By Fire, From Ash

by genegonewilder

Young adult Severus is finding it difficult to adjust to life post-war, in part due to the fact that the rumors about his Death Eater status seem to have spread far and wide, but also because his own self-loathing outweighs anything anyone could throw at him. With his new teaching position at Hogwarts, he hopes to just move on, but a woman stands as a blazing reminder of his past.

6. Acherontia

"What proof is gained
At temptation's cost"

B.R.M.C. - Warning Sign

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Chapter 6 – Acherontia

"Cheers!"

"Hear, hear!" "Cheers!"

There was a clinking of varied glasses over the round oak table, with a notable lack from one particular individual, who had gotten himself misfortunately wedged in the center of the booth between two people he was now trying hard not to engage in conversation with, even to so much as ask to be let out. He would have climbed over the back of the booth to get away if he could, but they were in an exact corner of the bar, and there was only a frosted street-facing window directly behind him, and to his left, a solid wall decorated in miss-matched moving portraits of previous patrons in various states of drunkenness.

Severus sipped the wine from his glass that he had not clinked, staring bitterly at the little decorative centerpiece on the table, already adorned in holly and tinsel despite it being no less than twenty hours into December.

A heavy-bottomed glass was set down hard within his line of sight, and he noted that it was empty apart from the melting ice left over.

"I think I'll have another!"

The man to his left chortled in surprise at this. "My word, madam, already running up a tab?"

"But of course, since I'm not the one who's picking it up." An elbow was placed down obscuring his view of the drained glass, and his eyes slid up with contempt to look at the woman who was wolfishly grinning his way. "Thanks ever so much, Severus."

His mouth stretched into a taut line before snapping back to a frown and he looked away.

"Oho! What a gentleman," Professor powers quipped, raising his own glass to him in salute to his supposed kindness, but Freya corrected him with a laugh.

"Oh no, he's not doing it because of that, I assure you. He just lost a—I mean—won—a bet." He cast a withering look at her slip-up, silently pleading that she at least not openly mock him and keep her own narrative straight. Her grin brightened at his look, showing more of her teeth.

"Now that sounds like a story," said the fourth person at the table, the last of which to speak up other than when raising her own glass. The Divination teacher, Professor Trelawney, had much like him been dragged reluctantly to the table by her own friendly colleague when the two pairs had met on the Hogsmeade streets, and now she sat at the far left of the booth, opposite Mr. Powers. "What manner of trickery did you do to deceive-this man-into such a predicament?" He narrowed his eyes at her as she gestured rudely to his position, not at all happy that his avoidance of her had been broken, as she seemed about as fond of him as he was of her.

"Tricked? Oh, I would never," Freya said with glee. "He agreed to it willingly enough."

This was most unfortunately true, despite the fact that she looked like she had bamboozled him out of house and home.

The way that she so graciously began the tale saved him face in front of the two unwitting listeners, but the reality of the situation played out in his head as he tried to block out the details of her recanting, taking another long sip of his wine.

She had not, as she told it, come to him asking a favor to help her with her day's lesson. In actuality, he had found himself being ordered to spend his free period in her classroom for one day, by none other than Dumbledore himself.

On the day of the Slytherin versus Ravenclaw quidditch match, after listening to McGonagall chew him out, being backtalked by Wells who had been in a full-on mood at the time, and getting a disapproving look from Professor Flitwick as he passed by to check on his student in the hospital wing, the headmaster had cornered him before he could make it safely back to the dungeons for even a moment to decompress.

It had been a tense visit with hardly enough talk between the long silences to be deemed a conversation, and as he had stood in the middle of the office, he had wished he had not been there so recently making such bold statements.

"It would appear," Dumbledore had said, "that despite my heeding, you have neglected to properly look after your students. And now one of them has attacked another. Normally I would say you should have disciplined them more, but I find it rather understandable in Mr. Wells's case... However... I am informed that the rest of the Slytherin quidditch team leapt to his aid as well, and had some worrying things to say to top it off. Things that I am sure you will recall from your own time here would not be tolerated from any student.

"Severus... If you wish to rely so heavily on Freya that you fail at handling things yourself, then perhaps you should sit in on one of her classes and learn from her directly how it's done. But do listen well: you must learn from her and apply it yourself—I am not advocating for you to continue this reliance. Freya cannot be in two places at once to help you out."

And so, he had wound up stood in front of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, stomach twisted into furious knots at this injustice, and his fist held over the door to knock without actually accomplishing doing so before it was opened and Freya invited him in. At the very least, she seemed to take his murderous mood seriously, and did not poke nor prod him, merely offering up a chair behind her desk in the only gloomy corner of the room. To her credit, or perhaps her discredit depending on one's views on lying, she at least seemed competent at coming up with fake stories, and had run the details of the excuse she had made up for his being there by him before any students showed up.

"You want to duel me?" he said incredulously, finding the notion that she would willingly put herself at the other end of his wand given his current demeanor twistedly hilarious, if not outright suicidal.

She gave a nervous laugh that rose and fell much less harmoniously than her usual one. "No, not really, to be honest... but do you have any better ideas?"

He didn't, apart from his own non-plan which was to sit there silently the whole period, pretending he didn't care whatever the students would say about this, as it wasn't their business anyway. Her idea at least involved participation, and, much more tantalizing, it also meant having an excuse to take out every bit of bitterness that had been compounding in him for weeks on the woman who had been the source of most of it. And hopefully embarrass her in front of her own class, as well.

"Perhaps we should set some ground rules," she said hastily, eyeing his fiendishly eager look. "No water—I'm serious, Severus, none—and I will of course return the favor by not setting you on fire if I can help it."

"No singing."

"Of course not—in front of the students, are you mad? Ehm... and about Dark magic..."

He raised a brow. "Surely you're not scared already, are you?"

"I'm scared of you giving the students ideas."

He considered this for a moment, wondering if it was worth the catharsis if it meant sticking his toe over the line while he was already in trouble. "Nothing that can't be found in the libraries then?"

"The non-restricted sections, yes, sure."

"You're really taking all the fun out of this."

"Well, you're not here for fun, now, are you?" He returned her chiding smile with a sour one of his own. Apparently she was enjoying herself and had determined he was not entirely unapproachable, because her eyes now seemed to glitter with an eagerness of her own. "However... I see no reason why we couldn't make this more interesting..."

He slowly straightened up from his slouched position in the chair, the corners of his lips curling as he leaned towards her with piqued curiosity. "I don't think more interesting for me will be preferable to you."

Dropping the rest of her apprehension, her grin fully alighted, issuing the challenge with her eyes before she had even given voice to it. "As I recall, you're plenty competitive, so I assume you would at least be interested in putting stakes on this?"

He squinting, running his fingers under his chin in thought. "What kind of stakes...?"

"How about... at the end of the week, winner buys the loser drinks—gentleman's agreement rules."

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "And what sort of deal is that? One for a coward who thinks she's going to most assuredly lose?"

"How about one to preserve the pride of someone who I know will" -she took a smooth step forward and leaned down closer to his face- "absolutely not pay up after I embarrass him in front of a bunch of children."

He had held her locked gaze for a long moment, deliberating whether it would be more rewarding to make her pay for him after beating her, or best her on her own terms and get to gloat. It had been her wickedly taunting smirk, biting her lip as she slowly raised her eyebrows, that had finally distracted him from her eyes sparkling with the challenge and made him quickly agree without thinking further.

"Deal."

"And so—you lost?"

Freya's musical laugh cut across the many merry sounds of the crowded bar at Powers' question, not sounding the least bit ashamed.

"Oh yes, quite spectacularly. Severus is just too good for me." Her head tilted an endearing smile his way, but he could see the same gleam behind her eyes as from the classroom, and he felt another wave of irritation at her for baiting him into this trick. He slouched further against the plush leather booth seat, hiding his frown behind his wine glass.

Perhaps the most annoying bit was that she had not even been that bad of an opponent, despite whatever modest claims she made. They had been taking it slow for demonstration purposes so that she could explain things to the class afterwards, but even so, she was quick both in her movements and in intuition—and frustratingly unflappable. He had thought, what with all he had seen of her reactions to certain things- all the times she had backed up when he had gotten too close, and especially her dramatic displays towards rain- she would be easy to crack under pressure. But his vision of her being too light for war was crumbled at the look that had been in her eyes then; of one who cheated death like it was no more than a game and probably fallen to more gruesome things than he was allowed to conjure in that classroom at the time. Her main position in the duel had been one of defense, making him think she really hadn't wanted to fight, but even so, there hadn't been the least bit of concern showing on her face even when taking particular spells head on.

"An important part of defense is foreseeing your opponent's moves," she had later explained to the class, while Severus sat back in his gloomy corner looking, despite being the victor, like a bat that had been caught out in daylight. "If you take the time to hold still, with good defenses, and let them come to you, it'll give you a chance to plan ahead, and countering will be easier than if you were just focused on attacking."

"But Professor, isn't that how he was able to hit you with that... that creepy snake binding thing—isn't it scary to lose the upper hand like that?"

"Ah, no, because snakes are not scary, and I hadn't lost the upper hand if you were paying attention. An opponent that isn't trying to outright kill or maim you might just try to intimidate you instead. It's important to not get distracted by things like this and focus on your main objective: counterattacking. In that particular case, I didn't need to waste time dodging, freeing myself, or blocking, because I had foreseen that he would immediately try to impede my movements, and used that time instead to make sure that at least my wand arm was free—all I needed, really—and counter on him. No needless movement necessary."

This was a bit of a cheat in his mind, as she had prior knowledge that he wouldn't be wasting time trying to cast something directly on her that would undoubtedly not work, but would go for something physical to attack. It took only simple elementary knowledge to see that line of reasoning, nothing to brag about. Naturally, this meant his win could only be had by either impairing her beyond casting, or taking away her wand, which he had eventually done in the end.

And it meant that the victory was entirely hollow because she could have easily just switched to wandless magic. The only thing their duel had done was make it so that he was hungry to actually fight her, without need for restrictions, and then see if she would look so cool-headed or if there was some merit to her confidence. A part of him thought it might be worth it to see someday; the true full-fledged fiery power of a phoenix that was hiding behind her eyes that betrayed no fear of Dark magic, injury, nor death. It just may be a fun test of his skill. And when he inevitably bested her, it would be that much more satisfying.

Too bad, then, that she had gone back to her dopey smiling self after that, pestering him all week with hints that she could drink like a fish so he had better bring enough coin.

However, there had been another less obvious outcome of their duel, in that her jabs came at all despite sounding, to him, more subdued than usual. She was quieter that week, even for her regular post-incident quietness that he assumed she did to give him space. He had looked up from grading more times than he could count to find her staring off into the fireplace, quill hovering over a half-marked essay, or her planner open but seemingly forgotten in her hands. He suspected that if they hadn't been forced to interact for his punishment, and if she hadn't gotten to have such dastardly fun at his expense, she might not have even made jabs at him, or he might not have seen her at all.

The stakes she had set now seemed like just a scheme for them to meet up, with the excuse of a binding verbal agreement and alcohol to ease the air. He wondered if she hadn't been thinking he would have been the one avoiding her all week. Even when she had tentatively invited him to go to Hogsmeade early to do a little walk around the shops, he thought her expression had looked just a bit saddened, as if she had no hope that he would say yes—and when he had agreed, her enthusiastic smile hadn't reached her eyes.

He couldn't imagine exactly what it was going on in her head, but then, he was trying to completely avoid thinking about it. As Dumbledore had said, his focus had become entirely too swayed, and he couldn't be bothered to spend so much of his mental energy sorting out every enigmatic expression that crossed the woman's face. It no longer mattered whatever it was that she was hovering around him to do; following orders, or for her own meddlesome entertainment—or masochism, given that she hadn't changed up her routine after his harsh words in the library. Nor did it matter if he stuck to his own routine of frequenting the research library as well, as if nothing had happened. He just needed to focus on himself.

And so, he had followed her around the snowy streets of Hogsmeade from shop to shop, absorbed in his thoughts about not thinking about her, and barely contributing to the conversation.

He had been vaguely aware of walking in and out of multiple shops filled with clothes, from one with various dress robes, to one for more outdoor and everyday wear, but Freya had not returned from speaking with the shopkeepers carrying anything, only explaining that she was ordering things for later. He had stood staring at a handsome-looking brand new briefcase in a shop for quills and parchment, while she was busy purchasing a new planner that looked exactly like her little black leather one that she had been looking to be writing near the end of recently. When he heard the teller recite the price of it, he wondered what on earth leather it was to be so costly, and in a show of separating himself from her own extravagance, decided his beat-up school bag suited him just fine.

In the same school of thought, he had determined that keeping up appearances of their—"companionship"—suited his needs, at least for the time being.

It wasn't that he had gone back on his thinking, or that he even fully trusted that what she had said hadn't been one big ploy, or that it even made a difference given that she was still the same as he had always known: loyal to Dumbledore, annoying, and hanging around whether he wanted her to or not. But as he had quietly watched her during their tour through the streets of Hogsmeade, looking the same, mostly, as she had before her disappearance for over a week, just as happy as always, he had thought of her in a different light. He had considered how charming she could be around him, but then whenever she left, he would realize he had been just going along with whatever she had said or did without even properly thinking it through—just like the bet before the duel.

It was ironic that she was a shapeshifter, because he had decided that to him, she had two forms beyond her feathered self: that of the Freya who could turn even a punishment from Dumbledore into something that he could almost enjoy—and that of Dumbledore's pet, who was just an extension of the man himself, potentially scheming and reviling him just below the surface in the same way the headmaster did, only she would throw on a fake smile while she paraded around, where her master could not.

Her smile didn't currently seem to be fake though, sat in the pub chatting away with Powers. He wondered if it was the fact that she was nursing her second drink making her more at ease in a crowded place, or if she really believed a word of what she had told him the other day over grading. The point had been brought up by him that this was as akin to a party as one could get, which should be illegal by their past spoken standards after the Halloween fiasco, but she had thoroughly refuted this, saying it was entirely different. As a radio somewhere was turned up and a chorus of hearty song broke out and was picked up around the room, bringing together a knot of people at the main bar, his eyes narrowed at her cheery face, dubious.

She was turning her head around excitedly to look at the merriment, just about to stand, when his hand whipped out to grab her by the elbow.

"No," he said with stern fatigue, making sure she was placed fully back on the booth seat before letting go. She crinkled her face at him, scooting over for the first time to talk directly since they had been seated.

"What, I can't go sing?"

"Absolutely," he enunciated slowly through his teeth, keeping his voice down from the other people at the table, "not ever in my presence are you allowed to sing."

She reeled back her head and blew out a disbelieving puff. "What are you going to do, stop me?" There was a deeply mischievous look on her face as she remained completely still before doing a small jerking motion in a feint that she was about to jump up, making him twitch. She laughed and relaxed her posture. "Severus, it's not the same thing, don't be so stiff. I'll be right back."

Before he could protest further, or refuel his certainty that whatever came out of her mouth would all be musical in the same way, she had gotten up out of his reach and, with a quick wink, dashed off to join in.

This was much closer to the Freya he had always assumed she would be at a party, though he noted she did still stick to the side of a fellow friendly Hogwarts teacher, carefully avoiding having a regular Hogsmeade citizen put his arm around her shoulders with a smooth duck and an apology. He looked away with a snide smirk, finding this funny despite himself.

But despite whatever she had said, as he stared unseeing into his wine, keeping his hearing alert, he could clearly pick out her voice from the crowd, and it did make his heartbeat become uncomfortably noticeable in his chest. He sat his glass down on the table to avoid drinking any more too quickly, as this sensation was bringing attention to the subtle feeling of alcohol in his veins, it being much stronger here than the polite dinner wine at Hogwarts.

It wasn't anything close to the phoenix lament, this was true enough, at least. For one thing, her voice now was human. It reminded him again of his split view of her.

It was the idea that this was all fake, stemming from a single command for pretense to get close to him, that gave him so much apprehension. He felt like he was going around in circles, ruminating on things that he already knew, but needed restating nonetheless. Because a part of him, deep down, wished that she wasn't just a pet following orders. A part of him wished that she was just... Freya. Troublesome, overbearing, taunting—he could have dealt with that version, if it had just been that. But perhaps that was just the sound of her singing getting to him and making him sentimental. Or perhaps he had been angrily sipping at his wine too much.

The path towards the door he had been eyeing, thinking he might just make an escape while he could, was blocked as Freya returned and penned him back into the booth, placing down another drink that she had apparently gotten from the bar while she was away.

"See? Nothing terrible happened," she said with a smile that faltered just slightly at the look on his face. Not to be diminished, she leaned in with her hands on her chin. "You could have some fun, too, you know. I bet you have a lovely singing voice." She fluttered her eyelashes at him in a mocking way.

"Or," he began, copying her sarcasm with an icy bite to contrast her honeyed one, "I could just throw some coin on the table and leave, seeing as that's all I'm here for."

This dropped her smile, and her jaw, as she slapped her hands down on the table. "You wouldn't! That's not all you're here for, c'mon..." He leaned back as she scooted over closer, turning eyes wide and pleading on him and making him roll his own away; but all he had to look at to his left were the other two at the table, who seemed to be in an argument about one of Pluto's moons. He returned a leveled scowl towards her.

"What exactly am I meant to do, wait for you to drink until you pass out?"

She folded her lips in to stifle a laugh, giving him an almost pitying look. "Or... you might try actually making conversation instead of just eyeing your drink like you think someone's going to poison it."

He begrudgingly looked back over at the other two professors, one of whom in particular he most certainly did not want to talk to, but before he could quietly convey this to Freya, the other woman in question loudly banged her fist on the table, sending her many bracelets clinking like a pocketful of keys.

"That's it! I won't hear this—this—rubbish about 'oh, perhaps it's not actually a planet'—do you have any idea the power in Pluto—Charon as well—"

Mr. Powers was shaking his head in a way that made his combover flop, and he cut in across the Divination teacher with a small polite raise of his hand. "You must understand-this is not a demotion, but a furthering of our knowledge. Think what this could mean if viewed as a metamorphosis of the very symbol of astro-transformation itself!"

"My good man, if what you're saying is true, then... much as I am loath to accept it, it would mean Pluto may no longer be lord to the invisible plane as previously thought, but a gatekeeper to realms of new consciousness not yet explored!"

Severus turned a deadpan look back to Freya, who was staring at the pair in open slack-jawed bewilderment, like she might be wondering if she should go tell the bartender to cut them both off. Her eyes slid over to meet his in disbelief, and he raised his brows in a silent 'go on then' fashion, daring her to try 'making conversation' with those two. Her mouth perked up at the corners and she closed it, smoothing her face into a mask of polite curiosity as she leaned in across the table.

"Err... Sorry, couldn't help by overhear, but... are you talking about Divination?"

"Astrology, dear, astrology," Trelawney corrected her. "Do try to use the correct vocabulary when speaking of the Divine Studies, they can be ruthlessly complex and deep in lore. One without a tactful mind for detangling the subtleties of the art are bound to find themselves woefully lost in the galactic smoke."

Severus watched Freya's frozen smile with concealed satisfaction, counting how many times she blinked before finally speaking again. "Oh," she said in a high voice, dropping her gaze to the table. Not to be outdone, she picked it back up at once with her cheer revitalized to try again. "It's lovely to finally get to have a proper sit down with you. Mr. Powers speaks so highly, but I hardly ever get to see you."

"And for good reason," Trelawney said harshly, looking Freya up and down with barely concealed reproach. "An omen of death such as yourself would only bring chaos into one's life."

At this Severus finally lost his composure and had to pretend to have taken a sip from his wine and choked on it to cover his laugh. For the first time, due to someone other than himself, he watched Freya's preciously crafted smile fall fully from her face and her hand lightly touch her chest, looking wounded.

"I must agree," Severus spoke up, quickly swiping a hand over his mouth to force his smile down. "I've always thought her to be completely disastrous." She didn't seem as inclined as him to hide her reactions, gaping at him with full offense taken and raising both her palms above the table.

But the Divination teacher was equally unimpressed with him, it seemed, and he remembered too late why he had been avoiding her in the first place.

"And you!" Trelawney pointed a bony finger straight over the table, making Mr. Powers lean back for fear of being hit by her swinging assortment of wristbands. "Just as bad, even worse—never before have I seen a darker aura than on this one."

Freya turned a triumphant sneer on him, as if she hadn't just gotten the same treatment. "Oh, do tell what omens of darkness you're reading from his 'aura'," she said wickedly.

"I have no need to—the biggest sign that this man is up to no good was when he was caught eavesdropping on my job interview," Trelawney said with a huff of indignation, appearing to be still sore from the incident as if he had personally wronged her.

"He was what?" Freya said with confusion, but when she looked at Severus and saw him shake his head imperceptibly, eyes smoldering with fury, her expression shifted to startled understanding. He clenched his jaw tighter, silently admonishing her for being so forgetful as to lead the conversation down this path—and making his mind similarly travel down that dark path that had all started with him overhearing what he had in that interview. "Oh—we don't need to talk about that—"

"Oho! Quite eager to get a job at Hogwarts, was he?" Mr. Powers cut in jovially, looking obliviously between them but thankfully less interested in the light transgression. "Can't blame him, I was a bit overzealous myself."

"Yes, quite," Freya agreed quickly, speaking for him and smoothing over the conversation in a most annoyingly helpful way that he could have easily done himself. "Say—what was that about me being a bad omen again?" Still, it was admirable of her to take the spotlight back, if only because he would much prefer her get shackled with the ill-fortuitous fates than him, and he certainly did not want to speak another word in Trelawney's direction.

"Not just bad, an omen of death," Trelawney corrected her again, with the same air of only doing so to make things more dramatic, with a heavy throaty note to her voice. "You think there would be an exception just because you also symbolize the resurrection of life? Not in times such as these! I want no chance of that two-headed beast."

Freya looked to be struggling greatly to not show the woman the definition of beastly behavior, but she continued. "And what makes you speak like that about it?"

"Because, my dear cloudy-minded woman, what is it that follows after life itself? Death, of course. Always waiting at the door, chasing at the heels; like a moth to a flame, death is always drawn towards those swathed in so much underappreciated life, lurking just behind, the scales of its wings dusting darkness into the very air around you..."

Severus made a small display of checking behind her back for her, raising his brows in feigned solemn reverence of this warning despite finding nothing but long auburn hair. Her eye twitched. "If I see any moths I'll be sure to show them a good flame then, before they put a hole in my robes."

"Her Sun is in Cancer, you know," Powers chipped in with a serious tone. A look of deepest understanding passed between the two professors sitting opposite, and Freya's defensiveness seemed to increase.

"What's that look supposed to mean?"

"Makes perfect sense," Trelawney nodded sagely.

"In what way?"

"Perhaps, dear, you would let me read your cup there, I'm sure I could interpret further with irrefutable physical proof if you are curious about the forces surrounding you..."

Freya looked down at her glass and then back up, beyond skeptical. "You can read cups of... firewhisky?"

Of course it's fire whiskey, Severus thought to himself, unwilling to speak up and break the spell of this absolutely captivating conversation, but still finding he needed to take a moment to inwardly roll his eyes at her on-the-nose choice of drink.

He listened with shrinking interest as Freya had her month's horoscope determined ('Death—and great peril' shockingly enough), appearing more and more like she was developing brain rot as she was bombarded with useless information that he himself was trying to deflect from infecting his own brain.

His thoughts were drifting more towards what she had so hastily managed to cover up before the dangerous topic had settled in the air much like the pine-scented aroma that seemed to permeate the pub, masking some of the scent of alcohol.

She hadn't been there, or at least he didn't remember seeing a phoenix sitting in the room when the door had been opened by the barkeep, revealing him to Dumbledore and the then only aspiring Divination teacher. Perhaps if she had, she would have done something very Freya-like; followed him back to where he was taking the prophecy he had just heard, tripped him up with a puzzle like a sphinx in his path, set him on fire—anything. But then, even Dumbledore hadn't stopped him, and what had transpired wasn't worth the 'what-if's when it was by now so set in stone.

More to the changeable, unknowable (to some lesser beings, anyway) future, and the present from which it would be formed, as he absently tilted his wine glass around, watching the liquid swirl, he wondered what on earth he was doing in a pub that was playing Christmas music over a radio, sitting with a trio of people he would have liked to avoid under all circumstances. Almost all circumstances. Freya could be granted a pass, as at least in comparison to the other two at the table she could be entertaining at times, but this was only allowed in his deepest thoughts, never to be repeated out loud.

But was she just an entertaining distraction at this point? He felt the need to berate himself for potentially falling even close to the idea that she had brought up a week ago. 'You're the one who kept showing up to the library.' And he had agreed to come here; agreed to even more than he needed to beyond the sake of the bet by accompanying her around Hogsmeade. A bet which had been, in his mind, an excuse for her to drag him along to spend time together without having to be so bold as to actually just ask- but from the opposite end, the same could be said of him. He could have just backed out on the whole thing and not even agreed to show up. Yet, here he was. Taking the same excuse.

If he was going to admit to it, even a bit, he had to give himself the highest degree of leeway.

Four months had passed, and the feeling of being an inconsolable hazardous maniac had long gone after the first of these. This was just his usual reluctance to be around other people now. At least, people whom he deemed irritating or beneath him, which was most people. The group that he had felt least like this around, however, hadn't exactly panned out for the best. Now for what passed as companionship he just had... this. Some sort of table of rejects, each one of them clinging to their varied alcohols like a lifeline.

But then again, even his 'old friends,' who were now mostly locked up or on an Auror's hit list, hadn't ever been people he could talk to about certain things. He had to go even further back than his post-graduation activities, and further still, back through the years, to get to a single person whom he would have let drag him anywhere, to any party, or pub, or otherwise, to her heart's desire.

But that bridge had long been burned, the water underneath it poisoned, and the land thoroughly salted. The old neighborhood never quite looked the same.

If he drank any more wine, he might actually have to admit to himself that truthfully, more than he felt lost in the world and his place in it, more than he felt alone without a cause, he felt deeply and irreparably hollow; both like a cold, lifeless black hole that was sucking into it whatever around had mass to pull, and like a rabid deranged dragon, ready to defend against anything that dared get close to try and fill this hole. A tug-of-war that kept a part of him always held taut.

As he took another long sip from his glass, he couldn't decide if it felt like drinking an antidote or a poison.

"Alright, there?"

He looked up at Freya's trying-too-hard attempt at a casual friendly smile, her concern clearly showing through in her upturned brows, and he leveled back a cold scowl, holding his glass in place over his mouth. It wasn't the first time he felt like she could read his mind despite however well he had been concentrating on holding his facial expression in check. He wished, with a bitter, icy chip to his heart, that she was a different woman entirely; or else that he could just completely ignore all the trouble that she caused his mind and shake something out of her to make himself feel less chaotic.

Just as he was lowering his glass to tell her off, there was a sudden chaos of a different kind.

Professor Trelawney let out a scream that pierced the bar clear to the opposite corner. The room went quiet in response, with only a witch's festive wailing tune on the radio playing out eerily into the still silence. The people he could see directly in front of their table all turned to look at him, including the three sat there, guided by Trelawney's wavering pointed finger. However, as his eyes snapped to Freya's, wide and golden, he realized they were actually fixed somewhere above his head and slightly to the right. He whipped around to look over his shoulder out the window.

Only, the window was harder to see out of than earlier due to the addition of packed frost, and it was rapidly gaining in fractal spires, eating up the yet still translucent panes of glass. This would-be beautiful display could not hold his attention, however, as much more horrifically ensnaring was the hooded figure lurking in the outside gloom, illuminated only from behind by the orange glow from a streetlamp.

A small shiver went up his spine that only partly had to do with the decline in temperature he abruptly noticed, as he stared at the dementor barely a foot away with just warped antique glass between them.

A cry went out around the bar exclaiming about the very thing he was looking at, and as the sounds of many scuffling people behind him broke out, he willed his hand to move the few inches from the booth seat to his pocket to grab his wand. But before he could seem to break out of his transfixed stare, a sudden heat pressed down hard on the back of his hand, breaking him out of his spell. He looked down and was surprised to see that his hand was not being burned by some sort of projectile warmed oven mitt from out of nowhere, but another hand. And when he looked up, it was Freya that had manifested right beside him on the booth, with one hand wrapped around his elbow and the other all but pinning his palm to the leather seat cushion.

He had wondered before, during the day of their duel, what her face would have looked like had she at all taken him seriously, without the playful look in her eye before and after, and now he knew. She stared back out the window as he had but with all the preparation that he'd not had time to obtain—or maybe it was just that she had someone to defend that was making her look like she would melt the glass with her gaze. She was so close he could see her eyebrows knit tight beneath the line of her fringe, and when she blinked, glancing towards him without moving an inch, he could see each lash framed around eyes of hard gold. She didn't repeat her unanswered question from before about his wellbeing, and he wasn't inclined to speak of how he felt in that moment, because his instinct to yank his hand back and tell her to stop being so overbearingly protective was being hindered by the wondrously warm calming sensation working its way up from his fingertips into his chest. Thankfully he didn't need to do any moving, because she broke the eye contact first, separating herself from him on her own when the threat had drifted away out of sight from the window. He felt unusually grateful that she didn't return to her original distance, but stayed close by.

As soon as everyone at the table turned their attention towards the rest of the disquieted pub, he gave an uncomfortable little shake of his arm, trying to get his blood feeling back to normal.

"Now really," the barkeep was shouting at a man that Severus could only see the back of, but thought just by the look of his distinguished grey cloak that he seemed somehow familiar, "a dementor in a place like this? Who's going to attack you while you have a drink?"

"Apologies, miss," he said in a gruff voice, "still can't be too careful. It's under ministry control though, rest assured." The man turned to look out the window of the front door, where his ghastly guard had evidently drifted. "See? And I'll just be in for a quick round."

The other patrons seemed about as placated as the barkeep herself, who gave a sour look before returning behind the bar to get the man a drink. Chatter returned in a subdued disgruntled murmur.

"Nasty place to have it, isn't it? Just poor taste really," Powers said, smacking his lips after taking a long drink, still shuddering from the chilly air. "Should be a saying about that—'gentleman walks into a pub with a dementor for his protection, leaves with several enemies.'"

Trelawney was agreeing as she went back to her own wine glass, but it was Freya who seemed suddenly most put off despite the fact she had just stared down the dementor herself. She had turned to face Severus directly, propping her elbow up on the table and stretching out a tight grin at him. He thought she was being obtrusive to his feelings again, as if he would be so soft as to be affected by such a thing, but then he felt something hit his knee. Glancing under the table, he realized it had been her anxiously bouncing leg, and when she apologized for bumping him, her tone was clipped and distracted. In fact, she wasn't even looking at him anymore, her gaze tilted downward just like her head. His eyes went over her shoulder, towards where the ministry man was now looking around the bar with a drink in his hand, directly behind her hunched back. It was too late for him to warn her by the time he made sense of the situation- the man had already spotted her very obvious long red hair.

"Miss Fawkes?"

He watched her wince and glance her eyes to the corners before turning around.

"Ah—Mr. Gale?"

"Aye. Dumbledore's niece, right? Haven't seen your face in a while."

"Yes, it's been a minute, hasn't it?" she said, in what Severus could only understand as a perfectly performed voice.

His eyes darted over to Powers and Trelawney to see if they had picked up on the same thing, but neither of them looked the least bit reluctant to accept the ludicrous idea of her relation to the headmaster, and he suddenly felt like he had been left out of an elaborate prank—though perhaps for the better.

"But you can't be just getting off work, surely?" Freya went on, "It's so late!"

As he took in the nearing face of the man in the low light, his own internal switch was flipped, because he recognized this face with the name to go with it—from his pass through the ministry during his trial.

He straightened up and mentally shook off the remaining jitters that the dementor had left over, feeling the alcohol spike with his heartbeat and wishing he hadn't been wallowing quite so thoroughly.

"Ah, afraid so. Long days still to go," said Gale with a weary grimace, and to Severus's displeasure the man took the last step he could before coming to a standstill at the end of the booth beside Freya. He kept his eyes on the little holly centerpiece, watching from the edge of his vision as an awkward second lapsed before the woman scooted over to make room and his chest released the breath he had been holding, silently sighing with irritation.

"Well, please, have a seat! No one here minds, right?" she asked around the table, all chipper and smiles at the hearty reply of "The more the merrier!" from Powers and a noncommittal raise of her glass from Trelawney. She neatly tucked her robes under her as she moved closer to his spot in the middle of the bench and cast a glance his way. She hadn't directly made eye contact, but he could tell she was checking on him before turning back to the other man. "I don't get to see much of you these days. New job and all that."

"Ah, yeah, how's that going? Are all of you teachers then?" A fifth drink was added to the table in the form of a heavy mug and the antique wood strained to take the newcomer's weight as he hefted onto the seat. Freya slid another half-inch closer, now looking like she too was trapped in the inopportune middle of the booth, but still maintaining her placid smile as she made introductions.

After reigning in Trelawney from giving the man a deathly fortune, Powers hastily introduced himself before launching with intrigue into the man himself. "And, forgive me if I'm mistaken, but you're not an Auror, are you?"

"I am," Gale said with a steely expression, apparently not boastful, but all business. Severus had his eyes on one of Trelawney's bangles as it reflected the flickering candlelight from the room, but the turn of the man's head was unmissable. "And you are... I recognize you."

Severus turned with mild surprise, finally looking the man in the face. The deep lines around his eyes stood out at the angle from the light behind, and he did not blink, looking like a dog that had just spotted a fox in the hen house. "Ah... Yes. I'm the new Potion's master," he said, skipping over acknowledging that they already had met before in hopes to wipe it away.

"Yeah. I know," the man said, not moving his eyes as he stated this unsettling knowledge that he was for some reason aware of the Hogwarts teaching positions. "Dumbledore hired you on, didn't he?"

"Hired us both, actually," Freya cut in smoothly, leaning forward directly through the line of eye contact. "It's been nice not being the only new teacher, Severus is good company."

He could only see the back of her head, but he imagined what expression she could be wearing, and if she could possibly be so stupid as to actually appear openly hostile towards the man. If she interfered, it would only make things worse and more suspicious. But from his expression, the man seemed to only be mildly put out.

"Is he now?"

"For the most part," Freya nodded, before turning to look at Severus with a teasing grin. "He can be a bit stuffy, though."

"'A bit'," Powers said under his breath, but was amplified in his glass and he looked up as he realized he had been heard. "Well... well," he said with a sheepish chuckle and a shrug.

"Oh, come on, he isn't so bad," Freya said in an easy-going voice, "he came out tonight, didn't he?"

Severus jumped on this at once. "All thanks to you for inviting me," he said, mimicking her calmly composed tone and even offering up an uncharacteristic smile. It felt odd to pull at the muscles in his face in such a way, and he reminded himself not to go too far out of his natural mannerisms.

She returned the smile and finally leaned back in her seat. "Well, I had to do something to get you out of the library, or else you'd work yourself to death."

"Pardon me for taking my job seriously."

She laughed, and if he didn't know any better, it seemed like the sound had been just a bit louder than necessary for a polite titter at their banter, and slightly more musical. The atmosphere of the table relaxed easily back into the same levity throughout the rest of the room, and between Trelawney wanting to discuss how many ravens the man saw in a day, Powers wanting to be regaled with tales of valor, and Freya's lighthearted manner, the Auror didn't seem able to get another chance in at grilling the acquitted Death Eater at the table any further.

It was an odd feeling, like having his hand held as he was trying to walk a delicate line, the same as when she had obnoxiously clung to his arm at the first quidditch match, except without the physical discomfort of his personal space being invaded. His first initial reaction was to irritably will her to stop overstepping into his own problems, but in truth, she hadn't. Not in a way he would have assumed she would, anyway. She was simply... there. Less like a coddling hand leading him along in the conversation, and more of a springboard to bounce off of. As if she trusted him to know how to do it himself, she was just propping up what he already could do. It did agitate something else in him though, as he watched her smiling face whenever she would turn towards him throughout the rest of the conversation. She was rather good at controlling a deceptive narrative.

As Gale the Auror recanted some of the stories of his work, those that he was allowed to share with the public anyhow, Freya wound up inching further and further away from his gesticulating hands, until she was encroaching into territory similar to that of a shared umbrella with him. But much apart from his feeling that day, he didn't fight against it. It was warm in the pub, with a fire going somewhere in the back of the cozy building, the heat of a decently packed room of people, and the cups of wine flowing through him, but even so, he could distinctly make out the difference in temperature of his right arm. For once, instead of his mind puzzling over whether or not she was a liar and a trickster, he felt more drawn in by the idea that if she was, she might actually be impressive at it. Even fun to work with. He felt that if he were to let himself be pulled in, he might be able to directly test something; to tangibly, with finality, determine the truth of her.

When at last they finally left the bar, he was beginning to think he might be able to just flat out ask her anything and get a direct answer, as he paused his stride down the Hogsmeade sidewalk to turn and look at her with amused disdain.

"You're drunk," he stated unnecessarily as he turned to keep walking after she had corrected her footing from her stumble over a pavement stone. She was giggling as her boots tapped back up to his side.

"Am not," she declared in a forced stoic tone, as if to verbally will herself sober. "Perfectly fine, thanks very much."

"Not setting a very good example to the students, are you?" he chided.

She scoffed and raised her hands, looking all around at the deserted side street they were cutting through. "What students am I meant to be role modeling for? Their curfew was hours ago. And are you," she poked a finger into his arm hard enough that she teetered to the side before leaning back towards him, "anyone to talk?"

"I've only had two cups of wine."

He watched her face go blank with surprise and then a hugely amused grin broke out even as she tried to suppress it. "I meant—that's not—" She had to pause to let out a snort of laughter. "I meant because of the whole little thing of you being a Death Eater, you doughnut."

"...Oh."

She doubled forward with laughter as his expression went from realization to cross in an instant. He picked up his pace, wondering why he had ever thought for a moment it would be a good idea to encourage her to speak, but she quickened up as well, patting at his arm as if to hold him back.

"Wait, wait, but that's good, Severus, so good—only two cups of wine, with a side of terrorizing Britain for a decade, you truly are the eptinemmy—… the... epitome of true class."

"Shut," he roughly brushed her hand away, "up. I didn't do that—and would you mind getting the story straight if you're going to talk about it so loudly? I was only accused, and acquitted."

This only caused her to bark out another laugh, harsher than before. "Oh, yes. 'Accused.'" Her tone made him turn his head and he saw a strange glint in her eyes, her smirk darkly mischievous, before they stepped off the street into the shadowy canopy of trees on the wooded path back to the castle. In the dim nighttime light, with the contrasting bright white snow that hadn't been cleared away here and crunched underfoot, he thought that even her hair appeared darker to match her expression, seeming not to glow as usual. She continued on in a low taunting voice, "It certainly wasn't you that was using all manner of foul potions to get information out of ministry and Order members alike."

If he hadn't been the equivalent of relaxed for him that evening, and if he had ever expected for even a second to hear her bring up his past activities, he may not have been so caught off guard. Thankfully most of his activities from that time had included needing to keep his face in check when accused of such things, and he quickly stopped himself from showing more than mild surprise, though his skin felt rather tight.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, turning straight ahead, though his pace had slowed down considerably.

"'Are you really going to deny it?'" Her mocking sing-song version of his own words were thrown back at him and she snickered at his sour side-eyed glare. This unconventional tone to her laughter was not hitting as it usually did, and even her smallest laugh seemed to be upsetting his heart.

"How would you know?" he asked harshly, turning things around on her. "Been following me around for longer than I thought, have you?"

She shook her head and waved this accusation easily away, opposing his defensiveness with a lax tone. "No, no, nothing like that. I just used to sneak into the ministry and check their investigation files." This got his attention fully back to her and he stared for a moment in punctual silence. She laughed in the same mischievous way as before. "Well, the ministry didn't always cooperate with the Order, did they? Thankfully they also aren't very aware that I come in two packages."

"The... ministry has records on me?" he said in a stiff voice.

Her smile faded and she peered at him curiously. "Of course not. Not last I checked, anyway. Just a huge list of unsolved incidents." With her smile gone, her expression looked more like an uncharacteristic frown as she turned to stare straight ahead. "You think Albus could have gotten you off so easily if they did? They respect him well enough, most of them, but plenty are starving to round up every last Death Eater, and won't listen to anything he has to say about the details. And with everything going on lately..."

She trailed off, her gaze traveling farther down the dark pathway. After a second of letting the incredulity of what she had just said wash over him, he took the chance during her silence to organize his thoughts.

So there was no concrete proof then. That still wasn't much of a comfort if she was picking out things that he had, in fact, actually been involved in. He hadn't administered any poisons himself, but he had known exactly whose throats they were going to be shoved down, so it wasn't much of a deflection. Despite having never killed anyone, and despite knowing that his morals certainly lay on a different side of the line than most—at the very least, he did hold these actions he had done for a cause he didn't believe in to a higher degree of scrutiny than he normally would. He was guilty either way.

On another note, he now wondered if the only reason she had defended him from Mr. Gale was to cover Dumbledore's own skin. If it was found out he had hired a legitimate Death Eater with evidence against him, surely it wouldn't look good. He couldn't fully twist this into a point against her, though. This, at least, was something that made sense to him. Protecting her master's reputation, and keeping up her own deception. It was easier to understand if that was the reason versus if she was just doing it for some annoying meddlesome reason of protecting him. Plus, either way, it was still keeping him out of trouble, and he couldn't exactly bite that helping hand. He might wrinkle his nose a bit at it though.

However, all of this did propose a slightly unnerving proposition...

"What... else... do you attribute to me?"

By her sly sideways sneer, even in her tipsy state, she had caught that his words had been carefully chosen to not agree nor disagree with her accusation.

"Oh, I dunno..." she said, lazily looking up at the sky through the trees. It was still clouded over from the recent snow, though the air was clear and crisp now. "A few things with varying certainty. Definitely, for sure, the ransacking of the ministry's archive branch." She shot a smile at him that looked a little too wickedly pleased for what she was accusing him of. "You can't convince me that wasn't you."

He kept his face impassive, twisting his tongue around his mouth before deciding this was innocent enough. "I didn't... ransack it. I only took a few things."

Her eyebrows quickly shot up her forehead, her mouth falling open in disbelief—and then her head went back in a cackle. "Oh, begging your pardon—didn't ransack the place—oh, heaven forfend!" He was already rolling his eyes again, clenching his jaw after feeling the loud musical laugh stab at his chest and not wanting to hear any more chastisement from her. But she stole his attention back anyway, trotting a bit ahead to get in his line of sight. He watched in grumpy silence as she pulled out her little black planner and held it open in front of her face so that just her eyes showed over the top. In a sudden dangerous scowl to go along with her adopted voice, as she said dramatically, "How dare you accuse me, Severus, the most clean-handed Death Eater, of manhandling a book? I would never." He could see the smile crinkle at the corners of her eyes even though it remained hidden behind the planner.

He blinked wearily at her. "Are you quite finished?"

She snapped the book shut, but continued on in her poor imitation of his voice—he was starting to wonder if she was just that bad at impersonations or he should be extremely offended by her low sneering drawl.

"No, I'd never blast a bookshelf over, but I would leave the librarian in such a state that he couldn't so much as remember who had written 'Shorthand for the Short of Patience,'" her voice finally returned to normal and she made a glum pensive face, "and it was him that wrote it, poor chap. Did you have to Confund him so hard?"

He didn't answer for a moment, his eyes slowly following along various animal tracks left in the snow going this way and that, seemingly without order. When he spoke, it was with a small shrug. "He was sharp. He would have remembered otherwise."

"Hm... Well, what about that one muggle incident in—"

"Enough," he snapped so harshly that she fell silent. He didn't want to hear whatever else she had to pin on him. There were plenty of times he could have been seen or caught, and with her current record of two for two, he found he should just cut it there before she was having him turn over his wand for inspection and waving his rights to not be force-fed Veritaserum. He had skipped the full extent of a ministry trial before, and he wasn't about to subject himself to one now, on a Saturday night after drinking with this woman.

Except, oddly enough, she wasn't exactly hauling him over the coals, nor did she seem particularly interested in what he had done so much as finding out if her assumptions were correct. Peeking over, she was merely walking with the same idle expression, though perhaps a bit contemplative. What was more, he was left wondering how long exactly she had been attributing these crimes to him. He couldn't see how any of this could possibly have not already been thoroughly discussed with Dumbledore, maybe even thrown together by the man himself; he had never asked Severus to admit to his own crimes, after all. He had always assumed it was because Dumbledore couldn't possibly be any more disappointed in him that he already was, so there was no need to know the details of his spy's personal misdeeds. So if it had been known by both of them the whole time that he had been at the school...

She caught him looking at her out of the corner of his eye and she smiled benignly in that easy-going Freya way, even more so with the look of having had a few drinks. The reflected light from the snow seemed to illuminate her eyes from below, making the soft hazel just barely visible. He stared back, taking in every inch of her face like he was an Auror staring at months' worth of unsolved cases. Her brows raised.

"You're not going to Confund me now, are you?"

He blinked, trying to smooth out whatever had been showing on his face that had apparently looked threatening. "No."

"Oh, thank goodness. Think the firewhisky's doing that for you, I don't want to double up."

He inspected her face again as she let out a quiet laugh and slowly exaggerated the last of her footsteps before they came to a halt. He stopped as well, looking around to take in the gates to the grounds that stood before them. He wasn't sure at first why she had stopped, but when he looked over again to check, she was staring fixedly at him like she wanted to say something but couldn't just yet, and broke her gaze to look down at her shoes. From several feet away, he could just make out her lower lip being pulled into her mouth as she apparently mulled something over. Then her head came up abruptly and she nodded with a jerking motion of her chin, not in the direction of the path straight ahead, but over towards the edge of the forest. "Would you like to go for a walk?"

His eyes stayed on her for a long moment while she tried to offer up her best nonchalant smile, but the corners of her lips kept reworking in a way that she couldn't seem to help, and she failed to hold his gaze for long. He himself gave out after she did, blinking and looking away, feeling like he should be lowering his brows but finding he could only do so by knitting them in bewilderment.

Going over everything he had thought, since earlier at the pub, till just now on the Hogsmeade path, and even back during the whole week since their conversation in the library—all he could think about was what was actually behind her mask, if anything; what she knew about him and his activities; and why it was that she was able to laugh while looking at him like that, and look so betrayed when he rejected her friendship, given all of these things. His thoughts swirled in his brain like so much powdery snow in the wind, while his eyes followed her hand as it came up to tuck her hair behind her ear when it threatened to tumble over her shoulders with her head tilted down, still avoiding his eyes. Perhaps a walk wouldn't be so bad.

"Sure."

Walking the edge of the Forbidden Forest felt like familiar territory, even so late in the night as this. Regardless of his time as a student here, he had already revisited this path in recent months, when he just needed time to himself not working on something or reading. Then again, he never had been by himself, as there had always been a red and gold beacon high in the sky. This was the first time she was actually walking beside him, however, and he felt none of the animosity nor annoyance.

"You're not cold, are you?" she asked, breaking the silence that had settled comfortably in place. Despite her placid grin, her eyes betrayed the mocking intent of her question, and the corners of her mouth tugged wider at his returned glare. "Just checking. Don't want you to freeze."

A healthy amount of annoyance returned.

He felt oddly on edge, similar to the first day he had properly spoken with her; not the one ending in an attack, but the conversation they had had in front of the restricted section of the library. That was the first and last time he had shown an interest in following along with her, with a similar intention of asking questions until something shook loose. After getting to know her, he had no longer felt as curious. She was clammed up about anything that could be deemed noteworthy about phoenixes, the Order, Dumbledore, and herself. He wondered if that would still be as true now.

"Do you ever get cold?" he asked, half rhetorically, hoping to lead into his questions with something benign.

She raised her brows, slowing her pace even more from their already sluggish gait. Raising her eyes to the sky as if considering this for a moment, she finally nodded. "I do... under the right circumstances."

"And those circumstances are...?"

Things weren't off to a good start if she was already grinning at him in that impenetrable way at such a seemingly simple question. He let out a small sigh through his nose.

"Sorry," he said with barbed sarcasm, "I didn't realize it was such a personal question."

"You should definitely try for a less personal one next time."

"And what would a less personal question be?"

"Oh, did you want to ask me personal questions?"

He stared at her in blank exasperation.

She swept an arm out in a grand gesture. "Ask away then. I'm as open a book as one could be."

"What is your exact home address and what enchantments do you have set up to guard it?"

Her arm dropped to her side with a thud, the warmth of her grin fading to a cold pout. "Very funny."

"Just making sure that you aren't too drunk," he said with mock concern.

While he was busy formulating what question to ask next, she surprised him by speaking up first.

"It's an orchard—quite in the middle of nowhere England, so there isn't much point in an address unless you want to send an owl to an empty house."

Whatever he had been going to ask was quickly abandoned. This was definitely not the same as their earlier conversations if she was willing to be revealing something like that, even so vaguely. You just don't give out details of your home in times like these. "You own a whole orchard by yourself?"

She scoffed. "No, no, a muggle family owns it."

He blinked again, more rapidly this time. "You—live with muggles?"

"No, no, no. Severus, don't go getting excited; I don't want to do paperwork if you're going to hear the word 'muggle' and lose your head."

"I am not 'losing my head,'" he said with considerable indignation, despite knowing full well she was just teasing him and he shouldn't be getting worked up over it. "I was simply... surprised."

"Right," she said, rolling her eyes.

"How does that... work?" he said, more to get away from her disbelief and keep her answering. "You aren't living in an actual barn, surely?"

She leveled a glare at him. "No. And not a tree, either, before you ask. It's just the upper floor of an old shop they only use during fall."

"And that's... comfortable, is it?"

"Are you implying it's the accommodations or who's providing them that would be uncomfortable?"

He shook his head, looking away, unwilling to get into it about his own personal thoughts at the moment. This was not at all the road he had wanted to go down. He was already getting off track with the surprise that she would even mention her private home. However, this was perhaps an obtrusive reminder of whom she was working for and which side she was meant to be on. Her earlier joking around about his crimes seemed principally off color if she was now right back to trying to guilt him.

"You don't seem particularly upset over them if you're willing to speak to me," he said with a sneer, leaning into what her image must be of him. "Or are you compromising on your morals?"

She shrugged easily, her shoulders rolling fully back. "Not compromising, no. I don't really think of either of you as very different, to be honest; wizards or muggles." Before he could protest, she continued on. "No offense, but before you speak, I feel the need to remind you that it wasn't muggles who used to hunt my kind for trophies."

"And you think muggles wouldn't do the same if they had even an ounce of knowledge?"

"Oh, I've no doubt they would do the same; some of them at least, same as you lot. And they do have an ounce—phoenixes show up in muggle books as well, you know."

He scoffed. "Just a bunch of made up nonsense."

"Oh?" She let out her own derisive laugh, but it was much more amused. "And your books aren't just spouting off the same fantastical rubbish with no sign of the true picture?" She gestured down to herself with a flourish. "Ahem."

"That's not really our fault if you're determined to be so very secretive now is it?"

She conceded after a moment with a nod. "True enough. I'd much prefer you both be stupid, but if it's just the one, well..."

"You'd rather have a bunch of idiotic friends?"

"Than ones that try to kill or steal from me?" She held his gaze with a sharply pointed smile before it melted away to an imploring look. "What does it seem like to you that I've chosen?"

He took a moment to appraise her, trying to picture her living a peaceful life on a farm with muggles, picking apples or some such. "The suicidal path," he said finally. "Though I guess dying doesn't mean all that much to you."

She squinted at him, her grin souring. "Right... Well... In any case, I'm more interested in muggle culture than living among them myself."

"Culture?" he said with disdain, unable to imagine what muggles could possibly have to offer of interest to a phoenix.

"Their films in particular."

He turned his head fully to stare at her with open incredulity. "You must be joking."

"Am not," she said defensively, as if she were a proud muggle film expert, giving his brows even more height.

"Name one."

"The Omen—that one where they can't figure out for months that the kid is obviously a demon—I would guess some sort of cambion—and they go through the funny series of events that don't work to stop it. Hilarious stuff—it's my favorite."

He shut his eyes and did not open them again until he was safely staring into the snow. If he kept his head craned to the side at her in rapt amazement for any longer, he was going to wake up tomorrow with a crooked neck. But, really, her ridiculousness deserved to be openly stared at and scorned. And her taste in films did, too.

"You know what they say about those who laugh at muggle's pain, don't you?" he said with a weary terseness, as if he barely had the strength to even joke, because nothing could be as comedic as her reality.

"Don't say that!" she protested, putting her foot down especially hard on her next step. "You're lying—none of them were actually hurt, I know because I asked the man at the... the cinnamon."

His mouth stretched to a thin line; his eyes unmoving from hers. He gave a tiny shake of his head.

"The... cinna-ma'am?"

He squinted especially hard.

"Well, whatever—the muggle moving picture place—I asked the man working there how they healed themselves from all the injuries, and he said it was just 'movie magic.' Movie magic!" She let out a loud laugh that echoed off the trees to their side and out around the grounds. "Can you believe that?"

No, he really could not believe that. He kept his eyes to the ground, watching his footing as he kept his lips pursed tight, exceptionally glad that they were alone, because he didn't think he could handle the embarrassment of being in public for this conversation. He wondered what the usher's face would have looked like, and how concerned Freya must have been by the on-screen violence to ask a muggle stranger such a question. It was a shame he couldn't ask about it. A moment like this where he needed to feign ignorance of every minuscule scrap of muggle knowledge hadn't come up in a long time. No matter how small or benign, it was hard ingrained in him by now to not let on that he had any intimate knowledge of muggles. But the thought of watching her drunkenly take off into a fanatic frenzy if he told her there was a sequel was tempting.

"I really wish I could re-watch it soon. I love how seriously they take themselves, even though it's all just an act," she was musing absently.

"How ironic," he muttered under his breath.

"What's that?"

"Nothing."

As they walked further along the tree line, he garnered a few more tidbits about her interest in muggle culture, including bringing up the tiny television he had seen in her office and confirming that she was in fact an absolute nutter that was trying to get it functioning. He had to endure her going on about the logistics of how it worked, which he already knew, but he was trying to keep from 'losing his head' about it by turning it into a game to see just how much she could get wrong. At least she had the excuse of being almost as unfamiliar with muggle things as she had been to wizardkind at some point in her life. He was beginning to take her word seriously that it really was all the same to her.

"How is it," he said, trying to steer the conversation quickly away from even more muggle things, as she had just mentioned something about cars and he was already imagining that she could ramble on for an hour if he let her, "that you can be so... enthusiastic for muggle things, even so far as to like a film with a title like 'The Omen,' but you won't give dear sweet Trelawney and Powers the time of day?"

Her eyes rolled so hard that her head hung backward, and she said grudgingly to the sky, "Because Divination is a load of shite, that's why."

The corner of his mouth perked up at the earlier memory of Trelawney claiming the ice in Freya's leftover firewhisky glass was a symbol if her melting time on this earth. He was pretty sure the only thing that had been melting was her brain, but he carried on this line. "Hm... I don't know, I found the class enlightening myself."

Her chin came down as her head snapped back upright, gaping at him. "No. Get out. You did not take Divination, Severus, I'm not falling for that, even after several drinks."

He stopped holding back his smirk and glanced coolly at her. "Only for one year, but, yes. And now I can say quite certainly that everything out of that woman's mouth is absolute rubbish."

But Freya was now more interested in him than harping on Trelawney. "But... but it's an elective, isn't it? What on earth possessed you to sign up for it?" She was staring at him wild amusement, as if trying to picture his younger self as some poor innocent kid walking unknowingly into a giant waste of his time.

He opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again almost at once, flicking his gaze away. The truth was he hadn't stumbled into the class without prior knowledge that it wasn't going to be good, he had just gone along with it anyway- for the same reason that he knew more about muggle society than even his own household had taught him. There were just some things that were worth knowing so that he could have an excuse to talk to a particular someone.

He shrugged lazily. "I suppose I thought it was worth trying once. And what about you?" he asked, quickly dodging the spotlight. "Dumbledore didn't find Divination important enough to teach you?"

An odd look crossed her face and she looked away much as he had. "Err... Yeah, neither of us thought it would be a good idea."

He squinted at this. "Why not?" It was already apparent that she was going to close up, he just wished she hadn't left it at such a painfully obvious indication that there was something there to cover up. He watched her shrug her shoulders up slowly, her eyes looking all around except at him, and he wished he hadn't used up his one shot at getting her to say something personal on her living arrangements. However, his eyes stayed glued to her, because she still looked like she was struggling to find words, or decide how many to say, and he hadn't given up just yet. When she peeked at him and saw that he was still waiting for an answer, she finally huffed a huge sigh.

"It's... phoenix thing... and..." she mumbled, and he turned his ear towards her.

"What?"

A disgruntled little noise escaped her and she veered on her path, walking closer to his side but carefully not enough that she was touching him. She had to step side to side a few times to get this distance correct, as she seemed to be stumbling over her feet a bit. But she wouldn't even look up.

"It's just that we decided," she said in a quiet still-muddled voice, "that I already had quite enough ability to... see beyond what's there." She finished by making a gesture of setting down a hefty package of knowledge into the air in front of her and then shoving her hands deep into her pockets. He blinked at the side curtain of her hair that was obscuring his view of her face.

Of all the unsettling things he had heard and seen that night, it was this one that suddenly made him feel as if he was standing much too out in the open. His mind ran a spear straight through every single incident from now back to his first day at the school as a teacher, pinning them all together with a red string that spelled out this woman was seeing what he absolutely did not want anyone to see.

"What... do you mean by that?" he asked, failing a little at sounding casual as his lungs forced his breath out. She finally peeked up at him, apparently curious about his expression, but he was holding it perfectly relaxed.

She looked around, seeming a bit at a loss on whether she should be speaking about this. He acknowledged a tiny twinge that he just might be taking on the very unscrupulous role of someone prying a tipsy woman for information while they were alone near midnight next to a forebodingly dark forest, but he shoved it down, contending that he just wanted answers about things that concerned himself. Taking in a deep breath, she appeared to have made up her mind to stumble on through her explanation.

"Well... just like with the Wells incident, right? Just generic phoenix things, like the legends say, I suppose..."

The idea that Freya Fawkes was admitting to a legend in a book being correct about anything was enough to make his heartbeat kick up several notches.

"What legends? Which ones?"

But it appeared as though he had defeated her store of strength for this conversation, because her shoulders suddenly sagged with a long low sigh, and she hung her head.

They both came to a stop, no longer bothering pretending to walk on in the tiny petering steps they had been taking. The lake's edge had taken up the landscape on their other side now, thin hazardous ice seeping out from the muddy bank, giving a shelf to the beautiful untouched snow that then abruptly dropped off into the rest of the water, black and expansive, promising a freezing experience for anyone who might be foolish enough to test the ice.

He was following her gaze out across the still water when he took a steadying breath against his nervous curiosity, giving up on his endeavor. Her face didn't look like that of annoyance that she had figured out why he was pressing so hard on this topic, nor did she seem any bit of the usual icy smiling Freya that would easily block him out. Whatever this was, it actually seemed as if she wanted to tell him on some level, but couldn't figure out how, or wouldn't risk the consequences. An irritating minuscule thorn crept into him, telling him he should be feeling guilty right now. But he still didn't have the full picture, and he wasn't willing to waste time unjustly saddled with this if his perceptions were wrong.

A long, drawn out sigh seethed from just behind him to his side, and he could see the stream of billowing white condensation before he had even turned to look at her conflicted face. She glanced at him, rolling her eyes when he raised his brows.

"Look..."

He looked, not blinking as she neglected to continue her sentence for another moment. She let out another frustrated sigh, running her hand through her hair from temple to ends.

"Look, alright! It's just—... stupid... stupid phoenix things. Even your books pick up on that we show up if there's great enough turmoil in the world. And it's not just that, we can—... I can, with lesser stuff, feel when people around are in pain; that's how I know where to show up where I'm needed of course. But it's more, because there's all kinds of pain, and times like these, there's just... it's a lot, and so" —she waved her hand animatedly in front of her— "so it's just a bloody lot, alright?"

He kept completely still, wearing the same expression as when she had started, though he felt his brows had crept up his forehead considerably. When she finally managed to look at him again, she immediately grimaced and turned fully around on her heel, raking both her hands back through her hair as she teetered dangerously around from the sudden motion.

"So who needs Divination and death omens is my point!" she said over her shoulder, her voice slightly harsher than need be for her joking manner, and he wasn't sure if he should attribute this to the alcohol, or an underlying emotion in her.

The thorn he had felt grew five sizes, and he had to look away from even the back of her head, turning instead to the lake. He didn't need to feel guilty, though; it wasn't as if she was in pain right now, right? And she seemed plenty strong enough to handle it, if she was running around as she always was, smiling and content... Drinking a bit too much, but he had assumed she was just trying to get him to pay up more... Always shut up in the library with just him around... the human equivalent of a desolate mountaintop...

Well, he would want to go live on a mountain, too, if he was magically tethered to take in everyone's problems.

Glancing back her way though, he was sure that he had never once heard her be less than patient to take on someone else's burden. Perhaps she was just a masochist.

He was not really sure if he should be responding as she would, with stifling concern, or not drawing too much attention to the fact that she might be having a less than joyous time, as he would have preferred for himself. This was worlds apart from his area of expertise, and he felt stuck instead on his same track of peppering her with questions, even though at this point it seemed rather rude. He supposed this was to be expected of nosing into someone else's business though. She wasn't just some magical creature in a book with a neatly listed lore, as much as he had hoped for that simplicity; she was a person. And he had just Death-Eater-days-style ransacked through her personal archives and dug up something—well-personal.

"How... do you handle all of that?" he asked in what he hoped was a respectable enough tone.

With her back still turned, all he could see of her quick dry laugh was her shoulders bounce. "Oh, I dunno... Go hole up in my room, pull out the Daily Prophet, cry my eyes out, empty each tear into its own neat little phial, and send it off to St. Mungo's—hoping I'm not letting someone die by trying to pursue something in my life other than sitting beside hospital beds, sobbing over everyone with a gnome bite, and getting practically force fed those awful little biscuits they have."

He stared at her back, feeling as if he was watching a very poorly acted film. It was her usual sarcasm, but with only an ounce of the regular lightness to it, and it didn't carry near as far as she seemed to hope it did in covering up the reality of her words given that her voice was muddled with drink. It wasn't hard to imagine that there was no actual exaggeration to be found. She looked uncomfortable in a way he hadn't seen up close before, only witnessed from afar when her posture would stiffen up in a crowd, and he couldn't fathom what her face would look like. He felt as if he had stumbled over her diary and was accidentally reading entire pages without meaning to, the words jumping out at him. He really wished that he hadn't just watched her drink for hours with a smile plastered to her face, and that he hadn't then immediately decided it would be a great idea to prey on this situation for information for his own good; and also he wished that the lake was positioned just a bit more to the east, so that he could step into it and be swallowed up, and not have to be standing there like a giant mute prick.

It was another long moment before he could think of something to say, and he hoped it would go over as well as he was imagining it, having decided that the only course of action was to continue taking pages out of her book—in the other sense.

"That... must be so hard on you..." He paused for effect, waiting until she was just turning her ear curiously towards him, before dropping the end of his sentence, "organizing all those tiny phials."

Her head turned with a snap the couple more inches needed to cut a sharp look at him, her mouth open indignantly. But he could just see the upturned corner of her lips, and, encouraged enough that he had to force down his own grin to keep up his solemn reverence, he continued, "I can't imagine the cost... of ordering all of them by owl."

She quavered just a second longer before snorting softly and turning her head away, raising her hand over her mouth. "Shut up," she muttered, shaking her head, and he could hear the smile in her voice without having to see it. "Obnoxiously clever git," she added.

"What was that?" he said, taking a step towards her. Playfully reversing the role here with a hammed-up version of the annoying concern she always used to throw at him was actually quite fun. "Please, if there's anything I can do to help-"

"I don't need your help," she said with a scoff, in what sounded like her mocking imitation of his own voice. But as he took in her face, raising his brows at this, her expression blanched and she turned away. His eyes widened even further. This was exactly a full turnaround, if she was actually so embarrassed as to turn down even his facetiously offered help.

Trying to keep his voice to the same low serious note despite his mischievous glee, he took another step forward. He managed a solid steely expression, just as he reached out to carefully place a hand on her shoulder, hesitating for a fraction of a second, thinking she might just turn around and jinx him for touching her, but it was important for the full effect. He felt her shoulder twitch under his hand, but she merely turned her head to look at it, then peer up at him, catching his stoic demeanor with skepticism.

He stared down at her with grave intensity. "Freya... as Potion's master, I take the handling of all manner of related items very seriously-"

"Oh my effing lord, shut—up!" she exclaimed at her usual full volume, finally breaking down entirely into a fit of laughter, hiding her face in her hands. "You're such an idiot."

With her view obstructed, he fully let loose his self-satisfied grin, feeling like he had succeeded at unlocking the secrets to a particularly complex potion by accomplishing both getting to tease her and winning at cheering her up. He watched her fingertips slide down to massage her cheeks, as if she could force her wide smile physically back in, and he took in every bit of her happily embarrassed face that he could see as if it were a treat. His hand, still on her shoulder, almost moved to sweep her hair aside so he could get a better view, but then it hit him how ridiculous this action would be-and how close he was. His face fell and in a single instant he turned on his heel to look away.

He had gotten so caught up in the act, relieved that the thing she had been so secretive about hadn't been to do with souls or anything else he cared about, and guilted for no good reason besides perhaps a tiny intruding misstep on his part, that he had almost gotten pulled in. He should have never let his hand touch her shoulder, and now the image of her back, with her long hair flowing straight down and just barely flipping up at the ends near her waist, was burned into his mind, making him very aware of why he had felt compelled to reach out in the first place.

Just a bit too heavy on the wine, he told himself, so that his brain wouldn't connect any other meaning to the sound of her light musical laughter playing over in his head, or why it felt so rewarding to tease it out of her.

"You know something?" she said, so close to his back he almost jumped. He turned around again, just to ward off the feeling of being exposed, though when he faced her, he wasn't sure where to look—especially because her eyes were fixed on his with a curious expression that he very much did not like the appearance of. "I think you're a liar."

He frowned, jumping on this thrown out line to keep him from having to think of anything else. Contorting his face into a smooth contemplative mask was a great excuse right now. "In what way?"

She slid her hands back into the pockets of her robes, turning herself just slightly so that the hem swished and spun with her. "I think... in the library... you made all that up about trying to stay ahead of things."

This was just ridiculous, which was great because ridiculous was something he could get into an argument about. "You think so, do you?"

Freya nodded, in a slow knowing motion. "I think... you actually do want to be friends."

"Think whatever you like then," he said plainly. "It won't change anything."

She bit her lip, squinting up at him. "You can't tell me you don't miss your friends," she said, and then added on after his incredulous expression, "at least some of them. Right?"

He looked away, scowling into the woods. Well, he had wished for a distraction. "What does it matter? They're no longer my friends, now, are they?"

"You mean since you ratted on all of them to Albus?"

His head turned back in a slow mechanical motion, the tip of his tongue between his teeth. "Could you... perhaps... not say it like that?"

She blinked innocently up at him, looking like she was hiding a most nonapologetic smile. "Well, how do you think of it then?"

"Not like that," he said with crisp drawling punctuality. "And if you know the details, then how is it that you're suggesting that I 'miss' anyone?"

Her brow formed a tiny crease as she looked down thoughtfully. "Well... it makes sense that you would, doesn't it?" When she raised her eyes again, they were shining with perfect sincerity, reminding him of how she was when they had first met, before he had curled his lip at this look enough times for her to finally knock it off—apparently he had undone his work tonight.

He stared down with open hostile frustration as she brightened her smile, searching the very amber of her eyes for how on earth this possibly made sense. Because of course he missed having people around with whom he could talk to without feeling judged and guilted at his every thought, but of course, also, she should not be encouraging something like that—she shouldn't be complacently 'understanding' of any of this. The only reason he could fathom is that she was just egging him on to do her own sort of investigation on him now, trying to catch him sympathizing with the enemy.

He had wanted an exit out of his abrupt over-the-line feelings, but not like this—not just more lines to carefully tiptoe around. Why couldn't she just be one thing or the other so he could make perfect, absolute, unquestioning sense of her? He wanted to just grab her shoulders and make her state clearly for the court just whose side she was on here.

Because he wanted to trust her. He wanted her to be more than whatever she was trained by loyalty to Dumbledore to be. He just couldn't be sure there was any part of 'her' that was real.

With a slow taut pull of her face into a peering squint, she leaned in as if trying to make sure he hadn't displaced his mind to another land entirely. He blinked, looking her over with refocused eyes as she straightened back up with a rejuvenated grin.

"So," she said, all chipper once more, though her voice was kept low as they were so close, and any sound carried clear and far in the wintery scenery, "have you reconsidered?"

He narrowed his eyes, raising his chin to look coldly down at her. "I have no need to reconsider what I already know."

There was a soft crunching as she rocked slowly back and forth on her feet in the packed snow. "Hmm... Sorry, I don't buy that."

He scoffed. "So, what—you think that I'm lying?"

She had to purse her lips hard to keep from laughing, and he saw that her shoulders still shook. When she spoke, it was in a tone similar to the low mischievous one of her earlier teasing, but slowed down. "Well... You are quite the excellent liar, Severus."

He rolled his eyes all the way towards the castle in the distance, wondering if it wasn't about time to start demanding to go back. He was already numbed to the cold, but it would feel good to be getting into bed.

Another sound of snow being stepped on, and his eyes flicked back at the movement, because it had been onto an untouched bit between them as Freya stepped forward. His eyes went from her feet to her face and back again, suddenly very alert, despite that she had stopped there. Her eyes held the same darkly playful stare, but there was something missing- her smile was gone, with only the smallest curl to the corners of her mouth. He watched it slowly open as she prepared to go on.

"You are, though. You lie really well—with your eyes, your face" —he did a thorough internal check that his face was indeed lying perfectly impassive, throwing in an additional unamused frown as well— "and that stupid silver-tongued Slytherin thing that I'll bet you're really proud of." She did smile then, at his deepened scowl at this remark. The sharp corners of her mouth died down however, and her face changed almost completely, softening to another look he hadn't seen from her in a while. His eyes narrowed at this genuine earnest expression, feeling put off by it without the light of day to make her eyes shine in that pure honest golden way. Or perhaps he just needed to be closer to see it. Which might actually happen, as she took another two tiny steps forward, and he suddenly instead wished only that he could escape her gaze, not look more closely at it, though that was all he could do now.

"But, you can't lie..." And then she was doing something that, again, he had not seen in so long, but he recognized immediately, because his heart scrambled in the same way as when she had first raised her finger up to his chest and pointed directly at it. "...with everything."

The muscles in his face itched to purse his lips, clench his jaw, swallow—do something—but he held back. Slowly, with his eyes perfectly as she herself had described, he followed the point of her finger across her hand and to her own eyes, as apathetic as he could. "I don't know what you think you're getting at... but I regret to inform you that I've lied to far more formidable people than yourself. Perhaps it's you that just can't see clearly."

Her hand dropped sluggishly back to her side, her face showing clearly from this close distance her tiny wince. It turned into a skeptical look though, as she tilted her head, not quite fully convinced.

He held her gaze with still composure, just as he had back then, unwilling to back down now that he had something of himself to prove. He was staring almost lazily down into her eyes, letting her go ahead and search his all she wanted—because she wouldn't find any evidence of his strongly beating heart there, even as he could practically hear it in his own ears.

Her lopsided grimace worked its way back into a still somehow hopeful curl, and his own mouth twitched at a sudden movement, making him look down. It was just her hand coming up again, though, and he wasn't about to be-

She caught him off guard, as he had been sure she was just going to do some nonsensical little finger distraction at him again, but instead she had slipped her hand straight through the slit in his cloak, straight back behind him, all the way around so that even when he backed up, it only pulled her with him, both of her arms wrapped tightly into place. Only, this was no place that they should be, hidden under his cloak with his skinny frame, nor was his chest a place that her face should be pressed, and, at current, his lungs didn't seem like a place where air could possibly exist, either.

A shudder passed through him, all the way up his spine, making his shoulders raise and his hands that had come up as if he could have stopped this from happening shake as they hovered in the air.

His mouth had fallen open at some point, and as his body finally could not take being deprived of oxygen any longer, he sucked in a breath, and his brain seemed to take this resource as fuel to go haywire.

This was hardly fair. He had trained his whole life in magic, for defense from magical means—but there was no protection against the steady warmth seeping into his body, straight through his robes, seemingly only cooked up hotter with his cloak covering her whole arms and sides, trapping the heat in. She had stepped right up to him, was pressed right-thoroughly-bloody-effing-incredulously up to him, and he couldn't do a thing about it anymore than he could have stopped the winter from being cold. The winter, just then, was not a cold thing at all, however.

Apparently having not been immediately peeled off him or hexed into a pile of ash had given her reason to think that it was alright to move, because he abruptly felt the further overwhelming sensation of her arms readjusting from just grabbing him in a way to prevent him from moving, and more to almost gently hold him, still with the same solid firmness.

This truly was not fair. Because he was adjusting enough, and his mind was working enough, that he was realizing that this felt far from just warm. This was soft, stabilizing, even comforting. Comforting in an almost painful way; and he remembered a phrase that he couldn't recall where he had first heard, but had always associated with some weak sappy drivel. But he felt it, clear as the cold night air pouring into his lungs. 'Touch starved.' It wasn't anything like he had imagined, or could have ever noticed in himself in day to day, but it was now eating straight through to his very core. Even though his shoulders were hunched as if he could curve his chest inwardly away from her, he still felt like he was standing just as he should—because it was close to leaning down, straight into her, to get the full feeling of every bit of warm contact that he could out of this, so close to being perfect for his arms to reach down and wrap around her as well. He could even see his hands immobile and prepared to do just that. But he couldn't.

He stared in shock down at his hands, knowing that he absolutely should not give in to this idea—because he didn't feel the least bit like someone who could return a feeling such as this. He was not warm, or soft, or inviting. He didn't smell like spiced fruit pie and hot coffee and something else he couldn't quite name. His arms looked like that of a recluse—a true recluse, a spider—poised to swiftly launch out and grab its prey, and hopefully never let it go. He couldn't possibly move—because he couldn't be sure at all that he wouldn't make a fool of himself clinging so tightly that he'd never be able to look her in the face again.

Before he could even go back on his internal struggle, he realized that a horrible thing was taking place- in that the arms around his back were loosening, and his chest was suddenly being exposed to the harsh freezing air.

By the time she was standing back from him, at just enough of a respectable distance to look up at his face but no longer touching him even the slightest bit, all that she had to gaze upon was his impassive mask, his eyes looking straight through her. This was more because he did not think that he could say what he needed to if he dared look her directly in the eye.

"Are you finished?" he said, in a low dull voice that he could pass off as tiredly annoyed if he had to.

But her eyes were peering into his, not with the intensity that he had expected, but a soft and quiet expectancy. Her lips pulled into a slow knowing smile.

"Liar."

He blinked lazily, finally letting his eyes focus on hers. His expression remained immaculate.

He was a liar. A perfectly conditioned, especially trained, honed to a fine point—liar. And in that moment, he truly wished that he wasn't; and that she would smack the lie right off his face, make his eyes stop trying so hard to be cold, and force his mouth to firmly, without even room for an omission of truth, shut up at last.

And he found, as his stomach flipped over at the tiny yet recognizable change in her eyes, that he was a better liar than even he had thought—because he held unquestionably still even as she retraced one of her steps back towards him. Though, perhaps if he was truly a liar, he might run away, not rigidly hold his place as she got near enough that he had to tilt his head down, just slightly, to look at her.

He still upheld his deceptive arrogantly raised chin, even as she tentatively raised her hands to his chest. She stopped there, appearing just as uncertain as he felt underneath it all, as if she wasn't sure she was allowed to touch him. Typical nonsensical Freya rules—invade his space one moment, and then act like she had suddenly remembered boundaries existed the next—right when he was silently begging her to forget them.

She was looking from his chest and back up to him, and he finally had to make a dent in his expression to frown in confusion. Looking up at him almost apologetically, she lightly touched the folded edge of his robes—and then gripped them and pulled him down to just above her eye level, rendering his whole entire façade quite utterly nonexistent as he was abruptly placed barely a hand away from her face. Thankfully she looked just as shocked as he did, as if she couldn't believe she had done this, and he wanted to scream that this was quite literally all being done by her hand alone so how dare she look so naively innocent. Nothing could have come from his mouth with his tongue so glued to the roof of it, though.

With sheepish excitement plainly on her face, he watched her mouth curling into a hesitant grin that she was trying without success to bite back, and then he quickly darted his eyes away in irritation at the memory of all the times he had guiltily watched her do this at a much further distance. He kept his eyes down, his lashes thankfully obscuring her eyes from view so that he could have just a tiny last bit of privacy left in this world. His robes were being gently tugged forward, and he had to close his eyes anyway.

However, he didn't want to fully, and he kept the snowy ground in view for as long as he could, staring, in and out of focus as their breath mixed together in opaque white, at the toes of her boots just in line with his, feeling as if there was somehow, someway, still time to move them and make a run for it.

He closed his eyes with finality and let his face be led to wherever was the perfect height and placement for her, feeling his throat give up as he was let off the hook of anything visual, trying to swallow down his nerves.

There could have perhaps been a cozy fire radiating somewhere a foot or more before him, if it weren't for the way the sound of quiet breathing was kept closely penned in from the vast outdoors all around, making the world suddenly seem small, simplistic, and with slightly less air than he was accustomed to. He held perfectly still, and waited.

The second dragged on longer than he had expected, and soon even the gentle breath brushing his cheeks seemed to fade, so that everything in the world went quiet, blanketed in snow and a tantalizingly close warmth that he couldn't quite feel just yet.

More time passed, and he started to immediately panic, thinking he was either just being messed with, or something was wrong. But he could feel the fabric of his robes still held tight, and she was definitely still exactly where he was imagining her, just not the next bit of where he was imagining her. His breath hitched as he thought he realized what was happening.

They seemed to be communicating just in breaths, because he heard hers rise in response, and he was sure then that he was correct. She was holding completely still—waiting for him. His brow knit in aggravation, because he had not signed up for this.

This was so just like her—some stupid idiotic test, just like she was always doing to him. This could very well be just one big joke to her, and if he made a move, she would just back right up twenty feet away, wiping her precious little pure and goodly mouth and laughing at him.

It could be that she was just testing his own purity, to see if he would dare approach her, when he was meant to perhaps just say no to drunken kisses in the woods at midnight.

Maybe... maybe this was an even more elaborate trick, to lure him in... gain his trust... and then—

He leaned forward the inch that was needed, feeling soft, warm lips give under his gentle touch.

And then his spine fully melted, and he let out the last of the air from his lungs in an anguished pant, finally doing what he couldn't a moment ago and grabbing her fully in his arms as his brain switched blissfully off.

The little noise of surprise she made as his mouth pressed down hard over hers was barely registered, as all he existed to focus on now was the wondrously hot cushiony feeling. His lips parted automatically, starving with each frantic kiss to feel as much as possible, like he might die of cold at any moment and this was the only source of heat left in the world. A delicious smooth heat, just hotter than his own mouth, breathing warmth into him that only made his grip around the similarly warm body in his arms strengthen. Everything was exquisitely warm, even her hair, as his hand slid up her back underneath it, and he distantly heard, though it was delivered straight into his mouth, another small startled noise.

His mouth stopped moving on his next kiss, sighing irritably through his nose at the sound. Instead of continuing another working of his lips over hers, he tilted his head fully to one side, ducking away from her mouth and to her neck, where he met his hand just as his fingertips slipped into the base of her hair. This only caused more breathless sounds to come from her, though, and he huffed a quickened breath of his own out onto the smooth exposed skin. She shuddered in his arms.

With a painful bitter smile, he cracked open his eyes just enough to see the auburn hair all around him, wishing she would stop making so much noise so that he didn't have to be so painfully aware of who she was, and who she wasn't.

Squeezing his eyes tight, he held his lungs still, gently brushing just his fingers through her hair as his lips made contact with her neck and she seized up so much that he felt her shoulder raise into the back of his head. The corners of his mouth curled, feeling wickedly rewarded. He pressed a few more kisses into place, trying to ignore, but also enjoying, that he could hear the tiny sounds just above his ear. She practically pulled his whole face into her neck when he dared lightly poking out his tongue. He was pretty sure she had heard or felt his silent laughter at her reaction, because she drew in a deep steadying breath and sighed most disgruntledly.

It was hard not to laugh, though, when getting such a treat that he did not deserve. He was an unscrupulous bandit that just wanted to tease her and listen to the sound of her voice—only, it was hard not to realize to whom the voice belonged, and why it was so fun to mess with her. As he left her neck alone, making his way slowly back to her mouth, his grin wavered to a frown, but he ignored it, leaning back into her lips that felt softer than he could have imagined in his wildest dreams.

But this was not a dream, and he certainly really, truly was kissing somebody. His frown deepened, and he tried desperately to focus on just her mouth, even chancing sliding his tongue out to get a taste of her lower lip. The flavor was of firewhisky, however, and he knew perfectly well why. But he couldn't let this go just yet; wouldn't let his mind start reeling with unnecessary inconsequential things. He didn't want a reason to feel guilty for the way he could feel the hands gripping his robes trembling against him, or to feel embarrassed for the way it was so apparent in his hungrily moving mouth that he was hopelessly desperate for more than he could even think. He just wanted to keep his arms locked tight in place, to gently switch between brushing just the surface of his lips against hers, to pressing down as hard as he could until their heads both turned to accommodate this tightly locked kiss. He wanted, more than anything, to hear her laugh right into him, in that musical way that always sounded just out of reach, but now would have been close enough for him to hear every differing note. He wanted-if he ever so slowly lightened each kiss until they were barely touching as he did now-her to be the one to lean forward and pull him back in. Only he couldn't seem to pull his lips away long enough to let her even try. And when he finally did, all that he could focus on was the sudden urge to use this tiny gap to whisper her name.

With his pulse hotly beating, a steady kicked-up buzz of wine that he didn't realize was still lying dormant was delivered to every part of his body, and he slowly pulled back, a creeping feeling of total defeat and dread sinking into his shoulders. His eyes blinked and looked up as he gained more room to see, and he didn't need to say her name any longer, because it was jumping out from the box that he had trapped it in, where it had beat like his heart the whole time, trying to be let out.

He gazed down at Freya's face as the panic was leaping through his chest, taking in her lips that were rubbed red from where he had kissed her perhaps much too feverishly, and her eyes, still especially foggy and half-lidded, like she was finding it harder to wake herself up from this than he was. His eyes were already wide and stricken by the time she caught up, and then she, too, looked shocked, though her expression still seemed rather dazed.

"Oh... shit," she breathed out.

My thoughts exactly, he thought, but couldn't say out loud.

She took in a deep slow breath that made her body inflate so much, he could feel it against him. He quickly tore his eyes away, blinking rapidly and stumbling back to hold her at arm's length. He didn't want to be holding her shoulders much either, but as her hands were still bound to his robes, there wasn't much use of fully letting go. The cold air wrapped around him like a douse of water, feeling bleak and severe after so much warmth. He definitely didn't need to be thinking about warmth right now, though.

"I'm-" he started, but his voice was breathless, and he had to remind himself to breathe, even though there was no more preciously sweet hot air to take in, only the bracing chill that filled his lungs and had him snapping out of his fuzzy feelings right quick. "I'm-I'm sorry," he finally got out, staring at the ground and feeling rather exceptionally stupid for apologizing after the fact. Freya didn't seem to be paying him much attention, however, and when he peeked his head up, all he got in response was a view of the top of her head as she swayed straight back into him.

He caught her in surprise, blinking as his hands landed back around her waist, quickly reworking this positioning to her arms. "Uhm—" But before he could even question this, he felt her weight sliding down his chest, and he suddenly had to fully grab onto her to keep her upright.

Oh, no.

But even as he realized what was happening, mentally cursing himself out for being so stupid, there was no possible way for him to handle her. He felt the heat rising beneath his hands, and pulled away at the last minute against his instinct to catch her—for, with a crack of flame, she landed in the snow, quite literally spread eagle, as a beautiful but very drunken phoenix.

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_—***—_

"Time, it will take
Love, it will fade
Touch still remains
And keeps you warm"

B.R.M.C. - Warning Sign

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"The name death's-head hawkmoth refers to any of three moth species of the genus Acherontia." -Wikipedia