Rated M

New Beginning: The Same Refrain

Chapter 3

Hannah had poured the hot soup into beakers apologizing that the bowls and flatware were already packed and gone. Severus held the cup in both his hands,letting the warmth of the porcelain seep through them. He leaned his face over the steaming concoction to inhale the moist vapours, wondering all the time why he did. This sort of soup from a tin was a food of his childhood. Watery and thin, smelling of spices he could never quite place, not now and not then.

"So, do you think you can use the book cases or was I right that they go to the bin?" Hannah finally said, wrapping up a long-winded commentary on the old neighbourhood.

"I can use the tall one in the sitting room." He agreed to take it more to see her smile than his need or desire to possess it.

"Great, I have one more upstairs you can see." She looked over the top of her beaker. "You look the same only different than you did when I saw you last."

"Oh?" he smirked at her. "I think we all do. We are no longer the children that ran around these streets."

"Yeah, but you never were. Right?" She screwed up her face in puzzlement. "I mean you always seemed old, and me, I never fit in."

"I used to see you." He looked at her suddenly remembering. "You sat on the stoop reading in the summer. Even in the dark, you would sit holding your book under the lamp post."

"How odd that you should remember that," she said turning red. "I remember you always carried a book you wrote in. I thought it terribly impolite, at the time, to write in the margins of a book. What do you do now?"

"I am looking for a job I guess." He looked up at her like a normal youth that needed to share good news. "I finished school early, and just passed my exams."

"Really?" She smiled widely at him. "What was your major?"

"I dear Madame, am the youngest Master Chemist in these beautiful islands." He stood and swept his arm back in a mock bow and flourish.

She laughed and applauded him and made him feel like a normal twenty-two-year old that was just beginning. He sat back down slightly flushed and reached for his beaker, feeling Spinners End coming closer.

"What do you do?" He suddenly felt lighter than he had in months, and thought a brief interlude into the Muggle world may clear his head, and help him to forget.

"Me?" She looked down for a moment then quickly up. "We never had money for school and such. Da said I was not grand enough."

"You did not attend University?" he asked, not fathoming how she must feel about this.

"I work over at the foundry, in the office," she said. "I have my own place and all."

"I see," he said nodding as he looked at her, not seeing at all. He looked at her chipped nails, the run in her stockings, her worn trainers and wondered at what she said.

"How did you do it?" She pulled her brow together. "I mean, knowing your father, how did you ever manage to go to a boarding school?"

He had never considered it. He had never thought of what his education had cost. How had his mother saved the money form the household budget? Had she sold of items that would disappear from the house on occasion? He did not know the answer. He was cold again and could not breathe, his voyage to the Muggle world that brief and tenuous that a simple word had unravelled him.

"The other bookcase, you said was upstairs?" He needed to stand, to leave and have done with this.

"Yep, come on I will show you." She headed back into the sitting room and up the stairs. This house, like every other on the street was the same. Severus already knew the way.

He walked up the stairs behind her, suddenly aware of her small waist and flared hips, the way her skirt brushed the backs of her legs, the way her bare arm reached for the banister and the curve of her neck as she lowered her head to watch her steps.

"In here," she said over her shoulder as she turned into what would be his lab, only in this house, it was her room.

"There." She stood aside in the too small space created by packing crates and boxes destined for the bin and pointed to a small four shelved bookcase.

He started over to the bookcase but soon found he had to step sideways and nearly press against her to pass. He stopped in front of her and smelling her hair looked down to see liquid brown in her eyes. He leaned down, lifted her chin, and without thinking put his lips easily on hers.

Pulling his head back only enough to part their mouths, he began to say something but no words would come. He felt her lean her head forward and finish the kiss. She fully parted her lips, allowing his tongue to enter, to tell him she welcomed him.

"I am sorry," he whispered, "I had not intended to do that."

"I know." She turned and ran down the stairs.

"Hannah." He followed her down and then hurried to stand behind her. "I have never been so forward. If you knew me you would understand how unlike me this is."

"I know, it just surprised me is all," she said looking out the window.

"It will not happen again," he said stiffly.

"No," she said turning around so quickly she blushed. "I didn't say I didn't like it, just that I was surprised, is all."

"Oh," he said not knowing enough in the Wizard or Muggle world to answer this, to know the proper response.

"I have embarrassed you now." She tried to smile but was getting lost in the attempt. She avoided his eyes by ducking down her head.

"No, not at all," he said looking around as if to find something to say. "I really should be going."

"I will be back later tonight if you would like to pick up the bookcases at the same time." She said walking to the table to begin cleaning it up, not looking at him, still feeling the heat of her blush and the coolness of his lips.

He nodded his agreement and walked back to his own kitchen that held no tinned soup in beakers to offer to friends, and wondered why he had kissed her. Shaking his head, he sat down and opened the second letter delivered to this house in eleven years with a Hogwarts seal.

He stared at the false congratulatory letter. Albus Dumbledore heralded him as one of Hogwarts successful alumni. He felt like he could not breathe, he rushed to his old room and began cleaning again to forget the obscenity of the missive.

He knew the Headmaster's hand had poised with the quill, how he had struggled with the words, he had to write. How he had wanted instead to write of Dark Marks and Tom's Revels and all the things in between. The words still unwritten hung heavy in the air and were still waiting to fall onto parchment.

He did not know why Hannah's presence across the road should be on his mind all day. With every trip he made down to the bin, he would stop to look out the window, waiting to see a light flick on to announce her arrival back to Spinners End.

It was late by the standards of Spinners End when he heard the too loud racing of a car engine and then the rumbling as it stopped. He looked out the window and saw Hannah getting out of the car and walking hurriedly around to the curb. The driver, a sandy haired man with rolled up sleeves and heavy boots, ran after her, he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. Severus could not hear what they said but knew this was a lover's quarrel. He thought to stay out of it but watched and waited until he saw her head snap back from the slap.

He grabbed his wand, slipping it in his pocket and started across the road. Her date, as it was, had already jumped back in the car and was racing off, his car belching out foul smelling air.

"Hannah?" he said her name as a question and stepped behind her, taking her house key from her shaking hand.

Opening the door for her and feeling for the light switch, he was startled to feel her hand on his.

"Leave the light off, I must look a sight," she said tearfully. "Let me just run upstairs and clean up before you turn it on."

He heard her steps on the stairs before he turned and looked at the nearly dark room. He crossed over to the mantle, and with a quick look to the stairs cast a soft Lumos. He looked at the line of Muggle pictures. They were all of her, and who must be Jack. She was there at all her different ages. All of them held her in the same pose. She sat with her hands folded in her lap looking straight at the camera and smiled.

He picked up a picture that must have been taken at the about the same time he had gone to Hogwarts. She wore a white dress and veil and in her folded hands, he saw the cross that she kissed and the silver beaded chain wrapped around her wrist. He felt a chasm large enough to swallow him completely open under his feet.

"My Confirmation picture," she said coming up behind him looking at his wand light oddly.

"That is a strange looking torch," she said.

He turned and walked to the light switch uttering a quiet Nox and cursing himself for his carelessness.

"Yes," he said returning and placing the picture back on the mantel before looking at her. He ran the pad of his thumb over her lip now showing in the light, frowning at the damage he saw.

"I can fix this," he said on impulse taking her hand and leading her into the kitchen.

"Sit." He pointed to a packing box by the door. "Now just lean your head back and close you eyes"

He waited until she shut her eyes, and then pulling out his wand, he said a soft incantation and healed her. She gasped at the feeling of the static electricity that tingled on her mouth and lifted her fingers to her lip.

"Its fine now," he chuckled at her surprise. "Open your eyes."

"How did you do that?" She looked at him with her eyes growing large.

"Magic," he said watching her face as he smirked. "Magic."

He threw his head back and laughed at the absurdity of the situation. A twenty-two-year old Death Eater had just healed the lip of a young, and maybe not so innocent, confirmation girl in the picture.

"Am I funny to you?" She stood to leave the kitchen sudden bitterness in her voice.

"Hannah no." He grabbed her hand. "Please, sit."

She sat back on the crate and watched him as he found his own box and pulled it over to sit opposite her.

"Who was that, in the car?" he asked, leaning forward not knowing why he cared.

"My boyfriend, or was my boyfriend I guess." She looked away from Severus.

"You should stay away from him," he said flatly watching her hands.

"I know." She turned back to him. "I keep trying, but then he comes around and tells me how sorry he is and…."

"Do you remember my mother?" Severus said quickly. "She kept forgiving him. For years she forgave him for beating her, she even forgave him for beating me."

"We are a pair, only maybe it's all of us kids from Spinners End." She shook her head. "We could start a club. Call it the Spinner End kids. We could trade memories and compare scars. We could sit around on dark nights and tell each other our horror stories and see who flinches first."

"Hannah," he said shaking his head having already been down the path she had found.

"Jack isn't down working the docks you know." She looked up at him suddenly. "They locked him up. He got in a fight and he stuck some bloke in a bar."

"People are seldom what you want them to be, or what you think they are," he said as a warning to himself, as much as to her.

"I can't get this place out of me Severus." Tears started to fall on her cheeks. "I try but it drags on me. I can smell it on my clothes when I leave here. I sometimes think its stink is in me."

He stood up, pulled her to her feet, lowered his mouth, and captured hers. He pulled her as close as he could as his arms wrapped around her, feeling her warmth and softness.

"I know Hannah," he whispered in her ear, "I know. I feel it also."

"Severus?" She raised her lips to his. "Please Severus, stay the night with me."

"Are you sure?" he asked stopping his ministrations and holding her at arms length.

"Severus, I've never done anything like this before." She reddened and turned her face away. "I mean, not so fast, with someone I don't know too good anymore, some one who doesn't even remember me."

"Why? Why now? Why with me?"

"I need to know," she said as she brought a finger to her lower lip that he had just healed, and put her head on his chest. "I need to feel that I am worth something, that not all men only want to hurt me. Gods Severus, I don't know. I just need someone to care. I need to get this place out of me, and I want you to remember me again."

His lips crushed into hers again, his tongue probed her mouth tasting and nipping at her lips. He suddenly wanted her more than anything he had ever wanted. He closed his eyes in the kiss, and found no memory of the green, but only saw the liquid brown of her eyes.

"I don't smell it on you," He breathed heavily as he lifted her up and walked to the stairs. "I don't smell Spinners End on you."

He carried her up and laid her on her childhood bed. He took off her clothes, slowly as he kissed and felt her body. He revelled in the fact that she wanted him, and she groaned into him, and said his name. She asked him to hurry and pushed up her hips. She was not disgusted to want him.

He had only taken whores before. He paid well when he did, knowing that not all whores welcomed his sort, and he always paid them more than they asked. He never thought to bring them pleasure. He found he wanted to bring pleasure now, if for just a while, he wanted her to feel, and he wanted those feelings to be for him.

Hannah looked into his eyes and smiled, and did not see his mark as anything more than a Muggle tattoo, an accepted form of body art on Spinners End. She ran her arms over his scars and accepted them as Muggle beatings from a father not unlike her own. He kissed away her tears and gave her peace and comfort, she gave him an acceptance he had never known and a coming together he had never felt.

He waited until her wetness coated his hand, and then leaning down to her ear, he licked its outer shell.

"Hannah," he whispered, "I need you too, you have no idea how I need you."

"Severus, please," she begged him to hurry her release.

"Shhhh." He kissed her deeply and positioned himself over her. "Look at me, I want to remember this part.""Remember what?" She turned her eyes to his and looked as he pushed into her hard and firm.

"Oh my gods, Severus, my god," she gasped with her eyes locked to his.

"I want to remember that." He chuckled watching her face. "Just that, I need to take it with me."