V.
They sat in the transfigured sofa on the veranda, long after the sun had disappeared into the waves before them, long past the time that they should have gone in for dinner. Ginny had moved from her knees to sit beside him again, and he'd lain down next to her, resting his head in her lap, much the same way she usually did to him. Except, her lap had much less room for his head than his did for hers, they soon found out, since much of it was occupied by the very squirmy little girl within her womb. That was remedied by moving the other chair in front of her so she could put her feet up, therefore giving Severus a little more room.
Her hands were in his hair, finger tips stroking his scalp tenderly as the pair alternated looking at each other and watching the water. His hands were mostly on her middle, touching the covered skin that occasionally moved and bounced from within.
When the full moon rose, bright and white as snow, he finally spoke again.
"How did you fall in love with me, Ginny? With everything I've done in the past, so many of those things affecting you and the people you love, you should have run as far away from me as you could. I've never understood why."
She shook her head, smiling as she looked down at him. "Why are we wizards? I don't know why or how it happened. I do know that I would do it all again if given the choice. With you, I'm happy. I feel safe and cherished and loved. And all those things are because of you." She stroked his cheek with her hand, her gaze as darkly blue at the midnight sky around them. "Why do you love me?"
"How could I not?" he asked. "You … fill the parts of me that I lack. Your heart, your beauty, and your mind first drew me to you. I meant what I said in that story."
"I know," she said, her smile becoming serene. "It was nice to hear it."
"It was a little hard to say it, I won't lie."
She nodded and looked up at the moon, still stroking his face. "What matters is that you did say it. It meant to world to me."
He smiled up at her. "You'd think after all this time I would have caught onto that."
She shrugged. "You are a little thick when it comes to your emotions, but I've never minded. You express them in a thousand ways other than words. That's more important, to me at least." She glanced down and frowned. "You actually do tell me all those things after we ... do what we do. Do you realize that?"
"I do," he affirmed. "Your pregnancy hasn't been the only time I've researched things in Muggle bookstores. Some things about us are instinctual, and other things I needed a little help with. It's not the type of subject they carry at Flourish and Blotts."
"Or Nocturn Alley," she said softly.
He looked up at her, his black eye brows raised almost off his forehead.
She gave him a forbidding expression. "You weren't the only one who had questions, and it's not the type of thing I could ask my mother about, unless you wanted all my brothers, my father, and Harry to ambush you."
"I just wish I'd known," he said, reaching his hand up to her face. "Researching it together could have been a lot of fun."
"It still can be," she said, tracing his lips with her fingertips. "We've a lot of time in front of us yet."
"True," he said, smirking a little at the lascivious thoughts going through his head about what laid ahead of them.
"Tell me about him, Severus," she said, her face as peaceful and calm as their sea.
He sighed, and began to tell her a different story than the one he told her and their child a few nights ago.
"I never saw him again, after he was taken away. I could have," he said. He shivered with the memory of seeing his father being removed from the little house in Spinner's End. "But I was already a Death Eater then, and I didn't care about anything anymore, other than serving him and rising in the ranks. I was immersed in the Dark Lord's philosophy, and to me Tobias Snape was just another dirty Muggle, not even my father anymore in my eyes. After he killed her ... I think I saw him as more evil than even the Dark Lord himself. Lucius and Regulus were supportive of that statement, well, Lucius more than Regulus I suppose. I lost myself after that."
"What were you like before?" she asked gently.
"Before I took the Mark?"
"No, love. Before the abuse started. What were you like when you first met Lily Evans?"
He rolled the years back in his mind, trying to picture the dirty little boy who used to watch Lily and her sister swing on the playground. "Sad. Too thin. Dressed in my mother's old clothes from school. Lily was a very kind little girl. I'm still amazed she even spoke to me in the beginning."
"It sounds like you were unhappy then, too," Ginny said.
"Before the abuse started we were neglected like two cracked potion vials. There was never any money – he'd give it to the church before he'd contribute it to the household. Hogwarts was the first place I ever had a decent meal," he said remembering how hungry he used to be.
"You realize that sounds a lot like Harry was when he lived with his relatives?" she asked, very gently.
He nodded.
"The Healers at St. Mungo's pointed that out as well. I've spoken about these things before, my love, just not to you. And not with the perspective of having known love other than my mother's." He paused to take a deep breath.
"I have a lot of regrets in life, Ginny. I know I could have been different to Harry Potter, but I couldn't. No one could suspect anything about me," he said. "And I've also just genuinely never liked him. A lot of that is because of his father, but there's also the fact that he's a very thoughtless person, as a student and beyond. Albus constantly tried to tell me how much like his mother he was in hopes to get me to see some good in him, and he is very much like Lily, in every way. Albus couldn't see what I understood about her, as he only remembered the shining, friendly Head Girl … although, before her death, I believe she was truly as Albus saw her."
He had to pause again, not fighting the burn, letting tears fall from his eyes as he thought about her still body lying in the ruins of the house in Godric's Hollow.
"I understand that I said something terrible to her, I know that. I've thought about it enough over the years," he said bitterly. "But her inclination then was not to love and forgive, like yours has been. It was to cut me off completely. It drove me further down the path to the Dark Lord than she could have realized. I'm not blaming her. I made that choice; the path was already paved. But, I wish she could have forgiven me before ..."
Ginny stroked his face, wiping away the tears that were still running down his face. He cleared his throat and tried to continue.
"Imagine having to see her same angry, accusatory eyes every day in another face – a face that looked so much like your childhood tormentor that it brought back every insecurity and fear you ever had as a teenager, despite that fact that you were a grown man – a former Death Eater bearing the Dark Mark. It was ... I just couldn't, Ginny. I'm only a man, I'm no saint."
He reached up to wipe his eyes when the tears blurred his vision. When he looked back up to his wife he saw her blue eyes were red and full of tears, too.
"I'm so sorry, Severus," she said, wiping her eyes.
"It's not your fault," he said.
"I can still be sorry," she said, sighing and looking back at the moon.
"That's another thing I love about you," he said, reaching for her again. "Your compassion."
She smiled down at him. "And I love how pragmatic you are. I know I shouldn't be sorry for the actions of others, but I can't help not to be, when they effect someone I love."
She tried to lean forward to him, but couldn't bend her body properly. The look of frustration on her face was almost comical.
"Can you sit up so I can kiss you?"
"Whatever the lady wishes," he said, moving to sit next to her on the sofa. She moved her hands back to his face, like she was trying to memorize every angular line of it.
"You are a handsome man, Severus, even if only I believe it," she said before she leaned over to kiss him. Her lips slid over his like fresh water, smooth and sweet. They refreshed his soul.
When they parted, he was finally ready.
"Take your wand, Ginny, if you want to see them. I have no pictures left of either of them, but I can show you another way," he said, touching his temple.
"Are you sure?" she asked, picking up the wand sitting next to her.
He nodded, pulling out a brief memory that wouldn't be too painful for her to see.
She pointed the wand to his temple and said, "Legilimens."
The couple were sitting on an old, faded sofa in an outdated room, even by the standards then. The woman could only be called "handsome", with a very masculine looking face so much like his own it was frightening. The man was genuinely handsome, with sandy blonde hair, pale green eyes, and very tanned skin. They didn't look at all happy, much like a couple in an old Muggle photograph from the nineteenth century.
He felt her pull away from his mind, and missed her immediately.
"Thank you," she said. She put her wand away leaned into him, molding herself to him as though they were one person.
"Was he like a father to you? He wasn't to me, more like a big brother. A bad big brother, but still ... "
"Who?"
"The Dark Lord."
He considered that, thinking of what his answer had been during his stay at St. Mungo's. Feeling it was still correct, he answered.
"Yes, he was. The Death Eaters were the family I had always longed for and never had, even at school. He made me feel big and important for the first time in my life. At first it was what I wanted, until I overheard the prophecy." He felt the burn again and the regret in his heart made his chest ache.
"Were you still in love with her then?"
He nodded at first, then shook his head, debating the answer. "I find my answers are different than what used to believe, since my life with you began. Compared to what I feel for you, no. It wasn't love. I believed it to be, then, and so I acted like a man in love, trying to save her. I was too late to save my mother, but I could save her, or so I hoped. When I couldn't … it was the first time I saw Harry Potter's angry green eyes staring at me."
He stared up at the moon, as full now as it had been empty and new that night.
"I hated the Dark Lord as much as I hated my father when I saw her body. In the end, Dumbledore was right. She was the best of me, then. She made me a better man. If the Dark Lord had attacked the Longbottom's, I wouldn't have changed a bit. I wouldn't have cared. Even if it was hate for the noseless bastard fueling me, it still produced a better outcome than the alternative. I could have rotted in a cell in Azkaban like Bellatrix ... or my father for that matter."
"Why did you never go see him?" she asked so quietly he almost didn't hear her.
"I had nothing to say," he said simply. "I will never regret not going to see him, not even once. My mother loved me, though she couldn't protect me, and he stole that from me. I didn't know love again until you came to me in your hand me down robes, looking for a job."
He paused, and for the first time in months he heard his stomach growl.
"Mine too," she giggled.
"What are you hungry for?" he asked, standing to his feet and holding out a hand to her. "Raspberries?" he asked hopefully.
"We ate them all yesterday, love," she said, smirking.
He scowled.
"I was thinking about something sweet though."
He looked at her hopefully.
"Mangos?"
"Honey," she said.
"You're killing me, Ginny," he said, stroking the bare skin on her arm.
"If you massage the skin first with a little grapeseed oil ..." she said.
He felt himself stir.
"Let's have some of that chicken first though, okay?"
He laughed softly. "Deal."
A/N: They've got a lot more talking to do ... stay tuned.
This has been extremely emotional for me to write, and I've been having trouble getting it out. Bear with me. I'll explain at the end - about 3-4 more chapters if I stay on my task.