Severus Snape sent Emma a letter requesting her presence in Hogsmeade at the Hog's Head. She hated the place. It was an absolute dump, but on the designated Sunday evening, telling Fred that she had to have a work meal with a colleague to keep up appearances, Emma put on a fairly respectable set of robes and Disapparated to Hogsmeade.

The barman seemed to be expecting her, and Emma noticed a man in the corner who was almost certainly in disguise of some sort. His clothes were too fine for the way he kept his hair, and a look in his eyes told her that he thought very highly of himself.

Death Eater.

Just as she entertained the idea of getting a butterbeer to go and leaving, a familiar figure swooped in alongside her and said softly in her ear, "You're late."

She gave him her sweetest smile, not wanting the Death Eater in the corner to think she was somehow dangerous and she said, "Sorry, couldn't find my shoes."

It was a stupid lie, but not something uncommon for some women.

"I've ordered you a drink. Come."

He led her into a private room in the back, one that probably cost him a fair bit more than the drinks, but she did not look behind her as she entered, letting him close the door.

"So what's the story?" she asked as he warded the door.

The room wasn't exactly cozy, but it was homier than the mangy common area. She wondered if the Death Eater on the other side was using a spell or something to attempt to listen in on them, ensure that Snape really was meeting a lover. He waved his wand and lit a fire in the fireplace.

"I've finally managed to seduce you, the object of my attentions," he said wryly, not meeting her eye. "We kill time in here, letting the wards fade naturally. When that begins, we find some activity that is silent as the grave and I let this play."

He pulled out a small box that he held out to her, obviously enchanted. Emma didn't have to ask. It would no doubt make soft, rude sounds when opened, for as long as needed, and then she would be able to leave.

"Lovely," she said sarcastically. "How long until the ward fades?"

"Exactly an hour."

He had thought of everything, so Emma simply picked up the glass of wine he poured for her and sat down in front of the fireplace.

"Albus Dumbledore is the target," she said softly, and Severus actually started at this, frowning at her.

"Do not repeat that," he said as he sat down beside her, firewhiskey in hand. "Not to anyone."

"I'm not completely stupid," she said dryly. "What I can't quite figure is who is doing all the work. Obviously it's on Voldemort's orders, but"

"This is not the place nor time to have this discussion," he said slowly. "Another time."

It was not putting her off forever, so Emma decided she would take it. He was right; this was not the right place to be discussing such things.

"Lupin gave you his book on becoming an Animagus," Severus said after a few minutes of silence. "Have you worked it all out yet, or are you one of those who takes decades to achieve a form?"

Emma perked up. How did he know that?

"Decades?"

"I suspect those who struggle with Transfiguration of living creatures, which can be difficult at high levels," he said dully, "and those who are simply too busy with other projects to devote the proper energy to it. No shame in it, of course. Some of the greatest wizards to achieve a form took decades."

Emma couldn't help feeling a little bit smug as she set down the glass of wine, stepped toward the fireplace, and concentrated her energy on transforming. Any other wizard would have looked impressed, but Severus Snape merely pulled out his wand, scanning her.

"Nearly there, I see," he said lazily. "The fur has the properties of human hair, but you have very nearly accomplished it."

Emma shook the fur in question and transformed back into a human, frowning at him.

"Yes, I did have a sense that I haven't quite completed it, but I hadn't been able to test it while in otter form."

He narrowed his eyes.

"It is very dangerous to attempt transformation alone."

"I wasn't alone," she said airily. "Tien was in the next room."

"So many secrets you keep from your husband," he said, amused. "I've been told that is not the way to have a relationship."

Emma was annoyed that he found the thing so amusing, but he did have a point. Even things that had nothing to do with the war, she was keeping them from Fred. When had all of this started?

With Sirius, she realized. It was when Sirius was flirting with her, and she decided not to mention it to Fred. Ever since then, she had a growing number of things not to tell him, things she even actively lied about. It wasn't Sirius's fault exactly. She made that choice herself. Perhaps Fred would have thought it was funny.

"So tell me," she finally said, "was a lover really the best thing you could think of?"

Severus Snape's lips twisted into a pained expression that was almost like a smile. She preferred his usual face, she decided.

"I had to cover the Ministry and Diagon Alley," he said. "You live in Diagon Alley, you work at the Ministry. No one else gives a sufficient cover to both places."

"And lover?"

"It is a fairly innocuous way of involving you without arousing suspicions as to my loyalties or generating undue interest in you," he said simply. "After all, I am a man. I must be expected to behave like one."

Emma supposed that a man attempting to seduce a younger woman was hardly original, which was part of what made it so likely to be true. She would have thought there were prettier women, but then, as he had said, his options were limited by his resources.

"And do you have a story on how you managed to seduce me?" she said, teasing. Severus rolled his eyes, but as she suspected, he had a story prepared.

"Bored with the typical course of your life, intrigued by childish fantasies about a former teacher," – Emma sniggered – "you decided that the risk would be intriguing and the rush of not being able to tell anyone about it was enticing."

Emma glanced at his face in the firelight. From the right angle, in the right light, Severus Snape was not unattractive. He had a striking profile, his eyes were strangely compelling, and his voice was almost hypnotic. He was the youngest male teacher at Hogwarts, and she did wonder if he'd ever had students fantasize about him. Surely someone must have done. For her part, Sirius had been much more attractive, but so much of that was personality. Emma was a sucker for a jokester, always had been. Severus Snape had probably never been much of the jokester type.

She sipped her wine quietly, thoughtfully.

So many questions she could think of to ask the man sitting next to her. Even with their both being in the Order, she hardly had any time to speak to him. Perhaps this wasn't the proper place for most of it, but there were things she could ask, things she could say.

"Katie Bell," she finally said, softly, so quietly she wasn't sure she'd said it out loud for a very long moment. "She's getting better, I suppose, as you said she would, but…almost too slowly." He nodded. "How long do you think it will take?"

He set down his empty firewhiskey glass.

"Difficult to say," he said slowly. "That I know of, she is the first person impacted by that curse who has survived instant death. There has not been a great deal of call for studying it. She has, as I understand it, been making marginal progress, and with luck she should be restored in a matter of months. But I will not sugar coat this. She may never fully recover."

Emma shivered, but she did appreciate that he told her the truth. What that would mean, not fully recovering, Emma wasn't sure, but knowing that it was a possibility made her feel cold all over. To know there was such darkness in the world, such powerful darkness…. That was what they were fighting, essentially. Powerful darkness that threatened everything. It just happened to take the form of a man.

"You don't have to show me," she said softly, "but…if you don't mind, I'd…I'd like to see it."

She felt stupid, not being able to use proper words to express what she wanted, but the request was a strange one, one that she was almost certain he would say no to.

To her surprise, however, he slowly pulled up his left sleeve. Emma was stunned with how dark and angry the black mark looked, especially next to the rest of the pallid flesh of Severus's arm. She had a strange urge to touch it, and an equally strong revulsion to it, and she wondered how he could stand having something so hateful branded onto his skin.

At this point, though, he didn't have much of a choice. Perhaps he got used to it, like people get used to a new pair of glasses, or a new shade for their manicure.

"Try to focus on the changes you need to make," he said softly, and Emma blinked. What was he on about? When he realized she didn't understand he said, "Focus when you transform, on specifics. Thoughts have a great deal more power in magic than most people consider, particularly in Charms and Transfiguration."

He pulled out the box, opening it, resting it on the door. Emma began to blush as she tried not to listen to the sounds emanating from the box. She tried to think about what Severus had said about the power of thought for her Animagus transformation.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "I'll try that next time."

Talking might have helped the awkwardness as the box played out its sounds, but neither Emma nor Severus seemed capable of coming up with something to say that would alleviate the uncomfortable situation. Instead, they sat silent, Emma going over in her mind all of the forms she would have to sign that week. She had a brief thought wondering what Severus was thinking about, but she knew he had plenty of things to consider and she would never manage to guess what it was.

Emma twisted a thin cloth napkin in her fingers, staring at the fireplace.

Actually, Fred might find the whole thing rather funny, if she told him about it. There was comedy in the situation by its very nature. This was the sort of thing she wouldn't have minded telling Fred, because it wasn't particularly dangerous, just a favor of sorts for an Order member. But Severus had sworn her to secrecy, so she would be able to tell no one. That did seem to be the way of things, anymore.

When the box ran out, Severus leaned forward and whispered, "You leave first. Smile. Disapparate as soon as you leave the pub."

Emma did as she was told, putting on a smile as she left the room, noticing that the Death Eater was still watching as she left, perhaps studying her, perhaps questioning the whole situation. She kept herself as calm as possible, and as soon as she stood in the open air of Hogsmeade, she Disapparated.

Fred was going over his notes for work when she stepped into the flat, still smiling.

"How was dinner?" he asked.

"Not great," she said honestly. "D'you have any leftovers?"

He set down his notes, smiled at her, and crossed to the kitchen to kiss her cheek before warming up some leftovers and telling her all about his day. And she shoveled food in her mouth to keep from spilling secrets.

Several days later, Emma had one of her few precious days off, and she sat down to breakfast with the twins thinking about what she would do with those free hours.

"D'you want to work in the shop?" Fred suggested, stirring sugar into her tea.

"Do you need me?"

"Not really," he admitted with a shrug. "It's going to be a quiet day, and I expect we'll be overstaffed as it is."

Emma grinned. He just wanted her there.

"I expect I'd just be in the way, then," she said reasonably. "I might drop in for a visit later. I actually thought I might run by St. Mungo's, see how Katie's doing."

"Give her our love," George said darkly.

She nodded and went to get dressed.

For the first time, she wasn't lying when she said she was going to the hospital. She really did want to see how Katie was doing, and she entered St. Mungo's feeling slightly uncomfortable. She didn't like illness or infirmity, and she couldn't handle it when people she cared about weren't well. And she cared about Katie quite a lot.

The welcome witch gave Emma directions to Katie's room. Things had to be bad if she had a room of her own, Emma mused, climbing the stairs to the fourth floor, where she followed the hallway to the private rooms past the wards. Katie's was the very last one in the corridor, a small room with no windows to see in from the corridor. Emma's stomach tightened and twisted from nerves. Summoning all of her courage, she opened the door to the room and saw her friend lying there, paler than Emma had ever seen her, unconscious.

"Oh, hello," a kind woman said, surprised. "Family or Ministry?"

"Ministry," Emma said, frowning. "But…she's a friend of mine."

"I see," the woman said, obviously sympathetic. "I'm afraid she's not in very good shape at the moment." She paused to adjust Katie's sheets. "She spends most of the day unconscious, for her health. It is technically safe to wake her up, but she just screams when we do. Progress from a couple of months ago, when we couldn't even safely wake her."

Emma shivered, moving closer to the bed to look at the deceptively peaceful face.

"She's different," Emma said, touching her friend's chipped nail polish. "I…I don't think I've ever seen her face so clean."

The Healer-in-Training actually laughed, which startled Emma, such a strange sound to hear in the hospital room.

"I was here when they brought her in," the woman said, shrugging. "She wore a fair amount of make up. A lot of girls her age do. Well, I guess you're about her age too, aren't you?" Emma said nothing, staring at this woman. "Anyway, I don't think she really needed it. We had to clean off her face and there hasn't been much call for making it up again."

Emma sat down beside the bed, taking Katie's hand in hers, surprised at how warm it was. It looked like it would be cold. She expected Katie to be cold. At least this was a reminder that she was still alive.

"We're hoping that if we get her to be conscious without screaming, it'll be a few more months of recovery," the Healer-in-Training continued. "Obviously, we don't know when she'll make that sort of progress, but the Healers in charge of her case have a few ideas."

"Good," Emma said absently.

She didn't know what to say to this chatty woman. She could think of no questions to ask. Coming to the hospital was supposed to make her feel better, but she just felt bizarrely empty, staring down at her friend. Katie, the fierce, brave, impossible-to-break Katie Bell, looked so fragile and small in that bed. How close she had been to dying. How easy it would have been for Emma to have lost her altogether.

And the Healers only had vague ideas of how to move forward. And Severus had even said that there were no guarantees that she would heal completely.

That was the answer, of course, she told herself almost bitterly. She would have to ask Severus to take a look at Katie's case, to give the Healers advice, guidance. She knew of no one in the world who understood Dark curses better than Severus Snape, no one more qualified to deal with whatever horrific thing was keeping her friend from living. And after all, he owed her after what she had done for him just a few days ago.

She wouldn't put it that way, but he was a Slytherin. He understood the world in terms of debts, checks and balances, weighing every action. This was something he would understand without her saying it flat-out. And after all, he had hopes for her becoming subtler. Perhaps he would be impressed enough to help her, to help Katie. Whatever the assassin had planned, it wasn't to kill Katie. No one could fault him for bringing her back.

Emma stayed until the Healer-in-Training was done with her duties in the room and sat a little longer in the silence, listening to Katie's smooth, rhythmic breathing.

"You wouldn't recognize me now, Katie," Emma said, forcing a smile as she whispered. "Most days I don't recognize me, either. This war, it's changed us all. I hope it's over soon, I hope it ends and you can wake up and see the better world that comes out when it's over. I'll have something to do with that, whatever it looks like."

Not that her name would be on any plaques or in any books when people looked back on the war, but she knew that even if no one remembered her, what she was doing for Severus and for the Order helped important people to do the things that would be remembered.

She said her goodbyes and went home, the image of Katie's pale, sickly face pasted onto Emma's mind.

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to reader Greek Penguin. Thanks for joining the party! Hope you all like this chapter. I had a lot of fun working on it.

-C