Chapter 20

Sudden Shift

"But you do feel better now, don't you?"

"Of course. I ought to have eaten lunch, but I skipped since I knew I was going to eat like a pig when we got together."

"You did have me worried—you looked so pale. Perhaps you ought to see a Healer just in case."

"Why? I feel fine. It was so wonderful to see Sarah and Elspeth after so long. Sarah has really grown her hair out now; it is almost to her hips."

"Well Freddie mentioned that he adores really long hair, so of course Sarah is bent on becoming the next Rapunzel."

"Who's that?"

"Oh you know, the young witch who was imprisoned in a tower with no ladder or wand, so she grew out her hair for her Muggle prince to rescue her before the hag who had kidnapped her had fattened her up enough to eat her. It means someone with really very long hair, Patty."

"I remember that story now. I used to think it must hurt awfully to have someone use your hair as a rope."

Eva laughed, "Yes, I'm sure it would. Yours is getting very long now, isn't it?"

"Well Rem can do the most amazing plaits. I have been letting it grow so she has more to work with. If you like, I could have her do one on you. It would be very beautiful with your black hair."

Eva shivered despite her heavy fur lined cloak. "I don't think I would like her touching me though. She gives me the collywobbles."

Patience and Eva stepped into the street to avoid a group of boys walking three abreast. Once they had walked round a toasted nut seller's trolley, Patience responded, "I think I have got used to her, but she is horrible, isn't she? I once found her eating what looked like absolutely raw chicken. I almost sicked on the spot."

Eva wrinkled up her nose and asked, "So she is a hag then?"

Patience shook her head and then shivered in the cold wind as she said, "Part-hag. She couldn't be anything less with that nose."

"That is true, but I wonder Professor Snape allows her to stay. You know how hags are about beautiful women."

"No, what do you mean?"

Eva rolled her eyes at her friend and said sarcastically, "Hags, darling, are notorious for being envious of beautiful women. Don't you remember Malodora Grymm?"

"No, should I?"

"It doesn't matter. I am sure that she is fine, since you say Professor Snape is so worried about your safety and he trusts Rem. I am surprised he allowed me to escort you. He is really getting soft."

"I was surprised, too. However, he was really odd this morning. It seemed like he could not get me out of the bedroom fast enough once I was awake. Yet then after breakfast he took me into his library to practise some spells to use on Biter and did not seem too pleased when we were done that I wanted to go read. What did he want me to do, hang out with him there? Odd."

Eva looked out of the corner of her eye at her friend as they turned onto Wygracket Road. "Perhaps he did."

"Oh, I don't think so. He was working on important things. I would have been a "distracting influence." Besides, he does not like Biter, since Biter still tries to eat his boots."

"Patty, I think I'm going to come in for a bit. I have something to talk to you about."

"Oh, well, all right. Let me knock."

The two young women stood shivering on the doorstep until the door was opened by Rem, who bowed low and moved aside for them to enter. Rem took both of their cloaks as Patience ordered some tea to be sent upstairs for herself and hot vanilla milk for Eva.

As they climbed the stairs towards Patience's room, they could hear footsteps coming down the stairs from the storey above. By the time that Patience had opened the door to her room, Severus Snape had reached the landing near them.

Eva said politely, "Good evening Professor Snape."

The two girls saw him look morosely at them both and nod curtly before continuing down the stairs. Eva looked at Patience who laughed lightly and beckoned her friend into her bedroom.

As soon as she had shut the door she said softly, "Don't worry, Eva, he is always in that mood. I don't think he is upset about you being here."

"No, I think he is. That is what I wanted to talk to you about, Patience."

Patience frowned and fidgeted with a clasp on her robes as she said, "I don't think he minds. He is busy enough with his own things not to care much what I do and he has said that you may come here when I like."

Eva took a deep breath and said, "How do you think that he feels about you?"

Patience settled into her usual chair with Biter in her lap, looked at her best friend uncomprehendingly, and replied with an edge, "What do you mean? I think I bore him, except recently when he decided to take an interest in taking me to bed. Otherwise, I am a burden."

"I don't think that is how he sees you at all, Patience."

Patience shook her head and looked angrily at her friend. "He has said so, Eva. He said all of those things. You know that. Why are you asking me this? I do not want to talk about it."

Eva sat forward and said firmly, "No, we need to talk about this. I think you are going to make a mistake with him if you assume that he doesn't care about you."

"Well, I don't know. He said some things yesterday about protecting me, but I do not know what he meant. He doesn't say things clearly, you have to think about it a lot to suss out his hidden meanings, and some of the time I think he's just saying what he thinks will get what he wants."

Eva nodded. "Yes, I think he probably does do that. That is the classic Slytherin game. However, I think he probably was trying to tell you something serious. Tell me what he said."

Patience began to play with her ring, turning it round on her finger several times before answering, "Well, he was talking about why he chose Luther for my bodyguard. He said that any other wizard would look bad if he was living here with me."

"Yes, that's obvious, go on dear."

"Well, he said he has heaps of enemies and that some people will want to hurt me because it would be a way of hurting him."

Eva replied carefully, "That is probably true. I imagine that he knows some scary people, Patience."

Patience still did not look up as she continued to play with the ring. "Well he said that the really evil ones, actually he said ruthless and willing to do anything to get what they want, but that's evil isn't it? Although he said that he is that sort of wizard, so I suppose he doesn't think that's evil. Well, those are the ones that will know that keeping me safe is the most important thing to him and therefore they are the people that he most fears. He says since if he were they that he would hurt me, so that this is why he knows they will try to do. Does that make sense?"

Eva stared at her friend with wide eyes. "He said that?"

"Yes."

"Oh, Patience, what did you say to him after that?"

"I don't remember, I think I asked if he really thought people would want to kill me."

Eva looked pityingly at her friend and then said softly, "Patty, he was telling you that he loves you. That is what he means when he is saying that keeping you safe is the most important thing to him."

Patience stared at her friend with her mouth slightly open before she stammered, "That is ridiculous, Eva. He has promised he'll keep me safe, but that's all he meant."

Eva shook her head and tried again to explain, "No, Patty. Keeping you safe is one thing. It should be important to him, but to say that it is the most important thing to him is entirely different." Eva could see that her friend was not only shocked by what Eva was saying, but in complete disbelief. "Do you remember that I said I had realised something yesterday that I wanted to think about first before telling you?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well when we walked in the drawing room, I saw the way he looked at you. It was the same way that my brother Edward looks at Carrie-Louise. I watched him all throughout tea to see if I had been imagining it. However, two times I saw him react viscerally to something you said to his cousin, which told me that he was listening carefully to everything you said. It was not a casual interest. I cannot explain it, but it made me feel that I was right. Patience, for a man like him...well, what he said to you last night was an open declaration with no room to mistake."

Patience stood up, walked away from her friend to Biter's basket, and laid him inside before beginning to pace the floor. After a few minutes she suddenly replied angrily, "It isn't true, Eva. You have not had to live here with him and bear the things he says and does. He does not even like me. He does not like to talk to me unless there is a goal. Everything always has to have a goal. If he is being nice to me, it is to persuade me to allow Luther to come or to go to bed with him. That is it. There is no way that Severus is in love with me. How can you even say that?"

Eva replied very simply, "Because it is true."

"Why would he love me? He thinks I'm dim and very irritating."

"I…I just don't know, Patience. I don't know him well enough to be able to guess. Perhaps he has noticed what everyone else has—that you are caring, generous, and kind."

"I don't think that those are qualities that he values."

Eva frowned. "Perhaps not. I do not know. I do not think that he is the sort of man who knows how to love someone really. I mean that either he has never loved or the relationship failed horribly when he tried. I might be mistaken, but I wonder if some of what he does is because he really does not know how to love you properly. Also, I think perhaps loving someone is frightening for him because he likes to be in control of everything and the prospect of vulnerability would be too much to bear."

Patience burst into tears, but waved Eva away when Eva began to come over to comfort her. "I don't know that I want him to love me. I do not want him here. I do not want to be married to him. I definitely do not like him at all. He is cold and selfish and ugly. You should see him in a nightshirt—it isn't something to want, Eva."

Eva stood awkwardly by the bed, uncomfortably watching her friend tormentedly pacing with the little Crup following behind her every step. She wondered if she had made a mistake in telling Patience; if perhaps letting her friend suss it out on her own would have been wiser. "I know you didn't want to marry him, but you did. You cannot divorce him because of the binding ritual, right?"

Patience nodded and sniffled into her handkerchief before returning to her pacing. Eva continued, "So you are stuck with this, Patience. What do you think would make you happy? Would you prefer a distant relationship of cold civility and sex upon his terms or would you like to find some way to connect to him emotionally?"

"Well, I could never love him, Eva."

"I did not say that you had to love him. Yet perhaps you could learn to respect him and care about him in some way whilst encouraging his love for you. That wouldn't be so bad, would it?"

Patience slumped onto the edge of the bed and looked bleakly at her friend. "All I ever wanted was for someone to really love me, Eva."

Eva, who had never heard her friend admit this, sat down next to her and put an arm round her. "And you feel angry that someone finally does, but it is him?"

"I just wanted someone to really love me—not to mind that I'm not clever, but to like what I can do and not make me feel idiotic for what I cannot do. I always hoped for someone who would think I was important enough to care about."

Eva rubbed her friend's back lightly as she said, "I can understand that, Patience, and I can see why you want someone other than your friends to see how wonderful a person you are. However, perhaps he already does. If he is putting you at the centre of all he is concerned about, above everything else, then I think he must feel that way about you."

"B-b-but he th-thinks I'm ever so dim-witted. I may not be clever, but I do have feelings and I do know when people make fun of me and when they talk down to me."

Eva hugged her friend and said, "I know, Patty, of course you do."

"Well you don't think that is going to change do you?"

"I do not know, Patience. Perhaps in time it will."

Patience wiped her eyes and said, "He gave me laxorica, too."

Eva was unprepared for the non sequitur, but replied nonetheless, "Did he? That is good, Patience. That means he is not going to try to pressure you into children."

"It was odd. He used exactly the same words you did. He told me that he wouldn't tell me what to do and that I should decide."

Eva raised her eyebrows and replied, "That's rather advanced of him."

Patience sighed, "I suppose it is. His ideas and customs are so antiquated that he seems older than our parents sometimes."

"I don't think that is really true. Other than the arranged marriage, which I agree is archaic, he is no fustier than Elspeth's parents."

Patience looked at Eva directly, as she replied, "What I mean is that he seems so much older than me."

"Well, almost twice your age is a lot older, but lots of wizards and witches manage larger age differences."

Patience picked at the eiderdown cover as she asked tentatively, "How do I talk to him? I have to ask permission for everything and he is so hard to approach. We have literally nothing in common and he is so prickly that he doesn't encourage conversation anyway."

Eva shook her head, "I don't know. You are much better at those sorts of things than I am, Patty. You could always get round everyone. I think you could have a pleasant conversation with Medusa about how to improve her hair."

Patience gave Eva a watery smile, "Very funny. But Eva, if he was telling me he loved me, do you think he meant me to know and was angry that I did not say anything?"

"I don't know that he was saying that specifically to tell you how he feels. He may have been trying to explain about Luther and the result was that he effectively acknowledged his feelings. As for whether he was upset, I cannot say. How did he react to your question afterwards?"

"He did not seem any different than before, but I don't think I was paying attention."

Eva looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and asked, "What time is your dinner here?"

"Seven, why?"

"Because your clock says dinner time, so I needed to know what that meant."

"Oh my, it's late! You had better go before your father worries."

"Yes, I had better. But are you sure you are all right though?"

Patience shook her head. "I'm fine. I really just want to think this through."

"But don't you have to go down to eat with him?"

"Yes, you're right, I had forgotten. Perhaps I could…no, that is being cowardly. Let me wash my face and then I will come down with you."

Eva reached out and tucked the end of one of her friend's braids into place and asked, "Was I right to tell you, Patty?"

Patience was surprised by her usually self-assured friend's question. "Yes, I needed to know. I just wish that I had a little time before I had to see him, but it does not really matter. I'm glad that you told me."