A Merciless Affection

Chapter 26: I'm Here With You, Beside You

Sarah woke first, as usual, upon the merest hint of sunlight through the dingy windows. As soon as she had finished her morning toilet (including a rather nervous bath, one flight down), she looked restlessly around the flat for something to do. There was, however, nothing that needed doing. Turla the house-elf was apparently efficient--even the curry containers were gone. But in truth, the rooms had little in them to tidy; they were as devoid of personality as his suite in Hogwarts reeked of it.

Finally she decided the only thing for her to do was to make tea. She found the remnants of an elderly packet of Occam's Black among the jars of ingredients in the cupboard, and a kettle that she Scourgified twice before she decided trust it. While she set that to heat (tea never seemed to taste right with a Boiling Charm), she gave the teapot and two mismatched china cups a similar cleansing. Then she set to work identifying the ingredients in the jars, looking for something useful. She was just pouring out for herself when Severus appeared in the doorway.

"I thought you were sleeping in?" Sarah said.

"You woke me when you got up, and I couldn't get properly back to sleep," he grumbled.

"Sorry," she said, offering him the cup.

He sniffed it suspiciously, then took a sip. "Poisoning me with experiments?"

"I had to do something to stretch it out. We must buy fresh tea today. And it isn't poisonous. "

"It's tolerable," he allowed, taking another sip.

"So, what first today?" She sat down with her own cup. "Lessons? Or visits?"

"Visits. The lessons will seem a great deal better in comparison."

"You don't like your family," she observed.

"Liking doesn't come into it," he said. "I would have thought that you could appreciate that."

Sarah frowned sheepishly. He had a point.

"Who are we going to visit?" she asked hesitantly. "Your mother?" Sarah had a rather fearsome vision of Mrs. Snape: a carbon-copy of her son in female form, with greying hair pulled sharply into a bun, and cane to thump on the ground while she verbally flayed her daughter-in-law.

"My mother is dead," he said, to the tea still in his cup.

"Your father?" Although something he had said once....

He took another sip. "I have no idea. I never knew him, not even so much as his name. A Muggle probably," he grimaced. "Maybe a half-blood. Someone my grandfather would have disapproved of, one way or another. He said such terrible things to her," his jaw tightened, "trying to get to her to tell him who the man was, but she never would. Not even to me. Though perhaps she was afraid he would beat it out of me, if he thought I knew."

"I thought Slytherins had to be purebloods?" Sarah said, unsure if she meant to comfort him or not with such a statement.

"Well, there is that." He sipped at his tea again. "I don't know. I fancied, for a time, when I was a boy, that I might even be the Dark Lord's bastard son. But my grandfather would have been proud of a thing like that. And of course, it wasn't true." Severus shook his head, as if trying to dispel the thoughts he had conjured up. "It's almost too bad he didn't live to meet you," he said, with curious bitterness. "Unfortunately for him, he assumed that the same loyalties would hold true, even after the Dark Lord disappeared. He tried to double-cross the wrong person when there was no longer anybody foolish enough to bail him out."

Sarah frowned at the evident misfortunes of this memorial litany.

Severus shrugged. "I am taking you to meet my uncle. The only man who might possibly fight with you over the possession of my corpse--assuming there's enough of it left to bury--and, of course, whatever little is left in my purse. I want him to know who he's up against." He fixed Sarah with such a vicious twinkle in his eye that it would have put Albus Dumbledore to shame.

* * *

After breakfast (at a stand near his flat), and shopping for a few staples (including the tea), Severus led Sarah down a narrow passage between buildings into a cobbled yard with a wide back gate that, to all appearances, let out into Muggle London. Huddled against the main building, presumably a warehouse, was a rickety-looking shack. Severus opened the door slowly.

"Rooster's eggs," he said, as if it were some watchword.

"Oh, it's you." When the door had swung fully open, they were revealed to the disgruntled speaker, and he to them. Behind a counter, doing paperwork, sat a narrow fellow with straggly, dark blonde hair and one of those perpetually youthful faces that might as easily mask thirty or more years with the mere quarter century he looked. He slid aside a door panel in the back wall and called out, "Hey yuh, Caius! Sev's here."

"Dev Crabbe," Severus said. Sarah was not sure if it was meant to be an introduction; it sounded as if it were an insult.

"Devin," the man corrected, addressing his remark to Sarah.

"So, Severus," a man's voice boomed out, "what's driven you to darken my door?" At these last words, Caius emerged from the doorway panel. He was more solidly built than his nephew, and clearly a good deal older, but his nose, eyes and stringy black hair (although bound back in a long pigtail) proclaimed their relatedness. "Well, well, what've we here?" he said, spying Sarah. She had removed her veil, at Severus's instructions, when they came into the yard, and now Caius was staring at her exposed face with an undisguised leer. "Sure's to let me know when you're done with her, boy."

She felt Severus bristle, but he said silkily, "I'll give Miriam the message."

Devin Crabbe snorted.

"Sarah," Severus said, in a formal tone, "this is my uncle, Caius Snape. Caius, this is my apprentice, Sarah."

"Ho ho, a Potions apprentice, is it?" Caius mocked.

"Better watch your step with her, Pop," Devin put in, looking up from the file he had turned back to. "Lest you get poisoned one night."

"I came to inquire," Severus said, a certain tightness evident in his even tone, "if we would be welcome to Easter dinner."

Caius grunted. "Why not ask Miriam?"

"Miriam's welcome has never been in doubt. It's yours that I won't intrude upon without your invitation."

"Fine, then." The man threw up his arms. "But bring the moll. So's I have summat else to look at than your face."

* * *

"Charming man," Sarah observed, when they were back out in Knockturn Alley again.

Severus looked at her sharply, as if in doubt of her sarcasm. "How is your precious Gryffindor curiosity now?"

"As curious as ever," Sarah said, deadpan. "Although I confess that I did feel in need of your protection. But you didn't even flinch for your wand. That surprised me."

"Considering that Caius taught me half the curses I know, I wouldn't care to duel him unless I had no other choice. Besides," he said, "it would be counterproductive for the moment. Pretend to be pleasant. But not too pleasant." He brought up a warning finger. "And rely on Miriam."

"Your aunt?"

"Caius's wife. I was in school before he married her and took in those two brats she already had as my substitutes. No blame to her, although she might have shown better taste in husbands."

When they returned with their shopping to the flat, they found an owl tapping impatiently on the kitchen window. Sarah hurried to let it in. She did not recognize the owl; it was not Aunt Portia's.

"It's for you," Sarah said, handing him the envelope. She thought she might have seen the handwriting on the envelope before, but she couldn't place it and there was no return address.

Severus opened it and scanned the contents. He frowned and his jaw clenched.

"What is it?"

He looked up at her, and she felt a sense of despair. She had begun to hope, after the last few days, that she would never see that shuttered look in his eyes again. In disgust she blurted out, "Surely the Dark Lord doesn't send you messages by owl?"

Without warning, the corners of his mouth twisted.

Sarah raised her eyebrows.

Severus easily controlled whatever impulse to amusement he'd felt, his face resuming its usual serious mien. "Not directly, no. But his other servants do sometimes use the mundanities of owl post. This is not, however," he held up the letter, "anything of the kind."

"It's bad news," Sarah deduced.

"In a sense, yes. Indeed, in more ways than one." He folded up the letter and dropped it on the table with a sigh. "We shall have to be more careful here than I supposed. Do you remember the man who...almost killed you, there in the graveyard?"

"Yes," Sarah said. Even though the memories of her Potions professor at her back had been the more haunting ones, she was not likely ever to forget the face of the man who had stood there in front of her, mocking Snape, plotting to frame him for Sarah's murder.

"His name is Isaac Connor. We ran together for a time in our youth, although we seldom strictly got along. I had not seen him for many years until that night, and although his actions made it plain that he'd taken service with the Dark Lord, he obviously did not know that I had. Perhaps he may, now, if our master has chosen to tell him so." Severus looked very grim. "He was taken by the Aurors, but the evidence against him was unfortunately meager. The headmaster did not want any students to become involved in testifying against him, and it was unwise for me to do so. He was held in Azkaban on suspicion while his background was being investigated. He is not an important enough person--to either side, apparently--for that to have happened very quickly. But either he covered his tracks well or else somebody in the Ministry is protecting him. In any event, he was released yesterday."

Sarah felt a coldness start like a spell in the marrow of her bones. "Will he come looking for you?"

"Perhaps. He was never one to pursue a grudge actively, when I knew him, although he never forgot one either, as you may have noticed that night. Certainly, if we cross paths again, he may attempt to gain revenge for his months in Azkaban. It's unlikely that he will suspect that I'm here, not unless he does seek out information about me. But if he does...well, any boy in the Alley would be happy to sell him the fact that Severus Snape is back for the Easter holidays. In any event, it would be wisest to watch our backs a little more carefully this week."

Sarah nodded, feeling both frightened and resentful that the worry-free holiday he had promised her was being taken away. "Is that all that was in the letter?"

That look in his eyes again, that said he was not going to tell her. A wave of defiance rose in response. Deliberately, she reached out her hand for the folded parchment on the table.

Severus grasped her wrist before she could pick it up. "I will not tolerate you questioning my judgment."

"Do you consider me so much a child that my judgment cannot be trusted?" Sarah stubbornly tried to ignore the pain in her wrist. "Even if I need to know the whole truth in order to protect myself?"

"You cannot tell what you do not know," he said, just as stubbornly, and with a much blacker look.

"You think I would betray you to anyone?" She was outraged, offended.

"Willingly? No. But if you should fail to satisfy the Dark Lord about your loyalty, he will have every reason to question you. To pry open your mind for its every secret. To make you wish you had more to tell him, just to make the agony stop."

Sarah set her jaw, but her arm was shaking in his grasp. His black eyes were deep with horrors.

"Don't even begin to imagine that you could resist. His servants alone have broken fully-trained Aurors into gibbering madmen, and that is nothing to what he himself has the capability of doing." His own hand, she realized, was trembling now. "When there is a thing I refuse to tell you, you will not attempt to circumvent me to learn it. I warned you of this a long time ago. Do not take my ability to confide in you for granted, regardless of how you may believe things have changed."

Things had changed. And yet...not. She rubbed gingerly at her wrist after he freed it, hating him for hurting her. For not trusting her. For...wanting to protect her?

He pointed his wand at the letter and whispered, "Incendium." A moment later there was nothing but grey ash on the tabletop.

"I think," Severus said, "that now might be a excellent time to begin your Occlumency lessons. Take out your wand."

* * *

That first Occlumency lesson was not as terrible as she had feared, after having seen Potter's morose expression after one. As Severus had predicted, she had a natural aptitude for it. It was easy, really, silencing one's emotions, calming one's thoughts. Creating a dull, grey mask...she had been doing that for a long time--being what she was expected to be, as circumstances required.

The most troubling thing was the sense of invasion. It was just so horribly...intimate. Funny, she thought, that it should bother her, considering that the man who was doing it was her lover. And yet...his mental touch, if one could call it that, was quite as brutal as his physical touch had ever been. More so.

The Dark Lord, he told her, was more subtle in his Legilimency. He looked for the emotions he expected to find; if they were absent, he probed deeper. Feeling the wrong things in his presence meant suspicion, torture or punishment: sometimes all three. Masking one's true feelings with grey nothingness would not be adequate for her in that situation. She would have to learn to create another layer of feelings. Feelings that would be inimical to her true sense of self. And yet she could not allow her revulsion to bleed through. She dreaded the practice of that.

Not tonight, he assured her. They had done enough for one day.

* * *

"Could you..." Sarah asked, as they lay curled together later. "Could you tell me a little more about your family? So I don't feel entirely lost tomorrow." When he did not reply immediately, she added, "If you don't want to, I won't ask again."

"I'm hardly sure what you want to know."

Sarah shrugged faintly. "I don't know what you're willing to tell me. Mostly," she said, "I'd just like a better idea of what to expect. I'm not even sure what your uncle does for a living." A shack, behind what appeared to be a warehouse?

He snorted softly against her neck.

"In blunt terms, he's a smuggler. He uses a legitimate shipping business to cover his activities. But anything that couldn't pass a Ministry inspection of cargo is likely to come through Caius's warehouse. He's made a success of it. My grandfather didn't want to take on a full range of shipments. He specialized in Potions goods, with the occasional truly contraband ingredient. He was hoping that once I was trained, he could offer finished potions of types...not readily available elsewhere, shall we say. Caius, on the other hand, wanted me for his shop boy, in his own trade that he was branching into; I was meant later to be his right hand man. He gave me my first wand when I was seven, taught me most of the Dark Arts he knew. He's never forgiven me for leaving and going to Hogwarts."

"But...everybody goes to Hogwarts," she stammered. "Don't they?"

His grip on her tightened just a bit, and his voice turned bitter. "Not in Knockturn Alley, Sarah. It takes money to go to Hogwarts. And there's never enough of that, not for most of the children here. All a Hogwarts letter counts for here is proof that you have magical ability."

She tried to get her mind around that idea. Until this winter, it had never occurred to her what it might mean to be poor. The Weasleys were poor--everyone knew that, although Fred and George never seemed to let it bother them--but they had all come to Hogwarts.

"But...you said your uncle was successful...."

"He's one of the few who keeps what he earns for himself. Most of the shopkeepers here have patrons among the old Dark Wizarding families. Patrons who make sure they always stay just a little too far in debt to them to ever get out. Then there are the fines and the bribes to the Ministry. And the demand for Dark Arts supplies is not as great as you might think."

She quivered slightly between his arms. "Severian...."

"Of course Severian will go to Hogwarts," he said. "I didn't drag myself up this far to see my son fall back down again. Besides, by that time, your aunt will have lost control of your money."

"If she doesn't find some other way to keep it from me," she morosely; he sounded far too assured of her future wealth. She wondered who his grandfather's patron had been, but it seemed rude to ask. "Your grandfather made sure you went to Hogwarts," she said, hoping that the fact meant something good about the man.

He was silent for moment. "For his own self-interest," he said finally. "He was as happy to get me out of his sight as I was to go. And I hoped...he would be kinder to my mother if I wasn't there. Not that it mattered in the end."

Another silence. After what seemed too long a time, Sarah whispered, "What happened to her?"

He breathed into her hair for a little longer before he spoke. "She was never very strong. How she stood up to him about me at all, I have no idea. Why she didn't simply have done with me before I was born, I can't begin to guess. She worked out in Muggle London--a lot of girls do." When she shifted uneasily in his arms, he said, "Not working like that. Charwoman sort of thing. The Muggle hotels want fast workers to clean their rooms; that's short, easy work for a witch. Some are more infiltrated than others and have wizards among their guests as well. Whoever my father was, she must have met him there."

He went still again.

"I think it must have gotten worse after I went to school. Caius had always tried to protect her, shield her from the worst of his father's rages. But I had disappointed him. He wrote to me, just before Christmas, my first year at Hogwarts. I had planned to stay at school; I knew there was nothing extra for another train fare in the middle of the year. He...." At this, Severus took a deep breath. "He told me my mother was very ill. That her wasting sickness had gotten worse that winter. That she was dying.

"He offered to pay my train fare if I came home for Christmas. I didn't trust him. I didn't believe him. I knew he didn't want me at Hogwarts, and I was afraid it was all a ruse to get me to come home; then he would decline to pay my fare back again for the winter term. And so, of course, I refused."

Sarah could feel the tension his limbs, hear the tightness of his breath.

"In the middle of term, a letter came to the headmaster. Neither of them even wrote to me. She was dead...dead and buried the week before. I was not to come home until the end of the school year, my grandfather said. To this day I don't know if she truly died of her illness, or if somehow they managed, between them, to kill her. Perhaps both, in a way."

She recognized the note in his voice--the distant, irresolvable pain she felt when she had to speak of her own mother. She turned in his arms and slipped her own around him.

"I'm so sorry," she said. She could feel, from his breathing, that there would be no tears. She understood that, too. Some things hurt too much for weeping.

As if he had read her thoughts, he said, "I was caught crying once. Nosy berks snooping where they shouldn't have been. They made the rest of my school life hell."

Had most of his life been hell? she wondered.

"You've given me a piece of heaven, Sarah. Perhaps the only piece I'll ever have. Do you understand that?"

He was trying again, without saying it, to tell her that he loved her. Sarah nodded against his chest, her own heart in such unease that she said nothing more, asked no more questions. Nor did he speak again. Slowly, the silence attenuated itself into sleep.