Snape In Love: Chasing Darkness Away

Chapter 8

Realisation

The sky was steadfast in its refusal to lighten for the rest of that day. Its heavy grey mantle weighed down on the landscape like a thick blanket, suffocating everything below it before depositing a clear varnish of water, as if further emphasis of its oppression were needed. In his anguish at the retelling of his tale, Severus had begun to prowl the length and breadth of the sombre room like an angry panther, pacing its perimeter in a desperate quest for the succour of understanding that only Ella could give. Knowing better than to placate him with platitudes she was silent, her demeanour and the love and warmth blazing from her eyes all the clue he needed as to her acceptance.

At last, his mood as overcast as the darkling murk outside their window, he sat, throwing himself on to one of the accommodating blue leather sofas before the fire in an uncharacteristically heedless fashion, throwing his arm up so that it obscured his face and left his hand trailing over the back of the sofa.

"I can't stand it, Ella," he muttered wearily. "I don't know why I ever started this!"

His wife sighed and left her seat at the window, taking his hand as she passed behind him, caressing his long white fingers and raising them to her lips. Exhaling vocally, he gripped her wrist as she rounded the corner of the sofa and pulled, so that she fell across the arm and into his lap. She wound her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers in his long black hair and burying her nose in it, while he in turn lost himself in the soft skin of her neck, breathing deeply the scent of jasmine and beloved wife and when that was no longer enough for him, licking and tasting the smooth satiny skin there until he began to feel tiny purring moans from deep in her throat.

"I know something that will make me feel better," he whispered huskily, his low voice thrumming at the hollow of her throat, his hot breath sending delicious goosebumps along her shoulder and down her spine.

"So do I," she said, closing her eyes as her grip on him tightened and she fought not to melt into his embrace. "Dinner in the Great Hall."

He stopped his gentle sucking at the curve of her collarbone and said, in a muffled voice,

"That wasn't what I had in mind at all!"

Ella began to disentangle herself, feeling her resolve waver as she saw the disappointment in her husband's piercing black eyes.

"I know. But we've both been in here all day, we could both do with a change of scene, don't you think? Love, I know this has been difficult for you. And I'm proud of you, and I love you - but I think it'd do you good to take your mind off it for a few hours. There's always tomorrow, isn't there?"

"Hmph."

"And the rest of our lives?" she cajoled, making him roll his eyes. "And besides, Caius is going away this weekend, we need to spend some time with him before he goes."

"What for? He'll be back the week after! He's only going to Ireland!"

"Even so. He still isn't sure you've completely made your peace, you know."

"Quite right too, nor should he be..." Severus grumbled, letting his wife extricate herself from his grip.

"Tonks is going with him, you know," Ella said archly.

"Tonks? What do you mean, Tonks is going with him?"

"He says they met at the Ministry last week, and they really hit it off."

"Did they indeed? Wonderful!" he replied sarcastically. "What was he doing at the Ministry, anyway?"

"Arthur was showing him round. The Weasleys all adore him."

"Hah! Well, he'd fit right in there, wouldn't he? Did you know my nickname for him was Chaos, when we were children? It would drive Mother mad, she couldn't see the logic behind it at all..."

Ella laughed at his unintentional wit, and hugged him. He ran his hands up and down her back until she squirmed against him.

"Dinner's an hour away, though; I'll run us a bath."

"Us?" She raised her eyebrows enquiringly.

"Us," he affirmed, piercing her with the look she knew so well. He would brook no argument, and she

had none she cared to offer.

******************************************************************

Weeks turned into months, and Snape was not called to the Dark Lord's side again. The Death Eater attack on the London Underground infrastructure was thwarted with no loss of Muggle life, although several Aurors lost their lives and a huge Ministry clean-up was needed afterwards to make sure all Muggle witnesses were Obliviated. None of the Aurors had been members of the Order of the Phoenix, but several Order members had been close to them, in particular Albus Dumbledore, who had taught them all over the years. Their loss was felt keenly, and feelings ran all the higher at the Ministry's refusal to acknowledge their bravery by presenting to their families posthumous awards of the Order of Merlin. Cornelius Fudge and his minions were still refusing to accept the rise of Voldemort and insisted that 'making a fuss' would draw too much attention to what the Minister maintained were ill-founded rumours. They were scandalised when Dumbledore insisted on holding a memorial ceremony at the school in memory of those who had fallen. Snape's role in the operation went unacknowledged and unrewarded, as usual, and the more Fudge blustered and denied the obvious truth, the more Snape disliked the officious little man.

Another man even more worthy of his contempt was Sirius Black. He had visited Ella at Durmstrang shortly before Christmas but had come back even more bitter at Snape than before, a development Snape noted with satisfaction. While his affection for Ella had been tempered by the distance between them, both physically and emotionally since the more extreme of his feelings were churning inside a pensieve hidden safely on a high shelf, he did still dream of her on occasion, both in sleep and in wakefulness, and he did not want to entertain the idea that she might find pleasure in the company of another man. Especially not a self-serving gigolo and feeble minded dilettante such as Sirius Black.

His lessons were without incident, save for the usual disasters involving either Longbottom or the youngest Creevey brother who was a natural successor to the hapless seventh year, since Snape was so practised in his craft that he sometimes felt he would be able to deliver whole lessons in his sleep.

So the time passed.

His thoughts turned frequently to Ella as the spring term drew to a close, knowing that soon she would be leaving Durmstrang for Beauxbatons, and in his less selfish moments he even hoped that she had forgotten about him. However, his feelings had been tempered by the pensieves and the passage of time, and his mind did not dwell on her for very long at a time.

The summer term was the usual round of NEWT and OWL preparation; there were papers to be set, revision to be scheduled, lessons still to take, and increased duties as Head of House as panic-stricken fifth and seventh year Slytherins required whatever solace they could get, even his own particularly astringent brand.

Thus it was that the next time he was summoned to the Dark Lord's side, the unremitting tedium of the daily Hogwarts grind was uppermost in his mind, and he therefore occluded his thoughts from Voldemort as easily as he ever had in the days before he had met Ella. No errant hints of jasmine betrayed him, no images of mossy green eyes disarmed him, not even when his own gastric juices burned his throat and he lay prostrate on the uneven stone floor, convulsing under repeated Cruciatus curses. Voldemort did, after all, have several months' worth of cruelty to catch up on.

***

"Severus, dear, this just isn't on, really it isn't!" fretted Madam Pomfrey as she fussed around his bed in the Hospital Wing on his return, waving her wand to summon various jars of brightly coloured unguents and bottles of foul-smelling medicines.

"And what, exactly, do you propose I do about it?" Snape asked acidly, grimacing as he removed the lid from a large bottle of dark orange potion before steeling himself and raising the neck to his mouth to gulp down its contents.

"Repeated exposure to multiple doses of the Cruciatus curse can cause no end of problems in later life!"

"If I even live that long!" he pointed out, his voice grating and harsh. "You don't need to quote the textbooks at me, Poppy, I am well aware of what they contain!"

Paling, her lips set into a tight line, Madam Pomfrey made a pretence of straightening the blankets at the foot of his bed.

"You know what the alternative would be, anyway," he continued in a low voice, looking down at the empty bottle in his hands, not wanting to risk looking at the bluff but caring witch who had tended him for more years than he cared to remember. "At least I don't have to lie on my stomach for a week, and use a ringed cushion for the next month! And you haven't had to get the blue ointment out for a long time now..."

"Oh, Severus!" she said in a strangled voice, her hand fluttering to her mouth as she tried to compose herself.

"Spare me the sympathy, Poppy! Save it for yourself, for when I'm dead and gone and you're returned to treating outbreaks of acne and grazed knees!" he said, with a bitter sigh. "Because you know as well as I do that this is the...preferred option."

"I know, dear. I do!" she said tremulously. "And one day, he'll be the one that's dead and gone, and all this will be over, and we can all get on with our lives."

Snape gave a hollow laugh, and watched as Madam Pomfrey bustled back to her office, leaving him alone. Thoughts of what his life would be like if Voldemort was ever defeated filled his mind. Never again to have to obey the call of the Dark Mark, never to feel its prickle creep over his flesh, never to endure the searing agony of delaying its summons...how different might his life have been if he had never chosen the path of promised knowledge without considering its probable, terrible cost.

He thought of Ella that night, as he lay in the high, narrow metal-framed bed surrounded by fabric-covered privacy screens, wondering idly where she was and what she was doing. Wondering whether she still thought of him. Memories of her saddened him, in an abstract, distant sort of way, as if seen through a long lens. Thank goodness for the pensieve, he thought darkly, folding his arms above his head and gazing up at the darkened, vaulted ceiling, grudgingly grateful that he no longer had to suffer the torment of missing her as desperately as he knew he otherwise might, or the inconvenience of an inappropriate physical reaction to the thought of her. Unless he wanted one, he corrected himself, reaching down below the waistband of his pyjamas as he sought out the rapidly hardening evidence that she still inhabited the deepest recesses of his mind.

He slept soundly that night, and dreamed of her.

***

He always enjoyed the summer holidays. He rarely left Hogwarts for more than a night or two, unless it was for a potions conference. He did not count the weeks spent in Voldemort's company; that was different for it was not of his choice. Many of the other teachers sojourned far away from the school, either travelling or in their second homes, leading lives far removed from academia. He preferred to remain in the sanctuary of the castle, surrounded by his books and his bottles, his grimoires and his bell jars, cocooned in the safe haven that was the ancient stone and the solid foundations and the very bedrock of the castle, all steeped in deep magick. He neither required nor desired any other home.

When deserted for the summer, the endless corridors and eccentric staircases were even more alluring for a solitary soul such as Snape. Unable to sleep and unwilling to rest, he would spend hours at a time pacing the empty cloisters and passageways, sometimes deep in thought, sometimes emptying his mind of everything save for the act of marking the seconds and the minutes of his life with each footfall.

One particular night's calculations led him along a little-used first floor corridor where sconces were few and the best illumination came from a waning half-moon slanting through the windows to his left. Two strides took him into shadow, two more saw him silhouetted in the middle of a moonbeam; and so on, and so on. In, out, in, out, the rhythmic tapping of his boots on the cold stone flags and the beating of his own heart combining with the hypnotic tempo of the light and the dark and the light and the dark; in, out, in, out. Fingers slick with her, wanting her, wanting her. He stopped in his tracks, wondering where on earth that thought had come from.

There was a door, a few paces along. A small, unobtrusive door, quite unremarkable. He could just as easily have walked straight past it, but now that he had noticed it he could not pass it by without further investigation. The frown line etched into his brow deepened as he took several deliberate steps towards it, stopping before it with a sardonic huff as he saw the symbols carved in the oak.

"Hah! I might have known. The Room of Requirement," he muttered under his breath. "If I wasn't convinced of the sentience of this school, I would be certain Albus had a hand in this."

Raising an eyebrow sardonically as he turned to look up and down the corridor, he shook his head.

"Well then, let's see what it is you think I need!"

He reached out to grasp the door handle, but drew back his hand and sighed. He was completely self-sufficient, having all that he needed. He would never describe himself as a happy man, or even a contented one, but he lacked none of the basic necessities of life and so he had no idea what might lie in wait on the other side of the door. Finally, with a rueful shake of his head, he took the handle again, and turned it. The latch clicked, and the door creaked as he pushed it open.

He was in an empty room the size of a classroom, filled with more stone pillars than could possibly be needed to support the vaulted ceiling above. Cautiously, he withdrew his wand, for while he was quite sure he was alone it unsettled him that the entire room was not visible to him, and he knew better than to take unnecessary chances. Closing the door behind him, he advanced into the room, his way illuminated by a plethora of candles burning brightly in tall wrought iron candelabra spaced at regular intervals along all four walls. His disquiet grew as he reached the centre of the room to find nothing save for more of the same uniform stone columns, and he was about to turn on his heel in disgust when he noticed a large shadow flickering on the uneven floor. Stepping closer, he rounded a pillar and saw an ornate gilt frame, dulled with years of dust, standing even taller than he.

"Damn! What's this doing here? Albus hid it six years ago!"

Wonderingly, Snape approached the Mirror of Erised while a familiar fragrance filled the air.

The last time he had looked in the mirror, six years earlier, he had seen himself standing in shirt sleeves. His reflection had rolled up his left sleeve and presented his forearm to Snape's view. As he had watched, the ugly serpent and skull design of the Dark Mark had disappeared, the snake first eating away the skull and then beginning on its own tail, circling until it disappeared into nothing. Unblemished white skin had been left in its place, and his reflection had smiled a smile of such pure sweet joy that Snape had actually shed bitter tears and railed at it, banging his fists against the glass before turning and walking away, determined never to look into it again.

The Room of Requirement evidently had other ideas.

Steeling himself for the wave of twisted anguish he knew would soon break over him, he stepped up to the mirror, and stared into its depths. Out of the swirling mists walked a tall, dark figure with shoulder-length black hair and penetrating ebony eyes. So far, so good, thought Snape, folding his arms and waiting for the revelation to come. His reflection again rolled up his left sleeve, and presented his now pure, flawless forearm for inspection. As he did so, however, the air all around Snape grew thick with the scent of jasmine and as he watched, to his disbelief, a tiny infant child shimmered into the reflection's arms.

This was cruelty indeed. This was insupportable. Not only would he never be rid of the Dark Mark, but nor would he ever be able to know the joy of holding his child in his arms, of making his entire sorry existence mean something, for why would anyone ever care for him enough to - and then there she was, glimmering out of the greyness, coalescing at his side, smaller by a head than he, turning her face up to smile at him and placing her hand on his shoulder, caressing their child, turning a radiant smile from the reflection outwards, out of the glass and on to him as he stood gaping at her, his heart overflowing.

Ella.

He sat for hours staring into the Mirror of Erised, cross-legged on the floor with a pillar at his back, until the cold seeped into his bones and his legs were numbed by immobility. And the tableau before him gazed back out at him, constant in its communication of the hitherto unspoken truth; Ella Redemte was the deepest, most desperate desire of his heart.

The moon set, and the sun rose, and a voice spoke to him from the shadows.

"What do you see, Severus?"

The old man's voice was gentle, and Snape's cracked slightly as he answered,

"You know what I see, Albus. Have you been here all the time?"

"No, no, the room appeared for you, not me. I have had no part in this. When you did not appear at breakfast I simply asked Sir Cadogan to ascertain your whereabouts. I was directed to the corridor outside, and then once I came upon this door, I guessed that you were within."

"What shall I do? What can I do, how can I ever trust myself again? I've become that which I most despise, a fool who wears his heart on his sleeve for all to see. Hah, what hope is there for me against the Dark Lord now, if not even an enhanced pensieve can help me control my emotions?"

"So, it is indeed Ella that you see in the Mirror."

"Of course it bloody is!" Snape snapped, resting his elbows on his knees and hiding his face in his hands for a moment as he rubbed his eyes before looking back up at her shade, still smiling at him. "Albus, she's all around me. I can see her, I can smell her, I can almost touch her! How am I supposed to control this?"

The Headmaster stood before Snape now, his hands clasped, and he rocked on his heels slightly as he mused,

"Perhaps you set too great a store by your desire to control, my boy."

"Pah! What I desire is to - is to be rid of wanting her! To - to - not smell jasmine with every thought of her. Albus, the room's full of it, can't you smell it?"

"No, not at all, and although I allow that my sense of smell is not as developed as yours, and my faculties are failing...It seems you might be somewhat of a synaesthete..."

Snape got to his feet and scoffed, brushing down his frock coat.

"No. No, this has never happened to me before. I do not hear colours, I do not assign shapes to sounds. This is different. Intrusive, uncalled for. Unwanted."

He folded his arms and glared into the mirror, and his stern face crumpled as another breathtaking smile returned his frown. He took a faltering step up to the glass and placed his hands up to it as Ella put her hands on his reflection's shoulders. For a moment, he was sure he could feel the contact and he caught his breath, but as he turned it was the Headmaster, patting his arm.

"Come on, old friend. It does not do to dwell on phantoms such as these. Far better to address reality, don't you agree?"

"Your meaning being?"

"You must find her, dear boy! Bring her home!"

"I - No. I can't!"

"Severus, you have admitted yourself that the pensieve is an inadequate vessel, that your feelings run too deep - "

"I'll get another! Albus, you can enchant one, you can - "

"Why so afraid? Come, come! She would be out of danger here, you know that. There is a choice to be made, Severus! Why not follow a new path?"

"A new path that would lead where, exactly? To her ruin when she discovers what I am, and to mine when I lose her, and as for the war, well, I would cease to be of any use at all!"

"And in spite of all your protestations, the Mirror tells only the simple truth."

Snape's shoulders sagged and he took a last, desperate look into the mirror before turning abruptly and saying in clipped tones as he strode from the room,

"Then the choice is already made, isn't it? My weakness has put her at risk. If I'm summoned before I find her...I'll make the necessary preparations. I have no other option now, do I?"

The Headmaster followed, making a point to avert his gaze from the mirror and smiling to himself as he closed shut the door to the Room of Requirement behind him.

He sent one of the school's fastest owls to Beauxbatons Academy that same morning. His note to Madam Maxime was terse, and simply informed her that she was required to ensure that Miss Redemte remained within the school grounds until such time as he, Snape, came to escort her back to Hogwarts, and that the owl carrying the message required her immediate confirmation that she would comply. For the remainder of the day, he ensured that all preparations for the beginning of the new school year had been made, and in between made frequent visits to the pensieve on his desk, irritably ridding himself of disconcertingly persistent thoughts of his heart's desire.

He had not expected Madam Maxime's owled reply that afternoon to inform him of Ella's departure from her school the week before. He was aghast. The tone of the letter was guarded, he could tell, and he wished he could apparate directly to the Academy to interrogate the stupid woman personally. All that she would tell him was that Ella had returned to England and was to spend some time in London before returning to Beauxbatons for the start of the autumn term.

Thrusting a piece of bacon rind left over from a hurried breakfast in his rooms into the beak of the exhausted bird, he shooed it out of his office window and stalked over to the pewter jar of Floo powder on the mantelpiece. Thrusting a pinch into the fire he called,

"Albus Dumbledore!" continuing as the spinning head slowed to a halt, "Albus, she's gone. To London, the Fates only know why! They've probably done it to spite me, it wouldn't be the first time!" he added bitterly. "Maxime's told me nothing, but I'm going to go to Diagon Alley to see if she's been there. I won't be coming back without her."

"Very well, Severus. Good luck."

Diagon Alley was deserted by the time he arrived early that evening. All of the shops were closing as he stepped through the hidden passageway behind the Leaky Cauldron, and he strode impatiently along the usually bustling thoroughfare, glancing into side alleys and through darkened shop windows, cursing under his breath as shop owners gathered baskets of goods from their shop fronts and cast curious glances at him as they carried their wares inside for safekeeping until the morning.

"Stupid bloody woman!" he spat in an undertone. "Why couldn't she have just stayed in France? And that wretched Headmistress could have been a little more helpful, it wouldn't have killed her to show a bit of common sense."

Feeling a little calmer for venting his spleen, he decided at last that any more searching that evening would prove fruitless. He returned to the Leaky Cauldron and took a room for the night, enquiring of Tom the barkeep whether or not a Miss Redemte, or a lady of her description, was lodging there. Answering in the negative, Tom did nevertheless suggest that there were one or two ladies fitting a similar physical description sitting at a corner table that evening, and that for a small fee he would be able to address them by whatever name he liked.

Snape marshalled all the self control he was able in order to prevent himself from leaping over the bar to restrain Tom in a stranglehold against the wall of brightly coloured optics and forcibly prevent him from uttering any more such unspeakable insults. Instead, he said stiffly that he had no need of company and would be grateful if Tom could simply remove the cork from the bottle of claret behind the bar and use it to stopper his mouth for the remainder of the evening. Only when the bar was empty and closing for the night did Snape wend a weary path up the stairs to his room, to sleep and ready himself to resume his search the following day.

The Fates conspired against him once more, the following day. Having risen early in order to conduct a thorough shop-by-shop search if necessary, halfway through the morning he found himself waylaid in Knockturn Alley by a somewhat edgy Mr Borgin, who ushered him into the dark and musty confines of his shop in order to impress upon him his fears about the Ministry investigations into his business dealings with Lucius Malfoy. Mindful of the need to maintain his cover at all times, Snape pretended a modicum of interest and concern and tried to allay Mr Borgin's fears, but despite his best efforts he was still detained for well over an hour.

When he emerged into the glare of the midday sun he was irritated beyond all measure and strode out into Diagon Alley scattering hapless wizards and witches in his wake like flotsam and jetsam buffeted by an angry tide. After a further unproductive hour or two, he found himself once more at the entrance to Knockturn Alley, and froze as he saw a familiar blond head disappear around a corner and out of sight. Sighing heavily and clenching his fists, mindful of Borgin's worries, he followed, but by the time he had reached the iron-clad door to the shop it had been locked and bolted and the grubby curtains that concealed the interior of the shop from view had been tightly drawn, leaving only the insalubrious contents of the shop window on display. Hearing nothing from within, Snape rapped on the door and muttered a few incantations, but the door was heavily warded and remained impervious to his efforts. Eventually he decided that Borgin would simply have to look out for himself, and so he took a short cut through a narrow passageway that twisted and turned but then gave out on to the farthest end of Diagon Alley, near to St Mungo's. He slowed his pace then, searching the faces of everyone he passed just in case he passed Ella without even noticing her.

As if that could happen, now, he thought ruefully.

When he saw her, of course, she might as well have been double the size of Rubeus Hagrid for his awareness of her filled his senses and made all of the other denizens of the Alley disappear as surely as if he had used a Vanishing charm on everyone and everything in it.

Ella.

Even from behind, he knew it could be no other. She was sitting at a small wrought iron table outside the ice cream parlour, Florian Fortescues, toying idly with a plate of some elaborate ice cream dessert. He could just make out her profile, and he noticed that she was gazing off into space - no, she was watching people come and go from Knockturn Alley. She appeared to be alone, however, and for that he was grateful as it would assure him an easy retrieval.

Approaching her table with the soft tread for which he had become renowned amongst the errant students of Hogwarts School, he reached her side and forced a light note into his tone, although he feared that his feelings might still betray him.

"You never cease to surprise me," he commented dryly as he moved into her field of vision. "I would not have expected your...tastes... to extend to such a frivolous confection as that."

He looked down at the pool of pastel shades on her plate, their solidity and separateness melting and mingling under the ferocious power of the sun and mentally cursing himself for noting the analogy between the sundae and his emotions.

If he had taken her by surprise then she disguised it well, he noticed, as she replied lightly in a similar vein,

"I didn't think you were interested in my....tastes... Professor Snape."

He pulled out the chair opposite hers and sat down. It was of the same elaborate design as the table, too small and ridiculously uncomfortable.

"Do join me, won't you?" Ella said acidly, and he bristled slightly. She did not appear to be terribly pleased to see him, and he wondered how easily she would be persuaded to return to Hogwarts with him. He was suddenly reminded of her difficult attitude the day she returned his book, in his dungeon, and hurriedly decided that perhaps a little innocuous small talk would ease his passage.

"Have you been well?" he enquired politely.

"I have been busy," she countered.

"That isn't what I asked."

She looked at him levelly, and refused once more to answer his question, saying instead,

"And you? What brings you here today?"

It was not the right time to tell her that he had come to find her and return her to Hogwarts. He sensed that she would not take the news well.

"I had...business to attend to. Supplies to buy."

"You were following someone," she observed. His eyes flashed angrily. Did she know nothing of the circles in which he moved?

"Don't be so indiscreet!" he hissed. "Anyone could be listening!"

She held his gaze impassively, and he sighed. This was not the way he had thought it would be. He leaned forward, speaking urgently in an undertone:

"I have taken a room at the Leaky Cauldron. Join me there in half an hour."

To his amazement, she simply laughed at him.

"What?" he asked, affronted and completely at a loss as to what he might have said to cause such amusement. Her next words, however, made everything crystal clear.

"You must think I'm mad!" she said, incredulously. "I can remember the last time I was alone with you! What on earth makes you think I wish to repeat the experience?"

Of course. Seeing her again, for him, was the culmination of months of regret, of trying to forget, of realisation and acceptance. Ella, on the other hand, remembered only his cruelty and her confusion. He cursed himself yet again for the crassness of his behaviour, then and now, and he could not keep the sorrow from his voice as he urged her to listen.

"Because this time, I can explain. Please."

And with that he stood, gave her a searching look, and left her alone. As much as he wanted to force her to go with him, he remembered something Albus Dumbledore always said.

Caution catches the Hippogriff.

Then again, he mused as he strode back to the Leaky Cauldron, it could equally have been one of Hagrid's homilies...but either way, although he didn't much care for this analogy either, it had a grain of truth in it, and it was the best course of action his agitated mind could come up with at that moment. He was still frowning worriedly when his path was blocked by the sudden and altogether unwelcome appearance of Lucius Malfoy. The blond, richly dressed man had a hard gleam in his icy blue eyes that chilled Snape through as thoroughly as total immersion in an arctic sea.

Malfoy wasted no time on pleasantries, bringing his face to within inches of Snape's as he hissed malevolently,

"If I didn't know better, Severus, I'd say you were following me...but I see you're here for another reason, aren't you?"

"I don't know what you mean, Lucius" Snape replied, struggling to school his features into their usual mask of impassivity before the older man noticed his discomposure.

"The half-blood you were eating ice-cream with? How cosy you both looked!"

Snape tried, but judging from the triumphant smile that curled Malfoy's thin mouth he had been unable to stop his eyes widening with alarm.

"She was employed at the school for a time last year, Lucius. That's all. I was merely being...polite."

"Of course, old boy, of course! Your manners did appear to be absolutely impeccable!"

He looked Snape up and down with a sneer, adding,

"And there we all were, thinking you were such a cold fish! Well, well, well! I have to compliment you on your taste, Severus. She is rather fetching, for a halfblood." He leaned forward, dropping his voice conspiratorially. "You do intend to share, don't you?"

Snape balled his fists beneath his robes and raised an eyebrow noncommittally, not trusting himself to speak. Unfortunately Malfoy took this as assent and warmed rapidly to the theme. "I say, old man, how about it? Hmm? A little firebrand like that would be only too willing to do two men at the same time, don't you think? The three of us, with her as the filling in a - a Slytherin sandwich!"

Malfoy was highly delighted with his quip, and his glacial eyes sparkled maliciously as he began to imagine the scene. Snape was about to explode, but before he could come up with a suitably anodyne retort, Malfoy had turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd. Torn now between wanting to return to Ella's side in case Malfoy approached her, or leaving her alone to come to him of her own accord within the half hour he had specified, he decided on the latter course of action, and he returned to his room in the Leaky Cauldron to replay that afternoon's events over in his mind, and savour the memory of being in her company again at last.

Half an hour passed, and then several more half hours, and she did not come. Wilful, stubborn woman! He dared not go out and search for her once more, lest she come to his door and he not be there, so he sat in his room and stewed. At length, he descended to the bar and sat at the far end of the counter. Tom served him with a double measure of firewhisky and told him, when asked, that Miss Redemte had taken a room that very afternoon and had retired some considerable time earlier to dine in her room. Snarling his thanks, and asking for the number of her room, Snape finished his drink and refused the proffered refill, choosing instead to march purposefully up the stairs and along the winding corridor until he found her room. He was about to rap on the door and demand entry when he realised his forearm was tingling. Filled with dread, he realised that Malfoy could well have alerted the Dark Lord to Ella's existence by now, and she could be in danger.

He ran back to his room and set out the pensieve, emptying his mind of everything save for those memories he needed to offer up to it, and he touched his wand to his temple to withdraw the thin silver threads one by one. When at last he had finished he sealed the pensieve with a few muttered incantations so that none of the memories could be lost, before concealing it in his robes and returning with desperate urgency to her door.

No light leaked from under her door, so he presumed her to be asleep. Not wishing to startle her into wakefulness and then waste precious minutes explaining himself and trying to persuade her to let him in, he instead muttered

"Alohomora!" and turned the handle with a soft click.

"Who's there?" he heard her call tremulously. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

"It's me, Ella, don't be afraid and don't scream!"

"You don't scare me, Severus!" she retorted, with an animosity that made his stomach churn with worry. "What do you want?"

Why did she have to be so antagonistic? Just for once in his miserable life, he thought, it would not hurt the Fates to ease his passage a little.

"I don't have long, I must leave, but you're not safe here." He could not hide his agitation, and part of him even exulted in peeling back the layers of self-protection to lay himself bare before her, shielding nothing. He crossed over to her, drawn to her, and sat beside her on the bed, putting his hands on her shoulders, touching her again at last, oh, at last, letting the intensity of his gaze tell her all he wanted her to know.

"Listen to me, Ella, and listen carefully. You're in danger. I've had some intelligence - there's going to be Death Eater activity in London tonight." - And Malfoy's noticed you, he thought. "Albus has arranged for your fire here to be put on the Floo network for a few hours, and I have some Floo powder for you, use it as soon as I have gone, and go to Hogsmeade. From there, you must go to Hogwarts - Albus is expecting you, and you'll be safe there."

She argued, of course, and he cursed the fickle Fates for their surely unwarranted mischief.

"I'm due to return to Beauxbatons tomorrow! And I don't want to go back to Hogwarts!"

"For pity's sake, woman, do you have to be so stubborn?" he exploded. "Just do as I say!"

"Don't speak to me like I'm one of your students, Professor!"

Why, oh why had he expected her simply to comply? He castigated himself for not realising by now that she had her own ideas, and always seemed to have the last word.

He sighed and ran his hair back from his face impatiently.

" Ella, I need to know you're safe!" he stressed urgently. You don't know what Malfoy's capable of given half the chance, let alone Voldemort!

"Why would you care? You made your feelings quite clear the last time we met!"

"Oh, Ella, I wish I had time to explain to you!" he said earnestly, gripping her shoulders more tightly, noticing with a lurch in his abdomen the thin straps of her nightgown as they fell over his fingers. "It was all for you, my sweet, sweet love - "

The endearment spilled from his mouth before he had the chance to edit it to something less ridiculously saccharine, and deciding to ignore it he made the mistake of moving in to embrace her, his arms trembling with the need to enfold her in them. Ella, of course, had other ideas.

"Don't you dare call me that!" she screamed at him, pushing his hands from her shoulders and scrambling off the bed to stand before him, anger flashing in her eyes and the chilly air pebbling her nipples through the thin satiny fabric. His arm was burning now, and he knew he had little time left, and yet in spite of her lack of cooperation he still ached to claim her at last.

"You have no right to come in here and speak to me like that!"

His eyes filled with anguish as he fought against the irrational urge to throw himself at her feet, and instead he stood, fetching the pensieve from the table upon which he had laid it as he entered.

"Take this to Hogwarts, and use it there. Please. It will answer all your questions, and it may even make you think more kindly of me. But please, Ella, you must do this! If I ever meant anything to you, please promise me you'll go to Hogwarts! I can't protect you any more, they know too much!"

Unbidden and unstoppable tears filled his eyes as he stood before her, and they appeared to reach deeply inside her in a way that his words had summarily failed to do. In a small, shocked voice, she said,

"Alright," and his stricken face creased with relief as he took her in his arms at last and kissed her. He held her to him and exulted in the relief of it, after night after night of longing and the desperate knowledge that this could easily be the last time he ever held her. The Dark Mark's call grew more impatient with every minute of resistance and he had always known that each summons to Voldemort's side could be his last. She struggled against him at first, but he could not let her go and eventually she melted into him, returning his embrace ardently, letting him into the warm cavern of her mouth, kissing him as hungrily as he did her, running her hands through his hair and making him shiver with pleasure. She was real, she was in his arms, and she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

He loved her. He had loved her all along, he knew that now. Even if the Mirror of Erised had not forced him to open his eyes and free his heart from his imprisonment of it these long years, the sight and the feel and the taste of her now assured him of all that he needed to know.

The fiery prickle of the Dark Mark on his arm grew more insistent and difficult to withstand, and he felt a wave of nausea wash over him. Letting go of her, relinquishing her lips and depriving himself of her intoxicating taste, he forced himself to pull away from her and said,

"I have to go! Ella, I-I love you!" his voice cracking with the admission that he no longer wanted to bite back.

He threw some Floo powder into the fire and muttered a spell that would floo him untraceably to the Dark Lord. Turning to give Ella one last scorching look, he stepped in to the fire and stared into her eyes as he fell backwards, stomach first, into the green flames of the Floo network.