
Severus was a practical man. He cared little about what his home looked like, as long as it was functional. He didn't look into frivolous things like bedding or curtains. They were just fabric. But he could admit that they meant something to Charlotte. To his wife, they were a new leaf being turned over. A promise that she was staying. Quiet promises were spun between every fiber.
In the dark, he drank in the smell of his peppermint and rosemary shampoo coming from her hair and the softer, subtle scent of citrus and mild florals. A perfume he had purchased for her, under the advice of Louisa, for Christmas. It replaced the memory of cloying orange that hovered in the peripheral of his memory. The smell of cooked flesh.
Severus ran his hands over her damp hair, his fingers cautiously untangling a few snarls that caught themselves in her waves and had been missed by her quick brushing.
Two weeks were all that remained of his sabbatical. Soon, he would be boarding the Hogwarts Express with his students to return to the castle. Though Severus asked Charlotte to stay home, he knew she would be waiting downstairs to take him to the train station herself. Her sweet, patient smiles as he reminded her of how icy and cold it was becoming were enough evidence to support the thought.
For the first time in many years, Severus found himself dreading the return.
Hogwarts had once been home. He liked his quarters in the castle dungeons, tucked away from the noise of the upper halls and within a short walk to his House's dormitories should the need arise an appearance. The house elves at the castle knew how he took his tea in the evenings, even if they did ignore his insistence that he did not require ginger biscuits.
Though he couldn't consider any of the other professors as anything more than colleagues, he had friendly relationships with them. Pomona, in particular, liked to come to discuss the stores of the hospital wing with him and debate the efficacy of newly developed brews. Filius enjoyed telling a particularly irritating series of jokes, claiming that he had never seen Severus laugh. On some evenings, Minerva would join him in the teacher's lounge for grading.
Most of Snape's friends were dead. He was left with a handful. Malfoy. Before several months ago, Dolohov. Scabior. Rookwood. But they had little in common beyond being Death Eaters. Rookwood was a Secret Keeper for the Ministry. Scabior… Severus wasn't sure what Scabior did and was less sure that he wanted to know. Dolohov was, evidently, a rapist who had once set his eyes upon his wife. And Malfoy, he thought with a wry smile, was a glorified peacock.
It was intensely amusing, how the wizard visibly flinched each time Narcissa mentioned inviting Charlotte over for tea.
Over the last few months, he found himself becoming closer to Louisa Rosier and by association, Dominic Avery. He had dutifully gone with Charlotte for dinner at Louisa's home several times. They spent Christmas at the Rosier home, while Severus tried to keep his irritation from showing too readily on his face. Lupin was becoming a regular fixture at Spinner's End, and Severus found that he was less irritating than he remembered in their school years.
Things would be changing soon, he thought, as he combed his long fingers through Charlotte's hair.
By opening Fraser Apothecary, Charlotte would have to return to the world she had left. Tea with Narcissa would become a regular fixture in her schedule. She would have to be seen, often, in their former circles. Her survival – on both ends – depended upon it.
It was evident to him that the Order was never going to permit Charlotte to simply walk out the door untethered to them. The risk her obscurus posed was too great. If the Dark Lord returned, and Severus was uncertain that he would, he would presumably call his possessor back to his side. Charlotte was a well-used, familiar weapon. He would notice her absence if she refused his call. He would kill her for it.
She was arguably safer with the Order than the Dark Lord, even if their prior actions left a sour taste in his mouth.
The usefulness of Fraser Apothecary to the Order – and Alastor - was clear. During the war, Knockturn Alley was an impenetrable place. Illegality and unscrupulous behaviors were bred in the shadows just beyond Diagon Alley. By the resurrection of her family's old shop, Charlotte could establish a foothold there. If the need arose, she would be able to provide them the doorway the Order had once desperately searched for.
But for that to occur, Charlotte needed to put on a familiar pair of shoes. She could no longer be seen keeping company with the people she had grown close to over the last two years. Molly Weasley would no longer be permitted to floo into Spinner's End with a tin of biscuits. Remus could not join Charlotte for a pint of butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron.
There would be time permitted, of course, for her to continue those friendships. She could travel to the Burrow when she pleased or have Remus over for a pint at home. There would be an adjustment, he thought, but it wasn't one she wasn't willing to make. The business with Alastor and Dearborn had made her perspective of the Order gritty and unpleasant.
She was ready to return to something with familiarity. The life she had before.
Louisa was positively fucking gleeful, he thought with a grimace.
The healer would no longer be hindered in her attempts to drag his wife into London for hen nights with the other girls from their school years. They could have tea at the Malfoy Manor and stare at Lucius's albino peacocks, eat overpriced cucumber sandwiches, and talk about whatever witches talked about for hours. Lou had even convinced Charlotte to start wearing the same infernal fucking stilettos she wore, despite the obvious hazard they had to his wife's well-being.
Even if they did make her legs do something to his gut.
Worry still fizzed beneath his skin. In two weeks, he would be in Scotland and Charlotte would be back in the house on Finch Street. She would have a different set of rules. A new chessboard to maneuver through, with pieces that weren't as familiar as they had once been.
Severus felt his eyes begin to droop. His arms wrapped around Charlotte's torso, and he tucked her head beneath his chin. A sleepy, soft sigh left her mouth and warmed his neck.
He didn't want to go, he realized stiffly. Home wasn't at Hogwarts anymore. It wasn't even at Spinner's End. It was laying beneath the soft, warm body of his wife as she mumbled three sleepy words into his ear.
"I love you."
Author's Note
I'm back!
*crickets*
I'm not sure anyone reads this anymore. Life has been a bit crazy in the Kestrel household. I have graduated with my undergrad degree and decided, foolishly, to begin my master's program in Psychology. I am a masochist. Grad school is a nightmare, but I'll manage! I hit a wall last year between school burnout, feeling like nothing was very fun anymore, and being tired all the time. Trusty depression reared its head again and I think I've just managed to scoot myself out of that doorway back into the real world.
In sixteen hours, I have written several thousand words for TPMW! The gears are turning again, even if they are a bit crusty and in need of some oil. I hope you enjoyed this chapter of #Snarlie! For my own mental well-being, I am not promising a specific time frame for the next update. There are four chapters written after this one, so some progress has been made! I no longer have a beta reader, so I will be editing as I go. Please bear with me if you see any grammatical errors. Grammarly doesn't do what humans do, and my writing brain is freshly dusted.
At some time, I will recalculate the House Cup points. No bonus points for this chapter.
I missed you all!
- H. Kestrel