The Sybil's Oracle: Book Three

Chapter 27

By Pigwidgeon37

There is, however, something you may be absolutely sure of: I’m NOT going to abandon TSO. I’ll finish it. And if it takes me a year, so be it.

Ginny Weasley arrived at the Potions classroom ten minutes late, flushed, dishevelled and out of breath. “Sorry, Professor,” she panted, while hurrying towards the first row of desks and almost tripping over her own feet, “We’ve been outside, playing Quidditch, and I…” She fell silent when she raised her eyes and encountered Severus's.

He had expected her to be late—those children had absolutely no sense of responsibility or duty, and would forget anything over a game of Quidditch. Not that he did not understand the mechanics of their inane little minds. He might have been more lenient, had Miss Weasley been detained by the irresistible urge to read up on something related to her studies. But Quidditch… No, definitely not. “And what, pray, was that meant to be? An apology?”

She eyed him with considerable discomfort, but, he noticed, without fear. “Yes, Sir. It was supposed to be an apology.”

“Three feet of parchment on antidotes for curare-based potions,” was all he said.

“Yes, Sir. As a matter of fact—” she rummaged through her bag “—I had already prepared an essay on antidotes, because…” She paused and shot him an uncertain look.

“Pre-emptive absolution? How very shrewd, Miss Weasley.”

“N-no, Sir. I prepared it because… I hoped you might do me a favour.”

At that, he almost laughed. “As bribes go, this is rather original.”

A smile crept onto her face. “You’re misunderstanding me, Sir. What I meant is that—we’re supposed to do antidotes today, aren't we? So I thought that if I prepared that essay, you might forego the theoretical part and…” She sighed. “I’ve got a problem and need help.”

“Then I suggest you consult your Head of House.”

“No.” The red mane whipped her face, as she shook her head vehemently. It reminded him of Fawkes in one of his more ebullient moods. “I mean, no, Sir,” she corrected herself. “It’s something only you can help me with. Well, actually, you or the Headmaster, but…” Another sigh, which sounded quite desperate. “Sir, I’m not sure how to start, I… promise you won't obliviate me!” she blurted out.

Puzzled, Severus shook his head. “Try to be a tad more coherent, Miss Weasley. You are not making any sense at all.” But he shut and warded the door, merely to be on the safe side. Who knew what balderdash the girl was about to spill—he had a fleeting suspicion but did not intend to make things any easier for her.

“After the Triwizard Tournament… Ron told me,” she stammered. When she saw Severus’s eyes narrow slightly, her chin came up defiantly, and her expression became stubborn. She continued, “I know you have the Dark Mark. And I know you’ve been spying… are still spying. Dad told me that the diary—well, that it was all an accident, more or less. I could kill Malfoy!”

“I believe I just told you to try and be more coherent, Miss Weasley. If you have a question, ask it.”

She blushed and lowered her head. “I want to know how… he is.”

Feeling his stomach clench with shock, Severus did his best to keep his face impassive. Maybe he had misinterpreted her question. Maybe. But he was sure he had not. “Who, Miss Weasley?”

“Tom.” Her eyes were steady and unflinching when they met his. “I want to know about Tom.”

“There is no Tom, Miss Weasley. There is only Lord Voldemort. The boy you knew… is no more.”

“But…” She shot him a pleading look. “But he was… he was…” Tears were running down her face; she did not sob or even blink. Only the tears, more and more of them, kept spilling from her eyes.

Severus would have expected many things, but certainly not that. Not after Tom Riddle had almost killed her. Not after what he had made her do. Had not her parents spoken to her? Her brothers? What about McGonagall? Had none of them recognized what it meant to be ensnared by Tom Riddle? If that was the case, maybe he really was the only one able to help her. The risk was considerable, though. What if—no, he thought. No what-ifs. He had at least to try and coax her into confessing as much of her feelings as possible, without giving away too much himself. Damn Dumbledore! He had told him to obliviate that Weasley brat. Of course the stupid boy had blabbed it all out. Probably not to anybody outside the family, but all the same…

“Sit down, Miss Weasley,” he said, and drew out a chair for himself, for once renouncing his elevated seat behind the teacher’s desk. Now was not a good time for intimidating her. “And tell me about Tom.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Why would you want to know?”

“Why do you want to talk to me about him?”

“Because I’ve never met another Death Eater,” she replied bluntly. “And who else should I talk to about him? Everybody keeps telling me he’s a monster…”

Instead of commenting on her words or—Merlin forbid—contradicting her, Severus remained silent, looking in her direction but not at her, not into her face or eyes. In order to make her open up, he had to keep a careful balance between provoking and soothing her.

She did not start talking immediately, and Severus already prepared himself to admit defeat, when suddenly she broke the silence. “I’m not much different now than three years ago, you know? It’s hard to explain, and I don’t really want to explain it to you, of all people. Maybe Hermione… Nimue, I mean… she’s different, too, at least now…”

Time for a little encouragement. “Different, Miss Weasley? In which sense would you be different? And different from whom?”

“I think you know exactly what I mean, Sir. I’m not like the rest of my family. I love them, but…” She sighed and shook her head. “They’re so… commonplace. So insufficient. No ambition, no…” Her voice trailed off, and she closed her eyes, biting her lip.

Yes, he thought. Yes, the perfect victim for Tom Riddle. The unsatisfied, the ambitious, the hungry. He knew that all too well… “But why Tom Riddle?” he asked, his eyes scrutinizing every tiniest movement in her face. “Wasn’t there anybody else?”

The smile she gave him was cold, almost contemptuous. “You’re not taking me seriously, are you?” Severus merely raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “I thought Harry might… Those idiots!” she bit out, her eyes suddenly wild, “Those idiots, they used to tease me because I had a crush on Harry. A crush! When all I wanted was… somebody like myself, to talk to.”

“I think,” Severus said slowly, “you might have done better to search for that someone in Miss Lestrange, not Mr. Potter. Did it never occur to you to befriend her?”

“No.” She looked down at her hands which lay in her lap, limp and small and white. “No, because… I didn’t like her very much. As a matter of fact, I still don’t like her that much. That holier-than-thou attitude… Always perfect, always number one and on top of everything. So… so bloody superior, as if she knew everything. She wouldn’t have understood.”

She certainly had a point there, Severus thought. That was exactly how Nimue probably appeared to her peers. Conceited, haughty, a little arrogant. “I understand. And… Tom?”

Ginny made a sound that was probably intended to be a snort, but it sounded more like a sob. “Tom… He… he knew me. Immediately. He seemed to be familiar with my most secret thoughts—a boy, of all people… He didn’t find me ridiculous, or immature, or… He didn’t make me feel like a stupid eleven-year-old, like everybody else did. He didn’t even want to know how I looked, I wanted to describe myself but he said he wasn’t interested… that wasn’t what counted for him… And all the time I knew that he wasn’t really there, and it hurt terribly, because I wanted so much to see him. I…” She fished out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “I used to imagine what he looked like, I dreamed of him. And when I saw him, finally…”

“He was exactly like you had wished he would be.”

“Y-yes… I can’t define it, really. Like coming home, maybe. Like having found what I’d been searching for, and then some I hadn’t even known I missed. And he was definitely human, Professor, not a monster, and… I just can’t believe that there’s nothing left of that, no matter how he looks or behaves now. He is no monster, is he?”

The intensity of her face was frightening, considering what, or rather who, had brought it about. With increasing horror, Severus realized that Nimue’s question, so lightly waved aside the other night by both himself and Lucius, whether Ginny was in more danger than the rest of them, because she had already given Voldemort access to her mind once—the question appeared in a wholly different light now, and he was not so sure anymore that the answer was no. The wards protecting Hogwarts against magical intrusion from outside had been strengthened, he was well aware of that. But if the girl actually wanted to let the Dark Lord into her head again—whether due to some kind of twisted saviour complex or because she had… feelings for him was secondary—maybe he would succeed where he was likely to fail with the others.

“Monster…” He looked at the flushed face and the wide-open eyes with their dilated pupils. Poor, poor girl. She was in a state of excitement that bordered on hysterics. “Miss Weasley, I don’t think that whether you call him a monster or a powerful Dark wizard makes any difference. What is important, and what you ought to consider, is the essence, the nature of the person behind the name. And what could tell you more about his nature than his deeds and actions?”

“We never talked about that at home,” she replied, her eyes fixated on the floor. “It’s all like some kind of big taboo. As far as I can tell, there weren’t any losses in our family. But even so…”

“Your mother lost her sister, brother-in-law and niece, for one. And your father…” He hesitated—was telling the girl about her father’s quick rise and even quicker fall a mistake? He had no idea, really. On the other hand, she needed to understand the whole situation, to get the complete picture, in order to develop something like an independent point of view. Independent from both her family and Voldemort. Not that he had great hopes. If she had not recognized who and what Tom Riddle was after what he had done to her, the death of an aunt she had never known, and the abrupt end of her father’s career probably would not matter.

“My father? What about my father?”

Severus sighed inwardly. To revisit those long-gone times meant memories of his earlier self, which had been just as starved and barren as Ginny Weasley seemed to be. He might be prepared to tell Nimue all about it, but the girl sitting before him was an entirely different matter. It would have to be done, though, if in an abridged, relatively painless version. Painless for himself, of course. “Almost twenty years ago, the then-Minister of Magic was killed by Death Eaters. Given the general situation, nobody wanted to take his place. Therefore, the Ministry decided that the six Heads of Department would take it in turns to act as ministers, for a period of two months each. When your father was acting Minister—”

He was interrupted by a shrill laugh from Ginny. “My father?” she gasped, “My father was Head of Department? Sorry, Professor, but that sounds… I mean, it simply can’t be!”

“Rest assured that I’m telling you the truth. Your father used to be a very… ambitious young man, until, that is, his career met a rather abrupt end.”

She cast him a calculating look. “Really? And why has nobody ever told me about that?”

“As to that, Miss Weasley, I’m afraid you will have to ask your parents. But, as I was saying, your father did not occupy the Minister’s office for long. There was a Death Eater attack on St. Mungo’s, causing lots of victims, and he… well, he obviously meant to avoid repeating the mistakes of one of his predecessors. He wanted proof before incriminating or imprisoning anybody, and as proof was hard to come by in those days, he ended up empty-handed. Imagine the reaction of the public and media.”

Nodding, she leaned back and crossed her arms in front of her chest. In terms of body language, he thought, that did not bode well. “And so they accused him of being weak and not up to his task, and…”

“Exactly. He was relegated to the office he is still working at.”

After a brief silence, she muttered, “Served him right.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Served him right,” she repeated. “I mean, why didn’t he just order the Aurors to… to exterminate that vermin?” He raised an eyebrow, and she blushed and gasped. “Sorry, Professor, I didn’t mean—”

“You did mean, Miss Weasley. You did. But maybe…” He let the sentence float for a moment, to give her time to become acquainted with this new, unusual way of viewing a situation she had thought was as clear as daylight. “How old are you, Miss Weasley?”

Snapping out of her absentminded reverie, she frowned at him and pursed her lips. “I’m not sure what—I’ve turned fourteen this May.”

“Fourteen. And you have gone through more than most of your peers. Certainly more than Mr. Potter. You should not consider yourself a child anymore.”

The carefully laid-out bait went down just as he had expected it to. Talk about Gryffindor predictability… Her indignation almost caused the air to sizzle around her. “I don’t consider myself a child! That was the whole point of what I told you! I can’t believe—didn’t you understand what I was trying to get across to you?”

“I did, indeed, understand you better than you think, Miss Weasley. But explain to me, that is, if you can explain it, why you claim the privilege of still being a child in the most important of all matters?”

His calm reply had cooled down her temper a little; Severus saw it with satisfaction. “I’m not quite sure I can follow you, Sir.”

“No? I thought that was pretty clear. What would you say is the most important decision you are facing right now?”

Her hands shaking in her lap, she looked at the blackboard. Or rather through it, he thought. He could feel her reluctance almost physically; in spite of—no, he corrected himself, because of the talk they were having, she tried to deny with all her willpower, which was by no means inconsiderable, that a choice had to be made, and that this choice would likely have enormous impact on her whole life.

“Between…” Her voice was slightly hoarse, and she cleared her throat. “Between Good and Evil?” she whispered, still avoiding his eyes.

Severus suppressed the smile that was tugging at his lips. “If you choose to phrase it like that, Miss Weasley, I certainly won’t object. But—” he moved his chair a little to the right, so that he was in her line of view “—if you call it thus, the decision seems so easy, doesn’t it?”

“You mean…” The crease between her brows that had been present since they started talking, deepened further. “I think I see what you’re trying to tell me,” she said slowly. “There’s no point in making that decision unless you know exactly what you’re choosing?”

“Yes, Miss Weasley. Now that sounded much more like the words of an adult.” He gave her a small smile—and that, he thought with a great deal of self-ironic amusement, seemed to shake the foundations of her beliefs even more than anything he could have said about Riddle or her father—and got up from his chair. “Take your time for thinking it through. I also would strongly advise you to swallow your scruples and talk to people. I think—” he went over to his desk and opened the third-year textbook “—that a heart-to-heart with Mr Malfoy might help clear the air between the two of you. Believe me, he is not proud of what he did to you, despite all appearances pointing to the contrary. And Miss Lestrange…” He looked up from the pages and saw her nod, an intense expression on her face. “Perhaps,” he continued cautiously, “you might get along a little better, now that her situation has become so… difficult.”

Ginny wagged her head, looking a little doubtful but not entirely averse to his suggestion. “Maybe,” she conceded. And, after a pause, “It can’t be easy for her, either. Nobody seems to remember that she’s lost all the parents she had…” She snorted. “Sounds stupid, I know. But with her adoptive parents dead—do you think,” she asked, tilting her head, “that she’s still in denial? She seemed awfully calm when she told us about Mr. and Mrs. Granger’s death… Not that I’d expect her to mourn for the Lestranges, after all she didn’t know them… And the others are being really insensitive… all they’re thinking about is that she’s the daughter of two Death Eaters…”

During her musings, Severus had unobtrusively unlocked the door and undone the wards. “I quite agree with you, Miss Weasley. And now I think it is time to get some work done.”

“Of course, Sir.” She started setting up her cauldron and, when that was done, set about unpacking her books and ingredients. “Uh, Professor?” she said without looking up from her occupation.

“Yes, Miss Weasley?”

“That was… very helpful. I know it sounds like an insult if I tell you I’d never have expected that from you, but…”

“No offence taken, Miss Weasley.” He only hoped their conversation had been helpful. He would have to talk to Lucius, he mused while absentmindedly writing out a formula on the blackboard.

~~~~*~~~~

Later, years later, when Severus thought back and mentally revisited the days following Ginny Weasley’s first Potions tutorial, this journey into the past never failed to evoke the same sensation: dizziness, almost vertigo. Nothing was clear. Everything—and lots of truly memorable events had occurred during that period—resembled one of those Muggle photographs taken when the object or person it wanted to capture was not holding still. There was no clear form, everything was blurred and fuzzy; not so much the emotions connected to the memories, though, as their mental images. He doubted whether keeping a diary might have proved useful. Maybe. If only to establish a clear chronological order in the jumble of tidbits and pieces he knew had happened one after the other, some of them contemporaneously, but clearly separated by space and time. Not so in his mind. There, everything was tangled together in a wild heap, underscored by a buzz of emotions, the strongest of which was his growing love for Nimue. Like a fanfare, it pierced the dull, underlying cacophony of fear, anticipation, stress, hate, and a hundred more feelings that were as inextricably entwined as the images triggering them.

The conversation with Ginny Weasley had not been a point of departure for the increasingly twisted and contorted threads of development. On the contrary. Without any discernible merit of its own, it marked the end, the final point of an era during which he—and he was by no means the only player in this game who experienced that acute feeling of… undoing, unravelling and things getting out of control—still had the impression of holding the reins in his hands. Ginny Weasley and her dangerous nostalgia for Tom Riddle had nothing to do with the avalanche of events that transpired over the following days.

There were of course the bare facts. He had killed Pettigrew, Lucius had transformed the dead body, Owen had taken it to Stratford-upon-Avon. Nathalie Pierson’s reporters had appeared at the indicated place at the indicated time. Next afternoon, there had been a special issue of the Daily Prophet. Severus, Lucius and Owen had been summoned to Azkaban a scant half hour after the newspaper, still smelling of the magical ink the news had been printed in, had arrived at Hogwarts. They had declared their innocence and claimed that Pettigrew’s demise was either Black’s or Dumbledore’s doing. They had been tortured within an inch of their lives and returned to Hogwarts suspended somewhere in the void between lucidity and madness. They had recovered. Rather quickly even, thanks to the indefatigable care of three women. A letter had arrived, written by Samuel Lestrange and addressed to Lucius. Another one, by Sinclair and Heloïse Lestrange, addressed to their daughter. Both complaining about the ‘ruthless and unacceptable way’ Lucius had taken matters into his own hands, making Nimue his ward. The news about Azkaban had not reached France, due to Cornelius Fudge’s fervent attempts to hush up the whole affair; the information concerning the death of St. John and Tabitha Lestrange had been treated in the same fashion, and only when Samuel Lestrange had travelled to England for a meeting at the Ministry of Magic, had he been told about his son and daughter-in-law’s demise. Shortly after—or had it been before? Severus was never quite sure—the Daily Prophet’s special issue dedicated to Pettigrew, and consequently also Black, another one had arrived during breakfast or dinner or lunch. It announced that Severin Bulstrode, Head of the Magical Law enforcement, had run amok and killed his wife and daughter. Upon closer reflection, it seemed that this had taken place after Pettigrew’s death, although this was merely a logical conclusion—probably Voldemort had been so furious at the loss of his lackey that he decided to unleash the furies of his improved Imperius Potion. Whatever the reason, Hogwarts was without a Dark Arts teacher. Lucius had been summoned again, pale and sure that this encounter was going to cost him his life, although none of this was his fault. He had been wrong, though. Voldemort had merely called him to his side to prepare him for an impending visit by Fudge, and to impress upon Hogwarts’s new headmaster the necessity of not uttering a single word of opposition against the new Defence teacher the Minister was going to bring along. Severus distinctly remembered that they had spent the time—but which amount of time? A night? An afternoon? A whole day and night?—until Fudge’s arrival in a turmoil of anxiety, he remembered that Dumbledore’s communication device had been used uncountable times, or so it seemed, to find out something about the new teacher’s identity. He certainly recalled Lucius’s and his own speechless astonishment at the sight of the two visitors, Cornelius Fudge and his Senior Undersecretary, Dolores Umbridge. Under the influence of Voldemort’s will, the Minister had lost all his demure servility, had been cocky and sharp, overbearing even, and certainly unbearably arrogant. And he had dumped the Umbridge creature on them, making it very clear that she was more than just a new faculty member. That was when the real trouble had started—everything else had been but a prelude. The whirl of memories became more dense after that, because of the never-ending, always-the-same, mind-numbing staff meetings, interminable sessions with Umbridge who insisted on going over lesson plans, curricula, grading methods, the whole dreary business punctuated by barely-veiled threats and allusions concerning Severus’s dire future.

Like mountaintops coloured by the last rays of sunlight in an otherwise dusky and barely distinguishable landscape of valleys, forests, hills and meadows, all swathed in the same blue-black of beginning night, single scenes stood out from the crawling, chaotic mess of memories. As to why they had remained so clear and untainted by the general obscurity, Severus had no idea. Not all of them were linked to Nimue, which might have accounted for the value his mind seemed to have attributed to them, but some were.

The shyness she had shown at their first encounter after the memorable conversation in Lucius’s office had vanished very soon. When the three Phoenixes had returned from Azkaban, barely able to speak and delirious, it was too risky to keep them at the infirmary. Besides, Madam Pomfrey had not yet come back to Hogwarts. So they had remained in their respective quarters, tended to by Narcissa, who had to heal the wounds Voldemort and the others had inflicted on them—there had been plenty of those, too—and by Sybil and Nimue, who administered the necessary potions and performed nursing duties. How Nimue had managed to stay in his quarters for two consecutive days, hardly leaving his bedside and almost without sleep, Severus did not know. He asked her once or twice, but she always shook her head and smiled. The state of weakness he found himself in did not allow for anything but feeble and—as became obvious from Nimue’s indulgent, long-suffering expression—entirely unconvincing protest. The first of his over-sharp memories belonged to those two days, probably to the second, when his body had ceased to be a tightly-wound, screaming bundle of enraged nerve endings.

He woke from deep sleep and realized that he had not left the depths of slumber because his body had slept its fill, but because he was being touched. Not in a purposeful, matter-of-fact manner; the fingers moving over his skin were not performing brisk but gentle movements to make him eat or drink or help him sit up so he could take his potions, or to apply a healing salve. No, they were caressing him. Soft and warm, the pads of Nimue’s fingers were gliding down his ribcage, broke the contact, tiptoed again over his collarbones and started the journey anew. His skin was still hypersensitive, and the stroking movements caused him almost as much pain as pleasure. But the pleasure was of an intensity hitherto unknown to him. Little did it matter that he was lying flat on his back, exposed, vulnerable. It was of no consequence that she saw him like this, for he had decided—no, not decided. It had not been a conscious decision, at least not one he had made at that point in time. It was the consequence of a choice made earlier: that he could trust her unconditionally. Must trust her unless he wanted to lose his anchoring point yet again. With her, it was possible to release his grip on control. He felt his body relax under those gentle ministrations, listened to her voice murmuring words of comfort under her breath. Movements, even the tiniest of them, still caused him pain, but he managed a smile. Her hand came to rest on his forehead, and her lips brushed his in an almost insubstantial kiss. Then he fell back into sleep.

Another memory, bathed in the uncertain light of a fireplace and a single candle. Only the faces stood out clearly, the rest was a buzz of colours and ill-defined forms. They were at the Headmaster’s study, he, Lucius, Narcissa and Yelena, discussing what steps to take in order to appease the French Lestranges, who had demanded, rather peremptorily, to see Nimue as soon as possible. Somehow, the conversation had drifted off to other territories, and Severus had mentioned the talk with Ginny Weasley. Either Narcissa or Yelena—probably the latter, he thought, but was not sure—had observed that the girl seemed to have overcome her intense hate of Draco, and that the two were spending quite a lot of time together. A thoughtless remark that had the effect of a burning match dropped into the powder keg of Lucius’s temper.

“He’d better not become used to the idea of dallying around with that girl,” he said, in a tone of voice that might have seemed nonchalant to whom did not know him well. To the three in his office, it was the harbinger of ice-cold fury.

“You know how teenagers are,” Narcissa observed, trying to save the situation. “They fancy this boy or girl this week, and another one the next. There’s no need for you to get worried. Draco is aware of his obligations.”

“Besides,” Yelena put in, “we ought to be glad that the Weasley girl is being so closely observed. So far, the wards seem to hold fast, but as Severus said, we don’t know whether they’ll be effective if she actually desires to give Voldemort access to her mind.”

Eyes narrowing and his whole body stiffening, Lucius glared at his mother. “Apart from other misgivings I have about my son being seen in the company of a Weasley, that’s exactly my point: what if Voldemort fancies giving me a warning? What if he decides that my son being hurt or, Merlin forbid, killed would be just the thing to remind me of my duties?”

“If he wants to get his hands on Draco,” Severus said, “you know that he can do it, with or without Ginny Weasley. Remember the seemingly impossible feats we managed to accomplish in our time? He’s got all those new recruits from Durmstrang, and others too. I understand your fear, but you won’t be able to protect Draco from every possible danger.”

Instead of calming him—not that Severus had really had any hopes as to that—this argument of reason merely served to increase Lucius’s fury. “You understand? You understand my feelings where my son is concerned? I sincerely doubt that, Severus. You don’t have children, therefore—”

“I have Nimue,” Severus interrupted him. “Don’t you think that qualifies as source of continuous anxiety? My mind is as full of what-ifs as yours. Especially as Miss Weasley appears to have reconsidered her opinion of Nimue. She tries to befriend her, which is also a good thing, as we don’t want the Weasley girl to become too isolated—don’t you think I’m worried sick half of the time?”

“I suppose you are,” Lucius replied crossly. “I’m sorely tempted to obliviate that little brat—Weasley, I mean,” he added, when Severus almost jumped out of his chair and at the Headmaster’s throat. “She knows way too much, which, combined with her fondness of Tom Riddle, is enough to turn my stomach.”

“You know you can’t obliviate her. Just imagine the consequences, if Voldemort really managed to somehow lure her to him. A memory spell is easily broken—remember Bertha Jorkins?”

“I think,” Yelena said slowly, “that she doesn’t know that much, after all. Or rather, what information does she have that might represent a danger to us? Neither Draco nor Nimue are going to tell her any secrets. She knows about the diary, but that might as well have been a story we told her to avoid complications.”

“She knows about my Dark Mark,” Severus replied.

“Yes, she does, but what harm could that possibly do? You can always claim you showed Fudge your Mark in order to intimidate him.”

“Dumbledore was there, too,” Narcissa reminded her.

The discussion had continued until after midnight. They had turned things this way and that, tried to look at the situation from every possible angle, dumbfounded by the multitude of possibilities that sprang up at each new turn they took, like in a dangerous, because life-threatening, game of chess with an endless amount of squares and no rules. Or at least rules they did not know. The rest of that night was indistinguishable from other, similar scenes that formed the murky sediment of Severus’s recollection of that period.

Another memory, of Ronald Weasley this time, almost choked by fury when he arrived for his Potions tutorial. The boy had not given them much trouble so far, except for the usual sniping and bickering with Draco, and so Severus was wary of any signs that might point at major problems. Despite his unwillingness to leave the territory of purely studies-related communication, Severus had forced himself to coax some information from the seething redhead. He had not needed a pretext; the occasion was provided by Weasley himself, and in an altogether predictable way. He botched his potion, and, just this once, Severus pretended not to notice. Consequently, the cauldron exploded rather spectacularly, with more dramatic effect than actual harm done to the unfortunate brewer. However, it was the perfect cue for Severus to snarl at the boy and criticize his abilities, more harshly than he had ever done before. This was the last straw. Weasley, whose temper had been just under the boiling point all the time, exploded, at least as spectacularly as his cauldron, and displayed an astounding knowledge of swearwords. After Severus’s severe reprimand, he gruffly consented to reveal the reasons for his outrageous behaviour. Not exactly of his own free will, but Severus threatened him with immediate expulsion unless there was an at least remotely understandable motive for insulting a teacher. Much to Severus’s satisfaction, Dolores Umbridge was the motive. At first, Ronald—unlike his siblings who seemed to possess superior skills of intuition—had been positively glowing with baleful glee at having a Ministry representative at Hogwarts, who was going to control every movement of the shady Headmaster. His joy had somewhat diminished during the following days. An encounter with Umbridge, previous to the Potions tutorial, had finally convinced the boy that her presence at the school was anything but a blessing.

“I was discussing Harry with Neville and Dean,” he said, his large hands still trembling with emotion. “We were lingering in the Great Hall after lunch, everybody was already gone. Not that we were exchanging secrets or anything, just wondering where Harry might be and stuff…” His hands once again balled themselves into fists, and the skin around his nostrils paled, so that the freckles seemed darker than usual. “So she sneaked up on us and—”

“Sneaked up? I can hardly believe that, Mr. Weasley.”

“Well, anyway she was suddenly there. And believe me, she didn’t exactly do anything to let us know she was there. And she’d been eavesdropping—I mean listening,” he hastily corrected himself, “for a while before she finally coughed in that stupid way of hers—”

“Mr. Weasley,” Severus interrupted, barely able to maintain his warning tone of voice, because he, too, was supremely annoyed by Dolores Umbridge’s constant ‘hem, hem’. “The facts, please, without deprecatory comments.”

Weasley shot him a mutinous look but continued, “Well, there she was, asking strange questions about Harry. Dad already told me that the Ministry doesn’t want rumours about You-Know-Who’s return to get about, but I thought that was because they’re worried people might panic. I wasn’t aware that they’re trying to flat-out deny it, because they don’t believe it… So I told Umbridge—”

“Professor Umbridge, Weasley.”

“Sorry, Sir. I told Professor Umbridge that none of us knew where Harry is and that we’re quite worried about him, what with Voldemort back and Diggory dead…”

Severus nodded, feeling his lips curl into a grim smile. Yes, that was not likely to have gone down well with Umbridge. Whether Fudge had put Imperius on her or not—maybe she was just as blindly obedient a creature as that Percy Weasley—she was as determined as the Minister to eradicate whichever rumour of Voldemort having come back. Why exactly Voldemort had ordered Fudge to choose her as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was a mystery to Severus. As a matter of fact, there was more than one explanation: Umbridge was unable to defeat so much as a half-dead Grindylowe, and had forgotten everything she had ever learned about the Dark Arts. All she could do was recite the textbook, and the Ministry had already persuaded—or maybe coerced—the Board of Governors to prescribe the use of a ‘new’ one. Not that it was really new—some obsolete, completely useless tome had been unearthed from Merlin knew where, to serve as basis for Umbridge’s lessons. As a result, the students were not likely to learn anything. This would appeal to Voldemort for more than one reason: in case of a direct confrontation, Death Eaters would face a generation of practically defenceless young wizards. Those who chose to become his followers were literally uncharted territory, for him to train and form just as he wanted. But Umbridge was useful in other ways, too: in direct contact with Fudge, she reported back to the Minister, who reported back to Voldemort. A more reliable source of information than Lucius, Severus or Owen, with the results of whose efforts Voldemort was far from satisfied. They were useful tools, at least for the time being, but with Umbridge constantly in their hair they had to tread a lot more carefully. Voldemort now doubly controlled them, by means of their Mark and liberally applied punishment, and by means of Fudge and his faithful Senior Undersecretary.

“Sir? Are you listening?”

From the gloomy thoughts about the new faculty member, Severus was abruptly jerked back to reality and to the redhead frowning at him. “Of course I am listening, Mr. Weasley. You told Professor Umbridge about your concerns regarding Potter.”

“Yes. And she said that I had to keep my mouth shut about those ridiculous rumours, that none of it was true, that Harry was just mentally deranged…”

“And you contradicted her, I suppose.”

“Y-yes, Sir. I… I wasn’t being impolite or anything. I just said that I knew it was true, because Harry certainly isn’t mad. And that… that woman—”

“Careful, Weasley.”

The boy snorted. “She had the gall to warn me. Told me that, if I continued my… how’d she say? Disrespectful behaviour or something like that. Anyway, the gist of it was that, if I mention Harry, You-Know-Who or Cedric, dad’s going to be in serious trouble. Oh, and I’m going to be expelled. Neville and Dean were furious, of course, and Neville said that this is Hogwarts, and the Ministry is the Ministry, and that they can’t kick out dad because of something I say or do.”

“Longbottom?” Severus smirked. Who would have thought. Maybe his treatment of the little loser had had some effect after all.

“Yes, Neville. Not that it did him any good, mind you. I didn’t understand exactly what it was all about, but she said terrible things about his parents and he… well, he just got up and left the Great Hall.”

Umbridge had definitely underestimated Weasley. Or maybe not him, but certainly the fierce loyalty of the clan. Severus remembered all too well how the boy had reacted when Draco insulted his mother. Not that Draco’s reaction to the counter-insult had been any different. Small wonder—there was a deeply ingrained sense of loyalty in the old pureblood families, honed over the centuries. A threat to a family member immediately became a matter of highest personal importance to all the others. Nothing could have helped the Phoenixes’ cause more than Umbridge’s incautious slip of the tongue. Ronald Weasley might be immature and not the most powerful of wizards, but he was not completely stupid. He had witnessed, with his own eyes, the absence of hostility on his father or mother’s part when Lucius came to their house to fetch Nimue back to Hogwarts. He might have heard about the diary incident from his sister. And finally, a high-ranking member of the Ministry had uttered an unveiled menace against him and his father, in case he stuck to what he knew was the truth. Not that he had become a fervent partisan of the new Headmaster after his run-in with Umbridge, but from that day on, he proved much more manageable.

Other memories, mere flashbacks. Madam Pomfrey in raptures over little Selene. The toddler had succeeded where Lucius, despite his undeniable charm, would have failed. But her affection for her father, his rather lenient fashion of treating her, and the absence of bruises or other traces of physical abuse convinced many staff members that the new headmaster was not as bad as all that. Selene’s presence at the staff table was loudly required ‘at least until school starts.’ Lucius smiled and complied.

Sybil, coming to his quarters in the middle of the night, in a state of total distress and near-hysteria—that particular memory had to belong to the first days of that strange, shadowy period, because she had told Severus that Voldemort had successfully brewed his first Imperius potion. Probably that vision had occurred before Bulstrode had murdered his wife and daughter, as this tragedy had been the first tangible result of the Dark Lord’s attempts at potions-making. Severus had forced her to drink a glass of brandy, which had calmed her a little, so that she was able to give a coherent account of what she had seen. Barty/Black was still alive, which meant that this was not the event she had perceived through her crystal ball.

Longbottom standing up to his most-feared teacher for the first time. As was his habit, Severus had been looming close to the boy, controlling his every movement while he brewed a sleeping draught. Nothing too complicated, but if the ground Tiger Almonds were added before the potion had been stirred three times counter-clockwise, the concoction turned into a malodorous, gelatinous mass which it was almost impossible to scour off the cauldron. It was Longbottom’s second tutorial, and he was doing just as badly as Severus had expected him to. The water was boiling, and the first ingredients had been added. Severus saw the boy’s hands tremble slightly and moved closer. Without looking at him, Longbottom muttered, “Sir, I think it would be better if you didn’t observe me all the time. It makes me nervous. I think I can do this right, but only if I don’t have the feeling you’re waiting for me to make a mistake.” Severus had given a rather unflattering answer and retired to his desk to work on his lesson plans. The sleeping draught Longbottom had produced would have killed a herd of elephants, because he had used too much powdered kelpie hair, but he had concluded the brewing process successfully.

Patil and Brown giggling when Owen entered the Great Hall for dinner. Lucius and Severus had exchanged an uneasy glance, both wondering what exactly was happening during the Imperius lessons. McGonagall’s head had snapped up, and her narrowed, suspicious eyes had travelled from Owen to the girls and back. When Owen sat down at the table, there had been a chilly undercurrent during his whole conversation with the Head of Gryffindor.

But if all those memories, those scenes his mind had chosen in a seemingly aleatory manner, were mountaintops lit by a dying sun, the images that resurfaced when he thought of Nimue were the already-emerging stars on an otherwise bare night sky. When Severus was still a small boy, he had imagined that the moon was just a hole in the sky, through which he got a glimpse of what lay beyond. A silvery fairy world, indescribable, unspeakably beautiful and full of wonders. The memories he had of himself and Nimue, during the chaotic days preceding her first meeting with Voldemort, truly were such holes, bored into the walls and ceiling of a tunnel of anxiety and near-hopelessness by an almighty hand, to show him that there was something beyond.

He had berated, scolded, even cursed himself for using her company as a respite from the constant stress he was under. He had tried to force himself to circumnavigate this oasis in the barren desert that was his life, but found himself irresistibly drawn back. In the end, he had capitulated and admitted that he needed her just as much as she seemed to need him. He had accepted that she was able to help him and that he was as much on the receiving as on the giving end, if only he allowed himself the luxury of relaxing into their relationship. When he had fully recovered from the meeting with Voldemort following the news about Pettigrew, the last remainders of the physical barrier between them were gone. Nimue had fed him, given him his medicine, changed his clothes—albeit using magic, simply because he was too heavy for her to handle—led him to the bathroom, held his hand during the seizures that wracked his body from time to time, muscles contracting under the after-effects of the Cruciatus curse. She had lost all her shyness of touching him, and as far as Severus was concerned, he had never felt any such reluctance. They were ready and free to learn each other’s bodies, slowly and carefully, before making the last, decisive step.

Day by day and piece by piece, they had peeled clothes off each other, laid bare skin that shivered under the wondering touch of fingertips and tongues. While his hands traced the curves of Nimue’s breasts, still hidden under the lace of her bra, Severus was unable to resist smiling at himself. How many issues of Hotwitch, Charming Witch, The Sophisticated Wizard, Magical Moments and whatnot had he confiscated over the last seventeen years? From time to time, the impulse of curiosity had been too strong, and he had skimmed over the pages, sometimes amused, sometimes downright befuddled at the advice given to magical folk by mediwizards, Soul Healers and self-appointed experts. Part of the information had clung to his mind, though, and some of it came in quite useful—for a man of thirty-seven, his experience with female bodies was shamefully scant, and thus he was rather grateful for the additional information he had garnered from those magazines.

Usually, Nimue came to his rooms after midnight, protected from the prying eyes of the caretaker and his mangy cat by an Invisibility Spell. Repeated absence from the Gryffindor common room would have raised her peers’ suspicion, and thus her late-night visits were the wisest course of action. For Severus, who did not need much sleep, this did not represent a problem, and Lucius had simply changed Nimue’s tutorial timetable, so that her lessons never started before eleven a.m. She studied until a quarter to midnight and went back to her dormitory at about half past three or four a.m. As time slots went, this was not a big one, but they made the best of it.

Thanks to Nimue, Severus discovered the erotic side of music. Up till now, he had only loved it for its beauty. A beauty very akin to that of his own field of expertise, if infinitely more rewarding, because it also appealed to his emotions. To merely look at the orchestral score of a symphony by Mozart was like witnessing a miracle: the exactitude, the unerring instinct that used this and not that inversion of a triad, the knowledge that let the viola play a certain passage, instead of the violin. And then, to put away the score and just listen, let the music flow and wonder, again and again, how it was possible that something so mathematically perfect could become something so purely emotional. That had been before Nimue suggested, a little hesitatingly, that some music might be nice…

He had appreciated Schubert in a rather offhanded way, recognizing that he was a great composer but not overly moved by his oeuvre. His opinion changed drastically. She had suggested ‘Death and the Maiden’, ignoring his sarcastic comment that her choice implied a rather morbid state of mind, considering their situation.

The first movement had literally blown him off his feet; too stunned to do anything but listen, transfixed, he merely sat on the couch, encircling her with his arms while her back rested against his chest. When the last accord of the first movement had faded into silence, he had emerged from his state of total bliss with a deep sigh, like a swimmer who had travelled the entire length of a pool underwater. Then, the violin had started murmuring the beginning of the adagio, and Severus’s hands began to move almost of their own accord. Her blouse and his shirt seemed to melt away under his fingers, with nary a rustle of fabric; skin met skin, her hair whispered over his throat and chest. Tentatively, because he was not sure whether she would allow it, his hands sneaked to the clasp of her bra, drawing questioning circles. She nodded, a smile on her lips. The first variation began, pulsing and more impatient than the original theme, punctuated by the fluttering, urgent skipping of the violin. Careful not to get her hair entangled into the tiny hook, he opened it and, palms flat on her shoulder blades, stroked the garment off her body and lowered her onto her back. As a counterpoint to the music that was becoming more and more breathless, he held his breath for a moment and looked into her eyes, before allowing his gaze to travel down to her bare breasts. Another deep sigh—it felt as if he were sucking the music into his body together with the air—and he simply abandoned himself to the melody, let it ebb and flow through him, followed its rising and falling, let his hands and tongue channel the music-turned-caress. Her sighs and moans became a fifth voice that mingled with the four strings, completed them. During the third and fourth movements, they merely held each other; occasionally, they exchanged a kiss, nothing more than mouth smiling against mouth.

At some point, Severus had proposed that they move to his bed instead of remaining on the couch. In hindsight, he was unable to determine when exactly this had happened; only the fact that they had not been wearing anything but their knickers and boxer shorts indicated that this step had been taken rather late during that period. By then, they had felt comfortable with each other even in their underwear, and so exchanging the couch for the bed had seemed like a smooth transition rather than a forced leap forward. For Severus, it had been the ultimate acid test of his self-control, for he had recognized that the intimacy of a bed was by no means conducive to self-restraint. It was the last step before the final one, the passing of another threshold. In a way, they had ‘arrived’; that was the word Nimue used, half-laughing, half-blushing, when she reclined into the pillows, waiting for him to lay down beside her. There was a notable difference between feeling the glossy leather upholstery under one’s back—and the screeching sounds produced by skin moving over leather had made them laugh more than once—or the cool softness of fine linen, which covered a mattress that yielded to their weight just so, while their feet got entangled into the duvet that stroked their toes. The bed held all the dangerous lure a Venus flytrap used to beckon to a passing insect. Severus had to struggle hard against the urge to throw all caution to the winds. He succeeded, not without raising a superior eyebrow at Nimue, informing her that keeping a firm rein on their instincts was definitely more difficult for men. She, too, was becoming quite good at eyebrow-raising and had done so while her fingers travelled up and down his now painfully erect penis. With a desperate moan, he came in his boxers, with her hand still covering him. She had laughed away his embarrassment; not laughing at him, but exhilarated by the absurdity of a situation that did not allow them to give in to an urge which had long ago become overwhelming. They were playing, cocooned in their growing love. They were happy. They were outside of time.

He had retaliated the night after. Except for their first time, this was probably one of Severus’s most precious memories. Usually, upon her arrival at Severus’s quarters, they kept their hands off each other for a good while, to merely sit there and talk about their respective days, listen to music or even climb the stairs to the first floor laboratory, because Nimue had a burning question about some potion that had to be answered now. Not so that night. They retired to the bedroom immediately, pieces of clothing marking their path across the living room. There was a new fluidity to Nimue’s movements when she squirmed and wriggled against him, and the scent of her aroused body was somehow different. It took him a few minutes to make some mental calculations, but finally he figured it out. Nature was claiming its rights—she was in the middle of her menstrual cycle, and regardless of her age or personal preferences, her body wanted to reproduce and infused her brain with a mix of hormones as strong as any lust potion.

Just to be on the safe side—elemental magic was a tricky, treacherous business—he had read up on the complicated magic weaving itself around a young witch, like a greedy vine growing out of a seedling that had been placed in an untouched womb, stretching out its branches and tendrils until it was whole and invulnerable on her fifteenth birthday. ‘Virginity’ and ‘innocence’ and ‘untouched’ were ambiguous terms, though, which could be taken both literally and metaphorically, and Severus had no wish to jeopardize her magical powers merely by an incorrect interpretation of the rules. The rules were clear, though. Only the breaking of the hymen by a man’s penis—whether wizard or Muggle was unimportant—constituted the loss of virginity.

He kissed his way up her flushed throat and face, until his lips were resting against her ear, whispering a suggestion that stilled her restless movement and made her nails dig into his shoulders. Without looking at him, she rubbed her cheek against his neck and said, her voice shaky with embarrassment, “I don’t know… I mean, you can’t actually want to do that, can you? You really don’t have to…”

“But I’d love to,” he muttered, while his right hand glided between her legs, so he could trace the cleft between her labia, still covered by her underwear, with a teasing forefinger. “I’d love to taste you—I’ve never done that before.” He slightly increased the pressure of his fingertip, thus eliciting a small cry.

“I just can’t believe you’d want—are you sure it isn’t against the rules?”

He chuckled against her throat. “Absolutely sure. Believe it or not, I’ve read up on the rules.”

That made her laugh, and some of the awkwardness was gone. “Oh. Severus, don’t do that, I can’t think properly!”

He obeyed her half-hearted order, but only to insert his hand between the waistband of her knickers and her lower belly. His fingertips were nestling among the coarse curls of her pubic hair, and when he moved downwards by a fraction, the pad of his middle finger encountered slippery wetness. “Are you sure you want to think?” he asked while letting his hand glide a little further, until his forefinger touched her clitoris.

“I…” He circled the sensitive nub once. Instead of answering his question, which had been rhetorical in any case, she relaxed and let her bent left leg fall onto the mattress.

Severus smiled and withdrew his hand, which earned him an indignant, almost feline mewl. “Patience,” he said, “I can’t do this with your knickers on. Allow me…” He sat up and hooked his thumbs under the waistband, pulling the garment down while she simultaneously raised her hips. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her hands were clenching the corners of the pillow. After brushing a quick kiss over her lips, which made her death grip on the pillow loosen slightly, he scooted down and positioned himself, flat on his belly and propped up on both elbows, between her legs. Her scent was stronger now and so arousing that he had to sternly remind himself of the need to make this a slow as he could, for both their sakes. He had never done this before; not only did he want to savour this new experience for as long as possible, he also needed to find out what she liked. So he first traced the inside of her left thigh with his hand and, when he heard her exhale and felt the muscles soften under his fingers, with his tongue.

He spent a long time just caressing her thighs, before he pressed a first, tentative kiss on the curls hiding her sex. The kiss was answered by a muffled cry, followed by a nearly unintelligible “Yes.” Another kiss, a little firmer and exerting more pressure, and he heard the scratching sound of her fingernails raking over the linen. Using his thumbs, he gently parted her labia, exposing the pink, wet, sensitive flesh, and started stroking her with his tongue, in firm, long movements, delving deeply into the salty heat. He felt her thighs close around his shoulders and relax again, felt her hips moving to encounter his mouth, and he continued to lick and stroke and kiss, producing more wetness, more screams and moans. He dimly thought that she tasted just as he had expected she would, of seawater and heavy black earth moist with rain. Her increasingly frantic movements warned him that, if he continued like this, she would be climaxing within the next few seconds, and so he withdrew his mouth and for a while just stroked her belly and legs, ignoring her complaints, until she had calmed down somewhat. He felt that he could stay like that forever, keeping her on that roller coaster, bringing her to the edge of orgasm, relenting, waiting, and starting anew. But he also wanted her to find release, and so he inserted a single finger into her, only to be nearly overcome by his own powerful arousal at the thought what it would be like to slip into that tight, hot wetness with his cock instead of his finger.

He thrust slowly into her, not too deep, pulled back again and raised his head to look at her. The yellowish shine of the candles lent a faint shimmer to her skin that was still slightly tanned from the days spent at the lake; the sheen of perspiration covering her body reflected the light and accentuated the swell of her breasts and hips. She had turned her head to the left, so that only its right side was illuminated by the candle sitting on the nightstand. The dancing flame highlighted her hair from behind; her eyes were closed, and the lashes cast a quivering half-circle of shadow on her cheek. Still moving his finger, deeper into her with each gentle thrust, he took in her form, inch by inch, memorizing it, sure that he would never forget the expression of peace mingled with passion on her face, or the way her breasts moved up and down with her shallow breathing. Or the sound of her voice, when he again lowered his mouth to stroke her with the tip of his tongue, or the way she cried out his name when she came, her whole body twitching and shuddering. Or the look in her eyes when he took her into his arms afterwards. Or the expression on her face, later, when she started shifting again, rubbing her wet curls against his thigh, and he asked her whether she would like a repeat performance and she nodded, breathless and blushing, lay back into the pillows and opened her legs, this time without closing her eyes.

Compared to that, their first time was less passionate. They had both grown used to their night-time intimacy, without harsh light, without jarring sounds from outside. To meet when the sun was still high up in the sky, in the artificial darkness of drawn curtains, pierced by thin wedges of  light so blindingly white that they seemed solid, was disturbing to an almost discomforting degree. Maybe they would have minded this change of atmosphere less, had not the laughter and chatter of Nimue’s fellow students been a constant reminder of where and who they were. They lingered in the living room for a few minutes, the silence between them more awkward than uncomfortable, none of them sure what they might say in order to break the ice. Or rather, Severus knew exactly what he wanted to tell her; only he was a little anxious about her reaction and worried that it might ruin the mood completely. Had they not been in such a predicament, ruining the mood would not have mattered much—she could have left, thought everything through, they might have discussed it at length and, when they felt the time was right, decided to proceed. But not today. Whether favourable or unpleasant, the atmosphere must be ignored, and they had no choice but to continue according to the plan. So, if what he told her killed the mood for her, deterred her, frightened her even…

In the end, he decided that it was time for her to know the whole truth—he had waited long enough. Maybe too long. Maybe now was not the ideal moment, but it certainly was the right one. He opened the top button of his shirt, and the next one. Nimue, who had been gazing at the ceiling, seemingly at the frescos, if not for her eyes which were much too unfocused, caught the movement from out of the corner of her eye, turned to look at him, swallowed, nodded, and began to unbutton her blouse. She stopped in mid-movement, when he shook his head slightly, and observed him, visibly puzzled but attentively, as he pulled out the medallion, opened it, took out the parchment and un-shrunk it. “Do you remember,” he began, his voice slightly hoarse, “that I told you that there wasn’t a motive but a reason for my falling in love with you?”

Her hand, which had remained on the collar of her blouse, slowly came down to rest on her knee. “You didn’t call it ‘falling in love’ back then, but yes, I remember.”

“I would like to tell you about the reason now, before we… before making love.”

She frowned. “I don’t think I need to know the reason. You’re in love with me, I’m in love with you, we’ve told each other so many times…”

“Yes. But… It is something more, you see. Or rather, you will see when you’ve read this piece of parchment.”

“More? You mean, more than being in love?”

“I think so, yes,” he replied and handed her Sybil’s prophecy.

Still frowning, she took it and, after a last doubtful look at Severus, started reading. He watched her eyes flitting back and forth, and her lips moving as she deciphered the scrawl that had become so familiar to him. The parchment was trembling in her hands when she put it down. “This… this is about you and me?”

“About you and me,” he confirmed.

“But how can you be so sure that I’m the one? If this—” she tapped the parchment with her forefinger “—is correct, you shouldn’t remember the identity of… well, of your soul mate.”

So he told her the whole story—a very abridged version, because they did not have much time. “And once Yelena had told me, it all came back, bit by bit. Now I remember. And, just as the prophecy says, the trace of that encounter was always there, even before I remembered. I knew I had met Her, only her identity was unknown.”

“Did you…” Nimue bit her lip. “Don’t get me wrong, but did you mind very much that it was me?”

“I was devastated. Not because of you, but because I had to face reality. All that built-up hope and expectation had to meet reality. And somehow—don’t ask me how—you became all that. And much more. Because you, my love, are real.”

Her shoulders sagged. “I don’t think I can be all that,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his unseeingly, because they were already brimming with tears.

Severus got up and knelt down beside her chair. “You are all that and much, much more.” He cupped her chin and turned her head towards him. “Believe me, Nimue, you are. Those vague dreams and hopes had nothing to do with a woman of flesh and blood. And—” he took both her hands into his “—you must believe that this is not some fleeting infatuation. Ask Lucius, ask Minerva, ask whomever you want—I’ve never been infatuated with anybody, much less in love. This is the real thing, and I know it.”

“At least,” she said and let out a watery sigh, “you’ve given me something to worry about—Voldemort is as far from my thoughts now as humanly possible. And—” she made a brave attempt at smiling “—it will be good to know what I now know when I’m standing before him.” For a while, she remained silent. “Severus…”

“Yes?”

Nimue slowly leaned forward, to rest her head on his shoulder. “I’m so bloody afraid!”

“I would be more worried if you weren’t. Your fear will make the whole show much more convincing. Not even Voldemort would believe that, after scarcely two months in Lucius’s care, you’ve become an ardent follower.”

“But what…” She lifted her head and looked away. Her hands, though, remained between Severus’s fingers, and he could feel their tremor. “What if he kills me? If he’s very disappointed…”

“I doubt he’ll go as far as that.” On this vast sea of anxiety, Severus was clinging to a very small straw, which he now offered to her, all too aware how ridiculously fragile it was. He hoped it would carry both their weight. “He knows that Lucius is your guardian, and that he’d have to step in if Voldemort tried to seriously hurt you. It’s part of the magical contract, you know? School starts in less than a week, and he’d be hard-pressed to find another headmaster in such a small amount of time, which he would have to if Lucius defended you against him. So it might be painful, and terrifying, maybe even humiliating, but… no. I truly don’t think he’s going to attempt killing you.”

“Humiliating? Severus, you’re not implying that he… that the others might…”

The mere thought of Nimue being touched by any other man than himself made a red haze of fury obscure his sight. “I’m pretty sure that there won’t be anybody else. This is… well, private. Between Lucius and him, more or less. Call it a routine inspection. And if there are others, rest assured that Lucius will defend you if things go too far.”

She smiled and shook her head. “What has the world come to, Severus?” Mimicking his earlier movement, she unbuttoned the collar of her blouse and pulled out a silver chain, about seventeen inches long, so that the round pendant it carried was resting on her breastbone. “Look! I’ve transfigured Lucius and Narcissa’s medal into a chain, and shrunk yours, so it’s a perfect pendant.” She let the chain drop, and the coin hit a mother-of-pearl button with a soft ‘clink’. “I can’t believe it. I’m relying on Lucius Malfoy to protect me.”

“Don’t forget that you’re also sleeping with your Potions professor.”

“Yes,” she said, suddenly smiling, rose and held out her hand to him. “And I think we’d better do exactly that, shouldn’t we?”

His arm slipped around her shoulders, and together they walked towards his bedroom.

And back into time.