All those years in Spinner's End Snape had hidden himself away from people and lived with ghosts. If he was lonely it was in an abstract way; it was the idea of another person he longed for, a nameless form. Now she had a shape, a face, a scent that lingered in his bed. She'd walked the floors, bathed in the tub, sat down in the cushions, left oily handprints on his bedroom wall. She'd driven the ghosts away, and now they were back. He'd sit on the sofa and talk to his father.

I've got a woman wants to fill yer whole house up with mangy, smelly strays, what d'you think about tha' old man?

He spent more and more time away, foraging for ingredients in rain-soaked moors, walking the streets of Cokeworth, sitting atop hills in the highlands. And then there was Malfoy Manor, his old escape, and now...he wasn't sure. How would he explain this place to Graihagh, if he were to bring her here? Here's a statue from the Maurya Empire...oh, and here's the room where a man ran to his death...and in that room I got tortured by the Dark Lord...And of course we can't forget this lovely drawing room table where we used to dangle people upside-down. Fuck, he hated that table. So smooth and polished, not a drop of blood spilled to mar their perfect reflections.

Snape was greeted at the front door of Malfoy Manor by a gnarled old tree of a house-elf with a squashed face and long, drooping ears.

"What is your name sir?" he croaked, their voice like a branch creaking in the wind. He could've been a thousand years old.

"Severus Snape."

"Lucius says to tell you he is busy, sir."

Of course he was. "Is Narcissa at home?"

"In the garden, sir."

Snape found her in front of a swaying tangle of Venomous Tentacula, the tentacle-like branches writhing like Medusa hair.

"Severus," she said, inclining her head to him. "Here, you can assist me." She handed him a pair of secateurs and elbow-length gloves.

"New house elf?" said Snape, swatting away a tentacle that had wrapped itself around his wrist.

"Bella left him to us in her will," said Narcissa, expertly snipping off a branch and tossing it into a pile, her tone matter-of-fact, her sister's death-as-business transaction. Maybe she was keeping it in, or maybe it was Bella's willingness to turn in son into a martyr for the Dark Lord that had softened the blow. Narcissa did not forgive, any more than she let a favour go unrewarded; and so here he was, kneeling beside her in her favourite place pruning poisonous plants.

"I see," said Snape, fishing a vial out of his pocket and extracting juice from the leaves. "And her other things?" They both knew 'other things' to mean Dark artifacts. But then, they wouldn't call them dark. They made no such distinctions, and this made sense, in a way; was an ordinary hex any better, when it was used to humiliate?

Narcissa snapped a branch with a surgical snip. "She left most of them to us. But you can guess where they are now."

"In Gawain Robards' desk drawer, probably. Filed under 'blackmail'."

A long, drawn-out sigh. Narcissa set her secateurs down and sat back on her heels. "What are we to do now, Severus? We're the only ones left."

"Enjoy the solitude."

Narcissa let out a huff halfway between a laugh and a scold. "You would."

She wiped the bangs out of her face and picked up her secateurs. Snape slapped another tentacle away.

"What about Andromeda?"

Narcissa's posture was already so rigid he couldn't read anything by it, but she snipped a branch with excessive vigour before tossing it into the pile. "What about her?"

"You're telling me that after all the lengths you went to save her you haven't tried to get in touch?"

Narcissa attacked another branch. "Three months ago. I haven't heard back."

That damn plant had tried to strangle Snape one too many times. He shot it with a Stunning spell and the branches went still. "Ah well. It runs in the family."

"If you're telling me I brought it on myself you can just keep your mouth shut."

She flicked her wand and the pile branches floated over to the compost heap. "What about this woman of yours?" she asked, taking off her dragonhide gloves.

"What about her?"

"Are you still seeing her?"

They'd stood up and begun to walk in the direction of the manor. A vine the size of a python with jaws like a crocodile emerged out of nowhere and snapped the hem of his cloak.

Narcissa slapped its snout. "Get down." The vine let go of his cloak and slumped back down into whatever portal to hell it had emerged from.

"Completely harmless, you just have to know how to talk to them. Anyway. This woman you spoke of last time. Are you still seeing her?"

Snape didn't like the way he kept calling her woman, like she wasn't worthy of a name. "Yes," he said, a note of warning in his voice. Narcissa must've heard it, because she dug her heels in and stood her ground, the way she did sometimes. She could bend with the wind when it suited her, but she would only bend so far.

"Don't you think-"

Snape stopped short and scowled. No one was going to criticise Graihagh in front of him. No one. "No. I don't think."

Narcissa wrinkled up her face face in that indignant way of hers, but she knew him well enough not to push. They emerged from the garden and stood by the fountain, right by the front drive, and there was something practical in that; he could stay or he could leave, depending on how the conversation went.

They stared into the fountain, the water trickling out a rhythm for their thoughts to follow. "Why didn't you tell us you'd changed?" said Narcissa, a note of accusation in her voice. "Why didn't you tell us our cause was hopeless? We could've, I don't know..."

"Would you really have switched sides?"

"Oh, I don't know. I still don't know why you did." She stared at him a second, squinting a little as she tried to read his face. "I've known you what, twenty-five years now? And at times I feel as though I don't really know you at all."

"I suppose you could say I'm a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside a long black cloak."

Narcissa wrinkled up her nose and smiled slightly like he'd said something adorably daft. She didn't know that quote, he didn't think she would. The world wars, the wall falling down, all that was a vaguely horrifying sideshow, proof that Muggles couldn't govern themselves.

"That's a good way to put it, I suppose."

She changed the subject and they talked about other things for awhile; who was in Azkaban (nearly everyone, if they weren't dead), how Narcissa had been ungraciously dismissed from the planning committee for the St. Mungo's annual charity ball ("They put Vesta Macmillan in charge, can you imagine, it'll be as tacky as Celestina Warbeck's makeup on a hot day.") They'd reached an uneasy compromise; they would skirt around the fact that they'd been on opposite sides of the war for the sake of their long friendship, and as a reward for protecting Draco and Andromeda. He could live with this, just so long as she didn't insult Graihagh.

Snape didn't see Draco until he was on his way out of the grounds. He and Miss Greengrass-Astoria, he thought, not Daphne-were flying around on brooms, cutting each other off and laughing. Miss Greengrass gave him a merry wave and Draco a stiff nod, and he supposed that would do.

And yet Narcissa's words followed him outside the gates

At times I feel as though I don't know you at all.

But then, how could he expect her to? He didn't even know himself. He'd been joking, with that stupid quote, but it was true, really. He'd wrapped himself in so many layers over the years he didn't know what was underneath them. Maybe nothing. Just a shapeless, formless thing, a splatter of ink for everyone else to project onto.

He needed Graihagh, the way she stripped away his layers and traced the outline of his body, reminding him that he was real.


Snape hadn't been back more than a few hours when Minerva McGonagall showed up on his front stoop. He had an awfully full social calendar for someone who was supposed to be dead, but he supposed he'd brought that on himself, showing his face. At least it was her and not say, Potter.

"I thought you should know that Harry Potter will be at the school Monday morning delivering a guest lecture for Defence Against the Dark Arts," said Minerva when the usual formalities had been performed and they were settled in the sitting room with their steaming mugs.

Snape inhaled his tea so fast he burned his tongue and swore. Bloody Potter.

Minerva's lips thinned, not because of his salty language-she was worse than him, when she built up steam-but because she knew perfectly well it who it was directed at. "I don't suppose you've spoken to him yet."

"No."

Minerva's hopes that his survival might've improved his attitude vanished in a long sigh. "Well, I do hope you'll consider it, Severus."

Snape studied the spines of his books, the way the gilt letters reflected the sunlight. "Isn't he still a student? What's he doing giving guest lectures?"

"He's in Auror training, actually."

"You're not serious? With his record in Potions? When he hasn't even finished school?"

"Well," said Minerva, and her voice was so dry he wondered that they didn't crumple into dust, "I would think that defeating the most powerful wizard of all time would tend to qualify one for being a dark wizard catcher, wouldn't you say?"

Snape slumped down in his chair. "Mostly Dumbledore's doing," he muttered over his tea. He took a long disgruntled sip. "Have you told him about me?"

"No," she said, with a note of accusation in her voice, as though Snape was somehow cheating the boy just because he hadn't told him that he was not, in fact, dead. "But there's a good chance he'll find out sooner or later, and he may as well hear it from you."

"Perhaps," he muttered. Might be fun to appear out of nowhere and scare the shit out of him. "But I haven't committed to anything yet, so don't say anything."

"I appreciate you taking it into consideration, Severus," said Minerva, and mercifully she dropped the subject; she knew as well as anyone that this was as good an answer as she was going to get. "So. Did you friend go home? This Graihagh?"

Snape hoped his face wasn't as red as it felt. The mere mention of her name and he was like a bloody teenager, what was wrong with him? "Yes."

"You'll see her again though?"

"Inevitably." He took another sip of tea. Scratched Paracelcus behind the ears. Tapped his cup. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. "She's asked me to live with her."

"Really? So it's serious then?"

"Apparently."

"And what do you think?"

Snape wasn't sure why he was confiding in her. Maybe because, he knew, deep down, that he was on the threshold of something enormous and he needed a kick in the arse to push him over the edge. "I don't know."

"Hmm," said Minerva, like she expected as much. "You know, I was older than you are now, when I started living with Elphinstone. He'd been asking me for years, but..."

There was moment's silence for all those years she didn't live with him. She'd said once that it was her greatest regret.

"I was set in my ways by then, I can tell you. And he'd been living alone for years. I didn't see how it would ever work out."

They both knew what happened next. Their marriage was a quiet success, albeit a short one.

"Are you trying to tell me something?" said Snape.

"I won't be so presumptuous as to tell you what to do, Severus. I don't know the particulars of your situation. But I do think you're worrying over nothing. Do you care for her?"

"Yes."

"Do you get on well?"

"Most of the time."

"Well then." She rubbed her mouth and cleared her throat in a self-conscious way that made the back of his neck prickle with foreboding. "That sounds promising, then. And it seems the two of you enjoy the physical aspect of your relationship-"

Snape nearly choked on his tea. If someone were to tell him a year ago that one day he'd be sitting in Spinner's End with Minerva McGonagall, talking about his sex life, he'd have laughed in their face. As it was he wasn't entirely sure he wasn't dreaming. He pinched his forearm; it hurt.

"Anyway," she rushed on, "As I said, I won't tell you what to do. But I will tell you this. Whatever it is you've done, you've made up for it and then some. There's no need to punish yourself further."


Snape knelt beside the tomb and set a bag of sherbet lemons at its base, tied in blue ribbon, tiny and yellow against the vast white marble.

"Not that you deserve it or anything," he muttered. He brushed a few stray leaves off the marker and traced the letters of his name. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Quite the mouthful, but knowing Dumbledore he'd probably been able to write it in cursive since he was two. Every time he imagined him as a child, sitting at a desk with his legs swinging, he had a beard and a lined face.

He stood up and ran his fingers along the marble, glassy smooth and cold even in the sunlight. He was so used to him as a portrait, his blue eyes piercing and alert, he couldn't wrap his head around the lifeless body inside, the sleeping face. There was so much he needed to ask him, so much he needed to know.

He gripped a sharp edge where two sides met and rested his head against the marble. "Well, it all worked out in the end, didn't it? I hated it. But it worked."

And the boy lives. Had Dumbledore known he would?

He squeezed his eyes shut. Dammit, why did he have to feel everything so deeply? The old man hadn't. Or had he? Had he cared for him like he cared for Potter?

"Did you really mean it? That you didn't think I'd die?" Silence. He was the same in death as he'd been in life. Cold, remote, inscrutable.

His vision blurred and he kicked the marble so hard his toes hurt. "Answer me, damn you! Why don't you answer?"

"Snape-Sir? Professor?"

Snape drew his wand and wheeled. There was Potter, not more than five feet away, his face rigid and lined with shock, and something else, was there a hint of a smirk on his lips?Of course he would show up now. Of course. He'd seen him cry over his mother, heard him keening like an animal when she died. What was one more pathetic display?

Snape lowered his wand, but his expression was murderous enough that he didn't need it.

Don't you dare come any closer. Don't you dare look into my eyes. You've seen enough.

"What is it, Potter?"

"What-how...I thought...?"

"Perhaps I'm a ghost, Potter? Then again..." He held up his arms for his inspection. "I don't appear to be transparent, do I?"

Potter's shock turned to confusion, a slight tilt of the head, a crease between the eyes like he was trying to work him out. What was he expecting, that Snape would wrap him up in his arms, tell him he was his mother's son?

"You survived?"

"Obviously."

"But...how?"

Snape dismissed the question with a derisive huff. As though he'd tell him that. But then, there was part of him that wanted him to, that longed to see the look on his face when he found out somebody loved him.

"Shocking though it may seem, Potter, there were people that didn't want me dead."

He narrowed his eyes in accusation, for all the years Potter suspected him, for all the years he wished him ill, when all he'd done was protect him. Potter glanced away. He'd started to grow a stupid little beard and Snape was glad of the excuse not to have to look at it.

"I hated him too, sometimes," said Potter, reaching out to touch the tomb. He was dressed in long black robes, and his sleeve brushed the marble. "But he knew what he was doing, didn't he? He understood magic in a way no one else did."

"Yes," said Snape, his voice betraying no emotion. "I suppose he did."

Great. Now they were bonding.

"Listen," said Potter, pulling his hand away and smoothing back that fractious mop of hair, "I never thanked you-"

"I don't need your gratitude."

Potter closed his mouth and his brows furrowed, with confusion maybe, or frustation. This little meeting clearly wasn't going the way he expected, and that exactly as Snape had intended. Throw him off-balance, keep him off his feet, and then he could take control, keep it from going places he didn't want it to. But then, this was Potter he was dealing with. The boy had no filter.

"I was thinking," said Potter,

"That's a change," said Snape, without knowing why.

Potter sighed and tapped the side of the tomb with his trainers. A subdued reaction; a year before he might've kicked it and roared in frustration. He'd finally learned to master his anger, the one thing Snape had failed to teach him. "Can we just have a conversation? Sir? Please?"

Only too late did Snape realise he was being a bit of an ass. Heaven forbid he should appear less mature and collected than Potter. "Go on."

"I was just thinking that if my mum had known-if she'd seen what you did, I think she'd have been really pleased-"

Snape's instinct was raw, visceral, screaming at him to seize hair and shout at the boy to shut his fucking he pushed it down, buried it inside him; the last thing he wanted was for Potter to know he'd struck him where it hurt.

"And how would you know?"

Potter dragged his foot along the bottom of the tomb, the rubber soles of his trainers scraping against the marble. Merlin, if he could just get his hands on a flat-edged stone so he could scrape that wispy adolescent beard away.

"Do you remember her well? My mum?"

He'd tossed it to the wind like a throwaway question, but the voice Snape heard was much smaller, a child looking for its mother. He turned his head so he wouldn't see their reflections in the marble.

"She talked a lot," he said, with no emotion in his voice, because once he let it surface it wouldn't stop. "She liked to tell jokes and play pranks. We used to get her sister a lot."

Potter let out a huff of air, a quiet laugh, and waited for Snape to go on.

"She liked flying, I remember that. She was good on a broom. She liked Potions. A pity you didn't inherit any of her talent-"

"Can we just focus on my mum, Professor?"

"I was just commenting on your notable differences-"

"Yes, thank you. Go on."

Snape was about to snap at him not to interrupt, but decided against it. "Anyway, she liked to swim. She liked music. The Who, she liked them, and Saturnalia, that was her favourite, they were a wizarding band. She liked to get messy, too. We used to wade in the river for frogs."

"She must've been a fun person to be around, then."

"Yes. She was."

Snape stared down at the base of the tomb, and Potter stared out at the lake, each remembering her their own way. Dammit, was this bonding again?

Snape gave him a sideways glance, that stupid beard mocking him out of his peripheral vision. "So they let you enter Auror training, did they?"

Potter flattened his hair again, scratched his face. "Yeah. Guess they did."

"Better get more competent at mixing up antidotes. There won't always be a bezoar on hand to save your skin."

"I'm working on it, Professor."

Snape noted his most sincere use of the words professor and sir. He'd finally decided to show some deference, and it had only taken ten years and his mistaken death to do it.

He stared up at the tree branches and Potter shifted on his feet, turned to face him, offered him his hand. "I can't thank you enough-"

Snape shoved his hands in his pockets. "Then don't."

"Right," muttered Potter, with a resigned sigh, or maybe a frustrated one, or maybe both. "So. I take it you're not returning to teaching, then?"

"No."

No surprise there, Potter's expression seemed to say, and Snape was about to sneer at him when he said something entirely unexpected. "I learned a lot from you."

Snape stopped himself making a skeptical noise. "Good."

Potter shifted on his feet again, waiting for Snape to say something.

"I should be going," he said, so as not to prolong the awkwardness any longer than was necessary.

"Yeah. Sure. I need to get back to the Ministry myself."

"Tell no one, do I make myself plain?"

"I won't."

Snape pivoted on his feet to walk away, but stopped himself before he'd turned around. "Potter."

Just as he'd hoped, Potter's eyes met his, bright-green, sparkling with life. He allowed himself a few seconds to drink them in, memorise them.

Everything will be alright now, he told her. Your son is alright. You'd be proud of him.

He forced himself to look away before anything showed on his face, turned and swept away, but before the boy was out of earshot he called over his shoulder.

"Good luck, Potter."

"Thanks," said Harry's voice, and he sounded sincere. "You too."

Snape walked the edge of the lake and just as he reached the castle he took one last look at the old man's tomb, bright white in the afternoon sun. I suppose you're smirking down on us, old man?

Lily, he thought. Lily would be pleased.


These were the times when he missed Graihagh the most, when he had things to tell her. Little things, mostly. Like when he'd found a tweak for a potion or he remembered something stupid that happened to him when he was teaching. This, though, was much bigger. He was ready to tell her more about Lily, and what he thought of her son, only she wasn't there to listen.

They were easy to talk to, Graihagh and Lily, only in different ways. Lily'd been bubbly and inquisitive, always wanting to know more about magic, always talking-she'd talked with her hands as much as her mouth. Graihagh was quieter, more intense-he wouldn't call her serious, exactly, but she had a way of throwing herself into her work, and her mind was a perpetual motion machine, always going. She understood him, and he loved her for it.

He went upstairs and traced the wooden windowsill. Say that he did move in with her. He'd wake up next to her and talk to her awhile, make love if there was time. She'd go off to her potioneering job, and he'd get up and do-what, exactly? What the hell was he supposed to do with himself? How could he go from saving lives to mixing up batches of hair potion and reading off the instructions to crotchety bald men who were perfectly capable of reading it themselves?

And when they got home, what then? All he knew was how it shouldn't be. Graihagh shouldn't be bustling about in the kitchen, setting the table while she gauged his mood and worked out how best to quell an outburst. He shouldn't punish her by sitting in icy silence, or pick a fight and blame her for it. She shouldn't drink herself to death like his father. That was all well and good; it was the things they should do that baffled him.

They were stumbling in dark, the two of them, but he supposed they'd just have to pick each other up.

Graihagh sat on the steps off Blackpool beach with Cate; it was high tide, and their feet dangled in the water.

Their last day together, Severus had gone with her to Liverpool to help her arrange a burial for her mother. There was no will, only a box from Jo, with her books and clothes and the few things she'd taken with her when she left. The slip of paper her dad has used to write directions back to the hostel where she was staying, along with his phone number. A photograph of him smiling in that shy way of his and standing beside a motorbike. And two photographs of Graihagh, one when she was first born, the second when she turned one, dressed in a mud-splattered romper suit and beaming. Graihagh kept them inside the box, under a charm so they wouldn't fade, or burn in a fire. She couldn't look at them.

She spent the next day with Cate, and on a whim they went to Blackpool, where they ate too much pizza and rode the Big Dipper and almost forgot about the day before.

"My dad came with me to the burial," said Graihagh, as the sea spray hit their faces. "I didn't think he would."

"Did he cry?"

The day was warm but cloudy, and the beach wasn't crowded. The sound of the sea drowned out the music and voices from the promenade, so that it was just them; they might've been the only people for miles.

"No, but he was quiet all day."

The wind was picking up off the sea, and the waves were choppy. In the distance she could see the pier and the top of a rollercoaster.

"My dad said we came here once. When mum was living with us. To see the lights."

Cate squeezed her hand.

"Sometimes I think, that's so typical, that the last thing she did was run away. But then I think, it couldn't have been easy reaching out to me and telling me what she did."

"That's true. That was brave of her."

A wave crashed against the steps and soaked their jeans. They moved up a few steps.

"I spent some time with Jo yesterday," said Graihagh. "We exchanged phone numbers."

"How is she?"

"She's taking it sort of hard, I think. She and mum were really close. I'm going to help her as much as I can though. Her landlord's a right little bastard, I might have to have Severus teach me a Confundus Charm so she'll fix the plumbing. "

Cate smirked. She was utterly bewildered by the whole relationship-she'd said so outright-but she wasn't about to talk her out of it, not when Graihagh was so happy. Just so long as he didn't mistreat her.

"D'you think he'll move in?"

Graihagh tilted her head and blushed. The mere mention of Severus and she turned into a bloody teenager, what was with her?

"Honestly, knowing him it's a long shot. But I'm going to invite him over in a couple of weeks. I decided to take that flat above the shop in Port St. Mary, did I tell you?"

"That'll be a nice change."

"You'll have to stay over sometime."

Cate smiled and rocked forward on the step. "I might not have to."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when you went to visit Severus I did a bit of job-hunting. I have an interview with the Manx Ministry next week."

Graihagh squealed and Cate nearly knocked her into the water, hugging her. "It's just a desk job in the Muggle laison office," she said as they pulled apart. "But I might be able to do a bit of teaching on the side."

"Oh I'm sure, you know how we love music."

Cate squeezed her hands together and watched as a wave crashed against the steps. "It'll be a nice change, not looking over my shoulder all the time."

"Is he stalking you?"

"He came to the house a few weeks ago and wouldn't leave. Mum chased him off with a knife."

Cate's voice was blunt, matter-of-fact, but Graihagh saw her face as it would've been then, her wide, terrified eyes.

"I hope he pissed himself."

"Well, he hasn't back since, so maybe that scared him off."

Graihagh squeezed her shoulder. "He won't lay a finger on you, I promise. My dad and stepmum, Milo and Fynn, we'll back you up."

Cate dipped her toes in the water and stared out to sea, picturing her new life, maybe. "I know you will."

Graihagh had one more thing to do before she caught the Portkey home.

Thaxted was different by daylight, the trees and fields green-gold under the late September sun. The streets were full of people, packs of children on their way home from school, parents pushing babies in prams, delivery drivers lugging cardboard boxes on trolleys. They'd been minutes, maybe seconds away from death, and none of them knew.

They lived at the outskirts of the village, not far from Tonks' mother, in an ancient stone cottage half-buried in shrubs and ivy. Remus had explained to her once that they'd moved out of their flat to stay with Tonks' mother during the war, but she was driving them mad with endless parenting advice, and just a month or two before they'd scraped together enough for the old cottage and fixed it up as best they could. Tonks had always liked it here, and her mother wasn't the same after her dad disappeared, so they didn't mind being close, just so long as she didn't come over more than three times a week.

Remus answered the door, the sleeves of his robes rolled up, a dishtowel draped over his shoulder.

"Good to see you," he said, clapping her on the shoulder. "Come on in."

The place was tiny, no bigger than Severus' house in Spinner's End. There was a kitchen just big enough for a table, a sitting room with an overstuffed sofa, and an upstairs. But the windows were open to let in the early autumn breeze, there were flitterblooms swaying in a pot beside the stairs, and the whole place was so light and peaceful that Graihagh's tension faded away. Ever since her year in the hidden room she'd sought out open spaces; the sea, the mountains, bright airy rooms. The flat above the shop was too cramped for her liking, but she planned to paint the walls white and put up mirrors, maybe get Severus to teach her a charm that could make the ceiling reflect the sky outside.

"How've you been?" she said. They'd written to each other a few times, but this was the first time they'd met since the battle.

"Good," he said, and he must've meant it, he was as happy as she'd ever seen him, buoyant almost, like it was his day off and he'd just had his morning coffee.

"Tonks is back at work," he explained as he led her into the kitchen. "I think it helps her to keep busy. I'm finishing out the parental leave."

He stopped short, right in front of a swing chair that he'd set up in front of the kitchen sink and charmed to rock back and forth. A baby with neon green hair stared up at them. He had small alert eyes, dark like Tonks', and a hint of a smile on his face; she could've sworn he was plotting something.

"His hair was bright red when I left the room," said Remus, bending over to pick him up. "I swear it changes by the minute." He checked his nappy and handed him to Graihagh, and it was a good thing she was used to these by now, or she wouldn't have a clue what to do.

"He's beautiful," she said, smoothing back his bright green hair. She didn't ask him if it'd been worth it, coming back, but the question hung in the air between them anyway.

"It's unbelievable how much things changed," said Remus. "When he was born, I mean. It's one thing, when it's just a possibilty, but then when you actually see it..."

Teddy grabbed hold of her finger and held on so tight he nearly cut the circulation off. "Does it still scare you sometimes?"

"Scares me shitless," said Remus. "But that's the risk you take, I guess. Better that, than if I'd sat around wondering what I missed."

Somebody should tell Severus, she thought. But then, she could've said that to herself, too.

Teddy squirmed in her arms and began to fuss, sticking a fat fist in his mouth.

"Time for a feeding, I think," said Remus as he took him from her arms. He balanced Teddy on his hip and flicked his wand one-handed, Summoning a bottle from the ice box, and Graihagh followed him into the sitting room, where Teddy took to the bottle like he hadn't eaten in a month. She wondered how Remus knew.

"That reminds me," she said. "I've got your Wolfsbane." She pulled two bottles out of her pocket and set them on the floor beside Remus. There weren't any end tables or anything.

"Excellent. How much do I owe you?"

"Don't even start with me, Remus. Owain left me some money in his will. He'd be dead chuffed if he knew how I was using it. He was always passionate about that, Owain."

Remus didn't protest as he looked at her over Teddy's head. He understood her need to remember him this way.

Graihagh sat down on the other side of the sofa, her legs crossed, arm resting on the side. "My parents are alive because of you. I can't thank you enough for that."

Remus lowered his head on the pretext of watching Teddy eat, loose strands of hair falling in his face. "It was nothing, really. I wish I'd done more."

He brushed back his hair and adjusted the bottle, shifted Teddy's weight. "I keep thinking, what if I'd done more for Dora's father? I could've got him into hiding, could've picked off more Snatchers..."

He should talk to Severus, Graihagh thought. He'd wake up at night, calling out the names of people he'd lost.

"I know. We did the best we could, I guess."

Teddy finished his bottle and Remus propped him on his shoulder and thumped him on the back.

"At least he'll grow up in peace," he murmured, kissing the top of Teddy's head. "That's what matters."

"Yeah. Things'll be better for him."


Graihagh sat cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, surrounded by boxes. Her dad and stepmum had helped her put the mattress on the divan base, but she hadn't put the bedding on yet. She'd thought about getting a king-sized-Severus liked his space-but decided on a double. She didn't want him too far away.

She'd moved in the day before, and everyone had come to help; Milo and Fynn, her dad and Emma, with Breeshey safely out of the way in Milo's arms. He could walk now, but he tired easily and couldn't do much heavy lifting, so filled in wherever he could-watching Breeshey, charming books to arrange themselves on the shelves, organising the kitchen, something he could do far better than Graihagh. Only Cate was absent. She was back in Manchester, packing up for her move to Douglas. She'd found a flat in the wizarding district, not far from Milo and Fynn.

She flicked her wand at the record player and "Teardrop" began to play. She'd wear it out soon, she played it so much, just about every night, sometimes three or four times. She liked it so much that she and Cate had bought tickets to see Massive Attack when they played in Manchester, and this time Cate wouldn't have to look after her sorry arse. This time she'd be sober.

There was a faint noise from somewhere in the lounge, probably nothing, or maybe it was the resident ghost, though she usually haunted the apothecary downstairs. She never said anything, just waved a pestle around. The woman who owned the place said she'd used it to thwack her philandering lover, but Graihagh liked to think she'd invented a new potion and blown herself up.

She'd hoped her mother would come back as a ghost, so she could talk to her. But then, she'd wanted to go.

The banging got louder; Graihagh turned the volume up and tapped Grainne's head in apology. The owl nipped her finger. She wasn't a big fan of trip-hop.

The song had just ended when the bollan cross burned her wrist. She slid the elastic off and read the glowing letters.

I'm outside your door, where are you?

This couldn't mean—he wasn't due to show up for days—and now he was here, as in right outside her door. She turned it around in her hands and read it again, just to make sure she'd read it right. She had.

Graihagh bolted out of the room, grinning so hard her face hurt, pumping her fist in the air and letting out a tiny squeal as she yanked the door open. Severus Snape was just outside, a battered suitcase in his hand.

"Sorry about that," she said, straining to keep her voice even as she let him inside. "I thought you were a ghost."

"An easy mistake to make."

They stood facing each other, a foot or so apart, Graihagh still grinning like an idiot.

"I thought you weren't coming til next week."

Severus flushed. "Yes, well, about that. I thought-I didn't-"

Graihagh wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled his stubbly jaw. "You couldn't stay away that long?"

Snape slipped his arms around her waist and kissed the side of her face. "You could say that."

"I've grown on you," whispered Graihagh against his lips.

"Like a boil."

"Smartass."

The kiss built slowly, his tongue in her mouth, her hands underneath his collar, his fingertips sliding underneath her shirt to stroke her bare stomach. He ran his hands along the waistband of her jeans, working the button open—a tricky thing, it was one of those buttons that slipped through a slit in the fabric. She undid it for him and he slipped his hand beneath her knickers, making her gasp.

"Should I keep going?" whispered Severus.

"Please."

"So polite, too." Severus kissed her neck and Graihagh braced herself against the wall, her legs too weak to support her. She threw her head back against the plaster and let it build, squeezing her eyes shut and moaning, until she was right at the edge.

"Bed?" she whispered, closing her hand over his wrist. "Or here?"

Severus pulled his hand away and stood with his hands against the wall, breathing hard. He didn't seem to know what he wanted, or maybe he did and he was afraid to tell her.

Graihagh smoothed back his hair. "It doesn't matter, Sev. I just want you here with me."

"Bed," he said, "If that's alright."

She'd been hoping he might back her up against the wall, tear her clothes off in a frenzy, but that was the sort of thing that always came off better in films, and she'd probably topple over and peel the paint off with her sweat anyway. Besides, she'd meant what she said; it didn't matter. He was there and she was with him and they could go and have the most boring sex in the world and she'd still love him.

"Sounds perfect."

She led him to the bedroom and closed the door behind them. "I didn't have time to make the bed, I could fix that up if you want-"

Severus put a hand to her breasts, smiling slightly. "I don't think I can wait that long."

"Well," said Graihagh, reaching for the buttons on his robes. "We'd better do something about that, then." She undid them as quickly as she could, but of course her fingers were clumsy, and she missed a few in her haste. Severus undid them for her and glanced up at the ceiling.

"That light's a bit bright, you think?"

She let go of his robes. "Do you want it all the way off?"

"No. Just low."

Graihagh kissed his ear. "Good," she whispered. "Because I love to look at you."

She lit the tea candles on the nightstand and flicked her wand at the overhead lamp to shut it off. The space became smaller, quieter, Severus silhouetted against the dark orange wall like a half-solved mystery, his robes partway open, his thin face framed by that long black hair. He watched her walk across the room to him, but his face was hard to read. The low light deepened the shadows, made it mask-like.

She brushed his cheek with her thumb, tucked back a strand of hair. His face softened like a statue brought to life, his eyes wider, almost pleading. So that's what was underneath. Someone lost and scared, like her.

She kissed his lips and slipped his robes off, the candelight flickering over his chest. She pressed her lips to his skin, kissing the scars and muscle and bone, kneeling down to kiss the hair on his stomach, his thighs. He was breathing so fast; she knew how he felt. She was nervous too.

She shuffled out of her clothes and flung them onto the floor and she loved the way he watched her as stood in front of him. Like she was someone worth looking at.

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her shoulder and they rocked back and forth in the candlelight, stroking each other's skin. Graihagh loved the feel of him against her, but she was aching; she needed more and she needed it quickly. She took his hand and they crawled onto her bare mattress.

Their last night together, they'd sat up the way they had in the bath, and she suspected Severus rather liked this position; it took some of the pressure off him, allowed him to last longer.

She crawled on his lap, jamming him in the thigh with her foot. Severus gasped and she burst out laughing even though there was nothing remotely funny about it. "I just ruined this, didn't I?"

"No," said Severus. He was smiling too, but not, she knew, in a mocking way. He never seemed to mind when she was clumsy at sex, and she loved him for it.

"Trying again, then," she whispered, settling herself on his lap and guiding him inside her.

She rested her head on his shoulder. "I love you," she whispered, pushing him deeper inside her.

Severus slipped an arm around her back and pressed him to his chest. "I want to stay with you," he murmured.

"Do you really?"

"Yes"

She grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him, Severus stroking her hair with one hand and breathing hard into her mouth.

"Sure you can stand me that long?"

"If you can stand me."

She pulled away and whimpered into his shoulder as he thrust, digging her hands into his back, rocking her hips in rhythm with his. He came quickly, as she thought he would, when they'd been apart a few weeks. She loved the way his legs shook under hers, the way his whole body shuddered.

"Keep going," she breathed.

Her body was tight now, almost shaking, and it didn't take much for her to collapse on his shoulder, crying out against his neck.

"I think...I need to lie down." She sank onto the mattress Severus lay down beside her, burying his head in her chest as she wrapped her arms around him. They lay there a long time, their skin warm and wet, hearts pounding, breathing heavy.

Graihagh stroked his hair. "You can stay here the rest of my life if you want to."

Severus didn't say anything to this, just clutched her like a piece of shipwreck, like she could take him where he needed to go.

They washed up and she put the sheet on the bed, the duvet, and when she'd crawled underneath Severus curled up against her back, still undressed. He fell asleep quickly but she lay awake for awhile, watching the rain on the window, sparkling orange flecks dripping down the glass.

She got up for a glass of water, picking Severus' robes up off the floor so she wouldn't step on them. The bollan cross was tucked inside an inside pocket.

She set it on the nightstand, right beside hers, putting the two halves together so it looked the way it had when her grandmother had shown it to her all those years ago. When she'd come back from the kitchen she crawled into bed and nestled beside Severus, her face in his hair, completely at peace.


A/N: And that's it! Thanks so much all of you for reading, and thanks to everyone who favourited/followed and reviewed, I appreciate you so much!