Right, so I really have nothing to say. Other than excuse the obvious mistakes, of course. I think I might have invented a word at some point in this chapter, but I couldn't find it when I went looking for it to change it to something grammatically correct. So, now I'm on to my usual pitch for reviews. Tell me your ideas, thoughts, anything you possibly feel like telling me. I'm always willing to listen. And while suggestions to help me improve personnally will most likely not change anything for this story as I have finished it! But everything that is suggested I will/am taking to heart for my next story. I even have a beta for it! Now that is a first for me. So enjoy; I hope you like it as much as I do. In fact, I kind of consider this to be the last chapter even though there is another chapter after this that ties everything together and gives it a point of some sort. But this is where Snape realizes that he is perhaps a bit more affected than he would have otherwise thought. Turns out I had plenty to say once I got going.
With an extreme effort, Tonks managed to uncross her eyes and pull her awareness back to her surroundings. She was tired and a three hour Order meeting with another shift at work afterward was not exactly her idea of paradise. A jaw popping yawn caused tears to well up in her eyes, and the world blurred into a swirl of dark colors that spun into a kaleidoscope of blinding white fog. She batted the tears away with the back of one narrow hand with the intention of restoring her sight to its usual accuracy. After about the tenth swipe at her eyes, she decided that the dark apparition actually was real. Blinking furiously she whipped out her wand and noticed the one dark eyebrow curving elegantly toward his hairline. A small smirk stretched across his pale lips and he leaned slightly forward. The strange light flickering in his black eyes bespoke his good humor and the tilt of his head described his attention. The slow rumble of his voice flooded her head as he spoke, "I trust you are well, Miss Tonks." His slow smirk stretched across his colorless face as he said, "I see you took my advice." He allowed a short pause for her to attempt to derive his meaning. He watched the puzzled and slightly annoyed crease between her eyebrows and the pout weighing down the corner of her lips. "You seem remarkably self-contained today," he drawled as he backed away from her and out the door.
Tonks glared at the crumbling white paint framing the doorframe while she attempted to un-swallow her tongue which she seemed to have inhaled in her indignation. Then humor swamped her as she stood up and followed the example of her knight in a silver mask and walked out the door. Her laughter rang through the moldering hallways of the old Black house as she stepped out into the London night toward the Ministry.
The next day, Tonks had to admit her brilliant plan was failing miserably. She hadn't even been able to implement Phase One, and she found herself willing to give up. She thought she had never been this tired in her life as she sank into the creaking wooden chair in Grimmauld's ancient kitchen during her lunch break. Only four hours of sleep, she whined to herself as she buried her face in her folded arms. Platinum blonde hair spilled around her elbows as she tried to pretend that she was still on top of the Snape situation. The desolation of the empty kitchen seemed to be seeping into her bones. Her weariness floated around her in a small, ever expanding pool of darkness she imagined herself swimming through whenever she took a step.
Snape folded himself into the shadows just beyond the doorway into the kitchen as he watched the girl within sigh complacently. She was too tall, too loud, and above all else, she was too strong. Despite the fragile hands and delicate cheekbones, she was too strong to be broken. But she was just strong enough to break him. Peculiarly, he found himself terrified of her. He was afraid to trust her; afraid to let her know anything about him, but he couldn't quite shake her from him. He had made the mistake long ago of unconsciously accepting her. And that, despite everything, was what frightened him the most.
The darkness thriving within him had shifted. The blankness feeding from him had altered to accommodate the only person in the world who feared him in the way that she did. He watched as her breathing varied into deep sighs and gentle murmurings she whispered to herself. One neon green fingernail emerged from beneath a short, blonde curl as her head slid down her arm. He acknowledged to himself that only a man cursed from birth could have the misfortunes that he had endured and was destined to yet endure. With another private concession, he admitted that she was yet another of his many trials. Something reminiscent of a smile graced his spectral face as he admitted she was most likely going to be one of his most difficult complications yet.
The curly haired witch snorted happily in her sleep, and he found himself strangely loath to wake her. Instead, he slid into the room with no more sound than if he had stepped only on the shadows themselves. There was a dampness in the air he attributed to the recent rains and the smell of mildew permeated the small cupboard space as he searched for a kettle. The soft ring of metal on metal did not rouse the sleeper from her slumber, and he carefully continued on. The mundane task of making tea and leaving it charmed warm near her arm, but safely out of reach, left him more disconcerted than he thought he should be. He focused adamantly on ignoring the deep sighs she expelled between slightly parted lips with a sparkle of saliva balancing carefully at the very corner of her mouth. Resolutely, he stepped from the room and vanished as though he had never entered. The softly steaming mug of tea was the only reminder of his venture from the shadows.
It was the second week of her own private vendetta against Snape, and she had yet to do a single thing she had planned. The third morning, she had found him curled in his armchair in front of the fire of the library where he had apparently spent the night. Deep purple shadows traced the cadaverous curves of his face like dark bruises, and she found she could not find it in herself to be truly angry at him. He could not help himself, just like she could not help but to love him. It was a vicious cycle she had once wished she could end; it was a cycle destined to leave her the only one suffering. Now, she was too busy and worried to wish for such frivolous things as freedom from heartache. She was learning to live with misery as a permanent handicap. It was like missing a part of your arm, she had decided one morning while eating her eggs, except it was a piece of something inside you rather than something so noticeable like an arm or a foot. She knew Snape's wounds were far more severe than hers anyway.
Today, the sunlight was streaming through the tall, watermarked windows of one of the several studies. Tonks always fancied this particular one the conservatory simply because she had always wanted to be in one. The desire must have sprung from the game her father had given her for her ninth birthday. She chuckled to herself as she turned to stare at the fading walls and moth-eaten furniture and thought, It was Madame Peacock in the conservatory with the wrench. Now she just needed someone to play the body of the poor sod that had gotten in her way. Maybe Snape would be willing to play Mr. Green. As she nearly doubled over with silent laughter and an impromptu snort, she doubted she could ever beat him in the game of intrigue and murder.
Someone had drawn back the heavy curtains and dusted. A crystal brandy flask sat stately on an end table, but she highly doubted it was brandy that glittered malignantly inside it. Beside the eerily gleaming bottle rested a neatly folded parchment without an address and a quill with crusted ink spilling onto the table. Her newly silver nails momentarily flared the red of newly spilled blood when they caught the glimmer of the red liquid as she inched the note closer to herself. Her breath caught in her throat as she prayed that she would have solitude for once while she attempted to be sneaky and sly. Her heart somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach, she recognized the familiar, angry scrawl of one Severus Snape. "Perhaps," he had written, "I have gone about this entirely wrong."
She caught her lip between her teeth and debated. The cramped knots of his words bespoke an emotion he could not voice, but he was more than capable of recording in words what he could not share with any living person. Her fingers brushed the page as she tempted herself to dare to risk far more than life and limb for the sake of possessing the right of loving this man. As her eyes turned to devour his precise and eternally rushed characters she knew she was the stupidest, most imbecilic woman alive.
He paused momentarily before entering the small room he expected would be flooded with unwelcome light. His head throbbed at his temples in a pulsating rhythm perfectly timed against his heartbeat hammering within his ribs. He could feel his blood surging through his veins almost as if it protested these new aches and pains inflicted upon him. He knew it was not his place to complain; long ago he had given up the foolish fantasy of freedom from servitude and heartache. He had learned to cope without a heart and with his invisible shackles. Dark bruises bloomed across his jutting ribs he kept carefully hidden behind folds of black cloth. All he wanted now was sleep and to hide his stupidly spontaneous note to himself. He could feel the numbness licking against the carefully maintained walls of his mind, and he was thankful for the impending respite. Almost tenderly he slid his fingers around the solid door and pushed until the hinges screamed in displeasure. That was when he heard the tell-tale crash and murmured obscenities that bespoke guilt. He knew the voice just as he knew the hushed phrases spilling between lips most likely some lurid color or other. Wary apprehension bloomed in his aching veins; he knew what she was guilty about. She probably did not know it was he who had entered, but there was little doubt that he had misread the situation he had stepped into. His obsidian eyes fell to the small note he had scrawled to himself. The bottom corner was bent. He had made no mistake.
Slowly, he released the breath he had been holding as he waited for his typical anger to rise, but only a token fury surfaced. Resignedly, he slipped the creased paper into a fold in his cloak. He quickly discarded the imagined image of her flushed face as she read as quickly as possible the words most likely to cause his destruction. The words penned in his own hand, he thought as he sank into the armchair closest to him. The curve of her lip caught between one tooth as she devoured his words rippled through his already overtaxed mind. Clearly, he decided, sleep would not nearly be remedy enough. He sank his head back into the moth-eaten plush of the faded armchair and pretended that he did not feel satisfaction in making her quixotic eyes sparkle the way he knew they would be right now as he slid into a dreamless slumber.
As far away from the room where Snape hid with his current miseries as possible, Tonks slid along the wall until she was sitting with her arms around her knees and her chin resting on her folded wrists. A smile danced temptingly on her bowed lips. Perhaps Snape was not so far from redemption after all. It seemed his own, private Ice Age was thawing, and he had yet another regret that was plaguing him. Selfishly, she squeezed her knees closer to her chest and forcefully bit into her lips to keep from screeching her excitement. Her monolith was crumbling; he had implied it himself. Soon, he would be just a man haunted by old ghosts who would be willing to hold her hand and try to make her smile. Her breath whined through her teeth as she hugged herself even tighter. He was making her smile now.