Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Without quite knowing how he got there, Severus found himself back in his room, panting with shock, embarrassment, and anger. To his consternation, Narcissa followed him in.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed. "Get out."

"Ooh, Severus," she said, opening her eyes wide like a caricature of a stage ingénue. "Why did you leave? The show was just getting interesting."

"She saw me!" Severus raged. "Damn it all, I was watching, and Minerva saw me!"

"Of course she did. She wanted you to watch, they both did. Why do you think they made so much noise and left their door open? She's a witch, don't forget. If she hadn't wanted you to hear, you wouldn't have."

Severus knew he was gaping, but he couldn't help himself. "They wanted...?"

"You to watch, yes. They like to be watched. And to watch others, when the opportunity presents itself. It comes of being on the stage, I think," she went on, reflectively. "Something about life as a performance."

"Spare me the philosophy of perversion," Severus snapped. "Are you telling me that I will be expected to perform...sexual acts for them?"

"Not unless you want to." Narcissa tilted her head speculatively and then dimpled. "Severus, you're not a virgin, are you?"

He was not, as it happened, though he had no intention of discussing the issue with her. He'd had exactly two sexual experiences – involving other people, that is, and not counting the youthful experimentation that had been part of the Primrose Academy fagging system. Neither encounter had been particularly satisfying, although one had been...acceptable.

The first had taken place two years earlier, when his colleague Fellowes had cajoled him into going on an "adventure" to the East End. They'd ended up with two Cockney streetwalkers in an alley off Hanbury Street. Severus had been uncomfortably aware that just a few years before, one of the Ripper's victims had been killed not far from where they stood, but the women had not seemed to mind. Or if they had, they had not said so. And what could they have said, anyway? They had to eat, murders or no murders, and the shock of even those terrible killings had not changed the world sufficiently to offer them a less perilous way to make their livings.

So Severus had had rather pathetic sex against a rough wall damp with the fog that swirled endlessly round them, his nose full of the scent of offal from a nearby butcher's. The position had been an awkward one, and he didn't think he'd even actually penetrated the girl; she'd had him spend himself just by rutting between her thighs.

It wasn't an experience that left him with a very high opinion of sex, though his cock still insisted on jumping to life with maddening frequency. But Fellowes assured him that the Hanbury Street encounter had not been typical and had urged him to another attempt, this time in an actual brothel with a proper bed. The prossie had been young and giggly and kind in her own way, and, in talking later to Fellowes, Severus had allowed that the encounter had not been unpleasant.

But he had never had sex with a woman who might actually want him, an older woman like Minerva, someone sure of her own mind – a woman whom he realised that he very much wanted in return.

He'd thrust the word "perversion" at Narcissa, and thought that what the Riddles did in bed probably qualified as such, but he wasn't actually put off by the idea. On the contrary, he found himself quite intrigued indeed.

He came back from his reverie to find Narcissa still looking at him, a faint smile on her smooth face. Part of him wanted to sneer something cutting at her, so that he could recover his tattered dignity. But another part simply wanted to talk to her; he suddenly had more questions than he knew how to ask.

"You seem well-versed in the Riddles' bedroom habits," he said, making sure to include no note of censure in his voice. "Do you...er...lie with him?"

Narcissa smiled and touched her blonde plaits. "'Lie' with him? Aren't you quaint?" she said. "Yes, I 'lie' with him. With her, too. With both of them together, usually. But they don't require it of me, if that's what you're thinking. It's not the melodramatic price I pay for their protection, or anything of that nature. I do it because I want to."

She had sex with Minerva?

Severus had known, of course, that people could engage in carnal activities with members of their own sex; he'd seen plenty of examples at Primrose...at least involving males. He supposed he'd known, too, that women could behave similarly. In theory.

Yet never had he given the practicalities a thought; he'd never even considered what women might actually do together. Now, however, he found his mind suddenly filled with visions of blonde hair and black, mingled on a single pillow, of two sets of pale limbs, entangled...

With a snarl of annoyance – at Narcissa, at himself, at the world, at his bloody damn cock, which was hard again – he stalked away (a trifle awkwardly) to stare out the window into the darkness.

"Since you're being free with information about what you want," he growled at Narcissa, "suppose you explain just what it is you want now? Why are you in my room?"

"Do you wish me to leave?" she countered.

"What I wish is to be given some explanations! Why do you really stay with the Riddles? How did you really come to know them? And why did they really leave their magical world?"

Narcissa looked at him consideringly, and he could see her come to a decision.

"Sit down, Severus," she said. "If you want to hear my story, we might as well be comfortable."

There were two armchairs in front of the fire, and they settled into them. Severus refreshed the flames with his wand and watched their light flicker across Narcissa's pale face. She looked fragile in the shadowy glow, but he knew better than to think her weak.

"I told you that I left school at fifteen," she began, "and so I did. As you might imagine, there were not many opportunities available to an untrained girl whose only assets, at least as far as the world was concerned, were her face and figure. I ended up in a brothel, of course – but a good one. I had the looks and the education to do well in a high-class establishment, and I developed quite a bit of skill. Madam Rosmerta, who ran the house, thought I might even be able to make a reasonable marriage eventually."

She was neither boasting nor apologising, Severus realised; she was merely presenting the facts of a business, one at which she apparently had been fairly successful.

"Then one night," Narcissa went on, "Tom Riddle was one of the patrons. He recognised my magic, and, well, I think you can guess the rest. He offered to train me and help me find my rightful place in the magical world, and I accepted."

"Yes, but," Severus objected, "you aren't in the magical world, are you? And neither are Tom and Minerva. It can't just be for the money; they look to have made a pile by now."

Narcissa leant forward. "Here's where things get complicated. Something happened in the wizarding world, but I don't know what. I still see Madam Rosmerta occasionally – she's magical; she's the one who told Tom about me in the first place – and she's let slip a few things. There were some disappearances or something, I don't know. Artefacts missing. People apparently cursed into stealing or smuggling things.  Tom was suspected.  And it seems there was some difficulty at Hogwarts." She looked at Severus a bit uncertainly. "You've heard of Hogwarts?"

He nodded.

"It's where they met," Narcissa explained. "Tom and Minerva. They were students there together. They didn't actually like each other at first, because they were both the smartest members of their houses and were always competing for top honours, but eventually they came to realise that they were simply meant for each other."

She gave a little sigh, and Severus saw that underneath that cool, imperturbable exterior beat the heart of a romantic.

"But they seem..." Severus searched for tactful words and settled on "so very different."

Which was an understatement, to say the least: Minerva reserved, upright, and severe; Riddle flamboyant, mercurial, and no doubt dangerous. He didn't understand what could draw them together...but on the other hand, he had to admit, their attraction to one another was palpable.

Like Minerva, Narcissa possessed expressive eyebrows, and she raised one now. "On the surface, they are different, perhaps. But there are hidden depths to both of them, hidden darknesses. I don't make the mistake of thinking I really know them."

The unspoken warning, of course, was that Severus should not make that mistake, either, not that he had any intention of doing so. But still, he didn't object to learning more details.

"They are truly married?" he asked.

"You mean, married in the Muggle way?" Narcissa's shrug was eloquent in its unconcern. "I have no idea. But they are magically bonded, I do know that – a particularly complicated form of bond. It's why Minerva's family disowned her. She's a pureblood, of excellent lineage, according to Madam Rosmerta, and of course her parents expected her to make a brilliant match. And Tom is just an orphan with no family at all. But once Minerva willingly performed the bonding ceremony with him, any other match was impossible."

"Magically bonded?" The notion sounded horrifying to Severus. "What does that mean?"

"Why, that they cannot be parted."

"They have to stay in the same physical space at all times?"

Narcissa laughed. "Of course not, silly. But they are emotionally connected. After she bonded with Tom, if Minerva's parents had tried to force her to marry someone else, she would have withered and eventually died. And the people who parted her from Tom would also die. As I said, it is a very complicated bond. So Minerva's family was furious, and they refused to have anything further to do with her."

"These bonds," said Severus, still disturbed by the idea. "They can never be severed?"

"Oh, they can. But it's difficult, and both people must genuinely wish to. I do not believe that Tom and Minerva will ever wish to. In everything, she always chooses him. And he always chooses her."

Whether she heard the wistfulness in her tone, Severus could not tell. She loved them, he realised. They'd become her family. Or something.

"Anyway," Narcissa was saying, "after Minerva's parents cast her off, she and Beckley – for he is her own house-elf, left her by her grandmother – took up residence with Tom, and Tom went to work for Bourgin and Burke, a magical firm. But somehow he lost his position there, and Minerva had to earn their living by teaching at Hogwarts. She had to keep their bonding a secret, because of course the school would not engage a bonded woman as a teacher. Everything worked out for several years, apparently. I think Minerva enjoyed teaching."

"Why did she leave? Because of what happened with Tom?"

"Yes, whatever that was about; I'm not certain. As I said, Tom got into some trouble at Hogwarts, and his bond with Minerva was found out, and she was dismissed, and there was more trouble, and well...the wizarding world is no longer safe for the Riddles. They tried to go back several years ago, Madam Rosmerta says, but they had to leave again. I suspect some of it is to do with Tom's beliefs about Muggles."

"What beliefs?" asked Severus, though he thought he already had a good idea. Riddle made no secret of his disdain for Muggles nor of his conviction that it was wizards, not non-magical folk, who should rule the British Empire.

"Oh, he thinks Muggles should all be shipped off somewhere," Narcissa said, shrugging again. "I don't listen too carefully, frankly. Of course Muggles aren't as significant in the grand scheme of things as wizards, but they have their uses. Better just to teach them their place than to try to move them."

"Hmmm." Severus was deliberately non-committal; political machinations held little interest for him. His only real political concern was with the sovereign entity that was Severus Snape. And just now, he needed to know where he fit into this Republic of Riddle.

"How long have you been with the act?" he asked Narcissa.

"Six years. We've toured everywhere in the Empire; you'll enjoy it."

"What about Minerva?" he asked, with what he trusted was the right note of casualness. He preferred to keep himself to himself; no need to telegraph to Narcissa the fact that he found Minerva desirable. "Does she ever take the stage?"

"No. She doesn't consider it seemly for a woman of her age and position. She does the props and costumes; she's expert at Transfiguration, as you know. And she's the one who arranges our bookings. Some of the agencies and managers don't want to deal with her; they'd prefer to negotiate with a man, but she's insistent, and in the end, they all give in."

Severus had no doubt of it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He lay awake long after Narcissa had returned to her own room, reliving the entire bizarre evening in his mind. He supposed he should feel more affected by the news that Narcissa had been a whore and Tom Riddle was some sort of criminal, but he found that he couldn't get very exercised about these facts. He couldn't see how either situation would affect him: he could protect himself from Riddle well enough, and the wizarding world was evidently willing to let Tom alone as long as he continued his Muggle exile. As for Narcissa, well...as far as Severus was concerned, her past life was her own.

Of more importance to him at the moment was the question of what – if anything – he should say to Minerva in the morning. She'd seen him watching her; according to Narcissa, she'd wanted him to watch. Why? What was he expected to do? What did she want from him? She must have felt the spark that sometimes ignited between the two of them: was she trying to tantalise him? Make him jealous? Laugh at him?

This last thought forced him out of bed; he knew he'd get no sleep this night. Instead, he paced through the ground floor of the Muggle house, threading his way through the fussy, over-furnished rooms, idly turning over the few books he found there (these ridiculous Muggles apparently read nothing but Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management and The Gardener's Assistant). But mostly, he tried not to think about Minerva and Tom Riddle, asleep together now (or so he assumed) just a few feet above his head.

In the end, he decided to say nothing. If Minerva had wanted him to see her in bed...well, he had seen her. The next move was up to her.