A Merciless Affection

Chapter 60: Sollt' ich Unseliger sie Liebe nennen?

(Should I, Accursed As I Am, Call It Love?)

"I'm not ready for this!"

Sarah clung to the mantelpiece as the tightening began again, a subtle ripple that slowly turned her burgeoning abdomen as rock-hard as if it had been struck with a Petrifying Jinx, and went on squeezing until she could scarcely breathe. At what seemed a finger's width from real pain, it ebbed.

"You're as ready as any, and more than most," Miriam said, with maddening reassurance. "Let's walk some more."

Admittedly, it seemed absurd. A week ago she had felt more than ready to have this ordeal over and done, to have her body back, to shed the burden that made every movement an awkward effort and every rest less than restful. But a week ago she had felt an assurance that everything was going as well as it possible could. Now, everything that could go wrong, had. There was no knowing whether Severus was dead or alive. Tonks had promised to send word, but that had been hours ago. There was no knowing whether Tonks herself was dead or alive, or if the rescue effort had failed, or if it had even properly begun. But one way or another, Notting Chase, the designated future home of her child, was no longer even remotely a safe haven. And there was no knowing what the Dark Lord might order to be done, if the worst of all possibilities had occurred.

"Walking tends to hasten labor"--all of Sarah's books had offered that pithy advice. It had not seemed so impossible when she was a stone lighter than she was now. Or before she had walked to the Leaky Cauldron and back. She would have preferred to use the Floo for the homebound trip, but Miriam, who had caught up with her halfway down Knockturn Alley, had insisted on their walking back. "As well to get this over with now," the older woman had said, after she noticed the sudden, pained way Sarah put a hand to her back when she stood up after the interview with Tonks.

And so they took another turn around the room.

* * *

At nightfall, Sarah lay on her side, half-dozing between the almost-pangs that continued in what seemed both a fruitless and a relentless rhythm. Miriam had allowed her a light supper and a respite, leaving Sarah under Cornelia's watchful eye while she went home for news and her bag of supplies.

Sarah jolted fully awake at the sound of the outer door closing. Severus? Or Tonks, at least, with news, good or bad? When Miriam appeared in the bedroom door, Sarah's heart sank.

"Any news?" she pleaded, wresting herself into a sitting position.

Miriam shook her head. "At least it isn't bad news, cherub. Ready to walk some more?"

Sarah shut her eyes, trying to decide what her body wanted. "Listen to your body" was another dictum she had read repeatedly. Yes. She was tired of lying down. No position was truly comfortable anymore. And the lack of any news had brought her back into the same fretful state in which she had spent the past three days.

"I'll walk," she said.

Cornelia came in, and between her and Miriam's helping hands, Sarah pulled herself to her feet. But as she did, her stomach tightened again rapidly. And strangely. Suddenly she was gushing liquid down the inside of her legs; it pooled on the floor around her feet. It took a moment for her to comprehend that she hadn't somehow wet herself.

"That's done it," Miriam said. "It'll go quicker now." With a murmured spell, she cleaned up the mess. "Walk with her, Cornelia."

"I'm frightened," Sarah whispered, as they moved into the kitchen. It was finally sinking in that, contrary to what she had begun to believe, she would not be pregnant forever. Even the course of her labor thus far had been more suggestive of stasis than progress. Now things were changing in earnest, and she could not stop them.

"It'll be just fine, you'll see," Cornelia said. "Severus will come back, too, and you'll have his son to show him."

"I want him back now!" Tonks should have sent word by now. No matter what the outcome had been. Unless the rescue party had been defeated. Or unless--the horrible thought sprang up--unless Severus had told Tonks not to, had decided that he wanted nothing further to do with the foolish girl who had put him in such a position.

Earlier, they had come to the conclusion that it was easiest for Sarah to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace. The mantel was always handy to cling to. Sarah leaned on it now and wept.

"Is it a pang again, so soon?" Miriam asked, coming out of the bedroom. She came up beside Sarah and laid a hand on her abdomen. "No."

"Severus will hate me!" Sarah moaned. "Whatever has happened to him is my fault."

"Rot! I told you before, Connor would have found a way."

"He'll blame me anyway!" She had never known forgiveness to be a part of Severus Snape's nature. True, he had let small things slip by with a cross word or two, but not something like this.

Carabas, perhaps sensing that his mistress was in distress, or maybe just feeling put out that he was not the center of attention, made a prodigious leap from a nearby chair to the mantelpiece, and began picking his way along it. Cornelia scratched him perfunctorily under the chin, but that did not seem to be enough for him. He began butting his head against the frame of the painting that hung over the mantel.

The painting had been a wedding gift from Jacob and Cornelia--a tatty jumble-sale thing, a ghost ship caught between a green sea and a green sky. The Dutchman's ship, Cornelia had said. The symbolism had not been lost on Sarah, although she had wondered if Severus understood it: a damned man, saved by a young woman's love. She would have thought it was altogether too sentimental an idea for his tastes; it was nearly too sentimental for Sarah's, knowing all too well the realities of their relationship. But one afternoon shortly thereafter, while Sarah was out with Miriam, Severus had hung it over the mantel in place of the battered, smoke-blackened poster that had been there before.

As she stared at the painting, watching the sea and sky raging around the ghostly ship, she felt a surge of hatred for it and all it meant. She had not saved Severus. She had damned him all the further. And that story had not ended happily, either--the lovers had both died, the Dutchman convinced of the girl's betrayal, learning only too late how truly she loved him.

Sarah's abdomen began tightening again, but this time it did not stop short of pain. She gave a low cry as she bent over.

"Things will move quicker now," Miriam said soothingly. "It will all be over soon enough."

Sarah gasped for breath as the contraction slowly released its hold. As soon she could speak, she pleaded, "Take it down."

"Take what down?"

"The painting!" Sarah snapped. "The beastly painting!"

"I didn't know you didn't like it," Cornelia said defensively.

"The motion's making her sick, that's all," Miriam said. "Let's have it down for the while. Come away, Sarah."

Sarah let Miriam lead her across the room, where she lowered herself wearily onto Severus's chair. She had done so much wrong already, and now Cornelia was offended....

Offended or not, Cornelia drew her wand, held one hand to the frame to keep it from falling, and spoke the words of an Unsticking Charm. But when she reached up to take the painting in both hands, it didn't come away from the wall. "What's this?"

"Permanent Sticking Charm?" Miriam asked.

"Why would he do that?" Cornelia asked. "It's not as if it's terribly valuable." A hint of pique remained in her voice.

It was odd, Sarah thought. Why would...? And then suddenly she knew.

"Wait a minute," Cornelia said, as Sarah struggled to her feet again.

"It must be behind--" Sarah broke off as Cornelia swung the picture frame away from the wall like a door.

There was nothing behind it.

"That's curious," Miriam said, moving forward at Sarah's side.

"Don't toffs keep their valuables behind pictures like that?" Cornelia asked.

"In a safe," Sarah said, stunned, coming up to the mantel. Toffs like he wanted to become. Toffs like the woman he had married, the woman he expected to understand his meaning. "A safe box."

"But there's nothing there," Miriam said. She drew her fingers across the blank space of wall behind the painting.

"I think I know how to open it," Sarah said. "But I need my wand." She had left it on the bedside table earlier, while she was resting, and hadn't picked it up again. It was not as if a woman in labor could go about casting spells.

"Get it, Cornelia," Miriam said, when the other girl seemed to hesitate.

With wand in trembling hand, Sarah tapped a pattern on the wall, murmuring the names of the same protective herbs that guarded his workroom, hoping she would get them in the right order the first time. She didn't--it took a second try. But on the whisper of "betony," a square of wall paneling disappeared, revealing a shallow space, no deeper than the thickness of the wall. And inside, propped on end, was a battered, flattish box, of the sort that fireworks came in. The faded label, as she drew it out, confirmed the guess, although it had probably been a long time since it had held what was advertised to be inside.

More from impulse than reason, Sarah carried the box into the bedroom, leaving the two other women to follow in her wake. She sat down on the bed, laying the box down carefully beside her. Curious, how that little box could inspire all the quiet awe that a coffin might, could make the onlookers stand as silently and reverently as at the side of grave.

Taking a deep breath, Sarah opened the lid. The fumbling that was necessary took something of the edge off the awe, but still, none of them spoke.

On top of the contents was a folded sheet of parchment. When Sarah lifted it out, a silver band slipped out of the folds and rolled into a corner of the box. Severus's wedding ring.

If you have found this, Severus's determined scrawl spilled across the page, then in all likelihood, I am dead. Inside this box you will find a will naming Sarah Darkglass as my heir. You will also find a ring. If there is enough of me left to bury, and if Sarah wishes it, you may place it on my hand before I go into the grave. Otherwise, I wish it to be kept for my son. That, and the few things in this box, may be the only decent memory of me that he will ever have. Keep them well.

Severus Snape

15 July 1996

Sarah felt her throat closing as she read. He had expected to die, at some point. So why had he hidden this from her? Or had he expected her to find it eventually? Or...no, Professor Dumbledore, to whom the letter seemed tacitly addressed, probably would have found it, in the process of sweeping up any remaining magic his spy might have left behind.

Her eyes burned, but she had shed too many tears these last few days, and there were none left. Setting the letter aside, she reached into the box again. Here was the will, just as he'd said, but a quick glance was enough to show that, for a wonder, he had not concealed any of his meager estate from her. Next she drew out a sheaf of school marks, carefully tucked between the folds of his Hogwarts letter--year-end marks for every year he had spent at school, O.W.L.s, N.E.W.T.s, and his special commendation in Defense Against the Dark Arts. A letter of recommendation from Horace Slughorn. Apprenticeship papers to Baudicarius Brimshaw.

She was nearly to the bottom of the box now. Aside from the ring, there was an old-fashioned ivory comb, the sort that women of an earlier generation used for pinning up their long hair. And beneath the ring and comb, there was a newspaper clipping.

Sarah slipped it out carefully. The headline read: "Hogwarts Professor Exonerated." A photograph accompanied the story--Professor Dumbledore, looking only slightly less care-worn than the headmaster she knew, being followed through a crowd by a young man, scarcely more than her own age. Even if Sarah had not recognized the inimitable scowl he fixed on the photographer before he turned away, the caption would have identified him: "Professor Severus Snape with Headmaster Albus Dumbledore at the Ministry of Magic."

It was, she realized suddenly, the only photograph she had of Severus. Perhaps the only one that had ever been taken.

She swallowed hard. There was nothing else in the box. Nothing that could have saved him.

"Like as not, the comb was Calpurnia's," Miriam spoke up quietly.

The young man in the photograph turned and scowled again.

Miriam touched Sarah's shoulder. "We'd best put all this aside for now."

She would rather have sat staring at the clipping, spent hours studying the contents of the box, but the tightening of her womb brought her back to her present situation. Whether Severus was alive or dead, whether she died herself in the process, she was about to bear his child.

The intensity of the contraction did not surprise her this time, and she was more aware of the nature of what was happening. "I think," she said, when her breath was her own again, "he's jamming into my hip bones."

Miriam examined Sarah's abdomen with her hands, then nodded. "We'll try squatting first."

There were, of course, spells and potions to aid in childbirth. Sarah had made any number of the potions. And Miriam, with her bag of midwifery supplies and decades of experience, knew more than a dozen books put together. But magic was a tricky thing to use at a birthing. A magical child might react in unexpected ways, under the stresses of being born, and it was more likely to do so if its quiescent power was stirred up by the pressure of magical forces. And there was no room for magical mistakes when two lives hung in the balance.

As loath as Sarah was to put away the papers, Cornelia was already reaching out to help her do so. But Sarah caught up the ring and slid it onto her middle finger; her hands had swollen so much of late that her own ring would not come off, and the ring Severus had worn all too seldom on his lean hand fit snugly. Nor could she allow the newspaper clipping to be put away--she laid it on the bedside table, propping it against a stack of books with her wand.

Squatting sounded simple enough. It wasn't. Even with Cornelia and Miriam to support her, Sarah found that her thighs and back were exhausted rapidly by the effort. The only motivation to continue was the fact that the awful pressure that she had felt on her pelvic bones was, with each contraction, focused firmly downward between her legs. Still, it was too uncomfortable to sustain. Miriam finally let her walk between the pains, crouching down only when she felt the tightening begin.

It seemed to go on forever.

* * *

She couldn't do it. There was simply no way for a baby to come out the way it had gotten in. And in spite of the charmed scissors Miriam had placed under the bed, the pain seemed all the more terrible for knowing it would never end. Neither Fiona nor Bellatrix, in all their disgust at her choice of a lover, could have devised a more thorough punishment for her.

Miriam would not even let her lie down. She had made Cornelia sit against the head of the bed, with Sarah leaning back against her, cradled upright in her arms. The picture of Severus, which had given her comfort at first, had become upsetting. His scowl accused her, and his youth was an illusion. Even if she could have gone back in time to meet him when they were of an age, he had loved other girls then, girls with whom she could not have competed. He would not have looked twice at her.

But, she thought, as a particularly fierce pang released its grip, he's mine now.

If he was alive.

Or not. If she died, would she find him waiting for her?

"I want Severus!" she pleaded, trembling. "Why hasn't Tonks brought him back?"

"There's been no news, Sarah," Cornelia said, close behind her ear.

"I want him!"

"He'd be of no use here," Miriam said soothingly. "There's no place for a man at a birthing. This is women's business."

True as it was, and as grateful as she was that Miriam and Cornelia were here, Sarah wept. "I want him back!"

* * *

"Wait, Sarah!" Miriam urged, "Don't push against your body."

"I...have...to..." Ah, there, it was beginning again.

"Let it flow, cherub, just let it flow."

Sarah groaned, clinging to Cornelia's hands.

"Good girl. We're nearly there."

"Really?"

Miriam looked at her cannily. "We don't want to hurry things too quickly. Here's the Stretching Oil." The midwife pulled a jar from her bag, and began slathering Sarah's nether regions with the warm, greasy stuff. Sarah was beyond feeling the indignity.

"I...really...have...to...." The urge to force the baby out was the only thing she could think of. That, and the growing, burning pain between her legs.

"Easy does it. Let your womb do the work."

"I...can't help it!" Sarah shrieked, straining downward.

"Is it time?" Cornelia said.

"Yes," Miriam answered. "Sarah, I'm going do a Levitation Charm. Cornelia will steady you."

Sarah hardly noticed the difference. And if Miriam was still trying to tell her to slow down--as if she could!--Sarah couldn't hear it. With every pressing urge, the blood roared like a rising tide in her ears.

Unexpectedly, she heard Miriam say, "He's nearly here. Feel!"

Miriam took her hand and pressed it somewhere in the center of that burning pain, on a warm wet curve that was not part of her own body. Sarah gasped, then breathed out something between a laugh and a sob.

"Just a little longer. Follow your body's lead."

The sensation of fullness was terrible, and Sarah's body pushed at it, gasping, groaning.

"Here's the head."

Finally came an impossible easing, a rush of fluid. Sarah shuddered as she pressed again, and then burning, pressure, and all faded to a buzz of relatively inconsequential pain. Sarah looked down, dazed. There was a little creature in Miriam's hands, all red and purple and grey, with a twisted cord emerging from its belly. His belly, she realized, as she saw the tell-tale parts, as weirdly oversized as his head was. The creature coughed, a tiny splutter. Miriam forced a finger into his mouth, flicking out an accumulation of mucus. A second cough merged into a wail of indignation. Miriam snatched up a white cloth and wound it round him with a practiced hand.

"Here's your son," she said, her voice filled with pride, and she lifted the bundle into Sarah's arms. "Cornelia, get a bowl for the afterbirth."

Sarah stared at the baby. It was a baby, after all, although the resemblance to some strange and barely human creature was only slowly fading. His skin was strangely mottled and streaked with blood and patchy white stuff, the top of his head a mass of matted dark fuzz. And in spite of the illustrations she'd seen in her books, the pulsing cord seemed even more alien than the baby. It did not seem possible that this strange infant was the invisible child she had cherished so many months, or that she had been--was still--connected to him, inside, by this bizarre thing.

His wails became frantic, piercing her with an unfamiliar sense of panic. "How do I make him stop?"

"It's good for his lungs," Miriam said, clearly not at all concerned. "Though you'll need to put him to the breast in a minute. Might as well be now."

It was an awkward thing, to open the front of her already hitched-up robe and press this little squalling thing's mouth against her breast. He worried at her, still whimpering, as if he could not find what he wanted, but finally, with Miriam's help, he took the nipple into his mouth.

Sarah stared down at him as he suckled. It was such a curious sensation. And such a curious thing, that this...this was her Severian. There was, she thought, something about his eyebrows that reminded her of.... Her breath caught in her throat. Where was Severus? Why had they sent no word? Or was it bad news, and the men of the Snape household had declined to bring it until the birthing was done? Was this child all she had left of him?

A cramping tightened her abdomen. She had almost forgotten that the afterbirth was still to come. The placenta, useful for so many things, according her books, good as well as terrible. Cornelia had placed the big white bowl to catch it underneath Sarah, who was still hovering above the bed, sitting on air and magic.

"Mum, the bleeding," Cornelia said suddenly, her voice tautly guarded.

"I see it," Miriam said. She pulled a potion bottle from her bag and pressed it to Sarah's lips. "Three swallows."

Sarah choked on the bitter stuff, then gasped in pain as her womb knotted. The baby fussed as he came loose from his hold on her breast, and she found herself scrambling to latch him back on, pushing her own distress aside. I can't die now, she argued against the panic that shook her.

Miriam forced two more doses of the potion down her before Sarah felt a slithering and heard a wet plop. The midwife reached quickly into the bowl, bending close to examine what she saw. After a moment, she sighed quietly. "It's well enough. Give her another dose, all the same, Cornelia."

"Am I all right?" Sarah gasped, her voice hoarse from the final nasty dose. She could not stop trembling.

"Never fret, cherub, you're right as rain. We'll clean up a bit, and get you settled."

As the two other women scuttled about, Sarah turned her attention back to the baby. He was so tiny. His hands, five fingers on every one, were just big enough to clasp her thumb. Five toes on each foot that she untangled from the cloth. Muddy-colored eyes stared up at her. She was not sure what to feel. Glad, that the ordeal was over? Grateful, that she and the child lived and were whole? Ashamed, at the circumstances of his conception, now revealed in his irrefutable presence? Grieved, that his father might have died before his birth? Frightened, at having to protect this child all alone, from those who would hurt him or use him for their own ends?

Miriam distracted her from these anxious thoughts by slathering her tender underparts with another unguent. The midwife, her hands still bloodied, shifted the bowl to one side, and covered it with a cloth. "Let her down now."

Cornelia drew her wand and lowered Sarah gently back onto the bed. Sarah winced in anticipation of pain, but Miriam's medicine seemed to have done the trick. She ached, but nothing more. After some propping of pillows, and bundling of blankets, Sarah found herself resting in tolerable comfort, her shaking subsiding at last.

"Change him to the other breast now," Miriam instructed. She lifted the bowl again and settled it carefully at Sarah's side to keep it near the baby. "We'll wait another hour or two before we separate the cord."

"What time is it?" Sarah asked, startled. It was as if she had forgotten there was such a thing as time. She looked to the window; the darkness was thinning, grey and dim.

"Nearing dawn, I should think," Miriam said, helping her shift the baby to her other breast. As he began suckling again, the cramping in her abdomen resumed. "Four or five o'clock. It'll be the 29^th of July."

Sarah stared at the bowl, the cord snaking out from under the cloth, and was compelled by curiosity. With a glance at Miriam that went unchallenged, she flicked the cloth back. There was the organ, drowning in her own blood. She had handled the dried placentas of other animals in her potions work, but this looked more like the liver of some freshly killed thing. The only meat that does not require a death, she remembered, from one of Miriam's more ancient texts, although her stomach turned at the idea. Better to see it for what it was: a potion ingredient.

"I'll need to save that," Sarah said, covering it again.

"I know it," Miriam said. "Many's the time I've carried off an unwanted afterbirth for its properties myself. Or for Severus," she added. She took a deep breath. "There's been no news, yet."

"Truly?" Sarah asked, wanting to believe that she was not being lied to, but not trusting that hope.

"I'll go back to Mum and Dad's flat," Cornelia offered abruptly. "They may know something more."

Miriam nodded.

"Please don't lie to me," Sarah begged, as the older girl turned to go.

Cornelia shook her head faintly. "I won't."

* * *

Sarah cradled her baby, watching the flash of the almost-familiar come and go on his tiny face, glancing up at the photograph for confirmation. There was definitely something about his eyes and eyebrows. Even his jerking movements put her in mind of Severus at his most tense. The tiny nose was rather flat, although Miriam assured her that that was common for babies, and there was no knowing how it would turn out.

The twisted cord seemed to be shrinking in on itself. There were, Sarah remembered, uses for that, too. But dark ones. She shivered again, faintly.

The outer door opened, and Miriam sprang to her feet. Sarah could scarcely resist doing likewise. But it was only Cornelia.

"Nothing," she said, downcast and frustrated. "Dad won't contact the Auror office either."

Miriam snorted. "I'd have known better than to ask him. The news, whatever it is, will come sooner or later, one way or another."

Some news came sooner.

* * *

"Sectum Cauterium," Cornelia said, with a careful slashing motion of her wand. The main length of the withered cord hung limply from the side of the bowl, until Miriam twitched it inside; a stubby section was left protruding from the baby's cloth. Then Miriam unwrapped him carefully, wiped him down with a warm, wet rag, diapered him and wrapped him in clean, fresh flannel. But he was restored to Sarah's arms only briefly. Cornelia took him to hold while Sarah ate the gruel and toast and tea that Miriam had prepared. She was still eating when Devin burst in, a newspaper in his hand.

"What do you make of this?" he asked grimly, offering it to his mother. Miriam studied it swiftly, a frown creasing her brow.

"What is it?" Sarah pleaded. She had gotten to her feet before she realized that she could. She was sore, but she could move.

"I don't know what to think." Miriam hesitated a moment, then placed this morning's Daily Prophet in Sarah's outstretched hands. The picture on the front page showed a building in flames.

"Death Eater's Mansion Burns to the Ground," read the headline.

"Notting Chase, Northumberland, former residence of recently captured Death Eater Franklin Nott, 48, burned to the ground during the night. The fire was unquestionably of magical origin, although it is not known at this hour who is responsible for the spell or whether any of the Nott family have survived.

"Representatives of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Department of Magical Catastrophes maintain they have the situation under control, although there is speculation that the fire resulted accidentally from an attempted raid on the house, perhaps in search of more evidence of Mr. Nott's contacts among You-Know-Who's followers. It is to be hoped, regardless of the outcome, that this incident will encourage others to reconsider their support of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. More information to follow in the evening edition."

Sarah stared, stunned, at the photo. Very little was visible aside from the flaming house itself--the picture had been taken in the dark, and any human figures were mere silhouettes against the dancing flames. She studied them, looking for any familiar forms, but no one was recognizable.

All the Notts, dead? That was a blow over and above the possibility that Severus might have perished in the fire. She had little enough love for some members of that family, but when all was said and done, they were family nonetheless, and she had lost too much of that already. And Chester and his wife were her only hope for Severian. She did not want to give her child over into anyone else's hands--she felt a sudden and painful urge to snatch the baby even from Cornelia--but if she had to give him up to someone like the Malfoys.... No, she could not do that. And if Severus had died, as well....

"Help her sit down," Miriam said sharply, and Sarah realized she was swaying, unsteady on her feet. Miriam and Devin lunged together to catch hold of her and lead her back to the bed.

Like Miriam, Sarah hardly knew what to think. If the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was involved, that meant Aurors. But had they been able to rescue Severus before the fire? And who would have set it? Severus, in revenge for what his captors had tried to do? It would take a fire set magically and by intention to burn such a house to the ground before the Department of Magical Catastrophes could put it out.

But if he had, if he had been strong enough to cast a spell like that, then why had he not returned? Why had Tonks not sent word? The silence from the Order suggested the dire possibility that the Order members who had gone to rescue him had all perished, or been hurt. And there was no hope there. Professor Dumbledore, at least, ought to have sent word. That he had not raised the possibility that he, too, had gone to Notting Chase, and that he, too, had not come away alive. And if that were so....

Sarah took a deep, desperate breath, as she imagined the result: a world dominated by the Dark Lord, a world in which she would be forced to pretend ever more terrible things or die, a world in which her son would grow up believing the lie. A world in which she would have to take far greater responsibility--with very little hope of succeeding--of plotting the Dark Lord's fall.

"I can't," she whispered, burying her face in her hands. "I can't do it all alone."

"We know nothing for certain yet," Miriam said, her voice betraying her own distress. "Don't work yourself into a taking. And we'll never abandon you, Sarah."

"I know." Sarah tried to steady her breathing. "I know." And she knew, too, as she said it, that whatever was necessary, she would do it. How many things had she done, since Halloween night, that she had believed were impossible? Not least of which, she realized, as she let a hand stray across her strangely deflated abdomen, was bringing a child into the world. Severus Snape's child. Even if he were dead, he had that, at least--a son. Though it seemed he had paid for the child's getting with his life.

"I...I just want some quiet, for a little while."

"Take yourself off home, Devin," Miriam said quietly. "Time enough for more news later." She urged her son out of the room, and looked to Cornelia. "Will you sit with Sarah for the while? I want to go home for a bit myself." Undoubtedly she had been exhausted before, but now she looked grey with it.

"Of course."

"Sarah, you rest. Some sleep won't come amiss now, for all that I know you probably don't feel it yet." She ran a hand over Sarah's hair, grimacing with what her eyes showed to be sympathy and shared grief.

* * *

Sarah did sleep, with the infant Severian sheltered in the curve of her arm, while Cornelia kept watch in the outer room. But after a while, both mother and baby stirred. Sarah watched his movements, entranced. On impulse, she pulled Severus's ring from her finger and moved it in front of Severian's eyes, trying to attract his attention to the silver sparkle. But the world was too new and strange for him to understand any meaning in it. A lump tightening in her throat, she fitted the circlet over his tiny thumb. Tears pooled in her eyes, trembled on her eyelashes. What would she tell Severian about his father? She might never be able to tell him all the truth. And how could she ever tell him of her own part in his father's death?

There was a crack of Apparition in the hallway, and the door to the flat banged opened, with unexpected force.

"My God!" Cornelia gasped, in the outer room, as heavy footsteps crossed the floor.

Sarah snatched up her child, desperate with panic, her eyes searching for her wand. Severian, startled, wailed loudly.

There, on the bedside table. She was about to lunge for it when the intruder halted in the bedroom doorway.

Sarah let out a sobbing, ragged breath.

* * *

Bruised and sore, even after Pomfrey's ministrations, Severus Snape came back to the Knockturn flat that, for want of a better description, he called home. Anything was better than having his more embarrassing injuries fussed over by that woman, and doubtless snickered over in whispers by any apprentices who were in residence at Hogwarts. Sarah, at least, might have the decency to let him be.

Although, he recalled sourly, as his own door appeared before him, she bore more than a little responsibility for those injuries. The last time he had Apparated to this door....

Damn it, he realized, there was only a simple ward! What was the foolish girl thinking? Anyone could....

In frustration he burst through. He was mildly surprised--and unwillingly grateful that his family had not left Sarah alone--to see his cousin Cornelia at the stove. She, however, was more than a little surprised to see him.

"My God!" she cried, her eyes bulging as if she'd seen an unexpected ghost. But surely Fletcher had brought the message? Tonks had told the man specifically....

Clearly not. The fury Severus had been half-restraining exploded in him. Worthless fuckwit Dung! If Sarah believed him dead....

He was already in motion toward the bedroom when a sound pierced the air. It was a sound that stirred up such memories that it nearly stopped his heart. What it meant, what it must mean, was slow to become clear in his mind. Even as he halted in the bedroom doorway and stared at the startled girl, all he could see at first was the same pair of desperate eyes that he had left behind. A certain roundness of her form was still deceptive, until he looked to the source of the wailing, and saw the bundle she clutched protectively in one arm, and the open mouth and red face of the tiny creature wrapped within the clothes.

His son.

His son.

The thought warred against--and slowly shattered--every other memory he had of infants crying. This was his own son to protect. His own son...born as the seventh month dies, he thought viciously, but no child of prophecy, this. No serene Madonna, no sacrificial protectress, just a girl who wept out his name.

"Severus?" She took a quavering breath. "I thought you were dead. Tonks didn't.... The fire..." Then she was reaching out her free hand, as if she were still unsure that he was not a specter.

"Damn that Dung!" Severus swore, as his hand clenched Sarah's. "I'll have his toes in pincers. Tonks sent him to give you news. Doubtless he found something to steal or sell along the way, and couldn't be bothered to finish his errand."

"What happened?" Sarah asked. But the child's crying was too strident to speak long tales over. Sarah drew her hand back and parted the neck of her robes. Severus watched, half perplexed, half jealous, as she fitted the furious little mouth against her breast. It took a few moments for the child to settle into noisy sucking. When Sarah looked up again, there was something disquieting in her eyes and on her face: the demands he had made on her had driven the innocence out of her, but until now, her eyes had still been those of a girl. He had tried to create, in his mind, some distinction that separated her from other girls whenever he was forced to face the fact that he was sleeping with a student. But now that illusion was banished as he saw, for a moment, the eyes of a woman. Then that too passed, just as illusory, and she was simply Sarah.

"Your guess, that I was being held prisoner at Notting Chase, was accurate," he said, blinking at a great clot of memories that crowded his mind and occluded his thoughts. "Tonks' crew interrupted an escape attempt, which was just as well, since your cousin had made a botch of it."

"The fire?" He could see her eyes searching him for signs of harm. The more obvious ones--the singeing of his hair and clothing--had been undone at Hogwarts.

"That was Fiona's doing," he answered grimly. "She set the fire when her crime was discovered." No need to tell Sarah the ugly truth--that the woman had immolated herself.

"She's dead?" Sarah said, resigned, more a statement than a question. "What about Chester and Niniane?"

"They escaped, as did Theodore. And, I fear, Bellatrix."

"So, she was there." Sarah frowned. "What did....?" She shook her head. "When I think what they must have done to you." Her voice broke, and she looked guiltily away from him, down at the baby.

Sweet Merlin, his baby....

"She won't be troubling any of us for some time. When the Dark Lord learns the truth--and he will when he questions Chester about the fire--Bella will be treading very softly." He let himself feel the triumph that his pain had been dampening.

"Where will they go?" Sarah asked. "The Notts, I mean."

"You can't guess?"

Sarah looked up again, the hint of an impossible hope rising in her cheeks. "Darkglass Hall?"

"So Chester said. It will take years to rebuild Notting Chase, even by magic. And more money, I think, than Chester can afford to devote, when it's demanded elsewhere. Severian--" the name tasted suddenly strange and unreal on his lips, and he reached out a tentative finger to touch the child's tiny ear--softer even than his mother's skin. "He will be raised in the home of his ancestors. For the time being at least." He saw Sarah's expression tighten. No doubt it would come to a struggle when the time came to send the boy away.

"Chester...tried to save you?" Sarah asked.

"Yes. He seems to believe that I have the means to survive, whoever wins in the end, and to see that my allies do as well."

Sarah raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question.

"We shall see. For the present, we wait. And recover from the...experience."

Sarah's face dissolved in guilt again. "I'm so sorry. You can shout at me all you want to. You can shout at me for the rest of your life."

It was a temptation. He had been wrestling with the problem of forgiving her from the beginning of his imprisonment. To forgive was not a thing that was in him--it never had been. And yet...as he looked into her upturned face, the anger that her acknowledged guilt roused in him seemed to dissipate, vanishing like the steam from a potion: there, and then gone, curling back into visibility a moment later, then disappearing again. And he knew suddenly that he could not cast this woman away. He needed her with a desire that was deeper than any physical longing could be. Of course, the pain she had cost him would make any such pleasure impossible for weeks to come. But then, the child--the child he had so carelessly, so foolishly engendered--would have put paid to that for her as well. Forgive her? He could not decide. But she was his, and whether he would or no, he loved her.

"Oh, I shall shout at you, no doubt, when occasion serves," he said, sneering faintly. "But not now." He shook his head, as he cast off what he dared to hope might be the last of his demons. He laid the tips of his fingers on his son's dark head. "Never in front of him."