Owls and Musings

Chapter 9

Esme whirled into action.

"Wizby!"

"Yes, Miss Essie?" The house elf came in from the kitchen.

"You are needed back at the castle. Something has happened and Professor Snape says you need to go back."

"But Miss Essie can't be alone!" the elf whinged.

"I'm leaving too, I'm going to a friend's house. Please, Wizby, go back to the school. Professor Dumbledore needs you."

"Yes, Miss Essie." With a frown she Disapparated with a loud crack of displaced air.

Esme grabbed the mobile phone that Dave and Maddie had given her over Christmas and dialed in their number. When it didn't ring, it took her a moment to realise she had forgotten to hit the power button. She did this and tried again, this time hearing the ring that Dave had told her meant the call was going through. Finally Dave picked up the extension.

"Dave, it's Esme. Look, I'm - erm - having exterminators coming in for a few days - emergency infestation. Can I stay with you? Great, I'll pop up tonight. See you in a few hours. You're a pal."

She accio-ed some clothes into a case and grabbing Casey stuffed him in his carrier and flooed to the wizarding way station in Edinburgh.

+++

"Thanks, Dave, I appreciate this. It shouldn't be long, so I'll just kip out on the sofa," she said as Dave let her into the flat. She had walked there from the floo station.

"No problem, Esme. Glad to help out. Just put your stuff over there and I'll let Casey out," he said as he took the cage from her and placed it on the floor before opening the carrier door. Casey took one look and resolutely curled up so his back was to the open gate. Dave chuckled at the perversity of persnickety felines.

"Where's Maddie?" Esme called out, as she headed down the hall to the linen closet.

"University."

"Do you guys have a show this week?"

"We always have a show. She's helping out a grad student with some stuff. What kind of bugs?"

"What?"

"I asked, what kind of bugs infested your house?" he called down to her.

"Oh, big black things - with white markings on their heads. Nasty things. Just showed up, all of a sudden." Well, it was the truth - in a way. " If you don't mind, I'm going to turn in," she said as she came back up the hallway carrying linens for the couch. "It's been a stressful evening."

"Go ahead, I was about to do the same thing."

She started to make up a sleeping spot on the couch. Are my linens still going to be there when I go home? Is my home still going to be there? What is going on? How did He become corporeal again? Merlin, I hope Severus stays safe. She mulled over these and other similar questions as she started to drift off.

Four days later she finally received a call from Severus. She had left the mobile phone where he could find it.

"All clear." And he hung up. She stared at the phone in her hand and then hung up as well. She went to find the couple to say thank you and goodbye.

When she apparated back to the forest edge, she took a cautious look around but could not see anything out of the ordinary. She could feel new wards in place. As she approached the fieldstone fence, Severus opened the door and silently waited for her just within the shadows, his black eyes scanning the countryside beyond the garden. He quickly closed it after her and reset the wards.

She looked at him and was startled to see the closed-off look she had come to dread in recent years. It was a look his students knew all too well. This visage was not her Severus; it was Snape - the Death Eater. She silently let Casey out of his carrier and set the rest of her things on the table before speaking to him.

"Are you alright? Was it terrible? Did you..." But he cut her off.

"His anger was terrible to behold, but I managed to placate him with information on Dumbledore. The headmaster knew this would happen someday and we had already prepared what information we would feed him. I am an expert Occlumens and I was able to convince him that the information was accurate and complete," he said as he walked to the parlour and sat ramrod straight on the divan near her.

"Did He use any...are you injured?" she finally got out through the huge lump in her throat. He seemed so distant to her, she was starting to get frightened.

"He used several... means... to ensure I was still loyal," he admitted. "I put on a superb show giving him only what I wanted him to know; I wasn't able to leave until this morning. He has a new obsession now. A prophecy."

"A prophecy?"

"Yes. It was made fifteen years ago and I heard - well, most of it. I was discovered before the end of it." He took a deep breath. "It was the reason the Potters were killed over a year later," he said, looking down at his clenched hands. "The Dark Lord wants to hear the end of the prophecy. He is trying to find a way to get to it in the Hall of Prophecies at the Ministry."

"Merlin's beard! Does young Harry know this? I take it this has to do with him."

"Yes," he said curtly, "it has everything to do with Potter," he spat out the name as if it tasted bad in his mouth. "I would suspect that he knows nothing about the prophecy, at this point," he said looking over at her. "Albus has restarted the Order. I can't stay long; I just came to make sure you were all right. I've put warding shields on the property and privacy detectors. You'll have ample warning should the Dark Lord ever break through my shields." He got up to pace the room, murmuring and berating himself for even hoping to have a semblance of a normal life.

She let him rattle on in this vein for quite awhile before getting up and stopping him mid-stride.

"Severus, stop." She grabbed his upper arms and forcibly halted him, giving him a slight shake. "I. Love. You. Severus Snape. Don't you even dare to think about throwing it away. He's back, He's powerful and aye, our relationship is now a danger to us both. But I'm not giving up. We are not the only ones in danger. I suspect young Potter is at the top of the list along with Albus?" He nodded, not looking at her but beyond her, not focusing on anything. "Do you want to give up our relationship?"

He focused his attention down at her, startled for once. "Merlin, no..." he protested.

"Then don't," she said quietly.

She let her hands wrap around him as she stepped into his arms and laid her cheek against his chest. She could hear and feel his heart beating, strong and steady, the muscles in his back, under her hands, were taut with tension. "I'll be fine, Severus. Just tell me you'll be careful."

"I'm always careful, Esme. But I am a double agent, at least in name, and that is a very dangerous position now," he said starting to relax as he began to absently stroke his hands along her back breathing in her scents that always seemed to calm him.

"I know. Thank you for the warning. What happened?"

"It was the last task, a magical maze." He told her how Harry and Cedric touched the cup and disappeared only to reappear less than an hour later with Harry nearly in hysterics over Cedric's body claiming that Voldemort had become corporeal again and Peter

Pettigrew had murdered the Diggory boy. Severus knew this to be true because not long after the boys had left the maze, the Dark Mark was burning on his arm, urging him to respond. He hadn't felt that much pain for fourteen years. Then he told her about Black and Pettigrew being Animagi and the fact that the true traitor to the Potters had been Peter Pettigrew, not Black. Black was innocent; Pettigrew had killed all those Muggles fourteen years earlier. And then he told her about the discovery of Moody really being a poly-juiced Barty Crouch, Junior.

"What does he look like now?"

"Barty Crouch? A bit slack-faced, I would presume" he said dryly. "Fudge brought Dementors into the school and although Minerva and I tried to stop them..." At least his humor was back, somewhat.

"I know what Barty looks like, I went to school with the fool. No, I meant Him, Volde..."

He cut her off with a scathing look. "DON'T say that name!" He took a deep breath to calm down, closing his eyes to center himself again. He had felt her stiffen in his arms when he had lashed out, but she hadn't backed away. After a few moments he continued and she relaxed. "He looks more like a snake everyday." He looked down at her inadvertent guffaw, raising a dark eyebrow. "I'm serious. His facial features, and especially his eyes, resemble a snake, as do his movements. He's been as cold blooded as one, probably as long as he has been alive, so it's quite appropriate."

He let her pull him back to the sofa, and this time he was slightly more relaxed. "I really can't stay. I'm due at Malfoy's by three and then when that is over, I meet with Dumbledore tomorrow."

"I understand." She snuggled up to him for a little while though relishing the fact that he was still here and alive. He finally laid a kiss on top of her head and gently helped her to sit upright.

"It's time for me to go. It's going to be dangerous for us to see each other. I'm going to be watched constantly."

"Right," she smiled, "then it's no Hogsmeade dates for us!" she quipped.

"When have we ever...oh." His mouth twitched.

"Ah, finally got a smile out of you. We'll be fine. We've lasted this long, what's a Dark Lord or two."

He decided, wisely, not to quip back and headed for the kitchen door instead. He stopped to give her one last kiss before heading out to the tree line to Disapparate.