The Last Sanguimagus

The entrance hall was empty, and Sarah's footsteps echoed in the quiet. Emotions swirled within her as she neared the hallway that led to her quarters. She was unsettled, yet part of her felt calm, almost light, perhaps a side effect of the Memory Charm. Severus had lingered outside for a moment when she entered Hogwarts, and she heard the squeak of hinges from somewhere behind her as he opened the front door.

"Sarah, wait!" he called out.

She stopped, turning toward him, and he walked swiftly across the entrance hall, robes flaring, until he stood before her. In the low light his eyes were inky and fathomless, and she suppressed a shiver. "Yes?"

"I was wondering if you would like to join me for a drink," he said quietly. His expression was odd, and then she realized it was because he so rarely looked nervous.

"Are the teachers gathering for a nightcap?" she said, puzzled.

"No," he said, looking uncomfortable. "In my...quarters. I have firewhisky, or...absinthe, if you prefer..."

"Absinthe?" she said, surprised. A sudden desire for the delicious haze of the drink rose within her. Could she trust him enough to drink absinthe with him? She looked up into his face, and decided that she could. "Yes, I would prefer that."

He looked relieved and nervous all at once. "Shall we?"

She nodded, and followed him down the stairs that led to the dungeons.

He stopped before the door to his office, and muttered a word. The door opened, and she followed him in. It looked much the same as it had the last time she had seen it; his desk was covered with marking yet to be done, just like her own. He tapped another door with his wand, and they entered a sitting room dominated with a large fireplace. The entire room was walled with bookshelves. There were a few chairs, one with a matching footrest next to the fireplace, two low tables mostly covered with books, and a glassed-in cabinet containing several bottles.

Severus pointed his wand at the fireplace, and flames immediately came to life. He gestured at the tables and the books sprang up and began to shelve themselves.

Sarah stepped back as the books leapt through the air. After they finished aligning themselves she looked closer, noticing that the shelves were arranged by subject. Apparently he had been reading about sleep-inducing potions; most of the books from the table near the fireplace had been from one row, and now that they were in place again she could see that nearly all of the titles referenced sleep somehow.

She traced the edge of one well-worn volume, trying to puzzle out the title on the faded spine. Erich's library had been much more impressive, but Severus's books had a well-thumbed look to them, as if he read them often.

"You've indulged in absinthe before, I take it," said Severus, placing a tray on one of the tables. He flicked his wand lazily, and the other chair came closer, until they were both half turned to each other, with the table offset between them.

"At Das Herrenhaus we drank it every Sunday afternoon," she said, watching him carefully. He tensed, and she knew, then, that she must have told her story, or at the very least some of it. "It was a household tradition, really. A man named Gaertner sold it to Erich, as his father had sold it to Erich's father, and his father before him."

Severus tapped the large crystal decanter on the tray, and a thin coat of frost immediately formed on the outside. Four delicate glasses stood next to it, along with a pair of silver slotted spoons and a small dish containing sugar cubes.

Sarah sat down in one of the chairs. This close, she could see that the crystal decanter bore the Hogwarts crest, but the glasses and spoons displayed the Malfoy crest. She frowned at them.

Severus went back to the cabinet and retrieved a smooth, bell shaped bottle with a long neck, setting it on the table in between them and seating himself comfortably in the other chair. He smirked, and she wondered why, until she looked back at the bottle.

Suspended in the brilliant green liquid was a fairy.

She gasped. "Une feé verte!" The fairy had a dreamy expression on her face, and performed a slow, elegant backflip, her wings undulating. "Remarkable. I've never seen one before...I had no idea they really existed." The bottle was sealed, with Severus's initials sunk deep into the wax.

"I've brewed absinthe many times before," he said. "This is one of the few bottles that attracted a fairy. Lucius..." He suddenly looked uncomfortable.

"Are you certain that you wish to...share this with me?" she said uncertainly.

He looked as if he was going to say something sharp, but seemed to rethink it. "Time is short," he said gruffly. He made a motion with his wand, and the wax peeled away, freeing the cork. The bottle tilted slightly, positioning itself over one of the glasses, and the fairy rolled to the lower end as the absinthe began to pour out.

"The last time I drank absinthe was at Das Herrenhaus," she mused aloud. "I remember the first Sunday after...it was destroyed. I was hiding somewhere, some cold bit of forest, and suddenly it dawned on me what day it was, and I realized then that there was no going back, that it was gone forever."

Severus regarded her intensely. "Do you wish you were still there?"

"Das Herrenhaus? I..." She thought for a long moment. "I don't know. Yes, because I was safe from the Dark Lord there...no, because I wasn't safe from Erich's ambitions there. I...I miss it, truthfully. I miss the library, and the gardens, and Gottschalk, and yes, I miss Erich. But it wasn't a place I could have stayed forever, I know."

The bottle had finished pouring the proper amount of absinthe into the first glass, and began pouring into the second glass. Severus was still watching her.

"Does it really matter?" she said weakly. "I'm here now, and I can't go anywhere else."

He turned his attention back to the bottle, and it righted itself. The spoons balanced themselves across the top of each glass, and Severus leaned forward and used the tongs to carefully place two sugar cubes on each one. The crystal decanter levitated and began to trickle ice water over the sugar cubes and through the spoon into a glass.

"It looks beautiful," she added, watching the fairy swimming in the bottle. "I've never seen absinthe so vibrant before."

"It's my own concoction."

She stayed quiet for a moment, contemplating the ecstatic dance of the fairy. She was uncertain how much of her history she'd shared. His expression was inscrutable, and she couldn't even guess at why he'd invited her here, to share such a treasure. "The first time I tried absinthe I thought it was undrinkable," she said. "So bitter. The anise was overpowering. It took time for me to appreciate it."

"The first time I drank absinthe was at Lucius's manor," said Severus. "His father gave us both a glass as if it was the most common thing in the world. I didn't want to admit that I'd never drank it before. I tried to look nonchalant, but it was so foul...I couldn't help but grimace."

The decanter began to pour water into the second glass. Sarah watched as Severus reached over and took the spoon from the first glass, using it to stir the liquid carefully. She was impressed by the beautiful, shimmering opacity that developed.

He removed the spoon and laid it carefully on the tray. "Whenever you are ready," he said softly. The fairy looked confused as the bottle tilted once more and began to pour brilliant green liquid into the remaining two glasses.

She made no move, as it had not quite reached the degree of cloudiness she preferred. Once it did, she would want to drink it quickly; it became even more unpalatable if the water warmed too much, and besides, the effects were not very long-lived. To get the best effects required drinking two glasses in short succession, and she wasn't surprised that he had thought of this ahead of time.

The absinthe had reached its louché, and Sarah waited a few moments longer for Severus's glass to develop the same opacity. "What shall we drink to?" she asked.

"What did you drink to at Das Herrenhaus?"

"The honor of the Grindelwalds."

"Ah. Well. To the Headmaster, then?"

"The Headmaster," she said, touching her glass to his, and raising it to her lips.

The first taste was very nearly her undoing. His absinthe was more than potent. It was incredible. The anise flavor was strong, but it was underscored by a swirl of juniper and coriander. There were other notes she couldn't identify, and then, just before the next sip, there was the tiniest aftertaste of nutmeg. "This is brilliant," she said, taking another sip.

"It is," he said, looking appreciatively at his own glass, "exceedingly fine."

She drained her glass, setting it down on the tray, and began to stir the next one. Already she felt the effects of the powerful liquor seeping into her system. There was a faint buzzing in her ears. The louché began to build, and after it had achieved the proper opacity she lifted the glass. "To surviving."

He raised an eyebrow at that, but clinked her glass without further comment and took a long sip.

For a moment she thought she might be progressing too quickly. This was incredibly powerful absinthe, after all, and she hadn't indulged in over a year. It was too beautiful to resist, though, and she drained the glass, delighting in the bitter, licorice flavor that she had missed.

They sat in silence and regarded each other bemusedly. Sarah placed the empty glass on the tray and leaned back in the chair, resting her head on the upper edge. It felt completely odd but exhilarating; she had sat perfectly upright for so many years that her back creaked in protest, unused to this relaxed posture. A few of her scars felt tight and uncomfortable, but it was nothing compared to what she had lived with for so many years, and she felt herself relaxing.

The room began to darken noticeably, and she opened her eyes wider. The bookshelves receded, and the ceiling slowly faded out of sight. It became blacker still, and her fingers tingled as the inexorable rush of the absinthe took hold of her, thrumming in her veins.

It was cold, suddenly, a powerful cold that chilled her bones. The dark was more than dark, it was like the black vacuum of space, harsh and overwhelming. There was a sun, blazing in the corner, but it was far away, a lifetime's journey from her chair. Stars began to glow; each one had a high-pitched, tinny voice, and they winked in and out of the walls, dancing and twirling in her peripheral vision, but pausing whenever she looked directly at them. A planet formed, booming like thunder, rings circling it dizzily.

The moon was shining green, intense, and it grew larger and larger, filling her vision with its absinthe-colored light. It came closer and closer until it blotted out the stars, which chirruped faintly. There was the smell of licorice, then, and suddenly the moon was kissing her, its mouth a supernova against her own. Hands grasped her robes, pulling her closer still, and she gasped in shock as her fingers connected with skin. Severus was the moon, and she touched him, her fingertips somehow tasting sugar on his neck, gritty and sweet. His lips grew hotter still. His eyes were as black as craters, and they pierced her, they were elliptical, they were as cold as frost.

The absinthe color melted away and turned to a faint blush. He laughed. "You look like belladonna," he murmured against her mouth.

"You look like the moon," she said wonderingly. He was the Harvest Moon, now cinnamon colored, now blood-red, now rust, the stars were shooting across the sky, now they were embers falling into her hair. She reached out and the heady smell of mangoes suddenly filled her hands. His own hands trailed like comets across her face.

Her palms were caught in his gravity, inexorably dragged towards him, his radiant heat singeing them. His heartbeat rose above the quivering notes of the stars, the vibrations filling the air with luminous fluttering moths. He kissed her again, and he tasted like fire and weariness and gold. The bitter flavor of anise wound around her tongue, caressing it. Her fingertips were molten now, tangled in spider webs. He made a noise that could have been a word or a stone. He was so close, so close, and his teeth grazed her ear, his voice a silken band around her neck.

There was a long, breathless pause, while he turned from rust to sallow, diminishing, and then she suddenly realized that they were standing, pressed up against each other, her hands tangled in his hair.

"Oh," she said stupidly.

They stared at each other in shock. Her heart hammered against her ribs.

"I wasn't expecting..." he began.

"Nor I," she said, too quickly. She pulled her hands out of his hair. They felt slightly damp. "I'm sorry--"

"I apologize--" he started to say at the same time.

"It was...the absinthe was brilliant, Severus," she said, awkwardly trying to compose herself. "Thank you for the invitation."

He stood stiffly in front of her, looking embarrassed. "Yes, of course." A planet stared at her balefully from above his right shoulder.

"Well, good night, then." She brushed the front of her robes with her hands, straightening them.

"Yes, yes, good night." His voice sounded strained.

She turned and walked out of the room. As she reached the doorway, she looked back to see him raking a hand through his hair and cursing softly.

The stairs that led out of the dungeon were hard to negotiate. She stumbled twice. She reached the hallway, thankful that she hadn't encountered anyone, and went into her office, closing the door behind her and leaning against it.

She breathed, in and out, one hand against the rough wood, until she realized that the door was breathing as well, a different rhythm than her own. She pushed away from it, trying to regain control. A single star bounced merrily among the papers on her desk, singing a strange, tinny song, and she closed her eyes and counted to ten. It was the most potent absinthe she'd ever ingested, and the aftereffects were lingering longer than expected.

Severus had kissed her.

She wrapped her arms around her body, trying to dispel the shivers. Part of her was frightened at the way the day had turned out; part of her wanted to go back down into the cold of the dungeons and ask for warmth.

It was late, too late, and she opened the door to her bedroom. She needed to sleep this off. Tomorrow, things would be clearer.

She dreamt of the moon, slowly orbiting out of reach.