Anam Cara

Three

I decided against attempting to make an appearance with the adults. It would only serve to stir things up further and in addition I was exhausted from shielding all the time. Being in the midst so many skilled telepaths made me feel as though I was being picked apart piece by piece. I started for my rooms and it wasn't long before I knew I had company. I turned at the door just before he tried to duck out of sight.

"Do you want to come in for a little while?"

He followed me in quietly and sat down in the chair in front of the fire. His feet didn't touch the floor and he sat there swinging them, staring at me with a rapt expression on his face.

"Ah," I said, sizing up the situation. "Er . . . Towan, I have to get out of this ridiculous outfit, I can hardly breathe. Excuse me a moment, will you?"

He nodded happily. I conjured a deck of playing cards and handed it to him. "Here, I'll be right back. Shuffle those really well." I went into the bedchamber and shut the door. I pulled the stiff formal robes off, tossed the mess on the bed and found a loose-fitting nightdress that looked sufficiently grandmotherly. Sitting on the bed I scanned the house while pulling out hairpins. I was fairly sure when I found Snaps I'd find him seething or sulking somewhere alone with my murder on his mind. I was wrong. He wasn't alone sulking and he wasn't seething. He seemed to be in a rare, jovial mood. There was only one explanation for that, whoever he was with was in on the murder plot. "Oh well," I said to myself combing my hair out with my fingers, "I might as well enjoy the hour I have left on this plane."

I then spent a pleasant hour sitting on the floor engaged in a cutthroat game of gin rummy with Towan Cowley. His pile of sweets was already nearly twice the size of mine when we were interrupted.

Snaps stood at the doorway. "Teleostan."

"It's Town," we both interrupted from the floor without looking up.

"Towan. Your mother is looking for you."

The boy looked at me, then half turned to his uncle. "Are you sure? Sir?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You came here looking for Taliesin."

I held my cards up high to hide my face in case I started laughing. I didn't want to hurt the poor boy's feelings.

"Towan, out!" he snapped.

I dropped the cards and glared at him. Was that absolutely necessary?

"Go on," I told Towan quietly. "She wants both of you. It is getting very late. We can finish this tomorrow. I intend too win all those back."

He pocketed a few pieces of candy, slid a sly look toward his uncle, then pushed his pile of winnings over to me. "You can have them," he said brightly. As he passed, he shot his uncle as venomous a look as a seven-year-old can manage.

Snape looked utterly shocked. I managed to hold my laughter until the boy was out of the room.

"The gauntlet has been dropped! What's it going to be? Pistols at dawn? How exciting!"

Snape looked back still wearing an incredulous look. "You encourage this sort of thing, do you?"

I tossed him an exploding bonbon from the pile on the floor. "He's seven. What's your excuse?"

"What's yours? Have you lost your touch? Again?" The last word came with a sneer.

"I let him win." I shuffled the deck. "You are going to have to work for your candy."

He sat down, took the cards and shuffled them again. "I have a better idea." He put them down on the floor, cut the deck three times and handed it back to me. "Tell me my fortune."

My insides turned to jelly. "No."

"No? Why not?"

"You know why not."

"You do this all the time. It's a parlor trick. You'd do it for anyone else."

"You are not anyone else."

He began speaking in a deep, serious tone, "You would keep information from me?" He ran a finger up my arm slowly, starting at my wrist, creeping up to my shoulder as he said in a near whisper, "You know, don't you, that in my darker days I was considered an expert torturer?" He paused and let the silence in the room envelop his words. I tried not to laugh.

"You wouldn't believe," he started again, running his hand down my other arm, barely making contact and I shivered, "how information would come pouring out with just the right persuasion."

"You get one card. And you have to promise not to ask me to do this again." I spread the cards between us and watched him pick one. He held it up to me without looking at it. I snatched it from his fingers.

"Do you really want to know?" I asked, grinning.

"Of course."

"Jealousy! You have a rival. You are going to have to fight to win your suit." I turned the card and showed him it was the Jack of Hearts. "So the duel is on! I'd recommend pistols. The little fellow doesn't have a wand, and he's too short for a rapier."

He curled his lip in a sneer. "The little amateur," he mumbled only half in jest, I suspected. "There'll be no duel. I intend to win this here and now."

He stood, pulling me with him. Leaning forward he brushed his lips against mine in a suggestion of a kiss. I stepped forward to close the distance between us, but he stepped back. He kissed me again, less tentatively and lingered longer. I tried to raise my hand to touch him, but he tightened his grip on my wrist and held my arm down by my side. The kiss was hypnotic, barely tracing my lips. I felt myself just melting into it when he pulled away again suddenly. I looked up at him, looking for a clue. He stepped toward me, folded my arms behind my back and holding them there pulled me to him and kissed me again. There was no tentativeness this time. His lips forced mine apart, his tongue eager to force entrance. I felt one hand on my face then in my hair while his other arm still held me fast, my arms still behind my back. I ached to hold him.

He lifted his head and looked into my eyes.

"Severus," I stammered, "What . . . ?"

"No," he said.

"What?"

He backed away pulling me with him. "Come here," he said and began walking backwards toward the adjoining bedchamber. When we got there, he went straight to the bed and with one sweep cleared it of the heaps of pillows and several items of mine that were strewn across it. I reached out to him, but again he grabbed me by the wrists and guided me to the edge of the bed. "This has got to go." His hands slid down my shoulders to the tie that held the loose gown. He knelt in front of me and untied the knot. The thin fabric seemed to melt away as his hands passed over my skin. His lips followed the path his hands took and I found myself breathless. Without thinking, I lifted my hands to his hair. Immediately his caresses stopped and my hands were held firmly. "I said no."

"But why?" my voice was strained with frustration.

I got no answer, but he let go of my hands. He started his exploration upwards this time again, his lips and tongue following his hands. I clenched my hands into tight fists.

He must have known I couldn't hold back any longer, because he stopped and stood up. He never took his eyes off me as he began to remove his own clothes.

Let me do that

His eyes flashed with anger, just for a second and he stopped what he was doing.

I looked away, angry. "You're losing! I don't like this."

He was on the bed beside me. "I think you do."

I looked up and we met in a frenzied kiss. He welcomed my response this time, although he held my hands away once again.

This time I slid away from him moving toward the center of the bed. As he followed, he slipped the dress that had been pushed down around my waist completely off my body.

I looked into his eyes. They were burning, like coals in a furnace but there was something else, something behind them he was working very hard to hide. He knew I was searching, he closed his eyes and pushing my head back began a trail of burning kisses up from base of my neck. Moving over me, he gently lifted my arms over my head and held them with one hand. The other hand he ran softly over my face, across my forehead, tracing the line of my nose, cheeks, lips and chin. I was confounded. His eyes bored into me, his touch burned and the frustration of not being able to touch him, to hold him was driving me mad.

"What are you doing?" I asked tremulously.

"I want to remember all of this, " he whispered.

Remember? The word barely registered in my mind as his touch became the center of my universe. I could feel his eyes on me, taking me in, devouring me. His hands traveled slowly, deliberately over every part of me. Down my arms, tracing along my sides the sweeping up to my belly, my breasts. Fire and ice followed every touch. I cried out in delirium when on the return path, those hands found the soft flesh of my inner thighs, parted them and found my very core.

I opened my eyes he covered my mouth with another breath stealing kiss then slid his lips from mine and began his travels again this time with kisses. My fists clenched so tight against my entire being's desire to reach down and grab him that my fingernails were cutting into the palms of my hands.

"Severus!" I cried out, surprised, yet not surprised at the desperation in my voice, "let me touch you. Just touch you."

He said nothing, but stopped his progress long enough to take my hands in his. I entwined my fingers with his as he brought my arms down to my sides. He kept hold of my hands as he resumed his path, his tongue lazily, tauntingly, circling my navel before sliding once again on its downward path. He freed one of his hands from my grip. His fingers traced tantalizingly on my skin, I arched my back to meet him but he had no intention of granting me release.

I felt nothing but him. Where he was not touching me, I had ceased to exist. It was as if, on overload my mind had shut down. He was taking me into madness.

Again, knowing just when I was at the edge, he moved again, came back to me opening my eyes with gentle kisses. He pulled me close to him, so close I felt a part of him. Again I tried asking, "Why won't you let me touch you?"

"If you touch me, I'll lose control," he said. " I absolutely must not lose control." He moved a hand to my breast, fondling, cupping it. He took it in his mouth. My entire being ached for him, for a final release. I moaned, in frustration and pleasure and he took my face in his hands. "Soon," he said, "soon," teasing again, pushing me back to the brink.

"Oh, please . . . please stop this . . . "

In one sudden, fluid motion he slid into me. I felt tears of relief slide down the sides of my face, but he held himself above me still, keeping our bodies apart as much as possible.

Desperate for release I arched up toward him, but he had set a slow, excruciating rhythm. My nerves were so sensitive I felt every inch of every stroke, each one deeper, each one harder then the one before. I looked into his eyes and gave up. He controlled my every movement, every breath, and every sensation. I felt myself racing toward a glorious reward and when it came, it was with his hand clamped firmly over my mouth. My screams would have woken the dead, most certainly alarmed everyone in the house.

His control faltered as the sensations of my climax coursed through his body, inflaming him further. "Now," he whispered, panting, "hold me now." He snaked his arms around me and pulled us together, at last skin to skin.

With a shout of triumph, I wrapped myself around him, one hand tangled in his hair, the other raced down his back, my legs gripped him tightly around the hips. This new freedom let me open fully to him, and he moaned as he thrust deeper. Spasms of absolute pleasure still coursed through me, clutching him, and he used that pace as he drove harder toward his own release. I pulled his face down to me and attacked with a voluptuous kiss and swallowed his moans, first of surprise, then of abandon.

He moved inside me still, savoring the last moments. I was transported, beside myself with his pleasure as well as my own. I stroked his back, his hair and delighted in the feel of him.

"You are delicious that was . . . delicious!" he announced before rolling off me. I followed him and lay sprawled across him.

Propping myself up I looked at his face. His eyes were closed, his hair was a tangled mop, he was damp with sweat and he looked completely at peace. There was nary a trace of the fearsome Potions Master that so terrified Hogwarts school. Oh, if they could see you now! I laughed quietly and laid my head on his chest.

"What?" he asked, with a half smile.

"You."

He reached out to stroke my hair. "What about me?"

"You're a monster," I said, "and I love you." I told him.

His hand stopped moving, tangled in my hair. You can't! The peaceful look was gone, replaced by one of deep sadness.

"I can, and I do," I said.

He sat up and took my hands. "Melpomene, there's something . . . "

I stopped him and put a finger to his lips.

"Please don't say it. Don't say it now."

"I'm sorry," he whispered, the words catching in his throat. "Your love has doomed you."

He was saying goodbye.

Four

I couldn't stand it any longer. I rolled out of bed pulling a thick blanket along with me. The images in my mind made sleep impossible. They didn't, however, seem to be enough to wake Severus Snape but that may have been because of his generosity in sharing them with me. I walked into the sitting room and poked the embers of the fire trying to coax some more life out of them. I knew immediately that I wouldn't be alone for long.

I usually looked forward to these visits but I was filled with anger at the thought of this one. I dropped the poker and looked around the room. I needed something to keep my hands occupied and I noticed the deck of playing cards that had been left on the hearth. I picked them up and began absently shuffling them waiting for Renata's appearance.

She arrived, looking as peaceful and beautiful as ever and I hated the very sight of her. "Well, my wise guide, voice of the spirits! What news do you bring me tonight?" I asked.

She ignored my tone. "You are tired. Your dreams trouble you."

"They're not my dreams," I snapped at her. "You know that!"

She sighed. "He's leaving. He doesn't know how to tell you."

"He doesn't have to tell me. Don't you understand that? Or has this gone beyond even your understanding?"

I turned my back on her, and sat in front of the fire tossing the cards into the flames one by one. As each one was consumed, the flames grew brighter. "Why now? Why have you decided to show up now?" I asked her sharply. "I have nothing to say to you. I have no reason to listen to you. It's time you moved on."

"You cannot question. You know that."

I spun around to face her. "You knew! You let me go on believing . . . for years! And then when your son discovered what happened to Rennie, no! Renata! Where were you? Where were you? If ever I needed you . . . "

Her blue eyes showed deep sadness I'd not noticed before. "You had Severus then."

"I had Severus! How dare you?! How DARE you?! And this? Is this some great cosmic joke, yanking the ground out from under my feet again and again?"

"I am a guide, not a puppeteer."

"Oh, no? I remember you telling me how you chose me. In this very house! 'Because he's my son,' you said, 'Surely you can understand that,' you said."

"Melpomene, there is more to this . . . "

"Stop it. Stop it!" Once the words started, they flowed from me, unstoppable. "Through your manipulation I have bound myself to your son. You understood the consequences of that binding. You knew what would happen, didn't you! You set me up, Renata! You set me up for another horrible loss. How many times must I start over alone?"

She stood silently, her sad blue eyes watching me. "Are you finished?"

I turned away from her and flung the remaining cards into the flames.

"Listen to me. This is important. He needs you now more than ever. He is placing himself in such danger . . . " she paused and I turned in surprise at the tone of her voice. I sensed real fear in it. Her figure flickered a moment then gained strength and she was able to continue. "The path is so narrow. The end is still unclear. You will pay a terrible price. But if, if it is successful, it will save both your lives. And a great many others."

I laughed, humorlessly. "Another terrible price? But I'm running very low on funds! I lost a husband I adored to evil and madness. You were there! I threw away my daughter, the only pure and good thing I've ever accomplished. You were there! I am shortly going to watch the man who managed to free me from that . . . And you? Again you'll stand and watch?" I stopped and sank onto a chair and dropped my head into my hands. "Tell me. What have I got left to give?"

I felt a chill and the room darkened as the flames sputtered in the grill. Her eyes glowed with anger. "If you turn your back now whatever happening will be your own fault."

"You say 'if' and 'the end is unclear'. Now 'whatever happens'? You can't see this clearly? Why are you showing me shadows?"

"What will you do, Melpomene? Until you know your own mind, all I can show you are shadows. I have guided you through unspeakable horrors and will guide you through more to come. I am as bound to you as you are to Severus. I am as much your mother as I am his. Understand this: if you choose to make the sacrifice he will ask of you, you will most certainly need my help."

"Are you all right?" I jumped at the sound of his voice behind me. "I heard voices."

"No, you were dreaming. Go back to bed."

He sat down and put his arms around me, "Come with me, it's cold out here."

"I can't. Your dreams are terrible."

"I have to explain . . . "

"You don't. Please don't."

He took my face between his hands and looked into my eyes. "I have to go back. There's no other way. It's all been arranged. There's just one . . . " He dropped his hands, stood and walked away from me. "I can't do this!" he said angrily to the air around him. Then he turned back to me and said quietly. "I can't ask you to do this."

Watching him standing at a distance, something struck me, suddenly like a bolt of lightning. "It's different this time," I said absently. "It's different this time!" I repeated.

"What are you talking about?"

"The last time you went back, danger was everywhere all around you. You were surrounded by a black aura. Do you remember?"

He came back toward me slowly, "Yes, I remember. You were rather tiresome about it."

"You were walking into a trap then. This time you're setting it."

"You know?"

"I don't see the same warning signs this time."

"That may be," he said in barely a whisper taking my hands in his, "because this time the plan involves a demonstration of fealty on my part."

I sat perfectly still and silent as he went through every detail. It was as if he was reading a story from a book. The plan was meticulous. They must have been putting it into place for months. Everything was ready to be set into motion but for one crucial detail and no one knew if it could be done.

When he stopped talking, I looked at him in astonishment.

He was searching my face for any sign of horror. "Do you trust me? You must trust me. If you have any doubt . . . "

"Of course I trust you. But this is a fairy tale. It can't be done."

"There's a book. You must find it. You know the one.'"

"That's science fiction! Dark magic science fiction!"

"You've done it before! I've seen you do it. It's only traveling. It's what the Ministry . . . "

"Not like this. There has to be a connection. Without a connection the physical body dies."

"Go back to Hogwarts. Find the book. He knows about you--about us. I don't know how."

"I know how." The Detention Club. Their venom had spread deeper then they could possibly have imagined. "How doesn't matter. You want to use this--us."

"If he thinks I would . . . "

I held up a hand and he stopped, mid a sentence. I didn't need to hear the rest. Words that had been spoken years ago as consolation, come back now to torment me. There is nothing you can do. When a wizard goes over, nothing-- no one matters to him! I left him and went to the window. "I'll need a host."

"Use me," he said.

"No, we're too closely bonded. I don't even want to think what would happen."

"You understand what I have to do-how it must look."

I knew exactly how it had to look.

"You know he has an interest in you. I'll try to convince you to join."

"I won't."

"And so he'll order your death."

"By your hand."

"Yes."

"You are asking for a verifiable physical death." I looked out over the snowy lawns. "And if it works? Then what?" I whispered.

"I told you. The Ministry has set up a new identity, you'll go to London . . . there will be a contact."

"I know. I disappear into muggle London." I closed my eyes but couldn't stop the tears. "But that's not what I mean, Severus. Then what?"

He was before me in an instant, hands on my shoulders. "Don't do it," he said, "We'll find another way. No one can expect you to give up your life for this!"

"I've given up others for less." Renata's words rang in my head, 'If it is successful, it will save both your lives. And a great many others.' "Tell the ministry I'll do it. I'll find your book of dark fairy tales. Mr. Tilbury will have to buy himself a new file cabinet. I was ready to throw this life away and you gave it back to me. It's only a name, if you need it, it's yours. But I want you to know, I need you to know, I've never left so much behind."