A Merciless Affection

Chapter 56: Enter At Last

"Well, ain't this interesting!" Connor said, as he moved into the room, his wand trained unwaveringly on Sarah. "The little bint from the graveyard."

He did remember her, then. She had been hoping he might not.

"Explains a lot, don't it? Had to save his little crumpet." His eyes raked her, both violating her and despising her as he took in her condition. "You been his tart long enough. Got better marks for it?" Her silent disgust only made him snort, and his smirk twisted further. "Wonder what the old man up at Hogwarts'll think of that?"

Sarah felt a cold chill spread through her as she realized what he was saying. It was not a fear that he would tell Dumbledore--the headmaster already knew. No, it was the nearly certain dread that Connor would not even bother with Dumbledore. The Daily Prophet would gorge itself on a story like that, and the headmaster would find out about his former Potion master's misdeeds on the front page.

The chill hardened into an icy stone in her chest. There was no choice now--one way or another, she would have to kill Connor. Before he could tell what he knew. Dear God, has it come to this? To commit murder to protect a reputation? Sarah's guts twisted; she was almost physically sick with the thought.

"Don't like that notion, eh?" Connor said.

What do you want? Sarah mouthed.

"You know better than to call out now? You know I'd make you regret it." He gestured threateningly with his wand, and she nodded rapidly. With another smirk, he lifted the silencing spell.

"What do you want, Connor?" she asked fiercely. She had hoped that her use of his name would unnerve him a little, and she was rewarded when he twitched slightly.
"Just a little business with your husband." He sneered when he saw Sarah twitch in turn. "Oh, yes, I heard about that. Severus Snape married to a girl by the name of Sarah. Claims she's from Bristol, I hear, not Biggleton.

"How could you know...?" Sarah gasped. He should not know her village. He should not know anything about her, beyond the gossip of Knockturn. An unknown source at Hogwarts? But, no, if he had not connected the Potion master's lover with the Gryffindor student in Hogmeade graveyard until this moment...who could have told him such details about the true background of Snape's Sarah? The Notts? But why would they....

Like a pebble starting a rockslide, her thoughts began tumbling.

According to the Ministry, none of the Notts had murdered her aunt. But if this man was connected with her uncle (how and why, she could only guess), then there could only be one possible reason for him to know the name of the village Sarah had been living in with her aunt.

You will do nothing in regard to Connor, Severus had told her. He had told her that, and very little else. As if, if she knew more, she might have had reason to seek her own revenge on the man.

"You killed my aunt!" Sarah accused, desperate for her wand, which Connor had tucked away in his robes. Anger flared in her, washing her with heat, as if she were standing in a flame.

"So, Snape didn't tell you," Connor sneered. He clicked his tongue chidingly, but then his voice took on a colder note. "I was to be paid good money for it, too, 'til that berk Nott got hisself locked up in Azkaban. But fine Lady Nott welched on me. Says the woman's niece and heir is Snape's lover, and I should take payment out of Snape's hide."

"How much?" Sarah gritted her teeth against the tears streaming unbidden down her cheeks. But if the money really was all he wanted, he might go away. Without hurting her. Or the baby. Or Severus.

"Hah! You'd pay me, would you? Blood money on your own aunt?" He began circling her again, tensely.

Sarah shook, forcing herself to say nothing. Forcing her stomach to remain at the bottom of her throat.

Suddenly Connor snarled, "You think you could pay me for five months in Azkaban?" He spat on the floor. "I'll see Snape suffer afore I'm satisfied."

"If you hurt him, I won't give you so much as a Sickle!"

"You think I give a fig for your money, now, little nob? And who said I was going to hurt him personally?"

"He'll hurt you," Sarah averred. Her mind was racing over all the means that Connor now had to make Severus suffer: he could destroy his career with a few words in the ear of a reporter, reveal him as a Death Eater. Or--and the thought made her cold all over again--hurt his wife. Or his child.

"Got the better of him at the moment, ain't I?" Connor grinned savagely, as if he had read her thoughts.

"He'll be back before long," Sarah said warningly, wiping at the drying tear tracks on her cheeks. If only Severus would come back, now, before Connor did anything more than talk. She had been expecting him today, but it might be as late as tomorrow before he came home. What would Connor have done to her by then? A surge of desperation swept over her as she realized there was nothing she could do, nothing she could promise this man, nothing she could tell him that would make him stop, if he began to torture her....

"Sit down," Connor ordered. "Now!" He pointed to the chair Severus always sat in.

Trembling, Sarah made her way to it slowly and sank down. With a word and a flick of his wand, Connor sent cords snaking round her, binding her fast. It was hard to breathe, but it was difficult to tell if the problem was the cords, or the terror and anger that she was wavering between from moment to moment.

Once she was bound, Connor relaxed a trifle. He went through the cupboards, helping himself to bread and cheese. Then he began dumping things out--flour, sugar, potion ingredients.

"Stop it!" Sarah said.

Connor sneered at her as he poured a jar of Jabizri beetles on the floor and crushed them under his heel.

Whether fortunately or unfortunately, none of the resulting combinations were volatile, but the expense of replacing some of those ingredients made Sarah wince every time he grabbed another jar. Perhaps the man was merely enjoying the destruction of his enemy's property, but it would have been difficult to find a better immediate means of punishing Severus for his alleged offenses.

Sarah saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. Carabas was slinking out of the bedroom to investigate. She willed him to retreat.

But Connor had seen her turn her head, and he followed her gaze. The little cat hunched his back and hissed. Connor whipped out his wand and snarled, "Obtero!"

"No!" Sarah screamed, at the same time Carabas yowled. In a blink, he had skittered out of sight, whether hurt or not, it was impossible to say. Sarah was afraid Connor would pursue him, but instead he rounded on her, his wand still extended.

"I told you to keep your gob shut!"

Sarah's vision shrank suddenly to the point of his wand trembling between them, and the murderous eyes behind it. But before Sarah could fully realize that this was her last moment alive, Connor growled in his throat and his wand swung wide.

"Reducto!"

The table beside her crumpled into splinters, and Sarah gave an involuntary yelp. She shied away, certain that Connor would punish her for the sound, but he only turned and blasted the other chair with a hissed incantation.

"People will hear you," Sarah warned urgently, trying to find some means of stopping him before he destroyed everything they owned.

"Just a spot of bother between Snape and the missus," Connor said, with a twist of his lip.

"We don't break things! Madam Dorn will have the house-elf up here in a minute, and then you'll be caught." Which, upon tardy reflection, she should have simply permitted to happen. But as much as Sarah hated to admit it, Severus's temperament was such that no one in the building would likely be surprised if he did start smashing things.

But Connor must have taken her warning to heart, because he stopped breaking the furniture. He stood reflecting for a moment, before began waving his wand again.

"Scribendi!"

The effects were not immediately apparent, but as he moved his wand in short, sharp jabs, unlike any spell-casting that Sarah knew of, letters appeared on the wall in front of him, like great swashes of paint, garish and blood red.

S N A P E Y O U K U N -

"Isn't that rather juvenile?" she blurted out, unsure whether there was a spell that would remove the damage.

Connor struck her, then. Not with wand or fist, but with the back of his hand across her face. She turned from the blow, but it raked across her cheek, leaving fiery, stinging lines.

"I said shut up!"

As stunned as she was at her own foolish temerity, she was more surprised that he hadn't touched her until this moment. That he had done so little damage when he did. But perhaps he was going to have to work himself up to really hurting her. That was too horrible an idea to contemplate, even if it gave her more time. She kept her face averted, shivering.

Connor moved away from her. Curiously (although to Sarah's relief), his vandalous impulse did not reassert itself, but he began pacing the room like a tiger in a cage.

"When's he going to get back?" he snapped.

It occurred to Sarah for the first time that the man might not have planned this attack as well Severus would have. She wished fervently that the answer was now. But it was becoming clearer and clearer that it was Severus Connor wanted. Whatever he planned to do, he would not do it until the other man arrived.

"He had business at Hogwarts," she said. And then, hoping it would put Connor off attempting to wait out his enemy's absence, added, "He might not return until tomorrow."

"Send him a message."

"I don't have an owl."

"What do you mean, you don't have an owl?" He swore nastily at her, then, because every toff had an owl.

"I could just sit here while you nip off to the post office," Sarah suggested, not entirely facetiously. "I could give you the key to my Gringott's vault and a note, so you could buy me an owl, since I'm obviously so deficient in not having one."

"Don't tell me you've no way of contacting him!" Connor growled.

No, she realized uncomfortably, I don't. There were the phoenix messages, but although she had heard the incantation, she had no idea how the spell worked or how to use it. Not that she hadn't asked. But Severus had deemed it too dangerous for her to know more about the Order's means of communication. If she were discovered using it, the Dark Lord would know instantly that she had been introduced to the Order and, hence, that she and Severus had betrayed him.

"I have friends and family here," Sarah said. "I've no need to contact him myself." A bright sliver of hope dawned in her: Miriam came to check on her in the afternoon, more often than not. She might not dare to call out a warning or a plea to Miriam, but she could certainly think of something to say that would arouse the woman's suspicions, although not being allowed inside would, of itself, do that. Unless, she realized glumly, he took Miriam prisoner as well.

"Ain't he worried about when that will come?" Connor gestured to her abdomen, half-covered by the magical cords. Inside her, the baby had begun kicking experimentally at the unfamiliar constriction.

"I'm sure the midwife would send him a message by owl," Sarah said. She still wasn't sure that it would be a good thing to involve Miriam, but she needed outside help, somehow.

Connor appeared to waver, too, about drawing another person into his web, but finally he said, "Get her here, then!"

"I'd have to send a message by one of the street urchins." Either he would allow it or he wouldn't. If he did, she had a chance to try to warn Miriam in advance.

Connor scowled, his brow tightening in thought. "I see," he said, and a trace of a smirk touched the corners of his lips again. He turned and went to the window, threw open the casement, and shouted down, "Get the midwife, right quick!"

Would whoever ran with the message realize it was not Severus who had shouted from the window, and in turn, mention that fact to Miriam? Connor moved away from the window so quickly that her hope of that diminished. Miriam would be walking into a trap. Sarah's stomach began knotting again.

Connor resumed his pacing, this time staying within earshot of the window, twiddling his wand between his fingers. "That'll bring him soon enough," he hissed to himself. He sounded more pleased than he had since he'd arrived.

In his new mood, Connor appeared unconcerned at any further delay. But to Sarah it seemed a long, long time before a child's voice shouted up, "She's to another birthing. She'll come as quick as she can." There was a querying note in the last few words; unmistakably, the messenger wanted a coin for his work. When none fell from the window, the boy screamed, "Mingy git!"

Connor only laughed.

"That may be hours," Sarah said. Although Miriam might very well send Cornelia to check on her, and Sarah doubted that the young woman's magical skills extended much further than household spells.

Without warning, there was a pop of Apparition outside the door. Too soon for Miriam to have gotten a message to Severus. Too soon for it to be anyone but Miriam or Cornelia, and they wouldn't Apparate within the Alley. Wouldn't Apparate at all, if they could help it, since neither had a proper license from the Ministry. Dumbledore? Sarah's heart rose involuntarily at the unlikely possibility.

Connor stiffened. In a flash of movement, he drew a long knife from inside his robes with his left hand. Sarah's heart began pounding ever more frantically as he stalked around behind her and laid the cold steel against her throat. Harm to her would be the coercion against whoever stood outside. In her peripheral vision, she saw that his wand was fixed on the door.

"Sarah?" Severus called.

At the sound of his voice, she gave an inadvertent sob. Then she flinched, as Connor to pressed the knife closer to her neck.

Severus must have heard her, because his voice tightened. "Sarah? Lift the wards!"

Connor flicked his wand, and the door flew open.

Severus was not unprepared: his wand was in his hand, and it went automatically to point at Connor. But as he took in the situation, Sarah saw him shudder with restrained rage, his dark eyes widening until the whites were visible.

"How did he get in here?"

All the Ministry warnings about making sure people were who you thought they were flashed through her mind, accusing her of her stupidity. And Connor hadn't even had to use Polyjuice.

"Welcome home, Snape," Connor said. "Step in and shut the door behind you."

Severus slammed it shut.

"This matter is between you and me, Connor," he said tightly, his wand never wavering from the other man. His eyes flicked rapidly over the damage that had been done, and his face darkened another shade. "The girl has no part in it. Let her go."

"Oh, don't she?" Connor laughed nastily. "It was her you was trying to protect when you put me in the nick. You won't have your big post long, when Dumbledore hears what you've been up to with your students."

"She was not responsible for your--"

"Don't make her responsible for much, do you?" Connor interrupted. "Didn't even tell her what I did to her aunt. But then, maybe you've got good reason not to trust her, the way she let me waltz right in here...."

"Clearly she is too stupid to pose any threat to you," Severus said. And even though she believed he was trying to protect her, his tone was convincing enough to pain her to the heart. But his face had paled slightly again. "This is a matter between wizards."

"Oh, I agree," Connor said. "But I wanted to be sure you didn't try anything...well...stupid." He took the knife from Sarah's throat and dropped it to the floor with a clatter that made them all startle. But he remained behind her, keeping her as a shield, and his wand did not move from pointing at Severus. She heard him fumbling again in his robes, and when he extended his arm again, Sarah could see that he held a tattered white glove in his hand.

"A duel, then?" Severus asked. His expression was mocking, but his voice was wary.

"Ain't that the way you toffs do it?" He tossed the glove at Severus, who let it fall at his feet. "Don't you want to take this business far away from her? It's a Portkey, Snape. I got the mate to it here." He fumbled in his robes once more, and held up another glove. "Let's go settle this!"

"No!" Sarah said. Not that she expected either of them to pay any heed to her. But she did not care for the idea of Severus being whisked away who-knew-where to fight a magical duel. Even though Severus was likely the better wizard, she could not imagine that Connor intended a fair fight.

Severus glared at Connor, his face etched with suspicion. And, Sarah realized, with uncertainty.

"Or do you really want me to involve her?" Connor threatened, as his opponent hesitated. "Coward!"

As Sarah watched the color flare again in Severus's face, and saw his teeth clench, she knew any hope of him ignoring the man's challenge was lost. His eyes dropped, unexpectedly, to hers.

"If I'm gone more than an hour, look for my safe box," he said, as coolly as if he were giving her the instructions for a potion. But his eyes said something more troubling. Then his gaze flicked meaningfully past her, for no longer than an instant, and before she could follow it, his eyes locked again with hers in terrible, silent farewell.

"No!" she pleaded, but it was too late.

Silently, Severus called the fallen glove to his hand.

Behind her, Connor shouted, "One... two...three!"