The terror in the night.

Arundel's sofa was not a comfortable bed for one person, but with two it was impossible. Severus was sleeping, his chest rose and fell in a satisfying rhythm but she lay with her head on his shoulder thinking about the lessons, the artefacts and the fact that her arm was numb. She pushed herself up, Snape didn't wake, she'd always found it remarkable that he slept so soundly when they had sex and so poorly the rest of the time, Petite Mort was more the word to describe his sleeping pattern than the way the French used it. The fact that this still held true, years after she had last seen him, was strangely comforting.

She pulled tobacco out from a draw and rolled herself a cigarette, poured a glass of water and sat watching the back of the sofa. She was not too sure what she was doing. She'd spent years silently cursing him, feeling like he had used her to pass time because he couldn't get the woman he really wanted. Had that changed? She wasn't so sure, and yet she had been the one making excuses for herself and pining after him like a lost puppy, so eager to have him back. Did that make her selfish? She lit her cigarette, forced herself to think about the reason she was here. Clearly, the hauntings were getting worse, and her sword was in Gringotts, so if one Grants Artefact was here already, another was added to it this year, meaning a teacher or a student brought it with them, or Dumbledore brought one into the school not knowing another was already here. The third explanation, which was less pleasurable to consider, was that the american society had come to England with the other four and were close by, but this seemed less likely as nobody was dead or panicking yet.

Snapes hand ran across the top of the sofa cushions and he sat up bleary eyed. He studied her for a moment with heavy lidded eyes and then he lay back down again. She heard him turn sideways, "Come back to bed," he commanded. "You need to teach today."

Arundel took another puff on her cigarette then she stubbed it out, downed the water and came back to him. Now he'd moved it was more comfortable, and he ran his hand across her to hold her close to him and pulled blankets tight to keep them warm. In no time she fell into a deep and comfortable sleep.

From seven thirty the next morning to seven thirty in the evening Arundel didn't stop. By the end of it she was sick, shaken and fueled by adrenaline alone. If Snape hadn't made her food she would not have eaten again. She didn't understand why anybody would want to teach, the children acted like they had a mental illness for the sheer delight of seeing their friends disgusted. They were so dimwitted, so slow to understand that it was painful to watch them. She could't ever remember a time when she was so uninterested in the world. Her effort far outweighed their gains, which felt like pointless expenditure. And yet if she didn't spent the time planning, and preparing and setting up and packing away, resourcing, speaking to other teachers and calling in as many favours as she could, they would be left with nothing to do, and that was a far far worse prospect. The one break she did hope to take had been taken up with the 'keen' ones who wanted jobs like magizoology (where there were five jobs going every year, if you were lucky) who quizzed her and wanted to play with the flesh eating slugs. There were also a cohort of seventh year potions students hoping for some kind of extra credit, or just some advice on how to make Snape think more of them.

At seven thirty she had missed dinner in the Great Hall and she sank into one of the chairs on the teacher table and put her head into her hands. A smattering of students sat in the hall on the empty long tables reading and playing games. There was a pop and a plate of sandwiches appeared by her arm, "Thanks," she muttered to nobody and took one.

"I hear you are a great success, Miss Granville." McGonagall's voice made Arundel wince. "I trust you are finding it as easy as you thought you would?"

"Oh yes," Arundel looked up from her sandwich. "It's great." Occlumency was second nature to Arundel after so long flitting between the dark lord and the Ministry, but she was glad to be able to use it now. She didn't know for sure that McGonagall had skills in legitimacy but she suspected.

"I was hoping I could persuade you to take up a night duty? I am sure you have noticed that we are currently experiencing some disruptions in the Dungeons?" She took a seat next to Arundel and cast her a sidelong glance. "Filch had an awful night. Especially when he tried to raise Professor Snape and found him absent from his chambers."

"Oh?" Arundel chewed slowly, "What happened to Filch?"

"A terrible apparition, the ghost of his sister apparently. She tried to lead him deeper into the dungeons. He said that it turned deathly cold, the ceiling started dripping blood and then somebody attacked him with a knife. He's blaming students... but after the other attacks I'm not so sure," McGonagall shuddered.

"I'm happy to guard it if you want?"

"No, leave that to Dumbledore and the other senior staff to sort out, you must focus on your teaching."

"So where do you want me to patrol then?"

"Your floor would be ideal."

Arundel bit into her sandwich again, "On the days I don't teach do I need to stay at the school?" Arundel asked her.

"You've only been here two days and you can't wait to leave us?"

Arun smiled, "I only teach three days a week," she said.

"It is good practice to be here as much as you can be. We are always in need of helping hands."

McGonagall stood up and looked down her bespectacled nose at Arundel, "My students tell me that your lessons are some of the best they have known. That's high praise indeed for somebody so new. Strangely they talk more about your skill brewing potions than your animal husbandry."

"Wh…" Arun forgot to chew, but McGonagall swept from the room without elaborating.

A little while later an owl landed on the table and left her with a message that read "Rising sun. eight layers high. two sphinx, Four up and six to the left. Are you too exhausted to figure this one out? If so, I'll help pack up your trunk."

Arun yawned and rubbed her eyes, Snape's handwriting was like a spider's web, usually he put more effort into his riddles and puzzles. First, rising sun would denote either a direction or a time. Considering that the next instruction was 'eight layers high' she expected he meant the eighth floor of the east tower. Two sphinx must be some kind of art, either sculptural or decorative, and four up and six to the left could mean door number. She left the hall and went in search of the east tower, sure enough, eight floors up she found statues of two sphinx either side of a blank wall. But there wasn't a corridor or a selection of rooms. There were, however, crumbled bricks showing through cracked plaster. She started on the right and counted four up and six to the left. When she touched the stone it shivered and with an eager wiggle it moved out the way, the others followed it until a doorway existed where the wall had been a moment before. Smiling at her own intelligence she stepped through.

Snape looked up from a caldron, a notebook in his hand, he didn't seem that impressed or happy that she was here. And her own pride was smothered by her usual suspicion and barely suppressed anger.

"I didn't know if you would come, I thought you might want to sleep." He'd taken off his robes and was standing in trousers with a black shirt. She noticed a glass of wine on the table half drunk. He tipped a measure of some fine red powder into his caldron and stirred with a flick of his wand then leaned in to observe how it was changing the mix. His robes were chucked over the back of a nearby chair, and his shoes were scattered into the corner. It was a scene of domestic chaos she wasn't ready for.

"Your puzzle was a little underwhelming, was 'pack up your trunk' supposed to be a euphemism?" she turned and watched as the doorway sealed itself up then joined him by the Caldron, "What's this?"

"It's for Filch." Snape told her without looking up from what he was doing. "That business in the dungeons has troubled him deeply. When he couldn't find me he went to the hospital wing but Madam Pomfrey's potions for calming have been ineffective."

"What's he doing?"

"Gibbering," Snape looked at her as if daring her to laugh. She couldn't read anything behind his eyes.

"His sister?" She said anyway, figuring the accurate guess might make him feel less sure in his occlumency skills.

"You know?"

"Only what Professor McGonagall told me; that he saw his dead sister and was attacked." She could have kept the ruse up, but she felt bad making him doubt himself.

Snape nodded and went back to the potion but he was frowning and she realised there was something else bothering him beyond Filch or his desire to sleep with her.

"What happened to you down there?"

Severus continued to work on his ingredients and he didn't answer her, he didn't even look at her to show her he had heard her, but his sallow face went more pale than before and his eyebrows creased together as he continued to work on the potion. She didn't need him to tell her, she could see it plain as day in the way he withdrew from her, Filch saw his sister, Snape saw Lily. Arundel hung her head and moved further into the room, it was a circular one, with a table, small kitchenette and a bed. There was a door leading off which she assumed went to a bathroom and she pointed to it, "I don't suppose I can have a bath?" she asked, knowing that if she pushed Snape now he'd bite her head off. "It's been three days."

"Feel free," he told her, "There's a clean towel in the cupboard."

She left him to get on with his potion, feeling more than slightly put out at his coldness but determined not to let it affect her. It was her choice to be with him again, and she knew about his past, so why should she be angry when he was clearly suffering?

These were the thoughts circuiting in her head when she pushed open the bathroom door and found the most depressing bathroom she had ever seen. The bath was white porcelain but painted black on the outside, and the paint was peeling. There was a shower over with an oval shower curtain which was orange-black at the bottom fading to yellow-white at the top. A sad sink had one tap missing, the cabinet over was cracked and the door had started to fall off. When she pulled open the door she saw Severus had placed his toothbrush and toothpaste on the middle shelf, shaving items above and on the bottom four home brewed bottles, one hair oil, one shampoo, one body wash and one labeled 'Experimental Bubblebath Number 2' She stood for a while looking at this bottle, trying to picture Snape having a bubble bath was akin to making a boggart ridiculous.

She filled the bath and used the experimental bubbles which turned the water oil slick coloured, the bubbles that formed were the same thick rainbow pattern and they floated laisily, occasionally breaking free from the bath to drift around the room. Each time they popped a new scent was released. She slid down into the bath with relief, and days of stress floated away on a warm amber scented relaxation. Arundel had forgotten how delicate some of Snape's potions could be, it amazed her that such a severe man could spend his free time experimenting with the perfect bubble bath, but that was Snape all over, hard on the outside but full of mush.

He knocked on the door. "Arun?" he called. "Can I…" he left the question hang silently in the void.

"Come in," she told him.

His hands curled around the door and his head followed, if he was happy she was using his bubble bath he didn't show it, but he did come into the room and he sat with his back against the tub. She looked over the side at him, and saw he was picking at the dirt under his nale. Something told her that he used to do this when he was a child, maybe it was the only time he got to speak to his mum without his father screaming at them.

"You wanted to know what I saw," he told her, and despite the warmth of the water she shivered, and wondered if she would now have to listen to a tortured lamentation about how his redhead obsession had looked so real, and smelled so real and had touched him like-

"I was hung up by my neck by James Potter and his…" he paused, lost for a word venomous enough to describe the bullies who had tormented him throughout his school life. She hardly remembered them or Snape at school, but the nickname Snivellus still stuck in her brain. "They mocked me, beat me and…" he shook his hands in frustration and pushed a lank piece of hair from his face.

"There is nothing more dangerous than a humiliated man," Arundel quoted, honestly relieved that she didn't have to hear Lily's name.

"I knew it was a ghostly abomination but it was solid, and so realistic that, for a moment, I thought they were there. The rope was real enough."

Arun pushed Snapes hair away from his neck, there were still marks from where it bit in to his skin. "How did you escape it?"

"I was able to get my wand, I repelled them and ran." He paused. "I'm not a coward Arun."

"And when you repelled them did they act like physical forms too? Did they fall over or bleed?" She ignored his statement about cowardice. He abhorred the idea that others thought he was frightened. She knew it was the motivating factor in almost everything he had done. Because he was frightened, and he was proud, and he'd been taunted for too long. If he hadn't been so hung up on getting Lily's approval at school he would have stopped Potter and his gang from hurting him a lot quicker.

Snape looked up at her, his black eyes were hard, but haunted too. "I ignored it before, but you said you came here because of me, I don't think that's completely true. You're here because of the hauntings?"

"Yes," finally he had replayed their conversations objectively. She was more than a little disappointed it had taken him so long.

"Tell me about them," Snape urged.

Arundel turned in the bathwater and sent a flurry of bubbles up into the air. As they popped she smelled fresh sheets, cut grass and coffee. "Wisdon Grant was a wizard during the American Civil War. He saw the Muggle unrest as an opportunity to become a supreme ruler of the magical council in America, and so he created a number of artefacts which would give him the power to subjugate. When all the artefacts are united they can be used to reanimate the dead and cause mass hysteria. I was contracted to find all seven, at first I didn't know the power the artefacts had when reunited and I never saw any of the artefacts reunited. By the second artefact, I had done more research, not that there is much to go on, but I started to fear them. Later, I uncovered a plot to use them to resurrect the Dark lord, and I knew I couldn't let it go on much longer."

"So?" Snape pressed, his eyes glinting when she mentioned the Dark Lord.

"So, when I found the fifth artefact I ran away with it. I tried to sell it to the Aura's, I hoped that they would take over the cause but either politics or pettiness got in the way of them acting on my information. I considered hiding it at Borgen and Burke's but they are desperate for money and would sell it in a heartbeat, and then I met you at Narcissa's and you tell me about the hauntings here and I wonder if, perhaps, It was the sixth artefact."

Snape ran his hand through his hair and in a sarcastic tone he said, "How very wise of you to bring one of those artifact-"

"I didn't bring the one in my posession, Sev," Arundel cut across. "It's in the safest place I know and far away from Hogwarts."

"So what's causing the-"

"One artifact on it's own could never cause so much damage without being left for a long time in one place. " Arundel got out of the bath and wrapped the towel around her. Severus tracked her with his eyes but his thoughts were far away. "We have either been infiltrated by members of the American Society of Dark Wizards or somebody else has brought a second artifact into the school. Personally, I think the latter is more likely than the former."

Snape pulled the plug out of the bath for her, and he leant on the side of the tub and stared at his feet. "What do these artifacts look like?"

"The first one I found was a kettle, the second a white sheet, the third a muggle bible and the fourth was a necklace. The fifth was a sword. I don't know anything about the sixth or seventh. I look for hauntings with a malicious or horrific intent. If the Americans are also looking it's crucial that the word doesn't get out about Hogwarts."

"I doubt we can stop that," Snape cautioned, "This school is a sieve."

"Then perhaps the Americans are already here."

"These items, do they work on their own or do they need to be directed?"

Arun sat on the closed toilet lid as her skin dried from the bath. "Do you have anything clean I can wear… you don't, do you?"

Snape raised an eyebrow and pointed his wand towards the door, which banged open and a dressing gown and slippers floated through. "I don't know why everybody assumes I'm unclean."

"Hair oil," she told him and watched as he self consciously smoothed his hair.

"It goes static if I don't use it-" he paused, "Grants Artefacts, do try to stay on topic."

"They are active on their own, but directed they are powerful," Arun told him as she took his clothing offerings and wrapped herself in them. "I need to get all of them in one place to destroy them."

Snape reacted like he had been stung, "Destroy?" he questioned. "Arun- I- did you intend to do this alone?"

"I can't very well ask the Malfoy's to help, can I?" she leaned forward, "All my friends are death eaters or supporters of he-who-must-not-be-named. I intended for the Ministry to deal with it, but they refused, and so I am left with no option. I have no idea how they intend to use the artifacts to bring Him back, but they have a way, they have a plan. As much as I profited from my cousin, I hated what he created." she paused, she'd said too much without knowing for sure that Snape wanted the same as her.

Severus moved across to her and knelt down in front of her, "Don't be foolish," he told her, his voice full of cold concern. "There has to be another way to get rid of them. Why are you always so keen to put yourself in danger, let me help you?"

Arun reached her hand to his face and stroked along his chin, for a moment she lost herself in his dark eyes and how dearly she wanted to say 'yes dear, it's too dangerous, will you help me please?' but as soon as that thought crossed her mind anger followed and it spilled out of her mouth. "Sev," she muttered, "Don't pretend your concern for me extends farther than your balls." she dropped her hand, instantly regretting her choice of words. She had her own hangups too it seemed.

Snape blinked, he couldn't hide the shock, and reacted as if he had been slapped. "You think so little of me?"

Arun didn't answer, she watched him for his reaction, wondering if there could ever be more to them than friendship and an occasional need fulfilled. If he could ever see her as important as his precious Lily. She didn't even bother hiding her thoughts from him, he read her like an open book and he recoiled from her.

"How many different ways must I prove to you that I care?" he snapped, "Why can't you accept that my love for her will be always, but that does not mean I have no capacity left to care. She is dead, I saw to that, I can't obliterate her from my mind or change what has happened."

He stood up like a bat taking flight and made his way across the bathroom to the door where he stopped with his hand on the handle and took a deep steadying breath. She expected him to wrench the door open and stride out, that's what she would have done. Her face burned with shame. There was a line with Snape, and she had come close to crossing it, if he walked out she knew it would be for good this time. But he turned away from the door, and when he looked back at her his face was determined.

"You know, Arun, no," he spoke in a low controlled tone, "I hate you so much when you push me away." He crossed the room pulled her up and ran his hands up her arms and across her shoulders. "You want me to say it? Fine. I want you, I care about you." he kissed her forehead and he was about to break away from her when she stopped him and drew him into a kiss. Surprised at first, he kissed her slowly, lightly, and then she felt the rough skin of his thumb as he brushed under her ear and she pushed herself closer to him. She could feel him wanting her, but it was all happening too quick and she slowed him down, "I wish I could stop you from hating yourself," he told her between kisses.

She stiffened and broke away from him.

Severus watched her like she was some wounded animal. She felt anger rise, but it wasn't quite anger, fear but not quite fear, he held out a hand and gently took her wrist and he pulled it to his mouth and kissed her softly without losing eye contact. When she didn't protest he guided her out of the bathroom, and with a wave of his wand the shutters on the windows closed.

"Can I?" he asked.

Arun nodded, her tongue felt too big in her mouth, she felt so awkward as he ran his fingers down the folds of material that shrouded her, as he undid the fabric belt and the gown fell open he reached down and took one of her breasts in his mouth. She sighed, ran her hand through his hair and encouraged he continued working his way down her body. "Sev-" she sighed, but her own bodies weakness overwhelmed her and pleasure was replaced with a sickening feeling akin to humiliation. "Stop," she whispered, "come on," and she motioned to the bed. Snape seemed confused, confused why she would want him to stop when she was so wrapped in bliss a moment before, confused why she needed now to take control, but he did as she asked. He bedded her, entered her like he usually did with him on top and her leg over his shoulder and she enjoyed the fury of his passion but felt none of the ecstasy of his touch and when he finished, he did it alone, and she felt selfish for it.

"Do you have any tobacco?"

Severus watched her as she cast around for her clothes, he reached out for her hand and she let him hold it briefly before she became more concerned with cleaning herself up.

"Arundel?"

She paused, with dressing gown draped across her shoulders, "yes?"

"Arundel," Snape said her name more forcefully. She couldn't make his eye, she felt like she was about to cry and his wish kept circulating round her head until it span. "Sit down." She did as she was asked, and sat heavily on the corner of his bed. Snape sat up, his chest muscles were surprisingly defined for a man who spent so long covering himself up. "It's not my place to pry," he told her. "But you know you are safe with me don't you?"

She realised how wrong he had read the situation, but it melted her heart that he had taken her frigidity so personally. "I-" she paused. Safe?

Snape took her hand in both of his, she studied his fingers but couldn't make his eye. "You're exquisite," he told her, guiding her gently down onto the bed and into his arms. For a long time they just kissed, he explored her with his mouth and his hands so slowly. She felt so alive, like every part he touched was electric, she guided him down, wanting him to try again, but he resisted, knowing how much she wanted him, and left her in agony. "Sev," she muttered, but he was up off the bed and pulling on his clothes. He looked down at her with satisfaction and something else, concern? There was a question there anyway, but he was too skilled to let her read his mind and she wasn't about to let him into hers.

"I have work to do," he told her.

"Filch?" she asked.

"If I don't go to him tonight people will ask questions about me."

"Then I should come too."

"You should sleep."

"Here?" Arundel asked.

"You can go back to your rooms if you want, spend another miserable night on your sofa."

"Ask him what he saw Sev, get him to tell you where he was attacked."

Snape brushed down his cape and nodded, "I'll be back soon," he said as he left.