~+~ Letisha's Disappointment~+~
When someone is angry, the first horrifying possibility is them yelling at you, telling you what you did wrong, how you've hurt them, perhaps leading to a giant row. A week had passed since McGonagall had found out the length of my deceptions. No yelling had occurred, instead a shroud of silence met my ears. I found myself wishing the other teachers would yell at me. Instead I died a little bit more every time I made eye contact with Filius and he just looked away. I was completely frozen out of the teacher's inner circle.
Sadder yet, the bearer of the bad news was so frequently Letisha, who had been bravely sworn into the secret keeping circle with the rest of the staff, and now was taking on greater responsibilities than healing potion distribution.
"It's not that... that they hate you... just that they think it would be better to keep you away from the effort going forward, as it is unclear now... oh how did she say it..."
"It's okay, Letisha, you don't have to tell me." I put my eyes back down to the pile of tests for Professor Vector. I don't want her to struggle with repeating to me the exact way that McGonagall had announced my departure from the good books. I was still sworn into the secret keeping circle, and as such Letisha could allude to the group and the fact that meetings have happened but could not repeat their contents verbatim to me unless it was something I already knew about. I already knew about my own dismissal.
"Flitwick - he... I...Oh shit I can't make my mouth say it."
"That's the secret keeper keeping your tongue for you. So don't bother trying. Answer me this; are you still brewing in my office? Am I still fetching the supplies for this potion or does the tabby wish me to be hands off?"
"Plan is to - to- shit... the plan is until... this is annoying! No one said I couldn't trust you. Why can't I talk to you?" The usually verbose Letisha scoffed and groaned as the secret keeper's magic made her get tongue tied every few words.
"Listen..." I sigh and set down my quill. "Minerva does not want me to hear new information, therefore you will not be telling me. If they didn't say you can trust me that means I am not to be trusted. Anyone who is in any way doubtful, gets classified as no-gos. So focus on the single word answer to the following question. Am I going to the store tomorrow to buy more ingredients for the healing salve?"
She tries to give the full explanation and no sound comes out. Eventually she struggles out a "Yes."
"Alright. So I am going to continue to purchase ingredients for you and provide interference so that you can brew in this room safely until I am informed to stop, alright?" I ask, she nods. "Alright. Go for it, and I'm here if you need me."
"Is it my fault?" She asks after a moment of pretending to look through her bag.
"Sorry?" I ask, I'm not sure what she meant at first.
"Is it my fault you're kicked out?" She asks, toying with the closure on her bag.
"Oh... um... please don't think about it like that. I'm an adult, and I got caught in my own lies, it really isn't your fault they came to light." I tell her earnestly. Nodding as if I could nod away any guilt she might carry about getting me found out.
"So... how long have you and he been...whatever you are?" She can't hold in the curiosity nor keep the disgust out of her question.
"Several years." I answer frankly. She deserves truth, free from limitations and I respect her enough not to attempt to swear her to secretary on the matter.
"That's... I can't even imagine...he's so... you're so... fun."
"He is not so...severe when you really know him... he's quite different than he seems." I always tread lightly on talking about him. While I can't lie, I can allude to the fact that I really care about him and that he is softer with me.
"He seems like a death eater and a murderer." Letisha's tight smile tells me that she thinks I'm absolutely mad, and if she only could she would shake the man out of my head.
"He is..." I start, trying to find an addition to the sentence, a 'but' or an 'and' that I could divulge that would make my actions seem redeemable. I came up with nothing and so let the sentiment die in the air.
"How can you... be with a death eater... with he-who-must-not-be-named's right hand man... a murderer...? If that doesn't make you sick.... I don't understand who you are." The disappointment rolling off this child was making me sick.
"You are in good company. I can only say that... I do support you all. No matter my ... romantic choices."
"So you lied... you lied to all of them. Pretended for months that you and he weren't together... and let them build trust in you. All the while knowing that you were dangerously close to a dark wizard who, if given his way, would see me stripped of my wand and my place in this world?" She accused with deadly accuracy. I yearned for the hundredth time this week to cry out Severus' innocence.
"I did. I did not set out to hoodwink them... I... There is no excuse. You are correct. They did not have the full information on my situation. I am sorry for my bad decisions." I see no way through but to own up to my wrongdoings. Letisha, the great debater, would doubtless have seen through any weak excuses I provided. As it is, I can tell she expected me to fight her and my apology has deflated her.
"This really hurts me too, you know. I thought you were someone to look up to..." She informed me with all sadness due in the sentence wrapped around an arrow that went right for my heart.
"I'm sorry. If anyone should look up to anyone, it's me to you. I wish I was half as confident and capable at your age. I promise-" my voice cracked and I had to take a breath to finish. "I promise to make sure you have a safe space to brew in so you can continue your mission."
She tried to speak. She filled her lungs with air to say something but it hit a big wall of secret keeping magic and she could not say what she wanted to. She shook her head at me, and took her bag, and left me. I rested my head on my desk and knew if I had any tears left to cry in me I would find them. I had none presently. I was left to explore the edges of the empty void in my chest.
~+~Hovering around the Headmaster~+~
I suddenly had far too much free time. More than half the teachers had stopped speaking to me outright, which meant a giant reduction in my marking and lesson prep. In the absence of having a staff room to patronize, my choices were now my room or Severus'. I began to feel more like his secretary than a teacher's assistant at all.
Not that I minded flitting about the great black shape that was my lover, but the air up in his office was thick with the heavy waiting for something to happen with Potter. Sitting on his hands for the time being was killing him slowly, and the once comfortable silence between us felt loud in my ears.
I had ample time to resume my jewellery making. I could have done so in my own room but I would rather be here for the rare opportunities that I could help him. I made the friendship bracelets that Letisha had begun, adding lots of flat gold beads that could pass hidden messages. I left the piles of the finished ones on her work table in my office and they always disappeared. Our silent agreement that I could be trusted to make these trinkets was our only form of communication lately. I wove them in white and enchanted them to change to the wearer's house colours.
I had been chewing on the topic for some time, but the great heavy silence in the room made me think thrice before I cleared my long silent throat to speak. When I forayed out of our heavy silence I never knew what Severus would sound like across the void. Would he be eager to jump on any conversation to free his mind of torment, or would I pull him from an important thought? Distract him on the edge of a breakthrough?
I brave the breaking of the ice on top of our silent pond. "I keep thinking about the day I was out without my emergency kit. The day Amycus dragged me down to Hogsmeade."
"What about it? Something other than how angry I would be at you for dying due to lack of dittany?" He was in a good mood, smirking, teasing me for causing him worry. He looked at his watch and finding it close to our usual tea time, rang for sustenance. It appeared on the nearby table. He would fix both cups while I magiced this gold wire to snake around itself several times before coming back to the jewel in my fingertips.
"Any magical person could make an emergency kit and shrink it down to fit in a pocket, and yet, they don't. Why?" I feel like I'm talking out loud more to myself than him while his teaspoon circles the bottom of the mugs. "Witches are wizards are so used to the convenience of shrinking something small for ease of carrying. The problem is it's all so out of sight and out of mind. It's too easy to forget it existed in the first place. We are so quick to reduce our burdens to the point we actually forget they exist." My attention is on a yellow glass gem enchanting it to snug itself in tight to the larger stone as the wire patterned itself around them.
"Are you suggesting we ought to carry full sized medical kits with us in order not to forget them? I doubt most people would be amenable to wearing a remedy kit around their necks on a string." He bemused wryly as he arrived and placed my tea on my desk.
"Thank you. Well, obviously, no one would bring it if it was annoying or in the way. I just keep thinking about how I didn't even realize my kit wasn't in my pocket until I was already in danger that day. I assumed it was somewhere it wasn't. If I could see it..."
"Not even fear can motivate people to be constantly vigilant, despite what Rufus Scrimgeour always wants. You know, perhaps more than others, what imminent dangers are lurking in the future. Moreover, even the fear of knowing I would punish you for neglecting bringing it can't make you check your pockets." His warm hand rests on the back of my neck, he stands behind me watching my gold bullions form scallops around each stone. As I hold the centre stone in my fingertips it hits me at last.
"How many drops of dittany does someone need to save themselves?"
"It depends on the damage done."
"In a battle... most of his soldiers will aim to kill?"
"Most have a sickly propensity to play with their victims before that point but yes, safe to assume most would meet their end by the killing curse."
"So physical injuries that dittany might help with are less likely..."
"It is still a life saving measure I would like you to adopt the practice of keeping-"
"Oh shut up! I wasn't complaining I was just thinking out loud. What if this middle stone was hollow? A vial the size of a gem. Just a few drops inside. Would it be enough to save a life?"
"Well... it really depends on so many factors. You are to continue carrying a full vial around. Don't get any ideas." He was scolding, not listening. I rolled my eyes, he was sipping tea, a normal afternoon, I was having a breakthrough.
"Do you know any books that deal with charms and the shrinking of vials? The stability of the liquid stored in a shrunken vial?"
"Not all liquids like being shrunk. The charms fail. The bottles break." He is started to get at what I'm driving at.
"Damn... I was thinking... shrunken vials in plain sight. Brooches, pendants...."
"Ah. I can see the appeal. Dittany jewels, a beautiful decoration and a life saver in one?"
"You'd always be able to see it to make sure it was there." I say emphatically. Liking the idea very much.
"Ingenious. I will find the book for you that goes into the specifics of shrinking magical liquids, if you desire. But if it's dittany you wish to shrink... I will warn you that shrinking essences is testy, as they are already concentrated."
"Do I need to shrink it all? What if it was just a small vile. A couple of drops... that's all. Enough to fix one dire problem... But I'd have to make the vials into the shapes I need..." I was thinking out loud.
"I shall find you the tome in question." He murmurs into my ear and then he patted my head in a way that messed up my hair before he left for the library. I don't even fix it, I'm lost in ideas.
~+~Broaching the Making of Broaches~+~
"Time to get some sleep, my love." His caring prompt bounced off my extremely tense neck, my gritted teeth, and my last shred of patience.
"You're blocking my light." I answer, hearing how awful it is, and too consumed in my project to stop myself from being a bitch.
"You might just be the most adorable hypocrite that ever lived."
"Quiet please." I snap back at him, not turning to look at him. There's a stone in the air in front of me and I'm trying to keep three different charms going at once. I'm annoyed that he is even speaking to me when he knows I need my full focus.
"Put it down." His hands meet my shoulders, caress my arms. I drop my wand in exasperation.
"Aren't you leaving?" I demand, eager to say goodbye and get back to my work.
"Yes. And I intend to put you to bed before I do." He is being extra soft with me and it irks something inside me.
"I'm not going to bed now." I bite, sighing when I look down and I can't find the next bit for my design.
"Don't make me force you, Darling." His voice comes from behind my right ear, his thumbs press into my tension.
"I have too much to do to go to bed." I grumble.
"My dearest... in only a few weeks you have managed a great innovation in shrinking charms, and made several beautiful vessels for dittany.... You need to stop being a hypocrite now and let me force you to sleep, when just a month ago you were strong arming me into bed."
"I need to make at least-"
"You need to sleep." He insists. Suddenly a steaming tea cup floats into view before me. "Drink please." He requests so softly and with such a gentle kiss on the top of my head I finally relent and release the charms I had working around me. The beads stop stringing themselves, the gold stops winding into filigree and the plinks of several glass beads resting on my table top have a finality to them.
The tea has herbs chosen to prompt sleep, I can taste them. I also realize the tea is the first drink I've had in hours and it was more sorely needed than I had noticed. I let him steer me upstairs. I let him help me when I didn't know I needed it, when I would I said seconds earlier that it was unwelcome.
I think about how he was right, I was a hypocrite. I feel so far away inside myself as he helps me into sleeping clothes and folds the covers over me. I have nothing to say, but I feel deeply sorry for being so distant the last few weeks as my project took shape. I want to say it but I can't.
Suddenly without the constant thoughts of gems, and stones, and connections and hidden vials dancing behind my eyes, I see him. For the first time in weeks. Realizing I had been entirely absorbed in the way he always was entirely absorbed. In the low light of the bedside lantern I caught the glistening of more grey in his hair, dark shadows under his eyes. How had I not seen these? He looked so tired. When was the last time I had pushed him into this bed?
His concerned brow, knit in the middle, was in concern over me. His thumb traced over the tops of my eyebrows in a tiny calming pet, but that brow told me he was also taking stock, making sure of something. The weight of him on the mattress beside my hip was too light, the cassock tented slightly over his chest as he leaned down to kiss my forehead. There was space, too much of it, inside those once tightly fitted clothes.
Too tired to speak, I think my apologies as he kisses me goodbye. He does not answer, instead jokingly threatening to charm the bedclothes to hold me in against my will. He lowers the lights and for the first time in several days I feel his leaving hurt me. Without work to dull the fear of his trip to the Dark Lord's side I feel a wash of uneasiness that the tea will have to fight in order to take me to sleep. I watch the swirl of black cloth at the end of his cloak as it slips down the staircase behind him. I had not felt alone because I had filled myself up with work. I understood now why Severus never wanted to stop and sleep, for rest brought space to think of the things you were crowding out.
~+~Impending Gloom~+~
The jewelry had been passed out one teacher at a time. I started with Hagrid because I knew he could not snub me. He was actually quite warm about the gift. The glass and stone dragon was the largest pierce I had made; he was a large person, he obviously needed more dittany. I intended for him to wear it on a leather strap, I hoped he might be able to hide it under his clothes but he displayed it with pride on top of his shirt instead and even told those who asked that it was a clever little dittany holder from me. Hagrid regularly let me know every time he had used his dragon vial to treat a bite or a burn. "Saved me a heap o' walkin' to the nurses quarter's let me tell you." I think his eagerness paved the way to those who followed accepting and wearing the gifts.
One at a time I handed them out to the staff, saving Filius and Minerva for last out of sheer terror. They didn't open them in front of me but I saw Filius' false pearl tie pin vial neatly secured in his cravat the next day. I did not see Minerva's on her. I hoped the proud woman had it in her pocket at least.
The gifts of the dittany vials marked a shift in my place in the castle. I was asked to attend meetings in the staff room again. Minerva wouldn't look at me but she would send others to fetch me or assign me tasks. My reappearance in the staff room caused most of the teachers to resume speaking to me, and suddenly I was flooded with requests to help with marking, lesson research and examination prep.
Though I was relieved to be back in the good graces of the other professors, I was instantly mournful about the time I should have cherished with Severus, for now we were back to seeing each other in fleeting moments when I was falling into the bed and he was preparing to leave. I would see him only when he would curl up behind me in the bed in the wee hours of the morning. When it came time to get up I would slip away, tuck him in, enchant the room to remain dark. I answered all his correspondence. I enchanted my handwriting to match his, I felt I was rather good at imitating his tone. I let him sleep as much as his tormented mind would allow it. A few hours here and there anyway. We were taking turns taking care of each other, moment by moment, but lately the moments had seemed fewer and farther between.
This afternoon I sat in a brown leather armchair near the windows in the library. I tried to relax my shoulders and sit back in the chair. The escalating tensions at school were so stressful even Arithmancy reading was relaxing when for two minutes no one was bleeding or traumatized and in need of care. I was still grateful to be utilized by the staff again, and tried to focus on the comfort of that, rather than the lack of time with Severus.
I ran my fingernails along the edge of my bottom lip repeatedly as I read, a bad habit I was forming, when I heard his voice in my mind and all the contents of the book before me promptly exited my brain. "You are so beautiful in the sunlight, you know." It had been so long since I had heard his voice in my head. He had been so ensconced in everything that he hadn't been visiting my mind. We had been alone all the time, no need to communicate silently.
I looked up over the top of my book to see him in the rows of bookshelves across the room. I smile into my book and bite my lip. "What brings the Headmaster to the library?"
"Stalking you, I'm afraid."
"Why?"
"Can't stop thinking about you today." He thinks back, and when I peek over my book again he is close enough for me to see his face. It is more serious than playful, and as gaunt as ever. My nagging did not provide an appetite.
"If you want me you need only ask and I'll come to you." I answer with a smile. He knows this. I can drop everything for him, he is the headmaster. I have no facade to keep up with anymore.
"I have to tell you...All signs point to things.. coming to a head... any time now. I am extremely anxious waiting for news of Potter. All I want in the world is a moment with you without a thought in my head. Without the weight of this impending explosion...I just wanted to come....look at you."
"I can come tonight-"
"I will be gone again this evening, and before that there are visitors coming I do not want you to meet."
"Severus. I am worried about you.'
"It occurred to me this morning... why I have had jealousy where Filius was concerned."
"Where is this coming from all of a sudden? I thought this was all-"
"It's how he sees you. Filius seems to have a mind more visual than auditory and this morning he thought of you when he was near me. I saw, not for the first time, how he pictures you and it's just like how I picture you. His idea of you is composed of the apples of your cheeks when you smile. The way your eyes crinkle up in the corners and they sparkle. The way you smile so thoroughly and so frequently is a blessing for all of us. Maybe I was always jealous of him because he sees you as beautiful and I thought if he notices how beautiful you are like I do, then he must want you the way I do."
"Severus..."
"When your hair is filled with sunlight like that you are like some kind of angel. Something I never deserved even to grasp at and yet you seemed to be bestowed on me for some un earthly reason."
"If you make me cry in this library I will hex you, Severus Snape.' I think because I can't handle whatever this is. Whatever this confession is. It feels too much like a goodbye.
"I just wanted to tell you. I have spent so many years telling you explicitly how I desire you. What types of longing each part of your body stirs in me, and it occurs to me that I have not told you enough that you are so lovely. Those summers with you were the closest thing to being happy I have ever had in my entire life. I thought myself capable of hating nothing more than I hated myself. Now I find hating being separate from you rivals it and for that I must thank you."
I have to hold my book high in case someone comes around the corner because the tears running over my face are too intense not to be noticed. "What do you know? What is happening?" I demand.
'Nothing yet, Darling. Just whispers."
"I told you at Christmas I can't handle this goodbyeing.'
"Terribly sorry, my love. I know you have told me and yet I am compelled to spill all my thoughts it seems. Now I must get back to my office. I have been away for too long and I'm expecting... visitors."
"Severus, what can I help with?!" I want to stand to follow him but I can't. My thought is a shout that chases him as he leaves.
"Only one thing. Don't stop smiling."
When Madam Pince finds me sobbing in the armchair by the window she arrives with a handkerchief and a glass of water. I bet she is finding people having breakdowns in here so frequently it has become routine. She does not ask me what's wrong for we all share a collective horror of life right now. She rubs my back softly for a moment and carries on, leaving me to my crying.
~+~ A Man of Dark Sky~+~
The rest of the day I think about him, worry about him. I know I should be worried that war is about to come to the school but instead I think about my lover and when I will next be able to spend some time with him. I need to kiss him, to reciprocate all the things he said in the library. Trouble is; I know he has people from that circle coming today. I do not know when they are leaving and he has forbidden me to visit.
I pace my room, not tired. I try to sleep and toss and turn. I think about him. So many of our stolen moments were explosions of passion. When my mind is full of these memories I can't help but be aroused by them. I have kicked off all my blankets and the lace hem of my nightgown is wrapped tightly around under my behind from too much rolling around restlessly. I remember a time when Severus' hand followed that line of lace around my legs and up my body and I am so full of need from him I idly touch myself as I worry.
I worry what it means that my anxiety over his safety has led my hand down between my thighs. I feel guilty as I try to distract myself with pleasure when a better woman might only feel the appropriate fears for the school. It does not stop me though. The pleasure and peril intertwine into some kind of mess I can't separate. For the first time since my seventh year I get the feeling that I am doomed to be horribly aroused, and unable to satisfy myself without his presence.
The room is claustrophobic. It's hot and I can't breathe, my woes and wants have filled the room and eaten the oxygen. I open my window to gasp for a breath; for my very life. I gather that night air into my lungs. The cold spring night reaches inside me like the branches of a tree made of ice, its tendriled roots spread into my veins.
When I open my eyes Severus is floating before me like a dream. He is smoke and mist in the dark sky. He can't be real. I blink at him, trying to clear my day dreams of him from my eyes. His dark hair and dark robes move in inky swirls with the night. I blink again. He does not disappear. He moves closer. Perhaps I am dreaming after all, and sleep had finally come over me. I relax into the dream but then his kiss takes me by surprise. I'm not dreaming. His ice cold fingers twine into my hair like the cold air in my lungs.
His floating form is shockingly real and he comes through my window, knocking me suddenly back flat on my back on my bed. My lover is some kind of ice cold creature in the night pushing my body into my mattress. I can hardly handle the sudden reality of him. The cold of him. How long had he been flying that way? Chilled into his bones like death come through my window to take me to the other side.
Ice cold and yet his mouth was molten hot. It disappeared down my neck and his magic aids his fingers in ripping my white nightgown into shreds down the centre. The only thing my mind could do was track the path of that hot mouth and freezing cold nose as it pressed its way down my body, digging into my breasts and belly like he was going to eat me up, and I wanted him to.
The grief of constantly fearing losing him had wound up inside me like a silent scream. Tears welled up and ran off in a constant flow, not to be contained tonight. Something had snapped inside me, the worrying had given over into the reality that any night might be the one his deceptions fail and he does not return to me. The reality that all my friends in this world would cheer at his demise. It all had sprung into clear focus over the hours of worrying and now I was hell bent to enjoy him like it might be the last time.
His hands opened against my back and their frozen imprints were no match for the heat burning in me. Once I was a student who fell asleep and woke up in his bed. Then too, his hands had felt so cold on my body that burned so hotly for him. I needed him. I pawed at his garments, soaked with the moisture of the spring air, my mind unable to conjure up to words that might vanish these clothes for me.
I hadn't noticed he still hovered over me until his weight finally settled completely, his body parted my knees widely. He stopped kissing and squeezing me to hold my face and brush my last tears away with his thumbs. He traced my face with his fingers and his clothing slipped away like the tears into my hair had, ceasing to exist.
As our clothing vanished itself out of the way I found him as eager for me as I was for him. I tipped my hips up, grateful that the urges that had consumed me moments around had made me ready, for I didn't want to waste a moment more being separate. He stared into my eyes and held my face as he thrust into me. This was a night for shared panting. Our hands grasped at each other everywhere, squeezing like we could steal parts of each other. The slow rolling of hips against each other was rhythmic, no pulling away only to push back in, neither of us wanted to be parted even for the smallest second.
When I tired of squeezing and clawing at him I could only wrap my arms around his shoulders and hold him close to me. I held him as tightly as I could as our panting got more frantic. I crossed my ankles around his lower back, desperate to keep his body and mine as close as possible.
I kept up a steady stream of whimpering in his ear as his grinding into me made me twist up inside. I whispered his name urgently as he repeated the motion that was going to push me over the edge. My hand twisted in his hair as I got closer. I couldn't hold him any tighter to me than I was. I squeezed my body tight around him and suddenly the feeling of being squeezed so tight around him made my body climax.
I groaned as I started to come apart around him. He slowed his hips, taking my face in his hands and in the low light he watched my face as he made me come a little more and a little more with each move he made. "Oh Severus..." I managed just as my body started really quaking.
"I love you... so much." He breathed as he ground into me feverishly. I was still shuddering when I finally felt his climax. His hot breath on my face mirrored the expulsion of heat inside me. We stayed together for so long I don't remember separating. We had laid there entertained, silently petting each other in the darkness. Too afraid to separate, lest this was the end of it all. At some point I know I found myself asleep and held close in his arms, and that was going to have to be enough until morning.
~+~ The Morning, The Beginning, Of the End ~+~
A clearing of a throat pulls me into wakefulness from somewhere deep in slumber. It is not positioned in a way it could be Severus and so I open my eyes. Filius is standing beside my bed and looking straight into my eyes. He looks at the shape wrapped around me that is the Headmaster. We both must have been exhausted down to our bones to sleep through Filius knocking and entering. I look down my body in a panic. We are covered by my bedding, thank Merlin.
"You did not answer the knocking. Sorry for the intrusion but they are looking for the Headmaster urgently." Filius informs dutifully, his eyes scanning down the length of us, sticking on where Severus' arm is outside of the covers, wrapped around my waist and tucked under me.
"Thank you, Filius." He answers from behind me, releasing his tight grip around my body as he rose, but we could not extricate ourselves until the Professor was gone, for we were not dressed below.
Filius turns and leaves on a dime and my words catch in my throat. It's the most he has spoken to me in so long. I want to get a robe and chase him, try to speak to him but suddenly it occurs to me that Severus is dressing to leave and this urgent summons might be the summons we had been living in fear of.
He is dressed far too quickly I had only found my nightgown in the sheets just now and pulled it over myself when he was leaning down over me to say goodbye. He takes my face into his hands. "Be safe, my love." He whispers and gives me a kiss when I try to speak.
"Severus, I-"
"I must go, but you must give me one hundred kisses in the span of a few seconds." He softly teases before he presses his mouth to mine again, he presses me back into my bed. He pulls the covers. "It's early, dearest. Go back to sleep."
"No. I'll go with you to see what-"
"You will not."
"Severus..."
"My darling?"
"I love you."
"And I you." He brushes the hair off my face before leaning down and kissing me into my pillow with finality. He sweeps out of my room with a speed I know means he feels certain this call is the one that he has been waiting for many months. My heart rots into my stomach, turns it sour, and I know there is nothing to do but wait in this sickly fear for the moment of truth.