JKR's world, extrapolating for myself.
As it turned out, we were only in Chelsea for a few days when Albus sent his patronus to Sev in the middle of the night one night. It only said to come quickly. Sev was concerned so I came with him. We found Dumbledore in his office almost unconscious. His right hand was blackened and appeared dead. Sev took in the broken ring and the sword on the desk before sending me for salves and potions as fast as possible. He was yelling at Albus when I left and still yelling at him when I returned. We tried every counter curse and potion and healing spell that either of us knew, to no avail. Sev threw himself into the chair across from Albus at last and there were tears in his eyes.
"I can do nothing more. This type of curse can only be slowed, which we have done but eventually it will reassert itself and you will die. Why did you touch the damned ring? There may be a year at most, Albus."
He sounded so very sad. But Dumbledore did not respond to that. He simply said to me that I looked tired, why didn't I go home. He would send Severus along in a little while. I knew they would talk for a long while so I went back to Chelsea to wait. It was another two hours before Sev returned very unhappy. He refused to tell me what they had talked about but I knew it was eating at him. His eyes had now taken on a haunted, desperate look. He was very quiet the next day. He spent most of the day staring out the windows towards the Thames. His Dark mark burned just before dusk and when he returned he was livid. The Dark Lord was putting Pettigrew into Spinner's End as a watch. He knew it was at Bellatrix's instigation. He had told the Dark Lord that I was spending the summer with family.
"I will have to inhabit Spinner's End for a few days, at least until I can convince the Dark Lord that Pettigrew is an insult to my sensibilities. Something is going on. Dumbledore mentioned as much the other night. No, I will not tell you was we talked about. Do not ask, Thera. It is my own Promethean hell; I do not want to share it with you. You would not believe the Machiavellian twist of Dumbledore's mind. I will return to you as soon as I can dismiss Pettigrew and disarm Bellatrix's suspicions. Send an owl to Viktor or better yet, one to Miss Granger. See if she and or Miss Lovegood would like to visit you in London. I should be gone no longer than a week at most. Can you manage to keep busy for that length of time? I will miss you, Thera. Merlin, how will I sleep without you beside me?"
"Take my love with you. Keep potions always at hand. Secure Spinner's End against Pettigrew's snooping, Sev. He will be looking to advance in the Dark Lord's favour at your expense. Send to me if you need me. Must you go tonight?"
"No, my love, I need not go until morning. We have tonight. Shall we go out for dinner? There is a new Greek restaurant close to Covent Garden. It serves both Muggles and Wizarding folk. A bit of Transfiguring and no one will know us."
"Yes, please, Sev, let's go out and try to act like there is no sword of Damocles over our heads. I keep waiting for another foot of the precipice we inhabit to crumble away. It will all crumble at once, won't it?"
"I am very much afraid so, wife. And we will have little or no warning. So we must persevere as best we may. Change into Muggle garb and we will go among them, wife. An hour or two of stolen happiness will not matter one way or another."
We changed into Muggle clothes and transfigured our looks for the evening so that we could have one evening of normality. I had hopes we could at least have this one night without Sev agonizing over whatever Dumbledore had discussed with him. We ate and drank and forgot for a while that we both were living on the brink of disaster. When we arrived back at the flat, he poured mead for us and relaxed into a corner of the couch. I snuggled against him to drink my mead. I sensed he was in a strange mood and was going to open up to me at least a little bit.
"He really is dying, Thera. He knows there is going to be repercussions from the botched raid on the Ministry. Lucius will be punished for his failure, severely. The Dark Lord will most likely assign Draco some impossible task; Dumbledore thinks it will be to kill him."
"The Dark Lord wants Dumbledore out of his way so he can kill the Potter boy, true?"
"It is more than that, Thera. At the Ministry, Dumbledore matched the Dark Lord spell for spell and curse for curse. They were evenly matched. The Dark Lord is not as all powerful as he thinks himself to be. He has seen that the only way he can take power is to have Dumbledore removed, permanently, from his path to glory. Dumbledore knows that if the task is assigned to Draco, the boy will fail. He knows that the Dark Lord will then turn to his most trusted and most devious servant, me. Dumbledore said that when, WHEN, Draco failed, I should kill him. He actually asked that of me. To kill the man who has given me back my self respect, treated me as a father might and officiated at our marriage is unthinkable, Thera. Merlin help me, but I do not know what to do."
"Is he so sure this will come to pass, love?"
"He seems fairly sure, yes. With him gone the Dark Lord will move rapidly to take over. They will use the Imperius Curse on some Ministry functionary and infiltrate. Then they will work from within the Ministry to discredit Potter and start the purges of the Muggleborns and the others they think beneath them. Dumbledore says that I will have to seem to flee back to the Dark Lord's side after the killing. He has also warned me that I must make you my link with the Order. You must distance yourself from me when all of this comes to pass. You must be seen to be free of contact with me. When the Dark Lord takes over we will be able to resume, but you must continue to work seemingly at cross purposes to me. Can you do this? Tell me if you feel unable or unwilling to do this, please love."
"I will do whatever you require of me, Severus. I am to be your helpmeet, your refuge, Belle Pere told me after we were married that much was going to be expected of you, that it would cause you anguish and that I must be there to ease your path. I will be there for you no matter what. I will never leave you. You are my husband and my world, Severus."
He answered me by kissing me. He carried me into the bedroom and made passionate love to me three times before dawn broke. He brought me tea just after dawn, he was preparing to go to Spinner's End and endure the presence of Pettigrew for the few days it would take to convince the Dark Lord that Bellatrix was motivated by jealousy of Sev's position. He did not expect what happened two nights later. A knock came at the door late, when Sev answered he found Narcissa Malfoy anxiously wanting to talk to him. He ushered her in and Bellatrix Lestrange followed her sister into the house. Clearly Bellatrix was uneasy and openly hostile to Sev. Narcissa was just as clearly desperate to save her son from the fate the Dark Lord had devised for him. She begged Sev to make an Unbreakable Vow to protect Draco and to finish Draco's task. He agreed because he knew it would forestall Bellatrix's continued animosity and convince her that he was firmly on the side of the Malfoys and the others. Within a day afterwards Pettigrew was summoned back to the side of the Dark Lord and Sev returned to me. He immediately reported to Dumbledore what had transpired. Dumbledore had news for Sev, too. This year Horace Slughorn was coming back to teach Potions and Sev would now be the Defence teacher. Once home Sev related all the news to me.
"Dumbledore thinks to make sure the curse on the job works to our advantage. I t means that I will only be the teacher for that subject for one year, that at the end of the school year he will be dead and I will be back in the Dark Lord's pocket. This will be your final year at Hogwarts, Thera. The year you take your NEWTs, we will have to work on those subjects as well as the other things which will be weighing on our minds. You are more fully prepared now than most of the students are just before testing, but I want your scores to outstrip even the other schools. I want you to shine as the best. It will likely be my only legacy."
"I will make you proud, Sev. I swear this to you. You have finished teaching me what my father started. I will get into the training program for the Aurors if the Dark Lord has not fallen by then."
"I hate to tell you that if this year falls out like Dumbledore thinks it will, then you will be shunned because of your connection with me. Moody will never let you become an Auror if I have to slay Dumbledore. The events of this year may put paid to any plans we have made or will make. I am sorry this has turned out this way." He took me in his arms and held me close.
I looked up at him and smiled. "It does not matter, what matters is that we keep the Potter boy safe and on track for his destiny with the Dark Lord. And that we keep you alive. I do not want to grow old alone."
Sev's Dark Mark burned just then and he had to go the Dark Lord. He was not gone for very long. When he returned I saw he was quite upset. The news the Dark Lord had imparted had shaken him badly. He turned agonized eyes to me and grasped my shoulders roughly. He pulled me into his arms and spoke the words I had dreaded for over a year into the air over my head.
"They found your father. The Dark Lord killed him tonight. I am so sorry, my darling. There was no trace of your mother however. Lucius made sure to tell me that fact. He actually gloated over the fact that my old friend and father-in-law had been murdered by that vile, despicable half human abomination."
"He would have sent her away if he knew beforehand. He may have been tired of running, Sev. He wanted to make a stand on his own terms. That would be like him. He probably did send her away. I think he would have faced the Dark Lord at last, no longer running, but unafraid and resigned. I will miss him, Sev. "The tears began then, I could not stop them. Sev carried me to the couch and held me until I had cried them all out. He had tears in his eyes, too. I knew he would miss my father.
"Lucius said they left the Dark Mark illuminating the place where they found him. The Order should have found him by now. They will bring his body back. Where do you want to bury him?"
"The house outside of Petersburg sits in a walled compound. There are extensive gardens and acreage. He would want to be there, I think. Do I need to do anything?"
"No, Thera, I will contact Dumbledore and arrange it all. Let me send an owl to Viktor. He needs to be informed. Go on to bed. I will be there eventually."
He must have used the floo network to contact Dumbledore because by the time I got up the next morning the arrangements were complete and my cousin was on his way to Chelsea. The three of us took my father's body to Petersburg. Sev and I had not been back since last Christmas when we retrieved the information Father had left on the Death Eaters. The house seemed strange to me now. Viktor and Sev buried him in the gardens under one of the great fir trees near the perimeter wall. Sev talked to Viktor about what kind of stone to put up but they left it for another time. I summoned the house elf who had not seen anything. I thanked her and told her that my father was dead and that Mother was missing. She took my hand and led me into their bedroom to the huge antique trunk that stood in the alcove under the window. She showed me how to open it and said quietly, "You are Mistress now. Ptitsa obeys Mistress Thera now. Master was leaving you things in here for husband and cousin. Ptitsa will keep watch for Madame Karkaroff." She left me to sort through the things in the trunk.
I found stacks of letters from Severus to my father from years ago and letters to me from my father. I found a copy of his will and letters to Viktor as well as photo albums and keepsakes. There were several of the Cossack tunics that he favoured which he had marked to go to Viktor and/or Sev. I put aside the red and blue ones for Viktor and the black and green ones for Sev. There were several books wrapped in dragonskin marked for Sev. I removed all of the things for Viktor and Sev from the trunk and discovered, in a package at the very bottom of the trunk an invisibility cloak marked for me. I broke down again into uncontrollable tears. When Sev found me I had cried myself out. He gathered the things up and yelled for Viktor. They brought the bundle into the library of the house. Sev called Ptitsa for tea and vodka. Viktor was going through the things, sorting them into different piles. Then he came to kneel in front of me.
"Little sister-cousin, do not grieve so. Your father would be hurt for you to show such weakness. He wanted you to be strong. He taught you those things he knew you would need to survive this. He always knew, deep down, that he would have to pay for his actions. He knew his life was forfeit when the Dark Lord returned. He ran to keep you and my aunt safe. He only came back because he knew your husband was the second most powerful wizard next to Dumbledore. He knew I was not drawn to the Dark ways at all, he urged me to pledge myself to the group Dumbledore had founded to fight the Dark Lord. I have done that. I have been recruiting those of my former classmates who are like minded and we are keeping watch on the school and the students. The Ministry does not know we are there, nor do we want them to know. It is much too easy to subvert a Ministry operative. I will work with Severus to protect both you and the other students. Now dry your tears, Uncle Igor would not want you to cry any more. Here! Each of you take a glass of vodka, we will drink a toast to the memory of Igor Karkaroff."
Severus took his glass and held it up as did Viktor. I stood and raised my glass to meet theirs and we threw the vodka down our throats, then we turned as one to the fireplace and threw the glasses into it. Severus and Viktor walked to the other side of the room and Viktor took out his knife. He made a cut on his hand and then a similar cut on Sev's hand, they looked towards me and spoke words to each other much too softly for me to hear before pressing their hands together to blend the blood.
Then Sev used his wand to heal the cuts and they came back to me. Viktor went off to the room he had used since he was a child. Sev sat next to me on the love seat before the fire.
"Viktor will be the go-between for us. No one will suspect that he is contact with me. It is the best way to have it appear that you and I are not in collusion. He will naturally visit his beloved cousin and pay lots of attention to her friend, Miss Granger. The Dark Lord will see me trying to recruit him to our cause and, hopefully, assign no more thought to him. Tonight we will mourn your father. Teach me the endearments in Russian and Greek that your parents used to each other; perhaps that will begin to assuage your grief." He swung me up into his arms and carried me to my parents' bedroom. He stripped us out of our clothes and held me tightly against him in bed. Each time I taught him an endearment he kissed me. He repeated each endearment to me as he held me. He settled my head on his shoulder while whispering to me. I fell asleep snuggled close to him.