Vita Labyrinthae Similis In Quo Umbrae Vagamus

CHAPTER 5

I'll get me to a mount of myrrh, and there I'll lay me down

--Steeleye Span--

Some hours later, she left his dungeon quarters, feeling as if the old world she had inhabited was nothing more than a dream, and she had woken to meet an entirely new existence. Her thoughts were fracted and corroborate as she made her way up the long marble staircase to her second-floor office, and the only thing that kept coming into her mind was a snatch of a Muggle poem she'd once come across, back at Durmstrang, when the world was younger and much more simple.

Raise me a dais of silk and gold; hang it with vair and purple dyes

Nastasya....no, Nadezhda, now, walked into her office, sat down behind the desk. She could still taste the urgency of his lips on hers; her skin didn't seem to want to relinquish the memory of his touch. She could feel the magic of those long slim fingers holding her as if he'd never let her go. She wanted to fly. She wanted to fly higher than she'd ever flown before, fly to the moon and dance on its silver surface with utter mindless happiness, sing out her heart to the airless vault of deep heaven. She felt as if she had been handed a star, as if she had held its radiance in the prison of her fingers. For the first time in her life, Nadezhda felt beautiful.

Slipping off the heavy black teacher's robes, she stood before the window in her tunic and trousers, and flung wide the casement to let in the sharp scent of the autumn night. She unfastened the tunic, letting it fall to the floor, and stepped out of her leggings, standing pure and naked in the soft wind of the night. Her white body was alive with the song of the night, her nipples hard and sharp as little knives, as she climbed up to the windowsill and sprang out into the darkness, crying aloud the words that would give her wings. Her fall suddenly became a swoop, as the long bones of her arms lengthened and hollowed themselves, as the tiny hairs on her skin blossomed into feathers, as the dimness suddenly resolved itself into the jewel-clarity of hawksight. She flew on the breath of the night, and she sang in her hawkvoice, and the dark tops of the trees in the Forbidden Forest ceased to sway so that the trees themselves could hear the joy in her voice. The song she sang was a human one, translated beyond words into the sounds her syrinx could produce, but the words in her skull were as evident in the song as they would have been had she been able to sing them aloud.

A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.

She soared.

That night, the dungeon was a warm place. The bed that for so long had been a cold and unwelcoming haven was, for once, comfortable and yielding. She slept curled up against him, her head resting on his chest; and he, too, slept peacefully and deeply, and without dreaming.

The Great Hall rang with conversation, as usual. Breakfast was never a quiet meal, despite the earliness of the hour, especially not today: orange and black streamers hung from every torchbracket, and the enchanted ceiling showed not the pale morning sky but a fantastic scene of witches and wizards engaging in fascinating encounters with monsters, ghouls and for some reason giant pumpkins. Harry and Ron were watching one particularly attractive witch in form-fitting black robes fighting off the advances of a rather persistent vampire.

"How'd you suppose those robes stay on?" Ron inquired dreamily. "I mean, there's hardly anything of them."

"Don't know," said Harry, just as distractedly. "Must be a Decolletage Charm." Above them, the witch in question kneed the vampire in a particularly sensitive area and proceeded to turn him into dust with a well-aimed spell. "Oooh, that's got to hurt," he muttered.

Hermione elbowed him. "Are you going to eat anything, or are you just going to stare at her?"

"Um," he said. He realized he had been holding the same forkful of bacon for almost four minutes, and that he was in fact hungry. She gave him an exasperated if affectionate look, and turned her own attention to the French toast. He shook himself. "So, Hermione, what are you going to dress up as for the ball?"

She licked her fingers clean of powdered sugar. "You'll see," she said. "It's a surprise."

"Oh, go on, tell us," said Ron, losing interest in the ceiling as the image of the witch wrapped herself in a cloak. "You're being a troll, right?"

Hermione threw a crust at him, without rancor. "No, Ron, I wouldn't dream of dressing up as you, I respect you too much." Harry snorted.

"So you're going to be a Boggart?"

"Wait and see," she said mysteriously. "What are you two being, then?"

Harry and Ron exchanged glances. They hadn't actually come up with anything yet, but there was no way they were admitting that to Hermione, who had probably been planning her costume since the previous Halloween. "It's a secret," said Harry promptly.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. "Harry, you're utterly transparent. You haven't thought of anything yet, have you?"

Harry ate bacon, loudly. Ron sniggered. "Of course we have, we're just not telling you. Hey, you want to bet Malfoy's going to be Gilderoy Lockhart?"

Hermione laughed out loud at the thought of Draco Malfoy with a perm and lavender robes, telling everyone about his latest book. "No," she said. "I fully expect him to dress up as Snape. He is Draco's idol, after all."

"Eugh," said Ron elegantly. "Well, he's ugly enough to be Snape."

Harry felt a sudden twist, remembering the look on Professor Serenskaya's face as she told him Snape was ill, the strange weakness in that silky voice half-heard through the haze of fever. They had yet to see if Snape would show up to his morning Potions class.

He threw a glance at Malfoy, who still didn't look well, despite having been released by Madame Pomfrey. He looked....haunted, Harry thought stupidly. Malfoy wasn't the sort to let things haunt him. He wasn't susceptible. He was too nasty. But Harry couldn't deny that the look of smarmy malice normally sitting on Malfoy's face like a stain wasn't there; instead, the pale boy looked worried and more than a little exhausted. Maybe he's just finally realized what an absolute scumbag he is.

Harry doubted that. He sighed and turned his attention back to Ron and Hermione, who were happily arguing about whether or not Crabbe and Goyle would even bother to dress up at all, since they were uglier than most trolls as it was. He ate a sausage, meditatively.

"What do you think, Harry?"

"I fully expect to see Crabbe and Goyle dressed up as veela," he said seriously. Hermione choked on her pumpkin juice, and Ron laughed so hard he nearly fell off his chair.

Nadezhda was sitting outside on the steps, having a cigarette before she had to teach Snape's Potions class. The morning was grey and chilly, and a slight wind stirred the drifts of brown leaves that had gathered against the edges of the steps, but Nadezhda thought it was the most beautiful morning she had ever seen. She could still smell the faint spicy scent of him, still feel his arms around her.

Someone flicked a cigarette lighter behind her, and she jumped, turning to see Draco Malfoy shivering in the autumn breeze. He didn't look good, she thought. He'd lost weight, and the circles under his eyes hadn't lessened much. "Hello, Draco," she said, warmly. For some reason the horror of his father wasn't bothering her as much as she'd feared it would. When Severus had told her about walking in on Lucius Malfoy and his whore, she had thought Damn, now I'm not going to be able to look at Malfoy the younger without wanting to be sick, but it seemed not to matter so much when faced with the hollowness in Draco's eyes.

"Professor," he said, tiredly, in greeting. "May I?"

She gestured to the step beside her."Of course. How are you?"

"Oh, fine," he said quickly, dragging on the cigarette. "What about you?"

"I'm all right," she smiled. "Malfoy, may I ask you a question?"

He looked up at her, and now she thought she saw a hunted look in the winter-colored eyes. The mask was firmly in place, but she thought she saw that look, anyway. "Yes," he said, tonelessly. "Of course."

"Is there something bothering you? You don't look well, if you don't mind my saying so."

For a moment the mask was gone completely, and she could see what looked like a very scared and very disillusioned teenager; then it came back. His voice, when he spoke, shook badly. "No," he said, "I'm fine. Nothing's wrong."

She had never heard such an obvious lie in her life, but the clock in the village struck nine, and she sighed. "We've got Potions. Please, Malfoy, if there is something wrong, do tell me. I might be able to help."

He shook his head, pitched away the cigarette end. "Thanks, Professor, but there's no need." He preceded her into the building, led the way down the stairs to Snape's dungeon classroom. Most of the students were already there, waiting to see who'd take the lesson, and she realized with a rush of mixed emotion that most of them were rather glad it was her behind the desk. I can't make them like Severus, she told herself firmly. It's not my responsibility.

Malfoy wouldn't meet her eyes, all through the lesson. She had returned to Snape's syllabus, and today's subject was the uses of ground diamonds in Renaissance poisons (what a very interesting piece of history THAT is, she thought dryly); she wasn't familiar enough with the subject to let her attention wander far from the text, so she didn't have much of an opportunity to observe the students. Weasley and Longbottom were grinning like idiots at the pleasure of having her teach rather than Snape, but apart from them and Malfoy's obvious preoccupation, most of the students seemed normal. After the lesson Malfoy was one of the first to pack up and leave, while she was still busy handing out the others' corrected homework.

She sighed. Nothing she could do. When they were gone, she left the Potions classroom and hurried down the hall to Snape's quarters, knocked on the door.

"Who is it?"

"Nadezhda." She was hardly aware she'd used that name.

He unlocked the door, let her in. He was wearing his black silk dressing gown, the same one he'd had on when she came to see him before, and she realized anew how very becoming it was on his slender frame. He locked the door behind her, turned, and took her in his arms in a rather uncertain embrace.

Her hands crept around his neck, tangled in the silky fall of his hair; her mouth sought his own. "I love you," she whispered between kisses.

He drew in a long hissing breath. "God," he said, weakly. "I'd just about convinced myself this wasn't real. That you were never here, and last night didn't happen."

She took his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her. "It's real," she said levelly. "All of it. My love, last night you made me happier than I had thought possible. Just accept what's happened between us."

"I...." he began, and coughed. "I'm trying. It's just so difficult to forget everything I've ever believed to be true, and start believing something quite different. How could anyone love me?"

She scowled at him. "Don't be thick, Severus. You're entitled to some angst every now and then, all of us are, but you needn't overdo it. Listen to me. I love you. I love you. I love you, Severus."

He drew a long shuddering breath, closing his eyes. "I love you too, Nadezhda."

She kissed his closed eyes. "See? You'll begin to believe it soon. Come sit down." She drew him towards the enormous overstuffed armchair facing the fire, pulled him down beside her. He looked a great deal better today, she reflected. He'd showered with her in the morning, and his hair wasn't lank and greasy as it tumbled in black waterfalls over his shoulders; the night's restful sleep had lessened the circles under his eyes a bit, and some of the hard-worn lines in his face had eased.

"I do believe it," he said to her. "Although I've trained myself my whole life not to accept anything that might make me weaker, I can't help believing this. It's not easy. I've dreamed of you so long, Nadezhda, that I'm used to having you disappear in an instant as I wake up. This morning...." He trailed off, buried his face in her hair. "I thought it was a particularly cruel dream, since you were there when I woke, and you stayed there, and you said my name in your sleep. I don't think I really believed you were real until you started to drool."

She laughed softly. "Sorry about that."

He smiled. She was not surprised how beautiful it made him, but she knew almost nobody else had ever seen that smile or that beauty. It was a shame. "It convinced me," he said, "since my dream-Nadezhda would never have been human enough to drool in her sleep. Do you know, I often thought I'd made you up, in the mad years? I remembered you as one of the only things I regretted leaving behind in the Light, and I had come to believe that you couldn't have been real, that I couldn't ever have felt anything for anyone as I did for you."

She sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I never knew how much I loved you until I left Hogwarts," she said absently. "It wouldn't have worked, not then, even if you'd been free. I wasn't grown up enough. I would have ruined it."

"It's enough that I have you now," he told her firmly, and traced the line of her cheekbone with one long finger. "I'm so.....I don't know how on earth I'm going to be able to face the students, Nadezhda."

"Why? They don't know about us." But she thought she understood, and she left off nibbling on his ear so that he could concentrate on what he wanted to say.

"I'm not sure I can be nasty to anyone right now."

She laughed, a true laugh that shook her more kindly than had her tears, and regarded him as calmly as she could. He looked odd, and she realized he was trying his best not to smile, and he failed; and it struck her again how truly handsome he was, and he clutched her to him and kissed her so hard she couldn't breathe.

"You can practice on Lupin," she said when he let her go, unable to stop smiling herself, "at lunch. How are you feeling, anyway?"

"Dreadful. Far too ill to go to lunch," he told her solemnly, regarding her through his lashes. "I think you're going to have to do a bit more nursing me back to health."

"Oh, damn," she said mildly. "What a pity." He coughed ostentatiously, making her laugh. "Yes, I think you're right. What are you doing up, anyway? You should be in bed."

"Bed is boring," said Severus Snape, and kissed her again, "without company."

She arrived a few minutes late for her DaDA noon class, tucking her hair back into its bun as she hurried into the room. Malfoy wasn't there. He was the only student missing. She marked down his absence on the roster and threw herself into the lecture, wanting only to finish as soon as she could and hurry back down to Severus, but she had just about enough professionalism left to pay attention to what she was doing, and to do it well. Pansy Parkinson kept glancing at Malfoy's empty desk, as if she'd like to leave the room and go find him, but she too was uncharacteristically well-behaved. It was bizarre. Something seemed to be happening to Hogwarts, not just to her.

Pansy looked as if she'd like to say something to her as the students filed out at the end of the lesson, but thought better of it and hurried away. Nadezhda looked at the clock in the corner. She had two hours before the next lesson. She weighed the growling of her stomach and the sweet tugging at her breastbone, and settled for food first and Severus directly afterward. She realized that she hadn't felt like this since she'd been an annoyingly giddy schoolgirl mooning over her first crush.

Nevertheless, she couldn't stop the grin from spreading once again as she snuck down to the kitchens in search of clandestine nourishment.

Harry and Hermione were sitting outside, by the lake, tossing pebbles aimlessly at the giant squid and nibbling on Honeydukes sweets. Every now and then a tentacle would emerge from the water and bat a pebble back at them. They were wasting time until Transfiguration.

"Why d'you suppose Professor Serenskaya looked so happy?" Hermione asked idly, flipping an asparagus-flavored Bertie Bott's Bean into the water. Harry leaned backwards, regarded the sky with equanimity.

"Dunno," he said. "She looked pretty happy in Potions, too, this morning. It's a good thing Snape's still out; I totally forgot to do any of the reading for Potions, and if it'd been him, I just know he would have quizzed us on it."

"You give him too much credit for being psychic," Hermione told him. "Ow!" The giant squid didn't seem to like asparagus any more than she did, and had tossed the bean back at her with astonishing accuracy. "Maybe she's just had some good news, or something."

"Maybe," Harry mused. "Herm, have you noticed there's been a string of weird things happening recently? First Malfoy starts acting weird, then we get this bizarre flu epidemic and Professor Serenskaya apparently saves us all from destruction, and now Snape's still malingering and Malfoy's still acting weird, and Professor Serenskaya's gone all dreamy and pink." He had discovered a watermelon-flavored bean, and was sucking it slowly. Hermione raised herself on an elbow and looked at him seriously.

"You think there's something bigger going on?" she asked.

"I don't know. It just seems kind of strange."

"Your scar hasn't hurt or anything, has it?"

"No, no, not at all. I don't think this is Vol...You-Know-Who. I'd like to know what it is, though."

Hermione sniffed suddenly. "What's that smell? It's like incense."

Harry was still tasting watermelon, and couldn't smell a thing. "Dunno."

"God, that's familiar," she said, getting up. He was suddenly aware of how different she looked, how much taller she was, and how her narrow body had blossomed and ripened in the past two years. She had a woman's body now.

Well, she is sixteen, he reminded himself. And you're hardly the skinny little kid you once were, either. Quidditch had defined his muscles, given him a kind of lithe, wiry strength he'd never had before. He was lost in consideration of how things had changed, not thinking much of anything as he got up to follow her. She wandered along the path at the edge of the lake, sniffing occasionally. He found himself rather fascinated by the way her hips moved under the dark fall of her robes, the rhythm of her walk.

Jeez. Like she said to Ron that one time, she is a girl, and other people have noticed it. It's not her fault if you've been too thick to realize it for yourself. Deal.

He caught up with her, shaking his head to rid it of the disturbing thoughts. "What smell are you talking about?"

Hermione turned to face him. "It's a clove cigarette," she said, realizing it even as she spoke the words. "Muggles smoke them sometimes when they're feeling particularly dark or angst-ridden or self-destructive."

"Why are you following it?"

Hermione gave him a little laugh. "I don't know," she said. "But I don't know why anyone at Hogwarts would be smoking cloves, either. Unless Snape's got a secret penchant for the things."

Harry grimaced. "I don't think that's his style. I'd pick him as an opium-eater, if anything."

The silence was companionable between them, and both knew Hermione was using the mysterious scent as an excuse to walk with him, and neither of them minded. They veered off towards the Forbidden Forest, home of acromantulae, centaurs, Jarveys and the occasional werewolf. Harry loved the Forest, despite his myriad painful memories of it; especially now, at this time of year, when the leaves were beginning to explode in a riot of unseemly color and the air tasted sharp and slightly bitter in his mouth. It was sort of like being inside a Filibuster's Firework might be, he reflected. Only not so dangerous. The scarlet, vermilion and gold of the falling leaves seemed to scintillate around Harry and Hermione like the sparks that exploded from the Fireworks in colorful showers.

They wandered easily through the woods, talking of this and that, unimportant things. Harry pestered her to tell him about her costume for the ball that evening, but she was resolute; "Not unless you tell me what you're going as." Since Harry's best effort thus far had been "an overworked sixth-year Gryffindor," he was just going to have to wait and see for himself.

They had just turned back and begun to wander up towards the castle on their way to Transfiguration when Hermione paused, her hand on his arm, and tipped her head on one side to listen. After a moment, Harry heard it too: the painful sounds of someone crying, desperately and helplessly, with the total abandon of one who has lost hope. Hermione motioned him to stay where he was, and crept forward very carefully over the crunching leaf-litter, peering over a stand of bushes. He watched her stiffen in shock, and she waved at him, mouthing Come here. Quietly.

What he saw over her shoulder made him go cold all over in utter surprise. Draco Malfoy lay curled on his side in a drift of bright leaves, his face pillowed on his folded arms, just beyond the screen of bushes. He was weeping in great gasping, tearing sobs that shook his entire body, and there was a hoarseness to the sound, as if he'd been crying long enough to begin to lose his voice. There was a small heap of cigarette butts beside him, and the sweet, heady scent of clove smoke was heavy in the air.

Harry and Hermione exchanged horrified glances. Part of Harry wanted to find out what Malfoy's problem was, and part of him just wanted to run away and pretend he'd never seen that. It was sort of equivalent to seeing Snape in Neville's grandmother's hat; not an easy image to internalize. Hermione was frowning, and he knew she was debating what to do; eventually, she shook her head, and led the way quickly and silently back out of the woods and up across the lawn to the castle. Once they were out of earshot, she muttered "I didn't want to intrude. I hate Malfoy, Harry, you know that; but I couldn't bear to let him know he'd been seen."

He nodded. "That just never happened. We didn't see that."

"See what?" she inquired, and looked up into his eyes, and he grinned as the simple happiness of her company came flooding back.

"Exactly."