A/N: I had re-upload this chapter as it had somehow been over-written by chapter 2. Sorry to anyone who found this story when this chapter was missing.

The next morning, at breakfast, Elizabeth was organising her affairs, as usual, when a sleek Eagle Owl swept down towards her. Theo watched the bird's progress through narrowed eyes. She relieved the owl of the scroll and it then flew on to Theo, who was left to open the Howler.

"How stupid are you?" screeched Desdemona Nott's voice from the red envelope. "She is the most respected member of the magical community." – Elizabeth blushed – "We thought you had more tact than to insult her in front of the whole school." It carried on in its tirade for several more minutes, but she was more interested in her letter from the Notts.

Dear Lady Gaunt,

My wife and I apologise profusely for the great insult you received from our son.
I also apologise for not having responded earlier, but we had the Minister to dinner last night. I thought it would be of more use to actually follow your instructions and then report as to any success, rather than writing to you twice.
As to that success, I managed to persuade him to raise the subject and then proceeded to point out how damaging this would be to his support among the pureblood families. Unfortunately, he still believes that it is 'nesseccary'. He did mention that it was based on a study carried out by some healers. I believe the names were Clay and Pye.
My apologies, once again, and my hope that this matter is resolved quickly, but without any blood needing to be spilt.

Yours faithfully,
Igelbert Nott, Esq.

'My, my, what a nice, but disappointing, letter,' were her first, semi-sarcastic, thoughts. 'Clay and Pye... Pye? Pye? Why do I know that name?'

"Ronald Billius Weasley, it is not funny," began Hermione, starting in on one of her famous rants.

'Weasley! Pye's Arthur Weasley's mate.
'Flip! And double FLIP!' Elizabeth then had a flash of inspiration.
'What's his boss's name? ... Smethwyk!'

She wrote a letter to Healer Smethwyk asking for a copy of Clay and Pye's study. Another letter to Lucius followed from her pen.
Severus then caught her eye, but she just went back to her papers, after having dispatched the letters with a house elf.

EG

"Desdemona always was a very flattering woman," remarked Severus, that evening after class. Elizabeth just continued to ignore him, he had been trying to discover from her all day what the Notts had been writing to her about. She was busy doing her Arithmancy homework.

"Neptune's orbital," she murmured. "Its position times its orbit divided by the difference between its and Earth's distances from the Sun, equaaaals... 113.219. So, if we times that by its satellites..."

"Roughly 906."

"How do you do that?" his lover asked in annoyance, after she had worked it out to be 905.752.

"It's a gift, kinda like Desdemona Nott when she's telling her son off for getting himself dumped–"

"Will you cut it out already!" she growled through gritted teeth. "Honestly! You're worse than Goyle!" He got up from his seat on the sofa and came up behind her.

"You mean, cruel, insulting, heartless..." After each of the four adjectives, he tickled her.

"That's not true," she squealed and tried to catch her breath. "I am most certainly not heartless." To prove her point, Elizabeth placed his hand over where her heart was.

"Cheat!" he hissed in her ear. Then he set about kissing her neck, from just behind her left ear down to her collar-bone.

"If I'm cheating by using all of my natural advantages, then what d'ya call that?" As if in answer, Severus kissed the hollow at the base of her throat. However, he was unprepared for her reaction of leaping back from him, knocking the chair over and crouching low, ready to strike. "Don't ever dare do that again," she hissed, however, it was not her voice but His.
It took her more than a minute to realise how she was standing and, when she did, she collapsed to the floor in a heap. Severus sat down beside her and gathered her up onto his lap.

"I seem to be doing this a lot, lately. Ich liebe dich," she murmured, before kissing him.

"I love you, too," he said and kissed her back.

"How long have you loved me?" she asked with a teasing tone to her voice.

"Forever."

"What? Since we first met?"

"Are we talking about when I first met Miss Elizabeth Havisham or Lady Elizabeth Gaunt? I meant the latter."

"Do you remember when we met for the very first time?"

"How could I forget?" he drawled in an exasperated voice.

Flashback

'It was a bright winter's day and I was about to go out to the toddler group that I helped out at, when the doorbell went.

"I'll get it!" I called to my mum. I opened the door to find a slim and dark-haired man dressed in black jeans and a dark green shirt with a black velvet frock coat over the top. "Oh, hello. How can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Mr, Mrs and Miss Havisham?" he said, politely.

"I'm Elizabeth Havisham. My mum's in the office and Dad's in his workshop. Would you care to come in...?" I let the invitation trail off, but stepped aside to allow him in.

"Professor Snape and thank you." He came in and I showed him into the lounge, before going and fetching my parents.

"Tea or coffee?" my mum offered, while still lingering in the doorway.

"A black coffee, please."

"Of course. Michael?"

"Tea, please, darling."

"What would you like, Mum?" I put in, before SHE disappeared into the family room.

"I'll have a coffee, too. Thanks, love," she said and pecked me on the cheek. I went through to the kitchen area of the family room and put the kettle on.

"Now, what did you want to talk to us about?" I heard my dad ask from the front room.

"I would rather wait until your daughter returns," replied the stranger.
I drowned a tea bag for Dad and then filled up the cafetière. Once the tea had stewed, I added milk and sugar and then carried three cups, one with milk in the bottom, through to the sitting room. I went back for the cafetière and the cup of tea. I poured the professor's coffee, then Mum's and mine.
"Thank you."

"Will you, please, tell us what this is about, now?" asked my mum.

"I teach at a school called Hogwarts. Its students are peculiarly talented, that is to say they all have the same, specific talent."

"Yes, some of us do understand the English language," I said, growing tired of his patronising words.

"I do apologise. As I was saying, I teach young people, who all have this particular talent. Your daughter also possess this talent, and so, I am here to invite her to attend Hogwarts. Her education was provided for, so you need not worry about tuition fees."

"Who would have provided for my education?" I asked, frowning hard at him.

"Oh, I see, you haven't told her," he said, rather uncomfortably.

"Told me what, exactly?" I asked, starting to get upset, my parents had never kept anything but good surprises from me.

"Honey..." said my dad in a placatory tone.

"We didn't want to tell you, but it seems we must," Mum said, uncomfortably.

"What? Tell me, what?" I moaned.

"There's no easy way of telling you this, buuuut... You're adopted," explained my dad.

"What?" I leapt out of my seat from beside my mum on the couch and inadvertently landed in front of the stranger's seat.

"I'm sorry, darling, it's true. We weren't able to have our own, so we adopted you," said Dad, in an attempt at a soothing tone. I stumbled involuntarily backwards out of shock and the professor caught me. Unfortunately, I just kept going and landed on his lap.

"Sorry, sir," I said, uncomfortably and went to get up.

"That is quite all right," he said, so I just collapsed under the shock.

"But what is this talent you've been talking about?" my adoptive mother asked, trying to change the subject and quickly.

"To put it simply, your daughter is a witch," he said, matter-of-factly, and removed his hands from my waist. Both of my adoptive, Christian parents looked aghast at the idea that their precious daughter was a witch.

"I'm not their daughter," I muttered viciously. If I had thought they looked shocked and horrified before, it was nothing to how they were staring at me, now. I stood up and turned to go upstairs to pack. I paused at the doorway and looked back at the teacher. "I shall come to your school, just give meee... 40 minutes? to pack."

"Allow me to assist you," he said, rising and I led him up to my bedroom. Professor Snape removed a miniature, old-fashioned trunk from his pocket, which he enlarged. Then he flicked his wand and my things started to pack themselves.

"Why are you walking away? They love you," he said, simply.

"They lied to me. Explained away all of the strange things I've done. They denied me the right to know who I am." He nodded. Just then, the trunk finished packing itself and the professor shrunk it back down, despite my fears, so that it fitted in his pocket again. We went back downstairs my parents– my adoptive parents were standing in the hallway.

"Oh, darling," said my ex-mother, launching herself at me.

"Goodbye, Mum, Dad," I said, still angry at them.

"Are you ready to go, Miss Havisham?" asked Professor Snape, walking past the people who had claimed to be my parents and opening the front door, ready for me.

"Of course, sir," I said, walking past him and them and out into the warm late-August air.'

Flashback

"You were insufferable! Did you really hate them then?" he asked, out of interest.

"I still do," she said, simply, laying her head back against his shoulder.

"Why? Besides, I thought you were meant to forgive them."

"That's their religion. Why should I follow a God that permits his people to preach that lying is wrong but make their 'daughter''s whole life a lie?"

"You still sound like a Christian to my ears," he said, gently, wrapping his arms around just in case she tried to hurt him.

"Yeah..." she sighed. "It wasn't him that let me down, but..."

"But, what?"

"Nothing!" Elizabeth disentangled herself from him and stood. "I need to get back to that essay," she said and went back to her desk.

"Elizabeth," Severus sighed, getting up and coming up beside her. "I love you dearly and hurts me to know you're keeping things from me."

"Get used to it!" she spat. "You should've learned that I always have secrets." She bent her head towards her homework, her hair falling forwards so that he was unable to see her face. To her great surprise, he pulled her from her seat and pushed her up against the wall, so that she was forced to look into his eyes.

"I'm not him," he spat with venomous passion. "If you think of me the way you thought of him, tell me! And we can end this right here and now!" They were so close that her tears landed on his face.

"I'm sorry, Severus. You know how long and difficult it was for me to truly trust anyone after their betrayal and then I became his and I couldn't trust him. I'm not sure I remember how to build trust. I think, the only person I truly trust now is the one who I first trusted, after I started school."

"And that would be?" growled Severus, but it was fear, not anger, in his eyes.

"Lucius," she sighed, turning her head aside in anticipation of his fury. However, he just laughed.

"You trust that two-faced snake-in-the-grass?" he asked in surprise, but with a fond tone.

"Yeah. He took me in that summer after my first year and helped me sort out my real parents' estate."

"OK, at least there's someone. But please, Elizabeth, try and trust me."

"Alright. Here." She reached down to the desk and grabbed the Nott letter and the others on the same subject. "They're in order."

"You do know, I wasn't trying to get these, I just want you to trust me with what's important to you."

"I know, that's why you should read those."

"Thank you," he said and they each sat down; her to her essay, him to her letters.