Chapter 23 – Le Rose Noir
"I'm telling you it wasn't me," insisted Daemon Nott, half laughing, half exasperated.
"Well who was it then?" asked Nicki, her dark brown eyes glinting with puckish delight.
"I don't know – and no, that's not proof it was me!" said Daemon quickly, holding out a hand to stem Nicki's accusation. "Just because I didn't send it doesn't mean I know who did."
"What are you two talking about?" asked Katherine, leaning her head on Daemon's shoulder and gazing over at Nicki with distinctly glazed eyes.
"That singing cupid in sixth year," said Nicki, who wasn't half as drunk as her friend. "Remember the one? It started singing rude limericks in Potions and Professor Delphinus nearly burst a blood vessel when he heard it."
Katherine grinned impishly, dark hair falling across her face and contrasting starkly with her pale skin. "Yeah; we all thought it was hilarious – best prank he ever pulled."
"Who?" asked Nicki sharply, eyes alight with interest. Katherine smiled slyly and placed a carefully manicured finger to her lips. "Was it Black?" demanded Nicki, brow creased suspiciously.
"Black?" asked Severus, glancing up from his conversation with Robert and looking sharply at Katherine who gazed back blandly.
"Not Sirius," she murmured softly. "Don't give yourself a heart attack."
"Regulus?!" asked Nicki, staring at her friend. "That sly little- He swore blind he had nothing to do with it!"
Katherine propped herself upright, chuckling quietly. "Reg was very good at lying. He was very good at a lot of things, come to that. Smart enough to keep it to himself, too."
"Shame he wasn't smart enough to stay alive," remarked Daemon, leaning back into the leather sofa on which they sat. "He broke my sister's heart, dying like that."
Katherine frowned, expression sobering slightly. "Wasn't his fault."
"No?"
Katherine turned her intense, almost angry gaze on him. "No. It wasn't. He didn't deserve it."
"No one deserves to have Bellatrix Lestrange as the last thing they see," murmured Severus idly, running a pale finger around the rim of his wine glass. Katherine fixed him with an odd look, one eyebrow half raised in a question, but was stopped from making a comment by the opening of the door. A woman in her thirties with a head of blonde hair that fell around her face in glossy ringlets entered, carrying an owl on her arm. Hazel eyes sought out Katherine, who was lounging back on the sofa now, looking preoccupied.
"This came for you," said the woman, flicking her wrist so that the owl fluttered down onto the table. Katherine frowned, leaning forward and detaching the small envelope from the owl's leg while Daemon smiled up at his sister.
"Everything all right out there?" he inquired genially.
"Fine – no Aurors yet, at any rate," she said, lips twitching into a smile. "I'm surprised you risked it – if they happened to raid this place they'd be able to knock at least two people off their Top Ten Most Wanted list." Katherine and Severus, the two people in question, exchanged smirks at this and Severus said lazily:
"We'd be long gone before they got through the door, isn't that right, Katherine?"
"Half way to Mexico," grinned Katherine, slitting the envelope open, having first examined the handwriting on the front. She pulled out the single piece of paper inside and frowned down at it.
"Who's it from?" asked Robert, eyeing the owl who, having been relieved of it's epistle, was preening itself on the table.
"I don't know," said Katherine, as Auriga Nott departed, closing and locking the door behind her. A locked door wouldn't be much of a hindrance to a squad of Aurors but it would at least buy her brother and his companions some time, should they be surprised.
"You don't know?" asked Severus, suddenly sounding concerned. "It's not signed?"
"It's not a letter," said Katherine, passing it over, brows creased in concern.
"What is it then?" asked Nicki, stirring her cocktail idly, though her brown eyes were open and attentive.
"It's an article from Le Bénéfice," said Katherine, her gaze seeking Robert's. "The journalist claims that there's a group within the Death Eaters who are trying to foil His plans from the inside."
"Is there?" asked Robert, raising his eyebrows and flicking his wand to open a window so that the owl, who was getting restless, could fly out.
"I don't know," said Katherine quietly. "I haven't been back long enough to find out."
"Why so worried, then?"
"Because they're calling the group Le Rose Noir," said Katherine darkly, making Robert start.
Cassandra frowned, shifting slightly in her husband's arms. "The Black Rose? What's so bad about that?"
"Could be coincidence," said Katherine quietly, ignoring the question and holding Robert's uneasy gaze.
"Not very likely though, is it?"
"It's more likely than them finding Reg's arcanus membrana," said Katherine, forehead creased in a steady frown.
"Much as I hate to interrupt, what are you two going on about?" asked Daemon, eyes flicking from one to the other and back again.
Robert sighed heavily as Cassandra twisted her head round and fixed clear emerald eyes on his face, her expression torn between reproof and anxiety.
"When we were in school, Katherine, Regulus and I had...well, a suppose the best word for it is a secret club but that hardly does it justice."
"And it makes it sound silly and juvenile, which it wasn't," added Katherine. "It was just that we were the only DE's at Hogwarts when we were in sixth year, so we stuck together, and when Regulus joined, we took him under our wing as it were." Katherine shrugged, glancing at Severus who was regarding her with an inscrutable expression on his aristocratic face. "We enchanted some parchment so we could contact each other whenever we needed to – which was surprisingly often, especially if we needed help on missions or something."
"Or just wanted to talk," said Robert, in a subdued voice. "Anyway, seeing as Regulus was good at drawing he created a kind of header for the parchment – mainly so you could tell where you should start writing really – and he chose to do two roses with intertwined stems in black ink; can't remember why – something to do with you, probably," he finished, gesturing at Katherine. "I've still got mine somewhere, I think."
Katherine smiled grimly. "Every rose has thorns, I seem to recall it was," she said softly, blue eyes gleaming with a hint of remembered mischief. "I'm not entirely sure that wasn't a slight on the way we used to operate back then."
"How was that, then?" asked Severus, who had rarely been on a mission with Katherine at any time.
Katherine shrugged nonchalantly. "Damsel in distress; poor, sweet, defenseless little girl trapped by bad men – you'd be surprised what people will tell those who they believe to be in a similar situation to their own."
"Kind of like good cop, bad cop, only the good cop is an undercover agent," observed Daemon dryly. "Bit heartless, isn't it? You didn't even give them a fighting chance."
"Course we did – they were the ones who chose to divulge their secrets to a complete stranger," said Robert absently, mind still on the news article.
Daemon cocked an eyebrow at him. "And you'd be able to keep quiet when thrown in a room with a pretty girl who's upset?" This question made Severus frown, Katherine noticed, and she grinned to herself.
"Am I pretty, then?" she asked, smiling flirtatiously up at Daemon, eyes misted again, the little sobriety disappearing now that thoughts of Le Rose Noir were driven from her mind.
Daemon started, staring at her with something close to horror, acutely aware of Severus' gaze boring holes in the back of his head. "Uh, that's not what I meant…"
"So I'm not pretty?" asked Katherine, pouting and looking mournfully up at him out of wide, baby blue eyes.
"I…have a wife," he said, squirming under her earnest gaze.
"That's not an answer to her question," chided Nicki, suppressing a grin. Daemon scowled at her, casting a nervous glance at Severus who was looking thunderous, though his gaze was not directed at Daemon, but at the girl by his side. Katherine tossed her hair and stared insolently back at Severus, as though daring him to say something.
"Of course you're attractive, Katherine," said Cassandra at length, in an attempt to lighten the mood, the temperature of which had dropped a couple of degrees as a result of the icy looks her friends were exchanging. Katherine's eyes tore themselves away from Severus' black holes and she smiled vaguely at her friend.
"Thanks, but I think…" She paused, unsure of how to continue, then shrugged. "I think I've had rather too much to drink. I need some fresh air." She got up and moved unsteadily towards the back door, stepping outside into the mild autumn evening.
"And I think we oughtn't to let her go wandering about the streets in the state she's in," said Daemon, making to stand and follow her, but Severus was already at the door and through it before he could do so.
The remaining companions exchanged despairing looks and Daemon sat back down, seeming a little relieved.
"D'you think those two are ever going to sort themselves out?" asked Cassandra, gazing at her own rippled reflection in the glass of red she was holding.
"Not with Black's ghost hanging over them," said Robert darkly, thinking back to the diamond ring he'd seen on Katherine's hand and the expression that crossed her face every time the elder Black was mentioned. He picked up the newspaper clipping, chocolate brown eyes flicking uneasily over it. Who had sent it? If Katherine hadn't recognised the handwriting, then was it from friend or foe? A warning – 'be on your guard' – or a threat – 'watch your back, we're on to you'?
He glanced over at the discarded envelope that lay on the table – the writer was female, he was sure of that at least. But who did they know who got the French newspaper? The McKenzie's had been in France, hadn't they? But would they get the paper delivered still? He checked the date on the article and saw it was from yesterday's paper. It could have been Alexandra McKenzie, but why would she send it to Katherine? Why-?
He stopped, suddenly doubting his friend's sincerity. Yes, she was drunk and by nature curious, but she was also a fugitive and criminal and as such was aware of the risks of opening mail from unknown composers. Would she have opened the letter if she hadn't had some idea who it was from? Perhaps denying knowledge of the sender was borne not from ignorance, but from a wish to conceal an identity. That of her cousin's, maybe?
After all, Faye, the blonde woman with so striking a resemblance to his own companion, had to have attended school somewhere and from what he had gleaned from Katherine of the character of her Uncle, that school was unlikely to have been Durmstrang. Beauxbaton, on the other hand, was in France, and the article was from a French newspaper. Faye had seemed to care for her cousin, so sending her warning that the Dark Lord may be alerted to seeking out traitors, whether the rumour be substantial or not, did not seem improbable.
Robert did not think for a second that Faye knew of their 'club' and arcanus membranae, as Katherine termed it, but she did seem aware of her cousin's rebellious nature and would want to put her on her guard…
"…Rob?"
Robert blinked, suddenly aware he was being addressed. "What was that?"
"I asked if you were ok," said his wife, studying him with light green eyes. "You looked a million miles away."
"I'm fine," said Robert, putting on a smile for her sake. "Really – don't look so worried."
"Ah, here comes trouble," said Nicki, setting down her glass and giving Daemon a gentle push to shift him. Daemon frowned, but then the sound of raised voices reached his ears and he caught on to Nicki's meaning, moving swiftly across the room and ducking under a tapestry that led to a secret passageway out of the pub.
"…telling you, there's no need for this," came Auriga's gentle, almost amused voice from the hall beyond the door. Nicki waved her wand casually to remove a large majority of empty glasses and bottles from the room and took another sip of her foaming cocktail. Another flick unlocked the door just as the intruders reached it. The handle turned and the door swung open to admit three purposeful looking Aurors and a sighing Auriga Nott.
"Is something wrong?" inquired Cassandra, sitting up and gazing benignly at them.
The Aurors looked a little put out and one cast some sort of searching spells around the room, but it must have come up blank for he shrugged helplessly at his colleagues and murmured: "There's no one else here."
A brown haired man with smoky grey eyes and bushy eyebrows turned his gaze on Nicola who was regarding the three Aurors with an expression that clearly showed irritation whilst at the same time declaring that she was willing to be helpful provided they had a good reason for bursting in on her.
"Miss Meliflua," nodded the grey eyed Auror. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"Nor I, you," she remarked. "What are you doing here?"
"We received some intelligence that certain old acquaintance's of yours were to be found here tonight," replied the Auror, eyes darted around the room as though hoping to catch a hidden renegade sidling towards the door.
"Which acquaintance's would they be?" inquired Cassandra, gazing coolly at him.
"I think you know the ones," he replied, returning her gaze with equal disdain.
Nicola laughed, her dark eyes sparkling. "I'm afraid you're going to have to be a little more specific. If, as I take it, you are pursuing criminals, which I would judge likely after that impertinent entrance, then that probably narrows it down to about half the people we have ever known," she said easily, flashing him a dazzling smile.
The old Auror glared at her and the youngest figure stepped forward, saying: "We were informed that a Mr Snape and possibly a Miss Riddle were to be present here."
"Severus and Katherine?" asked Cassandra incredulously. "I haven't since him since the Summer before last and as for her – isn't she supposed to be dead?"
"It would appear not," growled the older Auror, eyeing her with great suspicion. "You haven't been in contact with either of them, then?"
"Certainly not," said Robert calmly. "One's a murderer, the other is no doubt insane and they're both Death Eaters. They're not exactly the top of our list of people to invite to a quiet lock in."
The grey eyed Auror did not look convinced by this speech, but one of his associates laid a hand on his shoulder and said softly: "There's no one else here – it must have been a bogus tip. Come on, there's no point in lingering any longer – we're needed back at HQ."
Grudgingly, the man turned and strode out of the door without another word. The last of the three, the one who had spoken to Nicki, bid them goodbye and apologised for interrupting their evening, before following in his comrades' wake. Auriga Nott, who had been standing by all the while, grinned at them, relief mingled with wicked amusement evident on her face and shut the door without a word.
Nicola and Cassandra exchanged similar looks and Robert cast a meditative look towards the back door, through which the subjects of the Aurors' raid had disappeared some quarter of an hour previously and wondered how they were getting on.
x – X – x
As a matter of fact, Severus was also wondering something along those lines himself. He'd followed Katherine out of the pub and across the road into the local park. It was empty and dark, the only light being that of the moon and the over spill from nearby houses. When his eyes adjusted to the dim light he saw her sitting on the ground near an expanse of dark water that he supposed must be a pond or lake of some sort.
She didn't look up as he approached, and when he stood beside her and saw her face, he realised she was crying. After hesitating for a moment, he sat down on the dry grass beside her, deliberating what to do. Angry Katherine he could deal with – happy, excited, evil Katherine was fine, but sad Katherine… Well, he'd never been very good with emotions.
They sat in silence for a long time; Katherine absorbed in her own thoughts whilst Severus' dwelt mostly on her.
"Sorry," she mumbled at last, making Severus look up from his reverie.
"For what?" he asked, looking vaguely surprised.
"For getting drunk. I do stupid things when I'm drunk," she answered, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "Such as telling the truth," she added, a touch sardonically.
"Or trying to poison certain arrogant prats?" asked Severus, wondering if she'd remember what he was talking about. Her fine eyebrows drew themselves together in a frown and she was quiet for a while.
"Evan?" she ventured at last. "Did I poison him?"
"Avery found you with arsenic in your hand the night of Fi's funeral," said Severus, gazing out over the lake. Katherine smiled absently and Severus chose to assume that it was the alcohol rather than her that found this amusing, though he wouldn't have been surprised if he was wrong.
"I don't remember that."
"Avery took it off you."
"Why?"
Severus turned and arched an eyebrow at her. "Arsenic isn't the most subtle of poisons, Katherine."
Katherine gazed at him ruefully and Severus could tell from her eyes she wasn't taking much of this in. "Why don't you call me Kat anymore?" she asked languidly, sounding almost accusing. "You haven't called me Kat since I came back."
"I've only seen you a few times," objected Severus, frowning at her with dark eyes. Why should she care about something as trivial as that? He hadn't even noticed his omission of the old nickname. Katherine made a face, as though to indicate that this wasn't a satisfactory excuse in her book, but she was willing to let it slide for the moment, and turned back to the lake.
"Why were you crying?" asked Severus at length, determined to rekindle conversation, even if it meant straying to a subject that he would prefer to forget about altogether.
"I was thinking about Sirius," answered Katherine, not noticing Severus' grimace as she wasn't looking at his face. "He was Remus' last ally."
"Oh."
Katherine raised her gaze from the dark water to look at her companion. "I missed you."
It took Severus a moment to realise that she'd changed the subject, and then another second to process what she'd said. "Missed me?" he repeated, not quite knowing what to say to this sudden confession.
"When you were in Bulgaria," elaborated Katherine. "I'm glad you're back."
"It's good to be back," shrugged Severus. Katherine smiled and leant her head on his shoulder, gazing absently into the darkness that lay before them. They sat in that way for a while, both in perfect silence before Severus noticed that Katherine's eyelids were drooping shut and insisted on taking her home to bed.
Katherine smiled in a way that made Severus slightly uneasy at this suggestion, but she stood up steadily enough and agreed to let him apparate them both back, lest she splinch herself. Severus pulled his wand out of his pocket and Katherine wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head sleepily on his shoulder as he flicked it and transported them both back the relative safety of Nicola's house.
Katherine blinked in the glare of the lamps that illuminated the landing, but her eyes soon adjusted and she smiled happily. "Home."
"Yes," agreed Severus, steadying her with one hand, for she was swaying dangerously. "Home."
She smiled up at him again and ran her fingers lightly down the side of his face, then, to his surprise and utter bewilderment kissed him on the cheek. "Night," she whispered softly, leaving his slackened grip and entering her room, before collapsing on her bed and falling promptly asleep.
Outside on the landing, Severus Snape stared bemusedly at her closed bedroom door for a full five minutes before retiring to his own room, where, unlike Katherine, he lay awake till dawn, head filled with unanswered questions.
x – X – x
R&R!