.~.

Before awkwardness could shove its way in between them and ruin the moment, Marcus took control of the situation once more. "Don't run this time," he bade her, as he pulled out of her sore, well-loved body. "And don't try and knock me out. I have a plan, love."

She glanced at the antechamber's ancient wooden door, its carved artwork gilded with gold and silver. "What are you going to do?" she whispered, afraid suddenly of the world that awaited them outside. What if it tore them from each other once again? Now that she'd been given this second chance, she also became aware of the vulnerable position it put her in: losing Marcus a second time could cripple her, and she wasn't sure that she would recover from such a thing.

He helped her to redress without answering, then righted his own clothing.

"Marc?"

Leaning down, he softly kissed her. "Trust me. I got this."

A whistle sounded from the other room; Cassius was calling them back into the main chamber. Just in time.

Marcus took her hand and led her into the other part of the chapel. What greeted them when they entered had Katie stopping in her tracks.

Cassius was holding onto Oliver as a lover would, petting him and whispering gentle things in his ear. Oliver was crying and had Cas in a tight embrace, as if he was afraid to let go. Snape stood at the doorway to the chapel, his dark eyes falling on her and Marcus, and on where their hands were clasped. There was a momentary tick of irritation about her former professor's mouth just before he sighed.

"Mister Warrington…am I to take it you are defecting with Mister Flint, then?" he asked, after waving an extra Silencing Charm around the room with a flick of his wrist. When her cousin nodded in agreement, Snape seemed resignedly accepting. "The loss of two of my better spies most likely won't make a difference at this juncture, what with the end so close anyway."

Katie's eyebrows shot into her hairline at that comment.

"What do you mean?" she demanded, finding courage from deep within to confront the scary Headmaster. She glanced at her cousin. "You're a spy as well, then?"

Cassius' laughing eyes glanced up at her and a smirk twisted his lips. "Mm, and gay, too. Your 'Ollie' has been mine for years, dearest cousin…and ironically, our story is rather similar to yours and Flint's as well. It seems 'star-crossed lovers' during wartime aren't as rare as Shakespeare would have us all believe." His expression lost its amusement a beat later and a hard glint entered his eye. He looked at her, Marcus, and Snape. "MacNair is mine to kill."

Snape and Marcus easily bowed to the demand.

"Duly noted," Katie added, not wanting to get in the middle of that revenge-taking.

Cassius turned back to Oliver and whispered something soft and private in his ear.

Wow, her cousin wasn't really a blood-purist asshat, as she'd always assumed. He'd played his Slytherin cards well, then, because she'd definitely bought into his act for years. "Did you warn my father at the start of the war?" she asked him. "To take my mum and go, I mean? Was that you?"

Her cousin melodramatically sighed. "Although I'd love to take such credit and appear all the nobler in the eyes of my lover, the truth is it was your father who warned me, cousin." He glanced at Snape. "My dear uncle was, in fact, the one to introduce me to the Headmaster's spy network."

"Your father secretly aided the Order during the First War," her former teacher said when she turned to him for an explanation. "It was why he left you and your mother initially. He was then incarcerated in Azkaban for six years until Dumbledore could convince the Wizengamot to release him."

Which explained why he'd never come back for them. She'd thought he'd abandoned them, when all the time, he'd been paying for the 'sin' of fighting for the light under the guise of a Voldemort loyalist. And of course, by the time he would have been released from prison, her mother had remarried, which might have accounted for why he'd stayed away then, too.

Her mum was a widow now, though, due to a car accident that claimed the life of Katie's step-father when Katie was seventeen, so maybe her parents might get a second chance, just as she and Marcus had…

"Can you remove her collar?"

Marcus was speaking with Snape just then, so she tuned back in.

"It's got the lock and trace on it," he explained to his mentor.

"And his, too," Cassius added, referring to Oliver's restraint around his neck.

Snape rolled his eyes and then approached first her cousin and his 'slave' and then her. He used a spell she didn't know to remove both collars. "Why couldn't you have taken it off?" she asked Marcus, as the joint on her choker came free and she pulled it off, tossing it to the ground.

He shook his head. "The lock can't be undone by someone who loves you. The magic knows."

"Ah."

Well, didn't that just make all kinds of sense? Voldemort couldn't have just a simple ward on the thing; he had to make it so escaping victims and their loved ones would suffer forever.

Bastard.

Marcus turned back to Snape and said simply, "Marry us. Here."

Katie had never seen her former teacher caught so flat-footed. For that sake, she didn't think she'd ever been so surprised.

He wanted to marry her?

Here?

Now?

"But-" she started to protest, but Snape's expression suddenly shifted into one of cunning and admiration, and that put her on guard.

"Clever," the man said to her lover. "You're sure? It cannot be undone. It is to the death."

Marcus let go of her hand and lifted the sleeve on his right arm, where the ropey scars of the Unforgivable Vow he'd made on her behalf were burned forever. "So is this," he reminded and then turned to her. "If you'll have me."

Confused, Katie looked from Marcus to Snape to Cassius and back.

"Why is it to the death?" she asked the first question that popped into her head.

"Because this is Flint Manor and it's protected by wards," Snape explained impatiently to her, talking to her as if she was some dim-witted fool. "They recognize everyone who passes through them. You're not Marked and you're not a pure-blood, the only two exceptions allowed, so they'd go off if you tried crossing them. Becoming a Flint by proxy in marriage will register you as belonging to the Flint family, however. Ergo, you will be able to leave without sounding the alarm."

"Oh." She considered that. "But why is it a forever union?"

Her lover slid closer to her, pressing their bodies together once more as he wrapped his arms around her. "Because pure-bloods marry for life."

She frowned. "But my father divorced my mother, and he's a pure-blood."

Firmly he shook his head. "Divorced like Muggles isn't the same. He was still married to your mother here."

In the wizarding world, marriage magic was binding, it seemed.

"Oh, my god," she said, understanding at last. That was why her dad had never remarried…and why he'd gone back for her mother, to protect her during this war! Tears filled her eyes, spilled down her hot cheeks as a lifetime of misunderstanding was finally clarified. "It wasn't just duty or a sense of guilt that made him go back for us. He still loves Mum!"

Marcus kissed her cheek and hugged her tight. "Pure-blood men only love and marry once. It's tradition."

And he wanted to marry her, which meant he really did love her, and none of this was a fleeting thing.

She pulled out of his embrace and turned to Cassius. "But what about you? How are you escaping? You're not a Flint."

He grinned at her. "My mother is a Flint. Carrying half her blood is enough to get through the blood wards around this place." He jerked his chin towards Marcus. "She's his aunt, by the way, so technically he's my cousin, too." He grinned at her like a loon, as if he'd been waiting years to pop this one on her. "You, dearest Kate, are my father's brother's daughter, my first cousin by blood. He's my second cousin on dear old Mum's side."

"That's…weird," she admitted, figuring it out in her head and giving a sigh in relief that she and Marcus were not, in any way, blood-related in that whole mess. "You pure-bloods need to quit inbreeding. It's making you all insane. Get out more, meet other women or something."

Marcus tweaked a strand of her hair. "Your father did that."

Yes, he had, hadn't he? He'd met and fallen in love with a person his social circle considered an 'outsider' and therefore 'untouchable', with a woman whose skin colour didn't matter as much as her heart's Gryffindor red and gold.

Just as Marcus had with her.

"He joined the Order to save us," she said, feeling her chest go tight at the knowledge. "That means he must have gone against his family's wishes. He was a blood-traitor to them."

"When my father found out, he had kittens," Cassius admitted, grinning like a crazy man. "He and all the rest of the Warringtons have disowned your side of the family altogether." He shook his head and chuckled with a feral glee. "Wait 'til the bastard hears about me, though! I'll be booted from the house for sure!"

"Don't sound too happy about it or anything," Katie replied, thinking her cousin had gone quite mad.

"Are you kidding? I've wanted out of that stifling zoo of intolerance and hatred since I was six!" he said with a laugh. "And I get to skip the whole pure-blood arranged-marriage thing, not to mention prison at the end of all of this. I'll totally dodge the lot and get my Prince Charming!" He snuggled closer to Oliver. "I win!"

She just shook her head. The man was either certifiable or Oliver's Gryffindor had rubbed off on him.

Probably both.

"Marry me, Katie."

She turned and looked up into Marcus' handsome face at such a sweet, simple proposal.

"Make an Unbreakable Vow with me this time."

"I will," she easily agreed, tears streaming down her face. A sudden thought invaded her happiness, however. "Wait, your parents are still here! I saw them in the ballroom. They serve the Dark Lord. Are they spies, too?"

Sadly, he shook his head.

"Then, like Cassius, are you prepared to abandon them?"

He cupped her wet cheeks and gave her a small, gentle smile. "For you, Bell, I would do anything."


TO BE CONCLUDED...


Author's Notes:

One chapter left! The countdown is on! Please review & let me know what you think of this ship and this story! I love hearing your thoughts, my dahlings!

Also, if you haven't yet seen my profile page, please do read it as I have some extremely important news about the future of my fics on this website. Go read the announcement, if you haven't already, by clicking on my name at the top of this page and jumping to my profile page!

Hearts and love to you all! Stay strong, stay united, remember to be kind to each other. That's all that matters in the end.

XOXO,

- RZZMG

.

Preview of final chapter:

Snape looked down at Katie, eyebrow arched as if he couldn't believe how she'd changed over the years…and how much things had remained the same for her. "Good luck," he wished her and the others, and in a swirl of black cloth, he was gone.

The chapel doors boomed shut behind him.

"He isn't scary anymore," she said, her opinion of Severus Snape having been completely turned on its head now that she knew the truth. "Funny how a single night can forever change everything you've ever believed."