Anam Cara

Fifteen.

I had never had a good conversation prefaced by the words 'That's something we need to talk about.' I had no reason to suspect this one would be any different. What little I could read of Severus' feelings suggested he would rather be doing anything other than broaching this topic.

"There's something I need to know first," he said. "Something you need to know as well."

He sat forward and looked as if he was getting ready to begin a lesson.

"The ring." He pointed towards my hand. "You know it was the portkey."

I nodded.

"I'm going to ask for it back."

I looked away from him quickly. "You want it back?"

"Yes," he said simply and held out his hand, palm up. "Please."

I stared at his hand, then looked at his face. There was no particular expression, he was simply requesting the return of his property. I yanked the ring off my finger and held it just over his hand.

He said nothing, but made a beckoning motion with his fingers. I dropped the ring into his waiting hand. He closed his fingers around it, stood up and crossed the room.

I was at a complete loss. I felt a sense of sick dread, but wasn't sure if it was mine, or if it was coming from him.

He placed the ring in the center of the small table near the window. He looked at it for a few moments then looked back up at me. "Do you feel that?" he asked.

I did, or more accurately didn't. The moment the ring had left his hand the stillness had returned. The absolute aloneness I'd felt those long months he'd been behind the psi-shields at Azkaban.

I looked at him in absolute shock. "What have you done?"

He started to say something but stopped himself and paused a moment. "Corrected an oversight. Or perhaps," he paused and turned towards the window, "set you free."

"What have you done?" The words tore out of me.

I could see he was distraught, but my own feelings were overpowering. I couldn't swallow around the lump in my throat and I felt as if the temperature in the room had suddenly risen fifty degrees. Lenore sensed my agitation and was strutting anxiously along the windowsill pecking at the glass demanding immediate entry. To my utter amazement, Severus opened the window. She streaked by him and took up a perch somewhere behind me where I was sure she sat eyeing him closely.

"What have you done?" I repeated.

"There was one thing," he started, "that we failed consider when formulating our original plan. I'm sure by now you know what that was."

"No."

He looked up. "'No' you don't know or no--"

I was back in that horrible hospital again, listening to the nameless couple tell me our bond was broken."No, it can't be."

"It would appear that it is."

"Just when," I asked choking back my anger, "did this oversight come to light?"

" There wasn't time to change the plan. I was afraid if you were told it would distract you."

"Distract me?" I repeated dully.

"I couldn't risk that." He looked at me intensely. "You had to get the transference right. If anything had gone wrong, if you'd had any doubts- I couldn't have lived with myself."

"You can live with this."

"I can live with this, yes."

"Well it was very gentlemanly of you to make that decision for me. And I sincerely appreciate your confidence in my abilities!"

He paled and his eyes turned hard. "What would you have had me do? As it was I-- You have no idea what went on."

"That is rather the point, isn't it? Why don't you tell me now what went on? Why don't you fill me in on all these nice little chats you had about me. About me and my distractability!"

"Dammit!" he shouted. Lenore bristled and croaked loudly. He ignored her. "When the possibility of our bond being broken was introduced I told them I would not lure you into a trap that would kill you or leave you abandoned. I threatened to expose the plot."

I stared at him in wide-eyed horror. "You'd have been--"

He nodded. "Which would have solved nothing. I had no choice. You see that, don't you? You were badly used. I am responsible for that and I will spend the rest of my days making up for it, I can assure you of that. That is why I put a stop to it when I did."

He turned an looked out the window before continuing. "When you were threatened at the shop I knew it had to stop. I know you're going to deny it, but I remember how frightened you were. You have no idea just how much danger you were in at that moment."

He was hiding something, holding back.

"If you're going to explain this, explain it all."

He exhaled through his teeth, buying time I suspected.

"Bloxham--the man in the shop. I sent him."

"Oh God."

"Listen, please. There was another before him. He was sent first, but he wasn't going to deliver a second chance. I- intercepted him. I told Bloxham he'd defied orders and the same would happen to him if he didn't follow my instructions to the letter. He was not to lay a hand on you."

I didn't want to believe him, but I had to. I could feel it, he was telling the truth.

"I don't know if I--"

He interrupted. "It was over then and there. The ministry agreed and arranged the staged arrest in Knockturn Alley. It got me out of the ranks while giving me prestige with the old crowd as having been inside with the best of them. At the same time it made me utterly useless to them. Unfortunately, it meant going to Azkaban, and that meant losing contact with you. I'm sorry, Melpomene but yes, I decided for you that living separately was better than not living at all."

My mind was reeling. I was trying to force puzzle pieces together that refused to fit.

"But, if the bond was broken at the transference-- How...?"

He sat down and laughed mirthlessly. "My dear, this may be the best thing that has happened to you in the last year. You are completely free of me--mind and spirit at any rate. Say the word and I shall remove my body from your presence as well."

Given my breathless state, I was surprised at the force and tenor my words had when I found my voice. "I don't want to be free of you!"

He didn't look at me.

"I don't want to be free of you," I repeated quietly this time. "I want you, Severus, bond or no bond. I want you mind and spirit and body."

He looked up then with an expression of surprise.

"Especially body," I muttered.

He managed a wry smile. "At your service."

I left the spot I'd been riveted to and sank down next to him. He felt cold. I entwined my fingers through his. "There's a part missing," I told him.

"Pardon?"

"There's a part missing. You gave me mind, spirit and body. Where's your heart, Severus?"

He tried to look bored. "That goes along with body, I should think."

"Which means?"

"Which means you have it. You had it before I knew it was gone."

My eyes prickled with tears. "Do you know that's the closest you've ever come to telling me you love me?"

"Is it? That is inexcusable."

"Severus!"

He grinned, "If I didn't love you why would I have spent so damned long fiddling with that bloody ring?"

The ring!

He'd done something to the ring--it wasn't just a portkey, it was our connection. I knew instantly that the moment one of us touched that ring again, our link would be restored. Renata's prohibition against taking it off suddenly made perfect sense. Now the puzzle pieces were falling into place.

Anam Cara.

It was in the inscription. I looked at him awestruck and saw part of him that he kept carefully hidden from the world; the poet. It wasn't simply a pretty inscription, or even a declaration. It was a covenant, crafted with spell work I couldn't begin to imagine.

"I had to do something. I couldn't leave you out here alone," he said simply.

I waited silently, watching him gather his thoughts.

"I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to have to do what I was planning to do without you. That's selfish, I know it."

"It's not. No one knew what would happen."

"It was a risk I was not prepared to take."

This was an astonishing admission from someone who'd spent a lifetime taking unspeakable risks. It took my breath away.

"I knew I could create a continuity, but I had to find the right talisman. I had to find something with a powerful connection to both of us."

"Your mother's ring?"

"The idea came to me on the stairs."

"What? What stairs?"

"At home. Under the portrait."

I bit back a laugh at the picture of him sitting on the bottom step of that huge staircase looking perplexed.

"I have three sisters. Three! I spent a lot of time waiting. Most of it sitting on those stairs."

"It's a good thing you had more than one bathroom."

"Does it matter where I was?"

"You brought it up!"

"Right. Because of the portrait. That's when it came to me. I won't pretend to know what it is, but there is something there. Don't deny it. You recognized her portrait the first time you set foot in that house, yet you'd never met my mother. I've seen her in your dreams. I knew she was the link It was inevitable that you should have that ring eventually so it seemed more than appropriate."

"Inevitable? Why inevitable?"

"I should like you to have it. It would mean a great deal to me if you were to accept it."

"Inevitable? Accept it? Now what are you talking about? Azkaban has addled your brains. I know what being in there is like."

"Do you remember what I said to you at Christmas? At that awful dinner? Marry me! Right here, now. Marcus can do it."

"That was a joke!" I was taken aback. "Wasn't it? A joke?"

"It wasn't. If it hadn't been for what I knew was coming, I would have made that absolutely clear."

I could feel my mind bending around what he was saying. It was a difficult maneuver. "Severus,"

He put his finger to my lips. "The deed is all but done, my love. Surely you know that."

"But it's impossible!"

"You are saying no?

"No! I mean yes--wait! Don't confuse me!"

"Alright then, why don't you tell me why you see this as impossible."

"Just for a start, I'm dead."

"Hmm."

"What do you propose then? Are you going to learn to live here? As a muggle? No, you've designed a nice cover for yourself in your useless, washed-up Death Eater role--"

He coughed

"Don't laugh! I can't very well just turn up, can I? Because if you thought you had vampire troubles in school, just wait until your un-dead bride strolls down Diagon Alley."

"That's an excuse that hadn't crossed my mind, actually. It's a good one though, please go on."

"Shut up!"

"Yes, love."

I scowled at him. He was enjoying this far too much. "You've thought of excuses for me, have you?"

"I don't make excuses. Ever."

"No, you plot, plan, scheme, and calculate. Fine. You tell me. How do you plan to get around the small matter of...um...me being dead."

"I'm afraid you have to stay dead."

"There, you see!"

'You are the most argumentative corpse I have ever come across."

I decided not to say another word until he'd explained what it was he had in mind.

He waited a few moments before speaking.

"You're finished now, I take it."

I crossed my arms and looked at him expectantly.

He sighed and turned serious. "Are you familiar, at all with the Fidelius Charm?"

"A loyalty charm?"

"Yes, in it's most basic sense. It's very complex, arcane, and correspondingly difficult to cast. If performed correctly it conceals information, a secret if you will, inside another person. That person, and only that person is henceforth able to divulge that secret. For example, if you were to charge a secret-keeper with concealing your whereabouts, you would be free to move about unrecognized. People would see you, but barely perceive you and certainly not recognize you."

"You intend to hide me with this Fidelius Charm?"

"Yes. Not just you. Both of us. I could do with some anonymity myself."

The idea was certainly intriguing, could it work? Would it be possible to live hiding in plain sight?

"I don't get it."

He looked away and said under his breath, "Yes you do, you just want to make it difficult."

I ignored him and plowed forward. "What if we tell this secret-keeper it's okay to tell someone where we are. Then that person decides to tell another person about having tea with us on Wednesday"

"That person can't do it. That person will immediately forget that she ever meant to tell anyone about this rhetorical tea party."

"She?"

"It's always a she at a rhetorical tea party, Isn't it? Especially when we're discussing telling tales out of school, rhetorically speaking. Of course."

"Just how--"

"Does it work? Bloody hell. It's magic! You know, sometimes I have to wonder--"

"Severus,"

"What?"

"Yes."

"Now what?"

"I just said 'yes.'"

"I heard that. What I don't have any idea of is--"

"I'd like that ring, if it's still in the offing."

"Pardon?" He looked completely shocked. As if he'd played to stalemate and had just been handed the match.

"Since it's inevitable and all."

I could see him fighting a smile. "You want the ring. And everything that comes with it."

"Yes, please. And don't look smug."

He retrieved the ring from the table where he'd left it. The moment he touched it I felt him all around me, surrounding me, flowing through me, and I knew it was the same for him. It was warm and comfortable, like coming home.

"I've done this once before, I think," he said with a glint in his eyes and he slipped the ring onto my finger. All I could think was that it fit, perfectly. He reached over with his free hand and lifted my chin so that we were face to face again.

"You'll come home with me then, Anam cara? Marcus will be waiting."