Snape closed his eyes and drew the duvet up to his shoulders but his thoughts were so loud he couldn't sleep. He pulled the covers off and sat against headboard, scanning the books on his shelves. He hadn't read in awhile, maybe a book would help. He summoned a mystery off the shelf and opened it, Paracelcus purring on his lap. His warm weight was a comfort, at least.
Three paragraphs in and he knew it was hopeless. Draco's voice was loud in his head, Dumbledore's face. Time for a sleeping draught.
He scratched the kneazle behind the ears as he pulled the bottle off his bedside drawer and twisted the cap off. The potion would keep him from dreaming, which in some ways was a mercy-he wouldn't have any of his old nightmares, he wouldn't see any unexpected, unwanted images of Potter-but he didn't want the morning to come so soon. He shoved the bottle back in his nightstand, draped his traveling cloak over his shoulders and crept out of the castle.
Corlett answered the door in her pyjamas, a thick black cloak draped over her shoulders. "Hey," she said, eyes widened slightly in surprise. "Everything alright?"
"I was just wondering how the antidote is coming along," said Snape, which might've been a plausible excuse, if it hadn't been near midnight.
If Corlett thought this strange, she didn't show it. "Oh, yeah. Of course. I think I might have something, actually. It just needs a couple more days to mature."
"I see."
She stayed inside the half-open door with a bemused expression, as though unsure what to do, and Snape cringed. He should've known it was a bad idea, he could've just taken that sleeping draught and now he was standing outside someone's door at half past twelve in the morning like a complete fool.
"Would you like to come upstairs and see what I have?" she said after a moment's silence.
"I suppose."
Corlett opened the door the rest of the way and Snape followed her inside and up the stairs, in what was becoming a sort of routine, like sitting in front of the fire after dinner with the wireless on.
"You're in luck this time, I've put all my underthings away," she said over her shoulder as she tapped her wand to the wall.
"Really? I assumed they were part of the decor."
Corlett smirked and led him into her room, which was mercifully knickers-free, and gestured to a simmering cauldron.
"I've combined the venom and the Thestral hair," she explained. "I think they have the potential to create something stronger than the poison."
An intuitive choice, that, and no less than what he'd expected from her. He peered over the cauldron at the deep blue liquid, bubbling and swirling, humming to itelf, sentient with magic.
"More alchemy than chemistry, then?" he murmured.
"I suppose so, yeah." She picked up her crate and moved it next to the chair he always sat in when he came to see her, and they sat down together.
"What's the difference, do you know?" she went on. "I mean, when a new potion is created to the compounds change at the molecular level, the way they would in a chemical reaction?"
Snape was so relieved to be sitting with someone like this, talking about something he was interested in, he nearly forgot everything else. There was something slightly unreal about it, like he was half-awake.
"I don't know," he said. "I've often wondered that myself. Perhaps it involves changes more fundamental even than that. Something we can't see."
"At the quantum level, you mean?"
"Precisely."
"Fascinating shit, that. I still don't see how that cat's supposed to be alive and dead at the same time, though."
This was too much. He couldn't remember the last time he'd talked about quantum mechanics with someone.
"That cat itself isn't," he explained. "It doesn't work at the macro level. But at the quantum level a particle can be in two states at once, two places at once. Only when observed does it enter a single state."
"I'm not so sure it doesn't work at the macro level," said Corlett with a faint smirk. "I like to think that if no one observes you you're actually very kind and gentle."
Snape nearly smiled back. "I believe that would be against the laws of nature," he said, and Corlett grinned and leaned in closer.
"Deep down you are though."
Snape raised an eyebrow.
"Well, maybe not kind and gentle. But there's a hidden side to you. And don't try to tell me there isn't," she added, when Snape opened his mouth to protest. "I've seen it."
"That was an act," he muttered, but his attempt was so feeble he supposed she'd seen right through it.
"Would you stop that?"
"Stop what?"
"Stop shutting me out."
"I don't know what you're talking about-"
"Ugh, I knew it. I knew you were going to say that." Snape tensed and she must've sensed it because she lowered her voice, made it softer. "You don't have to hide anything from me."
There faces were too close, her breath warm on his skin. She was studying him like a book, reading his face. Snape glanced away and played the sleeve of his robes between his fingers, his legs turned slightly away from her as a warning, and to his relief she stopped and leaned back on her crate.
"So," said Corlett, just to break the silence, he could tell by how much louder her voice had become. "Have you read any good books lately?"
Snape had been so swamped with work since the start of the new term he'd done hardly any reading at all.
"No. You?"
"Well, you know. The usual." She nodded towards the books beside her bed, not far from his chair, and Snape read through the titles. He always did this, when he entered someone's living space and they had books lying about, he couldn't help himself. Nine times out of ten the books were more interesting than the company, and he'd often find himself wishing whoever it was would leave so he could sit and read them.
"You want to see them?" said Corlett. She held them out and he took them and skimmed through the book on venoms. He'd been curious about it for awhile now.
"You can borrow that one if you'd like, I've read it three times."
Snape ran his thumb along the creases in the paperback cover. Supplying her with ingredients was one thing, he didn't mind so much when someone owed him. But borrowing her books was taking things to a whole new level .
"Go ahead. It's really good. And I don't need it."
Snape tucked the book into the inside pocket of his robes and Corlett's eyes crinkled around the edges the way they did when she was amused. "The vampire one's not bad either."
The book had been lying underneath the one he'd tucked away and its racy cover was exposing itself to his face. She wasn't the slightest bit embarrassed.
"This one's fine for now," murmured Snape, setting it back on the floor and turning the cover over.
"Sure."
He was keyed-up, intensely aware of himself, of the hands resting in his lap, and he didn't know why, and he couldn't think what to say. He drummed his fingers on his legs and Corlett glanced round the room as though an interesting topic might fly out of the wall.
"It's Severus," he said before he could stop himself.
"What's Severus?"
Snape smirked. "My pet chinchilla, Corlett. What do you think, my name."
Corlett made a mock indignant face. "I knew that, I was just having a moment." She paused as though saying his name in her head, trying it out. "That's a nice name. I like it." Snape knew her well enough to know it was sincere. They sat in silence awhile.
"This is nice," said Corlett.
"What's nice?"
"Now who's being thick? I meant sitting with you. Talking."
Snape picked at his sleeves. He didn't know what to make of anything.
Corlett stood up and grabbed a piece of bread off a plate. "Don't mind me," she said as she sat back down. "I was so busy working I never ate." She slathered it in butter and took a bite. "My grandmother named me."
"Did she speak that absurd language then?"
"A bit, but she wasn't fluent. I think she wanted me to learn but I never got the hang of it." She took another bite and chewed reminiscently. "She didn't get to see my cousins a whole lot. I was the only one who lived nearby."
"Did you see her often?" said Snape, keen to keep the conversation going without having to talk about himself.
"Just about every day. She looked after me when my dad was at work." She finished her bread and wiped the crumbs off her pyjama bottoms. "Did you know your grandparents?"
Snape could've lied, told her he'd never known them, but he didn't mind telling her-to a point.
"I stayed with my nan occasionally."
"Was she nice?"
"I think so. I don't remember her all that well. She used to read to me at night."
"Didn't your parents ever read to you?"
Shit. He should've known this would happen, that he'd let something slip and she'd grab hold and refuse to let go.
"My mother did," he said, almost defensive, with a hint of warning in his voice. There was some truth in this anyway. She made time for him when she was up to it, when his father was in a good mood. When he wasn't he'd keep her up late, standing beside the bed until she'd agreed with everything he'd said, or he'd vented his frustration on her, whichever came first.
Corlett ran her thumb along the edge of her cloak in a way that plainly said wasn't going to leave it alone. "Were things bad for you?"
"They were fine."
Corlett glanced up at the wall and bit her lip and he knew perfectly well she didn't believe him. She hugged her arms to her chest and leaned forward and he tensed, braced himself, for her next question, ready to deny, deflect, but she was quiet.
"My mother's a heroin addict, you know. So it's not like I'm judging."
Snape was surprised by this. He knew something of her mother's past from Dumbledore, about the things she'd done with Bellatrix, but this was new to him. He wondered what it'd been like for her.
"I don't remember any of it at least," she went on. "And my dad's about the nicest person you could ever hope to meet..." Her forehead creased and she pressed her hands to the crate as though to stand up. "Are you sure Rowle hasn't mentioned my family?"
Snape studied her face, anxious and strained. Rowle had written her family up as a lost cause, thanks to his Confundus Charm, or at least he thought so, but she didn't need to know that. Her gratitude was as unwanted as her pity.
"Rowle's been tasked with hunting down Order members," he said. "The Dark Lord would do his nut if he knew he was chasing down someone as unimportant as your father."
"Yeah. I s'pose," said Corlett, but she didn't sound convinced. She settled back onto her crate and twisted her hands in her lap.
"Do you suppose the Order members will be alright?"
Snape scowled studied the spokes on an old spinning wheel in the corner. His response was immediate, knee-jerk, so deeply ingrained he wasn't sure how much was acting and how much sincere. "What would I care?"
He kept his eyes on the spinning wheel but he could see her out of the corner of his eye, watching him.
"I'm not convinced you don't," she muttered, but to Snape's relief she didn't press him.
"Listen," she said, absently brushing back a strand of hair. "About what happened a few days ago-in Knockturn Alley I mean-I don't know what got into me. I don't usually do that. Not anymore, anyway."
Snape had spent so much of his life burying his emotions he had no patience for those who couldn't, and he'd be lying to himself if he said he hadn't been annoyed with her, that she'd nearly given them away. He was too tired to criticise her just then, though.
"It's alright, Corlett."
She gave him a small smile and they sat together in silence, staring into the space ahead of them, comfortable and yet he was so aware of her face in his peripheral vision and her thoughts were so loud he feel them. He put his hands to his thighs and made to stand up.
"I suppose I should get back to the castle. It's getting late."
"Sure. I won't keep you."
She stood up and followed him to the door.
"What are you smirking about?" he said, when he saw the expression on her face.
"You," she said. "You spend a lot of time up here for someone who can't stand me."
"I never said I enjoyed it did I?"
Corlett just smiled and opened the door for him. He was halfway down the steps when she spoke.
"If you're not back here in a week, Severus, I'll eat my cauldron."
She closed the door before Snape could say another word, and he walked back to the castle, thinking he might make it a week and a day, just to prove a point.
Snape was sitting down to dinner a few days later when the coin burned hot against his skin. He lifted his napkin to his face to hide his other hand as he reached into his inside pocket and concealed the coin in his napkin as he read the glowing letters.
I think I have something
He practically inhaled his food, eyes on his plate, paying no attention to the Carrows, who were talking over him, or to Minerva, who was holding some sort of silent conversation with Sprout and Flitwick. He went back to his office for his traveling cloak and draped it over his shoulders as he left through the front doors, glancing behind him every now and then, though there was no one there. No one thought it remarkable that he left the castle sometimes, and there was a sliver of mercy in that.
Corlett was waiting for him in the alley. "Ready?"
Snape nodded, and when she'd Disillusioned herself they set off towards the Shrieking Shack. The Dementors hadn't started their patrol and the village was quiet.
They put their suits on in silence and set up their workspace. Snape used the smallest amount of poison he could get away with; the level was already lower than it had been when he had first gotten it, and he could only hope that Bellatrix wouldn't realise it, if he gave it back to her.
Corlett piped a small amount of her solution into the beaker and Snape knew within seconds she had something. The mixture foamed and bubbled like soda and vinegar, dark blue fading into cloudy white.
Corlett tapped her wand to the beaker and though he couldn't hear the incantation under her hood he knew she was examining its contents. She gave him the thumbs up and Snape capped the poison and cleaned up their workspace, removing any trace of liquid from their suits and gloves.
"It worked," she squealed when she'd taken off her suit, her fists raised in the air. "It actually fucking worked, I don't believe it."
She did a little dance right there on the rotting floorboards and Snape didn't have the heart to tell her just then how many obstacles there were still left to overcome, not the least of which was that they didn't know where and when the attack would take place, or how widespread it would be. This was meant for Lupin and Nymphadora, he was convinced of that, but it wasn't meant only for them, or she would've used something less costly. This was chemical warfare.
Anyway, it was an impressive achievement. Not many could've done it.
"You have the recipe written down?"
Corlett stopped dancing and wiped a few loose strands of hair from her face. "Of course. I've made a cauldronful already."
"Make another one."
Corlett's expression turned wary, sharp. "How will we know who to give it to? And when? And will they be able to administer it to themselves, if they've been poisoned?"
Snape folded up the hazmat suits and put them away. "Well, it's obvious you appreciate the magnitude of the problem, Corlett. The truth is I don't know."
"But you can find out?"
As if it were that easy. She had no idea.
"I'll try."
Corlett capped the antidote and handed him the bottle. "What if you just didn't give it back to them?"
He'd considered this. But it was only a matter of time before Bellatrix made good on her threat, and anyway, he needed to stay on her good side. "I don't know."
They walked back to Hogsmeade in silence, each absorbed in their own thoughts. He couldn't keep it much longer, he'd blow his cover, and anyway, she could always go around him and get more. They had the money. He wondered how much the Dark Lord knew.
He didn't realise they'd reached back alley until they'd stopped walking. Snape supposed she'd invite him upstairs and he picked his brain for some excuse, he couldn't be so weak all the time, he spent too much time with her as it was.
"D'you want-"
"I have quite a lot of work to be getting on with."
Corlett looked flustered. "Oh. Well actually I was just going to ask if you wanted go somewhere with me sometime."
Go somewhere together-what the hell was she on about?
"Seeing as how the Three Broomsticks is teeming with Death Eaters and Madam Rosmerta prefers her customers visible, I fail to see where we would go."
"Not in the wizarding world. In the Muggle one."
All that excitement, she was losing her mind. "And where would we go exactly?"
"Erm, I hadn't really..." Her face lit up in a way that told him she was about to propose something ridiculous. "How about the cinema? I haven't been in ages."
Snape crossed an arm over his chest and ran a finger along his jaw. He should've hated the idea. He wanted to hate the idea, it was absurd. But he must've been damn desperate for some kind of distraction. He agreed after only a half-hearted fight.
Corlett's eyes widened. "Seriously? You actually want to?"
"That's what I just said, isn't it?"
She shot him a sardonic smile. "I just never expected you to agree to anything fun, is all."
"It has been known to happen."
"Yes, a once in a century event, and to think I was there to witness it."
"Don't get any ideas."
Corlett's eyes laughed in a way that plainly said she was about to get up to all kinds of ideas. "Are you free tomorrow night?"
Snape flipped through his mental calendar. His Tuesday evening would consist of an awkward dinner, a stack of paperwork, Armando's portrait scolding him for his rude language, and Amycus bursting into his office and demanding a pay rise.
"I suppose I could work something in."
Corlett smiled. "Meet me here at six-thirty then?"
"Alright."
He cursed himself as he walked back to the castle, astonished by his profound lapse in judgment. He would just have to make up some excuse, that was all. Hole up in his room with a potion and forget about her.
He set the antidote on his desk where it caught the light from the candles and swirled like something alive, languid, curious, almost playful. Potions were like paintings or photographs; they carried a piece of the person who made them, and he turned his face away, so he wouldn't see her.
Snape picked at a lamb chop and tapped his fork against his plate. Alecto had been watching him on and off all through dinner.
He set his fork down and raised an eyebrow. "Do you need something?"
Alecto put on a wide-mouthed smile that didn't fool him a second. "I was just wondering if you'd like to join me and Amycus for drinks and a game of cards in my quarters after dinner, Headmaster. I've got a bottle of Ogden's Old just waiting to be opened. Oak matured, ten years."
A little Christmas gift from Bellatrix no doubt, and spiked with Veritaserum. She must've thought he was a complete idiot.
"I'm afraid I have another commitment this evening."
Perhaps he could down some poison and spend the night in the hospital wing.
"You like your little evening jaunts outside, don't you?" said Alecto, and Snape's back went rigid. What if she knew something?
He kept his expression cool and took a leaf from Minerva's book. "Indeed. I find the weeks succeeding the winter solstice to be an ideal time for the harvesting of the fruit of the Ilex aquifolium. The juice is rich in saponins, perhaps you would like some?"
Alecto smiled with the forced confidence of someone determined not to let on that they had no idea what the hell was going on. "I'd enjoy that Professor, thank you."
Snape smirked as he scooped up a spoonful of peas. He'd just offered her poisonous holly juice. He'd have to take a rain check, unfortunately.
He finished his food and when he'd wiped his hands and pushed his plate aside he strode upstairs to his office, fully intending to send his regrets to Corlett and hole up for the evening, but his head was full of Minerva and Alecto and that portrait behind his desk, that smug, pitying, obtuse old man, and what he would say if Snape told him he was venturing off into the Muggle world with her.
My dear boy, consider what you're doing. What if someone should catch you?
Snape summoned his trousers and a button-down shirt from his bedroom. "Maybe I don't give a fuck, did you ever think of that?"
Dumbledore's portrait woke with a gasp. "What was that Severus?"
"Nothing," said Snape. "Go back to sleep. I'm going out for the evening."
He buttoned up his frock coat and left the office before Dumbledore could ask where.
Corlett was ten minutes late, dressed in jeans and the plain white shirt she'd been wearing at Christmas. She'd cut her hair short and parted it to the side and she looked happier than he'd seen her in a long while.
"Do you have any Polyjuice on hand?" said Snape, by way of a greeting.
Corlett bit her lip. "I do but...what if we go as ourselves? Just this once? We'll be in the Muggle world, they'll never see us."
Snape found the idea strangely freeing, and he didn't know why. He shrugged. "I suppose."
"So where d'you want to go? We could try Manchester. My friend used to live there, I know my way around."
He wasn't sure what made him say it, if it was the desire for someplace a bit quieter than Manchester, or something else, something he couldn't articulate.
"There's a cinema in Cokeworth I go to occassionally."
There was something too knowing in Corlett's smile. "Cokeworth it is then. Just tell me which Apparition point, so I know where I'm going."
"There's one in Spinner's End."
"Right," said Corlett, and he could tell by her lack of fear she didn't know what it was. "Spinner's End, Cokeworth. Got it."
They spaced themselves a few metres apart and spun into the air.
They emerged on a narrow street not far from where he lived, lined with old two-storeys that watched them through empty black windows, their doors tattooed with graffiti, unreadable scribbles mostly, no one bothered with anything better here. They were haunted, those houses. There were people trapped inside, just like his parents were trapped in the walls of his house.
"So this is Spinner's End," whispered Corlett, gazing around at the empty houses. She wasn't disgusted as far as he could tell, only afraid. "Does anyone live here?"
"A few," said Snape. "This way."
They maneuvered through the grid of streets, stepping around rubbish and broken glass, keeping watch for rats, until they crossed the river and turned down a road that led to the cinema. Snape could see Corlett out of the corner of his eye, rubbing her arms up and down.
"No coat, I take it?"
"No." She eyed his coat as though hoping he might offer it to her.
"You'd look stupid in mine."
"Are you serious? I love men's coats. But it's okay, I don't need it."
Snape undid the buttons of his coat and thrust it towards her. "Here."
"No, really, I don't need it."
"There are twenty buttons on that coat, Corlett. I didn't take it off for nothing."
She took the coat and slid her arms through the sleeves. "Thanks Severus," she said, and for once she wasn't gloating. Not outwardly, anyway. Snape nodded, and they walked in silence the rest of the way to the cinema.
There was a small queue of people outside and Snape gripped the wand that he'd stuck in the pocket of his trousers, but he didn't recognize any of them, and they paid no attention to him as he scanned the film posters along the outside wall.
"How about Starship Troopers?" whispered Corlett, and Snape murmured his agreement. She had decent taste in films, whatever her other faults.
"I don't suppose you have any money," said Snape when the queue had thinned and they were just outside the front doors.
"Of course I do. Aberforth had some changed over for me this morning."
Ah yes, the old man's brother. Knowing Dumbledore, he didn't know a thing about what really happened. And yet he couldn't have told her, or she wouldn't be here.
"One for the seven o'clock showing of Starship Troopers please," said Corlett when they'd walked inside and stepped up to the ticket booth.
"I'm afraid that show's sold out," said the woman behind the desk. "You can get tickets for the ten o'clock showing, or you can pick a different film."
"Erm-" Corlett glanced at Snape, but the ticket seller's eyes flickered towards the queue of people behind them in a way that told her she'd better make up her mind. "Okay...one for Titanic, then."
Snape raised his eyebrows and shook his head but Corlett just shrugged and took her ticket. She choose a seat in the back row and stepped aside while Snape bought his own and chose a seat next to her.
"Titanic?" he muttered as they walked to the concession stand.
Corlett shrugged. "The ship sinks. How bad could it be?" She scanned the menu. "D'you want anything?"
"No."
She put in an order for nachos and a large drink and Snape cringed as she slapped six quid on the counter. Didn't she have any idea what the markup on those concessions was? Highway robbery, that's what it was, but she either didn't know or didn't care. She was smiling as they walked into the theatre and found their seats, relaxed and comfortable, like an expat who'd met someone from their home country. Snape understood in a way. As much as he might hate this world at times it was a relief to be back, in a place where no one knew him, where he had nothing to prove.
Corlett set her drink in the holder and leaned back in the seat. Snape leaned towards her.
"There's a box of Maltesers in my coat pocket," he whispered. Corlett fumbled for the box and handed it to him, grinning.
"How very Slytherin of you."
"It's good sense, Corlett." He opened the box and they ate in silence as the lights dimmed and the adverts came on.
When the film began she leaned over and whispered in his ear, her breath tickling his skin, making him shiver. "I'm glad you came with me."
Snape grunted out a reply and to his relief she leaned back in her seat and stayed there.
He'd had only a brief glance at the poster but it knew it'd be a maudlin spectacle of a sappy romance, and that's exactly what they got, complete with the lead couple kissing on the bow of the boat. Of all the stupid shit he'd had to sit through.
"You know what would go really well with this scene?" he muttered.
"What?"
"Poison."
Corlett snickered. "I can't wait til they hit the iceberg."
"It'll the be the highlight of the film."
An old man whipped around in his seat and glared at them and Corlett stifled a laugh behind her hand. Snape stared back at him until his glare faltered and he turned around.
The film meandered on and Corlett let out a tiny cheer when the ship hit the iceberg, quiet enough that the people in front of them wouldn't hear. Snape had no such scruples. He brought his hands together in a slow clap and smiled. Several people turned around to glare at them and Corlett shook with suppressed laughter.
"That was brilliant," she whispered, wiping her eyes.
They sat in silence the rest of the film, until she let out a muffled gasp that must have been laughter, only he couldn't understand why she had her hands over her eyes, or why she kept them there through the end credits and that over-the-top ballad playing from the speakers. When the house lights came on and the seats had emptied he tapped her on the shoulder. Used as he was to Spinner's End, he didn't fancy walking round there late at night.
"We should get going."
Corlett wiped her eyes on her sleeve and that's when he realised she'd been crying.
"What is your problem Corlett?" he hissed.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know this is pathetic I just..."
Snape shifted to the edge of his seat so she wouldn't cry into his shoulder.
Corlett took her hands from her face and glanced around the near-empty theatre. "It's just, all those people going down with the ship, and I kept thinking about you and everyone else and what if something were to happen..."
Snape gripped the armrest and stared at the plush red fabric on the chair in front of him. She'd lost her mind, that was the only possible explanation for what she'd just said. She couldn't possibly be worried over him.
"Touching as those sentiments are, Corlett, we should be leaving."
"I know." Corlett wiped her eyes and slipped the frock coat on, and when she'd binned her her empty plate and her half-finished drink cup they left the theatre in silence.
"I'm sorry," she said again as they waited for a walk signal. "I don't know what got into me."
Snape had his hands in his pockets, but he took them out and crossed them over his chest to warm himself. "I had no idea you were so sentimental."
"I'm not, usually. But-" she paused and let out a breath, the warning signs of a confession. "I'm scared all the time lately."
The walk signal flashed and they crossed the road.
"I suppose it's only natural, in a war," said Snape when they'd reached the pavement.
"Yeah. I suppose."
They walked on in silence and Snape rubbed his arms to warm them. He didn't want to shiver. He didn't want her to know how cold he was, but he couldn't help himself, the temperature was near freezing.
"Here," said Corlett, unbuttoning his coat. "You can have this back, I'll be alright."
"I'm fine."
Corlett thrust it at him. "You know how hard it is to unbutton this thing. I didn't do it for nothing."
"Impaled upon my own sword," said Snape as he put it on, and Corlett smiled.
"So whereabouts in Cokeworth did you live?" she said.
"Not far from here."
They crossed the bridge into Spinner's End, where the streetlamps were fewer and farther between, and Snape reached for his wand, just in case, but the streets were quiet except for a distant bass line out of someone's car. His mind was a few streets away, at his house and what Corlett would say if he showed it to her, how she'd come over all sympathetic and start asking questions. He kept to the street they were on.
"This is it," he said, when they'd reached the Apparition point. Corlett was shaking, whether from cold or fear he couldn't tell, but she had her hand in her pocket where he knew she kept her wand, hidden underneath her top.
Something was off. The air was below freezing and the streetlamps had gone out, leaving the street so black he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. Dementors, only he couldn't understand what they were doing in Spinner's End. They must've been everywhere. He drew his wand from his pocket, not thinking, not worrying about giving himself away, just readying himself for the incantation.
"Expecto Patronum!" Corlett's voice was shaking but she must've done it. Something silver flew from her wand and rushed at the hooded figures illuminated in its light, talons down, wings flapping. The Dementors scattered.
Corlett stared after them, her wand trembling. "A crow? My patronus is a crow?"
Snape's mouth twitched. "Surprised?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, it could've been anything. It could've been an ibis or a fox or something, and it's a bloody crow?"
"Well, I can't say that I'm surprised. They are rather annoying."
And clever and spirited and playful...not that she was any of those things.
"And what would your patronus be if you had one, Severus, a Tasmanian devil?"
Something she wouldn't understand and could never know, because she'd been loved all her life, and she'd never destroyed the only person who mattered to her. Snape stowed his wand in his pocket. "We should get going."
"Right."
They spun into the air, into the alley behind the Hog's Head that was becoming as familiar as his office. Corlett put a hand to his arm and glanced towards the door. "Come with me. I want to show you something."
His mind was screaming at him to stop but his mouth betrayed him.
"I can't stay long."
Corlett smiled and unlocked the back door and Snape followed her upstairs to her room, keeping his frock coat on to remind her he couldn't stay. He sat beside Corlett at her work table, where a pale blue mixture was bubbling in a cauldon.
"I'm making another cauldronful of antidote," she explained, sounding more animated than he'd heard her in a long time. "I remembered how you used inter-herbal alchemy to reduce the toxicity of the Wolfsbane, so I started with a bezoar and added an infusion of rue, mistletoe, and mint. A simple combination, right? But watch what happens when I add the Thestral hair." She dropped a thin black hair into the cauldron and the mixture hissed and frothed and turned a deep blue that glowed in its own light. He never tired of this, the unfathomable mysteries of a simmering cauldron. They leaned over and watched it together, her face so close to his he could feel it.
"Gorgeous, isn't it?" she murmured. He could smell the cola on her breath.
"I suppose it is."
She turned to face him and there was something in her eyes, something in the way she looked at him that told him to back away from her, to turn around and leave, but he couldn't.
Her eyes flickered to his lips and back up to his eyes and she lowered her voice to a whisper. "Are you ever scared, Severus?"
Snape moved his mouth, grasping for some answer to this unexpected and too personal question, some way of getting past the truth. That he was scared. Mostly that he'd fail, that he'd lose the war and lose the boy before he'd done what he needed to do, before he had the chance to tell him what he needed to know. He wasn't afraid for his life, or at least he thought he wasn't, and yet he'd been troubled lately by something he couldn't explain, some nagging feeling like he had some sort of unfinished business. He didn't know what it could've been though.
"No."
He waited for the impatient huff, the eye roll, but she kept her face close and brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes, tucking it behind his ear and stroking his face with her thumb.
"Hey. It's just me."
No one had ever touched him like this. Something broke and he let it tear, let himself be slit open.
He tilted his head and she pressed her lips to his, searching them, finding a rhythm. He let her lead, because he wasn't sure what to do, how to move, where to put his hands. He'd never been with anyone like this, he'd only ever used, and been used. He didn't think, didn't fight, he only was, tasting the salt on her lips, breathing in her skin, stroking it under his fingertips as he reached up to cup her face, arms stiff under his frock coat.
She ran her fingers through his hair and they kissed harder, losing their rhythm, reaching for something they couldn't express in words. He was afraid she wouldn't stop, but she pulled away, breathing hard, and rested her forehead against his and he wanted to get the hell away from her and he wanted to keep going.
"Can I tell you something?" she whispered.
"What is it?" He meant it to be a warning but the words caught in his throat.
"Do you know how I conjured that patronus?"
"No."
She nuzzled the side of his face and kissed his jaw. "I thought about you."
This was all wrong. He was dizzy, unbalanced, blind, lost in something he couldn't handle and didn't understand. He needed something familiar, something he knew. He pulled away from her.
"Don't."
Corlett screwed up her face in confusion. "What do you mean?"
Snape made an impatient noise. "You know perfectly well what I mean. This was a terrible idea. I never should have come with you tonight. You should't have wanted me to."
"Yeah, but-"
"Stop wasting my time."
Corlett's eyes flashed but he shot out of his seat and walked away before she could say anything, closing the door behind him with a sharp snap. He meant to get away from there as fast as he could, but when he reached the street he stopped, resting against a lamppost to adjust his traveling cloak, watching the alley as though she might have run after him. But that was stupid.
The castle was quiet when he stepped inside the front doors; it must've been past curfew. The Entrance Hall was empty except for one person. Alecto was standing beside the steps to the dungeons, watching him. He stared at her, one eyebrow raised, and she turned and went downstairs.
A/N: Thanks for reading! And thank you to PearlM21 for the review! Totally agree that Snape was right to get angry with Graihagh, she did cross a line. She can be pretty impulsive at times and doesn't always make the greatest decisions, but she'll get better at it.
