A/N: In which Bella pines, and is duly rewarded for her faithfulness (in a non-sexist, firmly pro-feminist way).

Warnings: should be obvious from the last chapter, I think. Miss this if you don't like SS/BL, thank ye. And if you don't like the ship, why are you bothering to stay with this fic anyway? Oh, right, my superior writing skills and masterful plot – er, whoops.

Just ignore the last two sentences ;)

Well, the most I can say is Caveat Lector – Reader Beware. Because I want to, not because (GRATUITOUSLY TERRIFYING IMAGERY CENSORED FOREVER, ON BEHALF OF BRAVE REVIEWR, Sanityfaerie) (ugh).

Yes, I'll get on with the chapter now.


Chapter 11: Various Doings

It was really funny how one could go on without someone.

Bella had pondered it for the last week or so every night, sleeping in the bed she'd shared with Antares once, breathing in the smell of dirty hair that contrasted with perfume she'd absently dripped onto the sheets – for what purpose, she could not remember.

Nowadays, she divided her time between the rooms of Severus' house almost equally, with nearly fanatical precision. She slept in Antares' room at night, bathed in Severus' slightly larger toilet, cooked in the kitchen and ate on the same table Severus had (she blushed. She still blushed, which was completely irrational, as she'd not blushed at that singular moment) propositioned her across.

Or had that been the other way around?

Bella sighed, drawing a wide-toothed comb through her slightly recalcitrant hair, making sure to pin it carefully away from her face as she put half of it up in a bun. Not too tightly, so she didn't look any more stretched or thin, and certainly not too loosely, because it was sweaty from her day at Madame Malkin's, and certainly not presentable enough to be an ornament to her however she wore it. Mother had always said there was a perfect way one could wear one's hair, and Bellatrix liked to think that she'd almost discovered one for herself. The escaping tendrils helped to soften her face that much more, and her hair was pulled away from her face without actually being 'up', and –

"Oh, Merlin," Bella said, throwing down the comb, colour seeping into her cheeks, "He's already here, the irritating – "

For the ward she'd thought to set on the Floo connection on returning home this evening had just chimed, and Bella could not think of anyone else that might know she would be at home at this point, or know where home even was.

Still, she thought, casting a hasty Disillusionment Charm on herself so she could actually be sure it was Severus, no point in being careless

"Bella?" Severus' weary, yet oddly eager voice floated up to her on the stairs. "Are you there?" Fighting the impulse to simply remove the Charm and descend to see her – well – lover? She was not quite sure yet – Bella took the stairs two at a time, moving as silently as she could towards the kitchen door, which was where Severus' voice seemed to be coming from.

And she was not wrong, for Severus was indeed there, spelling the soot off himself, an odd look on his face. It looked like some strange hybrid of boredom, weariness and – Bella tried to quell her rising emotions – disappointment, and, as he strode over to the kitchen table and grudgingly took a chair, she decided to reveal herself.

Behind a sturdy shield, of course –

Severus started and half-rose from his chair upon her sudden appearance, wand in hand, the strange look replaced by the supreme alertness she remembered so well from the old days.

"What does my son have on his back?" she got out, a little clumsily, trying not to blush at the confusion in his eyes as she spoke. Security questions had been all the rage when they'd known each other, he couldn't possibly have forgotten by now –

He stared at her for a long minute, making her wonder if she couldn't have asked a dafter question. How was he supposed to know that Antares had –

"Burns," Severus said, sheathing his wand and regaining his chair as she relaxed. "You'll have to tell me how he got those at some point."

"I can't," Bella replied, sheathing her own wand as she approached the worn kitchen table, "He's always had them, I should think." She slid into the chair beside him easily, trying to restrain the impulse to touch him immediately.

"You should think?" he said in mocking reply, running tired hands through hair that looked curiously lighter, "Such a fine mother you are – "

"Don't," she cut in, voice sharper than the new, still curiously fresh feeling of loss that glanced across her heart yet again. "Just – don't." Severus' eyes sought hers out as he snorted, his wary, slightly abashed expression belying his slight sneer. "They've always been there – they weren't even close to raw when I found him at the orphanage," she explained lowly, examining her fingers because she was not quite sure if it was appropriate to touch her lover's – future lover's large nose. "I tried a burn salve and healing spells, and yet…" Bella shrugged. "It was part of what made me think him magical, really."

Bellatrix bit her lip as Severus nodded slowly, wearily, wondering if the odd yearning to touch him, just keep touching him, was going to linger with her throughout his short stay.

"I have news," he said abruptly, suddenly changing the task as he stood up to fetch a couple of mugs from a nearby cabinet. Bella said nothing – just waited, patiently, trusting he would tell her – "His Sorting into Slytherin was…odd." Severus' voice had gone low, perilously near that husky depth that had startled her that first time, but she couldn't focus on that right now, the news was about Antares – "The Hat Legilimised him, and found out information about his biological mother and father indirectly – you recall how it sifts through memories of new students, I trust? Well, it found out something."

"Really." He eyed her almost speculatively as he wearily conjured a gently smoking teapot complete with tiny, ornate little pots of milk and sugar, an occurrence that signalled his very real exhaustion to her. Bella sighed a little, because she remembered the almost utilitarian front he'd put on everything during their service as a Death Eater – not one transfiguration had been more detailed than necessary, not one spell had deviated showily from its purpose in any way, or shown more than a minute stamp of its caster. The only thing Severus had ever been remotely showy at were his potions, and she remembered someone (she refused to remember who) joking that that was because potions was Severus' area of expertise, and he only therefore stood out in that capacity, so to speak, because he had to. So nothing about him had ever given away details of his shadowed, murky past or precarious present, except for times like now, when he was too tired to think about whether his conjured tea set was innocuous enough to escape her notice.

"His biological parents were murdered, Bella," he put forward roughly, not meeting her eyes as he nudged a steaming mug towards her suddenly still form.

"Really." Silence spread between them like some sort of hideous disease, and Bella could not find it in herself to move. She did not know how she knew, how this new knowledge did not surprise her more. She shivered, stretching out a hand to draw the mug of tea towards her, trying not to feel Severus' eyes on her. Was it some sort of curse, something that followed her around, or –

"The Hat confirmed it emphatically," he said, voice still harsh as his fingers tightened about his own mug, face showing the strain of that thought, that insidious thought that Bella somehow knew he had to be thinking. They were tainted, both of them – irrevocably tainted, and somehow the taint had reached a charming, skeletal hand into Antares' life, and – "It even predicted the time frame – said it was one of the years between 1980 and 1983, and probably..."

Bella was barely listening, the words swimming murkily in and out of her head as she wondered, wondered who Antares' real – Morgana, that word hurt – real parents where, who they had been, what they had done to earn the – fury of –

Whether, she thought, her hands tightening unbearably about her mug, I helped kill them

"You need to stop that," he suddenly said, voice very low and very persuasive as he slowly, silently entangled her stiff fingers from around the hot mug, chafing them slightly between his for a minute as she pressed her left hand to her head.

"Murdered by whom? You didn't finish," Bella said, her voice sounding sharp, accused, wounded. Severus started somewhat, staring at her in puzzlement.

"You can guess, can't you?" he said, almost too low for her to hear it. "It was a shock, for me – "

"Not for me," she replied sharply, pulling her hand out of his dry ones, forcing herself to sip at the hot tea. It didn't burn her tongue, and was only just this side of palatable, and – "It strikes me as unfair, you know. Mordred knows why." She paused for a moment. "As if I can never escape him and – and everything he did. Sometimes it amuses me – a few years of raising hell, and you pay for a lifetime." Severus seemed likely to disagree for a moment, then nodded, slowly, turning his attention to his tea.

Bella did not mind, in the least, and smoothly changed the conversation, before she could do or say something more foolish. Severus went along with it wordlessly, listening easily to her shop prattle and her feeble complaint about the pillows on his bed. She blushed soon after, of course, having realised how – how much innuendo that could inspire, and tried to hurriedly cover it up with a talk about the general state of the bedding in the house, and whether or not he would like it all altered if she had the time. Severus, of course, said yes, and Bella did not miss, could not miss how his eyes flickered down to the front of her dress almost involuntarily, and she felt suddenly, desperately like having his arms around her.

The thin reality of their brittle, nearly one-way conversation just did not seem enough to hold back the horrible, guilty thoughts she was having, of nights of heady, forbidden exhilaration, of nights of destruction, and pain, and things that she caused, and –

She set down the mug with a decided clink, drew his face to hers with her hands, one warm and one not quite cold, and kissed him. It felt – so warm, so oddly wet, like the first ever kisses she'd stolen with that sop of a Ravenclaw once upon a time. The kiss lengthened and broke at slow intervals, and Bella revelled in it, revelled in the warmth of her lover's arms around her, in the not-so-smooth slide of their lips together, and it was…it was understandably a long moment before she remembered what they had been speaking of.

And, Bella reflected, as Severus shrugged a little breathlessly and reached for her again, that was probably a very good thing.

"I was going to ask you, you know," he whispered into her neck, some minutes later, as they twined in each other's arms in the doorway that led to the staircase. "About this, about us – "

"Be quiet," she told him, smilingly, reaching down to pinch him as she wondered whether it would make him jump.

It did, and Bella spent the next two hours paying, after a fashion, for her five minutes of mirth.


It came as a welcome shock to wake up, the next morning, and find him in her bed. This time, Bella did not need to feel under the sheets to know that she was naked, because of the body pressed up so warmly against her. For a long moment, she allowed herself a foolish, sleepy smile – it had felt so long since the last time they'd touched each other like this. Like it had been a year ago, instead of merely one week, give or take a day or two.

Bella actually had to suppress a sigh as she turned over smoothly, not wanting to wake him up, as well as not wanting to sound too content. To whom, she did not know, and had a far more important task on her hands – or, rather, in her arms. With a slow, steady motion, she peeled the sheet off their intertwined bodies, not even bothering to look at the patches of tan skin she knew belonged to herself. The pale, mostly smooth skin was far, far more interesting, despite the fact that she had seen it before, perhaps in a less convivial context.

Ha. Convivial, indeed.

Bella suppressed a groan of remembrance – the rituals required of them in the service of her former Master had required rather a lot of nudity from time to time, and since she, Rodolphus, Rabastan and Severus had all been necessarily part of the most powerful members Inner Circle, they had been forced to grow accustomed to the indignity of it. Particularly herself, of course – half the foul men around her, she'd known, had seen more than enough naked women, willing and unwilling, to serve a lifetime, and they'd all stared anyway. Even – Bella blanched a little – Severus had.

Well, that memory would certainly be going into the growing room aptly labelled 'Do Not Disturb' in her fragmented mind. Rather, Bella preferred to shift delicately away from her snoring lover so she could look properly at him, like she'd always preferred to do.

She hastily dismissed resurfacing memories of staring at her ex-husband's body, cataloguing the scars, the smooth muscles, and, focusing on the task at hand, took a deep breath and looked.

She wrinkled her nose.

Well, he does look his age, she allowed, taking in the somehow softer angles of his wiry, unforgiving frame. He had a nice rear, she would concede that, yes. And nothing to complain of in the – ahem – frontal department, quite a lot of nothing, actually, and – he had washed his hair.

Bella's mouth fell open abruptly as she stared at it, fanned messily over the hideous, hideous pillow, dark and clean. She touched it almost reverently, thoughts spinning. She was someone hopelessly inured to symbolism, and she knew it and tried to limit it sometimes, but just now, she gave in.

It means he's serious.

It means he washes his hair on Friday mornings, a snide voice said in the back of her mind. Really, Bella

It was greasy the last time, she insisted to herself. Did I say something by mistake? Or did I shy away from it, or –

The man knows his hair is disgusting, the snide voice continued. He washed it because he has inclinations towards basic hygiene, you sentimental fool. It may have been washed days ago, and all this talk of seriousness is merely your imagination overreacting on seeing clean hair. Which is inherently daft.

Bella sighed guiltily, still thinking. The snide little voice at the back of her mind was probably quite right, and she was probably overreacting, reading meanings into Severus' innocently clean hair.

All the same, I can't overlook it, can I?

"Overlook wha…?" Bella twitched in surprise, not realising she'd voiced her last musing sentence, as her warm lover shifted sinuously against her. "Come here," he muttered confusedly, drawing her upper half down till it was flush with his, all hardened nipples and sleep-warmed skin sliding nicely together. "You didn't quite finish paying, last night," Severus whispered, his low tone sounding the more wicked for the laziness that sleep added to it.

"I didn't," Bella agreed, and promptly went back to paying for her – er – transgression, the matter of his hair momentarily pushed aside. Well, not quite, Bella thought, running her hands through it as she mouthed her way along an inviting expanse of warm skin. He started a little in her arms as she made her way down to a clearly satisfyingly inflamed spot, and Bella could not help grinning. Especially when he almost let out a moan, just catching it in time.

Not bad, Bella, she told herself, sliding languorously out of the bed as Severus weakly tried to follow, the expression on his face one of such embarrassed satiety that it made her grin anew. Not bad at all

She grinned all the way through breakfast, because Severus' eyes, though just as sharp and mocking as was usual, were very firmly attracted to her mouth and fingers, and remained so throughout the meal.

Later on, after she'd taken pity on him and put her offending articles to very good, very brief use once again, he sighed and began a conversation she was quite sure he did not want to have, from the way he kept avoiding her eye despite the earnest, determined set to his face.

"Have you ever given thought as to why on earth your son is so susceptible to teasing, Bella? It will get very annoying if I have to reign him in every time, you know," he said shortly, carefully tucking himself back into his (stained, and it made her grin mischievously) pyjama pants. "Stop that," he added, pinking quite delightfully.

"What?"

"Stop looking at me in that obscene manner," he chided, rising shakily from his chair to ostensibly get some more water.

"Stop presenting me your arse," she said lowly, taking great pleasure in the severe blush that spread to the back of his neck. "All right – tell me." Severus sighed exasperatedly, now thudding a jug of water on the table next to a tall glass.

"I was hoping you would answer the question, Bella."

"Oh – the anger, you mean?" Bella forgot that a real live man that was her lover was standing half-dressed across from her and scowling in a fashion that, for him, was almost handsome. "I've always wondered if it might be me, in fact. I'm not an appropriate parent, I know that much, and displaying or emulating authority in any way has always been a rather touch-and-go thing for me, so – "

"That explains nothing," Severus said sharply, taking his bare chest and planting it insidiously close to by seating opposite her. "He gets provoked at small things, and so far has not done much in the way of preventing their occurrence," he explained, more slowly. "Ma – one of the boys in his year is getting to him with alarming frequency, and with his propensity for accidental magic – "

"Just say it's Lucius' son, Severus," Bella said, a little more coldly than she should have, staring at her fingers as they remained wrapped around her rapidly cooling mug. "I know the bastard's little brat was born in the same year, for crying out loud – give me some credit."

"I had thought – " Severus began, but cut himself off with a sigh. "Forgive me."

"You should probably apologise first," Bella snapped back. He gave her an incredulous, affronted look.

"Excuse me – the words 'forgive me' no longer construe an apology?"

"Of course not. The proper thing to say is 'I am sorry'. Try it." Bella could practically see the irritation washing over him, but just felt so out of sorts that –

"Don't do this," he said quietly, surprising her once again, before abruptly continuing with his tale, his expression, if anything, only becoming more earnest than when he'd begun. "If Antares was any weaker magically, Draco could make his life torture. And, as these things often are, since the boy probably has more magic in that burn scar of his than Draco Malfoy has in his haughty little head, his life so far seems to have been worse than torture. For an eleven-year-old, at least."

"What am I supposed to say to that?" Bella asked, her voice getting angry again as her mind swept her through a dizzying montage of memories of just how cruel a Malfoy could be, would be, if they perceived you as weaker, or stronger than them. Severus sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Just – write to him, or something," he offered lamely, after a minute of making frustrated noises.

"And then my dear little cousin would proceed to steal his letter and read it out loud, mocking it thoroughly," Bella said, tone turning vicious as she, unhappily, found herself remembering doing that with Lucius by her side, to some hapless third year. "Why do you think I don't care how long it takes for him to send me one? I knew something like this might happen."

"Well – " Severus set down his glass, going over to where his cloak was discarded, by the kitchen door. "I actually – thought to – bring this," he presented her a slightly grubby missive with a spare flourish, fingers reaching up to get at that point by his left eye that he always seemed to be rubbing when stressed, or thinking of or speaking to Antares. Bella tried not to grab at the letter, and set it down while she untangled her fingers from her hair, a warm feeling sliding heavily into her chest.

She soon had it open.

Mum, it began, in awful, slightly misshapen letters, the Sortin Hat tried to kill me at the FeasT, but they got it awaY from me in the end. Class boring part from Potionz and Charms, but schools okay. Blaze is in my house – that rich kid I stopeped from kicking his head in KnockTurnAlley. Bastard named Draco here, hes a malfoY, makes life hell. But food is great. I miss you, and

Bella carefully set it down on the table, tears stinging as she lightly caressed the odd little squiggle at the end of the letter, at which point Severus had probably taken it from him. For a long moment, she felt as if breaking contact with it would be an awful, awful thing, and could possibly kill her, but someone's warm hand had enclosed the one that was touching the letter and was not touching it any more, and nothing happened. Somehow, that made it easier for her to let out the first quiet sob.

Severus silently manoeuvred her into his arms, smelling wickedly of sex and his musty bed, and awkwardly rubbed at the base of her spine. Bella suddenly felt a giggle rising from somewhere – somewhere still young and silly in her, and she let part of it out, ignoring the slight shock that tensed her lover's body against hers.

"Can anything be done?" she finally said, trying not to sniff, whether at his neck or because she was crying.

"There is only so much I can do to keep Draco away from – "

"Not that. His handwriting. I didn't really understand what illegible meant until now." When Severus stiffened, then chuckled darkly into her hair, Bella took revenge, biting at what she was starting to think was a sensitive spot on his neck, and the conversation went rapidly to the dogs. Or, rather, tumbling off the chairs and onto the reassuringly supporting floor.


"I really should get something done," Severus muttered, an hour later, in her ear. Bella nodded, sliding carefully away from his slippery warmth and rising to fumble around for her wand. "You're not helping," he said, an oddly petulant tone creeping into his voice.

"Avert your eyes, then," she said carelessly, applying a thorough Cleaning Charm to her body, and, after a minute of hesitation, to his. "I will necessarily get something done today, as I am due to report at the shop at one." Severus sighed behind her as she wriggled into her tattered nightdress, feeling slightly worse for the wear for all the rapid – er – movement they'd done within the last hour.

Scratch that, the whole morning. Bella blushed a little, clearing away the remains of their scanty breakfast as the noises of Severus struggling into his own clothes tempted her from behind.

"I wanted to ask something," he said in her ear, slipping arms about her waist as she bent over the sink, wanting to ascertain that nothing was wrong with the plates inside, as they had suddenly stopped clanking a moment ago.

"I am not preventing you."

"Antares had an encounter with the Bloody Baron, you see," Severus said, hands reluctantly caressing her waist after she'd slapped them down from much higher up. "It was – oh, everything seems to happen to him so violently – "

"What?" Bella said, stilling. "What do you mean, violently? There's nothing violent about a ghost – "

"Do you remember the Baron at all, Bella? I walked in on the thing terrorizing him for pretending to be a Black." Bella dropped her wand, anger coursing through her. "I thought I should let you know – "

"If – if only I could just have a word with that ghost," she said, through gritted teeth. "My bond with him is recognised by the Ministry – "

"Are you sure?" Uncertainty seeped into her heart as she scrabbled clumsily around in the water in the sink for her wand.

"I never checked, but I thought – "

"You should, then." Severus paused for a moment as she dried off her wand with a nearby tea towel, tensing a little behind her. "Was it the Convixi concessus…?"

"No," Bella supplied, suddenly realising why he was really asking her. "I wonder what his birth date is down as, then – it must be horribly confusing for the Quill at Hogwarts – "

"Adstrictus cruori, then?"

"I wonder what birthday he would like," Bella said, deliberately vague. "I'll stop by the Ministry on my way to the shop, then." She disentangled herself from his reaching arms, whisking out of the door and up the stairs.

"Adgregatus in familia?" followed her up the stairs, making her smile. At least the day would be an uncomfortable barrage of sex and questions she did not want to answer. She did love bantering with men, and no one was better at it than Severus.

When properly coaxed, of course.


Three hours later, Bella was sweeping the rich folds of the Countess Barrene's soon-to-be-robe onto an as-yet shapeless mannequin, muttering angrily to herself. There were times, she thought, reeling off the spells that would ready the mannequin for work while she made herself a well-deserved cup of tea, when she wondered why on earth she still worked with Madame Malkin and tolerated her insidiously treacherous ways. How that woman managed to foist so much work off onto her without immediately appearing a tyrant continued to amaze Bella every time a situation that brought it on came about.

Today had been a prime example. The Countess had been brought to the shop by another loyal and frequent customer – Georgina Allbright? Something like that, anyway – and had proceeded to insist on using some newfangled cloth she or her doting husband had bought in Saudi Arabia to make up a set of formal robes for the Ministry Ball that every worker in Madame Malkin's knew would be occurring within a week. Madame Malkin had been closeted with the picky young woman for almost an hour before the slight woman swept out of the shop, looking pleased as punch.

Madame Malkin had duly stolen Sally away from a sparkly robe she'd been finishing off and begun work on the odd material, and for the next hour and a half, had called for assistance from each and every sewer in the shop at least once or twice. By the time Bella was getting ready to leave (and idly wondering whether Severus would be at home), the large woman was in a state of high dudgeon about their collective failure to make the fabric look like it should, and Bella had dutifully gone in to take her turn at the dark, glossy folds of deep green, and had unfortunately had the most success at wrestling the bodice into half-arsed completion.

Madame Malkin, returning from a well-deserved five minute break for tea, had looked upon the half-ready bodice and pronounced that Bella would take the robes home and finish them (all the while manoeuvring Bella into admitting that she had an idea of needling them into submission, and therefore indirectly conferring on her a responsibility as an employee to do so), and that had been that. Bella frowned now, sipping carefully at her milky tea as she stared absently into space, recalling the terse directions her employer had given.

"Low in the neck, but not absolutely improper; reasonably fitted bodice; loosely draping folds for the skirt. Oh, and no waist – she said she saw it done somewhere on a woman as thin as her, and it looked beautiful – "

Bella drained the cup and set it down, a little harder than normal. She'd have a quick nap first, then – wait, there was a note from Severus – there –

In Diagon and Knockturn for supplies. Will return at half seven.

She smiled, crumpling the note and tossing it into the fireplace after waving the cup and saucer into the sink. A nap first, and then she'd get to work.

Bella closed her eyes.


Half an hour later, she woke with a start, reaching out to stop the burning of her wand and wishing she could just languish away on the sofa until her lover came back. Instead, she rose, summoned her nightgown – I'll be comfortable, then, if not well rested – and approached the preening mannequin that was fussing with its foamy hair in the mirror. After a minute or two of cajoling, she'd gotten the silly thing to stand still while she transfigured a low turntable and affixed the (horrified) mannequin's feet to it, so it would at least stay in one place while she worked.

Now, if I can just find that thread

Bella worked for far longer than she'd thought she would to just drape the robes properly, adjusting the heavy material over and over again on the twitching, fussing mannequin. It frustrated her no end that she was simply unable to make the heavy, stiffly rippling fabric look good on the slight frame of the mannequin formed after the likeness of the Countess Barrene. Every trick of robe-pinning failed dismally, and Bella despaired – Madame Malkin had trusted her to get this done, and would certainly have her head if she could not finish fitting the robe in time for the preliminary check-up tomorrow.

Bella sighed and stretched, hoping against hope that she would be able to just get it done, and then, just as she was about to give up and stow away the irritating thing, it hit her.

There are other ways of pinning, aren't there? A little wrinkle formed between her brows as she stared into space, mind travelling back to that studio of sorts, and the desperation on that wobbly muggle's face as he'd called for seamstresses. Bella wrinkled her nose in distaste – she'd only taken the muggle's desperate offer because she'd been desperate herself, and she'd actually had the skills his employer was looking for. In a very vague way, Bella had been taught to mend and sew, with magic and without.

Most importantly, she'd been forced to learn how a garment was put together – raising an angry little boy on next to nothing usually dictated Transfiguring or making one's own clothes. And, as transfigured clothes never tended to mend properly, wear well or last very long, Bella found it more worth her time to actually make the clothes by hand.

She smiled to herself – being at the studio had been frantic. She'd always been mending and altering and trying to rein in Antares all at once, but the very busy nature of the work had consumed her, stopped her from over-thinking her situation in life, or from bitterly remembering things she wished to forget. Bella caught absently at the badly-draped sleeve on the mannequin, tugging the fidgety, wandering thing back to her side. The wages had been tolerable, of course, and she and Antares had also been consistently well and warmly dressed for the first time in years. As silly as liking that had made her feel, it had definitely counted for something.

Bella sighed, unpinning the sleeves of the robe. The job hadn't lasted, as many things had not, but – well. She would at least try the techniques she'd picked up and see if the stubborn fabric would yield to methods mundane. A sly smile stole onto her face as she rapidly deconstructed the bad-looking robe, snapping at the mannequin when it tried to wander off again. She renewed the sticking spell to its impertinent complaints, making it stronger this time – how it had worn off, she could not imagine –

Right – what have we here…needle, thread, scissors, pattern, I…think that should be it. Bella nodded briskly and got to work.

At the very least, she'd know that she'd tried everything.

Two hours later, Bella was still smiling slyly, turning the preening mannequin this way and that as she surveyed her work, having finally removed the sticking charm so she could really see how it moved. The robe had yielded, indeed, to – Bella snorted to herself – the sheer devilry of muggle methods that she'd stubbornly employed. Instead of puckering in odd places and looking horribly dowdy, the robe now flowed sleekly, the beauty of the dark, slightly shimmering fabric properly unveiled. Satisfied with the result, Bella set about spelling the seams together permanently, and was so deeply involved in the process that she started when Severus Floo'ed in with his normal aplomb, calling out to her as usual. She replied absently, carefully extracting the pins and crude stitches by hand.

"There you are," came the familiar mutter from behind her. Bella looked back, suddenly feeling very awkward and very messily dressed.

"You're early," she blurted out foolishly as she returned her attention to the mannequin, unable to keep herself from running a satisfied hand down the front panel of the robe, which was now free of the slightly disfiguring pins and stitches.

"You are wrong," Severus curtly informed her, advancing slowly, a wry sort of amusement seeping into his face as he joined her to watch the mannequin wobble towards the fireplace and preen in front of the wide, slightly tarnished mirror hanging over the flames. "I am an hour late, actually," he added, a little reluctantly. Bella smiled at him, in no mood to feel affronted.

"I hardly noticed," she offered truthfully, shrugging and turning back to steer the mannequin back onto the shiny turntable she'd temporarily transfigured from half a log of wood out of the small pile in wizard space beside the fire. "I've been working all evening trying to get this awful thing ready, so…" Her breath caught as she felt Severus loom close behind her, radiating musky warmth, suddenly reminding her of waking next to him earlier on. She felt her face heat as he awkwardly settled a hand on her waist, moving even closer.

"How…industrious," he muttered into her ear, almost negating her effort to keep looking over the nearly-finished garment. "Perhaps I should – "

"Don't even think it," she said, voice a little sharper usual. "No silly jokes or insinuations, thank you: I've had quite enough of those to fill my lifetime twice over."

"Really," he breathed, nibbling slowly at her ear so that she found it hard to quell a shiver. "How disappointing for you, then." Bella smiled – he was just always so sarcastic – and turned to press a quick kiss to his cheek.

"After dinner, thank you," was her prim answer, but it had the effect she'd desired. Severus snorted lightly, tightening his hold on her for a moment before stepping back. Bella's smile widened as she admired the flow of the tamed, thick fabric that now swished satisfactorily around the ankles of the stiffly pivoting mannequin instead of flapping disgracefully.

"Isn't this a trifle indecent, just here?" Severus asked, cutting into her whirring thoughts as he gestured carefully at the nearly nonexistent bosom of the mannequin, which was quite tightly clad in the now considerably lower-necked robe.

"Oh no, the Countess has lovely collarbones," Bella said, moving to inspect the fit at the back of the robes and to extract another pin she'd missed. Severus shot her an annoyed look that quite clearly said that was not what he'd meant, and she could hardly keep from smiling again. "She's quite young, you know – very progressive about such things. And it won't look indecent on her, either, with such a boyish figure – "

"Really." Severus' short comment intimated a great many things, not the least of which implied that nothing could possibly mitigate the bad qualities of the dress, and that was why Bella found herself saying something rather unwise.

"If you saw it on me you'd understand." Her lover looked up sharply, a predatory glint in his eye.

"What are you waiting for, then? Let's see it on you," he said lowly, making the innocent words sound little more than a sly proposition. Bella blushed hotly, but tapped the mannequin defiantly, carefully drawing off the robe once it stilled and spelling it so it would fit on her, at the very least. Severus retreated slightly to the nearest sofa as she laid the heavy robe carefully over the back of a nearby chair and began to divest herself of her clothing.

It felt like she was an age in doing it, somehow – the air fairly crackled between them, and she could feel his eyes caressing her as she reached out for the robe, goose pimples peppering her skin where it was bare. And, very quickly, the electric moment was over, and Severus was rising to take a closer look at the robes as Bella adjusted them carefully around herself, pleased with the feel and fit.

"See? The front's not quite as low as it looks, and the sleeves are just wide enough to allow a sleeved chemise underneath without it looking odd in the least," she said, eyeing the top of the garment critically in the mirror over the fireplace, trying not to think of how lovely it would be to have something like this for herself. She could wear it when Severus was here, she supposed –

"I think you're quite right," he said softly, sounding a little surprised. "Now, would you take it off?" Bella eyed him, a wry smile on her lips as she noted the slight colour on his face.

"You actually prefer that tattered nightgown to this?" She said, running a wistful hand over the loose folds around her waist.

"Yes," Severus said shortly, more colour seeping into his cheeks, the look in his dark eyes an oddly predatory one as he turned hastily away. "Now – you said something about dinner…?" Bella nodded absently, wriggling out of the robe as carefully as she possibly could.

"Let me just – get out of this – first," she said, panting slightly as she cast off the green robe. "I think you might be right as to your preference – my old nightgown is certainly more comfortable than that – "

Throughout dinner, Bella could really not understand why Severus kept on blushing. It might have had to do with the way she ate her meal, somehow getting juices of the chicken (which was lovely) onto her fingers so she could carefully lick them clean. It might also have had to do with the fact that she kept leaning over towards him and not caring that her nightgown might show a little more than was necessarily right.

Whatever the case, it was all satisfactorily solved an hour later on the same couch he'd ogled her from – a trifle indecent, really, but very – very thrilling, in a way Bella had sometimes forgotten that her memory could lay claim to remembering.

And why did she need to remember anything, anyway? Severus was very warm…and…


Bella woke with a shiver, feeling cold air prickle at her skin. Bare – oh Merlin, she was asleep on the couch, at this hour. What would Severus –

– say. Bella blushed, then gave into a small smile at herself. It was really a little ridiculous, feeling this way because his very warm, very manly, very aroused sleeping form was draped all over the floor before the couch. Contriving to roll down onto him and the results of that experiment took up the hour she usually reserved for preening to her satisfaction, and made her hurry into her clothes and pull back her hair in the most unflattering way.

Severus groaned at the clock and at the fireplace and said his goodbyes as petulantly as was possible for a sleepy, still-naked Potions Master to be. He told her he would not be here at the house for lunch as that would be cutting it close, and it wasn't until after Flooing into Madame Malkin's little office with the carefully wrapped robes in tow that Bella realised she would not be seeing him for another week.

She sighed, pressing a light hand to her head. At the very best, after sleeping next to him and having him stalking round the house – his house again, the coming week would feel like two.


A/N: Helloooo, people! I had no idea how long this chapter would turn out – just kept adding in little bits to flesh it out, and hey presto! Six thousand words and counting…

Anyway, I'd just like to thank everyone who's reviewed and cheered me on so far, especially to those who've been dropping me lines about my murderous italic usage and the fact that things aren't always clear or easily understandable in this fic. I hope this chapter has shed some kind of light on how Bella's life has been for the huge ten-year gap between the prologue and chapter 1. And worry not, I'm still working on PTT chapter 4 (am maybe about a third of the way through), and even on La Danseuse.

And, lastly, the next chapter will be called Chapter 12: The Sky Calls. Hint, hint. ;)