Cherry and Unicorn Hair

Disclaimer: Except for an OC, the characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of JK Rowling.

"Are you sure you can't come with me, darling?"

The summer had moved through July. The Snapes adjusted to married life and to their jobs. Severus's assistants made headway on the Potions work they had missed during their non-existent seventh year, and he made a little profit in the process. Katherine found several more black market vendors of Ollivander's wands and returned the merchandise to its proper proprietor. His gratitude added to the family vault at Gringotts as well.

On this particular day, Katherine was going to visit Uncle Sonny. For some reason, whenever she went, Severus had something else to do. There was either a visit to the Ministry that could not be put off or potions ingredients that only he could harvest for his own use and must be done at that exact phase of the moon.

He sat up and placed his cup into its saucer with a definitive clank. "I'm sorry, my love, but Potter's potion is at a ticklish point, and if I'm not there, Granger and Weasley will snog while the Calming Draught they're supposed to make boils over. I promise...I'll come sometime."

She stood and walked over to kiss him. "I hope so. At this point, he's starting to think you're scared of him. I can't imagine how that could be. After all, you handled the Tedious One and all of his manifestations so brilliantly."

He chose to change the subject. "What else are you doing today?"

"It's a rather ticklish point, but I'm planning to go to one of Uncle Sonny's old hangouts. There are rumors that a wizard out there has acquired an odd assortment of items he's reselling for cut rates. I believe he's going to be giving them away before I'm done with him."

"Do be careful. I'm used to seeing your face over my breakfast coffee, you know." He made her kiss him again before letting her go on her way.

Katherine never made it to the coastal town that day. When she arrived at the hospital, she found her uncle speaking with an older woman who wore green robes. Her hat appeared to have...good heavens it really was a vulture looking down from it.

"Here she is now," Uncle Sonny was saying. "Katherine, come meet Augusta Longbottom."

"How do you do, Mrs. Longbottom?" said Katherine, holding out her hand.

"Quite well, Mrs. Snape," answered the older witch, "and I don't have to ask to learn how you are. You've made quite a name for yourself."

"I hope it's a good one," Katherine answered.

"You'll need to be as old as I am to know for sure," Augusta answered.

"Gussy has a bit of a thing I thought you could help with," interjected Uncle Sonny.

Mrs. Longbottom waved her hand. "Actually, it's something my grandson is working on. Sonny here thinks you can help my Neville."

Katherine smiled. "I'll do my best."

"There he is now." Katherine looked up into the eyes of a confident young man and shook his hand. With his other hand, he held a package, which he opened as he described what he wanted to do. She looked with awe at the contents and, after a few minutes conversation, agreed to go to Diagon Alley with him.

"I hear you have a young admirer," said Severus as Fern was clearing up the pudding that night.

"No such luck." Katherine could never decide whether the candles on the table lent a glow to his eyes or whether his eyes somehow kindled the flames of the candles. He was so different from the first night they dined together. For a moment on that occasion, it had seemed there was no light in his face at all, let alone his eyes.

"I'm sure it was true," he persisted. "I heard all about it at the apothecary and at Gringott's."

"Whatever can you be going on about?" She tried her most winning smile.

He stood and walked around to her side of the table. He slid her chair out and leaned down to whisper into her ear.

"I was told by no fewer than five people that you were seen with Neville Longbottom. Are you going to tell me what that was all about?" His fingers were on her shoulders, working at the neckline of her robes.

"I can't think," she answered. "It all runs together when you do...that."

"I'll stop, then," he said. He moved around to where he could look her in the face. "What am I supposed to think?"

It echoed oddly in her head and her face went white. She licked her lips and looked him in the eye. "It was a favor for Uncle Sonny and Augusta Longbottom, Severus. The boy was working on some project, and they wanted me to help." There was a pleading tone in her voice as she finished. She couldn't hold his gaze and looked down. She saw her husband's hands clench in a way she'd only seen once before.

Severus was struggling with a memory of his own. "Katherine, please look at me." She tilted her eyes toward him but kept her face lowered. "Which of them was it?" She looked the rest of the way up at the gentler tone in his voice. Her mouth opened and shut as she looked at him in confusion. "Darling, I can see in your eyes that I reminded you of your father or Cyrus. One of them was jealous as well as everything else."

"Dad was too drunk to notice if Mum took ten lovers, not that she would." She gasped at what she had said and covered her mouth with her hand. He didn't need Legilimency to understand how her first husband had handled his suspicions.

"My poor darling..." He lifted her to her feet and walked her to their bedroom. They sat on the bed, and he held her in his arms. "If I could bring him back to life, I would use every Unforgivable there is as well as some spells of my own on him."

"You know I would never..."

"Of course not. Your loyal Hufflepuff soul is incapable of something like that. You were even faithful to him, weren't you?"

She nodded against his chest.

"Besides, if I truly suspected you, I would be a Slytherin about it and find the proof before saying anything to you."

She looked up in some surprise.

He snorted and kissed her. "Neville Longbottom, indeed."

"He did make me wish..." She blushed and stopped talking.

He became very still. "Don't tell me you actually entertained thoughts of..."

"Oh, no! Not that, Severus!" She shrugged. "He made me think of my poor little Sonny, who would be sixteen, now."

"All you need to do is go to St. Mungo's. The Healers there will tell you whether it's possible."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"It's my one last hope. If they say it's impossible, then I won't have that hope any more."

"But perhaps it's something they can fix easily. You don't want that?"

"I would love that, but the risk of losing that last hope is too great."

He hid his sigh and caressed her hair from her face. "You can't wait forever. There's no telling what those Muggle doctors did to you."

She shrugged again and he continued gently touching her until she relaxed in his arms.

Severus came home with a headache one day the next week to an odd sound from the drawing room. It was loud and somewhat musical but seemed to involve a certain amount of stops and starts and cursing. He arrived in the room to see his wife seated at a baby grand piano. He looked over her shoulder to see Mozart on the music rack.

"Are you serious?" He managed to slide it in between a stop and a start when there was no cursing.

She looked up in sheepish delight. "Yes. I always wanted one. I could never afford it, and then when I could, there was no room."

"Do you play?"

"Not really. This is actually one of my better pieces. When we have parties, we'll hire someone," she added quickly.

"Well, all right then. It doesn't seem to interfere with our carefully negotiated scheme for this room, so I guess it's acceptable." He turned to wander down the hall as his wife regarded him carefully, her head twisted to the side.

"Severus?" she asked softly.

He came back with a sigh. "Yes, Katherine, what can I do for you?"

"What is it?"

"What is what?"

She stood and walked toward him. "You're not yourself right now. Something's wrong or has happened. Are you feeling all right?" She reached her hand to touch his face.

He pulled away from her and turned around back down the hall, muttering grumpily.

Her head snapped around. "Whose birthday did you say it was?" He had disappeared through the bedroom door. She followed him. "Severus, whose birthday is it? Should we celebrate it?"

He came stomping out of the bathroom. "Oh, yes, let's celebrate the start of a life I ended four hundred and three days ago. What a delight!" He winced at the pain his own hollering caused. He pulled a dressing gown out of his wardrobe and stomped back into the bathroom.

She wasn't sure how to handle this. Usually her affairs ended long before anyone expressed these sorts of feelings. Severus had been so good about caring for her during vulnerable moments. Surely she could do the same for him. Katherine felt for her wand and squared her shoulders. She took a deep breath and followed him. "It's Dumbledore's birthday, today?"

He yanked his outerwear off and sighed in exasperation. "Yes, my dear, it's Dumbledore's birthday," he said sarcastically. He saw her face and turned away in bitterness, only to come face to face with the vanity mirror. "I don't want your sympathy. I certainly don't want your pity."

"What about my love?" she asked quietly.

He looked at her reflection, his mouth working without sound. They stood that way for several minutes. His mind worked frantically, trying to decipher what she was offering and how he could accept it. She simply waited, moving slowly toward him until she was able to grasp his arm.

She had no idea what to do. There was no spell or defensive technique that fit the circumstance. Taking a wild guess, she gently pulled him back toward the bedroom. "If it's your pain, it's my pain too, Severus. I can't experience it or change it, but there must be some way I can help you to bear it."

"I can't."

"Suppose we just rest together." She sat against a pile of pillows at the headboard and made him follow her. "Suppose we just relax like this." She pulled his head into her arms. "I'll rub your shoulders for you. Maybe it will help. Maybe you can tell me about it."

"You can't make this go away." It came from his lips petulantly.

She continued as if she hadn't heard him. "Or maybe we'll just stay like this until it's not today any longer, and we can leave it alone until next year." She dropped a kiss on the top of his head, and suddenly, some fierce instinct rose up within her. She would do anything to comfort this man and to protect him from the memories that tormented him. She was surprised by the strength of this feeling. From where it was tucked within her sleeve, she could feel her wand tremble with her emotion. She hugged him tightly.

They stayed like that for quite a while. At first he fumed, but she wouldn't let him go. Once the words started coming, he couldn't stop them.

"I tried, you know. I read for hours, night after night, looking for just the right potion or charm. I sought Healing texts from other schools of thought, other traditions of magic and Healing, but there was nothing of use. The old manipulator sat serenely through it all, simply giving me directions of ways to help him and the boy, both at the time and afterwards. The Dark Lord kept at me with his demands, too."

"Were you expected to win the entire war, just by yourself? From both sides?"

"It was always that way, since I took the prophecy as I knew it to the Dark Lord, and he decided it was about Lily's son. I've been working hard on both sides, looking for the edge and giving it to one master, to his delight. All the time I knew I would have to go to my other master and find a way to get a leg up on that for him. Round and round, endlessly."

"It's over now."

"Why did it have to be by my hand, with my wand on the tower that night?"

"I don't know, my love."

"Do you think he forgives me?"

"I'm sure he does, since he wanted you to do it. Can you forgive him for that?"

"I don't know." He fell quiet again. After a while, his breath became hot and sticky through her blouse. "Katherine?"

He looked into her face, and she could see his hunger and need. He had never been this vulnerable with her before. She wasn't sure if she knew the right way to do what he was asking for, but she knew she had to try.

Placing one hand on each side of his face, she kissed him, trying to be as gentle with him as he had been with her just the other night. He groaned and nestled more snugly into the comfort of her body. Emboldened by this success, Katherine carefully caressed her husband and covered him with soft kisses. His need for her intensified, and he kissed her with greater demand. She gently undressed him and then quickly undressed herself. Soon she was holding him and listening as he rasped out incoherent words and phrases that grew to a roar. Then all was still.

Severus rolled to his side and looked at his wife. He brushed his hair from his face and looked at her. "That wasn't all it might have been for you." He traced with his knuckles along her hairline.

She smiled and shook her head. "It wasn't important just now."

"It's important to me. I promised myself, before we married, that I would not leave you wanting. I don't want to be like the others..."

She put a finger on his lips. "The others are a distant memory for me, just as I hope your others are for you?" His answer was to kiss her finger. "This one time, you weren't in charge. It was about what you needed."

He rolled over atop of her, perched on his hands and knees. "Is it still about what I need?" he asked, leaning in to kiss her.

"Yes." She smiled up at him, wondering what he was thinking.

He scooped her up and rolled over so that she was on top. "I need to do this some more until we get it right."

"You're in charge now," she said, looping her arms around his neck.

The next morning, Severus was sipping his coffee and reading his paper when he looked up to see his wife standing expectantly at the door of the dining room. She had a soft smile in her eyes, and she was wearing those clothes he could never look at without remembering the first time he had helped her out of them. She ruined the effect by glancing toward the hallway.

"Well?" he growled. "If you have a plan, you had best be about it. The dunderheads will be downstairs within the hour."

"Actually, there's a dun...that is, a former student of yours right here, hoping you will see him."

He smiled sardonically, an impish streak taking hold of him. "Don't tell me. Longbottom has developed a serious crush on you and wishes to duel me for your hand."

"Severus!" Katherine's eyes grew wide as she hissed his name.

"If you are that set on him, my dear, just tell me," he chuckled. "He became quite skilled at defense last year. Perhaps he could get lucky today. You're all in black, which could be my color, unless you have something lacy and red on underneath."

She covered her eyes with her hand. "Oh, you're going to regret this."

"Something cool and green in satin?" He became more serious. "Well, be about it, whatever it is."

She sighed and beckoned into the hallway and was quickly joined in the dining room by the object of his misplaced amusement.

"Longbottom!"

The boy was red in the face, but nevertheless met his eye. "Er, yes, sir."

Snape recovered his composure first and looked up to be met by the raised eyebrow of his wife.

"I take it you're not here to fight over my wife."

The boy was quick to answer. "Oh, no, sir. Never!"

He tilted his head, considering the younger wizard. "What's wrong with my wife? Isn't she pretty enough?"

The boy swallowed carefully. "Yes, sir, very pretty."

"Ah, so you do admire her."

"Of course, sir." At Snape's raised eyebrow, Neville hastened to add, "I mean, not that way, sir!"

His voice became silky as he started to enjoy himself. "Then how do you admire my wife, Longbottom?"

"Besides that she's pretty, she fought with us during the battle, sir, and she's friendly and... Well, she married you, sir. Everyone admires her for that."

That was a bit of a surprise. It made him quiet long enough for Katherine to break into the conversation. "Really, Severus, you needn't discuss me as if I were chattel," she drawled. "Even for a wizard that's quite passé. Suppose you let Neville show you what he brought. Give him the box, Neville."

He was speechless as he stared down at the contents of the opened box. "For me?" he said.

"I just felt that I should share it with you, sir," answered Neville. "Mrs. Snape helped me with sizes and everything."

Severus reached his hand out, and suddenly, Katherine was beside him to hold it. He swallowed hard. "You can't imagine," he started. He cleared his throat. "You can't imagine what it was like to be called to his side, time after time, to stare into his eyes and into the eyes of the one creature he loved, if love is the correct word. You can't imagine what it was like to see the two together and to watch the things they did." He clenched his wife's hand within his own and kissed it. "You can't imagine what it was like to hear that both were dead, and one by your hand, Longbottom. This is..."

"You're welcome, Professor."

He looked at his wife. "This is what you were doing last week."

She smiled. "Guilty."

His look turned rueful. "The things I said, what I implied..."

She shook her head. "It's done with, and perhaps we needed to say those things in the long run." He looked into her eyes as she smiled up to him. After a minute he smiled back and pulled her close.

The younger wizard took quietly his leave as the two elders appeared lost in silent communication.

Thank you to beta reader Trickie Woo.