A Merciless Affection

Chapter 25: You Know I Do

The Easter holiday was to begin on Friday, and Sarah found that she was looking forward to it more than she had ever looked forward to any holiday in her life. What was the warm Mediterranean Sea or the dusty pyramids to spending a whole week not having to pretend?

Or at least, not having to pretend that she meant nothing to Severus Snape.

She could sleep all night in same bed, walk by his side in the daylight, talk to him whenever she pleased, eat at the same table....

Okay, so she was getting carried away. But after a week of horrors, the prospect of a holiday in London was like the bursting forth of the sun after a night-dark storm. Even if they would be staying in Knockturn Alley.

He had refused to say more, after that blunt revelation. Having forced her to admit that she had never been there--since it was not a place that a gentleman (even one who was a Death Eater) would take his wife or daughter--Severus had declared that she would see for herself soon enough; it was not worth the waste of his breath to describe it. His lack of enthusiasm put a slight damper on her spirits. But it only took the thought that she would be spending the whole holiday far, far away from Dolores Umbridge to buoy up her anticipation again.

* * *

It had been a truly terrible week. He had forbidden her to come back on Wednesday night. For both our sakes, he had written. And though she had tried to explain something of her horror in her return note, it was not until the next night, when he had shown her how to use the Pensieve and had watched that memory for himself, while she took a blessed reprieve from it, that she'd believed he'd actually understood what had happened. And by then, her misery and her desperation to escape from herself had turned her inside out and back so many times that the initial shock had faded. The fact that he had not been there right at that moment, when she needed him most, had left a kind of empty space in her growing desire to rely upon him.

Which might be just as well, the shrinking sensible corner of her mind averred. Among his several reactions to her confrontation with Malfoy (sandwiched in between his anger that she had risked a duel with Draco and a cold sympathy for her anguish) was the same regretful pleasure she so often saw in his eyes these days.

"You've taken a necessary step," he had told her.

"To what? Towards the darkness?"

"Towards pretending to darkness."

"I'm afraid! I'm afraid that it won't stay pretend! I'm afraid that the darkness will never wash off my soul!"

He had turned up his sleeve very deliberately, the only time he had ever intentionally shown her his Dark Mark. Not for long. A moment later it was hidden again.

"I can still turn my arm to whatever purposes I require of it."

The object lesson had not been lost on her. It grieved her still, in ways that she had yet to unravel. And though she had accepted the embrace of both those arms that night, his insistence on her strength was its own burden, and her heart was still troubled at the sacrifice he seemed willing to make of her.

But then, he had warned her of that, too, a long time ago.

* * *

The plan for getting her to London was relatively simple. Her shakiness about Apparating, once he learned of it, put all consideration of that means of travel aside. She was in no condition to risk splinching herself. The Hogwarts Express did not run--not as an express, at least--for the Easter holiday, since relatively few students went home for it. Since she had no inclination to fly a broom all the way to London, that left the Knight Bus, to which Sarah had no objections.

The specifics of their meeting in London, however, were...well...objectionable.

She was to change, in the lavatory of The Leaky Cauldron, into the most suggestive clothes she owned. A full, red skirt was about the best she could do, with the waistband hitched uncomfortably high, covered by an embroidered black top that was skintight to the arms and definitely suggestively snug across her expanding bust line, if loose around the waist. Then she was to don her best cloak, with the hood up to cover her hair, and a sheer black veil that Severus supplied (she did not ask where he got it). And once she was in this get-up, she was to stand and wait outside the entrance to Knockturn Alley.

Meanwhile, Severus would have Apparated to his flat with the small trunk containing what they needed for the week. He was supposed to be browsing in Diagon Alley, so that the moment she took up her post, he could saunter over before anyone else got the same idea, cross her palm with a few coins, and lead her back to his rooms.

"What if someone accosts me between The Leaky Cauldron and Knockturn Alley?" she protested.

"You do have a wand. It would take no more than a simple, judicious hex to protect yourself in broad daylight. Besides," he went on, "the veil will be off-putting. No knowing what you have to hide."

"It's...degrading," Sarah said, folding her arms stiffly across her chest.

"Fine. If you can think of a disguise that will allow you walk with me, without remark, through Knockturn Alley, by all means, suggest it!"

There was no other solution, of course. Apart from the risk of being recognized, no lady of any quality--and certainly no girl of her age--would walk willingly into Knockturn Alley. She could not possibly pass for a local, Severus informed her. And any other nefarious disguise she took up would still have the problem of producing a plausible, unremarkable excuse for her presence in the rooms of Severus Snape.

"All right. But I don't like it."

"I never expected you to."

"And I suppose you enjoy the thought of me passing as a tart?"

"As a matter of fact, I don't," he said. "So don't play your role too well. If I see you flirting with any other man, he's likely to end up hexed to incapacity."

"Jealous?" she teased.

"Very." He pulled her close. Suddenly all the humor left her. The possessiveness of his grip was chilling. She made herself relax, so as prevent her reaction from being apparent. But after one brief kiss, he let her loose. Not much got past him anymore.

"Something," she averred, "is sure to go wrong."

* * *

Remarkably, nothing did.

There was a bad moment, true, when she had to confess her financial circumstances, with regards to her bus fare. He did grumble a bit, handing over the coins from his own purse. But everything else went exactly according to plan. Sarah took it as a good omen.

Knockturn Alley was narrower and much dingier than Diagon Alley, lined with ramshackle shops (or at least what appeared to be shops, from the activity around their doors), many of which had no signs posted to declare their merchandise, just displays in the windows. Obviously, if you came to Knockturn Alley, you needed to know exactly what you were looking for. Although what you were looking for might well come to you. Dubious-looking vendors offered numerous items from trays--human fingernails, the tails of various animals, cheaply-made bracelets that their hawkers claimed were enchanted for purposes ranging all the way from simple attraction charms to binding the wearer to one's will. A scroungy man approached with a tray of rather sorry-looking sausages on sticks.

"Three Knuts'll get you two, gov'ner," he offered.

Sarah was hungry, but not that hungry. She was fervently grateful when Severus did not stop.

"A Knut each, then!" the fellow tried, as they passed. "An' that's cuttin' me own throat!"

"That might put an end to your misery, Dib. And everyone else's," Severus spat back, before pressing on.

Before she remembered the veil that hid her face, Sarah was fearful that she was gaping around like a newcomer. She sensed, from the shifty glances of an occasional witch or wizard who lounged against a wall or in a shadowy alcove, that strangers could easily become prey here. Her current disguise, while it helped her fit in, made her no more comfortable about her safety. There were other girls along the street whose trappings proclaimed that their professions were the same as the one that she was counterfeiting. Sarah saw one of them stand up from her lounging place against the wall of a chandler's and take a handful of coins from a raggedy-robed man whose face was covered with scars and poxes. She herself would have been hesitant even to come within spitting distance of him.

In some places, it was difficult to find a way through, due to more Dark Arts wares spread on large mats that took up substantial sections of the way. On one of these mats, a witch was sitting with her bare, scarred arm revealed, offering her own blood for sale, either fresh or in various dried or bottled forms. But finally, after a bend to the left, the street widened slightly, and Severus began guiding her toward a door, just ahead on the right.

It did not seem to belong to a shop, although there was another chandler's on one side (Grisby's Candles For All Purposes, according to one of the rare signs). On the other side, a blank, windowless expanse of wall held a set of stout double doors that suggested the merest possibility of access. But the house they were approaching had muslin curtains in its lower windows.

A couple of women stood near the door of the house. One, of indeterminate youth, had sharp features and long, blond curls and wore a dress that shimmered like a rainbow wherever the light hit it. The other, perhaps a little younger, had her dark hair tied up loosely on her head; a large silver charm covered with suggestive shapes hung against the low bodice of her blood-red gown. From the moment they noticed the strange, veiled girl, both women assumed postures of disdain, glaring at her as if she were taking their custom. It occurred to her, suddenly, that she probably was. She took some meager comfort in the fact that Severus did not give them a second glance as he went past.

She followed him up two flights of narrow, rickety stairs. At a door with an elegant number '24' painted on it in black, scarcely to be seen against the dark wood, he took out his wand and began lifting a long series of wards. Finally, he turned a small brass key in the lock and opened the door.

"Wait," he said. He stepped inside first, as if to be certain that it was safe, then ushered her into the room.

It was not much of a flat. There were only two rooms: in the back, a bedroom, where their trunk now rested; in the front, what had originally been a kitchenette. It had been transformed into an efficient, if small and makeshift, potions lab.

"You'll find the lavatory at the end of the hall." He pointed in the direction. "The bathroom is on the first floor. Gretta Dorn, the proprietor, has a house-elf named Turla. She knows better than to mess with my things, but she does keep the dust down and the bins emptied. And if you leave your clothes in that corner at night, she'll have them laundered by morning."

Sarah sank down on the end of the bed and pulled off the veil, looking around at the dingy room. Aunt Portia would be horrified. She was a little horrified herself.

"Do you live here all summer?"

"For a few weeks." He let his eyes rove around the room; it was difficult to say what he thought of it. Not distaste precisely, if not any real fondness for the place. "I come to London often enough, to buy ingredients. I prefer to have a refuge here that I can secure properly. These are the rooms I took when I finished my apprenticeship, and I kept them. Dorn lets them to me for little enough; she would as soon have a tenant who is seldom here."

Sarah could feel a lingering aura of power, the tingle of dark magic in the air. Old, maybe...such things took a long time to fade. It was such a familiar feeling. All the way up the Alley it had been like this, on some level. And while this was a far remove from Darkglass Hall, if she shut her eyes....

"Sarah? You're trembling."

"It's just...it's like home. In a way."

"Would you call it a good way? Or a bad way?"

Sarah opened her eyes. His own dark gaze was fixed on her with earnest intent.

"I don't know," she admitted.

"Then I want you to imagine it in a good way."

"I don't mind being here, if that's what you mean," Sarah said, trying to convince herself as much as him. "Anywhere away from Hogwarts."

"That isn't what I meant." He sat down next to her and laid a finger along the line of her jaw, cradling her chin. "If you are to convince the Dark Lord that you can be trusted, you must have the right emotions to hide the truth. I'm going to start teaching you Occlumency this week."

"But what about...?" She didn't dare say the boy's name.

"You don't really suppose Potter will come back, do you?" he sneered, letting his hand fall from her face.

Sarah let her eyes fall with his hand. She shook her head. But even though it meant she had Severus to herself again, she could not be happy about it, somehow. It had cost both of them too much.

"It's important, while we're here," Severus said, turning his attention back to his previous topic, "for you to build up memories; you need to enjoy being surrounded again by the Dark Arts."

Sarah looked up, stunned. "How can you ask me to do that?"

"Because I have no other choice!" he snapped. Then, more gently, yet firmly, "Sarah, tell me: how is it you manage to sit in my classroom and yet reveal nothing, by the least word or deed, of what is between us?"

She was glad to turn her thoughts to something she could cope with. "I'm...I'm someone else then. The girl I would have been if Halloween hadn't happened. If I hadn't come downstairs to...to be with you. Just Sarah Darkglass, instead of...Sarah Snape." It was the first time she had spoken that name aloud. She was a little surprised at how smoothly it slipped from her tongue. How nice it sounded. How the only baggage it carried with it was the snarky reputation of the most recent Potions master at Hogwarts.

"Good. I thought as much," Severus said. "What you must do now is to create another self, just as you did before. Another history, another truth for yourself, to wear around your mind whenever it becomes necessary."

Sarah stared at him, trying to sort out the ramifications of what he was suggesting. She whispered, "My father's daughter...."

Severus took her by the shoulders. "Shall I spell out the details? You are a girl who greatly admired her father, admired the power he wielded, the cause he served. A girl," he went on, inexorably, "who resented being taken from him by a mother who was too weak to survive her own defiance. A girl who saw, in me, her teacher, that same power, and a path back to the world which had been stolen from her. Sarah Darkglass Snape."

As he spoke, she shut her eyes convulsively, trying to shut out the darkness that wound itself around her with every word. What he was suggesting, Sarah realized, was so dangerously, painfully close to the truth. Just a twist, just a step away. She had loved her father so much. Had even admired him, before she had understood what he was. Her loyalty to her mother had not let her admit it, not for all these years. How could she do anything but hate the man who had sent her mother a poison made by his own hand, who had taken advantage of her weakness--which had been, in truth, nothing more than Julia's love and loyalty for him--and urged her to use it to end her life? But that was not the man who had cradled his daughter on his lap as he taught her to read, who had brought her sweets from town, who had tucked her in at night as often as he was there, who had, she had once believed, loved her more dearly than any other person on earth. What Severus had described was too close to the truth. It showed her what a very little distance she had to plummet to become that girl in reality. Her whole frame began trembling again, relentlessly. She did not want to fall.

Her voice was a thin, desperate whisper, full of unshed tears. "I don't think I can bear what you're doing to me."

Severus shook her. "You will bear it. You're strong enough to bear it, Sarah. Strong enough to survive this. Strong enough to live."

Bitterness welled up in her suddenly. She had not realized how much his words up on the tower that night had rankled, all these months. "Oh, yes, I have to live, don't I? At least until your son is safely born."

"Until...?" She heard his breath drain out slowly. He drew it sharply again. "Do you really believe that's all that matters to me?"

Sarah looked up at him, feeling her face twist into scorn. "Have you ever given me a reason to believe anything else?"

It wasn't until she saw his expression change that she realized that her question had popped out in anger. She had not really wanted an answer.

"I never imagined that you didn't...I thought you understood," he stammered. Severus Snape, who might spit or splutter, but never, ever stammered. "Sarah, I..."

"No!" She pressed her fingers to his lips, stopping him.

Dear God, was he about to tell her that he loved her? Of all things, she had never expected that.

"Sarah," he protested, through her fingers, bringing his hand up to pull hers away.

"Listen to me!" she pleaded. "When the time comes that you have to kill me--"

"Stop--"

"No! Listen to me. If that time comes," she allowed, "I want to be able to look into your eyes before I die and know that you never thought, even for a moment, of doing anything else. I want to know that there was never a choice to be made in your mind. I need to know it. I will not die betrayed that way." She had thought her voice was steady. No, it had been steady. But suddenly she was choking out great sobs that would not let her breathe.

Severus, his eyes as wounded as she had ever seen, gathered her against his chest. "Sarah," he whispered her name against her hair, over and over. He let her weep, which frightened her so much that she struggled harder to control herself. Once she had managed to swallow the last sob, she looked up at him, afraid of what she would see in his face.

"I have been told that pregnant women are subject to hysterical episodes," he said condescendingly. But his eyes were glittering strangely, and Sarah realized, with gratitude, that his harsh comment was intended solely to let her save face.

"I guess it's true." She wiped her face on the edge of her cloak. "I can blame these little crying jags on Severian."

"Severian?"

Sarah held her breath.

"Severian," he said again.

"Is that all right? If it isn't..."

"How long ago did you choose that name?"

"As...as soon as I knew," she admitted.

"Severian Snape...." He looked almost shocked, and his eyes went to her abdomen. "Sweet Merlin, that seems so very real." He passed a hand over his face, wiping away with it all emotion. "Well, there's something to it," he allowed, with a dismissive air.

"Now," he went on. "It's past time for dinner. We must get you something to eat."

"Out in Diagon Alley?" Sarah appealed.

He chuckled. "There's more to eat here than Dib's sausages, but as you wish."

"You never cook?" Sarah asked, as they passed the erstwhile kitchen.

"On occasion. Nothing fancy. Tea, of course. I reheat curry over the cauldron fire and pray that nothing cross-contaminates."

"That could be interesting. Maybe you could experiment."

"Believe me, Chaudhri's curry is already a potions experiment."

* * *

They brought the curry back to the flat. Chaudhri's stall was almost to the other end of Knockturn Alley (the better end, as she discovered to her surprise, was away from Diagon Alley), and although everyone here seemed to be minding their own business, Severus nodded to a few people, who nodded back. He also made more terse comments to her about what she was seeing. Not a travelogue, by any means, nor a gossipy reminiscence, but enough to make it clear that he knew the place very well indeed.

"Did you grow up here?" she asked, at one point, as they were on their way back.

"Yes." He offered nothing more, however, in the way of explanation. Sarah decided to let the matter alone for time being. She had all week to find out.

Over the curry (which was as experimental as promised), Sarah asked, "So, what are our plans for the week?"

"Lessons."

"Just lessons?"

"You have a lot to learn, and very little time in which to learn it."

"Well, Easter is a holiday!" she complained.

"Are you saying you want to go to mass?" he teased.

"That's not what I meant. But yes, I will go, if you come with me."

He grunted noncommittally into his curry.

"I don't want to stay cooped in here all week." Sarah hugged herself. "Might as well have stayed in the dungeons."

"I'll take you to visit my family tomorrow. That should be adequate excitement to suit you."

"Family?" she echoed. She had scarcely thought about him having a family. He had never once mentioned a relative. She had assumed that he was as orphaned as herself.

"Tomorrow. I don't wish to think about that tonight. I had other things in mind." He leered at her, setting the remnants of his curry aside.

"What about lessons?" she challenged, determined to tease him back while he was in the frame of mind for it. "Shouldn't you start teaching me Occlumency right away?"

"I suppose prying into your mind could be an interesting warm-up," he said, approaching her, calling her bluff.

Suddenly she realized something. "Where's the Pensieve?" She didn't think he had packed it.

"Back at Hogwarts."

"But...what if...I thought..." she blurted out, or tried to.

"Don't worry about it for now." He stopped her mouth with a kiss. "In fact, you will not worry for the entire holiday. I refuse to permit you to do so. I will do any worrying that's needed. You," he began disrobing her, "will eat and sleep and make love to me, not necessarily in that order. You will not think about the Wolfsbane Potion at all. And you will obey me in anything else I tell you to. For a change."

"Oh, no," Sarah said, lodging her finger against his chest. "You didn't pay me enough for that, gov'ner."

He lifted the ring, where it hung on its chain around her neck, and brought it to her eyes. "I've endowed you with all my worldly goods. I confess they're not much. But I'm quite prepared to worship you with my body. Is that not price enough?"

She did not know what to say. Perhaps his reasoning was sound, but her soul still rebelled at the thought of surrendering her will entirely to anyone, least of all to a man who walked such a fine line between right and wrong, dark and light. She took the wisest course she knew and answered him with another kiss.

Although she had not allowed him to speak the words--if, indeed, he had been about to say them--the sense of adoration in every caress tonight was undeniable (how long had it been there, ignored?) as he made her his yet again. That fierce possessiveness was there, too. It would never be otherwise with him, she supposed. When she yielded herself to it utterly, as she sometimes did, the experience was usually well worth the very minor injury to her pride. And how could she hold anything back tonight, when what he was doing was so much more than the mere satisfaction of mutual desires, when he was so very clearly making love to her? Even her heart began to slip its traces under that influence.

Do you love him?

Can I risk that much?

Can he risk that much for you?

Are we lost?

She lay in the darkness when they were done, her hand resting on the slight swell of her abdomen. His child. She felt a surge of her own fierce possessiveness, so powerful it startled her. And then something else. A motion so subtle it was like butterflies' wings. A flickering inside her. She caught her breath. It stilled.

"What's wrong?" Severus asked, half-asleep.

Sarah thought of the look on his face when he had spoken his son's name. Spooked, almost. He had realized, she thought, that he was going to be a father to more than an invisible idea that had sprung from his seed. She wondered what would happen when her belly was truly, undeniably swollen. Could he bear to make love to her then? Or would one of those girls downstairs be coming up to this room again?

"Sarah?"

"Nothing," she whispered.

"Don't tell me 'nothing.'"

She took a breath. "I don't know if you could feel it."

"What?" he asked, in wakeful exasperation.

She took the hand he had brought around her waist when he turned over, and guided it down to press just below her navel. It was such a risk, she thought. He might feel nothing at all. He might consider it useless feminine sentiment. He might decide all the sooner that it was a frightening thing to be the father of a real child.

"It was so subtle," she said. "But I felt him move."

Severus surprised her with his patience. Perhaps it was because he was used to waiting on potions that would not be hurried. Certainly he was never so patient with people. Sarah was beginning to wonder if she had only imagined the sensation, if (embarrassingly) it had only been the curry, when the fluttering came again. Then again.

"So very subtle," he whispered. His hand pressed tighter, finding the hard, round knot of her womb beneath her flesh. "When I die," he said, "that will not be the end of me."

It was too dark to see his face. But there were tears in his voice. "Severian."