One Step Too Far

Bad enough that the Ministry wanted to drown Hogwarts in a sea of bureaucracy; now the school was suffering an infestation of Aurors. Clustered in the halls, in anterooms and the Great Hall, distracting students and staff alike with their dubious glamour.

Insufferable.

Snape kept to his rooms, emerging only to display a degree of ill temper not seen since Harry Potter had been a student.

It was almost thirty years since he'd turned from Voldemort, and ten years since the Mark had finally been obliterated from his skin.

Still, old habits died hard: Snape had no love for Aurors. He liked to think the feeling was entirely mutual.

***

Snape awoke to the unaccustomed sensation of a warm body pressed against his and the sound of quick, light breathing by his ear. Rolling over, he found himself looking into a pair of bright brown eyes.

"Oh bloody hell," he growled.

Irritation flickered in Enid's face. "Yes," she said, "that's exactly what I was thinking."

She sat up, pushing her hair out of her face and rubbing her bruises. She should have gone to the hospital wing last night, Snape thought, instead of lurking around his dungeons. Her fellow Aurors would wonder where she'd gone - there would be questions, and rumours.

But Enid had appeared in his office, bruised and bleeding from the day's encounter with the Glenferris raiders. And he, like an adolescent fool, hadn't had the strength to turn her away.

Now she lay in his bed, watching him. Her demeanour was oddly businesslike. Expectant.

The next move was his.

Reluctantly, he picked up his wand and took her arm. She gave him a curious look, but relaxed as she realised what he was doing.

"Hold still," he muttered. "Healing isn't my specialty, and you're older than most of my—" victims – "patients."

"You know, I never did imagine you were a romantic, Severus," said Enid mildly, "but you've actually transcended my expectations."

He couldn't imagine why she would even have expectations, but then, he couldn't imagine why she had come to him in the first place. He was no lover; he was barely even her friend. Just her aging Potions Master, her former Head of House.

And, of course, a friend to her parents. A reluctant and distant godfather to one of her youngest brothers - chosen, he liked to think, after her parents had exhausted all other possibilities.

This was not going to end well.

Enid flexed her newly healed arm and said, "What are you thinking?"

"I was thinking," some shred of decency prompted him to hesitate, but only for a second, "about your mother."

Her lips thinned. She, unless he missed his guess, was thinking she'd made an unfortunate error. Which meant she would leave, and he could continue with his life unencumbered by careless attachments and messy, complicated romantic tangles.

"Severus?" she said.

"Yes?"

"I think you just went one step too far beyond 'unromantic'."

"I think last night adequately constituted one step too far," he snarled.

"More than one, surely. It's at least ten feet from your office to your rooms – good thing none of your students saw us. Not that we'd have noticed, of course…"

"Enid, this is not funny-"

"What, your reaction on waking up next to an old friend after a very pleasant evening? Making a concerted attempt to be cruel, and not even meeting your usual standards because, Merlin forbid, you actually enjoyed yourself for a change? Trust me, Severus, it's very funny."

He stared at her, attempting to formulate a response.

Eventually he said, "I'm simply not accustomed to being placed in this position."

"Interesting use of the passive voice, given that last night—"

"Don't try and change the subject-"

"Look," she said, in a patient, let's try this again tone that could only come from being the eldest of seven, "my mother would be overjoyed if she thought I were finally going to settle down, having six or seven kids and generally behave like a proper Zabini. Especially if I were settling down with you, because you're practically family already."

Snape decided not to think too closely about the implications of that. Mistaking his silence, Enid added, "Not that I plan on settling down - not even with you, love - any time in the next decade or so."

He wondered if the look of relief on his face was obvious, because she laughed, leaned over and kissed him.

He paused a moment, then threw caution to the wind and kissed her back. The time for second thoughts had been last night; there was no going back now.

Even, whispered some long-ignored part of his mind, if he'd wanted to.
"It's all right, yeah?" she breathed.

"More than all right."

***

They were, of course, discreet.

Not that there was much opportunity for indiscretion: the Aurors came and went at odd hours, and though her colleagues often joined the staff for meals, Enid usually ate in the kitchens or her rooms.

For his part, Snape was kept busy preparing for what Minerva fondly, and inaccurately, called her retirement. Travelling between international schools of magic as an unofficial ambassador for the Department of Magical Education, and an even more unofficial ambassador for the Department of Mysteries, wasn't his idea of retirement. But Minerva was looking forward too it, and he was slowly resigning himself to the fact that, within two years, he would be Headmaster of Hogwarts. A man with a child, however - troublesome - she might prove to be in future years.
A man with a lover?

He didn't care to tempt fate with dangerous anticipation.

But he waited, with no outward signs of impatience, for Enid's visits to his rooms.

***

Flat on his back, with the comforting weight of Enid's head on his shoulder, Snape said, "I'm beginning to get the impression you don't like children."

Enid snorted. "And you do? Severus, you don't count your day a success until you've made at least one student cry. Or does your disdain extend to the entire human race?"

"And beyond."

"Then why are you still here? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is gone, you're no longer a Death Eater - you don't have to live on the fringes of society - Severus, for Merlin's sake, why are you still living in this school?" Beneath the laughter, there was a note of frustration in her voice.

He wondered if she saw him as a perennial adolescent, a pallid plant dying in a gloomy dungeon.

And if so, what she wanted from him.

She sat up, looking down at him, silently demanding an answer he didn't want to give.
Eventually he said, "I have a place here. I have no desire to abandon it. And," he strayed perilously close to honesty, "it keeps me close to Lilith."

Enid's lips thinned. "Most eleven-year-olds manage quite well at school, without their fathers watching their every move. And deducting house points, no less."

He hadn't realised anyone else knew about that; not for the first time, he'd underestimated the school portraits' capacity for gossip.

"She needs a firm hand. Someone who knows her."

"All right." Enid lay back down, curling herself against him. "It's not really my place to criticise." A flicker of a smile touched her mouth. "And as you say - I don't really like children."

***

Another day, a Thursday, she visited his office at lunchtime, and his meal was forgotten as he lost himself in Enid's lips, and hair, and skin.

Not for the first time, he was grateful for the strength of the Locking Charms on his doors. Although he'd never had reason for this kind of concealment.

Enid curled her long body into his lap with a happy sigh, dressed again in the Muggle clothes she wore for exercise. She smelt of grass, and sweat, and clean lake-water, and she was almost perfect.

Almost.

The mystery of her presence nagged at him: he couldn't imagine why she would choose to be with him. His relationships had been few, with each partner knowing exactly what they wanted from the other, and how much they were willing to give.

Enid, he suspected, didn't think in such utilitarian terms.

But still. He wondered.

***

It was Snape's custom to spend Sunday afternoons in the staff common room, one of the new rooms built after Voldemort's abortive attack twelve years ago. The large windows were charmed to filter the bright sunlight, and the air always seemed fresh. It stood in stark contrast to the dungeons, which felt increasingly claustrophobic, and not at all in keeping with the status of the Deputy Headmaster.

He was in his usual seat, beneath the high bookshelves, nursing a cup of tea and a dozen seventh year essays. Remus Lupin's weekly chess match with Professor Manning had yet to reach its usual messy end (complete with death threats, begging and promises of a rematch: he'd never understand the juvenility of Gryffindors), and he was enjoying the peace and quiet when the Headmistress entered.

The movement in the room, such as it was, stilled as the staff realised something was amiss.

"I've just had an owl from Gallus Donnelly," Minerva said. "The Aurors have been ambushed. Half the party has been captured."

Silence fell: Lupin pushed his grey hair out of his face, looking pained. Samantha Manning's lips were thinner, her eyes more haunted than ever.

"So," said Snape, "we needn't expect their company at dinner?"

He took deep, childish pleasure in the appalled looks thrown his way.

After the room had emptied, he turned to Minerva.

"I'll warn Poppy she might have patients," he said.

"Good. Severus, was it absolutely necessary to-"

He swept out of the room before she could complete her sentence.

Poppy received his news with a quiet mutter of, "I told Gallus he was getting overconfident. Stupid boy. Too big for his boots, that one." More clearly she said, "would you be so kind as to brew me some more analgesic potions, Professor? I'll have to order more Skele-Gro from St Mungo's..."

Snape watched her move through the hospital wing, envying her that clear, obvious demarcation of territory.

Then he returned to the dungeons to mark essays through dinner. He fell into an uneasy doze shortly before midnight, but a tentative knock at his door roused him. Snape opened it hoping to see Enid, alive and safe.

Instead, his gaze was drawn lower, into the serious eyes of his daughter.

"Lilith. You're not supposed to be here."

"I know," she said in that slightly desperate, needy tone he loathed. "But Margie Leary threw something at our table at dinner, and now Isobel's sick."

Snape swore under his breath, cursing Leary and her privileged kin to the darkest depths of hell. He added Isobel to the litany after seeing the state of the common room, although he drew some small pleasure from distracting the fifth years from their plans for revenge by demanding a demonstration of their heavy cleaning charms.

It wasn't until he entered the hospital wing, where Poppy had just finished giving Isobel a course of purging potions, that it occurred to him that she was Enid's niece. He must be getting old, he thought: time was when he'd have known that automatically. He'd want to be quicker on the uptake if he wanted to succeed as Headmaster ... and though Enid had blithely dismissed their age difference, she'd have no interest in a wizard past his prime...

He dismissed that thought and crossed to Isobel's side.

"Well, child," he said, "how do you feel?"

"Awful," Isobel moaned. "Simply awful."

"Yes, well, I doubt Miss Leary will ever try anything like this again."

There was a whisper of robes behind him, and a cold voice said, "Is that a threat, Professor, or a promise?"

Snape turned, forcing a thin smile to his lips as he met Professor Manning's eyes. The Head of Gryffindor House merely scowled in return.

"You cannot intend to let this incident pass," he said. "This is, what, Leary's second attack on students outside of her own house?"

Manning nodded at a bed on the far side of the ward. Snape recognised Steve Weasley, curled onto his side looking sorry for himself. "She's also put a couple of her own classmates in here. She seems to have developed an experimental bent with her potions-brewing."

"I cannot be held responsible if a student chooses to misuse her magic - any more than you can control your students' every incantation."

Manning gave him a look that suggested she'd be perfectly happy to try. It occurred to Snape that they shouldn't be having this conversation in front of a sickly student, but a glance at Isobel assured him that she was already asleep.

"Of course," said Manning, "other students are quite worryingly inept in their work... You should be aware that I took twenty points off one of your first years this week. For unacceptably poor work."

No need to ask who the student was: the triumphant look in Manning's eyes told him all he needed to know.

"Well," he said, forcing himself to be cordial, although darker parts of his mind proposed all kinds of ways to deal with arrogant colleagues, "you are Transfiguration Mistress, Samantha. I leave Lilith's education in your hands."

Poppy was approaching them, looking indignant. With one last look at his sleeping student, Snape swept away.

***

Injured, exhausted and angry, the Aurors began trickling in on Monday evening. Their captors had separated them; those who managed to escape made their way back to Hogwarts by any means available. Dan Hooper fetched up at his brother-in-law's house, and arrived with a triumphant swoop on a borrowed Nimbus 2005. Mellie O'Keefe hitched a ride on a Muggle train; Tommy Sharpe 'borrowed' a Muggle car.
Of those who didn't manage to escape—

But Snape didn't let himself think of that.

There was no sign of Enid.

He gave detention to four Gryffindors stupid enough to think they could brew illegal potions in his class without him noticing, removed fifty house points from Hufflepuff and threatened to have a Ravenclaw removed from his NEWTs classes if she didn't cease her obsession with a fellow student.

Under normal circumstances, he'd have regarded it as a highly successful day.
On Tuesday, those Aurors permitted to leave the hospital wing left Hogwarts in search of their comrades. Rumours were flying: that the missing parties had been found alive, found dead, found working in a Muggle fairground with no memory of who they really were. That Harry Potter would be taking over the search. That the Minister had ordered Potter to stay as far away from the operation as possible.

Snape sat at Minerva's right hand at the staff table, looking out over his students – his school, he was beginning to think of it – and ignored the spectre of despair.
Late on Tuesday evening, he was conducting his four detention victims back to Gryffindor Tower, when the doors to the Entrance Hall swung open.

Clinging to the doorframe with bloodied hands was Enid. As Snape watched, she slowly slid to her knees.

"Don't just stand there, Severus," she rasped. "For heaven's sake, help me."

***

He lingered in the hospital wing, watching her sleep. Her hands were still bandaged; Poppy wanted to wait until she was stronger before she healed them.

She had lost a great deal of blood.

He could do nothing for her now.

Snape returned to the dungeons, and meditated upon blood, and the spells that bound two people together, through death and beyond.

***

It was three days before he heard her knock at his door. He put the Daily Prophet down and helped her inside.

"You should be resting," he said.

She let him guide her to his most comfortable chair. "I can rest just as well here as I can in the hospital wing. Better, since I won't be surrounded by snivelling children, whining about their hangnails and acne."

"Madam Pomfrey will worry."

"Let her." Enid's smile was weak, but her hand clutched his tightly. "I just wanted to be here."

"In the cold? The damp?" Or was it just his age that made him feel the discomforts of these rooms more than ever?

"Just like being back in the dorms." She curled herself slowly into a foetal ball, resting her head on the arm of the chair. Her grip on his hand lessened, and she stroked his palm with her scarred fingers. "You won't go, will you?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Good."

After she fell asleep, he carried her into his bedroom and lay her down beneath the covers. He lingered by her side, appreciating the warmth of her skin and the scent of her hair.

***

Sitting up in bed, with his own black robes thrown around her shoulders, Enid asked, "What happens now?"

Snape didn't look up from the article he was reading.

"I have no idea what you mean."

"You know, for a highly intelligent man, you can be awfully obtuse."

"You don't sound particularly distressed about that."

"Perhaps I have futile plans of changing you."

Now he looked at her. "Into what?"

She shrugged. "A swan, perhaps? A beautiful butterfly?" Her mouth twitched. "Don't look so terrified, Severus. I quite like you the way you are. You don't tolerate fools, or – or people who would seek to – to diminish you…"

He wondered if he could sit beside her, if she would move away. A foolish question, perhaps: Enid surely didn't lack courage. But she hadn't spoken of her time as a prisoner.

"I just don't understand," she said, almost to herself. "It makes me so angry to think of him – sitting up there, taking credit for everything…"

"I don't follow."

"Gallus," Enid hissed, her face twisting. "That incompetent – stupid – I tried to warn him we were walking into a trap, but he's convinced I'm after promotion. He thinks," she snorted with bitter laughter, "he honestly thinks I want his job. That I'd be happy leading the Second Coterie." She pulled at a loose thread on his robe. "Just like a Gryffindor, really, to assume that a Slytherin would only want his job. A Slytherin woman, no less." She rubbed her eyes. "I'm so tired."

Severus took her hands, sitting before her and tracing the fading scars on her fingers.
"It's never easy to be a Slytherin working with the self-styled forces for good," he said.

"I know. I've known it for years, but – I'm better than him, love. And I may not have joined the Order of the Phoenix, but I fought He Who Must Not Be Named with every ounce of my being – you cannot tell me I'm aiming too high."

"Never," Snape said.

"And now we've had a miraculous escape." Enid shuddered. "Severus, I can't tell you how difficult it was – we were cut off from our allies, and our wands, and ourselves – we should be dead. All of us."

"You're looking remarkably well, then, under the circumstances."

"I could see it coming," she said. "I tried to warn them – Gallus's tactics were old, obvious. Not everyone believed me, though. And I decided not to go over his head." She drew her hand back from his, staring at the lines on her palm. "I had thought that – when I take a position of leadership, I don't want to be known as the Auror who undermined her senior's position. I wanted to be trusted. I got – distracted – by my ambition."

"There's no point in creating anarchy with the hope of imposing order later. Nor honour. And your family has always been honourable."

Enid scowled. "I thought we Slytherins sought to have our way. By any means necessary."

"Enid, you did what you believed was right," he snapped. "If you continue to wallow in meaningless guilt, you render your accomplishments worthless." With bleak humour he added, "I speak from experience. Long, bitter experience."

She lay back on the pillows.

"They say that true leaders never seek power," she said. "So where does that leave me?"

"In my bed," said Snape. "Wearing my clothes, indulging in a useless line of thinking without end or relief."

"I'd never have expected you to confuse the personal and professional."

"Life is full of grey areas."

"Yes, but that's a confusion I've always sought to avoid. Not that you'd understand."
Snape raised his eyebrows. "Meaning what?"

She shrugged. "You've always had a reputation for carrying grudges. I remember my mother saying she was glad she wasn't in any danger of becoming your enemy. And now you stay in this school purely to maintain control over a daughter you don't even particularly like—"

"Do not bring Lilith into this."

"See? You can't even stand to discuss her!"

"Do not presume to criticise my skills as a parent, Enid, you've spent most of your adult life trying to avoid any sort of emotional responsibility—"

"And what if I have? Look at what I do for a living – do you think I'd want to expose anyone I loved to the risks I take?"

"Well, your family already has no choice – or do you prefer to forget that?"

"Oh believe me, I remember. But this is what I have to do – I can't go from being an Auror to holding down some desk job within the Ministry. This is what I am. And if that means making certain sacrifices, so be it. I accept that."

Snape stood up and contemplated the fire, feeling Enid's eyes following him.

"I never pretended I was interested in settling down and playing house," she said.

"I never pretended I was interested in asking you to."

"Ah." The ghost of a smile touched her mouth. "I forgot."

"I've never asked anything of you, Enid."

"Except that I never mention your daughter."

"An easy enough proposition, surely. You don't even like her."

"I think you confuse disinterest with dislike, but no, I've no desire to get to know her. I just find it – puzzling. That you're so close, yet so distant."

She was watching him more than ever now, and he realised that there was no way this could continue. He'd spent too many years immersed in the Dark Arts; he had too many secrets to hide.

He should have known it from the beginning.

He should never have allowed this to happen.

He drew his robes about himself. "I told you. I don't want to discuss Lilith."

He was gone before she could answer. The door closed with a soft click, and his footsteps echoed through the corridor.

***

It wasn't so much that he avoided her over the next few days: he simply chose to be in the places where she was unlikely to be found. The staff common room, the library, the Great Hall. He didn't respond to the few knowing glances from his colleagues, and when Minerva asked if Enid would be returning to duty soon, he said with complete honesty that he didn't know.

He didn't say he didn't care. Minerva had known him most of his life, and was developing an uncanny knack for catching him in a lie.

Perhaps, he thought, he had been at Hogwarts for too long. But where else would he go, this late in his life and career? And soon, he would be Headmaster. For the first time, he would have an honest place in the politics of the wizarding world, achieved through – what? Hard work? Or patience and years of waiting.

His ambition seemed to have contracted in recent years. Once he'd sought power, and all it entailed.

Now he'd be happy to see his daughter achieve adulthood whole, without the burdens which had dogged him through his adult life.

There were nights when he could forget how profoundly she had inherited his sins, even if she didn't know it yet.

Enid, for all her ambition, had no place in their lives. It would be the height of recklessness to bring an Auror into his confidence. And unfair to allow the relationship to continue without honesty.

Snape wondered when fairness had begun to seem important.

***

The Ravenclaw seventh years paused as they exited the classroom, and some of the boys turned to gawk. Snape followed their gaze, and saw Enid, lingering in the shadows and waiting for the students to pass.

He didn't invite her in, but he didn't lock the door. Despite temptation.

Her footsteps echoed through the room.

"We're leaving tomorrow," she said. "We've been recalled to London to account for our failures." Her voice was contemptuous, but there was concern in her face.

"You can't seriously be worried—"

"Don't patronise me." She sat down on a desk. "I'm sorry if I've done or said something to offend you. It was never my intention."

"Your intentions have never been especially clear to me."

"Well, I can assure you they aren't honourable." She laughed, then stopped. "I'm not going to beg, Severus."

"I don't expect you to."

"I don't understand what you want here."

"What I want…?" Snape paused, then rallied. "You've made your own wishes more than clear. No commitment. No settling. Isn't that right?"

"You're making this very difficult."

"If you thought this was a simple situation—"

"I didn't expect you to make it difficult deliberately."

Snape forced a sneer to his lips. "I'm sorry. Did you imagine I yearned for an opportunity to be nice? That you could bring out my better nature?"

She didn't flinch from his sarcasm: her lips thinned, and she braced herself for attack.

"I didn't exactly choose you at random, Severus," she said. "I know a lot of men – I have many friends – I don't jump into bed with someone lightly. However it may seem to you."

"Really."

"You don't see it, do you? You truly think that you're unlovable – that anyone interested in you must have some ulterior motive—"

"I cannot imagine what you would want from me—"

"What I would want from you? A man with honour, even if he is cantankerous and secretive. Who sees me as something other than a mother to future generations of wizards – who likes me."

"If those are your standards, Enid, they're appallingly low."

"I can't put this into words," she hissed. "I never imagined this would be easy. We're Slytherins, we work for our happy endings. I wanted you. In spite of your faults. In spite of my faults – Merlin, love, you don't fear my ambition! You might be the only one on Earth."

"What is there to fear? After what I've seen – I've known ambitious Aurors. You have too much integrity to be fearsome."

The tilt of her jaw softened, and her lips curved in the beginning of a small smile.

"Severus," she said, "I want you. You've thoroughly settled into a bad-tempered middle age, which nicely complements your bad-tempered adolescence and murderous youth. You have a daughter you refuse to discuss, although you watch her like a hawk, and frankly, even if I wanted to play stepmother, I can't see the three of us tripping off for picnics together. I'm an Auror, you're a former Death Eater, I work very hard to avoid politics, while you're about to become Headmaster of Hogwarts. I was never under the delusion that a relationship with you would be simple. But please, if we make an effort—"

"No. I can't."

"Be honest. Say you won't."

"Very well, then. I won't."

"Do I…" She paused, then continued in a stronger voice, "Will you give me a reason?"

"You just listed them yourself. You might be willing to make concessions – I am not."

She was speechless, and he couldn't blame her: even he could hear the petulance in his voice.

Honesty, however, was not an option.

"Well," she said finally, "that's it, then."

"That's it."

"I'd better be going, then. While my dignity is still somewhat intact." She wasn't meeting his eyes, but her voice was steady. She rose to her feet.

"I'll be seeing you," she said. She paused in the doorway, looking back. "I can't even begin to understand your reasons, Severus. But let me know if you change your mind."

Snape watched her walk away.

It was better this way. Better for everyone.

She closed the door with a soft click, and he was left alone in his dungeons.

end