Suspected

A/N: After watching the Harry Potter Reunion for the 20th Anniversary, I was inspired to write a sequel for Entangled. As usual, enjoy. :D

Chapter One: A Mid-Summer Night's Sting

The subtle sting of the Dark Mark on her left forearm had started at the beginning of June. Last year, the Mark had merely been dormant, fleshed gray by the Dark Lord's absence; but since Peter Pettigrew had escaped Harry Potter's grasp at the end of the school year, Rita had felt the Mark intensify over the summer break, darkening over the passing season as September came upon Spinner's End.

Rita rubbed her forearm disdainfully, knowing full well that trying to massage it wouldn't make it any less painful—it wasn't enough for Rita to scour the liquor cabinets of the humble home to numb it, but it was enough to annoy her throughout the day. She wondered how her husband, Severus Snape, the stone-faced and ever grumpy Potions Master, could ignore it with such incredible ease.

They had both realized that the Mark had resurfaced on their flesh at the end of the year when Rita had been trying to mend her severe injuries after being mauled by a werewolf (ahem, Remus Lupin) with Dark Magic, something that hadn't bode well for her due to her inexperience with anatomical healing spells. The scarring was plain: Lupin hadn't meant to hurt her, but she had gotten in the way of what could have been a brutal assault against her husband, Snape; her favorite star student, Hermione Granger; and the affable Ronald Weasley.

Rita's place at Hogwarts for the last few years had been one as humbling as the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher's aide, although she had visited the Forbidden Forest to give in to her temptations of practicing Dark Magic under the cover of darkness despite her strong ire to stay in the light. Rita's long-term efforts had latched her soul to the Dark Arts, charring and staining her fingers inky black, to which Snape had been spending the better part of the summer trying to mend the spread of darkness.

It wasn't for naught; some of it had been out of Rita's simple will power. She had learned over the course of last year that she had been cursed by Bellatrix Lestrange, of whom a whole book could be written about she and Rita's unrequited (and yet requited) territorial and yet strangely lassez-faire relationship where violence was their love language. Fides in Culpa. Bellatrix must have been cursed Rita Snape during the journey to meet the Dark Lord and Rita's receiving the Dark Lord's highest honor. His Mark.

Fides in Culpa was a rare piece of Dark Magic. In its own translation, it created such devotion, affection, and a dire need for approval in a person (Rita) where they would become loyal to a fault; and, when the ritual was performed correctly, and if the victim behaved in a way which wasn't approved by the caster (Bellatrix), the victim would have reoccurring dreams…or nightmares…flashbacks of the 'good times', ignited a euphoria that could only be satisfied when the victim would atone for such bad behavior—if not, guilt, shame, and remorse would intensify, leaving the victim in a confused state of misery. It was through her husband's wide knowledge of the Dark Arts that the only thing that Rita might have done to enable the spell was that she had been able to avoid a sentence to Azkaban when she, Bellatrix, her brother, and others had been apprehended for the torture of Frank and Alice Longbottom during the First Wizarding War. To appease the ritual would mean that either Rita would have to join Bellatrix in Azkaban (as Bellatrix believed that those most loyal to the Dark Lord should and would have done from the start like she did) or do something more dangerous and terrifying—which was to break her out of the prison to begin with.

Rita might have done so, but one of her worst fears—albeit not any of them that would appear while facing a Boggart—was the prison guards of Azkaban, hooded and cloaked, stalking the cells, and sucking out the joy and happiness of those around them. Dementors. They had stalked the castle grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry last year; and each time Rita had laid eyes on them, she could have sworn that they were staring right at her. Not for any reason in particular. For the last fourteen years, Rita had paid Bellatrix a visit every start of term—even when Bellatrix wanted to refuse her visit out of self-righteous anger. The Dementors would be close by, waiting, watching.

The fact that the Dark Mark was burning a bit stronger every day—others would feel it too, not just she and Snape. But Bellatrix as well. She had been saying for years that the Dark Lord was not truly gone: many assumed that he had fled; the more ignorant and idiotic Death Eaters in and out of the Inner Circle believed Him to be dead.

Rita had been on the fence.

The Dark Lord was the most powerful Wizard of the age—with a lethal range of knowledge and practice in the Dark Arts that she had only selfishly wished to able to know and experience: Rita couldn't deny her own love for Dark Magic—It had been through such power that she had felt the most alive the first time she practiced it on the night of discovering her ex-husband and daughter's deaths by the hand of Frank Longbottom. It had been an accident; but as most people could relate, at the time, Rita had felt only pain and rage. Rita had never practiced the Cruciatus Curse until that moment, carefully led by the heartstrings of her then mistress, Bellatrix. It was an incredible—and moronic—idea that the Dark Lord would simply vanish without intending to finish what he had started on the night of James and Lily Potter's deaths.

Now married to Severus, Rita had become entangled in a bit of a confusing love triangle, but the terms and conditions had been understood by her husband on the night that they two had become one. Snape had, and probably was still, writhing under the impression that he had led the Dark Lord to the Potters' doorstep where—to Rita's understanding—the love of his life whom didn't reciprocate his unknown feelings—had been struck down by the Dark Lord's hand. Rita, whom still held strong love and loyalty to Bella despite the terrible curse laid upon her, openly admitted her feelings about Bellatrix in her marriage: and so, the agreement was that Rita wouldn't pry about Lily Potter, and Severus wouldn't intervene in Rita's relationship with the Dark Lord's first lieutenant.

But the fact that Fides in Culpa latched Rita to Bellatrix's fealty despite whatever she actually wanted, the truth was that if Bellatrix wanted Snape dead, Rita wouldn't be able to interfere, due to the Curse. And this discovery had left the Dark Arts teacher's aide in a mad scuffle to find a way to keep her loving husband out of the line of fire while also trying to vie for Bellatrix's genuine love. Of course, Rita knew that Bellatrix truly loved the Dark Lord in an obsessive, fanatical worshipping way which would be hard to compete with—but she'd try.

Of the interesting webs that Rita had weaved, she had been in an intimate, brief "affair" with the last Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin. It had been a whimsical, impulsive stupor that the Potions Master's wife had slept with the Dark Arts teacher in the Forbidden Forest after a spat in the Potions Classroom; although Snape had offered his forgiveness to Rita, he was still simmering over the fact that one of his old nemeses from his childhood had been able to bed her.

Snape chalked up the whole affair to Rita's impulsive nature, considering the fact that during that time, they both had been pondering the idea of a divorce due to the constant clashing of personalities and that the foundation of their relationship had been built upon a trauma bond. Their unity, after all, had started when both Snape and Rita had come to Dumbledore after the Dark Lord had vanished: Lily had died, Bellatrix had been imprisoned, and the Death Eaters had scattered across the globe into hiding—those who hadn't fled were in prison or dead.

After Lupin had transformed under the full moon and Snape had "accidentally" let slip the nature of the teacher at Hogwarts, Lupin had resigned and Rita hadn't seen him since the end of term. As custom of the Dark Arts teaching post, a replacement would have to come in and fill the position as it had happened the two years prior—and Rita dreaded the idea of whom would take Lupin's place. First had been Quirrell. Only a few knew how that turned out—it did explain why Rita's forearm burned so badly during Quirrell's lessons: the Dark Lord had been on the back of his head like a parasite. After Quirrell had been the absolutely annoying, ignorant, and self-absorbed charlatan, Gilderoy Lockhart. Then Lupin. Lupin's teachings had been sound; however, what had upset the established order last year had been the existence of one "mass murderer" Sirius Black.

That was a cock-and-bull story about Black. He was an innocent man, albeit a hot-tempered, smug Animagus whom had it in for Snape, whom apparently loved Harry Potter, and still was on the run. The Daily Prophet ran the stories over and over: Mass Murderer Sirius Black is Still At Large. It was a dull tale. Rita might have not have known Black personally; but she was quite familiar with his family, and knew that it was a far-fetched tale that a man like that could ever kill thirteen Muggles and betray his friends to get into the Dark Lord's Circle.

Rita's conflicted emotions about Bellatrix Lestrange also went to battle with her reconstructed views about blood purity. Since taking the post at Hogwarts as the DADA teacher's aide, Rita had become fond of some of the students that Bellatrix would kill if given the order. Hermione Granger, Muggleborn, was by far one of Rita's favorite students—intelligent, compassionate, sympathetic, gentle, but brave—Rita loved that girl. Even the notorious Harry Potter—the Boy Who Lived whom the Dark Lord had sent his loyal servants—even Rita—to seek out at Godric's Hollow—had become one of Rita's beloved people to see in the classroom. Harry Potter hadn't been raised as the pampered brat that Rita had been told he had been. He was a friendly, polite, very intuitive, very brave boy whom was well-liked amongst his peers; highly skilled in Defense Against the Dark Arts. And, of course, there was the other: Ronald Weasley, a blood traitor to the name of Pureblood…He was a nice boy too, gallant to stand where no one would go for his friends, quite funny and sarcastic, talented at chess—

Rita had grown fond of those whom she had disdained for years.

So, the idea of the Dark Lord's return, the formidable likelihood that Rita and Bellatrix would one day be together again, and the destruction of all those whom she now held dear seemed closer than ever as Rita stared up at the ceiling when she felt the sudden stinging of the Dark Mark become stronger than ever in the bedroom of Spinner's End. This stinging sensation was not a fluke; and all knew what this meant:

Somewhere, out there, the Dark Lord was alive.