Twenty-One: Inari (III)

Time slipped around Severus. Through the open door to the house came the ticking of the hallway clock: too slow, then too fast. He touched a hand to his ribs, as if that might keep his heart steady.

'You can't be serious,' he said. Albus rocked back on the chair. He did not look at him.

'I am still working on the ideal duration,' he spoke as if Severus hadn't interrupted. 'My hope is that two, perhaps three weeks a summer will be enough to maintain the wards. As long as Harry considers it his home and as long as his aunt continues to maintain it as such. As long as he has some of his possessions there. Otherwise, I know that Molly and Arthur Weasley are keen to have him visit. I am confident I can plead my case and have them keep Harry for longer than they normally would.'

Severus leaned against the wooden post that held up the porch roof. It creaked with his weight. Leeni and Kauko had taken the boy on a stroll. Thank Merlin no one was here to witness this humiliation: Severus was about to beg. Only Dumbledore could bring him to this, he thought. And Lily, of course, once upon a time.

'I've promised him,' he said softly. 'I've promised him he will never go back.'

Albus looked at him now. His eyes were steel. 'That was not your promise to make.'

For a moment, Severus thought he wouldn't be able to draw in his next breath.

'I told him you were lying through your teeth during that deposition,' he said bitterly. 'I thought I was telling the truth, too.'

'You couldn't have been sure if you thought to ask me about it.'

Anger boiled hard and fast in Severus's stomach, until bile rose to his throat and he had to swallow through the sting of acid. 'After what I've told you about how they've treated him, how can you even—'

'Are they physically abusive? Do they beat him?'

The bluntness of it cut through Severus's focus. He stumbled, 'I—I don't know, I don't think so, but—'

'Do they deprive of him food? Or is it primarily verbal abuse?'

'What is this, an interrogation?'

'If you wish to help, Severus, find out exactly what is going on. I have no use for sweeping statements and I have no use for meddling in what is now past. Specifics, I can address. I can speak with them, I can reason, I can threaten. I can provide targeted aid so that the time Harry does spend at Privet Drive is as comfortable for him as it can be.'

'Comfortable?' Severus choked. 'He's eleven, he needs—he needs more than bloody comfortable! None of your targeted aid is going to change the fact that they don't love the boy!'

'No,' Albus agreed. 'But that is not an issue I am able to fix.'

Severus's throat spasmed around a scream. He remembered that dream, now: he saw it in his mind, beating Albus to death with his own fists, squeezing the life out of him, blood gushing through every orifice, eye whites bursting and dripping down his wrists—

He was opening his mouth.

'No,' Albus's voice cut. Severus hunched on instinct, some old conditioning kicking back in. 'Don't you dare imply I am happy about this, that I do not care. I wish things were different for Harry. I wish Lily and James hadn't been murdered. I wish his godfather hadn't betrayed them, I wish his grandparents had lived, I wish his aunt and uncle were good, caring people. I wish the prophecy had spoken about someone else, someone older—I wish it had spoken of me, I wish I were the only one shouldering this burden, I wish I didn't need to share it.'

His eyes glimmered, fierce and angry. Severus couldn't make himself look away.

'I've been tasked with keeping the boy alive and best able to face the challenges ahead,' he declared. It sounded like a vow. 'And that is what I will provide. Do not presume this is easy for me, Severus.'

'No,' Severus rasped, blinking back the hot threat of tears. 'I know it's not easy.'

They were coming back now, swinging their baskets, jubilant voices riding the afternoon breeze. Severus turned away, toward the wall of the house, and squeezed his eyes as hard as he could bear it, until the feeling wrapped itself up into the tiniest parcel that he could ship off somewhere deep and dark, where all of his other failures lay.

He blinked, summoned a neutral expression, and spun on his heel just as Harry climbed the porch steps, head inclined as he murmured his hello's to Albus. Kauko's eyes cut to his: too empathetic for her own good. She flung her basket until it smacked against the table, and the flowers they'd gathered revealed themselves in palettes of colour and fresh, flush scent.

'A beautiful selection,' Albus was saying, his smile an artifice no one but Severus would catch.

'Leeni was teaching us about magical properties,' Kauko announced proudly. 'The mint, that protects against trolls—ten years I've known her, and I've never known you had real trolls. Harry had to enlighten me.'

'I would say you should put some in your pocket, Harry, but you seem to have done perfectly well without so far,' Albus winked, which delighted the boy though he worked not to show it. The whole thing was sending shivers up Severus's spine. Kauko was still noticing, eyes wary and curious. Leeni would remain oblivious until they'd had the time to gossip about him after, but Potter would pick up on it soon. He needed an out, only they were all merrily situated between him and the door.

It hadn't been his promise to make. None of this had much to do with him at all; he felt alien, suddenly, dabbling helplessly in something he couldn't hope to understand and making a right mess of it.

'Marsh marigold,' Harry frowned in concentration as he pointed with his finger. 'If you put that under your pillow at night, it will make you dream of old love. And then fern leaves will make you dream about the future. And that's Lily of the Valley. It's sort of like a protection spell.'

'Harry wanted to bring you one,' Kauko whispered, though of course they were all standing so close that everyone could hear her. 'But they're poisonous.'

Harry had coloured slightly but fought through it. 'Leeni said violets are better. They're protective too, but they're not poisonous.'

'I don't want you accidentally tipping anything into a drink,' Leeni confirmed in a bored tone. 'If you two want to carry flowers on you, carry violets.'

Harry picked one out from the basket and gave it to Severus. He'd known of the protective qualities of violets, of course; they were used in several potions. Normally, he'd have tried to turn this into a teaching moment, but it felt wrong now, like it wasn't his place, like he suddenly lacked the confidence for it. The boy would get annoyed, that was a given, and the others would range from second-hand embarrassment to amusement. Right now, he could deal with none of it.

'May I pick one?' Albus inquired politely. At Leeni's stiff nod, he selected one of the fern leaves, which he then extended to Severus. 'My gift to you. May you dream of the future tonight, Severus.'

Severus took it. Part of him wanted to throw it back in his face. Part of him wanted to place it under his pillow and hope to dream of a life in which he could stop disappointing him.

He lingered on the porch as they filed into the house. The fern leaf and the violet weighed more in his hand than was physically possible.

'I got you the lily as well.'

Distracted, he peered down at the boy. From his pocket, he'd produced two green stalks, each holding three flowers, small and white like milk teeth. A little crumpled, they lay on Harry's palm, glistening with sweat.

'I figure it's better protection if it's meaningful to you,' he explained. 'That's how natural magic works, sort of, and since flowers grow from the earth and the earth around here has a lot of magic, I think that should work, shouldn't it? I know Leeni's said they're poisonous and I shouldn't take any, but sometimes you have to hurt someone to protect yourself, right?'

He grinned at his little joke. Severus tried for a smile.

'Uhm, you can pick one. The other one's for me. I mean, if you want.'

He did want. He took the one a little more mangled by the boy's handling and closed his fist around it in acknowledgment. Harry smiled and did the same with the other flower, like this was their little secret. Like Severus had any business playing around in someone else's sandpit.

That night, he did not go upstairs when he was supposed to.

The firelit room, the moonlight that poured through the windows foolishly thrown open like arms welcoming the chill, the clinking of mugs: this was their hosts' domain, a pocket of privacy in the upheaval of routine. They were used to their solitude; every night their voices, intimate and careless, floated up the stairway and slithered into Severus's room as he read. They were owed these moments of peace. Only tonight, Severus couldn't bear the thought of being alone.

Leeni had sprawled on the sofa in anticipation of his leave, uncharacteristically lax. He kept his eyes on the fire, too displeased with this weakness to put it into words.

Kauko realised first. Something in her face flipped, and then she was grinning, throwing Leeni's feet off her lap, bustling across the room.

'Tonight is the night,' she said mysteriously as she pried open the glass cabinet in the corner. Severus snatched a glimpse of a bottle of dark liquor and three shot glasses. 'We usually save up the drinking for the winter, but this is a special occasion.'

'Is it?' Leeni asked genuinely before Severus could utter the same, only laced with sarcasm.

'Tonight, Severus is telling us his tragic story.'

'Am I now?'

'Notice,' Kauko poured Leeni's drink and pressed it into her hand without looking, 'he's not arguing he doesn't have a tragic story, only that he won't tell us.'

'But he will,' Leeni said with perfect conviction.

'Oh, he will,' she hovered Severus's drink inches from his face. 'The moment he accepts the drink, he's doomed to tell.'

He glared at her for a beat. Then, without breaking eye contact, he took the drink.

He downed it in one, the liquor a sweet burn that cloyed in his throat. Leeni gave a hoot with the completely wrong cadence, like a poor actress. Kauko topped him off, the corner of her mouth twitching.

'The boy's parents,' he said then. 'Despised him, loved her.'

'Cliché,' Leeni nodded. 'I like it.'

Kauko snorted.

He pulled up his shirtsleeve, to remind them of what they'd already known. 'She was a muggleborn. I provided the Dark Lord with information that eventually resulted in her murder. His, too. Tried to take it back. Didn't work.'

'Less cliché,' Leeni praised.

'You were in love with her and you still served?' Kauko frowned. 'What sort of logic is that?'

'The two were not interconnected,' Severus said bitterly. 'Until we'd argued one time too many, and then they were.'

'Dark.'

'How old were you when she died?' Kauko asked.

'Twenty-one.'

She whistled. 'A baby. I'm sorry.'

He nodded, throat tight. He had been that, hadn't he? She had been that. She'd never got a chance to grow up properly. And he'd had to do it without her.

He hadn't thought of her for a while, not properly. Dipping back in now was a shock to the heart, the emotion sudden and undiluted: like seeing her again after a sick day, after a weekend away, after a prolonged argument.

The longest he'd gone without her before that horrid Halloween had been two years. He'd known he still loved her, of course: it had informed his choices, it had sent him to his knees to beg Albus for aid, it had kept him going through those awful months of Occlumency training and the Dark Lord's growing insanity. But when he finally stepped into his first Order meeting, too skinny and withered with pain and crusted fear, and when he saw her there—he realised he'd entirely forgotten how much.

This was a memory he rarely revisited. It had never brought him any comfort at all. But the alcohol had dulled the edges of it, and he suddenly wanted to ache.

They'd sat on opposite sides of the long table. Albus spoke first; Severus was terrified of him back then, so he tried to listen. Someone else spoke. A debate ensued. Severus heard none of it. Her hair was longer. The mole beneath her left ear. The twitch of her eyebrow. Her teeth. The line of her neck. She spoke, now, 'Yes, I agree,' she'd said, and Severus was nodding along, no idea what it was they were agreeing with.

She glanced at him, like she'd been avoiding from the moment he'd sat down, and her eyes—they both smiled helplessly at one another, her lip flayed from the endless biting, the carpal bone jutting out of her wrist, she rested her chin on her hand, something dark and despairing in her eyes now—and she was swallowing laugher, looking away, then back, unable, and so they stared at each other throughout the meeting: amused, melancholic, frustrated, eager. The two years had changed everything and meant nothing.

He lingered by the door when they were done, heart beating wildly against his ribs. He couldn't let her escape.

She didn't try, though her step was tentative.

'Hello there,' her head was angled to the side. The tip of her head; the brush of hair against her shoulder. Her ear.

'Hello,' he echoed helplessly.

'You look like one of those African children on a leaflet about world hunger.'

'Yes.'

Every time she met his eye, it felt like some missing scab of tissue was slotting into his lungs; like all this time, he'd been only pretending to breathe.

She laughed. This was painful and Severus was making it worse.

'I can't talk about that,' she said, offering no context. He didn't need it. 'I can't—or I can't talk at all.'

'How are you?' he asked instead, desperate to keep her where she was.

'Horrible,' she huffed. 'No life force—cabin fever—my back hurts and the birth's screwed up my bladder, what's up with that? Harry's teething. James is dealing with that today, thank God. We swap round for these things, so we each get to leave the house about once a month: isn't that great? If You Know Who kills us all anyway, I'm going to be very upset I've missed out on all this nice weather for nothing.'

'Do not,' he warned, voice rough.

'Fuck you,' she said. 'I get to joke about that all I want.'

Severus's face spasmed in a caricature of a smile. The old, familiar impatience rose to the surface. He saw in her eyes that she'd noticed and found it funny.

'God, this is odd,' she complained.

'Less odd than Lily Evans becoming a mother at twenty,' he said. 'I swear to Merlin, Lily, what the hell?'

He was only asking so he'd get a chance to say her name out loud.

'Don't know,' she shrugged, unbothered. 'Wasn't planning on it. Didn't want it. And then I did want it.'

'A fair approach to making life-changing decisions.'

'My style though,' she eyed him for a moment, her gaze turning severe by grades. 'You think I regret it now. I get it. But I don't. You don't know what it's like—not until you've felt it, I suppose. It's—' she hesitated, searching for words; she'd always been better at being quick than being precise. 'You know what it feels like, to see someone close to you, a friend, a sibling, someone you love, to see them again after a long time apart? You've forgotten what they look like, just a little. The edges have blurred. And then suddenly they're here, and everything sharpens—like they're more real than anyone else. The rest of the world is flat, your person has an extra dimension on the rest of it, and you wonder, how come everyone doesn't just drop everything and stare, because you can't stop staring—that's what I feel, every single time I look at him. Every bloody time.'

He watched her. She scoffed, righted herself, then stared right back: a storm behind her eyes, a challenge.

'Maybe—' he swallowed. 'Maybe I could meet him, one day.'

Lily's expression shuttered. 'Maybe,' she said blandly. 'Look, I can't—you've only just—it's all too new. I don't—' she huffed, annoyed at her own inefficacy. 'I don't trust you with that right now. I can talk to you for five minutes about pointless nonsense and that's it. For now. I just need time. Alright?'

Severus nodded, hollow. 'Of course.'

'Don't do that. God knows I have time to think. It's all I have, stuck at the house. Next time I see you, we'll talk again, won't we? But right now, I can't—you don't want me to say things I'll regret.'

Severus considered. 'Next time,' he said, 'we will talk for six minutes.'

She smiled. 'Sure.'

He hadn't been blocking her way, but he stepped to the side nevertheless, inclining his head. It was an out and she was about to take it—but then, she hesitated.

'Just the one thing,' she murmured, half to herself. 'I was—I've already said some things I regret. Our final year. I wasn't, back then—I was stupid. Something. You know. Do you blame me?'

'Yes,' he said immediately. 'For everything that's ever gone wrong in my life.'

She laughed. But it was the truth.

'I think you need to get yourself some agency, Severus.'

Agency had never been Severus's strong point, and he told her so.

She smiled at him one last time, eyes caught on his. The two of them were scales, weighing the moment, skittering to find balance. She patted him on the shoulder awkwardly.

'You're horrible,' she told him. Then she left.

The next Order meeting, Potter was sitting where she'd sat, but that was fine. Torturous, but fine: she'd told him they swapped. At the one after, he was wound tight with stupid hope and sick longing, and then Potter showed again, and Severus wished he could kill him.

He had told himself he would never speak to James Potter again. Ever.

He approached him right after the meeting.

'Where is Lily?' His voice came out odd, unlike himself. His shoulders were sagging; he was trying to make himself smaller. He hated this, the old trepidation, the burn of unhealed shame. He was too self-conscious to even look him in the eye.

'Oh, uh, Harry's had a bad night. She's stayed with him today, so—' he cleared his throat. He was running his fingers through his hair, over and over: he was nervous. Severus hated that even more. 'She'll be here for the next one, I think. Is it—November first, right?'

Severus had the sickening hunch that Potter knew exactly when it was. The last thing he wanted was James Potter placating, conciliatory, mature: not everyone had the bloody luxury of moving on.

'November first,' he confirmed dully.

'Yeah, that's what I thought. She'll be here then. Alright. Anyway. See you around.'

The day before that next meeting, he couldn't eat. His first Halloween feast as a Hogwarts professor and he daydreamed it away, thinking of what to ask, how to ask it, when to divert and when to push. He would inquire about her son first, that seemed right. Her reading. The colour of the bathroom tile. Was Harry ginger, too? There was nothing he didn't want to know, if plenty he would need to drink about after. His six minutes, and then seven, and ten, and then the rest of their lives.

Late that night, he was pulled out of sweet, anxious, terrible insomnia, and summoned to the Headmaster's office.

And that was it.

'More?'

He'd forgotten he was holding the glass. He shook his head, then nodded.

'He wants more,' Leeni translated. 'So do I.'

'I know,' Kauko said. 'More of this, or—'

'No, no—'

'—the other.'

Somehow, that was enough. No context. Kauko brought back the right bottle.

Severus stared at the woven basket set on the floor at her feet, and listed the names of the flowers within to staunch off tears. Hopelessly foolish. Ridiculous. Only—only that synchroneity, the knowing. Even when they'd argued, even when they'd not seen each other, even once he'd realised it would never be what he wished—they'd had that. He needed it now, so he could ask her what he should do about Albus, about Harry, about himself; she would likely have no idea either, but then that wouldn't matter—

He would be content, he was sure, knowing that she was somewhere out there, breathing, thinking. He could breathe and think then. He would know who they were and how they ended. There was a life, tucked away in the shadows of his mind; there, on the sofa across the room, feet propped up on one another, eyes limpid and lingering—there was a life he could have had, and he felt like he'd been robbed.

He wiped his cheek where he'd failed. They hadn't noticed: they'd been looking at each other.

'Good night,' he said awkwardly and staggered to his feet. Perhaps it had been irresponsible to drink so soon after the concussion. Harry would be indignant if he knew.

'Wait,' Kauko nearly fell off the sofa, reaching haphazardly into the basket. She felt around, then extended a hand with a wilting flower in sharp yellow: a marsh marigold.

'Sweet dreams,' she said with a sloppy smile. Leeni shoved a foot into her side.

Severus hobbled upstairs, where he lay out the flower on the sill, next to the fern leaf Albus had given him. Old love and the future. Brilliant. Was there really any need for this ridiculous symbolism, that's what he wanted to know.

He showered and changed, he drank a full glass of water and he brushed his teeth, and still he did not know what he would be placing under his pillow tonight. It shouldn't even have mattered. It wouldn't matter, surely, if he weren't drunk.

He'd smothered the light and stared at his choices now in only the glow of the sky. They looked phantasmagorical, fluttering gently in the breeze from the window he'd propped ajar. If the weather worsened, they would be blown off the sill.

He left them there.

He dreamed that he was picking cloudberries to give to Harry, but his basket had a hole in the bottom and could never fill up.


I've received a lot of lovely comments on the last chapter - I was very happy to see you enjoyed it! Hopefully, I will get to replying to some of them later on this week, once I feel a little better: I've come down with covid and my God, for the first three days I could barely find the energy to roll over from one side to the other.

As always, thank you for reading, and since the next chapter is all nice and ready, I should see you on Saturday without any trouble.