Never Did Run Smooth

A/N:

Words cannot express my gratitude to RedSkyAtNight for her help with the logistics for this chapter and the next.

"Come in," said Dumbledore. "I'm afraid I've been expecting you."

Rawa stood for a moment in the doorway, the letter clutched in her hand. Behind Dumbledore, Snape and McGonagall were sitting on a small sofa that Rawa didn't remember ever seeing before: the landscape of Dumbledore's office seemed subject to frequent and random changes.

"Come in," he repeated, and she entered and sat down in an armchair. She held the letter...two brief paragraphs on intimidating Home Office letterhead...out to him, and he took it and read it without speaking.

"The same thing?" asked McGonagall.

"Yes," he said.

"Albus, I've never heard of the Ministry's doing such a thing before."

"I have," he said, "but only once, and it was many years ago."

"What exactly has happened?" asked Rawa. She understood the gist of the letter, which was that her permission to stay in the UK was being terminated, but she had no idea why this was happening, or what the implications might be.

"The Ministry of Magic has requested that your visa not be renewed. Such requests are, as I said, extremely rare, and the Home Office always honors them; of course, they would be afraid not to."

"Surely there's something you can do," said McGonagall.

He shook his head. "Not directly. I can write a letter of appeal, but if they've taken this kind of action, no doubt they have some compelling motive, and they're unlikely to give much weight to a letter. In fact, given some of the people currently influencing the Ministry, a recommendation from me might do more harm than good."

"How long do I have?" asked Rawa. To her dismay, she had begun to cry, and she pressed her lips together and tried to regain control by counting the tiny dots in the paisley fabric of the armchair.

"Six more weeks, so don't make any definite plans just yet," said Dumbledore. "I think our best chance is to find some other venue where you can teach...not too far away, but outside the Ministry's jurisdiction. Ireland, perhaps, or somewhere in Scandinavia."

"Why are they doing this?"

She saw a look pass between Dumbledore and Snape, who had been quiet the whole time.

"We can't be sure," said Dumbledore. "Let me do some investigating. And in the meantime, try not to worry about it." He smiled gently. "We'll find a solution of some sort."

She crossed to the window of her room and looked out at the forest. Sorrow and anger surged in her chest, and hot tears stung behind her eyelids. She felt ambushed and foolish. She had concentrated so on protecting herself against Dark Magic that it had never occurred to her that her enemies might simply use the Muggle laws to send her away.

She rested her forehead against the cool glass, and let the tears come. Magic she could fight, but against this simple maneuver she could think of no defense. Even Dumbledore, as influential as he was, apparently could not keep her at Hogwarts if her legal permission to stay in the country was revoked. It was masterly in its simplicity.

There was a soft knock at the door, and she turned in irritation. She did not want to be with anyone. She wanted to be alone with her rage and her grief and her bitter disappointment, alone to reflect that in seven months she had been unable to stir the heart of Severus Snape, and that now in a few short weeks he would be out of her life forever. Even if they found a place for her to teach in some nearby country, Snape would be here at Hogwarts. She would never see him.

Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she opened the door to see Snape himself standing there, his tall, spare, black-robed body filling the frame. She drew in her breath sharply, inhaling his dark smoky fragrance, closing her eyes and allowing herself, for one fleeting second, to hold the scent in her nostrils and visit that place in her imagination where he was hers. The vision would not stay...the heavy reality of her impending exile pushed insistently at her thoughts...and fresh tears flooded her eyes.

She opened them, and saw Snape's impenetrable gaze regarding her. Neither spoke. He reached into a pocket of his frock coat and gravely withdrew a white handkerchief and held it out to her. She took it and pressed it briefly to her eyes.

"Shall I come in, then," he asked, "and make you some tea?"

These ingleses, they thought any tragedy or difficulty could be put right with tea. Rawa stepped back from the door and Snape came in, ducking his head to pass through the low doorway into her small kitchen.

She remembered that the button from his coat was sitting on top of her dresser, and took advantage of his occupation with the tea-making to sweep it into a drawer. Catching sight of her swollen eyes in the mirror she thought, Look at me, the one time he's here in my rooms and I look dreadful, and then with a wrenching pain, It doesn't matter. He is not mine, he will never be mine; I could look like a howler monkey for all it matters now.

They sat opposite each other over the tea, she on the little loveseat and he in the overstuffed chair.

"This is Lucius Malfoy's doing, of course," he said, pouring milk into her cup.

"I suppose it must be," she admitted. "Losing the duel must have been humiliating enough, but all the rest, too...Narcissa in Azkaban, and Voldemort angry with them both." The tea was hot, sweet, and strong, and she held the cup in both hands.

"Yes" he agreed. "But more importantly, it revealed your strength. Lucius has gone to the Dark Lord and reported that you have formidable powers of protection. He has convinced his master that you will teach those powers to others and that soon, if you are allowed to remain here, all his adversaries will be able to cast impenetrable shields, even without their wands. The thought of Dumbledore's supporters impervious to all his curses, even to Avada Kedavra, is a great threat to him."

"He could just have me killed, then, no?"

"It would seem not," he said, smiling a little. "I think they will not risk a second attempt. Besides, the Dark Lord wants you kept alive, since he believes you to be a well he can drink from periodically to strengthen himself."

She shuddered.

"And now what will happen," she said, "is that I will be removed from Hogwarts so that I cannot teach, but the time will come when he will come looking for me." Her voice was heavy with defeat.

Snape did not answer. There was a long silence as they drank their tea. Finally he set his cup down, and cleared his throat.

"There is a way." Seeming suddenly restless and ill at ease, he rose and walked to the window, facing away from her. For a long moment he looked out at the forest.

She waited.

Finally he turned and came away from the window, standing behind the chair with his hands on the headrest and looking across at her. "You could marry," he said evenly, "an English wizard."

Of all the things he might have suggested, this one had never entered her mind.

"This would make me a British citizen?"

"No, not a citizen," he said. "But it would grant you residency for an extended period."

For the briefest of moments it seemed almost plausible. Then reality intruded, and bitterness rose in her throat. She turned on Snape, her voice tight with anger and frustration.

"What are you suggesting that I do, Snape? Place an advertisement in the Prophet? 'Desperate foreign witch seeks willing partner for purposes of immigration fraud?'"

"Professor Akapana. Rawa." He paused for a moment, as if choosing his words. "I am certainly not suggesting that you do any such thing." His dark eyes were watching her intently. "I am making you an offer."

Her mouth fell open, and she sat for a moment in stunned silence. Seeing her expression, he added hastily, "It would, naturally, be a formality. I would hardly expect..."

"De acuerdo," she interrupted.

"That is, I would not...I beg your pardon?"

"Yes, Severus," she said quietly. "Of course I will marry you."

He sat back down in the chair, drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

"That's settled, then."

She looked at his lanky figure and tried to take in the fact that she had just accepted an offer of marriage from Severus Snape. She had imagined this moment so many times that now it seemed it could only be another flight of romantic fancy. Was it really possible that it might happen, that she was going to wear his ring, live with him . . . share his bed?

"Severus . . . how is it possible that the Ministry will not stop this from happening?"

He gave the barest hint of a smile. "Ah, there's the beauty of it. The Ministry doesn't locate individual witches and wizards, it locates their magic. It keeps track of particular people by setting traces on their magical activities. As long as we keep completely Muggle-side, and use no magic whatsoever, we will remain totally invisible to the Ministry." The smile deepened a little. "It has a certain poetic justice to it, don't you agree?"

"And the . . . the amonestaciones? The . . . " She paused, searching in vain for the correct words. "The legal papeleo? The Ministry won't intercept them somehow?

He shook his head. "Again, no, not if it's all done through Muggle channels. It's perfectly legal for witches and wizards to be married in Muggle churches by Muggle clergy...mixed couples do it all the time. But it's almost unheard of for a witch and wizard together to have a non-magical wedding."

"So the Ministry will not know until it's too late, is that the idea?"

"In essence, yes. What's more, even if they suspect that you might make a hasty marriage in order to stay in the country, it will not have occurred to them that I am the one you will be marrying, so they will not be watching my movements. However, I should imagine they will be keeping a fairly close eye on Sirius Black."

His lip twitched in the familiar sardonic half-smile, but his black eyes, fixed intently on her, were not smiling.

She colored slightly and looked away, but said nothing. After a moment he went on, abruptly businesslike. "As it happens, I know someone, a clergyman, from when I was . . . from long ago. He can arrange the paperwork and perform the ceremony. But he's some distance from here, and we'll have to use Muggle transport...no Apparition or brooms or what have you. It will take us about five hours to get there. We should move as quickly as possible."

"Tomorrow, then?" Her throat was dry.

He nodded, pulling a folded paper from an inside pocket and opening it before him on the table. "Tomorrow. The first train leaves Hogsmeade for Glasgow at 8:10 a.m. From there we take another train to Manchester...there's one change...and at Manchester Piccadilly, a bus to Ashton Road. Then it's about a five-minute walk to the church."

It occurred to Rawa that he must have spent the half-hour between the meeting in Dumbledore's office and his arrival at her door making arrangements and checking train timetables. Either that, or this eventuality had been on his mind for some time.

"And after the ceremony?" she asked. She could not quite bring herself to say the word wedding aloud.

"We can stay the night at my house...it's not far from the church."

"You have a house in Manchester?" Somehow she had not thought of Snape as having a life anywhere outside of Hogwarts.

"Yes. It's nothing much...my childhood home." The words had an ironic edge, and his mouth made a small involuntary grimace of distaste.

"And we would come back here on Sunday?"

"Yes."

"And live . . . where?" Her cozy little rooms were not big enough for two, at least not without considerable magical expansion. Would he want her to share his apartment?

"Well, ah, that's a bit of a problem." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "The marriage must remain an absolute secret until your residency papers arrive, which may take several weeks. We cannot risk the Ministry finding out before the whole business is a fait accompli."

"So we will return here, and resume our separate lives como si nada."

"For the time being, yes." He shot her a sharp unreadable glance. "Tomorrow morning, then?"

"Agreed," she said, nodding. "And . . . Severus?"

"Yes?"

"I have a ring, if you will desire to wear it."

Rising from her seat, she crossed to the dresser and took a small box from the top drawer. The ring that she held out to him was a thick band of soft yellow gold, with seven emeralds spaced around it, set deep into the metal so that their unfaceted surfaces were flush with the smooth surface of the band. The overall effect was slightly primitive in its simple, imperfect symmetry.

Snape took the ring from her, and slipped it tentatively onto the third finger of his left hand, where the emeralds gleamed darkly in the slanting late-afternoon rays from the window. Her heart gave a little lurch: how many times had she imagined that ring on that finger?

He looked at her. "There is a feeling of great power about this ring," he said. "What is its provenance, if I may ask?"

She sat down on the corner of the low table, facing him. "It was the ring of Pachakutiq Inka Yupanqui, one of the last of the Inkas, the Inca kings. The emeralds are said to represent each of the lands he took from the Aymara and the Chanca."

He raised an eyebrow. "And you came by it . . . ?"

"All the Inca gold in the altiplano belongs to us, to the remaining layqa families," she said. "The Inkas were all magos."

He looked at the ring for a moment longer, then slid it off his finger, placed it in her palm, and folded her fingers over it. The touch of his skin against hers sent a jolt of desire through her like an electric shock. Kiss me, she thought, leaning in slightly towards him. If we are to be married, surely you will kiss me now.

Instead he released her hand, saying, "I shall bring a ring for you as well, of course, though I must say it will be much humbler than that one." He rose and walked to the door, then turned, his hand on the doorknob.

"Eight o'clock, then, at Hogsmeade station. We would do better to arrive there separately, I think."

And he was gone, the door closing with a soft click behind him.

Well.

She moved about the rooms like a sleepwalker, collecting a few changes of clothing and packing them into a small carpetbag, her head a whirlwind of thoughts. Tomorrow! Tomorrow night she would be wife to Severus Snape, would lie naked with him in the house where he grew up, would feel the touch of his hands, taste his mouth . . . could it possibly be happening? She could not think beyond that point, to the prospect of actual married life, of everyday domestic intimacy. Her thoughts refused to venture further than that first night together. Night after night she had lain awake in her bed, imagining her body in his arms, the feel of his hands on her skin . . . the realization of that vision now loomed so large that it was impossible for her mind's eye to see beyond it.

At the edge of her consciousness was a small, nagging voice of doubt that said, He does not have the same vision of this marriage as you. It is a practical bargain for him, a way to gain advantage in the struggle against the Dark Lord. She tried not to dwell on this thought, not to wonder what he had been on the verge of saying when she had cut him off to accept his proposal. A caballo regalado, she thought stubbornly.

She was brought back to the present by a muffled crack! followed by a knock low on the door, and she answered it to find a house-elf standing there with clasped hands.

"Please, miss, Professor Snape has sent Morven for your bags, miss. I'm to take them up to Spinner's End so you won't be needing to carry them on the train."

"Oh." She fetched the carpetbag. "I have only the one. Thank you, Morven."

"A pleasure, miss." He smiled and bobbed his head.

"You'll be going to Spinner's End tonight?"

"Yes, miss. Morven is to take the bags, and tidy up Professor Snape's house, and have a meal ready for tomorrow."

"Yes. Well. Thank you, then, Morven. I expect I will see you there."

"Oh, no, miss. Professor Snape was quite plain, Morven is to be finished and gone by the time you arrive."

"Ah . . . Professor Snape has told you the details of our visit?" She was surprised.

"Oh, yes, miss. No need to worry yourself, miss, Morven is most discreet." There was a loud crack! and he vanished.

She stood for a moment. It was really happening, then. Tomorrow.

The troublesome voice intruded again. A formality, he said. His is a vision not of passion but of practicality. He is dreaming at this moment not of your nakedness, but of Voldemort conquered. You do not wish this to be the truth, but it is. She pushed the thought aside, but knew it was unlikely to let her sleep undisturbed.

In the kitchen, she washed the tea things, and prepared a sleeping-draught infusion of mango bark and sacred lotus. Undressing for bed, she saw that she had left Snape's handkerchief on her dresser. She picked it up and ran her finger across the single embroidered S, then held the scrap of cloth to her face and inhaled again that smoky fragrance that made her pulse quicken. I love him, she thought, and that will have to be enough.

Still clutching the handkerchief, she told the mirror to wake her at six-thirty, then climbed into bed and fell asleep straight away.