Vita Labyrinthae Similis In Quo Umbrae Vagamus

CHAPTER 9

You know you are recalled to life?

--Dickens—

Hermione woke early the next morning, feeling less bruised. The snowfall had all but ceased, but the sky remained steel-grey and louring over the distant mountains, and the glass of the hospital wing's high windows was icy cold to the touch. She slipped out of bed, pulling on a dressing gown, and padded down the long row of beds, her toes recoiling from the freezing flagstones, in search of Draco. He wasn't in any of the open ward beds, and there were three private rooms at the far end of the ward; with a quick look around to make sure Madame Pomfrey wasn't about to swoop down on her with recriminations for being out of bed, Hermione pushed open the door to the first of the private rooms.

First time lucky, she thought. Draco lay utterly white and still in the high bed, like an alabaster effigy. She had to look closely at him to make sure he was breathing, he was lying so still. She sank down on the chair beside his bed, hugging her knees, trying to regain some of the feeling in her feet, and regarded him critically.

He was beautiful. She had run out of excuses to deny that. The fine, pointed bone-structure reminded her strongly of veela, as did his extraordinary silver-gilt hair, slipping down the pillows like rain. His long lashes....many shades darker than his hair.....lay in perfect French curves on the marble of his cheeks; his lips were bloodless, slightly parted. She found herself wanting to kiss him, and was shocked at her own presumption. This is still Malfoy, she reminded herself firmly. Malfoy. Not a fallen angel or a statue. Malfoy the infuriating sixth-year Slytherin with whom we've been having an on-and-off war since we got to Hogwarts. No matter what happened the night before last, this is still Draco Malfoy.

As if to reinforce this last clause, his lashes quivered and parted, and his clear grey eyes found hers. For a long, searching moment, his expression remained that of the alabaster angel; then his face twisted in an odd expression, and he scowled. "Granger," he said, his voice rougher than it should have been. "Come to view the departed? Where are Potty and the Weasel, didn't they want to join in the gloating?"

Hermione found herself faintly surprised at the familiar snide note in that voice. "They don't know you're here," she said, simply. "I came to see if you were all right."

"I'm fine," he said snappishly. "Anything else you wanted to know?"

There was a great deal. She found that she couldn't put together a coherent sentence, though, and dropped her gaze to the coverlets. Draco's narrow hands lay half-open at his sides; as she watched, they closed convulsively on the sheet, as if something had hurt him. She wondered how much of the previous few days he remembered. The touch of those hands on her hair still hung in her memory like a turning jewel.

"No," she said, quietly, and got up. "I'm sorry for disturbing you." Tears were prickling in her eyes. "I hope you feel better."

She was at the door when he spoke again. "Granger." It was a command. "Are you crying?"

"No," she lied, not turning to face him.

"Yes you are. Why?"

"How much do you remember, Draco?" she asked, regarding the doorjamb intently.

"You and Potter barging into the bathroom. I asked you not to get Pomfrey."

She let go of the doorjamb and turned, not caring that the tears had begun to spill down her cheeks; her eyes were burning. "We didn't, Draco," she said. "We didn't."

She left.

Back in her own bed, she concentrated on breathing deeply and wiggling her toes, trying to distract herself enough to stop the floods of tears. He's lying, she thought, with absolute certainty. He's lying about it. He remembers more than that. He's probably furious with himself for having been so weak as to need the help of Gryffindors.

The tears wouldn't stop. She rolled over on her side, her shoulders shaking silently, and watched the high rectangles of the windows grow brighter. For the first time in her career at Hogwarts, Hermione desperately wished she was a Slytherin.

Draco slept fitfully, throughout the morning. He was distantly aware of noises as the hospital ward awoke, as Madame Pomfrey went about her business and visitors came and went. Not until just after the lunch bell had rung did he drift into full wakefulness again, to find a familiar figure perched like an enormous bat on the chair Granger had occupied before.

"Draco," said Snape, quietly. "How are you feeling?"

He blinked. Snape's sallow face looked thinner than ever, and his normal air of icy superiority had a tinge of desperate fatigue and concern. "All right," he said, when he had worked out how to make his voice behave. "A bit tired." The memory of the conversation with Granger was still making his head hurt. He decided firmly that he wasn't going to think about her, not now. Perhaps not ever. It wasn't a subject he was at all comfortable with.

"You lost a great deal of blood," Snape said. "We've been concerned about you."

"Who's we?" asked Draco before he could stop himself. Snape's black eyes didn't quite widen.

"Headmaster Dumbledore and myself," he said smoothly, but Draco had a strong feeling he'd been about to say another name in place of Dumbledore's. The dizzy memories of the past few days featured a head of dark-red hair and a pallid but determined face. I wonder where Professor Serenskaya is, he thought absently. "Draco," Snape continued. "I need to know how much of the past three days you recall."

He raised himself on an elbow, not taking his eyes off the teacher's face. There was really no need to lie about this; if he did, Snape could easily find out the truth, and he had little to gain by hiding it. "I remember my father speaking to me," he said, trying to keep his voice level amid the howling agony of remembrance. "In my head. I had told him I would not be joining the ranks of the Death Eaters, and he didn't seem to take it too well." He swallowed. "That was right before the Halloween Ball. I arrived at the Ball late, and Pansy and the rest of my, ah, friends started asking me questions. Questions about my behavior. They wanted to know why I'd been so weird and distant recently, and why I hadn't gone off with Crabbe and Goyle to the initiation ceremony. They wanted to know why I hadn't joined in with some of the pranks they'd planned on Gryffindor. I don't know what I told them." That much was a lie. He remembered it word-for word. I don't want this. Any of it. I don't want to be like my father. And I don't see why I should spend good time and energy screwing with the Gryffindors when they haven't done anything to us recently.

"Pansy....lost her temper with me, and started an argument about my actions, or lack thereof. She seemed to feel that I was letting the side down by not making an effort to lose Gryffindor points. She also started to scream at me about not taking her to the ball, or to Hogsmeade, or to London over the break. I pointed out to her that I was under no obligation to do so, and if she wanted an escort she could easily find a brainless Slytherin who would be happy to lick her hundred-Galleon shoes and let her walk all over him and allow her to lead him around on a leash, since I didn't feel I was cut out for that particular role."

He swallowed again, testing the low ache of his raw throat. "It was just about then that I started to feel odd. It was as if I'd swallowed something that was red-hot, and it was burning away at me from the inside. I left the Ball, going back to the dorm to find something to help the pain, but before I got there I started feeling so sick I could hardly walk, and ended up in the dungeon bathroom puking my guts out. I think I realized quite quickly that it was because of Father. That he'd put some sort of a curse on me. After our...discussion....he made it clear that he washed his hands of me as a child, and that I was nothing more to him than an obstacle, and he was going to rid himself of me. I wasn't surprised to realize that he was doing it in the most painful way he could think of."

Snape looked ill. "Do you remember anything else?"

"Oh, yes," said Draco bitterly. "I remember Potter and Granger finding me there. They were terribly solicitous. Meddling and inquisitive, but solicitous. I bet they've spread the story of the Amazing Puking Malfoy around the school twelve times by now. They were going to take me to Madame Pomfrey, but I told them to get you, instead, and for some reason they listened to me. I can't imagine why. Potter's not the sort to listen to a Malfoy, no matter what state he's in. They got Professor Serenskaya, and she brought me to your dungeon, and I told you about my father and his Death Eater history. Then it all goes a bit fuzzy. I think I remember Granger being there again at some point, but that could just have been a nightmare."

Snape was rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I see," he said. "Draco, it may surprise you to know that neither Potter nor Granger has told anyone except myself and Professor Serenskaya about what they saw. Granger did indeed return, later that night." He took a deep breath. "You won't be happy to hear this, but I think you need to. Granger was instrumental in saving your life, Draco. You were in the open hand of death, and we happened upon a spell that would save you, and she was the third spellcaster." He looked down at his clasped hands. "I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you, Draco."

Draco lay back, regarding the ceiling. "My father's dead, isn't he." They saved my life. Granger saved my life. Great. Just what I need; now I owe her a life-debt. Why doesn't it bother me that my father is dead?

"Yes," said Snape. "The curse he placed on you, besides being illegal, is unstoppable. The only way to save you was to reflect the curse back on the caster, which we managed to do. He died as he would have had you die. I'm sorry, Draco."

"I'm not," said Draco with sudden venom. "He would have killed more people. He was mad, Professor. I don't think I realized that, but it's true. He ate people, for Merlin's sake. I'm not sorry he's dead."

"That's not all," said Snape, and now his voice was heavy with something Draco recognized, surprisingly, as sorrow. "I'm sorry to have to tell you like this, but your mother is also dead."

Draco choked on a deep breath, sitting bolt upright and staring into Snape's black eyes. There was nothing in those willow-water eyes except regret and fatigue; nothing in Snape's bearing to suggest anything but the truth. "No," he muttered, knowing it was true. "No. Not Mum."

"I'm sorry," repeated Snape. "She didn't suffer. It was the Killing Curse."

"No," Draco spat. "She can't be dead, Professor. She was going to take me to France this summer, to Nice, where she'd grown up. She can't be dead. She just sent me a box of sugar-quills, for Merlin's sake! She..." He subsided, lying back down on the pillows as a wash of blackness drifted across the room. "No," he muttered again.

Snape's hand, bony as his own and callused with years of work, took his hand, held it firmly. "I cannot stand to drag this out," he said, his voice rough. "It was your father who killed her, Draco. He put Avada Kedavra on her, and drank her blood. We didn't know until yesterday, when we went to your house and found them both dead. Your father's wand proved what he had done."

Silence dripped into the room, filled it to the brim. He didn't let go of Snape's hand, although he could see his own knuckles turning white with pressure. It was as if that connection was the only thing holding him firmly in reality; as if, when he let go, he would fall away from the world, and everything he had ever known would become null and void, and he would cease to be. You should cry, he thought dispassionately. It might help.

"Why?" he asked, in a low voice. "Why did Lucius kill her?"

"I don't know." Snape sounded as if he, too, was struggling to retain control. "Draco, the Ministry is going to call Professor Serenskaya and myself to testify about what we saw at the Mansion. They will most likely call you, as well. I thought it wise to warn you."

Something in his voice tugged at Draco. "Don't leave, Professor," he said, quietly. "Not now. Don't leave me alone."

"I won't," said Snape. He looked suddenly rather young, as if the world around him was moving too fast, out of his control. It was more or less how Draco felt. Something inside him had collapsed, closed like a lady's fan, at the revelation of his mother's death. Something he'd always been sure of had vanished without a trace. He wondered what else that he'd counted on would leave him. Do I really know anything, now? Has my entire life been a total waste of oxygen? Who am I, now, anyway? I was Lucius Malfoy's son. Now I'm just Draco.

And he gave up; the calm broke suddenly and irrevocably, and he doubled over with the force of the grief that was crushing him. It was like the simulacrum mortus in its power, another giant fist closing inside his body; but instead of blood it brought forth tears. He couldn't see. He could hardly breathe, and the sobs ran through him like little earthquakes. From beyond the veil of tears he could vaguely hear someone swearing, and then he was pressed against stiff robes that smelled of dusty herbs and pepper, and someone's arms were around him. He clung to Snape as if he was a life-preserver in a storm, not caring that this was his Head of House, not caring about his last lingering shreds of dignity. There was only the vast howling misery inside him. Snape held him firmly, letting him cry.

"He needs dreamless sleep," said Severus to Madame Pomfrey, sounding deadly tired. "I couldn't make it better. I don't have that power. All I can do is brew him potions to keep him tranquilized."

Poppy stared at him. The dampness of Draco's tears still stained the shoulder of his robes; he looked tired and young and very much out of his depth, and for the first time since she'd known Severus Snape, he looked completely concerned about someone other than himself. She put a tentative hand on his shoulder. "It's not your fault," she muttered. "Someone had to tell him. It's better that he should know now. That we haven't kept it from him. I don't think that would be forgivable."

"God, Poppy, if you'd seen the look in his eyes," said Snape thickly. "I've known the kid for more than six years now. I've seen him throw a thousand insults at the others, seen him laugh, sneer, scowl, yell, all the things normal children do, but even back in his first year he had learned never to show much true feeling to anyone. He's always had that ability to make his eyes reflective and emotionless, and he's very good at looking down that pointed nose of his at other students. I've seen him lose that control twice now. It's like the world is breaking."

Poppy blinked. A line from a Muggle novel drifted into her head. He gave me a smile, and I thought the world was breaking.

"He's still young, Severus," she said. "They're still fairly resilient. He'll get through this." She herself was amazed at the depth of compassion she'd developed for Draco Malfoy in the past week. He had been such a toffee-nosed malingering little prat, she recalled. Several times in his Hogwarts career he'd found himself under her care, normally for injuries sustained while behaving like an idiot and trying to stir up trouble for Gryffindor or his other enemies: the hippogriff incident was the most memorable, since she'd had to bodily throw him out of the hospital wing the third day after she had mended the claw-slash on his arm. He had protested weakly that he was still in incredible pain, giving her the full-on effect of his enormous silver eyes, but she knew physiology much better than he knew manipulation, and his moans of dire agony had cut no ice with her. He'd affected the bandages for months afterward. But she hadn't been able to deny the reality of his injuries this time. Dumbledore had brought him to her with a quiet order to keep his presence unknown, and left her to it.

The sheer magnitude of the damage done to him---by his own father---made Poppy feel ill. He'd had the sort of internal injury she would associate with massive blunt-force trauma, like being run over by a bus, only without the attendant broken bones. He had lost a lot of blood, and his stomach was badly excoriated from the vomiting; she'd be surprised if he'd be able to eat anything solid for a few weeks. It had taken all her strength to mend the ruptured spleen, the contused lungs, the inflamed pericardium, and the crushed kidneys, and the task had taken all day.

Snape's hematogenesis potions had helped replenish his blood a bit, but he would be terribly weak for at least a month until his abused body could renew its chemistry. Nothing like this had happened to a student at Hogwarts since she'd been the matron. But the thing that had really made her want to cry was that he'd regained consciousness once or twice while she was working on him, and he had smiled at her through all that pain. The Malfoy she'd patched up before had treated her like a house-elf, impatient and insulting, and had kept harping on the superiority of Daddy's healers and how she was doing it all wrong. This Draco had merely given her sixty percent of his best smile, and slid away again into unconsciousness. Poppy had felt absurdly honored to be the recipient of that smile, which was usually reserved for Snape, or when Malfoy saw something nasty happening to a Gryffindor.

And not only had his late despicable father hurt him so badly, he had also deprived him of a mother. Draco was an orphan now, like his nemesis Potter. The irony was bitter in her mind.

Poppy sighed. "He'll get through this," she repeated, but even in her own ears she didn't sound convinced.

Snape coughed a little, his shoulders shivering. "What have we done," he said, and she knew he wasn't talking to her now.

"Severus. Don't."

He looked at her from under the fall of hair, gave her a wry look. "I'll leave you to it," he said. "Find something to give him dreamless sleep. Utterly dreamless."

"I'll try."

Nadezhda found him in the staff room, later, staring into the fire with hollow eyes. She touched his shoulder, tentatively. "Severus?"

He looked up at her, the great eyes widening briefly in surprise before warming a little. "Nadezhda."

She perched on the arm of his chair. "Severus, you look horrendous."

He laughed; it sounded like a cough. "Dearling," he said, "you need to work on your compliments. What you're supposed to say is "You're looking well."

"I wasn't ever much good at lying," she murmured. "You once told me that."

"Did I? It sounds like something I'd say."

She frowned. He was staring into the fire again, looking more haunted than she'd ever seen him. "Look," she said. "Talk to me. You've gone all distant and cryptic and cold again. What is it? I know the Malfoy house brought back memories...."

"No," he said, biting off the word. "Nadezhda, I love you dearly, but I will not discuss this with you."

She got up. "You've got nothing to hide from me. You told me about your past."

"No, I didn't," he said levelly. "I told you about some of the things that happened to me. There's a lot about my past you don't know, and I've no intention of enlightening you."

She stared at him. He stared back. "Why?" she demanded. "Are you ashamed?"

She could see little flickering flames of anger building in those dark eyes. "Don't be stupid, Nadezhda," he said curtly. "What do you think? I've hurt more people than you've lived years. I spent my youth fetching and carrying for monsters, before I became a monster. Of course I'm bloody ashamed." He got up, abruptly, started pacing. The little cough shivered his shoulders again. She snorted.

"You're behaving like a character in the worst sort of Russian novel," she told him flatly. "And I ought to know. Look, Severus, tell me what the hell's bothering you. I'll go away if you do."

His eyes flared suddenly. "You'll go away now, because I'm telling you to," he spat. "Leave, Nadezhda. I don't much want company right now."

"Well, may I suggest you choose a more secluded place to have your angst-fit than the staff lounge?" she rejoined, not rising to his anger. She thought she understood a little more, now. "You're hardly likely to be alone here for very long."

"Out," he told her, and his voice had become dangerous suddenly.

"Fine," she said. "I'll go. But you're not going to be able to push me away, Severus. I'm afraid it's too late for that. You can be as nasty to me as you like, but it's not going to stop me loving you, nor is it going to make me stop caring about you. I don't give a fuck what you did, Severus. I don't care. You're not the same man you were when you did those things; that man would never have expended his time, energy and powers trying to save an innocent boy's life. So don't bother trying to make me dislike you. It's not going to happen."

She left the staff room, walked with measured steps to her second-floor office, and pulled out the crystal bowl for the third time. The vague swirling red darkness she'd seen before was probably the result of the negative energies surrounding Hogwarts as the next generation of Death Eaters was preparing for induction. Now, with Lucius Malfoy's death, some of that should have dissipated. She prepared the Revelation Charm again, and this time when she tapped the rim of the crystal bowl with her wand, a clear image sprang into view on the surface of the liquid. Hah, she thought. Better that than the formless dark I saw before.

She leaned closer. The image showed....

A pale boy, lying in a high white bed, the sheets only marginally paler than his skin or hair. His eyes were closed, the lids almost translucent; his face was the face of an angel unjustly dealt with. Nadezhda frowned. The ache that had surrounded her heart since she'd left the staff room suddenly deepened. Why was it showing her Draco? The Charm was designed to pinpoint the source of any Dark or maleficent magic. Perhaps some lingering aftereffect of the curse...?

"Explicatus," she told the bowl, and tapped it again. The image of Draco shimmered, and dissolved to re-form into the image of Snape with his head in his hands, hunched over in misery. Something connecting the two. Something bad.

The image of Draco is hurting Severus?

Perhaps he was bringing back old memories Severus had thought were buried permanently.

Perhaps it was something more.

She tossed in the handful of white crystals that neutralized the field, and pulled her winter cloak out from the cupboard. "I'm going out for a walk," she told nobody in particular. "I may be some time."

The snow still flavoured the air with that sharp, faintly sad scent she remembered from Christmases in the Urals, but the sky above her was clear and endless midnight blue, the low moon half-full and rising above the distant mountains. Brilliant stars hung in the void. They really do look like chips of diamond, she thought, despite the overuse of that imagery. Her footfalls crunched softly through the snow, ankle-deep and bonechillingly cold. The edge of the forest looked more forbidding than ever in the textureless silver light; she could imagine almost anything lurking in there, watching her with eyes that glowed with dim fire in the moonshadows....

Stop it. You're scaring yourself, and you're supposed to be a DaDA professor. Shame.

She grinned, suddenly, in the cold. Unfastening the clasp of her cloak so absently that she stabbed her finger with the pin, she let it fall, and stretched out her arms in the beginning of the transformation.

She flew for hours, until even her hawk wings were beginning to ache with fatigue and the moon was high in the winter sky, flew until some of that low pain had faded from her heart and mind, until she no longer saw Draco's mother's dead eyes staring upside-down into her own, or smelled the foulness of his father's study. When at last she circled back over Hogwarts, the castle was ablaze with light, and she saw torches moving in the Forbidden Forest.

What the hell? They're looking for someone.

She landed, and transformed. A group of dark figures emerged from the Forest, discussing something in low voices, and Nadezhda approached them, wondering what had called out so many people at this hour of the night. One of them spotted her, let out a little scream. Suddenly she was surrounded by people, people in cloaks and hoods, all talking at once. She could hear shouting. McGonagall was there, and Lupin, and Sprout came hurrying up with a lantern. "Nastasya?" demanded Lupin. "Are you all right? Where were you?"

She blinked. "What's going on? Why are you all out here with torches? Are we storming somebody's lair?"

"We thought you were gone," said McGonagall, rather incoherently. "Kidnapped, or attacked by something, or..."

"Why?" she asked, honestly puzzled.

"Your cloak," said Lupin. "Your footprints just sort of ended, and there was your cloak lying there in the snow, and no sign of you. What happened? Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine," she said. "Why were you looking for me, anyway? Does someone need me? I told some of the students I'd help tutor them in Potions, but...."

The ring of torchlit faces was staring at her, stupidly. They had thought she was dead? What the hell....

The shouting around them intensified, and she looked up as someone came running over the snow towards them, cloak flying out behind, and skidded to a stop in front of her. Snape pushed back his hood and stared at her as if he was expecting her to turn into Voldemort.

"Hello," she said. "What seems to be the matter?"

"Oh, God," he said, furiously, and seized her by the shoulders hard enough to hurt. "I thought you were dead, you idiot."

She blinked up at him. "Why?"

"You...I....the staff room....and you....the footprints just stopped, and I found your cloak lying in a heap.....no sign of a struggle, but there was a drop of blood in the snow...." He trailed off, shaking her so hard her teeth rattled. "Nadezhda, I thought you were dead."

The crowd of people had melted away, tactfully, so she felt safe in reaching up and removing his hands from her shoulders. "Kindly stop doing that," she said. "I'm not dead. I went out for a walk."

"But...you disappeared," he said, sounding rather like a child.

"No I didn't," she sighed, and stepped back a few feet. He'd find out anyway. I can't believe this. How embarrassing....

She cracked her neck, first one side then the other, and stretched, before transforming once more into the dark-red hawk. Snape gasped in a deep ragged breath, making him cough in the frigid air, as she circled around him twice and came back to land as the red-haired woman.

Severus was still coughing helplessly. She swore, pulled her winter cloak out of his hands, and threw it around his shoulders. "Come on," she said, pulling him back towards the castle. He followed without questioning. The crowd of professors had mostly gone back inside, but McGonagall met them at the door. "I'm sorry," said Nadezhda shortly, "for causing such worry. I had no idea anyone would come looking for me."

"It's all right," said the older woman. "I'm glad you're safe." She stepped aside and let them cross the threshold.

Down in Snape's quarters, Nadezhda pushed him into a chair by the fire and set about making something hot to drink, her lips pressed together in a bloodless line. He was shivering, and he didn't say anything as she thrust a steaming mug into his hands and threw herself into the chair facing his. "Now," she said. "What's this all about?"

Severus stared at her. "I," he said. You're cute when you're incoherent, she thought suddenly, and had to look down at her hands so as not to laugh. "I was worried. After you left the staff room, I wondered where you'd gone. I'd made you angry, obviously, which I'd more or less intended to do, but I wasn't sure what you might do, and I wanted to talk to you." He tasted the potion, made a face. "I went to your office, but you weren't there, and you weren't in your classroom either. No answer when I knocked on the door to your private quarters. I happened to look out of your office window, and saw footprints in the snow, and no sign of you." He coughed again, swallowed more of the potion. "When I found your cloak lying there in the snow, and that one drop of blood, I thought something must have happened to you. I didn't know you were...."

"An Animagus? Very few people do," she said mildly. "Go on. So you raised the hue and cry?"

"More or less," he told her ruefully. "I was terrified that you might have gone storming off into the night and been snatched by some sort of monster. I wasn't thinking very clearly." He looked at her, and she could read the subtext: I wasn't thinking clearly because I was so worried about you.

He was staring into the mug. "I ran back into the castle and told all the teachers I could find to get lanterns and torches and follow me. Lupin was particularly concerned at the thought of you in danger. We'd been looking for about half an hour when you suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I can't tell you what that did to me, seeing you there with your hands on your hips, looking furious and confused at the same time, when I was so sure you were...dead, or in the clutches of monsters, or something, Nadezhda, I..."

"Hush," she said, exchanging her chair for the floor by his knee. "I'm sorry for worrying you. But you should know I don't storm off into the night because of arguments like the one we had, nor am I quite defenseless against monsters."

"I was terrified, Nadezhda," he said. "You don't realize how much something means to you until it's gone, or you think it is. I love you."

She met his eyes, and they were dark and warm and huge, and she could have stared into them all night. "I love you," she told him. "I love you, and I will never leave you, no matter how hard you try to make me."

"Don't," he said, passing a hand over his face. "In the staff room....I was trying to make you angry, make you go away, make you disgusted with me, so that I wouldn't be able to hurt you."

"I know," she told him softly. "But I'm afraid it's far too late for that. You do have the power to hurt me, Severus, but I give you that power freely, because I trust you."

"Do you?" he said, miserably.

"Yes." She gestured to the cup in his hands; he drank off the potion, distractedly. "Now, Severus, tell me what it is. What's bothering you? What's hurting you so?"

He took her by the hands. "Not tonight," he said quietly. "Not this, not tonight. I will tell you, my love, but tonight I need you not to ask me that."

She bowed her head. "Very well. I won't ask you again."

"Thank you," he said in a rush, as if unutterably relieved.