It's only when she takes off her cloak that the diadem slips out of the handkerchief and onto the floor, and the racket truly is so terrible in the huge, echoing room that it brings Severus to the banister from the lab. So, she was right there. He wasn't sleeping.

Lily looks up at him in wonder, realizing he is still here. Even though she watched the blood pump out of the wound, even though she had heard the voice cry out in the throes of death, she is buoyed up by his face: alive, breathing, still.

His face tells her she looks half-dead. "Where are you hurt," he demands, wand out, voice hard, as he comes down the stairs.

"Nowhere," she says, voice hoarse. Her ribs give another twinge, but she can't pay attention to it. Breathing hurts. Talking hurts. Everything hurts, and is confusing, and she's about to crack up. But there's nothing to say about it.

His wand passes over her face anyway, followed by his thumb gently smearing the dried blood. His eyes are clinical at first but then go to hers and his fingers freeze before they draw away.

"Where is it," he asks, though it seems he must know.

"Gone. It- it died." She swallows. "To let me escape with this." With the toe of her boot, she nudges the diadem, still half-shrouded in the handkerchief.

He looks down at it as if it has answers she isn't giving. He bends before her, picking it up,

As he rises, she asks the question that's been haunting her mouth since she pelted out of the castle: "Are you going to die for me?"

He contemplates the diadem through the handkerchief, and his voice is abstract. "Perhaps."

"No." Her voice breaks. "Promise me you won't."

"I will do what is necessary." Even meeting her eyes, he is dismissive. "I do not make promises I can't keep."

"I just watched something with your face-your voice, your mind-die a painful death. Without hesitation." She swallows, takes a step closer, the hem of her cloak almost draping the toes of his boots. "For me."

"Yes, I imagine it did."

"Why?"

She looks into his eyes, and something absolutely endless looks back. It's obvious, she takes it in a flash:

It's what he would do.

So he knows it's what the thing would have done. It's why he didn't put up as much of a fight against this plan. He knew there was a willing victim waiting to sacrifice itself for her, should it come to it. Without hope, without magic, without anything but the knowledge that its death could keep her safe for a little while longer.

Taken in like that, it's breathtaking. And her course is obvious.

"Severus," she begins, "I don't know what you think I feel-"

"Don't," he cuts her off, harsh. "Whatever that thing was, whatever it looked like, whatever it may have said to you, it was a tool. It fulfilled its use. Don't become sentimental."

He's gone, under that stone. She wants to crack him open. "Will you listen? This isn't about that. This is about you and me."

"Then there is nothing to discuss," he says coldly, and turns.

She catches his arm, turning him back toward her, and swallows the rest with a kiss.

It's clumsier than the others had been, starting at the corner of his mouth and proceeding with a grinding of teeth and a negotiation of noses, but after a startled moment he bends to meet her anyway, fingertips worrying at the tie at the end of her braid if he wants to pull it free or use it to tether her there in space like a kite string. She can't help but think that this should have been it, this should have been the first time, not those two cold and calculated tools she has prised from him. No, this is flint for fire that could burn down the house around them. And she wants it to. She can hear it, now, that drumbeat calling her to war or something worse.

"You need to listen to me," she says, breathless, against his hollow cheek.

He doesn't answer; instead, he draws a thumb down the nape of her neck. It's only the slightest movement but from him, it's an unthinkable brazen audacity-he's never, he would never before-and it sends electricity shooting up her spine. Lily shivers. He pauses, taking in her response like an experimental result-listening-and does it again, this time dipping barely beneath the collar of her shirt to where the tag presses against her skin.

And his other hand goes to her waist and, damn it all, she flinches, and she's pressed tight enough to him that he feels it.

His hand moves to her shoulder, pulling her away. "Your ribs." His other hand settles to her side again and it is the touch of a doctor more than-more than what? she asks herself. What are you looking for, Evans?

For half a second Lily considers how best to disentangle herself to better slap him across the face. Or to pull him closer. Or both. Power, it's always about power, and now he's got it and now he's taking it with him. It's cruel, is what it is, and it's rude, and she really ought to hit him or kiss him again or do something, standing still is agony. Something is moving upward in her chest, and it might be a knot of tears or something more terrible, but no amount of swallowing is pressing it down back into her stomach.

Instead, she draws back to the distance he's established, straightens up, yes-sir, as if she kisses him like the house could burn down around them every day. For the first time, she really believes she could.

"You need to be treated," he mutters, distracted. "Upstairs in the lab, if you can manage it."

She can. She's made it this far.

The diadem is too large to put inside of a book, so he shoves it unceremoniously into a desk drawer in the library before leading her across to the lab.

Lily lifts herself onto the workbench and watches his back move before her: his spine's soft curve discernible through his robes, the limp hair licking at the back of his neck as his head moves up and down, scanning shelves.

"I will need to see." He sounds uncomfortable with the request, almost ridiculous, but she doesn't dare laugh at him just now. She doffs her robes gingerly and unbuttons her shirt from the bottom up, reclining onto one elbow to give him access to her side.

As he bends to inspect her side, she asks, "Don't you want to debrief?"

"No. You must stop chattering. I don't want to set the bone incorrectly." His wand and hands move over her, pressing carefully into the cracked ribs and muttering a spell.

As Severus' tincture and spells do their work, Lily's breathing comes a bit easier and the anxious energy drains out of her in favor of flat exhaustion. The pain, the running, the fear, the dull effort of carrying the horcrux have all taken their toll. Leaning into the touch of a man trying to set a bone is counterproductive and he doesn't really allow it, not til it's mostly done and he is merely looking over his work, but by the end it's the only thing anchoring her to consciousness. Finally, he lifts his cold fingertips from her skin.

"So," he says. "You escaped with the diadem but it died in the attempt. What else?"

But it's too much, now. Her fingers go to her temple. "Can it wait? I'm-god, Severus, this has been a hell of a night and I'm dead on my feet. In the morning?"

He watches her, evaluating for a few moments, then gives a curt nod. "In the morning, then."

Lily lifts herself off the table, not bothering to do back up her shirt. It's only when she trudges to the top of the steps, all the way to the familiar door, that she hears it: a soft weeping.

Of course. The deer, the other construct. There isn't enough caring in Lily at this hour of night to wonder why it's weeping; perhaps it's out of flowers to eat. Perhaps it's sad it's no longer the only thing with her face here to catch the light of his eyes. Perhaps it's jammed a toe. She doesn't care.

Severus' bedroom door is open a crack and she lets herself in. Water is running in the bathroom. She goes to a drawer, then another, and tries to find a shirt too big for him that she can wear. She only comes up with a battered old green thing shoved to the back, some holdover from his youth that's still too tight, but it'll have to do. Bothering the thing seems like more trouble than it's worth and she's already here. She drops the rest of her clothes in a heap on the floor and crawls into the other side of the bed. A flick of her wand shuts off the lights, but there's too much moonlight flowing through the window, so she drapes her arm over her face.

She's half-asleep when the door opens. Two footsteps, then: "What are you doing."

It takes a moment to register the question. "The thing. It's in my room. Sleeping in the library is rubbish and I could get lost in this bed it's so big." She gestures vaguely to the door, the ocean of sheet and bedding around her.

"And you have chosen here." It's the opposite of a seduction: it's cold water. "Why."

"I was hoping you would share." She opens one eye, peers out at him. He's in a nightshirt and dressing-gown, hair wet and fat droplets slithering jealously down his neck, looking even more like the reedy skinny thing he is than usual. "It was fine before." It was also an accident, but accident and fine are not mutually exclusive.

He's looking at her, lip curled like he's about to say something horrible, but nothing comes out. Finally he settles on, "You are wearing my shirt."

"Are you going to keep pointing out the obvious?" She's used to it, this possessiveness, this desire to keep his things his own. "So I am. Is it some Slytherin motto on the front? Are you going to tell McGonagall on me?"

"Don't be ridiculous." He looks like he could strangle her.

"All right. All right." She swings her legs over the edge of the bed, pinches her fingers across her eyes and stands up. "Sorry. I wasn't thinking. I'm being horrible and presumptuous and-everything. I'm sorry. I'll go."

She bends at the waist to scoop up her things from the floor where she's left them when he's standing in front of her, seizing her chin, pulling her up to face him. For a second her eyes flutter shut, on instinct, as if it's going to be a kiss, one he gives her, a gift she can finally receive.

None comes. Her eyes open again and he's there, holding her, scrutinizing, the black scribble of the Mark on his arm exposed.

"Why are you doing this?" he says softly, as if there's someone else in the room who could answer.

She could say anything—you are so stupid or think about it for more than a second or even yes, goddammit, I'm a living trap made just for you, now kiss me like you're meant to, you dunderhead. "You think I'm under the Curse? Sent to expose you?"

His face is a mask, a wall, but his eyes search her own: a gentle push of Legillimency that he knows she will feel, a thing that she allows as his fingertips hold her still. But there is nothing to find. His words come low, riveting. "I do not know what to think."

She blows air through her nose, frustrated. "What can I tell you to convince you that I'm where I want to be?"

Severus says nothing, just watches her face, holding her chin there like a disobedient school child, openly suspicious.

The same old anger flares, evaporating the exhaustion. Lily knocks his hand away and snaps, "Come off it. In case you missed it, Severus, we are winning this war."

"That is an illusion," he dismisses with a wave of his hand, as if he'd chosen to release her rather than been rebuked.

"There are two left to find and then he can be killed. I'm not scared."

He's getting angry, too. "You should be. In a few weeks he will demand to see you and there will be nothing I can do to protect you."

Lily takes a step closer, snarling, "I don't need to be protected!"

And he meets her with equal certainty, fists clenched and fierce. "Yes, you do." It's only the slightest movement, but they're so close, she couldn't miss it. Over his gritted teeth, his eyes flick down. She's just standing there in only her old knickers and a borrowed tee shirt, and the implication is clear: you need to be protected from me-not just from the Mark on his arm and all it represents, but from his desire, a thing shoved so far down that it's grown vast, monstrous, ravenous. It's enough to heat the air between their bodies, to spark electricity in her gut.

"I'm perfectly capable of defending myself." Lily reaches with a fingertip, and he jumps at the touch as she traces the course of a droplet of water from below his ear, over his jaw, down his throat until it touches the nightshirt.

"Stop that." He seizes her wrist but doesn't pull her hand away from his chest. "You are someone else's wife."

The words that leap to her lips aren't what someone under the Imperius Curse would say. They aren't a seduction or a promise. They're just true. "I've never belonged to anyone but myself and you would do well to remember that."

"You will think differently, when the memory charm breaks down fully."

She looks down and shakes her head, pulling her braid over her shoulder with her free hand and worrying at the end of it. This is the real reason, the real thing holding him back. "I can't remember them at all, Severus. I can't and I don't think I ever will." A rough, dry swallow, and a sigh. "It's been weeks since anything new came back. The rest all came back fast, like a waterfall, but this-there's nothing. I have facts about them, faces, even moments, but it's like reading a textbook. It's like I'm not even there, like a movie, like watching it happen to someone else. I have everything else: all my training with the Order, friends I knew and am still grieving for, things Dumbledore told me that I won't repeat even now, but-" She has to meet his eyes for this, has to let him see. "James and Harry are dead. There's nothing left of them, not even ghosts. They're gone, and I'm here." The last words come out in a whisper. "With you."

His reply comes slow, pitched so quiet it could mean anything. "So you are."

He's still holding her wrist, and with his other hand he reaches for her shoulder-for one paralyzing moment, Lily thinks it could be to push her out the door-but instead it's to slip the end of her braid from her grasp so he can rub it between his index finger and thumb. It's the only point of contact other than his unrelenting cold grip around her wrist and for a second she wonders if he will take it and lead her like an animal on a tether.

But instead he smooths the ends between his fingertips and carefully, deftly, removes the tie holding it together. From the bottom, he works his fingers into the braid, loosening it, freeing her hair. It takes an excruciating amount of time-it is terrifyingly like being undressed without being undressed at all-and he does it slowly, unknitting it loop by loop and smoothing his fingers all the way to the ends of the waves pressed there as they are freed. Some kind of decision is being worked through, and it's made once he reaches the nape of her neck and lets his palm cup the back of her skull.

It's his left, of course. The fangs of the serpent tattooed on his forearm is pressed to her throat, painted against her skin in lines slightly warmer than the rest of his skin.

She wraps her fingers around it so she doesn't have to see it.

He is very still and she watches his face try to hide the thoughts passing beneath it, but there is no covering up that hunger at this distance, no disguising that bottomless need when she is so close to it, and if he is going to pull her towards him he had better bloody well do it-

Her mouth goes crooked, as if she's said it all aloud. Perhaps she has. "Please," she says.

He lets out a desperate little breath-one he's been holding-and it could be a rueful laugh if it weren't robbed of sound. The hand at the back of her neck tilts her chin back and back and he's closed the distance between them.

He kisses her like he is trying to capture her smile and hold it in time, as if he's going to put it into a jar and keep it on a shelf. His thumb draws down the back of her neck again and she shivers and, wildly, Lily thinks maybe it's this, this is the one that should have been the first, one where they're on equal footing at last-

She pulls him the few steps backward by the front of the dressing gown, and they tumble down together. There's a war of both pairs of hands trying to pull at the hem of the pilfered shirt, a moment of nigh-hysterical confusion when she's trapped inside it and trying to shimmy out of her knickers at the same time, and it's just not working until it does and then she's naked, the shirt's fluttering to the floor and her hair's gone wild but he's pulled back, palms pressed to the tops of her thighs and the way he's looking at her is like nothing so much as a butcher.

A flush crawls up her chest, and she feels every inch of her skin as he rakes his gaze across it, sensing every imperfection, every stretch mark, every blemish exposed, weighted, photographed for later inspection. Her mouth opens as if she's going to say sorry that I'm not everything you were hoping for but she's not sorry in the least and neither is he, clearly, there's proof enough of that brushing tantalizingly against the inside of her thigh-

"Don't stop," she says breathlessly.

There's a kind of bated madness in his face, restraint hanging by a thread. "Are you sure," he asks quietly.

She reaches up, lacing her fingers into his hair and giving it a tug to pull him closer. "Don't make me ask you a third time."

And the sound he makes then, a thrum deep in his throat-

His mouth moves across her cheekbone, brushing past her earlobe, bowing to reach her throat, and his hands move, skimming her skin and raising goosebumps, never lingering or grasping, as if he could break her too easily. There is something unnamable blazing through her like a wildfire, prickling down her spine. She pulls at the knot in his dressing gown, lifts the nightshirt, and there is a hollow at his sternum that fits her palm. She spreads her hand across it, into it, into him. He trembles for a moment like a virgin at the end of the world-and who knows? Maybe he is, and maybe it is. He places each kiss across her body with precision, as if his mouth were a knife and he were seeking to slice her open, some kind of benevolent vivisection, but she can dissect him too, she can undo him, and she wants to. Her fingers run further and he arches against her, seeking friction, and she hisses with triumph, putting her teeth to his collarbone.

Lovemaking, Lily will reflect afterward, is a dangerous misnomer. Sex makes nothing most of the time, least of all love. She will think in days and weeks to come that she should have foreseen that much. But calling it anything less seems also to miss the point; there is love in this. It is nothing she can claim ownership of, nothing pure or noble or complete about this love, but belongs to both of them just the same.

So lovemaking it is. Severus is a quick study, a man of experimental precision, and she is all teeth and nails leaving marks across his shoulders. He is so careful with her body that it must be both a tight-leashed ferocity and a deliberate torment-he's not gentle or kind, never kind-and she almost tears his hair out before he drags a howl out of her, an unhinged, animal sound he stifles with a hand over her mouth. And when he spends himself, he crushes her so tightly to the angles of his body that, for an instant at the apex, neither of them can breathe.

The rest is lost to skin and moonlight.