A Merciless Affection

Chapter 41: Not For Any Mortal Sin

Sarah woke with misery still clenched tightly around her heart. She had not, surprisingly, dreamed of anything. Perhaps she had been too exhausted. She felt exhausted yet. And her sleeping mind had found no answers for her situation.

Either the Imperturbable Charm had worn off or someone had got worried about her and lifted it to check on her--in her current state of mind, it was difficult to believe the latter--and she was able to draw her bed curtains aside. It was early, and the sky was still grey, although with dawn or bad weather, it was hard to say. No one else seemed to be stirring.

Sarah slipped out of the clothes she had worn (and slept in) for the past two days, but she felt far too miserable to shower. She mumbled a spell to take the edge off any bodily odors and put on her best weekend robes. She needed...answers? She could hardly expect help. Absolution for her foolish wickedness? Something, at any rate.

Most people slept in on Sundays, so the halls of the castle were nearly deserted as she made her way downstairs to the little chapel. It was--so far as she had ever been able to tell--in a different part of the dungeons than the classrooms or the kitchens. The stairs, in fact, went only to the little candlelit chamber and nowhere else.

Not many students were there, and none of the teachers. The old wizard chaplain, who came up from Hogsmeade every Sunday, didn't seem to be bothered by the small attendance. It was, apparently, simply a duty he carried out for the benefit of his own soul.

Sarah had seldom come herself. The service was Anglican, of course. And although she had joined in the usual Christmas and Easter church-going of her mother's nominally Anglican family, her father had raised her--perhaps a tad more than nominally--in his own family's customary faith.

As she slipped into a rear pew, she reflected morosely on that. Why had her father crossed religious and political lines to marry a woman with whom he was doomed to quarrel? Could he have truly loved Julia once? Surely she must have loved him...until she learned that he was even more devoted to the cause of the Dark Lord.

At least her father had not crossed the line Sarah had, she thought, frowning. Of course, the Plattuses were below the Darkglasses. But then, everyone was, according to Fiona. The Blacks contested that supremacy, of course. And there were a dozen families who might have done so, but did not care to make the effort. At least the Plattuses were gentlefolk, even if their wealth was tied up in the insecurity of business ventures instead of the age-old solidity of land. In fact, the only people in her connection who spoke of being better than the rest of the Wizarding world were the ones whom Sarah despised.

Her father had told her, more than once, that it wouldn't do to become complacent with one's place in the world. Salazar Slytherin was once the greatest wizard in the world--and do you know what happened to his descendents, Sarah? They died in poverty and misery. The Dark Lord rose out of that line, yes--the very last one. But it was only by his own efforts that he became the most powerful wizard in Britain. And he'll come back, one day, because he's too determined to be beaten.

What would her father have thought of Severus Snape? Would his protective fatherly impulses have led him to hex the balls off the man for seducing his daughter, apart from any other consideration? Would he have admired him for his ambition, regardless of his class? Or would he have despised him for attempting to rise to a level to which--unlike the Dark Lord--he had no possible claim?

The service began. Sarah stood and found herself swaying so badly she had to cling to the back of the pew in front of her, chiming in too late on the responses.

This was foolishness--why had she come at all? To have her guilty heart run through by yet another reminder of her wickedness? She had made confession at Easter, but now that seemed such a feeble, shrinking admission of her sins. Even her sins before that day seemed the palest grey compared to the blackness of the ones she had committed since. Of the ones she would be forced yet to commit. She could tick them off as the commandments were read. She had bowed down in reverence to a megalomaniac. And how could she honor her parents? The thing was impossible, when honoring one meant despising the other. She had not committed murder...yet, but how long would it be before that came, with Bella instructing her? She was at least guilty already of contemplating it. And adultery, too, was merely awaiting an occasion in the Notts' plans.

I really am married to Severus, she thought in despair. It had been easy to forget that, to feel as if they were still merely carrying on an illicit affair. And divorce...even her parents had not, to her knowledge, ever divorced. A divorce under Ministry law remained extremely difficult to get, and it was impossible to get one quietly.

On the other hand (her mind went off into a hazy fantasy) if Severus had managed to sneak their marriage certificate secretly into the Ministry files, surely it could be snuck out again? Surely he had not done it himself. Who in the Ministry needed to be bribed? How far would her uncle's thousand Galleons go toward that? How would she survive on her own?

"Kyrie eleison."

Sarah blinked, realizing she had lost all track of the service.

"Christe eleison," she chimed in weakly. "Kyrie eleison."

Dear God, have mercy on my soul. And my baby.

He had moved very little this morning. Those moments when he did not move were filled with a fear that she had lost him, that he had died within her, killed--however irrational that idea might be--by his parents' anger. And those moments when she felt him kick, the sensation was like an arrow through her heart. She had nothing to give him. She had no right to have conceived him at all.

Sarah wondered how she could remain standing. She felt so fuzzy that when it was time to sit, she was behind everyone else again. She let her head fall forward against her hands, where they still clutched the pew back, trying to make her mind focus on the reading.

Time to stand up again, the most alert part of her mind urged her.

She stood...or thought she did.

* * *

Sarah blinked. She was lying down. More specifically, she was lying down in the hospital wing.

"Well, then," Madam Pomfrey said, moving the bottle of Reviving Potion away from her face. "This isn't a proper time for you to be fainting, Miss Darkglass."

"Did I...?" She must have. What, then, had happened after that? She felt a surge of panic as she realized that the reassuring pressure of the illusion belt was missing. At least Madam Pomfrey had screened off the bed.

"Reverend Hopkirk had Mr. Jones bring you up with a Mobilicorpus spell." Evan Jones was, as Sarah vaguely recalled, a seventh year Hufflepuff. Madam Pomfrey pursed her lips, far from pleased. "For a girl who has had so little trouble with her health, I'm at a loss to understand this. The pressure of exams is high, of course. Have you been eating and sleeping properly?"

Oh.

She must have said it aloud, or else her face was extremely eloquent, because Pomfrey immediately said, "You know better than that! When did you last eat?"

"Um...noon yesterday, I suppose," Sarah whispered, then more firmly, "Please don't be cross with me, Madam Pomfrey! I can't bear it." She turned her face against the pillow.

"Hmph. I mean to have a few words with Professor Snape," Pomfrey said. "I've sent a house-elf for him. Fortunately, the rest of the ward is empty this morning, apart from poor Mr. Montague."

"I don't want to see him," Sarah mumbled.

"Oh, dear," Pomfrey said quietly, but not terribly sympathetically. "You've had a quarrel? Not that I couldn't have predicted that, sooner or later. Well, let's get you something to eat, and perhaps you'll be in a better frame of mind to work things out."

Pomfrey slipped out between the screens and returned a few moments later with a large glass of pumpkin juice. With a flick of her wand, she propped Sarah into a sitting position, and the girl took the glass in shaking hands.

"I've added a bit of Reviving Elixir to that, so it should perk you up immediately."

As strength flowed back into her limbs, bitterness revived in Sarah's soul. How irresponsible was that--forgetting to eat? What sort of mother would she be, if she couldn't even take care of herself? No matter how miserable she was, she needed to....

"Pomfrey?" The voice was muffled by the screens, but unmistakable in its sharpness. "Pomfrey?"

Madam Pomfrey, who had been watching her patient, moved to the gap in the screens and beckoned silently.

The swish of robes had just grown loud enough to hear when Severus appeared at the gap, wild-eyed and looking far the worse for wear than he usually did. "What happened? Is she all right?" When his glance struck Sarah, he blinked, as if he dared not trust what he saw.

"Please calm down," Pomfrey chided.

"You didn't precisely send a detailed message!" he snapped.

"Would you have come if I'd told you she merely had a fainting spell?" Pomfrey's voice developed a sour note. "Perhaps you weren't aware that she's had nothing to eat in the past twenty-four hours?

"No, I wasn't." His eyes, strangely dull now, lighted on Sarah again. Was that hatred or exhaustion or despair? "Are you sure that's all that's the matter with her? She hasn't been poisoned?"

"Poisoned?" The mediwitch looked at him as if she suspected him of having poisoned her patient himself.

"That is what I said, Pomfrey," Severus sneered.

"I shouldn't think so," she answered, perplexed. "Do you have reason to believe that?"

Severus ignored the woman, and went down on one knee at the side of the bed. "Sarah, how do you feel?" There was an earnestness in his expression that almost tempted her to forgive him. Almost.

"It's just as Madam Pomfrey said," she answered, carefully studying her own tense fingers grasping the sheet, trying to restrain herself from a nasty retort in front of Pomfrey. She was, she discovered, too proud to want the mediwitch to know how shamefully Severus had used her. "I had scarcely any breakfast or lunch yesterday, and no dinner last night." She glanced up at him challengingly. Yes, that was your fault. "I forgot breakfast this morning as well. It's no wonder I fainted."

"Where did she faint?" he asked, looking to Pomfrey. "Who knows of this?"

"In the chapel. And if you mean does anyone know of her condition, it's unlikely. Probably no one but the chaplain touched her, and he would not say anything even if he did realize the truth. And she was transported here by spell."

Severus stood up. "I want her checked by someone who knows what they're doing."

"Well, I like that!" Pomfrey retorted.

"I shall return within the hour," he said, ignoring her outrage. He glanced again quickly at Sarah.

"It's not as if you care about me!" she blurted out, driven to say something before he left this time.

The corner of his mouth twisted nastily into an expression of disdain. "Never imagine you know what I feel," he said, silkily...icily.

Then he was gone.

* * *

Madam Pomfrey brought Sarah's lunch on a tray, muttering imprecations against Severus Snape under her breath. Aloud she said, "Perhaps I ought to hold my tongue, young lady, but you've made more than one mistake there, in my opinion."

"I'm beginning to think so, too," Sarah said. But her heart winced with the disloyalty as she said it. She must talk...think, about something else, or she wouldn't be able to eat a bite. Not that she was hungry even yet. She picked up her spoon and poked at the mashed yams. "Is Montague any better?"

Madam Pomfrey looked a bit surprised at her inquiry. "He's coming along well enough now, if slowly. Whatever happened to him affected his mind somehow. He has lucid periods, and they're getting longer. But he's still too unstable when he goes into his fits to go back to his dormitory."

At that, Pomfrey left to pursue whatever business she got up to when her patient load was light. Sarah was tempted to sneak out of bed to see if the woman was secretly reading steamy novels in her office, but somehow it didn't seem worth the expenditure of energy. In fact, as soon as she finished eating, all she wanted to do was lie back and close her eyes.

* * *

She opened them to find Madam Pomfrey lifting away the tray and Miriam Snape bending over her, feeling her hand.

"Well, good morning," Miriam said with almost convincing brightness. "Or afternoon, now, I suppose. Madam Pomfrey, are these screens Muffled?

"Of course they are." Pomfrey looked none too pleased at the invasion of her territory.

"Excellent. Now, all you lot leave," Miriam included Severus, who was hanging back near the gap in the screens, in her sweeping glance, "and I'll see if I can't do summat for Sarah."

"There's nothing you can do for me," Sarah said, sullenly, when the others were gone.

"Well, I admit--I can only mend your body. So let's see first to that. You really mustn't lie so, on your back. Shift your knees, one way or t'other. There."

The slight change of position did make a difference. The baby did not feel so heavy, no longer pressing against her spine.

Miriam felt her forehead, clenched her wrist for a good half-minute, and asked to see her tongue. "Do you still feel faint?"

"Not really. Only...tired," Sarah admitted. There was more pain her voice than she had planned to reveal. Don't let her ask too many questions. Or else I'll weep on her shoulder. Which is hardly a thing I should do.

"Hmmm, yes. Severus told me you'd quite the exciting weekend. Oh, he didn't give me many details," Miriam reassured. "He seldom tells all he knows, as I imagine you've learned well enough."

To my everlasting sorrow.

"Now, the baby." Miriam helped Sarah move her robes aside to show her bare, bulging abdomen. She did not, in truth, want Miriam to touch her. Not because of any newfound disdainfulness of class, but because she was Severus' aunt. Surely she would care most about what was best for him, not for Sarah.

"He's growing and all, as he should," was Miriam's verdict, after she did her midwifery magic and helped Sarah set her clothes to rights.

"He...he hasn't moved as much today," Sarah said, worried.

"No?" Miriam frowned. "Well, it may be he's as little energy as you, what with you starving the both of you as you've been doing. You mustn't forget to eat, no matter how upset you may be."

"He told you we quarreled, didn't he?" Sarah asked uneasily. Had he had reported the subject of that quarrel to his aunt?

"Aye, he did. He's in a right ruddy state. Snapes don't take well to being challenged, if you haven't figured that out by now."

Sarah frowned ruefully at her fingers.

"You can't take it to heart, cherub." Miriam gave her arm an encouraging squeeze. "It's all of a piece with them. When you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other, and there's no use wishing otherwise."

"Did he tell you...?" Sarah began, frustrated, then changed her tack. "What did he have to say for himself?"

"That you were in the wrong, of course. Not listening to him. Not believing him. Mind you, he didn't say what it was about."

"I in the wrong?" Sarah snorted. "I'm not the one who's lied and made pretenses."

Miriam's eyebrows drew together, and she frowned slightly, as if she didn't quite understand.

No, of course Miriam wouldn't understand. The last impression Severus' aunt had of her was a girl too in love to be thinking of something so crass as snobbery.

"Surely you realized," Miriam said, after a moment's consideration, "that you'd never have the whole truth from him. He's not that kind of man. Not out of maliciousness, mind you. But men seldom know their own minds. And when their minds are as deep a morass as his, it's all the more difficult to pry out what they're thinking and what they mean by what they say."

"A morass." Sarah grimaced.

"You don't think so?"

"I suppose I do." But it was hard to admit that his motives might not be as unremittingly black as she wanted to believe. "I just...I thought I knew him a little better than...than this."

"So," Miriam said, "he's gone and done something you can't forgive him for, and now he's not the man you fell in love with, is that it?" Her tone was so reasonable, it made Sarah feel foolish, and yet at the same time prevented her from feeling the depth of rancor toward the woman that she wanted to.

"I've forgiven him for a great many things!" Sarah said. Suddenly tears brimmed up. She held them back, but she felt terribly deflated. Why had Miriam to remind her that she loved the man? She shook her head. Her voice wavered. "I don't know why I can't forgive him for this."

Miriam squeezed her arm again. "Everything seems worse when you're bearing a baby. The whole thought of your body is to protect the child, and even the least thing can seem a threat."

"There are so many threats," Sarah said. She blinked and felt tears run down her cheeks, her grief getting the better of her at last. "Everyone wants to use me for something. Even Severus."

Miriam said nothing, then, for a long while, and it was difficult to say if her solemn expression betrayed shock or dismay or bewilderment or simply deep thought. Sarah wished she dared tell the woman everything. But it was too complicated--even if it were safe to do so, she would not know where to begin.

"Sarah," Miriam said, at last, "I know little enough about your family, but please hear me out."

Sarah gave a puzzled half-nod, wondering if Severus had said more to his aunt than she claimed, or if Miriam's powers of ascertaining were really very prodigious.

"How'd I ought to say this? You know the interest the Malfoys take in Knockturn. There was a time--not in living memory, mind you, but still in memory--when the Darkglasses were some of the patrons of the Snapes."

A personal vendetta? Oh, that's rich! Rage once more overtook the urge to weep.

"I don't tell you this to make you feel badly," Miriam said firmly, clearly having noted the shift in Sarah's expression. "But you'd ought to understand that even the highest aren't above using others for their own ends. It's the way of world."

"I know that." Sarah folded her arms tautly. "I'm not a child."

"Nor did I say you were. But I daresay you're young enough yet not to accept it."

Sarah, poised to make another prickly answer, found that she had none. It was true--she did not want to accept it. "People ought not to use people they care about," she said sullenly.

Not that he had reason to care, then, a snarky little voice took the opportunity to remind her. Nor did you.

"That's easy enough for you and I to say," Miriam answered. "But think how it's been for Severus. There's been few enough people, as I know of, who've been interested in what's best for him, instead of what he could do for them. He grew up breathing that in the very air. You might give a thought to that before you judge him." She patted Sarah's hand and stood up, as if she had reached the conclusion of what she meant to say.

Kerflummoxed, both by unwanted guilt and by a desperate need to pour out her heart to someone who might understand--someone she had foolishly hoped against hope would be Miriam--Sarah blurted out, "It's only him you care about! You don't want me to hurt him! You don't care how I feel!"

"Ah, Sarah." Miriam shook her head. "I don't want either of you hurt. But neither you nor I can change what he is or what he does. You only have power over what you choose to do."

"It isn't my fault!" Sarah protested.

"Nor did I say it was," Miriam answered calmly. "But still, you have power only over yourself. You can pout and grieve. Or you can make up your mind to be happy with what you've got." Leaving Sarah to fume over this philosophy, Miriam stepped to the gap in the screens and beckoned to the others.

"Is she all right?" Severus asked.

"She's well enough. But she's been under too much strain of late."

"It is examination time," Pomfrey put in, still looking put out.

"Be that as it may, she needs more rest than she's been getting. If she goes on as she is, she'll put both herself and the child in danger. When are these examinations?"

"The N.E.W.T.s begin a week from tomorrow," Severus said. "Sarah has three subjects--theory and practicals in each--over a two week span. Do you suggest she ought not to take them, Miriam?"

Miriam looked at her patient.

"I've got to take them!" Sarah said, distressed. Miriam had not said one word to her about having to rest or being in danger.

"It'll do her no harm, I expect, if she rests strictly between now and then. You're not to allow her to worry, fret, cry or to go without eating or sleeping as she ought. If that can't be managed here, I'll have to take her home with me."

"No!" protested Sarah, and was surprised find Severus speaking in unison with her.

"She's safer here, Miriam," Severus went on.

Not that she had been. But Sarah wasn't about to argue.

"I'm quite sure I can tend more than adequately to her care, Mrs. Snape," Madam Pomfrey said.

"Very well, then. I leave her to you." Miriam turned and sent an unexpected wink at Sarah. "I'll see you when the term is over, cherub--don't make me come back any sooner. Severus, you'll have to show me to the gates. I'm apt to get lost."

With that, she departed, leaving Madam Pomfrey to glare after her.

"Rest, is it?" Pomfrey said, fussily tucking in a loose corner of Sarah's blanket. "You'll have rest enough. You'll not step foot outside the hospital wing until your first exam."

"But...classes!" Sarah protested. "I have to study and--"

"You'll do nothing of the kind. If it's rest you're to have, it's rest you will get."

"I'll go mad lying here!"

"I haven't had a patient go mad from lying here yet." And with that, Madam Pomfrey and her dignity left Sarah to stew in the outward trappings of repose.