AN: Okay so, last time I said there would be one long chapter or two shorter chapters left to go. Well, I severely underestimated how much nonsense I had left to gift you. It's that time of year... you know... the time for the giving and receiving of disappointment and nonsense. Cheers!
Basically, there's still one more chapter to go after this one. This is stupid long! I'm so sorry! Thanks for being great.
CONTENT WARNING: Domestic violence.
It's mentioned as something that happened in the past. There are no details and it's not at all graphic. But I just wanted to give you the heads up.
23. Stalemate
S.
Severus' hand was tight around his wand, not knowing at all what to expect, but trying to anticipate it anyway. Draco had insisted that he went alone around the back of the house to flank from the other side. So Severus followed behind Lucius, who opened the door first, and Cressida, who stood between them so that she couldn't barge in or run off. He had wanted her to stay outside, really. For all Tobin's faults, he was her father, and she shouldn't have to see whatever it was that Lucius had planned for him. Fortunately for Cressida, and unfortunately for them, Lucius' 'plan', if you could call it a plan, had foolishly not accounted for the possibility that Tobin was expecting them.
"Oh God," Lucius whispered, as he stopped dead in his tracks.
"What?" Severus said, trying to see beyond Lucius and Cressida, to see what Lucius saw.
"I'm sorry, Severus," Cressida said, as she pushed her way past Lucius and into the room beyond.
The room, it turned out, was not the entrance hall that Cressida had described, but a kitchen. It was perhaps the hearth of the home, once upon a time, but now it was thick with dust and grime and sticky stains. There were rusty pots hanging from a rack in the centre of the room and underneath them, Severus saw what gave Lucius pause. Tobin, tall and cloaked – this time without his hood, or his mask, with his arm around Draco's neck, his wand to his temple.
"Stay where you are," Tobin said, with a composure that he had no right exuding with his wand to someone's head.
Draco's hands clutched at the arms wrapped around his throat, as he tried to create space to breathe; his wand was in two pieces on the floor.
"How did you—?" was all that Lucius said before he looked to Cressida who shrugged apologetically. "Right, I should have known."
I should have known too.
Cressida's face blanched as she watched her father wrap his arm tighter around Draco's neck.
How could I have been so naïve as to believe her?
"If you expected us here, then we are guests in your home," Severus said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "You could have at least put the kettle on."
"Oh, piss off! This isn't my home," Tobin snapped. "Not anymore anyway. Nobody's lived here for over a decade. Not since my parents died. But it's still my property… so the gate is, let us say, 'alarmed'. That's how I knew you were here."
"Very clever," Severus conceded.
"I told her told Cressida to come here…" Tobin jerked his head towards his daughter. He was demonstrably displeased with her. "But that was yesterday. Took you long enough to get them here."
"I'm sorry," she muttered.
"… Well. I assumed you'd show up eventually. You usually do, whether or not I want you here." He looked out of the window then, his mouth upturned and displeased.
"You didn't bring everyone though, did you?" he asked.
"I tried," she protested meekly. "I'm sure they'll figure out they're missing soon enough…"
He scoffed.
"I'm sorry," she said again. "I did my best."
"Well it wasn't good enough," Tobin said with a curl of his lip that became more evident as he looked at Snape. "Now. Drop your wands."
"Okay," Lucius said, but he did not lower his wand.
"Both of you," Tobin said.
"Let's just talk."
"Not a chance!" Tobin glanced again at Severus; his eyes filled with hatred so boiling that it rivalled the vitriolic blood red of the Dark Lord himself. "Perhaps you think I will stand here like a damn villain, rambling and ruminating – telling you my deepest, darkest secrets, just long enough that you can overpower me? I am not a stupid man. You cannot be trusted, Lucius. Look at the company you keep."
that they stood in Tobin's kitchen, Severus couldn't quite believe that he had agreed to follow Lucius here. Of course he didn't have a plan – he never has a plan – but he had decided that if Lucius was going to act the imbecile, then at least he could be there to watch his back.
'We're just going to talk to him', Lucius said, 'just talk'.
Well that worked out well, didn't it?
Narcissa's going to kill me.
"It's a pity you let your son go around the front though, Lucius," Tobin said, smugly. "He walked straight into my arms."
"That was her idea," Lucius said, jutting his chin towards Cressida. "She told us this was the front entrance. Foolish as I am, I believed her."
Tobin looked at his daughter properly for the first time.
"Good girl."
Severus didn't like the way Tobin looked at her. There was no kindness or pride in his eyes, only possessiveness. Neither did he like the way she looked back at him. Desperate for his approval, and pathetically grateful to receive even a modicum.
"Now! I thought I told you already," Tobin said, twisting the wand taut to Draco's skin. "Drop your wands."
"Fine," Lucius said, and Severus felt his stomach drop to his boots as Lucius did as he was bid.
"Luce! No! What are you doing?! Pick up your fucking wand!"
:
H.
As Narcissa lay her hand on top of the gate, Hermione saw the tremor in her fingers, indicative that the woman who was usually so still and serene, was wracked with nerves. Hermione reached out her hand and grabbed at the soft, long fingers that clutched back. As she did, her little purple, beaded bag dropped from her shoulder and hit the gravel beneath her feet.
"Are you okay?" she asked, pulling the handbag back into position.
Narcissa had stopped just at the end of the road in front of an old, dilapidated cottage. It had ivy growing thick around the crumbling brick. Normally, this would beautify the house underneath, but the overgrowth only served to make the place look unloved – uninviting. It would have appeared completely abandoned if it wasn't for the hum of yellow light in a downstairs window. There was a blind, or perhaps curtains drawn, but there was the definite movement of shadows beyond the glass.
Narcissa looked back at Hermione and tightened her grip on her hand.
"I never thought I'd come back here," she said, softly. "I thought I'd never have to see him again."
Hermione ran her thumb across the back of Narcissa's hand.
"He always loved to garden," she said, her eyes fixed on the neatly tended yard. "It was the only thing that ever seemed to make him happy."
"Narcissa," Hermione said. "You don't have to go in."
Hermione could all but taste the memory of walking into Malfoy Manor for the first time after what Bellatrix had done to her. She did not have to imagine too hard to understand what Narcissa might be thinking as she prepared to undertake a similar task.
"Narcissa," Hermione said again, each time, becoming more familiar with using her name – repeating it until it felt friendly in her mouth. "You don't have to do this. I understand—"
"I know you do," she said warmly, "and I thank you, but I'll be okay." She straightened her shoulders. "My boys need me."
She pushed open the gate that groaned on its hinges, and it buckled as it caught on the grass. Again she lingered on the pathway, holding the gate, as though unable to commit to entering the property, but not willing to leave either.
"I'm frightened," Narcissa said.
Hermione smiled, her lips pressed tightly together, but she hoped that she could impress that she understood, and that she cared, and that no matter what happened—
"I'm right behind you."
Narcissa gave a solemn nod, and with courage to rival any Gryffindor, she stepped through the gate.
:
S.
Lucius' face flashed with both fear and anger in cyclic succession.
"I can't risk his life, Severus! Do you think Narcissa would ever forgive me if I did? After everything we've been through…"
The sound of Narcissa's name on Lucius' tongue elicited a response from Tobin, but Severus couldn't quite pinpoint what that emotion on his face was. Anger? Guilt? Revulsion? Excitement? He was unreadable.
"Don't do that," Lucius said irritably, as he too, noticed the look on his face. "Don't you think about her."
"But I always think about her—"
"I won't be dropping my wand," Severus said, drawing talk away from Narcissa, as he turned to look at Tobin – really look at him, then raised his wand and pointed it at Tobin's chest. "Do you want to bet that you can kill Draco quicker than I can kill you?"
Severus fancied he could actually see the man's jaw clench.
"And if you do kill him…" Severus continued, "…What leverage would you have to beg for your life?"
"Fuck you," he spat.
"Okay, have it your way," Severus said, and moved his wand and aimed at Cressida. "Sorry, love."
"What? No. Severus?"
Her voice came as a plea, as though she thought she could tug on his heartstrings. As if there were any strings there left to tug.
"I don't see that I'm left with much of a choice."
He had to stop himself from rolling his eyes at the absurdity of it all and instead raised an eyebrow as he sized Tobin up. He didn't flinch. Even with a wand pointed at his daughter, Tobin did not blink. Compare that to Lucius who had dropped his wand to the floor and held his hands up in surrender. That was a father - a stupid father - but a desperate father, who loved their child and would do anything to keep them alive.
Tobin showed not a trace of fear or anxiety or even discomfort for the safety of his child. And this was a man who hated Severus – who thought less of him than the shit he shovelled to fertilise his tomatoes – and he didn't so much as twitch.
His poker face, Severus hoped as he looked back at Cressida. Her head was bowed to the floor, as if with shame, and her fingers pulled erratically at the fabric of her dress. Something wasn't right.
"I'm sorry," Cressida said.
'Sorry' again. She's always bloody sorry.
"Don't apologise to him," Tobin snapped at her. "God, you're pathetic."
Cressida's eyes flicked up to her father and then she shrunk into herself.
"You're right," she said. "Sorry."
The look on Cressida's face – the way that she played with the fabric of her clothes – the way she hardly dared to make eye contact with her father. This relationship was so familiar to him. The echo of a memory from decades ago. Young Severus counting the bottles his father drank. Young Severus climbing into his wardrobe, closing the doors behind him, and hoping that if he could just make himself small enough or quiet enough, nobody would hurt him tonight.
Then another flash. Young Severus sat in the dark of his bedroom, his books illuminated by the light of his wand; his nose pressed almost flat to the pages, hoping that he could learn enough useless trivia that just once he might impress his father.
His father's response, every time, one of anger or disappointment. "Tell me, Son, do you take pride in being an insufferable know-it-all?" The last words spoken before his father struck him around the face for the first time.
It would not be the last.
Oh shit.
"Cressida, you should go," Severus told her, moving his wand back to Tobin, but fixing his gaze on her.
"What? Why?"
"You could get hurt."
She looked at him with her sad eyes, big with long lashes, like a damn cow rescued from a slaughterhouse. She looked as though this was the first time in the world anyone had shown her kindness, which he refused to believe was true because he was still so fucking angry with her for bringing them here.
And yet, he knew it could well be true. Even he had failed to be good to her.
"I'm asking you to go," he said again. "Please."
Cressida took one single, hesitant step forward and her father sighed.
"Of course," he said. "Do what he tells you. Go on. Go! You're no use to me anyway."
Cressida let out a deep breath and nodded, as she crossed the kitchen and pulled open the door.
"Yeah! Fuck off! Go!" Tobin screeched after her, and he released his arm from around Draco's neck and his body dropped to the floor with a thud. He kept his wand on Draco, but he was at least free. Lucius rushed to him, and under the guise of tending to his son, Severus saw that he snatched up his wand and stashed it up his sleeve.
Oh God, he thought. I love my friend. But the only thing worse than Lucius without a plan, is Lucius with a plan.
:
H.
As Narcissa stepped forwards, Jessica's voice came sharp and alarming, even as a whisper.
"Wait! Look."
Jessica's finger was pointed to a figure through the glass of the door – a shadow, vaguely human in shape.
The door opened and the shadow stepped through the door. The second that the latch closed behind them, the shadow rested its hands flat on the wall and began to take deep, desperate breaths.
"Cressida?" Hermione asked.
The shadow snapped upright and pulled itself into the light.
"What the hell is going on?" Jess asked her. "Where are they? Where's Draco?"
Cressida didn't answer, and at once, Hermione was aware of her heartbeat, furious in her chest.
"Are they okay?"
"I'm sorry," Cressida said with a heavy sob. "Oh God, I'm so sorry."
Hermione felt her hands wrap themselves into fists, but it was Narcissa that moved first, unintentionally blocking her path.
"It's okay. Do you have a wand?" Narcissa asked, confusing them all.
"What?" Cressida said. "Why?"
"I need to borrow a wand. I forgot to pick mine up."
Cressida handed over her wand without question. Narcissa held it up so that she could get a good look at it, placed her hands on either end of the wand, and with a jerk of her fists, she snapped it in two. Cressida made a small, pathetic gasp before her eyes glistened with the onset tears, but to Hermione's surprise, she did not complain and she did not cry.
"I'm sorry, we obviously can't trust you," Narcissa said, shoving the broken pieces into Cressida's hands and pulling her own wand from the silver bun on the back of her head, that unfolded into a curtain of pin-straight hair. "It doesn't surprise me. I got a weird vibe from you."
Cressida appeared rather crestfallen, as she asked, "what do you mean?"
"You're too much", Narcissa said. "Too intense."
"We met once—"
"Exactly. So you were hardly subtle. And God! What I've heard from Severus… Cycling between desperately clingy and annoyingly passive – I've never heard of anyone so passive. It's not genuine, I don't like it."
Hermione felt the tug of a smile in the corners of her mouth, and she bit her lower lip to conceal her amusement. Her pleasure was short-lived, however, replaced by curiosity and, truth be told, a prick of fear, as Narcissa stopped in her tracks.
"It's not genuine… is it?" Narcissa asked, with a look on her face that put it to Hermione that she had understood something that she had missed. "It's a defence mechanism."
"I don't know what you mean—" Cressida started, but Narcissa held up a finger to quieten her, and Cressida flinched as the hand came close to her face.
The look on Narcissa's face was a new one. Somewhere between pity and understanding.
"Yes, you do," she said. "Of course you do."
Cressida's shoulders tensed as she wrapped one arm around her front, running her fingers across her elbow – "I just did as I was told."
"I know," Narcissa said.
"I just wanted to make him happy."
Who is this 'him'? Severus? Lucius?
"I can never please him," Cressida said. "Nothing I do is ever good enough."
Her father, she assumed.
Jessica spoke up before Hermione, echoing her sentiments exactly.
"If everyone could stop using pronouns and start using names, that'd be excellent," she said with a snarky little snip to her words. "Just who are we talking about?"
"Her father," Narcissa confirmed.
Cressida sucked in a sharp inhale in response. She wasn't just sad, Hermione realised. She was angry too.
"I wasn't lying about Severus… I really didn't know who he was. But my father asked me to—"
"What does it matter?" Narcissa hissed. "What's done is done."
"If you want to go in, I won't stand in your way," Cressida said, but Hermione wasn't sure that she believed her.
"Believe me," Narcissa said. "I absolutely do not want to go in."
"What if you didn't have to," Hermione said, finalising a plan that she'd been considering since they arrived.
She pulled her beaded handbag off her shoulder and bundled it into Jessica's arms. She ran her hand quickly around the bottom, pushing aside books and fumbling around the c linking glass bottles until she found what she was looking for. Hermione wrinkled her nose as she felt the familiar cork stopper with the laminated label on top.
She turned to Cressida.
"You're not allergic to boomslang skin, are you?"
:
S.
"It's none of your business how I treat my daughter—"
Oh, I should have seen this. It's so obvious.
"Exactly! Your daughter," Severus said, hardly able to disguise his disgust. "Don't you care about her at —"
"Don't judge me, Snape! You have hardly a leg to stand on. You humiliated me! Why? Because I laughed at you."
"I'm not the same person I was—" Severus began, before he was interrupted by a clock striking the hour from another room further into the house."
There was a twitch of a smile on Tobin's lips that made Severus feel uneasy.
"Oh, you've changed?" he asked, his gaze moving past Severus as though he was looking straight through him. Severus almost looked behind him. Almost. "Oh, well. I've been mistaken. Off you go then."
He brought his eyes back to Severus and dropped his hand so that his wand was on no longer pointed at Draco, and Severus could almost physically feel the relief flooding from Lucius beside him.
What? What is happening here? Why is he backing off?
"I'm no master duellist. I know I don't stand a chance against Severus Snape..."
I don't trust it.
Severus felt his stomach gather itself together and plait itself into knots, because then Tobin smiled. It was a ghastly, proud smile.
"I give up," he said, raising his hands to surrender. "We all know I won't win here. I assumed you'd kill me eventually after our little skirmish in London."
And again he looked through Severus… past him… as though he didn't see him. As though he saw someone else.
"But you see, I never thought I could win…" Tobin smirked.
Severus could hardly reconcile the man who stood before them, with the man who had followed him and Hermione through the streets of London. That man had leaked his anxiety; his voice had shaken and his hands had trembled. This man was cool and calm. This was not a man who had swiped a map and acted on impulse. This was a man who had formulated a plan. And Severus feared, above all else, that the smile on his lips told him that he was a man whose plan was panning out exactly as he had hoped.
"I never even tried to win, did I?" Tobin said. "I stood here, talking to you, like a damn villain."
His eyes flickered behind Severus and then back as the grin spread wider on his face. As Severus began to understand what Tobin was saying, he felt the familiar ache of foreboding in his stomach.
"I was just waiting for you to overpower me. To kill me. But you didn't…" he said. "I can't believe it. Perhaps you have changed after all. That wasn't a part of my plan."
"Well, what was your plan?" Draco asked, as he raised his hand for his father to pull him to his feet. "Why did you threaten to kill me if you didn't intend to?"
"Ha!" Tobin spat. "I was waiting. I was stalling."
Severus heard and felt, rather than saw, the women behind him. This time he did not turn his back on Tobin. He'd learned his lesson.
"Just in time," Tobin said. "And as for threatening to kill you… I did no such thing. I would never hurt you."
With a flick of Hermione's wrist – he could tell it was Hermione, because of the waft of her floral perfume - the wand surged out of the man's hand, but he did not seem at all startled, or put out by his disarming.
"Hello, gorgeous," Tobin said, narrowing his beady eyes at Narcissa, with a dirty little smile on his cracked lips. "Long time, no see."
Narcissa rolled her head on her neck and took a deep breath as she said, "Toby."
"I didn't lay a finger on your boy, I promise."
"He does appear to be in one piece," she said.
Tobin pulled himself to full height, towering over everyone in the room. He squared his shoulders. His frame was muscular and large. Even Severus felt himself shrink an inch in his shadow.
"Here I was believing that thirty years had passed, and yet, look at you…" Tobin said. "It hardly seems possible."
"Don't talk to her," Lucius snipped. "And don't look at her like that either."
Tobin rolled his eyes as he turned to face Lucius.
"Or what?"
Lucius pulled his wand from his sleeve like a community hall magician and said, "let's hope you don't find out."
Tobin let out a puff of mirth as he said, "oh, please."
Lucius puffed up his chest, the peacock proud and on display, but Narcissa shook her hand as she snatched Lucius' wand clean from his hand. There was something in the way she moved that concerned him. She was uncertain – frightened, he assumed. Her typical grace – her ease – was nowhere to be seen.
"No," Narcissa said, her voice flat and disinterested. "We're not doing it this way. Tell me what you want… Toby."
Severus wondered if Tobin could hear the discomfort laced in Narcissa's voice too, or if it was only they who knew her now, that heard it. If Tobin did hear it, he did not let on. He just watched Narcissa greedily as she walked cautiously towards him. She looked unsteady on her feet as she hitched up her dress so that she could shuffle across the room towards him, as though she'd about forgotten how to use her bloody legs.
"Let me help you get what you want."
"You know what I want," Tobin said. "It's what I've always wanted… You, Narcissa… back where you belong."
Narcissa looked put out by this, but not so much as Lucius.
"I wish you'd shut your fucking mouth—"
"Lou!" Narcissa warned. "Please. Behave yourself."
She spoke like she was his disappointed mother, as he was her wayward child. It did not go unnoticed by Tobin, who seemed to revel in it.
"What did you say?" Lucius asked, staring in disbelief at his wife.
"I'm so sorry," Narcissa said, turning to Tobin, cutting over Lucius, with a voice that was more pathetic than ever she had heard it.
Wait, Severus thought, realising what it was that felt wrong. He shared a look with Lucius whose face read the same fear and realisation.
Lou.
I've never heard her call him 'Lou' in all the time I've known them.
Severus could feel his heartbeat throbbing in his chest, in his fingers… in his fucking toes.
That's not Narcissa.
:
H.
The look on Severus' face told her that he'd figured out what was wrong. Hermione stepped towards Severus and hooked her fingers through his. It would be so easy to lose their cool, right now - so easy to snap – she needed to keep him grounded, just as the weight of his hand in hers kept her tethered to the ground.
Severus' eyes were wide as he surveyed her. Hermione let her calmness wash over her face, desperately trying to communicate that it was all okay. Everything was going to plan. Her fear that Tobin might notice their exchange was unfounded. He only had eyes for Narcissa. And so she dared to reach her free hand into her pocket, pull out the cork stopper and slide it into Severus' hand. He nodded his understanding without even looking at it and waited until Tobin's back was turned to pass it to Lucius. Lucius looked no less frightened, but at least somewhat more informed, as he read the label that Hermione had stuck on with her label-maker, months ago as she had shoved the vials of Polyjuice into her bag 'just in case', because 'you never know.'.
"If you loved me. Why did you hurt me?"
"I'm so sorry for that, Narcissa, my love," Tobin said, and he almost sounded as though he meant it, but then undermined himself instantly. "You know it wasn't as simple as that, though. Don't deny it. We had a passionate relationship," he reasoned. "We pissed each other off from time to time, but that was just because there was so much love there; so much desire and excitement!"
He became animated as he spoke, using his arms as though words alone were too small to express the enormity of his feelings. Hermione's stomach flipped as she watched this man talk about a woman he had all but destroyed as though they'd had the romance of the century.
"Sometimes our obsession looked like anger," he said. "I couldn't hold it in, it came bursting out of me! You just made me so damn furious- thinking about you with him."
"Nothing happened between us until you were out of the picture, you miserable son of a bitch."
Tobin's shifted his stare towards Severus, but Hermione's eyes fell on Cressida, who looked as disgusted with him as she was uncomfortable.
"You loved me all this time?" she asked, swiftly. "You didn't move on."
"I was married," he said plainly, leaning back against the kitchen counter and crossing his arms. "It wasn't like it was with you, though. There was no fire!"
Hermione felt her stomach flip over with unease a second time.
"So, you didn't love her?" Cressida asked, her imitation of Narcissa slipping to reveal the sadness of a child to everyone but Tobin who remained oblivious.
"Are you jealous?" he asked, with a grin.
"No, I—"
"Don't worry. It was always you. I am yours and you are mine, remember?"
Cressida nodded in spite of herself and pulled out a chair from under the table. It was so thick with dust that Hermione fancied writing her name in it with her finger.
"May I?" Cressida asked and took her seat without answering.
She smoothed over the unfamiliar dress and she cleared her throat.
:
S.
"So… your wife—" Cressida began, but Tobin did not let her continue.
Narcissa had told him that this was how it had begun, Severus remembered. He hardly let her finish a sentence before anticipating what she might say and having a conversation by himself – filling in the blanks of her part. It was as though she wasn't there. It had made her feel invisible. It was strange to see it unfold again in front of his eyes.
"My wife was a good homemaker," he said. "She was a good mother, too, even if she did spoil the girl. But I've told you. There's no need to worry. There was no spark! No passion!"
"Then why did you hit her!?" Cressida snapped, seeming to forget that she was playing Narcissa now. "If there was no passion, I mean," she said, running her fingers through her unfamiliar silver hair, as she tried to recover. "… I thought that was …" She swallowed. "I thought that was our thing."
"How did you know I was… that I did… that to my wife?" he asked.
"Cressida told me," she said, quickly.
She's brave, Severus thought. And smarter than I gave her credit for.
It surprised him how much looking like Narcissa had endeared him to Cressida. He couldn't tell if that spoke to how much he loved Narcissa, or how much he didn't really dislike Cressida, as much as he had refused to admit it to anyone.
"Can't say I'm surprised. Always whining, that one."
Cressida's bottom lip protruded a little for just a moment before she sucked it back in.
"Let's just say that her mother and I had a complicated relationship. Perhaps we should talk alone," Tobin said, pulling out the chair beside Cressida. "There's so much I want to say to you. So much to explain."
"Over my dead body," Severus quipped, and folded his arms with finality, making sure to show Tobin that his wand was still firmly in his hands.
"Fine. I have no qualms about expressing my affection publicly. I think we could be happy together. Really happy."
"I find that difficult to believe given our history—"
"Oh, can't we just forget everything that's happened in the past and move on?" he asked.
"I will never forget what you did to me," she said emphatically. "How could anyone just forget that?"
Severus caught sight of something dark behind Tobin's eyes. A flicker that betrayed a thrill, matched by the twitch on his lips.
"Anyone can forget anything if you try hard enough," Tobin said.
"Is that what your wife did?" Cressida asked. "Did she just forget and move on?"
"Oh, she forgot," he said, darkly. "I made sure of it."
Severus wondered if everyone else in the room heard the thud of his heart quicken as he put the pieces together. Cressida got there a moment faster than he did, and she shot up, kicking the chair out from behind her.
"YOU OBLIVIATED HER?!" she screeched.
Tobin too stood to his feet. The chair squawked across the tile as he pushed it back with his calves and lay his hands flat on the table.
"Of course! I learnt my lesson, Narcissa."
"What the hell do you mean?"
"I mean that I learnt my lesson, you stupid bitch," he said, slamming his fists down on to the table so that the dust gathered in a cloud. "You left me for him. You left me because you weren't happy," he said, mocking her, wrapping his fingers in air quotes around the words. "So I kept the next one happy."
"'THE NEXT ONE?!' SHE WAS YOUR WIFE! THE MOTHER OF YOUR CHILD!"
"Yes!" he roared. "My wife. As in none of your business."
"What is the matter with you?" Cressida said, her fingers locked like claws, fingertips pressed on the table. "She was sick!"
"So what?! What does that have to do with anything?"
"So, she always acted as if nothing happened," Cressida said, her livid breath quick and heavy. "Even when she was dying, and she had no energy to even talk… I couldn't understand why she kept lying for you. But she wasn't lying, was she? You made her forget! Over and over!"
Hermione's hand fell into Severus' and he latched his fingers through.
Oh shit, he thought. Here it comes. It's all about to come out.
And it did.
"She was covered in fucking bruises! She kept saying it was the nurses. Complained that they were heavy-handed. She really believed it!"
"What—"
"You just couldn't leave her alone? Even when she was sick?! Did it make you feel like a man?!"
"What are you talking about?" he said, frightened for the first time.
There's the man that stood in front of me in London.
"Who told you all of this? Where is Cressida?"
"Oh, now you remember you have a daughter?! If you hadn't been so possessive and so thoroughly obsessed with Narcissa, you might have realised—"
"What the hell is going on!? You're not Narcissa?"
"No, I'm not fucking Narcissa!" she screeched.
Tobin made a dive for his wand, where it lay on the floor, but he wasn't quick enough. Cressida reached it first. Her foot, Narcissa's foot, trapping it beneath her.
"Back off!" she snapped.
Tobin's face was white and suddenly slick, and he seemed to have aged ten years just standing in front of her, as he held his hands up and stepped backwards. Cressida grabbed the wand and curled her hand around it so tightly that her knuckles protruded from her fists like daggers.
"Where is my daughter?"
"I'm right here! I've always been right here! Just like Mum was. And you ruined her!"
"Cressida?" he asked, scratching his head as though this was all too much for him.
"Who else?"
Tobin's fear shifted from his face and instead there was confusion.
"Why do you look like Narcissa?"
"It was Hermione's idea."
That's my girl, he thought, as he glanced over at Hermione, hoping he could impress without words how proud he was of her. Then he looked back to Cressida, who it seemed, was also looking at Hermione with what he could be mistaken for thinking was almost a smile. It was the first time she'd looked at her without pointing an irritated finger. And she'd said her name. He could hardly believe it. She had said Hermione's name for the first time, Severus realised. Or it was at least, the first time she'd said it without retching.
"Do you really believe that Narcissa would walk into this house after what you did to her?" Cressida asked, accidentally gesturing to where Narcissa and Jessica hid waited at the front of the house.
Tobin shook his head with disappointment.
"So you're on their side?" he yelled, and he began to move into the hallway. "You don't even know them, and you'd choose them over your own father? Jesus Christ! What did he do to make you such a fool?" Tobin yelled, gesturing at Severus with a look on his face like he smelled something foul. "It's can't be his charming personality… it's clearly not his face."
Clearly, Severus thought.
"So what?" Tobin asked. "Does his dick do something that other dicks don't? Is that what it is?"
She grabbed hold of him, pulling him to face her.
"What is wrong with you?! You're disgusting! I am your daughter!"
"Oh, fuck you! You betrayed me. You chose Snivellus over me. You are no daughter of mine!"
Tobin raised his hand, and Lucius grabbed it from behind before he bore down on Cressida. Lucius held his arm until he stopped struggling and then let it go.
"Thank you," she said, with a mournful laugh. "You have freed me of the burden of trying to be the kind of daughter you could love."
She shook her head, and again she said, "thank you." And as Cressida looked at her father, her face changed completely, and she regarded him for the first time, not with fear, or hope, or longing… but with hatred. Pure, unmistakable hatred.
Severus wondered if he knew even before she did what she would do next. He didn't try to stop her. As her hand drew level with her father's head, her wand was perfectly still. There was a moment, just a fraction of a second, in which Tobin seemed to recognise the look in his daughter's eyes. Severus hoped that he had realised what was happening in time for him to feel sorry, even though he knew that a man like Tobin Rogers was likely incapable of remorse.
"Obliviate," Cressida said, calmly. "And fuck you."
Severus looked at Hermione properly for the first time all evening and felt a rush of warmth as she moved towards him. Her eyes were flecked with gold in this light, he noticed, and not for the first time he wondered how it had come to be that someone as wonderful as she, had settled for a man like him. She wrapped her arms around him and he kissed the top of her head. She let out a breath that sounded like relieved laughter as he pulled her in more closely, grateful that she was alive, and safe, and well, and so, so fucking clever.
"You're incredible," he said, running his hands through her hair, getting a finger caught on one of the knots of her curls. He chuckled to himself and felt a second wash of happiness to see Narcissa, the real Narcissa, rush into the kitchen and fall into the arms of her husband, as she grabbed her son and pulled him into the embrace. Jess followed not far behind, throwing herself at Draco, peppering his blonde head with delicate kisses between curses at his recklessness.
Severus looked back at Hermione and followed her sad eyes to where Cressida sat, still and silent, staring at the wall, completely in shock.
:
H.
"Oh God," Severus groaned. "She's going to be your next project isn't she…"
"No fear," Hermione said. "I'm sure she'd resist it, given that she hates me."
Severus raised an eyebrow.
"I'm surprised you would let a little thing like resistance slow you down. And as for hatred… if I recall correctly…"
The way that he said 'if I recall correctly,' suggested that he recalled perfectly well.
"… the House Elves hated you, did they not?"
Hermione grimaced.
Did they hate me?
"The Headmaster received dozens of complaints about your so-called Elf Liberation project…"
Severus smirked in the way that he did that told her that he was teasing her. Unfortunately for Severus, she was not! to be teased about S.P.E.W. Not a single person had taken her seriously… nor a single elf.
"It was not 'so-called' anything of the sort," Hermione said, with a little snip to her voice that she immediately regretted.
"No, you called it S.P.E.W," he said.
"What did you say?"
There was a definite note of humour in his tone that suggested that perhaps he thought she was, and always had been, a little mad, but she hardly cared because…
"Severus, what did you call it?"
"S.P.E.W," he said, enunciating each letter, and narrowing his eyes. "Why? Is that wrong?"
She could have kissed him. She could have thrown her arms around his neck and kissed him. S.P.E.W, he'd said. Not SPEW.
"… Hermione?"
:
S.
She was staring at him like he'd grown another head, and the other head was speaking a language she didn't understand.
"Sorry," she said, eventually. "I know you're making fun of me… but—"
"Oh, sorry," he said quickly, upset to have offended her. "No, you're right. I shouldn't make fun… It was a noble cause even if it was—"
"Ultimately unwanted and rejected?" she offered. "Yeah, I know. Now listen!"
Scolded. Again.
He couldn't pretend he disliked it.
He coughed lightly, an excuse to cover his mouth with his fist as he smiled.
"I was just surprised that you didn't call it SPEW."
She spat the word 'SPEW' from her mouth like it tasted funny. Apt given the definition.
"Harry and Ron tore into me for weeks about it. Ron still ridiculed me about it for years afterwards. Even when he knew that it bothered me. It's not like I don't have a sense of humour or anything and I know I sometimes take life a little too seriously —"
Reason 395 to kill Ronald Weasley.
"What should you take seriously, if not your life?" he said. "More so, you don't have to laugh at yourself all the time. I, for one, have never laughed at myself in my entire life."
She looked at him with a question in her eyes and he smiled at her to indicate that, no, he was not wholly serious.
"You're laughing at yourself right now!" she argued.
"Right, but you do recall me at Hogwarts? Buttoned up so to my nostrils so tight I could hardly fucking breathe…"
Hermione slipped her hand into his and squeezed it.
"Anyway," he said, "let us not dwell on the past."
"Well… that's a little difficult given that your past is literally sitting ten feet away from us."
He looked at the woman - "Ah," he said. "Right."
"You should go to her," Hermione said. "I think she needs you."
:
H.
Hermione watched Severus pull out the chair beside Cressida and push it so that it was so close to her it was almost touching. She looked at him then, for the first time her eyes seemed to focus on what was in front of her, and she sunk into herself as he wrapped his arms around her, her whole body racking with sobs.
The sight was a little strange, Hermione decided, but it didn't bother her, per se. She wasn't jealous or insecure. It was strange because just an hour ago she would have happily spent hundreds of pounds on driving lessons so that she could run that bitch over with a car. Yet now, all of that anger was gone. As she passed them, Hermione placed her hand on Cressida's shoulder, and was pleasantly surprised to feel Cressida's hand on top of hers. An apology and a thank you. Narcissa grabbed Hermione then, and pulled her into an embrace so tight that she couldn't quite take a full breath but she laughed anyway as her face squashed into Narcissa's breasts.
"You," she said, kissing the top of her head. "Are amazing!"
Hermione decided to grin and bear grateful hugs from all the Malfoys, including Draco, who it seemed had finally warmed to her at the last minute. Narcissa moved towards Cressida next, and Hermione took the opportunity to grab Jessica's hand and pull her into the living room where Severus had left a very child-like, very confused Tobin Rogers.
"One of us should contact someone at the Ministry…" Jessica said.
"Not it!" Hermione said promptly, pressing her finger to her nose, followed a fraction of a second later by Jess yelling, "Not it! Damn!"
Hermione folded her arms and sucked her cheek playfully.
"Ahh! Go on. Get going."
"I wasn't even here when it happened," Jess said, eyeing Hermione as though she might change her mind, and then rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Do I have to?"
Jessica slumped dramatically onto the sofa and grimaced at the dust that the motion kicked up. This attracted the attention of the very child-like, very confused Tobin Rogers for the first time. Until then, he had been contentedly writing his name in the thick layer of dust in the glass coffee table.
"Hello," Tobin said. "I don't know where I am."
"Good," Jess said, dismissively.
"Where am I?", he asked as he looked around the room, and then down at himself. He studied his hands for longer than could possibly have been necessary and then looked up at them. "I'm old?" His eyebrows furrowed so deeply, his confusion so severe, that they almost met in the middle.
Jessica and Hermione looked at each other in silence for a moment, before both lifted their fingers to their nose, but Hermione was too slow on the draw.
"Shit!" she laughed. "I'll swap with you?"
"Not if you paid me," Jessica said, as she all but leapt from the sofa and left the room.
Hermione felt her stomach drop as she looked at Tobin who stared at her as though she held the answers to all of the impossible questions of the universe.
"I don't think Cressida knew how to perform the spell," she told him kindly, as much as it aggrieved her to be kind to him.
"Who is Crezerda? That's a silly name."
"Brilliant," she mumbled to herself, before sighing and throwing her head back in despair. "You know the damage might be permanent."
"I hope it is" came a voice from the doorway. "Even if he doesn't know who he is… we do."
Severus stood, leaning on the frame with his arms folded, taking in the scene.
"They'll never prosecute him like this" Hermione said. "He'll escape justice."
"I don't know," Severus said. "This feels a lot like karmic justice."
Hermione nodded, conceding. He wasn't entirely wrong.
"Hello," Tobin interrupted, quite peacefully unaware of the hatred he had felt for him just moments ago.
"Hello again," Severus said.
"Oh, have we met?"
Severus looked at Hermione and grinned.
"At least now I know what to do about all the people that hate me," he said. "Just one poorly cast spell, and voila! Clean slate!"
"Is that what you're going to do to Ron."
"Oh no, not at all" Severus said with a comical, boyish grin. "I still have so much I'd like to say to that cocky little arsehole. And I want him to remember every word."
AN: Wow did you actually make it all the way down here? Nice. You're the best!