The Mystery Wife

"So, how did you manage to survive, old friend?" Lucius asked Severus as soon as they were all conscious, cleaned up and comfortably settled in the library over glasses of elf-made wine. "You are clearly itching to tell us the story, and we are anxious to hear it."

"Therein hangs a tale, though sadly it is not nearly as interesting as it might be," Severus drawled, pausing to sip his wine with visible satisfaction. "Thank you; this is excellent. My continued existence owes much to the Draught of Living Death, simple Healing and Blood Replenishing Charms, the Dark Lord's endemic tendency to miscalculate events, and the fundamental credulity of Gryffindor's Golden Menage."

He settled into his wing-backed leather chair with his wine, clearly relishing the chance to tell the story to someone.

"The Dark Lord was bound at some point to come to an unfortunate conclusion with regard to the Elder Wand," he began. "Only Dumbledore's killer, or the one who conquered his killer in turn, could access the wand's full power. As I had killed Dumbledore, it is entirely possible that the wand was rightfully mine."

Draco looked out of one of the silk-curtained windows, as if the neatly manicured grounds beyond it fascinated him. He didn't want to talk about Dumbledore's death or the Elder Wand he'd apparently had and lost without knowing it. He didn't want to talk about anything, really.

"And if the matter of the Elder Wand did not turn him against me," Severus continued, "something else would have, eventually. It was only a matter of time. When you came to fetch me, calling me out of the battle to join him, it could have been nothing but a summons to my untimely demise. I knew that. So did you, I think."

"I...suspected."

"And yet you fulfilled his orders, came to fetch me and bring me to him."

Lucius glanced away uncomfortably. "What choice do you imagine I had, Severus?"

"You could have proven unable to find me," Severus growled. "As you buggered off to find Draco shortly afterward, or so I'm given to understand."

And there it was, the rough side of the Potions Master's tongue, the small evidence of the cursing, spitting Yorkshire mill town boy he had been. Even his 'Rs' were slightly burred. Understandable enough, Lucius supposed. It had not precisely been a banner day for any of them.

"We have both done things we regret, I think," Lucius said quietly.

Severus considered his wine for a moment. It was the closest thing to an apology he was ever likely to get, from Lucius Malfoy. And the excellent wine, and the fact that he was still around to enjoy it, put him in as good a mood as he was ever likely to experience.

"Undeniably," he said at last, his eyes meeting Lucius' with a rather dark and perfect comprehension. "At any rate, I have had years to come up with multiple contingency plans for my survival. In this case, my continued ability to walk, talk, breathe and annoy others was aided by the fact that Voldemort was very much your run-of-the-mill Muggle cinematic villain. He did not even stay to witness my demise. He merely assumed that a single bite from Nagini would be enough to finish me. Curious, when Arthur Weasley purportedly took three and survived, without my ability with either potions or healing spells. I am almost insulted."

Lucius sniffed. "I believe I would be, as well. And Gryffindor's Golden Menage, as you call them, where do they come into it?"

"Naturally, and somewhat inconveniently, the three of them were there in the Shrieking Shack, nosing around beneath Potter's Invisibility Cloak. I have been inside Harry Potter's mind so bloody often that I can sense him, and I felt him there."

He paused for another sip of his wine. "The presence of those particular witnesses necessitated a death scene, naturally. Once my wound was safely Healed and a Blood Replenishing Charm cast, I played one for them, releasing a few choice memories to Potter in the process. Interestingly enough, the boy has seen other deaths, real deaths, and apparently did not think to question the fact that my memories appeared to be leaking out of me along with my blood. He simply collected them, as I told him to."

Lucius' lips quirked. "Intelligence never was Potter's long suit, was it?"

"No, it never was. But it is Hermione Granger's, unfortunately, and her presence there necessitated the one step I had hesitated to take. The Draught of Living Death. I had a hollow tooth in which I have been carrying the Draught for some time. I bit down on it when it became obvious that Potter and Associates were not going away immediately; there is only so long I can hold my bloody breath. And that was the one and only thing that put me in any actual danger all evening. If anyone had decided to desecrate my body during the three hours I lay vulnerable and drugged, I would have been powerless to stop them. But I was fortunate. The Shrieking Shack was far removed from the battle, and my body remained undisturbed for those three hours. I woke naturally, found myself alone, Transfigured a stick of broken furniture into a likely simulacrum of my corpse, and snuck back to Hogwarts to gather a few supplies. I was, in fact, in the Headmaster's office when Potter returned to it after the battle, to be given a standing ovation by the portraits. And once again, the boy's dimness played into my favour, as he neither noticed my presence nor paused to wonder why my own portrait did not adorn the walls. I was, after all, a Hogwarts Headmaster, and unlike Delores Umbridge, I had been accepted as such by the school. When I finally do shuffle off this mortal coil, I will have a portrait there."

Severus paused and toyed with a loose thread on his robes, his eyes distant. "From the moment I killed Dumbledore," he murmured, "I knew it would eventually be necessary to fake my own death and leave the name of Severus Snape behind me. Perhaps, with some of the memories I left Potter, it might one day be redeemed," he added a shade wistfully. "But not enough. Never enough. I will still and always be the murderer of a saint. No. No, there is nothing left for me here. No glory, no reward. Merely a debt I have come to collect."

"I had wondered when we would come to that," said Lucius.

Severus' pitch black eyes locked on Narcissa. "As I promised to do, I shielded your son," he said. "I committed the murder he could not."

"You did," she nodded, her pale, pointed face composed.

"Nor am I entirely free of the Unbreakable Vow I made to you. I shall not be, while Draco lives."

Draco broke away abruptly from his apparent rapt fascination with the gardens beyond the windows. "What?" he asked, his voice high and thin. "What are you on about?"

"My life is bound to yours, Draco, thanks to your mother and your aunt," Severus informed him, those black eyes locking on the boy with an unnerving intensity. "Specifically, I swore to protect you from harm to the best of my ability. There was no end date on that promise. What this means is that if it is within my ability to remain near you and shield you from harm, I must. No choice."

"Well...then...buggering hell, mother, release him!" Draco insisted, his voice going even higher and thinner.

"Language, Draco," Narcissa said almost absently, her eyes never straying from Severus' face. "I cannot release him. Nothing but the death of one of you can release him."

"I don't want him following me around like an outsized bat for the rest of my life, fussing over me every time I get a paper cut!" Draco shrilled. "And you," he added, turning to Severus, "you can't want to have to hang around me all the time!"

"Not particularly, no," Severus said coolly. "I have plans for my own future, my own life, which have been ignored for longer than you have been alive. For example, I have no intention of remaining in this benighted country a moment longer than I have to. The only thing worse than the food is the weather. I have sacrificed the last two decades of my life for mistakes I made when I was little older than you are now, and I have lived in various prisons since, from Azkaban to the Hogwarts dungeons. Now, I want sunlight, decent food, good wine and a home I don't have to share with hundreds of dunderheaded children. I mean to collect on what I am owed, escape to the continent and start a new research laboratory and a new life in Paris."

"Great! Bonne chance! Sounds brilliant," Draco beamed at him, toasting him and drinking deeply in evident anticipation of getting rid of his old Potions Master.

"I am gratified that you think so," Severus said dryly, "as you are going to be accompanying me, as my Apprentice."

Draco choked on his wine.