64. Periculum
By the end of the first week of October, the dizziness I'd often felt during breakfast had developed into morning sickness. The first time it happened I woke up in Severus's arms, overheated and nauseous, my pulse in my throat. My body trembling, I stood slowly from the bed and went into the loo. My movements were slow and resigned as I knelt over the toilet, gagged, and was sick.
Severus's footsteps sounded in the bedroom, and soon he was with me, kneeling behind me, gathering my hair into his hands and placing his palm on the back of my neck. I trembled; I knew I needed him, but I didn't want him to see me like this.
My stomach clenched and I was sick once more, weakly. I gasped and spat, and then breathed shakily as Severus's hand rubbed circles over my back. I kept my eyes closed, disgusted by the acidic taste in my mouth and nose, and breathed carefully until I was certain there would be no more.
"Thank you," I said, my trembling, exhausted voice quietly echoing in the toilet bowl.
He reached over my head to pull on the chain, and my sickness was flushed away. I felt his hands supporting under my arms, helping to lift me to my feet as I stood up, aching and dizzy. My hands didn't feel like my own as I twisted the knob and the water started. I rinsed my mouth, held palmfuls of water to my feverish face, and patted myself dry with a towel, breathing heavily.
"Wonderful way to wake up," Severus said.
I looked up at him, hurt.
"For you," he clarified.
I realised with guilt that I had been completely blind to the empathy of his first remark. I'd thought he'd been complaining about being awoken by me, but of course he hadn't. He hadn't complained about anything since Poppy had confirmed my fears that night. Meanwhile, my own defensiveness had only grown worse.
I sat down on the toilet seat, letting my forehead rest on my hand. "Yes, it's lovely," I said bitterly.
He filled a glass of water for me, and I sipped from it slowly as my heartbeat gradually evened again. I still felt nauseous, and the thought of eating was repulsive.
Severus stood in the doorway. I perceived something in his eyes, but could not tell what it was. Judgement? Pity?
"What are you thinking?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said.
I felt tears coiling in my throat. "Do you think I want this?"
There was a stillness in him. "I know you don't."
I stared at him for a moment, and he left, leaving me to my ever-growing guilt.
Perhaps it would have been easier had I been able to hide my true feelings about my pregnancy from him. Had I been able to pretend a kind of contentment; or, at least, confidence. But he had seen everything that night. From my anger to my fear to my panic and helplessness. And he continued to see directly through any shield I attempted to lift.
I was ashamed that, on that night, his instinct had been to support me, and mine to resist him. It had taken all of his effort over the past week to coax me into bed with him each night. Not for sex, but so that I wouldn't have to sleep alone. Each time I swallowed another vial of dreamless sleep, it felt like I was doing so in order to escape him, and the bitter taste of guilt went down with the potion.
The Ministry had sent their official congratulations in a letter. Severus and I were no longer required to have sex every month. If he'd liked to, he'd have been allowed to leave me and marry another woman. Rather than the monthly examination to prove he'd finished inside of me, I now had to submit to weekly progress checks with Poppy, to ensure that the child was growing well. Poppy gave me a list of necessary foods.
The fact was that the Ministry had taken away my control. They had taken possession of my body, and though I knew he didn't consciously believe it, I felt that Severus somehow owned me now that I had his child. I had lost touch with my independence, and didn't know where to turn.
That weekend I gave the news to Molly. She was overjoyed to hear about the pregnancy, and told me she'd suspected it the moment she'd seen me at Shell Cottage. She announced it to the rest of the family with happiness, and I tried to smile through the numb feeling inside of me. Severus was there, but kept his silence.
"What's the matter with him?" Ginny asked, when the meeting had moved to the sitting room, leaving us alone with mum in the kitchen.
"Oh, he just needs a good strong cuppa," Molly said. "Will you put the kettle on again, dear?"
Her happiness, and likely her nostalgia for her own first pregnancies, was blinding her to how I felt. I held down my emotions, trying my hardest not to resent her. I wasn't exactly making an effort to make my true feelings known. How could I have done, when all I received were congratulations?
Hermione was the only one who understood. She took me aside later, when I was putting on my coat by the door, and embraced me. I returned the gesture tentatively at first, but Hermione was surprisingly warm, and I melted. "I'm so sorry," she whispered in my ear.
We separated when Severus came down the narrow hallway, and I submitted as he did up the buttons of my coat, silent and emotionless.
"Goodbye! Write me everything!" Molly called, waving from the kitchen. I lifted my hand half heartedly and went with Severus out the door, into the cold wind.
My prediction had been right, the day that Baddock had earned himself a detention and a meeting with McGonagall. Most of the students now knew about my past marriage to Remus, as well as my present one to Severus. One evening, on a solitary walk after dinner, I found an old copy of the Prophet, which contained Rita Skeeter's article, blowing across the transfiguration courtyard. So, the story was being passed around in the common rooms. No matter. The students' knowledge of the marriages was nothing compared to what they would know eventually, once I started to show.
They're only students, I told myself. But I had been a student myself too recently to deny the power and legitimacy of their judgements.
It stung when I noticed wariness or unpleasant amusement in the faces of the older students. "Imagine having to marry two of your old professors," one girl said quietly, when she didn't think I could hear. I appreciated, at least, her choice of words. Having to.
Of all the students, the first years were the most open to me, and the least changed by the gossip. None of them cringed away when I inspected their cauldrons, or looked at me askance whilst copying instructions from the blackboard. Teaching them was always refreshing. They were the second chance that our world was so fortunate to have.
As the month of October got further underway, their main concern and excitement was the impending Quidditch season. The teams could be seen practising on the Quidditch pitch in the early mornings, and the first match would be on the second of November, between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.
"Did you play Quidditch in school, Professor?" Daisy Zeller asked me, before class started one Thursday morning.
"No," I said, with a laugh. Fred had tried his hardest to get me to try out for the Gryffindor team in my third year, but I'd been too afraid of being badly injured, and preferred to fly for fun.
"Did you see Harry Potter play?"
His name evoked a ripple of respect and wonder among the students present, as it always had done, and always would.
"I did," I said, deciding to indulge their curiosity.
"What was it like? Watching him fly?"
"A thrill," I said. "We were all impressed when he got on the team as a first year. He was really excellent at the game."
"Didn't he catch the snitch with his mouth in his first year?" Mr. Yarrow asked, his eyes wide with excitement.
Mr. Cowan piped up as well. "Didn't he use his broomstick in the Triwizard Tournament?"
I answered their questions, telling them the bits I remembered from various Quidditch matches past, until the time came to begin the class. I was pleased by their enthusiasm, and was looking forward to the first match of the year, myself. Minerva had brought up Quidditch in the last two staff meetings, and it was going to be amusing, watching her attempt to remain impartial, as her role as headmistress required, despite having supported Gryffindor with everything short of violence for the past four decades.
Flashes of nausea were not confined to the early morning hours, as I soon discovered. After my first years had been dismissed, the seventh years came in. The Polyjuice Potion would be finished today, and most of the class were eagerly clutching vials of hair from their consenting classmates, along with signed notes to prove that the hair did not belong to any student below sixth year. The lunch hour would come directly after the class, and the potion would last for its duration, leaving them to return to their proper bodies before the start of afternoon classes.
It wasn't until towards the end of the class, when the cauldron was full of thick, throatily boiling grey-green potion, that the fumes began to get to me. The smell was noxious, and though I knew it would not harm the child–Severus had assured me of that–I thought that if I inhaled too deeply I would be ill.
I opened a window and stood by it discreetly while the students dipped flasks into the cauldron, withdrawing the proper amount. I had to avert my eyes–the very sight of it made my stomach roil. I pointed my nose out the window, focusing on the fog and layered trees of the forest, and the smell of the crisp fresh air, rather than the mounting nausea in my stomach.
"Are you alright, Professor?"
"Yes, thank you, Adams. Carry on."
Soon enough everyone who wanted to participate had filled their flasks, and at my final word, they put in the hairs they'd brought, and drank the vile potion. I watched their bubbling skin for as long as I could before I was forced to look away again. Luckily, none of them seemed to notice my deep breathing and my clenched hands, too busy watching themselves transform in the full-length mirror I'd dragged into the classroom for the day. A few seconds passed, and then exclamations of "Merlin!" and "Bloody cool!" sounded, in the voices of students who had, moments before, been elsewhere.
I looked over and was amused by the assortment of sixth and seventh years which stood before me. It was a few minutes before the end of the class, but I decided to let them out early. If I was going to be sick, I didn't want to do it in their presence. "Go on, and have a bit of fun," I said. "Within reason."
Calls of "Yes, Professor!" sounded as they gathered their belongings and stole from the room, laughing giddily and looking at their hands and their classmates in wonder.
The door slipped closed behind the last student, and I bent over in relief. I stayed there for another minute until I sensed that I was not really going to be ill. Keeping my movements careful, I stood up, scourgified the empty cauldron from a distance, and left the rest of the clean-up for later. I needed a bit of fresh air.
It took it slow up the dungeon stairs and walked through the corridors towards the transfiguration courtyard. I reached the arches of the stone arcade just as the other classes let out for lunch, and was sitting under the tree in the corner when it happened.
It was quick. A flash of bright blue light. Then, distinctly, over a wave of gasps, "Mudblood!"
There was an awful beat of silence, followed by a high-pitched scream. In a moment I was up and running across the grass towards the opposite end of the courtyard, from where the disturbance had come.
A crowd of students had gathered and I pushed my way through to the clearing. Dennis Creevey's voice sounded over the heads of the students, and he had a young boy by the arm. "That language will not be tolerated. Who is your head of house?"
"Professor Snape," the boy said, rather confidently. And I recognised him as Brodie Baddock. Sitting on the ground in shock behind him and Dennis was none other than Phoebe, blood flooding from her nose over her lips and onto the front of her robes. Her face was tight and full of pale fury.
"What happened here?" I demanded, rushing to her and undoing the recognisable nosebleed jinx. All lingering traces of nausea were erased from my body as rage reared its ugly head in my chest. I felt more angry than I'd felt since the war. I had to remind myself forcefully that this was a school, not a battlefield, and that I could not draw my wand to retaliate against the offender.
Ameze Adesina, Gryffindor first-year, stepped forward. "I saw the whole thing," she said evenly. "Baddock said she was a worthless orphan, and that's why she studies so hard, to make up for it. Then she cast a spell that sent him flying backward, and he called her a… a mudblood, and jinxed her nose to bleed."
I couldn't help but feel a moment's pride. The blue light I'd noticed from across the courtyard confirmed that Phoebe had used the knockback jinx, which was a difficult one to master for young students new to using magic.
Running footsteps could be heard beyond the crowd of onlookers, and soon Malcolm Baddock was there. He lunged towards his little brother, but Dennis Creevey stood in front of him. "Back off, Baddock."
Malcolm smiled. "I only want to know what the matter is. I hear a Ravenclaw threw my brother to the floor." He crouched down. "Are you alright, Brodie?"
"Never better," said the boy. I looked at him, sadness coiling around my throat. Young Brodie was in one of my double potions classes with Slytherins and Ravenclaws. He had struck me since the first day as a very quiet boy. I had noticed of course that he was Malcolm's brother–I remembered him from the sorting ceremony–but I'd assumed he had yet to come fully under his older brother's influence. Here, however, was evidence to the contrary. It seemed that the anger at being jinxed by Phoebe had brought an ugliness out of him. Perhaps the ugliness wasn't his own. Perhaps the word, mudblood, was frequently used in his home, and had fallen from his lips with ease because of this. But his face was a hard mask of privilege and resistance, and my sadness promptly turned to disgust.
"Your filthy brother called me a mudblood!" Phoebe said. They were her first words, and though they came out with a half-plugged sound because of her recently abated nosebleed, they were full of power and hatred.
Malcolm turned to her and narrowed his eyes. "And are you?"
"Mr. Baddock," I said, standing up and shielding Phoebe as Dennis continued to shield Brodie. "I'm sure I don't need to remind you of your conversation with Professor McGonagall. If you cannot contain your prejudices, you will face expulsion."
"Expulsion?" Malcolm scoffed. "My father's a member of the board!"
Fire surged up in me as I was reminded of Lucius Malfoy. Yes, Baddock's face contained the same awful confidence that Draco's always had. "Your father has no power to cancel your expulsion, and Hogwarts will carry on with or without his support. Our world is not the same as it was last year, Mr. Baddock. Both of you." I turned to include Brodie in my address, and I sensed a flicker of fear behind the coldness of his young eyes. "And the old prejudices, no matter how comfortable they may feel for you–"
But Malcolm had begun to laugh, a low chuckle. "You'll all see," he said, almost to himself.
"See what, Mr. Baddock?"
It was Severus, and relief flooded me at the sight of him. He was the more experienced disciplinarian, and though I knew firsthand how miserable it was to incur his wrath as a student, I was now grateful for his presence. Had I been left in charge any longer, my anger would have gotten away with me.
The students gave Severus ample room as he cut through the crowd. An instinctive shying away, clasping of hands, bowing of heads and hunching of shoulders lingered from his year as headmaster of the school.
"Professor," Malcolm began, pointing at Phoebe. "This girl used a knockback jinx on my–"
"Silence."
Everyone obeyed.
"Professor," Dennis Creevey said, after a moment. I watched Severus's face as Dennis quickly reiterated what had taken place between the two students.
Severus's expression was cold and stern as he turned his gaze on Brodie, who trembled slightly. "I believe, Mr. Baddock, a detention is in order."
An ingratiating expression swam to the surface of Malcolm's face. "Professor–"
"Silence!"
Shock erased all previous traces of entitlement. Here was Severus Snape, former Death Eater, about to give one of his own house detention for use of the word mudblood. Malcolm was not the only Slytherin who looked taken aback as he grasped the sincerity of Severus's anger.
I felt a private pang in my heart as I recalled the night of the pensieve, and the memory in which the same wicked word had escaped Severus's lips.
"Mr. Creevey," Severus said, taking Brodie by the wrist. His eyes were black and burning. "I believe the headmistress is presently in her office. Please escort the elder Mr. Baddock into her care."
Then he turned on his heel and Brodie hurried to keep up with his adult strides as he was pulled down the corridor. Mutters broke out amongst the crowd of students.
Malcolm's face had grown red with anger. "How come my brother is punished when she was the one to start it?" He pointed brutally at Phoebe, who was just managing to pick herself up from the flagstones.
"I will take care of Miss Elson," I said. "Everyone else, proceed to the great hall immediately."
The students quickly dispersed. Dennis Creevey seemed taller than he ever had before as he addressed Malcolm Baddock coldly. "Come along, Baddock."
Malcolm glared daggers at the back of Dennis's head, and it was not my imagination when I saw his lips silently form the awful slur again, mudblood, before he drew himself up and stiffly followed Dennis towards the stairs.
Phoebe was rubbing her face with her knuckles, desperate to get the drying blood off of her skin. The only thing I ever could have imagined Phoebe would be punished for was excessive hand-raising. I saw that tears were welling in her eyes at the unexpected promise of discipline. "Come on," I said. "We need to speak in private."
Poppy didn't even wince at the sight of the blood on Phoebe's face. Worse cases had come and gone from the hospital wing over the years, and a minor nosebleed was nothing to fuss about. Phoebe sat on the last cot in the ward and cried with uncontrollable anger as Poppy and I worked to clean her face. I scourgified the front of her robes, and Poppy gave me a terse nod before leaving us alone.
"I'm sorry," the girl said, her voice hoarse. "I know I shouldn't have hurt him. I couldn't help it!"
"I know," I said, before she could proceed. "You're not being punished. Tell me what happened, from your point of view."
She looked down at her hands, which twisted in her lap. I had not yet seen her like this, but was well acquainted with the small and anxious child which lived inside all orphans, and never quite left, no matter how strong the exterior grew.
"He said I was compensating," she said, her voice trembling with hatred. "Because I have no parents, I have to work harder to make up for it. I thought there was no word worse than orphan, said in hatred. But there is!"
Another wave of tears burst from her eyes and, disregarding the rules against touching students, I pulled Phoebe close. Her arms locked around my neck and she cried into my shoulder.
"I'm the same," I said, in an attempt to soothe her. "I lived in a home before I came to Hogwarts, and that's why Professor McGonagall sent me to meet you in the summer. I am an orphan, and a muggle born too. There is no shame in either of those things, no matter what people like the Baddock brothers believe."
"I hate him!" Phoebe cried.
"I know," I said. I pulled away to look into her face. "Between you and me, I don't personally disapprove of your actions. However, I will have to give you detention for using the knockback jinx on a classmate. And I must encourage you to never do so again."
She nodded, wiping her tears away, her face regaining its former toughness. "What are you going to have me do?"
"Oh, I don't know," I said, the perfect thing dawning on me. "How about you help me mark papers?" I proposed. "I have a stack of late work from Mr. Baddock which I've yet to get around to."
There was a moment, while she worked out my meaning. And then she grinned.
The problem of Malcolm Baddock was brought up at the staff meeting the following evening.
Severus had presided over two days of detention, as Brodie cleaned the Owlery without magic. He seemed, Severus said, "sufficiently humbled." But Minerva had been disturbed by the lack of genuine remorse his older brother had exhibited when seated on the subordinate side of her desk for the second time that year.
"Why not expel him?" Neville said. I had no doubt that he was treating both brothers quite harshly in his Herbology lessons.
Minerva shook her head, her eyes tired and worried. "I cannot expel the boy. He has not hurt anyone. And remember, it is Brodie who has used the offending word against a fellow student, not Malcolm. To expel either of them would cause uproar. Not to mention, it would be unprecedented to expel a student for an offence which seems, on the surface, so small."
Neville's hand clenched into a fist in anger, but neither him nor anyone else could argue. Hogwarts was under the microscope, we knew. We had to tread carefully.
"Of course, this does not mean the boy cannot be sufficiently punished within the walls of the school," Severus said.
Flitwick cocked his head. "You know as well as any, Snape, that detentions are insufficient to drive out prejudices so bone-deep."
I flushed with indignation and opened my mouth to protest. How dare he compare Severus to the Baddock brothers?
But Severus caught my infuriated eyes from across the table and shook his head. I kept my mouth shut.
"Nevertheless, Filius," Minerva said, sensing the tensions at play in the room and quelling them expertly. "Severus is correct. We will have to settle, for now, for continued discipline."
"Yeah, until one of them really does hurt someone," Neville said.
There was a moment of silence, and we all struggled to keep our heads up under the weight of the possibility. Then the conversation moved on to a different subject.
On the second Saturday of October, I apparated to the village in the lake district where Severus's preferred apothecary was located. Now that the seventh years had finished with the Polyjuice, I needed to obtain one last rare ingredient for the potion we would begin brewing on Monday.
Another meeting of the Order had concluded minutes before, and Molly had departed to meet Gabriel, who had come from France, and take him to see Andromeda at St. Mungo's. I'd said goodbye to Teddy with many kisses, leaving him in the care of Ginny and Harry until Molly's return. Severus had taken the floo directly back to Hogwarts, and I apparated from the entryway.
For a moment, after landing again on solid ground, a subtle current of nausea rolled through my stomach. Andromeda's continued unresponsiveness had left me distressed and anxious, and Malcolm Baddock's taunting words, "You'll all see," though dismissed as an empty threat by McGonagall, had gotten to me.
But as I stood at the top of the hill which looked down on the small hamlet, the silver lake, and the burning autumn trees which outlined it, I allowed the view and the chilly, windy air to ease my heart and body.
I walked through the long wet grasses down the hill until I found the pathway which led up from the small cluster of houses. I then followed it down, the earth loose from the damp and the cold, threatening to slide and shift beneath my shoes. I came to the house with the thatched roof, which I remembered from my previous visit with Severus, and knocked thrice on the door.
There was a loud clattering sound from inside, and I started, waiting anxiously as I heard the shuffling footsteps of Hieronymus on the other side of the door. He opened it just a crack and peered out, none of him visible but his eye and nose. A wizened man, I recalled him being old and deferential, but he seemed to have aged since I had seen him in the summer. His eye narrowed as he tried to place me.
"Mrs. Snape," he said at last.
The door opened fully, and I stepped into the front room. Dust had claimed many of the surfaces, and he looked around at his stores as though he didn't trust them. His thin body was tense and anxious.
"Please call me Wilma," I said.
He narrowed his eyes again. "Alright… Wilma, what is it you need today?"
"Dragon scales."
He nodded, quickly going into the corner. I was puzzled by his behaviour; he seemed nervous in his own shop. "I have Peruvian Vipertooth, or Romanian Longhorn."
"The longhorn, please."
I followed him and watched as he pulled a long wooden drawer out of the wall. It was full of shining green scales, each one the size of my hand. "How many?"
"Three, please."
He took three large scales from the drawer and carried them to his desk, forgetting to close the drawer. I pushed it slowly back into the wall and followed him. He had begun to wrap the scales in brown paper, his hands trembling as though from extreme cold or arthritis as he did so.
When I approached he looked up suddenly, as though I had shouted, though I'd not made a peep. "Will that be all?" he said, his eyes wide.
"Yes, thank you," I said.
I continued to watch his hands with concern, as he finished the wrapping and tied a piece of twine around the paper.
"Are you alright, sir?" I couldn't help asking.
"Yes, Mrs. Snape," he said.
No sooner had he spoken than a pounding knock came at the door, and Hieronymus looked up at it as though the person on the other side were delivering the date of his beheading.
My hand went to my pocket, to withdraw my small pouch of galleons. But Hieronymus made an urgent gesture with his hand, and thrust the package of scales towards me.
"No!" he whispered, his face trembling. "Take them! Go!"
"But–"
He made an urgent hissing sound, pulled me by the elbow into another room, opened a door, and practically pushed me out into the cold air. He thrust the paper package against my chest, I took it, and he closed the door suddenly and quietly.
At a loss, I walked shivering around the side of the house and looked into the front window. A man in a thick black cloak was standing at Hieronymus's desk, his face hidden under a long hood. He held a case in his hand, which he lifted onto the desk as though it weighed a great deal.
An inexplicable cold feeling trickled down my spine.
Hieronymus's face turned towards me abruptly, cast in dramatic warmth and shadow by the lamp, just as a coarse wind came racing down from the hills, carrying the very first fallen leaves, still healthy and red. The cloaked man began to turn, noticing Hieronymus's distraction, and I quickly stepped away from the window before I could be seen. My heart pounding, I stepped around the side of the house again and, tightly clutching the dragon scales, disapparated.
The wind was high that night, howling and incessant. It brought no rain or thunder, helplessly moaning and searching in vain among the eaves and turrets. The faint vibrations of the wind ran through my mind and kept me from sleeping. I couldn't forget the black cloaked figure I had seen through the window of Hieronymus's shop.
Wearing my dressing gown over my pyjamas, I took my candle down the stairs past gently snoring portraits, and two ladies having a late-night tea party.
Severus had told me he preferred Hieronymus precisely because he sold items that were imported and difficult to come by. Perhaps the cloaked stranger had only been delivering a taboo ingredient. But if that was the case, why had Hieronymus been so frightened by his arrival?
I walked down the first floor corridor until I came to the open stone arcade that surrounded the transfiguration courtyard. I gasped as my candle was blown out by the wind, which whipped the branches of the large oak tree and caused a flurry of leaves to fall. The feeling of the cold, damp wind was invigorating. Clouds raced across the sky, and I looked up to see the smallest waxing crescent moon, hanging in the darkness.
My eyes slipped closed and I remained that way, feeling the wind tugging on my dressing gown and my hair, until I sensed someone watching me. I opened my eyes and turned to see Severus, standing by the corner.
"Can't sleep," I explained.
He walked forward at a cautious pace and stopped, leaving a fair distance between our bodies. He had yet to undress, and I figured he had also been kept up by the wind.
"Did you eat enough today?" he asked. I hadn't seen him since we'd parted ways in London earlier that afternoon.
"Yes," I sighed.
There was a moment of silence as I sensed his approval, and pressed down my instinctive annoyance.
"Did you get what you needed from Hieronymus?"
"Yes," I answered. "But it was odd. He had a visitor who seemed to worry him."
"How so?"
"He seemed nervous when he first saw me. Like he was expecting someone else. And when the visitor knocked he rushed me out the door without letting me pay. I looked in the window… he had a long black cloak and a case that looked heavy. I left before I could see what was inside." I couldn't help but shiver slightly, and I didn't think it was from the wind.
Severus's eyebrows had furrowed. "I will visit him tomorrow, if you think it wise."
"I think so."
Silence fell, and the wind tore through. I clutched the extinguished candle in my hands. I was quite aware of the space between our bodies. We had slept together many times since Poppy's examination, but we had not touched intimately. As Severus turned his gaze upon the grass of the courtyard, and the leaves blowing there, I recalled the argument which had led up to my finally admitting I was late for my cycle.
"I don't blame you for the miscarriage, Severus," I said quietly.
I sensed a depth of guilt in his stillness. "I made you fall."
I couldn't help but wince at the memory. How betrayed I had felt when his magical restraints had caught around my ankles. How my first wand had been snapped. The words I'd said afterward. I hate you.
I felt an outpouring of empathy towards him. "You didn't know. You were trying to keep me safe."
His hair moved slightly in the wind. I wanted to go to him, but I stopped myself. I had not thought about it before, but I saw now that if I had not lost Remus's child, then there never would have been cause to marry Severus.
I spoke carefully, the wax of the candle warm from my hand. "If it hadn't happened… We wouldn't be here."
"I have considered that."
Of course he had.
He was quiet for a long moment. His head turned and there was that old guardedness in his face. "Do you regret it?"
"Marrying you?"
He nodded.
"No," I said firmly.
A tenderness entered his eyes, and his body slowly gilded forward, closing the distance between us. His hand caressed my hair, tucking the wild, wind-kissed strands behind my ears. I felt my breath weaken as he bent down and touched his lips to my forehead, my temple, my cheekbone…
"What are you doing?" I breathed.
His lips had reached the corner of my open mouth, slow and sure against my trembling. His voice was deep and gentle, and its vibrations travelled directly to my belly. "How long will you hide from me?"
I kept my body very still, afraid of its swarming arousal and shame. "I…" I whispered. "I didn't think you would want to touch me now."
The wind itself shuddered as he drew away to look into my eyes. I watched him, failing to understand as he undid the tie of my dressing gown. Then his hand slipped under my pyjama shirt and pressed gently against my belly. I felt my eyes fill with tears. The wind quickened, embracing the two of us. I felt the candle threatening to fall from my grip.
"Did it ever cross your mind… that I might want the child?"
His hand continued to hold my belly, warming it, protecting it. I was unable to absorb the significance of his words. It had never crossed my mind that he felt any different about the pregnancy than I did. Now my unrelenting anger towards my condition felt even more wicked, and in the very core of my soul I felt a small seedling of fear waver in the gusts of wind.
Severus's voice entered me and lingered, a salve to my heart. "You are allowed to be afraid. Unhappy. I do not resent you for it."
I was speechless as his free hand wrapped around mine, helping me to hold the candle steadily. Then his other hand left my belly, leaving its warmth to linger there, and swept over the blackened wick. The flame wavered to life again. I lifted my hand and held it around the flame to guard it from the wind. The small light warmed his eyes, exposing the layers of amber and dark gold that I loved.
"Come back with me," he said.
We sat up late together, marking papers by the fire in his office. I sat in the chair where he had once saved my life. The wind moaned against the windows.
I was so immersed in my reading that I didn't notice Severus had left his own chair until he was knelt before me. I looked down at him in surprise. His palms cupped my knees, and his deep brown eyes looked into mine as he gently pressed them apart. I couldn't speak, and could barely breathe as he leaned forward, his face between my legs, and kissed my centre through my pyjamas. His warm breath seeped through the fabric, and my whole body trembled. The papers I'd been reading fell from my weak hand and scattered over the floor as I forgot about everything but him.
His lips pressed harder against my nub and I gasped, only for him to retreat, rubbing his lips gently, tantalisingly, over the fabric. His fingers hooked over my waistband, and I arched my back. But just as I did, he withdrew his touch. His hands rested on my knees again.
I watched his eyes for a sign, and they looked back, full of power and desire. "I want to watch you touch yourself."
My jaw went limp. What?
The corner of his mouth twitched. "Has a man never asked this of you before?"
"No…"
I couldn't help my nervousness. But beneath it was a budding excitement. This would be new, but perhaps it would be good. Severus certainly seemed to want it.
I flushed warmly, hearing the soft whistling of the wind and the crackling of the logs in the fireplace. Holding the intense contact of his eyes, I sat up and began to unbutton my top.
His hands abandoned my knees, and I looked at him in confusion as he moved backward. "Don't do it for me," he said.
I understood then. I stood from the chair and turned from him, trying to pretend as though he were not there. I took off my clothes slowly, touching my skin as I would have done in solitude. I stroked my naked arms, felt the firmness of my bum, held my breasts, and slowly traced the V of my hips. I lowered myself slowly to the soft rug in front of the fire, and rolled onto my back. My legs fell open and I let my eyes slip closed, feeling Severus's presence as I breathed slowly. I touched my breasts, gently circling my nipples, feeling how tender they were. My hands moved naturally with the changing sensations in my body, and I arched my back slightly for myself when my fingers touched the growing wetness between my legs. I rubbed slow circles, letting my hips roll gently, nibbling on my bottom lip. As my pleasure mounted my arm lifted restlessly above my head, and in those mindless moments I was whole again, connected to my body, trusting that it would always give me what I needed. A thin sweat broke out over my skin as my body bent with effort, and I came with a low groan, convulsing once, twice. I let my fingers rest in the notch of slick warmth between my legs as I breathed slowly, coming down.
My eyes drifted open and came to rest on Severus. He'd been watching, sitting on the floor and leaning back against the chair. His eyes were hot and yearning, and I sensed his whole body imploring him to lunge forward and take me.
"Come here," I whispered.
He moved slowly, still resisting instinct as he crawled to me, but did not touch me. Another wave of desire began to gain strength in my belly as I waited to see what he would do.
His next words came as a surprise.
"What do you want me to do to you?"
I felt the power he had given to me, and realised that I enjoyed rather than feared it. I let my eyes travel downward to my open knees. "Taste," I whispered.
He took this soft command wholeheartedly and I mewled as his hands slid beneath my hips, lifting them off the floor. His hungry eyes glinted as his face lowered, and his tongue slid over my slickness.
"Severus!" I cried, pleasure rocketing through my body as his mouth latched onto me. I was burning hot, itching, helpless. I wanted him. "Carry me to bed!"
He swept my naked body into his arms and I clung to him, throbbing, as he took me through the door to the bedroom and laid me down on the bed. His hand waved as I began to undress him ravenously, and another fire sprang to life in the smaller fireplace.
He kissed me, his mouth open and his breath hard and urgent, and his hands caressed my face and my sides as I took off his clothes, whimpering as my fingers worked over his stubborn buttons. Then he was finally naked, his erection hot and firm, and I hooked my ankles behind his back, bringing him into me with a high and tremulous cry.
His deep voice shattered over me like a waterfall, and I moaned with every breath, gripping his back and running my fingers urgently through his hair. I shook my head fitfully and arched my back, stretched to my limits but wanting more.
"You're so…" I moaned, "So…"
He released a conquering groan, knowing what I meant, and the sound sliced across my hips, deepening the heat. I pushed him and he rolled over obligingly. Now I could angle my hips and take him more deeply, and I wailed with warring relief and need. His hands were firm and guiding on my back, and I bent to kiss him, watching the mounting weakness in his eyes. He held my breasts as I rode him with all my might. "They're sensitive," I whimpered. His touch softened, gentle and perfect.
The wind's sound heightened to a fever pitch as I felt myself tightening around him, my hips aching and my thighs quaking from anticipation. It took all of my strength to keep going. Severus was lost in pleasure, moaning, his face flushed and open.
Time disappeared, and we were full of nothing but need for each other. I cried out desperately, grinding against him, throbbing and clenching uncontrollably until I was finally torn apart, practically screaming with bliss. His hands greedily pulled my hips closer, and I buckled and collapsed on top of him as he climaxed, swearing freely and ensnaring me with his arms as his hips thrust upward, leaving my mind spinning.
We lay together panting and moaning, and I soon realised that tears were running down my face. My body shook against his. "I don't know why I'm crying," I apologised.
His hands soothed me, sliding down my back. "I believe this is normal," he said, and my tears turned into hysterical laughter.
He chuckled softly as he cradled me and stroked my skin, rubbing my shoulders and my back until I was quiet again. I pressed my lips to his chest and let my tongue touch his skin, the salt of his sweat, the salt of my tears.
"You are so beautiful," he said.
I listened to his steady breathing, and we lay quietly there as our bodies slowly softened and cooled down. The wind continued to howl outside, as though begging to be let in.
It was many minutes before Severus's voice vibrated through his chest again. "Tell me a memory."
"What kind of memory?"
"From your childhood. Before you were adopted."
I felt my lower back tense with the memories, stored deep in my spine. "They're not very happy," I whispered.
He was silent, waiting, and I decided I wanted to open up to him, if I could. It was hard to let my mind drift to that place again, but slowly I relaxed my body and the old memories floated to the surface. I remembered the smell of the freshly washed shirts, the heat of the iron, the steam.
"The younger children would do the laundry and pin it up outside. I was eight, I think, and it was my job to do the ironing. Standing all day long on a stool, just to reach the ironing board. It took a while to get the hang of. I got a couple of burns. They gave the more dangerous jobs to the older children."
"Eight was older?" Severus said, a hint of detestation in his voice.
I placed my hand flat on his chest, placatingly. "I made the fires too. There was a blizzard in the city one winter, and my hands were too cold to work. I was so cold that the fire started on its own. That was before I knew, but I'd started to suspect that I wasn't quite normal. Luckily nobody was looking at that moment, and I threw the kindling in and pretended nothing out of the ordinary had happened."
I paused for a moment, surprised by how vividly I could suddenly remember that snowstorm. How all of the children had huddled close to each other by the fire. The small, abandoned faces. "I was an early reader, and the matrons would have me read aloud to the younger children. It was a relief. I could disappear, in a way."
Severus was quiet, listening. Only when he sensed I had nothing more to say did he gently slide out from underneath me, and stand from the bed. I watched him walk over to the bookshelf in the corner, run his fingertips along the spines, and pull out a small novel. The shadows of the fire light flickered across his naked back, and I watched with appreciation as he held the book in his hands and stroked the cover.
He returned to the bed, leaning against the headboard, and offered the book to me. I sat up and looked at the cover. Jane Eyre.
I smiled. "You like to communicate through novels, don't you?"
"What do you mean?"
"The Iliad. For you, it's about her, isn't it? Lily?"
A wince momentarily crossed his face, and he spoke softly. "I'd rather you didn't."
"I'm sorry," I said.
There was a pause, and I gently reached out to touch the book. Severus placed it in my hands, and I opened it, paging through. The print was very small, and the pages were old. "What's this one about?"
"A young woman, who loves a difficult man."
I looked at him, and there was an understanding passed between our eyes. I leaned close to him and kissed him softly. "Will you read it to me?" I asked.
I could see the brief, quick activity of thought in his eyes, and I remembered how he had noticed me reading The Odyssey to Remus in the hospital wing after one of the moons. I realised that this may have been something Severus had wanted for a long time. The ease of someone else's cherished words, lifted into the air by one of our voices, forming a nest of gentleness around us.
He took the book from my hands and opened it to the first page. I curled up against his chest and let my arm rest across his ribs. There was a momentary hesitation in his body as he got accustomed to the intimacy. Then he relaxed, and started to read.
"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day…"
For the next while we felt like lovers, in some distant time and place, where nothing mattered but our skin, the night wind, the firelight, his languid voice, and the quiet sound of the pages turning.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
"Severus?"
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
"Severus!"
Together we were startled into consciousness by the sound of the rapid knocking and the urgent voice.
I'd wrapped my arms around him in the night. The book had fallen onto the bedcovers, and the vial of dreamless sleep he'd given me from his bedside table drawer lay empty near my hand.
"Severus!"
It was Minerva's voice, and both Severus and I came fully awake, pulling on our dressing gowns in a hurry. Heart pounding with adrenaline, I followed Severus to his office door and stood behind him as he opened it. The fire had long since died, and Minerva's eyes were cold in the darkness. Her face was harrowed.
"There's been an attack," she said.
"On a student?" I said, suddenly cold with fear.
"No," she said. "It was Nigel Brown, Lavender Brown's father. At his home outside London. One of the creatures. He's been moved to St. Mungo's. Severus–"
"I will go at once."
I insisted on going with him, and we both rushed out of the castle into the freezing air two minutes later, wrapped in travelling cloaks. Severus gave me his arm the moment we crossed beyond the wards, and with a sudden jerk we apparated.
They were ready to receive us at St. Mungo's, leading Severus directly to the room where Mr. Brown was being held. His wife was there, and was crying so desperately that I and one of the nurses had to gently lead her from the room so that Severus could focus. He was in the room for more than two hours, and I knew from the exhaustion in his face when he emerged that the memory had been clouded, just as Andromeda's had been. He had seen the impersonation of dead, curly-haired Lavender Brown appear at the edge of the woods beyond the garden; had watched through Mr. Brown's eyes as he pursued her into the dark trees; and then the rest had been obscured, as in a thick fog. Severus also demanded access to Andromeda's room, and searched her mind in hopes that the second attack may have opened a door which had been previously closed. But there was no change.
The Ministry had been alerted, and a reporter from the Prophet arrived. I stood silently nearby while Severus was questioned.
Night had become morning before we were able to escape. "Hieronymus," I said to Severus, as we walked down the deserted London street, reminded of the suspicious interaction I'd witnessed the day before.
We apparated together to the lakes. The dawn was less than an hour away, and the sky was a pale and frozen blue, on the verge of shattering. We hurried down the hill to the house with the thatched roof, and Severus knocked on the door while I ran around the house, looking into every window. There was no sign of the man.
Severus unlocked the door and we went into the shop. Now the dust I'd noticed yesterday seemed to suggest danger. "Hieronymus?" Severus called. We went up the narrow stairs to the second floor, but the bedroom was empty. Nothing in the shop was damaged, but the man was gone. And so was the case the strange visitor had brought.
I sat trembling by the fire in the great hall while Severus sent a report to the Ministry regarding Hieronymus's absence, and the strange interaction I'd observed. Dawn had come, and soon the students would be filtering down from their dormitories. Severus finished, and held my shaking hands in his. I looked into his eyes, searching for some consolation, but I found none. We were both forced into shocked stillness by the fear that the years of danger may not have been so firmly behind us as we'd hoped.
Before the post arrived, and the Daily Prophet with it, Minerva delivered a speech to the students. They'd entered the hall dragging their feet from sleepiness, but were soon wide awake.
"The chances that one of these beings will make their way onto the grounds are very slim," she told them. "However, if you see one of them, you must send up red sparks with your wand, and immediately come into the castle and find a teacher."
The first classes of the day were postponed by an hour, and an emergency staff meeting was held. We decided to stop weekend visits to Hogsmeade for the time being. There was talk of extending the protective wards to include the village, but in the end it was deemed better to leave them be. It would be best if someone in Hogsmeade saw one of the beings before it got too close to the school, and was able to send a warning. Madam Rosmerta agreed to do so, as did Mr. and Mrs. Flume from Honeydukes, and Euphemius the shepherd.
The previous delay of classes was amended, and all classes were cancelled for the day. For the remainder of the morning the students remained gathered in the great hall while Flitwick reviewed the Periculum spell, the charm for red sparks. After lunch everyone went out onto the grounds to practise it. Dennis Creevey helped to advise the first years, and Phoebe caught on very quickly. Soon the sky was full of small blasts of red fire.
All of the noise made the wolves howl loudly from inside of Hagrid's cabin, where they had been confined.
I felt my body tensing as I watched the faces of the students around me. The older ones, who had been at Hogwarts during the war, looked resolved and determined. The first years were frightened out of their wits, and doing all they could not to show it. As I helped to correct wand posture and articulation, I reminded them that there was nothing to be afraid of. All of this was to prepare for the very unlikely event that one of the beings made it past the wards. But even as I spoke I heard a poorly hidden tremor in my voice, and knew that, however faint the possibility was, there was no chance of entirely erasing it.
Severus escaped the group after half an hour. I was the only one who noticed him slip away, down the hill towards the lake. I knew where he was going, and lingered for another few minutes before following him down to Dumbledore's island.
He was deathly still, his black robes rippling in the breeze as he stood over the white tomb. I had never seen him here before, and in the times we'd been neary, he'd seemed to deliberately avoid looking in the direction of the small island. I watched for a minute from the edge of the lake, before deciding to join him.
I sensed even before he spoke that the whole atmosphere–the red sparks, the nervousness of the first years–had brought up buried feelings of self loathing.
"I will never forgive myself," he said slowly, "for taking a great man out of the world."
I shook my head, though he was facing away from me. "You only did what–"
"Don't say that!"
My heart jumped at the ferocity in his voice, but I kept calm. His anger quickly dissipated, and his body radiated anxiety.
"Do you think something is starting?" I asked him, my voice high and small.
The wind whispered in the tops of the tall trees which guarded the tomb, and made small lapping waves on the surface of the lake.
"I don't know," Severus said.
I wanted to tell him he didn't have to be here. That he didn't have to torture himself. But I said nothing.
I stood silently beside him, as red sparks and smoke filled the cold October sky.
NOTE
Jane Eyre is by Charlotte Brontë, and credit for the first line goes to her.
Please feel free to review, as always, if you wish!