Chapter 9

Moderation

It had taken an exorbitant fee to enlist Van Ussel once again as the family Healer. Snape had not expected any loyalty, despite the sizeable pile of gold that had changed hands between him and Van Ussel during Eileen Snape's prolonged illness. In fact, he had known that it would take more gold to have the Snape family inscribed once more in Van Ussel's book than any Healer who could be found in Britain. However, Flemish-trained Healers were unsurpassed in their field, especially at healing Dark curses, and they were always willing to offer confidentiality for the right price.

Of course, he could not well afford the scrutiny that taking his wife to St. Mungo's would have brought upon him. Charges of neglect and abuse would have been an inconvenience for him now, especially since they were essentially true. Additionally, Snape had known that Van Ussel would be able to treat her without delay and with potions that were not easily obtained in Britain usually due to ingredients of somewhat questionable legality. Snape's driving concern was that Patience be healed immediately.

Snape paced the floor of the classroom, entirely unconcerned that the fifth-year Ravenclaw who was serving detention was so frightened by his demeanour that she was openly crying, as he thought about Van Ussel's diagnosis. Snape had been politely informed that his wife was suffering from the worst untreated case of corpuscular Ales fever that Van Ussel had ever seen, as well as an otherwise bog-standard strain of dragon pox that had developed to an unusually advanced stage due to lack of medical intervention. Nothing was incurable; in fact Mrs. Snape could expect to regain her previous standard of health as well as a flawless, radiant complexion if Professor Snape were willing to pay the price for an outrageously expensive potion that Mijnheer Van Ussel was only able to provide to his private patients due to the unfortunate feelings that the British Ministry held towards the use of Phasianos bird feathers.

Snape had paid every Knut, Sickle, and Galleon requested of him, although he knew he was being bled mercilessly. The result was that Patience had been pustule-free after three days and now, after two weeks, had no remaining marks or symptoms from the disease other than a weight that Van Ussel had apostrophised as being 'shamefully under normal'.

This was not, however, the only consequence of her illness. The self-protective barrier of anger and fear that Snape had built between his conscious mind and the deep, dark place where he hid his feelings for his wife was now in disrepair. Of course, he would never admit to anyone other than himself that he had anything other than an awareness of the basic marital obligations, as well as a vague desire not to be made a widower before he had been married 3 months. Yet Snape was now excruciatingly aware of how much he cared for his wife. The moments in which he had thought she was dead and lost to him were a revelation. For in that brief time, his only desire had been to brutally and violently revenge her death with his own fate being of no particular consequence either way. Those seconds of desolation had changed him in a way that he could not yet truly comprehend other than knowing that she was now irrevocably an entity that concerned him. Snape had never dreamt that he could feel loss in that way again and the shock was immense, but not nearly as great as the utter terror at reliving such a loss.

He was no longer used to having to worry himself with the feelings or welfare of any other human being, so this was not a welcome change. The amount of responsibilities that he already bore was enough for any man, especially one who had no altruistic bent or genuine feeling for most of his fellow man. Additionally, Severus Snape did not like loss of control. Attachment to anything or anyone was anathema to him, which he had long told himself that he would only be willing to overcome when the cause was important enough and, therefore, the sacrifice was worthy. He would never have thought that any woman so unlikely to ever be of any use to him or return his feelings could be important enough for him o be willing to sacrifice his freedom or his sanity.

Snape stood up from his chair and looked at the measured candle on his desk. He needed to leave Hogwarts soon. He had a long distance to cover the following day, so he would want rest tonight. Additionally, the prospect of a conversation with his wife that evening did not lead him to believe that sleep would come easily. She might have already retired to bed, in fact, which would make things especially tiresome.

Snape stalked over to the desk where the short, blonde Ravenclaw was cowering and closed her book with a wave of his wand. "The next time that you consider holding hands with Mr Milford under one of my desks, Miss Rennie, what will you decide?"

The girl gripped her book in a badly shaking hand and replied with only a frightened squeak.

"Very well, you may leave. Do not forget your essay on the importance of clean cauldrons. I expect it to be 10 inches at the least."

The girl bowed her blond head and fled from the room, as if in fear for her life. He had never held Patience in detention, but Snape told himself that she would have reacted to him just like the idiot Rennie girl. When he had last seen her, Patience had cringed away from where he was standing by her bed and barely responded to him with anything but monosyllables. There was no reason that he should expect differently. In fact, he did not want her to like him. All that he wanted was to know that she was safe and that he could go back to his work in peace. He could not possibly deny to himself that the fate of this girl was important to him, but neither did he have any desire for genuine interaction between the two of them.

He had been right. She had been asleep for several hours when arrived at the house, so it had been almost twenty minutes before he'd got any coherent answers from her. He had been ridiculously relieved to see that she really was, as Van Ussel had promised, unmarked by the disease. There was no use in pretending to himself that it wouldn't have mattered to him. Of course, no man would want an ugly wife, no matter how little he had to do with her.

Finally, she had confessed to him where she had caught the pox. He had known that it would be something that involved disobedience to his demands in some way, but the answer had been so common place that he had not even remonstrated with her. She had accidentally seen an acquaintance of hers from Hogwarts in a teashop in Hogsmeade. It was no one of importance. She was a Hufflepuff a year older than Patience, Elspeth MacDougall, a girl that Snape remembered chiefly as being a quiet, dim prospect.

It seemed that Patience really had only known MacDougall because her own friend Elspeth Bruce had formed a sort of friendship with the girl based on their uncommon, shared given names. This girl had brought her nephew into town for the day and the boy had been unusually cross and fractious. Patience had attempted to entertain the child to help the harried young aunt, who it seemed had no idea how to handle small children.

The whole story seemed entirely believable and quite typical. This was exactly the sort of thing that his wife would do. He had seen her repeatedly go out of her way to help others at school, even when it was an inconvenience to her. Snape thought grimly that this was the inevitable payment for such foolish unselfishness. Obviously, the child had been sickening for the pox. He would let Van Ussel make some private inquiries, but Snape fully expected to have confirmed that the MacDougall boy was treated for both Ales and pox shortly after Patience had seen him.

Snape pulled open the left hand drawer under his desk and reached far into the back for his Compulsatory Quill. He had to get Mudge's draughts of the documents on to Stronge for review before month's end, so it was better to sign them now and have done. Unfortunately, keeping two separate Jurisconsultants to handle his affairs was a necessary expense. He had no doubts that Gideon would inspect these papers ad minutiae once they were submitted to the Ministry, so Snape knew that there must not be any errors or loopholes. Blood was only thicker than water when one was trying to survive an external threat. When the enemy was family, the rules were open and the fight was for totality.

He had told Patience that he would talk to her that morning before he left about what was expected of her now. Snape knew that she would think he was going to punish her for having spoken to someone she knew at Hogsmeade. He had read as much on her face when he had spoken of his intention to see her after breakfast. However, he had made no effort to clarify his intentions. It was useful to keep her in fear of him.

Yet, Snape had not forgotten what Van Ussel had told him. Although the Healer had informed him that Patience had been malnourished and weak at the time of her exposure to the two diseases, which was hardly surprising considering her treatment at the hands of her family, Van Ussel had also told Snape that he suspected that Patience had lacked the will to live. That was the only explanation that Van Ussel had for the extent of the Ales infection, which he had explained to Snape was extremely rare in adults and usually only affected the hands and feet but never the entire dermis.

It was possible to push even a subservient, weak person too far. Patience had already been heavily abused by her family and betrayed by her former fiancé. He had miscalculated how to handle her and, unless he wanted further trouble, he would have to be more cautious.

Snape Charmed the seal on the parchment to the thumb mark, and then bundled his papers into the ebony-handled bag that already contained his equipment. He had at most twenty minutes to waste before he had to set out, if he had any hope of being back at Hogwarts on Sunday before uncomfortable questions were raised.

After a short, perfunctory knock, Snape opened his wife's door and stepped inside. She was sitting up in the bed, wearing a heavy, brocaded bed jacket, which he suspected was to keep his unwelcome gaze from detecting anything interesting beneath. Her eyes had opened wide in fear and her hands were frozen in the act of breaking apart a breakfast bun.

"Good morning, my dear." Although his voice had not been unkind, a definite sneer had crept into the words as he acknowledged the irony of the epithet.

"Good morning, sir."

He watched her push away her breakfast tray and draw her knees up to her chest underneath the covers. It appeared that she felt the need for such protection even now that she knew he was leaving.

"I will be going in a few moments and will probably not be back until the holidays. However, I do intend to spend at least a portion of the holiday here working."

"Oh. Will we…is anyone else coming for the holidays?"

Snape had not considered that she would expect guests. "No. You will not be required to do anything. I will most likely spend all of my time in my library or away from the house."

"Oh. When does the holiday begin?"

"I will inform Rem when I know the date of my arrival."

He could see her body stiffen with fear at the mention of the housekeeper. He knew that he had sufficiently instilled the fear of Belial into the old woman and that Rem would not dare even to think of harming his wife. However, it was understandable that Patience would still be frightened.

"We have talked about Rem already, Patience. She knows that I will tolerate nothing more from her and that one word from you will decide her fate. I have kept her on because she was loyal to my mother and because she is willing to serve me for very little pay. Additionally, because she has an unfortunate amount of knowledge about the family, I would not like to lose her. However, her departure can be arranged if she forgets her place again."

It was not clear that she truly believed him, but Snape could see that she was willing to accept the situation from her reaction. He gestured to indicate that he wanted her to get up from the bed and join him by the fire. As she obeyed him quietly, Snape looked round him briefly. Nothing had changed from when his mother had occupied this same room, yet the atmosphere was completely different. Somehow, this little witch had infused her personality into her personal space without ostensibly changing any one thing. However, recollections of his mother still haunted him as he looked round him at the tapestries that his grandmother had hung to hide the gruesomely carved panels on the walls. Snape did not think that anything could exorcise those memories.

"You will continue to take the potions that Mijnheer Van Ussel and I have provided for you?"

"Yes. Three times daily for the blue and once for the brown. I remember."

"Right. As for your friends, I have decided that I was unreasonable to keep you from any contact with them."

He could see the hope and surprise creep into her eyes as she looked uncertainly at him.

"I think that you may write to your friend Rosser. I understand that you have been lonely."

He watched her as she waited for him to continue with an unpleasant condition to the concession or perhaps to insult her before she whispered, "Thank you, sir."

"Nothing else has changed. I will not have any of them in the house, nor do I want you to meet with any of them elsewhere. I hope that your friend Rosser can be trusted. However, if I see anything that leads me to believe I was mistaken or that you have not followed my instructions…"

Patience stammered, "No, I won't, sir. Eva wouldn't do anything, I am sure of it."

"Let us hope not. I will see how you handle this and if I feel that I can trust you then perhaps I will re-evaluate the situation at the holiday." As he spoke, Snape stood up as quickly as he could and continued coldly, "It is time for me to leave. I have left a further shopping allowance for you with Wicket."

He turned away and tried to block out her flustered words of thanks as he hurried from the room.