CHAPTER 23

It's the wee hours of the morning when I wake up. Severus is still asleep, naturally, considering how the sun has not even attempted to rise yet. I watch him, marveling in how much younger he looks when sleeping, when the stress lines on his face are gone, when he does not look pained or angry. Would he have remained this peaceful for many more years had his life not been riddled with such hardships? Gently, I reach out and touch his cheek but immediately pull my hand away as I'm mentally taken back to the drawing room—after Severus's torture, when he was lying in his own blood, when I put my hands on his face and saw no signs of life. What would I do without him? Could I survive?

I won't have to survive without him—we'll go on the run. He and I will go into hiding far away from Voldemort in some freezing little cottage somewhere in the north. Maybe not even in Britain. Perhaps that would be best, actually. Easier, definitely, if we don't have to worry as much about Voldemort finding us. His power doesn't reach everywhere, not yet. Severus and I could disappear to the United States. Or to Canada. Going to a completely different continent across the ocean will offer us a wide buffer. It seems unlikely that Voldemort would have followers over there, especially not ones that could identify either Severus or me. The two of us could escape him for good, and no one would ever be able to find us.

Except Severus wouldn't go that far away while he's still trying to protect Harry. It's always Harry. Harry will save us. Harry will destroy the Dark Lord. Harry will end the war. Everything is about Harry. Even Severus's life revolves around him. I hate it. If Harry wasn't around, Severus would be able to escape, but it's so painfully clear that he would die before leaving behind Lily Evans's son to fend for himself against Lord Voldemort.

I clench my jaw and look away from his sleeping form. There's no chance of escape for the two of us until Harry destroys Voldemort once and for all. And if I give birth before then, Severus won't be able to run away with me because that would leave Harry without his protector. I'll be on my own. Without him. Because he's too noble to leave Harry in the hands of anyone else because no one else can protect him the same way. No one else is both indispensable to Voldemort and trying to save Harry.

Bitterness bubbles up in my chest, and try as I might to go back to sleep, that is simply not going to happen right now because of this hot anger roiling over me. I continue lying there for a few minutes clenching and unclenching my fists before giving up, getting out of the bed, and gathering my things. Despite how dangerous it is considering he attacked me the last time, I walk over and try to decide the best way to wake him up. Very gingerly, I place my hand on the side of his head and run my fingers through his hair. "Severus," I whisper.

Very slowly, he opens his eyes. "Charlotte?"

"Severus, I need to head back to the dungeons."

He nods, his eyes closing again though he seems to be fighting it. "What time is it?"

"It's early."

He opens his eyes once more and looks around the room. "There's no need for you to leave this early."

I swallow thickly, knowing that I need to get out of here to stop this slowly rising resentment from festering further. "I think it'd be safer to wake up in the dorm, just in case."

"You can—"

"I need to leave." My tone is shorter than intended, but either he doesn't recognize or he's too tired to comment on it. "Thank you for everything yesterday." He nods, and I kiss his cheek, then step away from him, cast the Disillusionment Charm over myself, and leave his chambers, sneaking out through his office and down the stairs to the gargoyle statue. No one else is roaming the castle at this hour, thankfully, because I would most surely be caught due to my complete lack of effort in keeping my crying quiet and suppressed. It'd be pointless to try anyway because these sobs are a bit too intense.

Luckily for me, the common room is empty upon my arrival so there's no one to see me become visible again. I stand there for a few minutes, pressing my hand against my chest as if that will stop the crying at all. After gaining a modicum of composure once more, I make my way to the dormitory, but instead of getting into my own bed, I push back the curtains to Daphne's bed. Being alone right now isn't what I want, so I gently nudge her over and climb into the sheets with her. "Charlotte?" she breathes, only half awake.

"Can I sleep here?" I whisper.

"Yeah, of course."

She wraps her arms around me, and I cuddle into her. "Daphne," I whisper, "I had to tell Andromeda that Ted died." She doesn't answer, so I push on. "It . . . watching her cry—it was like reliving when Zoe was murdered. I . . . watching that pain happen to someone else . . . I'm not—I can't lose anyone else, can't watch anyone lose their loved ones. I can't do this. It's too much."

She doesn't answer, and her steady breathing leads me to assume she must be asleep. I close my eyes and will myself to sleep as well.

Apparently, at some point sleep does indeed claim me because I wake up later to Daphne already awake. "Sleep well?" she asks me.

I shrug, still partially asleep. "I don't know. Not really."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not right now, I don't think. What time is it?"

"Probably time for us to start getting ready for class."

I groan. "Fine."

The day goes by incredibly uneventfully, which is doubly frustrating because I had hoped that something would happen to justify this awful feeling in my chest that just continues to linger, this anxiety that seems like it will never go away. I was hoping the Carrows would do something to set me off so I could dispel this energy coursing through me, but no one does anything. Not even Crabbe or Goyle do anything to upset me. The one time an attack from those two pricks would be welcome, they seem unwilling to do anything to me.

This nervous energy must release me though, because it's not sustainable. I've never felt this way before when there wasn't immediate danger, and while there should be none of that here, my body apparently disagrees. I excuse myself from my friends as we work on homework and leave the common room, not bothering to answer their questions about my plans or destination or their warnings about how close to curfew it is.

I cast the Disillusionment Charm over myself and make my way to the Room of Requirement. What would be ideal at this moment is for the D.A. to give me something to do that could potentially lead to an altercation with the Carrows. Hopefully they have something that can do the trick.

Upon reaching the corridor on the fifth floor, I discover that the D.A. will not disappoint me tonight. Up ahead stand Ginny, Neville, Terry Boot, Seamus, and Michael Corner. They're discussing something quietly, and I remove the charm before approaching them. "We have to do something big," Neville says.

Terry clears his throat and motions toward me. "Hi, sorry to interrupt," I say, "but I'm going stir crazy in the common room listening to Pansy drone on. I wanted . . . I don't know, to see if there was anything I could help with."

Michael narrows his eyes at me as if he can sense I'm lying. Pansy has done nothing to upset me recently; this feeling is solely a result of trying to accept that Severus will allow me to go on the run in isolation rather than leave Lily's son behind.

Ginny smiles. "It's a good thing you stumbled upon us."

"Yeah, what a happy coincidence," Terry says, something on his face unsettling me as he stares me down.

"Where is everyone?" I ask. "Why aren't there more of you? If you want to do something big—"

"Because we can't risk everyone getting exposed," Terry says, his voice carrying a certain tone that I can't place but do not like. His eyes continue boring into me.

"The Carrows are once again becoming too comfortable in their positions as Deputy Headmasters. And Snape. Where do I even begin? Something's off," Neville says.

"Why would he have stopped them from Cruciating me?" Michael points out. He and Terry give me wary looks, as if they are unsure whether they should trust me, as if they think I'm going to say something about Severus right now and why he might have stepped in to stop Amycus from killing Michael. They're fishing for more information from me despite the fact that there is nothing to say that they haven't already heard by now. By the looks on their faces, it's abundantly clear that neither of them wants to hear what they've already been hearing. They want me to tell them something new, something different, something they can latch onto and turn into a big ordeal.

"You're the one closest to them, Charlotte," Terry says, that distrustful expression still on his face. "Have you heard anything?"

"I'm not really that close to them. We don't have nightly chats or anything cozy like that." Well, Severus and I kind of do. It's not every night, but it's close enough. And yet that won't change his priorities, a voice hisses in my head. A spike of rage pierces my heart.

"That's not what we hear," Michael says, inching closer to Terry. "At the beginning of the year, they were listening to you."

"Which leads us to believe that if anyone stands a chance of hearing anything from them, it's you," Terry adds. As we stare intently at each other, the anger I felt in Severus's chambers begins to boil in me and tell me to hurt him, to attack him, and judging by the redness of his face and the look in his eye, he's growing angry as well, which is odd only because I've done nothing recently to upset him so much. "Have you told them yet?"

"Told them what?"

"About Snape?" he says. "They deserve to know."

Does he know? a voice in the back of my mind asks. If he does, you know what you have to do. You have to kill him. No one can know about you and Severus because both of you would face severe consequences from the Dark Lord. Do it now before he can tell anyone. I push that that thought down, unsure where it even came from and why it wants me to do something like that to another student. "Have I told them what about Snape, exactly?" I ask, keeping my voice as even as I can though irrational fear begins to mingle with my fury. There's no way he knows about Severus and me. There's no logical way he could ever deduce that. He was stalking you. What if he knows? Just kill him. What's the worst thing that could happen? The Dark Lord won't mind you killing a student.

But that'll mean my removal from Hogwarts, which cannot be risked right now. I need to stay wherever Severus is.

"Oh, I think you know," Terry says.

Realizing that this is exactly what I needed to get this feeling off my chest, I whip out my wand and aim it directly at Terry. "Care to elaborate? I don't think there's anything you need to know about Snape that I can tell you."

Michael pulls out his wand and points it at me. "Drop it, Rodgers."

I don't lower my wand despite how quickly this is causing any trust between us to deteriorate. They'll never have confidence in me again.

A hand rests on my shoulder. It's Ginny. "Charlotte, I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it." And I know that she is trying to make me look as innocent as possible, but maybe it's better if none of the D.A. trusts me anymore.

"I think he did. I think he wants me to tell you all that I go speak with Snape on a regular basis."

"Do you?" Michael asks.

"In fact, I do. We speak quite often. Actually, I spoke with him just last night." I did a great deal more than just speak with him, but regardless of how reckless I might be right now, telling anyone that I am sleeping with Severus Snape on a semi-regular basis is indeed the very worst thing that could ever happen. "But I'm not close to the Carrows. I can't tell you what they do or why they do it. I just know a great deal about what Snape does around here."

"Why do you talk with him?" Terry asks.

"Is that not obvious? He's my best friend." I smile at him.

"Charlotte, stop," Ginny says. "You're not helping."

"You're one of them, aren't you? Like your friend, Malfoy? You've switched sides, haven't you? You're a coward."

Neville puts his hand up as if to stop Terry from saying anymore. "Let's just lower our wands, yeah? We're all on the same side. I trust Charlotte. Ginny trusts Charlotte. McGonagall trusts Charlotte. You should trust her too."

Though Neville likely didn't expect me to burn these bridges like this, I can't bring myself to care about it. Besides, the fewer secrets I have, the easier things will be for me. Fuck being in the D.A.; there are so many other, more important things to worry about right now. Perhaps it would be best if they try to ban me from the D.A. altogether. All these secrets are only causing me pain, and I am so fucking sick of it. I want no part in this anymore.

"Why did Snape stop Carrow?" Michael asks.

"Well, according to him—you know, when we were having tea and cakes the other day between our second—"

"Oi!" a loud, boisterous person yells.

"You snitched!" Terry snarls.

"How could I possibly snitch when I didn't know this was happening tonight?" I ask, laughing at how incredulous his suggestion was. He clenches his jaw at the sound. "Are you stupid?"

"We knew you couldn't be trusted," Terry says. "Impedimenta!" My shield materializes to deflect the spell before it can hit me. Neville and Ginny offer me an apologetic look before firing spells at the Carrows and dashing away, leaving me alone with the two Death Eaters lumbering down the corridor toward me.

"Get them!" Alecto commands her brother. She stops beside me while he chases the group through the corridors to some place where I cannot help them, then grabs me by the shoulder and forces me along with her. "Where're they going?" Her voice is quiet, as if she's afraid someone might overhear us.

"I don't know."

"What were they talking about?"

"Not much. We didn't have much of a chance to talk before the fight started."

"What was the fight about?" Her grip on my arm tightens as she leads me to her office.

"Listen, if I'm going to be required to answer these same questions when your brother arrives, why don't we just wait until he returns, hmm?"

Her eyes become dangerous, but her wrath is not very intimidating and is easy to ignore. She remains silent all the way to her office and even as she shoves me into one of the open chairs in front of her desk. As if one student will ever come in here for questions, let alone two.

The silence becomes more loaded, and more awkward, as we wait for Amycus, the two of us just staring at each other with more hate than I imagined I could spare for someone like her. She is part of the reason my year at Hogwarts has been so difficult. She tortured me (as Neville). She wanted to force me to spill all my secrets. She would have tried doing more had she not been so frightened of the Dark Lord. She didn't shut her brother down about making me his sex slave. She can die.

She's pathetic. I close my eyes against the thought telling me to attack her, to fight her, to possibly even kill her.

The door opens. "Where are they?" Alecto asks. "How did they get away from you?"

"A room appeared in the wall," he growls. "It just appeared in the bloody wall!"

"The Room of Requirement," I say.

Amycus goes and stands next to his sister. "The what?"

"It's a room here in Hogwarts that presents itself only when the witch or wizard is in desperate need. It's fitted to the desirer's needs. That must have been how they did it."

"But I saw them," Amycus argues. "Why would it not open for me? I needed it open! I desired for it to reopen, but it wouldn't!"

"It was probably a stipulation they put on it. It can probably only be accessed by those who are against the Dark Lord."

"Then you need to open it," Amycus commands.

I sigh. "But I'm on your side, and the Room will know that. Therefore, it will not present itself to me. There's nothing more I can do."

"Yes, there is," Alecto says. "Who were you with moments ago?"

"Why?"

"The leader would be one of the few that showed up, would he not? Who is it?"

"I don't know, but you're right. It was probably one of them."

"Who was there?" Amycus asks.

"Neville Longbottom, Ginny Weasley, and Seamus Finnigan of Gryffindor," I say, "along with Michael Corner and Terry Boot of Ravenclaw."

They smile at each other. "You're free to go now."

I waste no time getting out of there but stop short upon realizing that there's nowhere to go now, nothing to do to dispel this rage boiling in me now that my fight with the D.A. has been interrupted I come to an abrupt stop after turning the corner and begin clenching and unclenching my fists.

A voice hidden somewhere ahead of me whispers, "Hey, Rodgers, over here." Not caring about what this could me, I follow the voice until I find Theodore Nott standing behind a suit of armor. "I followed you from the common room. Saw the whole thing. What was that about?"

"Not now, Nott."

He looks amused. "I've seen that look before. The agitation." I raise my eyebrows at him, and he points at himself with his thumb and clicks his tongue. "I get it too. I saw the look on your face and your general demeanor in the common room and knew I could help you."

"And why would you do that?"

"I've told you before: I wasn't lying when my father said to offer you my assistance. C'mon." He motions for me to follow his lead. "Doesn't smashing something sound . . . well, smashing?" He chuckles at his own joke as we enter an empty classroom. He pulls a small bag from his pocket and throws the contents around the room. Hundreds of marbles roll around the room, and with a wave of his wand, each becomes a vase, bottle, or jar. "Conjure your bat, Miss Rodgers."

The desire to rid myself of this excess energy propels me forward, and I raise the bat above my head, then bring it down as hard as possible onto the nearest vase, which shatters immediately and fills me with such relief I almost cry. Not bothering to look back at him, letting the rage in me take over, I begin slamming the bat into every breakable object near me, screaming with pain and fury and sorrow until I am sobbing, hardly able to see through my tears but still waving the bat around dangerously, reveling in relief each time the bat connects with something and absolutely destroys it. Theodore's encouraging whoops and shouts and claps spur me on and keep me going long after my arms grow weary. Some ten minutes later or so, when the last of the smashable objects lay in pieces scattered all around, I let out one last, throat-tearing scream before chucking the bat to the far side of the room and dropping to my knees in unrestrained sobs.

As last time, his magic lifts me off the floor and carries me over to where he now sits leaning against the wall in the only debris-free section of the room. "I'm guessing it worked just as well this time?" he asks, Conjuring a handkerchief and handing it to me.

"A bit, yeah." I sniffle and wipe my nose with the cloth he gave me.

"So," he says heavily, "the Dark Lord's child, huh?" I close my eyes and rest my head back on the wall. "It's unfair."

My face contorts as another bout of sobs threaten. "He's going to kill me," I whisper, not caring about keeping that secret anymore right now because he doesn't know me, he obviously knows information he shouldn't, and he seems to dislike what's happening to me. "After."

"Oh. Oh. That's—that's—I suspected that but what an evil bastard." I open my eyes and look at him in shock. "Surprised? You wouldn't be if you knew anything about my father—the Death Eater. But we're not here because of me. We're here because of you. You've been going through this for quite some time. July, yeah?" I raise my eyebrows. "And yet only today did I see you looking almost as upset as you did the first month or so of last term. You've seemed normal for a while now. Am I to assume the Dark Lord has been successful?"

"No," I say, my throat tightening with fear at the thought.

"I'm good with secrets, Charlotte. Tell me." I sigh heavily and wipe my eyes some more. "My mum cried for you," he says softly, watching me closely. "My father came home from the meeting when the Dark Lord introduced you to the Inner Circle; he was feeling so privileged to finally know what your importance is. He told mum and me, beaming at having been in the group entrusted with this information. He left to go hunt Muggles or whatever, and my mum cried for you."

"I wish I had a mum to cry for me," I breathe.

"She begged me to keep an eye on you, to help you if I could, because she was so haunted by the horror of what's happening to you. Something's happened. You can tell me."

"I finally accepted that I'm trapped. There's no escape. The one person in this world who both wants to save me and is in good enough standing with the Dark Lord to actually be able to help will never prioritize my safety because of a decades-old debt to a dead person. No one else in any position to help truly gives a shit."

"That's likely by design, you know," he says. "He wants you alone and unattached to people if he plans to kill you." I look over at him again. "It makes sense, doesn't it? Hazarding a guess here, I'd say he probably found you—the child of a pureblooded couple he murdered, no doubt—and placed you in the orphanage to be completely cut off from the Wizarding World until a time of his choosing. He'd want you to be an orphan, not raised by one of his many other pureblooded followers, because he'd want no one to care about you." My throat grows tight. "Because when he kills you, he will be getting rid of the biggest threat to his child—you. You are the one person who would put the child's welfare above his, above your own. You'd do anything for your baby. That makes you a liability. And if there's no one who cares about you, by extension there will be no one to care about your child. So, with you out of the way, he's free to do as he wants without worrying about someone trying to save your baby because who would care what happens to the baby if they didn't care about you?"

"You've given this some thought."

He shrugs. "Not really. I try not to think about the Death Eaters or the Dark Lord or their plans." I cast a doubtful glance his direction, and he smiles. "I hate them. Wholeheartedly. Do you have any idea how awful it's been, being at Hogwarts with Crabbe and Goyle and Malfoy, being at home with my father? My mum and I hate them. The lot of them."

"That's hard to believe."

"If you knew what my father was like, you wouldn't find it hard to believe. What he's put my mum and me through. I want to watch him, the other Death Eaters, the Dark Lord—I want to watch all of them die."

"Yeah," I sigh. "So how long have you been smashing things in here?"

"Not just in here," he says brightly. "In any empty classroom. And since I first arrived and was Sorted into Slytherin. My nan gave me the idea. It's cathartic for me now."

"Why don't you ever join the Greengrass sisters or me since you hate so many of the Death Eater offspring?"

"Do you know what would happen to me if word got back to my father if I was in the wrong Slytherin crowd?" He shakes his head, scoffing. "Brutality."

"Even though the Dark Lord's broodmare is in that group?"

"Don't call yourself that. And yes. You're not a future Death Eater. Crabbe and Goyle are. I prefer to keep to myself than be around either of them." He looks over at me. "For what it's worth, I hope you don't die."

"Thanks."

"And if you need anything, let me know. My mum would be so disappointed if I didn't make sure you knew that."

"Thanks, Teddy."

He barks with laughter and helps me to my feet. "This never happened though, as far as the rest of the Slytherins know, yeah?"

"Yeah. Our secret."