Snape In Love: Chasing Darkness Away

Chapter 25

Jubilation

Severus awoke early the following morning. Dozing for a while in that heavy-lidded, thick-headed way that comes of contentment and satiety, he came to only slowly, awareness dawning along with the bright late summer sun. At last, he sighed and shifted until he lay flat on his back, staring up into the high vaulted ceiling with the arm that had been removed from Ella's still sleeping form now slung over his head. His expression was impassive, as it always was in repose, but his eyes told a different story. His eyes were those of a man who had a terrible secret to impart.

Today, he had to admit to Ella exactly how important a part he had played in the murders of her family. He could put it off no longer. He had allowed himself to be sidetracked into fond reminiscences interspersed with hesitant admissions of his childhood failings, and he had wallowed in her appreciation and her love. Now, he had to disillusion her and pray that their love was strong enough to weather it. She knew much, it was true, of what he had done, what he had been. He comforted himself with that knowledge, but nevertheless he shrank from what he had to do, and as Ella lay slumbering at his side, her arm stretching across his chest as she stirred in her sleep, he began to plan his best course of action.

He would take her to Godric's Seat, he decided. She loved that spot, it held many happy memories for them both and from its vantage point could be seen the foothills where their wedding had taken place. A morning spent waxing lyrical on the joys of married life would impress upon her everything positive and wonderful about their relationship and such memories would remain uppermost in her mind to temper the hideous truths he still needed to impart. He stroked her arm idly and she sighed in her sleep. Perhaps he was being a little Machiavellian again, but it was only to be expected. Honesty was best prepared with a pinch of deviousness, after all. It would serve none of their interests for his words to drive her away. His desire for honesty had brought him to this juncture, after all, despite his nagging fear that it would signal the end for them.

He heard Persephone stir, and gently disentangled himself from his wife. She opened her eyes and half sat up, the bleariness of her gaze making him smile.

"Wha - ?"

"It's Persephone. I'll get her," he murmured, and she flopped back on to his pillow with a groan.

"I have some work to do," he announced as he lay his baby down beside Ella. "I want to go over my lesson plans for the first month of term, there are some minor changes I'd like to make."

"Okay," she replied sleepily, putting Persephone to her breast. "Are you starting now?"

"Yes," he replied, pulling on his trousers and deftly fastening all the buttons of his fly. "I'll join you for breakfast, though. Come for me, when you're ready."

The lesson plans sat in a neat pile on his desk, undisturbed. He stared into space, at his shelves, through the narrow deep set window of his office, at the workbench with its bell jars and test tubes, at the serried rows of stoppered specimen jars, anywhere but at the pile of parchment on his desk. He could not concentrate. Not on this day. Not when all his considerable powers of persuasion would be needed to save the perceived threat to his happiness that he had been brainless enough to engender. How could he have been so stupid? He had put her through enough, surely? She had married him despite his past and all his many and varied faults and was bound to him, for all time. The only way their magical and mystical bond could be broken was if either of them fell so completely out of love with the other that all hope of reconciliation was gone, so why had he insisted to himself that he should impart to her such heinous revelations? Putting her to the test once again, reluctant simply to accept that she loved him because why should she, when he certainly did not love himself and was therefore undeserving of anyone else's? If she truly loved him, then she would stay, but would even that be enough to convince him? He hoped so, for she had made him happier than any man had a right to be, least of all him.

He was startled from the churning morass of his thoughts by a sudden knock at the door.

"Come in, love," he said, running his hand through his hair and forcing himself to smile at Ella as she and Persephone came in. She stood in the doorway, dressed in green silk, and his breath caught in his throat.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes, I've done everything I needed to do," he lied, before continuing truthfully, "I'm - all yours. Shall we go up to Godric's Seat after breakfast? It's going to be a nice day."

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

Fatherhood and marriage were two concepts that had been completely alien to Snape less than two years before. Less than 10 months before, to be strictly accurate. He had never been particularly interested in either, the unlikeliness of the latter more or less precluding any chance of the former. Now, the sacred bonds of marriage would soon be a glorious reality, with a life partner so beloved that he knew that even to lay down his life for her would be an inadequate expression of his devotion. Now, he was a father, and the tiny infant now grizzling softly in his arms was a part of him, a part of his beloved, a miraculous personification of their love, and a legacy he would leave behind him comprising all that was good, and pure. For once in his life he had done something of which he could be truly proud, something in which there was no hidden agenda, no taint of self interest.

Persephone, his daughter, lay in his arms perfect and innocent and a wave of emotion flooded his heart to spill out as joyful tears. He and Ella were alone, but even had there been a room full of people he did not think he would have cared, because his world had shrunk in on itself so that all there was in it was Severus Snape and his daughter, a tiny bundle wrapped in white with a shock of black hair framing a small round pink face. She overwhelmed him, and he loved her with a ferocity that was so sudden and so powerful that he could barely contain it.

Her little fist emerged from the folds of the blanket in which she was swaddled, and he laughed softly as her fingers splayed out and grasped at nothing. He was hypnotised by their perfection and knew then that he would never tire of looking at her. He wanted to share her with Ella again, though, and so he walked across the room slowly, carrying his daughter tenderly in his arms.

"You want her back?" he asked Ella. She was propped up on several pillows and her cheeks were still flushed after her exertions, her hair plastered to her forehead and her eyes giddy with happiness.

"I want you both back!" she laughed. "Look at you, it looks like I've lost you both to each other!"

"Here, go back to your mother," he said softly, kissing the baby's forehead gently. He laid her in her mother's arms, and then climbed on to the bed beside her so that he could embrace them both. The swell of love submerged him once more as Ella snuggled back into his arms and turned her head to look up at him. He held her gaze wonderingly before leaning down and kissing her tenderly.

"You are incredible, Ella. Are you feeling alright?"

"Never better," she replied, and he knew exactly what she meant.

Later, after they had been congratulated by Remus, Hermione and Sirius, and after he had joined Ella in a deep, warm bath and helped her bathe, relishing the exquisite sensation of her skin slipping and sliding against his, they slept, wrapped up in one another's arms. Ella fell asleep almost immediately her head hit the pillow, unsurprisingly, but despite his weariness he lay awake for quite some time listening to two sets of breathing now, two sets of rustlings and grunting and sighs. A whole new language to learn, he thought to himself as Persephone gave a tiny cry before settling again.

His mind was reeling as it struggled to come to terms with the immensity of his love for his tiny daughter, and as he lay on his side in the twilit room, gazing across the sleeping form of his future wife to the blanketed infant in the cot beside her bed, his breathing hitched and he wondered whether or not his father had felt the same way upon his own birth. Somehow he doubted it.

He found it difficult to believe that his father had ever shed a joyful tear, or felt his heart swell so large in his chest that it hurt his ribs and drew still more tears from overflowing ducts. His father had been dour and unforgiving, unemotional and calculating. His father had looked at Snape in such a way as to leave him in no doubt that there was a mental scorecard in his head against which he would never make the grade.

And yet, and yet...he remembered a particularly harsh winter and a tall, smiling man who helped him build a snowman, and lifted him up on his shoulders afterwards so that he could reach the lower branches of the trees in the family's orchard and shake off the snow until they were both covered in it and overcome by laughter.

But he remembered better the way he had felt after Caius had usurped him, when the only smiles that came his way were accompanied by harsh laughter and sneers and disappointed stares were the expected reaction to anything he did. How could his father not have experienced this incredible outpouring of love? And if he had felt it, at first, what had happened for it to wither and die as soon as Caius had arrived? And the worst of it was that their father had died before Snape was able to see whether or not the same withdrawal of affection would eventually have happened with Caius. Consequently, the resentment had festered and the fear of rejection had closed the young man in on himself, and the result of his withdrawal had been far reaching and terrible.

He had resented Caius so much that the imaginary knife he felt twist in his gut every time he remembered, rusty now after years of neglect, still cut deep and painful. He had loved his brother but had grown to hate him. He had felt protectiveness for him that had turned to a compulsion to reject him, to drive him as far away as he possibly could. He had done these things so thoroughly that it had been several years since he had seen his brother, despite the fact that each was now the other's only living relative. He did not even know where Caius was living any more, he realised. That shocked him, and he frowned into the darkness. By the same token, Caius would have no way of knowing that he had met Ella, and that he had fathered a child. Caius' niece. He ought to make the effort to find him, he supposed, and let him know.

He forgot all about his brother in the hectic days that followed Persephone's birth. He took his family home to Hogwarts as soon as was humanly possible, away from the grating efficiency of the hospital staff and the complete lack of privacy and dignity that such establishments seemed to accept so readily and even wore like a badge of pride.

He had, of course, reckoned without the equally disturbing tendency of their so-called friends to show as blatant a disregard for their privacy as the staff at St Mungo's. They Apparated on to the front lawn at Hogwarts only to find a most unwelcome welcoming committee on the steps. His baby had seemed to inherit her mother's dislike of Apparation and was squalling in a most distressed fashion, and all that they could do was make an amused observation that she was just like her father. Then the whole troupe had followed them down to their own private quarters, and insisted they be invited in to 'wet the baby's head'. Of course, none of this was done overtly, for Snape would have been able to decline any direct requests with his usual alacrity. No, this bonhomie was done by stealth, as if all concerned agreed that it was quite acceptable behaviour, and so how could Snape, as a reasonable man, find anything about which to object?

He settled Ella comfortably on one of the new sofas she had ordered in his absence, and took her hand between his on to his lap as he sat beside her. He had never been able to prevail where Albus Dumbledore was concerned. Dumbledore, patriarch of the school and its student body, in recent years more a father to him than his own had ever been, had betrayed him when he had failed to take Snape's side after the incident at the Whomping Willow and in turn he had let the old man down when he had joined Lucius Malfoy as one of the Dark Lord's cohorts. Both sides had spent the years since the Potters' deaths trying to make amends but their relationship would always resemble that of an angry adolescent trying to outmanoeuvre a kindly but firm aged parent. Snape knew that however objectionable he made himself, Dumbledore would remain in glorious denial, taking no notice of his complaint until he himself deemed it time to leave. All that Snape could do was resign himself to the intrusion and suffer in silence.

His patience was rewarded, and after around half an hour the new family was left in peace, to remain undisturbed for three blissful, exhausting days. He found during that time that he barely slept; or at least that was how it seemed. Persephone was a cooperative child as long as her every demand was answered swiftly, and he noticed that Ella chose to sleep when her baby slept, napping for odd hours in the day and sleeping soundly all night apart from when Persephone had to be fed. He, on the other hand, could not sleep. His wakefulness did not send him striding along the soothing corridors as before, searching for diversion from his thoughts in the form of curfew-breaking students; everything he needed with which to surround himself was within the walls of his own private quarters. Instead, he lay awake while Ella slumbered at his side, their limbs entwined in a relaxed yet needful embrace, and he listened for his new baby's signs of life, and learnt to anticipate her awakening. Or, he would extricate himself from the tangle of limbs and get up, standing over the crib to watch Persephone's fingers curl into fists and her shock of black hair darken still more in the grey of the moon.

Unable to summon the energy to dress correctly, let alone attend to any work, each day slid into the next and after two days at home he would find himself waking suddenly on the sofa, stiff necked and disoriented, having fallen asleep unintentionally while watching Ella nurse their child. He needed to get a grip on himself. Enamoured though he was, it would not do for his family to so comprehensively disrupt his life that he could no longer function in his usual fashion. Fortunately, on the third day he was offered the best possible incentive to pull himself together, and that incentive was called Hermione Granger.

She breezed into his private rooms with an easy familiarity he found most unwelcome. In his irritation at the disturbance he forgot his state of undress and she had the nerve to glance down at his half-opened dressing gown as she greeted him. He drew it around himself and glared at her before retreating to the bedroom. He heard her inane chatter through the closed door, which he locked as a precaution, and scowled as he threw the dressing gown on to the bed. Ella laughed at whatever it was she had said, and their voices faded slightly as they moved to sit down. He dressed slowly and angrily, unwilling to participate in the conversation but realising that his presence would, with any luck, curtail her visit, so after a few minutes he re-entered the living room. His tactic was mostly successful but before she left she reminded them that the Potter boy was celebrating his maturity with a party that night. He rolled his eyes but knew from his wife's enthusiastic reaction that there would be no escape.

"What was all that about?" Ella asked after Hermione had been ushered out.

"I don't like being forced to be sociable!" he replied.

"Well, I know that, love!" She smiled, and nuzzled his cheek until his frown disappeared. "But why are you dressed so formally?"

"I just didn't feel comfortable with her here. In our home. I'm her teacher!"

"You were her teacher," she reminded him gently, but he was not to be dissuaded so easily from his complaint.

"Until only a couple of weeks ago. And I know she's your friend, but...it's all too familiar!"

"You'll get used to it, love. Look at you and me! You unwound with me, didn't you?"

"I had rather more of an incentive in your case!" he commented, running his hand underneath her Muggle tee shirt to stroke her bare back. Ella ought to have the sensitivity to realise the difference, he thought to himself. However, her next words disarmed him completely.

"Well, get used to being sociable tonight - look on it as practice for next week, we'll be the centre of attention all day!"

His heart lurched in his chest. "Five more days and we'll be married," he said wonderingly, and suddenly a dry run seemed like it might be a good idea.

He had not expected to see his brother again. He had had vague intentions of getting in touch with him eventually, at some point, but he had to be honest with himself and admit that he would not have bothered to invite him to his wedding, had Ella and the Headmaster not intervened. Caius reminded him of his past, a past he wanted nothing more than to forget.

His heart had sunk when he saw Caius stride across the Great Hall as he gatecrashed Potter's party. His younger brother had matured considerably in the years since he had seen him last, and Snape had to admit that he cut a fine figure. He could almost hear the whispered comments from behind the backs of hands, the imagined words echoing from the vaulted ceiling and amplifying until he was deafened by them;

"What, is that the Greasy Git's brother?"

"You mean he has a family? Who'd have thought?"

"He's gorgeous! Nothing like Snape, is he?"

"I think Ella chose the wrong Snape, didn't she?"

He had watched as Potter and the Weasley tribe had allowed him to ingratiate himself with them and only Ella's obvious preference for his own company had prevented his sourness from spoiling the many anecdotes he found spilling from his mouth, much to her delight. And he had admitted to himself that Ella's little hormone-induced tantrum, after their ad hoc meeting with the Headmaster when Ella had mentioned her suspicions about Rita Skeeter, had done much to bolster his flagging self-esteem.

After the meeting, during which Ella had divulged her most perceptive theory that Skeeter might be harbouring the Malfoys and Voldemort, she had become strangely withdrawn and had descended the slowly spiralling staircase in silence. Curious, he had questioned her and she had burst into tears. He had hidden a smirk as he enfolded her in his arms and congratulated himself on his indispensability.

As he held her close he remembered the conversation he had had a few weeks before, when Madam Pomfrey had taken him to one side after dinner one evening in order to impress upon him the importance of sensitivity to Ella's moods after the baby was born.

"Now listen to me, Severus," she had said, glancing furtively over his shoulder to see Ella standing with Remus Lupin and Hermione Granger, deep in conversation. "I do hope you're going to be sensitive to Ella's needs, after the baby's born!"

"What do you mean, sensitive to her needs?" he had replied sharply, glaring at her. "When am I ever anything but?"

"Well, if you don't mind my saying so, Severus dear, you were less than perceptive after Christmas when she was - well, when she was getting so confused."

He folded his arms and drew himself up to his full height, but Madam Pomfrey was unaffected.

"She's a slave to her hormones, that one!" she continued primly. "And unless you show her a little understanding in the days after the birth, you'll store up no end of trouble for yourself!"

"Meaning?" he growled, trying to conceal his perturbation. What was he supposed to do? He fisted his hands at his sides as he resisted the urge to grab her by the shoulders and ask "What should I do?"

"Meaning, she's quite likely to get a bit weepy, of course!" she scolded. "She'll need your understanding, and your reassurance," she continued, looking at him dubiously.

He breathed a sigh of relief. He could cope with a few tears every now and then, as long as Ella wasn't about to run off to France again.

Consequently, he knew exactly what to do when she refused to take his hand as they reached the foot of the stairs and berated him for supposedly offering to go after Malfoy and Voldemort again.

"Hah!" he said, delighted at his own perceptiveness. "Well, well! Poppy told me this might happen! Fascinating! She warned me you'd probably be a textbook case, knowing your history!"

"What?"

"Oh, Ella, love!" he cajoled, moving one hand up to cup her face. "You and your blasted hormones! Look, I understand this time! I'm here!"

"Don't patronize me! You were going to go off again!"

"To the Ministry, and then back home again, that was all! I've got a wedding to go to in a few days, and the bride would kill me if I missed it!"

She burst into tears, and in a perverse way he was quite gratified that he could use kind words equally as well as cruel ones to reduce another to tears. He felt a twinge of guilt at such a thought but assuaged it quickly by pulling her into a soothing embrace.

"Oh, come here! You're over-reacting! You appear to be suffering from what I believe is known as the 'baby blues', Ella. That's all this is!" his matter-of-fact tone concealing a secret glee.

"All?"

"You'll get through it! Just let it all out!"

"Why do you have to be so bloody understanding?"

His mouth quirked. "Would you rather I tore you to shreds with my cutting tongue?" he asked dryly.

"Yes!"

"Well, much as I hate to disappoint you, I'm afraid this time my heart just wouldn't be in it!"

He pressed her close to him with one hand against the small of her back, his fingers making small circling motions there, while with the other he stroked her hair. Once her sniffles stopped he sighed in satisfaction. He had done well. He made a mental note to thank Pomfrey at some point.

"Let's go back to the Great Hall and get our baby, and we can all go home. Hmm?"

She nodded vigorously into his chest and he chuckled softly.

"Here, I'd better tidy you up a bit. People will think I've been cruel to you."

"Since when did you care what people thought of you?"

"Hmm." That was very true, but she would appreciate his sensitivity and his efforts to care for her, and that was all that really mattered.

Spending the remainder of the evening in the company of not only his brother but Potter and his cronies as well was enough to severely test his neglected social skills. Caius and the erstwhile banes of his life - the werewolf, too, - told a succession of anecdotes which confirmed Snape's worst suspicions of the lot of them. He sat back in his seat and tolerated their prattle as best he could, for he sensed that it was important to Ella that they stay for a while. Poppy Pomfrey had been quite explicit about the sort of care and attention Ella would need following Persephone's birth, and social interaction with her peers was high on the list, apparently. If Ella felt she wanted to socialise, then he was duty bound to grit his teeth and join her.

After a few large goblets of claret he forgot to scowl, and felt obliged to join in the conversation. Caius seemed to have an unrealistically florid recollection of certain childhood events and Snape took an ever increasing delight in putting the record straight, much to the amusement of everyone present. It was so gratifying to see his words greeted with laughter instead of stony, silent acquiescence that he almost forgot that most of the people gathered around their small table had been heartily despised students mere weeks before. His arm was slung casually around Ella's neck and he played with the soft curls below her ear without realising what such an intimate gesture revealed, and by the time she had kissed him in front of everybody he really did not care.

As he lay awake that night waiting for sleep, he realised that he was inordinately pleased to see Caius again.

The following day he had sole charge of his tiny daughter for the first time. He had insisted that Ella go to see Madam Pomfrey for the reassurance he knew she would take from it, which meant that as her other parent, Persephone was his responsibility. He waved away Ella's concerns dismissively, but as soon as he had returned with her to the dungeons and found himself alone with his daughter his throat constricted with apprehension and by the time he had changed her nappy beads of sweat were shining on his brow.

The sense of responsibility was overwhelming. He had taken whole classes of dunderheads and prevented them from blowing themselves up. He was the only person he knew who could consistently brew batches of Wolfsbane of faultless quality. He had been responsible for brewing some of the most lethal potions known to man. He had risked his life on innumerable occasions while acting as spy for Albus Dumbledore and feeding misinformation to the most evil wizard of the last millennium. The task now before him was surely well within his capabilities. All he had to do was keep his daughter safe, dry, clean and warm, and make sure she was fed.

He decided to take Persephone for her stroll earlier than had been discussed. He would perhaps bump into the Headmaster, or Minerva, if he was lucky. Even Professor Sprout, or Madam Hooch; he was fairly certain that, as women, they would have some latent instinct that they could bring into play. And Hagrid's motley collection of creatures all seemed to thrive, so if all else failed he could take a stroll across the lawns to his hut.

Persephone did not seem to mind the haste with which she was bundled back into her pushchair, and she did not object to the speed at which she was swept along the corridors. The Transfigurations classroom was the closest, he thought, and Minerva's office adjoined it. He cursed when he realised her office door was locked and that there were no signs of life within. Where the devil was she? Surely she didn't have any pressing engagements to take her from her work? He ran his hands through his hair with a heavy sigh, and peered into the pushchair. Persephone was awake, and she was looking at him with curiosity, but at least she was not crying and for that he could be thankful.

He was halfway to Albus Dumbledore's office when he realised there was no way he would be able to get the pushchair up the spiral staircase. The old man had warded the area around the staircase so that it would repel all attempts at magic and without a Levitation charm he would have to lift her out of the pushchair and leave it at the foot of the staircase. And, of course, she had chosen to go to sleep! How absolutely typical, he thought bitterly, until he realised that her slumber was the best thing that could happen, for if she was asleep then she was not making inarticulate demands of him that he feared he would not understand. Relieved and feeling rather foolish, he decided to head directly for Godric's Seat, where he could try to relax and await Ella's return with some semblance of equanimity.

He had regained his composure by the time he sensed Ella's approach, and was able to toss out a casual comment over his shoulder.

"You've been ages! I think she's waking up."

Ella would believe that he had coped admirably without her. She would know what a wonderful father he would be to their daughter. A far better one than his own father had been to him. In fact, the more he thought about it as she slipped her arms around his neck from behind, he had coped admirably. He had had sole charge of his daughter for well over an hour, and had needed no help from anybody else. With a smug, contented sigh, he breathed in the scent of jasmine and looked over the lake, across to the place where he would be wed.

***

He had woken in Ella's arms on the morning of his wedding. She had had some stupid idea that it was bad luck for the bride and groom to see one another before the ceremony, a notion put into her head the night before by the meddlesome Miss Granger, and so he had left her outside the staffroom door breathless and craving more of his touch after a scorching kiss of which he felt justifiably proud. He had known she would not last the night without him, and he felt immensely satisfied that once again she had proved him right. They had not made love, but by the Fates, they had done the next best thing. He remembered with exquisite clarity the sensation of her velvety mouth wrapped around him the night before, the ferocity of the summer storm drowning out their cries.

And then later, when he had returned to his chambers warmed through by the smile she had given him upon waking, he had performed all the necessary ablutions and preparations with a rather tuneless humming that he realised with no little surprise came from his own lips.

As he had begun to button the quicksilver grey shirt that was part of his wedding wardrobe, there was an apologetic knock at the door. He recognised it instantly.

"What is it, Lupin?" he demanded as he strode across and flung open the door. The werewolf wore his usual ingratiating smile but not even that could dampen Snape's spirits that morning. Turning on his heel, he made a brusque gesture inviting Lupin to follow him inside.

"I just came along to make sure you weren't having any second thoughts!"

Snape snorted.

"You are so amusing, Remus!"

"It has been said," came the cheerful retort. "No, I just wondered whether you needed a hand getting dressed, you know, fastening all those buttons, brushing your hair..."

Snape raised an eyebrow and gave him a hard stare.

"I think I can manage, thanks. Now why are you really here?"

"Oh, come on, Severus! It's your wedding day, everyone needs a bit of support on their wedding day!"

"I see no reason why," he shrugged. "But since you're here, you can tell me how the preparations are going outside. And you can floo Pomfrey and find out how my daughter is this morning."

"Don't need to, I just came from there!" Lupin said happily. "I knew you'd be missing little Seffie - "

"Persephone!"

" - So I wandered along there to say hi before I came here. It's the job of the best man to anticipate the groom's every need, you know!"

"And who gave you that honour? I don't remember asking anybody to stand up with me!"

"Well, Albus suggested that you might - "

"Bloody interfering old coot!" Snape muttered, straightening the sleeves of his black damask frock coat by tugging at each cuff impatiently. He swung round to Lupin, who was perched on the arm of his wing chair looking at him expectantly, and rolled his eyes. "Oh, all right then," he said ungraciously. "Since you're here anyway it might as well be you."

"Why thank you, Severus, I would be honoured!"

"Hmph. I thought you were going to tell me how the preparations were going?"

"Fine, fine, nothing to worry about!"

"I'm not worried."

"Of course not. That's why you've straightened your sleeves four times in a row."

"Bloody hell, Lupin, did Black put you up to this? I was fine until you sloped in!" Snape grumbled, running his hand through his hair.

The werewolf's insistence on continuing ancient tradition by standing up with him was beginning to unnerve him. It was not that he did not realise the enormity of what he was about to do; he acknowledged fully the havoc it would wreak on his life, and welcomed it wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, he had fondly believed that despite the elaborate lakeside ceremony and the grand feast that would follow, the day would belong to him and his bride; but no. There would be hordes of people and ex students present too, smiling and laughing and enjoying themselves, and interrupting his appreciation of his own wedding day. Worse still, all attention would be on the two of them, and he would be put under enormous pressure to be pleasant. His left hand reached once more for his right sleeve and he cursed as he forced himself to stop.

"So, are you ready, then?" Lupin asked ingenuously.

"I'm more than ready to wed," Snape said with feeling before admitting "It's being a public spectacle that bothers me!"

Lupin stood, and clapped Snape on the shoulder.

"You'll forget about all of that as soon as you set eyes on her, Severus. Everyone else will simply disappear."

A mawkish comment like that deserved a sneer at the very least and preferably a withering comment to go with it, but Snape settled for a hard stare into Lupin's boyishly sincere face because after all, it was probably the most perceptive comment he had ever heard the werewolf make.

He flew across the lake alone. He insisted on it. By the time he and Lupin had reached the observation platform at the top of the Astronomy Tower he felt sick with nerves and he fervently wished that he had had the foresight to prepare a vial of potion against that eventuality, as he had done for Ella. His heart beat harder in his chest as he thought of her, wondering when she would find it and whether she would smile at his messages. The enchantments had been difficult for he had never been quite as adept at Charms as he was at Potions or the Dark Arts, but he had not needed to resort to seeking help from Flitwick, who would probably have dined out on the anecdote for weeks given half a chance. Only Ella's touch would make his script show itself, and her prior actions would dictate what she read. These thoughts preoccupied him as they climbed higher and although Lupin was droning on about something insignificant, Snape was not listening.

"You go on ahead, Remus. I want to take a turn around the grounds first."

"Okay, Severus. I understand," Lupin grinned. "Work up a bit of adrenaline, give those last minute nerves something to work on!"

"I am not nervous!" he snapped.

He did not know why Lupin had suddenly taken to clapping him on the back and he did not care for it particularly, so he was greatly relieved when Lupin mounted his broom and kicked off, rising slowly above the crenellated parapet and turning to wave at Snape before speeding off across the lawns and over the lake. Snape watched him go, seeing his reflection diminish in the glassy sunlit surface of the lake as he flew into the distance. There were guests there already, he noticed, and as he watched more could be seen arriving in the foothills, from the direction of Hogsmeade and also from the school grounds.

It would soon be time. He turned his back on the view spread out before him, and looked within the school to where he knew she would be. Seeing past all the towers and the wings and the quadrangles, the hundreds of windows, the gargoyles, the cloisters and the fountains, his mind's eye looked deep into the dungeons where Ella waited to be bound to him. His heart full, he closed his eyes for a moment and willed to her all the love he felt, before mounting his broom and kicking off.

The rush of the wind through his hair as he flew was exhilarating, and he circled the school twice before speeding off to the Quidditch pitch and back again, then down to the Forbidden Forest where the trees huddled together as if to protect themselves from the bright warmth of the summer sunlight. The air was still as he hovered over the treetops and cast his gaze back towards the school that was his home. When he returned to it, he would be wed. He let out a short, sharp laugh and banked right, speeding over to the outskirts of the forest and thence across the lake to where the wedding party was waiting.

He dismounted close to where Lupin and Black were deep in conversation with his brother.

"Sev! We were beginning to think you weren't coming!" Caius joked, holding out his hand for Snape's broom which he deposited against a steep grassy bank along with those of the guests. Snape lifted an eyebrow but did not answer, being too preoccupied with straightening his sleeves, and so Caius continued apologetically, "Just a joke, you know! She's a real catch, and she thinks the world of you, too!"

"Thank you for that accurate assessment, Caius. What would I do without you," Snape countered dryly. "Now if you'll excuse me I am going to wait for her on the jetty. I believe that is the requirement, Remus?"

"We'll wait with you," Black offered. "Keep you company."

Snape inclined his head slightly. He did not want company. He wanted to be left alone with his thoughts so that he could meditate on the step he was about to take. However, since their sojourn in Eastern Europe he had been forced into a grudging respect for Sirius Black, one which he knew was mutual, and so he felt disinclined to argue the point. He saw the familiar purple-robed figure of Albus Dumbledore from the corner of his eye and made a half turn to see the old man nod at him over the rim of his half moon spectacles with a knowing smile.

"Out of interest," he muttered to Lupin as they descended the bank to the small wooden jetty, "Is it just me, or does Albus manipulate everyone else around him too?"

The werewolf laughed. "Oh, you're not alone, I'm sure! But he certainly takes more delight in it when it's you!"

"Yes, he's always had a soft spot for you, Snape," Black added, falling into step alongside him. Snape looked at him incredulously.

"I hardly think so, Sirius!"

"Suit yourself," he shrugged. "It doesn't make it any less true."

Once on the jetty, Snape strode to its end and gazed out across the lake. He could see the elaborately gilded boat that would bring Ella to him with Hermione in attendance. Hermione was almost young enough to be Ella's daughter, he mused. She was the same age as Phoebe would have been, had she lived. Had Snape not ensured the manner of her death and then witnessed it. He shivered despite the warmth of the sun, and did not notice his brother's approach until he felt Caius' hand on his arm. Startled, he jumped away and almost reached for his wand as he turned, remembering just in time that where he was and why he was there precluded any possible danger.

"Severus, I just wanted to say...I'm sorry. For everything." Snape frowned slightly, puzzled, so Caius continued, "I don't just mean letting Ella get taken again, or knackering that photo frame with her parents' picture in it. I mean...well, everything. All of it. I must have been a bit of a pain. When I was younger."

Eight years and a lifetime of bitterness stood between Snape and his brother, while eighteen and the veil of death separated Ella from Phoebe. Perhaps it was time for him to start appreciating Caius, while he still could. He remembered Ella's wise words of a few days before, when she had told him he was lucky Caius was still around. Snape looked his brother in the eye, probing him, and wondered what on earth to say.

"Yes, you were," he said finally. "And you haven't changed, either. But - that doesn't mean to say that I'm sorry you're here."

Caius smiled at him, and the relief he exuded washed over Snape in waves of warmth. Quickly Snape withdrew, but held out his hand. Caius took it and that brief contact, the first that Snape had instigated in years, did more to heal the scars of their relationship than mere words could. Snape gave a stiff smile in return and then it was over and Remus was murmuring,

"Nearly time, Severus. Albus says she's on her way through the school now."

Snape's stomach lurched.

Minutes passed. Caius, Lupin and Black made small talk, but his monosyllabic responses soon gave way to distracted grunts and after a while he failed to acknowledge them at all. He was too focussed on the castle, squinting against the sunlight to try to catch a first glimpse of her as she descended the steps on to the lawn. Eventually they withdrew discreetly, and he waited alone.

A glimmer of white and another of richest red, unmistakeably Ella and Hermione. His world fell away then and he held his breath, advancing the few steps to the edge of the jetty, poised on the brink, wanting to fly to her side. There was nothing else, and he willed her to hurry to him, impatient now having waited for so long. She stepped into the boat and slipped off her cloak, letting it fall. He caught his breath as she shook out her hair, festooned with flowers and cascading over her shoulders. She was clad in a shimmering fabric whose iridescence caught the sun and seemed to imprison it within its softly draping folds, showing first blue, then silver, then green. He understood her meaning and rejoiced in it, for today she would truly be his, in every way, and it was fitting that her dress symbolise their union.

As the boat made its exceedingly slow way across the millpond lake, their eyes stayed locked each on the other and his heart pounded against his ribs with relentless fervour as if demanding to be set free of its confines so that it could soar to meet hers. A soft blue nimbus of light grew all around her as she approached, ethereal and mystical. At last the boat pulled up to the jetty, gliding silently to a stop, and he swallowed hard as he held out his hand to her. Blue lightning flashed from her fingertips to his and back again as they touched, a visible manifestation of the power that surrounded and filled them this day. He had never seen its like before, could not imagine any other couple having felt this way although logically he supposed they must; but then she spoke, and with that special way she had of filling all of his senses at once, she overwhelmed him and all that he could do was exhort her not to.

"What, no smile for me, Severus? Today, of all days?"

"I can't allow myself the luxury of a smile, Ella, today of all days," he said unsteadily. "If I smile I may never stop and at this precise moment I don't think I could endure the joy."

"Oh!" she gasped, and broke out into a radiant smile. He allowed himself a small, quick smile in return and warned,

"Don't!" He raised her hands to his lips and kissed them, feeling the tingle of magic flicker across his lips as blue light danced across her palms, and then took a deep breath. "Come on, you promised to marry me. Though why such a beautiful faerie creature should want to will always be beyond me..."

"Shh! Make me yours!" she urged.

The longing to wrap his arms around her and crush her to him was almost more than he could bear. He had wanted this so much that now the time had come to bind himself to her for ever more he found himself rooted to the spot, too much in love to make that last step, too desirous of holding on to the exquisite bliss of the moment. He let out a long shuddering breath, closing his eyes briefly, and let her lead him to the place where Doctor Firkin and their guests waited.

Their marriage saw him reborn. The magical binding ceremony was an experience he had never thought to have, and one that he had never witnessed before. He had been forewarned both by Albus and by Doctor Firkin that the magic in the air would heighten the impact of the ceremony but he had dismissed their words for the most part because he already knew the depth and the breadth and the height of his love for Ella, and was fully cognisant of the effect her love had on him. He had been wrong to do so, however, because the elation he felt was indescribable. From the moment their hands touched at the jetty every part of his body and his soul sang his joy. Their vows, their kisses, their dreamlike slow sail back across the lake to the school; the insistent tugging in his chest as his heart ached to claim her and withdraw with her to the dungeons, his impatience to start his new life with her; all these things were added one by one to the cauldron of emotion that threatened to bubble over every time she smiled.

Afterwards, when he danced with her after their wedding feast and discovered that her post partum healing process had been accelerated and that they would therefore be consummating their union that very evening, he had felt that his life had been turned around completely. It was fitting that the very same ointment that he himself had devised to heal the worst of Voldemort's abuses was allowing him finally to bury his past. He felt a quiet calm come over him, and while he was impatient to carry her off to the dungeons he was also glad of the of the public duty that was the reception, for his emotions had been too profound and he needed some respite from the euphoria he had enjoyed all that day.

He had had no idea that when he did finally get his bride alone in their chambers that she would use the residual magic that had enhanced them all day to remove his Dark Mark and strip his soul bare, reducing him and elevating him and cleansing his very spirit of the canker that had infected it for so many dark years.

Their lovemaking had been slow and very sensual, and he had been catching his breath after his climax when he had noticed the change in her. She had begun to glow blue, as if the lightning that had crackled between them all that day came from inside her, was a part of her. Then she had turned her gaze on him, twin rays of bright blue purity, and he had been terrified for a moment until he recognised the untainted love in their brightness and let it wash over him and into him, almost a physical entity entering him and scouring his soul with each incantation she spoke. It had been agonising in the extreme but he trusted her implicitly and indeed he felt powerless under her brightness, having no choice but to surrender himself completely to the blinding torture of the poultice on his arm.

It hurt, far more than even its maleficent imprinting on to his arm had hurt over twenty years before. With every word she spoke, the Mark burned more, reaching out white hot tendrils along his arm and into his chest. The pain was unbearable but still he bore it, for her, because he knew what she attempted and was in awe of her power. He knew nothing of the procedure she seemed so surely following but he sensed that her determination and her love for him were vital to its efficacy, and he was humbled by it. At length, when he had thought that he would swoon away at the last, it ended. The pain faded quickly, shrinking into itself and disappearing with a pinprick on his forearm, and when he looked there was nothing left save for pure white flesh.

She had been straddling him, but as the blue light dimmed and her anxious green eyes searched his face, her tears began to fall and she sank on to his chest, drained. Eventually she got up and helped him sit on the side of the bed. He bowed his head, for he could not speak.

He felt clean, and numb, and somehow empty. The Dark Mark had been a part of him for more than half his lifetime. He had wanted rid of it for almost as long. He had spoken to Dumbledore, and even to Ella, of the searing pain of Voldemort's call, but he had disclosed to no-one the desperate addiction of the magical caress that rewarded a swift apparition to the master's side, when the agony was replaced by the guilty pleasure of triumphant release, and accompanied always by the cloying attar of decay. He would never know that twisted gratification again, and even though he was free at last of the hated shackles of his past misdeeds, still he grieved.

How could he tell her that she had given him his heart's desire, in every way, and yet a part of him regretted the achievement? She would not understand, for how could she when he could not understand it himself? His hair concealed his expression from her view as he bent his head and watched his thumb as it rubbed slowly over the unsullied flesh that had been the Dark Mark's home for long, bitter years. She allowed him his privacy and he loved her all the more for it. It was a wondrous thing that she had done and as his mind at last regained a little of its former clarity he asked quietly,

"Gruber?"

"Yes."

She had found something, while he had been away, perhaps. Something that he himself, in his desperation to find salvation, had missed. She had kept it a secret from him.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You hadn't to know. The instructions were very clear."

He nodded slowly, and a deep, shuddering sigh wracked his body. From what little he knew of his predecessor's methods and eccentricities he could quite believe it.

"The feather...Albus knew about this?"

"I had to tell him. I needed Fawkes. But he knew anyway. He knew long before I did."

He wondered vaguely how much of the last twenty years or more had been part of the old wizard's grand plan, and how much left to the Fates, but then bewilderment and amazement overtook him once more and he sank inside himself, spiralling round, unable to comprehend what had happened.

"You should speak to him now," he managed to say.

"Are you sure, love?"

"I'd like him to know."

He allowed Ella to take his chin in her hand and lift his face so that she could kiss him, but then withdrew into himself as she spoke to the Headmaster by floo. Once they were alone again he got to his feet, feeling drained and as unsteady as a babe taking its first steps. He knelt at his redeemer's feet and laid his head on her knees. He was a child again, reborn and cleansed.

"You will be fine, won't you?" she asked anxiously.

"I feel...I feel...clean!"

He had cried then. Stoic, indeed unfeeling, in public, the private man had shed tears before on occasion, notably at Dumbledore's feet when seeking sanctuary from the Dark Lord and on Dumbledore's shoulder when Ella had left him. These tears were different, for they were not the centred tears of selfishness but the healing tears of a much needed catharsis and came hot on the heels of those shed at Persephone's birth, and earlier that very day as he became wed.

When at last they had all been shed and dried he felt reborn and he knew that he owed all of it to his new wife. Climbing up to sit beside her, watching the dawn as he held her in his arms, he resolved that he would never, ever let her go and he would devote his life to finding ways to thank her.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far. It's good to know that people are enjoying it. There are just two more chapters to go.