Part Second: The Hart Rampant: Chapter 14

Part Second: The Hart Rampant

"Why do your locks and rumpled clothes show

that more than usual sleep has made them so?

Why are the kisses that he gave betrayed

by the impression that his teeth have made?"

– Ovid, "Metamorphoses"

Chapter 14:

Emily had a long, luxurious lie-in at the Hogsmeade hotel that Saturday morning, not wanting to get out of bed or shower, as the scent of Lucius was still fresh on her skin. At long last, late that morning, she got up to return the room to its usual state of china-candelabra-ed, rose-and-scroll quilted homey-ness, and retrieve the vacation photographs of Brisbane from under the bed. Wrapping herself in a robe, she then phoned down to the landlady to have some lunch sent up from the Three Broomsticks next door. Finally, she retrieved a black leather briefcase from her Holding Trunk, took out a laptop computer, and dialled up access to the Internet. Emily had told Dumbledore that she was staying in the village in order to use her computer, so now she was going to do it.

She went to the Barclays Bank website and moved some funds between her treasury deposit account and her cheque account. Point, click, yawn. Then:

You have 1 new messages, said her free mail account.

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To: emilyswain@yahoo.co.uk

From: root@netwraith.com

Subject: REVEL

Date: 11/27/94 1:37 AM GMT

Hello Emily,

It was great to see you at Smaug's LAN party last weekend! CUSFS and Tolkien Society haven't been the same since you left. Drop by whenever you can, if they let you have time off from "Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts... " (I always used to sing the school song to "Ode to Joy" – it really goes pretty well.)

Regarding the next revel – Megan the Red let me know 'tother day that the official word is that it'll be June 22nd. Details/location on the website – you can still use the old URL. I've been changing the Unspiderable spells on it every few weeks, so the Muggle search bots haven't managed to find it. Ain't I clever ;-D

As for Beltane – nothing organised that I know of yet, but you can probably ask around and find something. I'm not too motivated to find out because when you've been single long enough, those love 'n fertility holidays just look pretty grim.

I ran into Alain Collier at Slimelight awhile ago and he told me that most of the dandelion-wine contingent from Beauxbatons that's still around will be at the 6/22 bash. I'm hoping to make it if work permits, but I'll probably be shackled to my pager.

Send my respects to the royals, Buckminster & Elaine, Corvus & Eithne, Bill & Mary & the cublets too. And tell Catherine I said hi if you see her before the 22nd :-D

Regards,

Raith

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To: root@netwraith.com

From: emilyswain@yahoo.co.uk

Subject: Re: REVEL

Date: 1/23/95 11:37 AM GMT

Dear Aelfraith,

So, how's things down at Shady Cellar Server Farm?

Sorry for the late reply – the only Net access I have currently is dialup down in the village :-( What do you think my chances are of getting Albus Dumbledore to put in a computer lab and T-1 line sometime soon?

Thanks for letting me know about the Circle – I will definitely be there 6/22. Looking forward to it!

I'm thinking I might observe Beltane alone, however. You're right – it's pretty grim when there's no one to share it with.

I'll also definitely try to make some more CU Societies' meets as well. What you said about how the social whirl around Hogwarts only really whirling for the crowd that goes out for butterbeer and chocolate frogs is proving disturbingly true.

"Ode to Joy," eh? I'll have to try that ;-D

Cheers,

Emily

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Emily was back at Hogwarts by Sunday afternoon, but got up very early the following Monday morning, to jot down a short note:

Darling –

I don't want another seventeen minutes to go by until I can see you again.

So, what's on your To Do list for this weekend, and how can I get on it?

Like Lucius, she neither used his name, nor signed her own to this billet-doux, and instead of going to the Hogwarts Owlery for a school owl, she walked down to the Hogsmeade post office early that morning, before breakfast, and posted her letter to Lucius Malfoy's office address:

Mr. Lucius Malfoy

C/O Ministry of Magic

London

Personal and Confidential

To Be Delivered to Addressee Only

As she hurried back up to the castle, she could feel her palms sweating and stomach shivering with unbearable, furtive excitement.

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Emily's classes had gone especially well that Monday, the satisfaction of which (combined with the satisfaction of remembering her night with Lucius) left her in a giddy mood by the time she arrived for her training session with Professor Snape that evening at seven p.m. She dawdled a bit getting ready, and resultantly, he arrived at the practice studio well before she did.

"You're late – it's seven-oh-nine," he growled when she came in, not looking up from where he had been practicing straight lunges against a cork target mounted on the wall. No doubt he had been waiting since 6:52 or so and was now terribly put out about it. She smiled sarcastically at him – Oh, look, the sunshine in my life has returned.

"Hello, Professor. It's good to see you too," she said, breezing past him as though his greeting had been a perfectly civil one.

"What are you so bloody happy about?" he asked, taking another lunge at the target.

"Orla Quirke successfully Obscured one of her earrings today, without her wand... She's my nineteenth student to create a functional Mot de Puissance now. I am so good. Yes!" She triumphantly threw her arms up in the air.

"Modest, too," Snape observed, taking a particularly vicious hit against the target.

She smiled sweetly at him. "Could this possibly have something to do with the fact that only two of them are in your House?"

Snape glanced at her work table, still partially covered with parchment essay scrolls. "So tell me – how is that grading coming along?" he asked in his silkiest tones.

Emily scowled. "Are you about warmed up?"

"Yes, so can we actually get started?"

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Emily could immediately tell that Snape had been practicing both lunges and parries over the weekend – his bladework was already more authoritative. She spent the first twenty minutes going over lunges and parries and then moved on to riposte and counter-riposte sequences, and binds. He seemed to be very well versed in the spatial aspect of combat – for each aggressive movement, there was a defensive movement to counter, and for each time one's blade was stopped, there were ways to disengage and mount another attack. The interplay of angles and force seemed fascinating to him.

In all, he seemed to have the abstract part down; he was asking her about very involved aggressive and defensive movements, like the balestra and piccata soto, by the end of that session, proving that he had absorbed Barbasetti's book right down to the esoterica in the final chapters. Now, it seemed mostly a matter of conditioning and training his muscles to find the movements natural, almost second nature, and that just took endless practice and repetition. He certainly had far more stamina and endurance than she would have expected of a thirty-five-year-old academic – he could make it through a two-hour lesson without asking for a rest break or so much as complaining of soreness or fatigue. Emily wished once or twice that she had gotten a hold of him as a thirteen-year-old page and trained him from then on – he would have been positively lethal by this age.

Still too damned rigid, though – that was his biggest fault. The man's intellect embraced new information with unbelievable fluidity, but his shoulders were like stiff clay. Once, when she had to demonstrate a bind manoeuvre for him, a motion in which a fencer applies pressure to his opponent's blade in order to force it off target, by taking his forearm in her hand and showing him the proper motions, it had been something of a chore to convince him to relax into it. Whenever she had to touch him – and she was making a point of doing so in the most businesslike and chaste manner – the scent of healthy exertion around him would take on such a sharp tang of agitation that she would move away as fast as was polite.

In the last three-quarters of an hour, she had simply taken him on for a series of bouts, pulling back from her full-out top form to a half-speed training mode, exaggerating her defensive and aggressive movements so that he could recognise them and counter appropriately. The impossible man showed signs of eventually being fast, too – he already had rather quick parries seconde and quatre that would eventually deflect a whole lot of attackers. Had he been anyone other than Professor Snape, she would have complimented him on it, but she remembered his opinion of being flattered by her, and kept her approval to herself.

"Well then – you're picking up the European systems awfully fast," Emily said at nine p.m. "I can tell that you've been practicing."

"It's something to do," he said with a desultory shrug.

"I think we'll finish up with European foil fencing by the end of this week and go on to the Arcadian system by the beginning of next week, if that's all right with you. Can you perhaps go over the thirty-two attacks and parries this coming weekend?"

"I'll find some time," he replied, wiping his face and neck with a towel.

"Good. So shall we say same time Wednesday?"

"That would be fine." He poured himself a cup of water from the silver jug by the window, and turned back to her. "So. How long have you been working on your book?"

Emily turned toward him in mild shock at the question – she had not signed her manuscript in any way and had not intended to identify herself as its author to him. The confidence with which he credited it to her surprised her into a wholly non-evasive answer. "Six years, when I have time."

"It's a very complex system, the one you're recording," the low baritone said. Entirely conversationally.

"I didn't create it – it's actually very ancient. I'm just trying to document it in detail. There was supposed to be an archery section as well, but that didn't end up happening."

"Not happy with the other training manuals, then?"

"There aren't any – that's the problem. And we could really use one," she said, sinking into a chair, still mopping at her face with the towel. "Some of the pages we get from the hinterlands of the Kingdom have only been trained by some old farmer who maybe served a thousand years ago and whose memory is going, so when they show up for training, they have to unlearn all sorts of bad habits. I'd rather deal with someone who was starting completely fresh than someone who's going to argue every point with me because his first teacher showed him everything all wrong. What some of these kids think is parry first is just appalling. Plus there's just the historical value of recording the purest form of the art, so I think we need a standardised system, even if – " Then she remembered who she was talking to and fell silent; turning her attention to the parchment scrolls on her work table. "I realise it probably seems pretty gruesome to you – don't worry, I won't be showing that text to any of the students here."

"I'm curious – why the complete ban on taking prisoners of war?" Amazingly – he did sound curious, not sarcastic or judgmental.

"We don't do that," she said firmly.

"But why? Some sort of religious commandment against it, perhaps?" he prompted.

"Yes, there is a religious prohibition against it. Also – if we keep prisoners, what can they potentially learn about us?" she said, shuddering.

"I see," he said quietly. "On a related topic, Professor, someone at the Ministry Ball was talking about... Faery True Names. I read something as a boy – I can't remember where now – to the effect that a Faerie's magical power is lost if everyone knows his or her True Name, which made me think they might be something like Words of Power. Then I heard some employee of Minister Fudge's, this rather dumpy woman in pink, talking about how you said they were two different names for the same thing at the Ministry Ball."

"Oh, yes, the charming Miss Umbridge." She glanced warily at him. "You really don't miss a thing, do you?"

No answer but a noncommittal shrug.

"Yes, a True Name is another name for a Word of Power. It's the term we use most often at home, actually, though I won't be using it in class."

"Why not?" he asked.

Really, what was it with all the questions? He was like a tall dark glowering little boy asking why the sky was blue.

"Well, that term carries non-Christian religious connotations with it, and I'd rather avoid that sort of thing in my classroom, seeing as how I'm living in a predominantly Christian community right now," she said, very matter-of-factly, turning her attentions to the scrolls on the table.

"Much as I can understand why you wouldn't want to discuss these things with your students, madam, I do imagine I'm a sufficiently educated adult to be able to discuss comparative religion without making an ass of myself," he said. "I do teach school and all, you know."

Emily looked back at him in surprise. "Well... of course you are," she said – the idea that Severus Snape might be sensitive to thinking his intelligence was being underestimated had never previously occurred to her. "All right. It's believed, by many... that every time you come up with a new combination of letters and sounds in such a manner that you can do magic with it – by doing that, you've given the Mother Goddess another Name. A True Name. As such, you've made her identity, her creation, that much richer, so she favours you by giving that Name power – thus allowing you to do magic with it."

"So... your people believe that your ability to use magic is a direct manifestation of the power of a divinity," he said thoughtfully.

"Most of us do believe that, yes," she replied. "But magic is considered a secular phenomenon here, and most British witches and wizards consider themselves Anglican or Catholic, and celebrate religious holidays like Christmas and Easter. So I decided to teach Faery magic from a secular point of view as well."

"Why then... do you think that people who aren't adherents to this particular faith, can still create and use True Names?" he asked.

"That's a very good question, sir – a whole lot of people have been wondering about that one for centuries now. But you're not likely to ever get a real answer. A lot of people like to say – 'You don't have to believe in the Mother for her to believe in you.' Of course there are those who think the whole thing might just be us anthropomorphising a force that we can't comprehend in terms of ourselves. At any rate – that's the theology behind it in a nutshell." She turned back to her scrolls and started to dip a quill, but then turned back to him. "I can't remember now – did we say same time Tuesday or Wednesday?"

"Wednesday," Snape said.

"Good evening, Professor." She picked up her quill.

"Good evening, Professor," he said and left the room.

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After she had finally finished grading her end-of-term essays, Emily went back to her room and lay on her bed, thinking. Who would have thought it... a reasonably civil conversation with Professor Snape, about warfare and religion of all things, in which he seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say. In which he had mistaken a Faerie's natural reticence on the very personal matter of her religion for an underestimation of his intellectual powers – imagine Snape thinking his intelligence was being doubted. It simply wasn't something she would have believed he ever worried about. Outwardly, the man was the epitome of the brilliant scholar, the pure scientist; whose confidence in his own abilities was seemingly unassailable. Had she not personally experienced unmistakable proof that he had some extremely passionate sensual urges hidden under his almost priestly black robes, she would have thought he voluntarily led a life of total asceticism.

In short, she simply would never have thought of him as being prey to the same pangs of insecurity as... oh, everyone else she knew, and it was interesting? telling? oddly reassuring? that he was.

She was distracted from her Snape-related musings a moment later by a tapping at her window. Pulling the curtains aside, she saw a tiny spotted owl hovering outside, which delivered its message and immediately took off. She recognised Lucius's now familiar handwriting –

Darling –

I shall pencil you in between "Arrive" and "Collapse in Complete Exhaustion."

I'm staying over in London this week end on business, in the club suite (northwestern-most corner, top floor) at the Hotel Hulot in Diagon Alley. I'll be there after eight in the evening Friday. Can you plan to stay until Sunday?

The place is free of Apparition Protections, and the room service is first rate.

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Emily's Gryffindor-Slytherin fourth-year class that Tuesday were still at odds with each other regarding the article about Hagrid in the Daily Prophet, as apparently Hagrid was beloved by the Gryffindors, and held in contempt by the many of the Slytherins. The result was that she had a much worse time of it than usual getting them to settle down for the lecture portion of their curriculum. After trying unsuccessfully to quiet them down and start her lecture two or three times, she finally vaulted up on her desk and then stepped onto the topmost slat of the back of her chair, balancing on the balls of her feet, and began whistling her favourite Weird Sisters tune. The class fell silent, except for a faint Whoa from the back row.

"How did you do that?" Blaise Zabini asked.

"Pure talent," she replied, dropping lightly to the floor in a swirl of professorial robes. "All right, now that I've finally got your attention – " she directed a long, hairy-eyeballed, and probably very Snape-ish look of reproach at all of them – "today, we begin a new topic. Those of you who haven't created Mots de Puissance yet, don't worry – you can do all of this with a wand as well."

She wrote a phrase on the blackboard – Objets de Puissance – then turned back to the class.

"Objets de Puissance. Objects of Power. Talismans. Amulets. All manner of magical objects. We all use them every day. What's the most common magical object here? You all have one."

Pansy Parkinson put up her hand. "Our wands?"

"Exactly, Miss Parkinson." She wrote the word WANDS on the blackboard. "What are some other magical objects? Anyone?"

"Remembralls?" quavered Neville Longbottom.

"Very good, Mr. Longbottom," she said, provoking a shy smile from Neville. "Can anyone think of any others?"

She wrote the names of magical objects on the board as the students called them out.

"Talking mirrors," Draco Malfoy drawled.

"Invisibility Cloaks," Hermione Granger said, her hand straining up in the air.

"Sneakoscopes!" Ron Weasley called.

"Broomsticks," Harry Potter volunteered.

"Omnioculars," said Seamus Finnigan.

"Good, good, excellent," Professor Swain said, listing OMNIOCULARS on the board before turning to face them again.

"Most of the magical objects that you've listed are fairly mundane and not too wildly powerful – talking mirrors, Omnioculars, Remembralls, Sneakoscopes, and broomsticks. Those are relatively simple to create, which is why wizard artisans can mass-produce them to a degree where they can offer them for sale in stores. The single exception there is wands, which are as powerful as the wizard who wields them, as you all know.

"Invisibility Cloaks, now – those are far more difficult to create and exert a much more powerful magical effect on those who use them, which means that they are very rare and hard to come by."

Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger exchanged what she thought was a very deliberate and conspiratorial smile at that remark. She momentarily wondered what it meant before continuing.

"Now I'm going to give you an example of a rare and potent Arcadian Object of Power."

Originally she had planned on showing them her Wazzarflaske, which poured a never-ending stream of pure water, to demonstrate a powerful Object of Power. Instead, she decided that while they were contentious and distracted like this, something more dramatic was in order. Extracting the bit of suede leather from her pocket, she unrolled that "paper of swords" on her desk and then very carefully removed one tiny needlelike weapon from the bunch. As they watched, her lips moved soundlessly – and the tiny needle expanded in her hand to a shining sword some three feet long, scabbarded in an intricately engraved metal sheath. The hilt, wrapped in some kind of intricately woven pale leather, was long enough to accommodate a two-handed grip.

"If one of you could tear a sheet of parchment from your notebook and hand it to me?"

Hermione Granger was of course the first to respond to the request, holding out a leaf torn from her notebook. "Thank you."

"Petrificulus." Then Professor Swain silently spoke a word, holding the parchment sheet in front of her – and the class saw that she had Transfigured the parchment into a heavy square of white marble of the same size as the parchment. Then she unsheathed the sword, automatically adjusting its grip in her hand, and assumed the en garde opening stance she had taught them in fencing class. It was clear that this was something she had done thousands of times before.

The sword was about three and a half feet long and very functional: a small round bell guard, no swept hilt or ostentatious ornamentation. If it had a Second-World counterpart, the samurai kitanas used in ancient Japan would have been closest. The centre of the straight blade was worked with runes – characters from some mysterious and potent language. Those runes teased the eye, seeming to shift and oscillate, as if viewed underwater. Whispers erupted from the students.

"Now. Watch closely."

Professor Swain tossed the marble tile up in the air with her left hand – and then neatly cut it in half with a single economical upward motion of the sword. Both halves fell to the wood floor with a chunking sound. The class gasped in unison. Ron Weasley picked up one of the pieces, which had landed near his feet, and ran his forefinger along the edges, which were so clean that no dust or splintering was visible. "Bloody hell," he whispered to Harry Potter, handing the tile to him.

Then, before the class could fully register what was about to happen, their professor brought the blade down on her left arm, provoking frightened screeches from several students. Given the blade's just-demonstrated preternaturally sharp edge – the logical outcome would be that Professor Swain would strike off her own left hand.

But no such thing happened.

They could all see her leaning onto the sword's grip, pressing down on the shining blade where it rested on her forearm – but it simply stayed put against her arm, not severing her wrist by some unbelievable force. Squeals of horror and gasps of amazement filled the room.

Dean Thomas finally gave voice to the collective sentiment of the room. "How in the bloody hell did you do that?" Hermione Granger let out an excited gasp and put up her hand so energetically it seemed to strain toward the ceiling.

Their professor laughed, too amused at the astonishment in his voice to bother taking points from his House for cursing, and lowered the sword. "Well, you see – by means of rituals said over it, and runes inscribed into its blade during its forging, this sword will refuse to harm me, or any other Faerie. Can anyone tell me the benefit of that?"

Gregory Goyle put up his hand. "If you're fighting someone, you know, they, uh, can't take it away and chop you up with it? Or any of your friends?"

"Exactly, Mr. Goyle. A vorpal blade, you see, is a very powerful Objet de Puissance. They're made by only the most skilled of swordmakers, as it takes weeks of extremely precise magical ritual, accompanying each step of the blacksmithing process, to create each one."

"Where do you get one? Do they cost a lot?" Draco Malfoy asked.

"You can't buy one, Mr. Malfoy. They have to be awarded," she replied, sheathing the glimmering blade back into its metal scabbard, and then miniaturising it again with the Reducio incantation and an inaudible word.

"When do you use something like that?" Harry Potter asked in a quiet, thoughtful voice. "I mean... against who would you use a sword like that?"

Emily knelt down next to Harry's seat and smiled at him. "Don't worry, Mr. Potter. If the Third Kingdom or its allies haven't declared open war against you, you're quite safe," she replied, and Harry averted his eyes and laughed. Emily turned toward Hermione Granger, whose hand was still straining up in the air.

"I read about vorpal blades in Buckminster Swain's Encyclopaedia," Hermione said. "That's an Orcleofian, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," their professor said, looking at Hermione with an admiring smile. "Ten points for Gryffindor. My word, Miss Granger, I'm really starting to think you've read the entire Encyclopaedia."

"Orcleofian? What does that mean?" Harry Potter asked, glancing from Hermione to Professor Swain.

"Orc cleaver, in Old English," Hermione said authoritatively, then turned back to their teacher. "Does yours have a name?"

Professor Swain paused, regarding Hermione silently for a moment, then moved down the aisle, resting her hand momentarily on Hermione's shoulder with a small smile. "Now, about protective amulets. The ritual involved is relatively simple, and the effects are very beneficial. Any item can be enchanted with protective magics, though you'll probably want to choose something that you can easily wear or carry in a pocket. Amulets are often made from pieces of jewellery or coins for this reason – "

Hermione looked as though she would have liked to ask more questions, but clearly, a named Orcleofian's significance to Faery knight was not something to be shared with the class. The students were by now used to their professor tactfully dodging questions she apparently either wasn't allowed to, or didn't want to, answer, and once she indicated a topic was closed, they knew it was absolutely impossible to coax her into telling them any more. None of them were used to this kind of teaching style – they were far more used to strict professors making tremendous bodies of knowledge available to them and then demanding that they absorbed it, than a teacher who seemed to know far more than she was allowed to teach, due to political reasons.

Frustrated, Hermione Granger's brown eyes narrowed in vivid concentration, the way they always did when she was trying to puzzle something out. Then she quietly dipped a quill and began to take notes on the process of creating an Amulet of Protection.

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The first time Lucius had asked Emily to meet him, she had been filled with ambivalence – guilt vying closely with excitement – and had nearly talked herself out of it at least twice.

Now... she felt different. Very different.

After Friday evening's dinner, she went immediately up to her room, without lingering to joke and chat with Irma, Pomona, and Minerva over tea afterward, and took a hot shower. Afterward, she took a ludicrously long time oiling down her skin with violet-scented almond oil, as unmindfully sensual as a cat. Then, she experimented with different ways of doing her hair, powdered her face, and put on brown-red lipstick with a brush.

Next she riffled through her closet for something it would please her to wear and something she would like for him to see her in. Forget the swallowing, asexual black scholar's robes, the thick black stockings, the demure collars, and skirts to below her knees. Tonight called for something entirely different.

In Emily's teen years, her very fashionable Greenbarrow grandmother had impressed upon her that tights were hopelessly frumpy and that a real woman wore gartered stockings and powdered her knees – and she did not dispense with tradition that evening. Over the complicated black lace underthings, she then put a short, diaphanous black spidersilk frock, whose soft neckline could be counted on to slip off her shoulders at opportune moments, and her favourite black pearl necklace.

Lastly, she opened her Holding Trunk and threw in a toothbrush, a powder compact, a bottle of violet oil, and the jewel box containing the emerald serpent. Costume changes of black lingerie and spidersilk frocks were next, then a highly impractical pair of satin boudoir slippers, and finally a decadent little lounging robe of embroidered silk velvet that Mabel Greenbarrow had worn during her jazz baby days in 1920's London. Lucius being Lucius, he would like anything reminiscent of opulent days gone by – and there was no need to tell him that he was admiring a Muggle's taste.

She paused for a moment in front of the mirror, briefly infatuated again with her own beauty, before concealing her seductive dress under her outer robe and fur cloak and pulling on the black gloves Lucius had given her.

"Well well well, look at you," her mirror said with a sly, approving little chuckle. "Someone's getting lucky tonight."

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Emily ran into Dumbledore having an impromptu Head of House meeting on the steps of the great entrance hall with Professors McGonagall and (of course) Snape on her way out of the castle.

"So, Emily, are you off to visit friends again this weekend?" Dumbledore asked pleasantly, glancing down at her travelling clothes and the trunk in her hand.

"Yes, be back by Sunday supper again – unless you need me back sooner for any reason, sir – "

"No, no, have a good time," Dumbledore said, smiling benignly. "There's no rule against professors leaving the grounds on weekends, you know – we're running a school here, not a cloister."

Emily laughed. "Of course, sir. Well then, I'll see you on Sunday. Have a lovely weekend, everyone."

"I'm glad to see her in better spirits," Dumbledore remarked as Emily made her way down the steps and out the great front doors. "I worried she was finding Hogwarts a bit gloomy in winter."

"Didn't she take all of last weekend off as well?" Snape muttered disapprovingly. "Well, I'm glad some of us stay around to make sure the students don't set fire to the castle while she's off paying social calls."

"Oh, come, Severus, you know how young people are," McGonagall said, as though the fact of Professor Swain's youth explained everything.

Perhaps Minerva McGonagall did not recall at that moment that the man she was talking to was himself only a few months older than Emily. Or perhaps, since Snape's manner had always been so grave and serious, even when he was a boy in her class, it had never occurred to her to think of him as young.

For his own part, if Professor Snape noticed this inconsistency, he kept it to himself.

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The Hotel Hulot was easy to find – its imposing grey stone facade, decorated with weathered gargoyles, stood in a venerable business district street a block north of Gringotts Bank and the small shopping court where Flourish and Blotts, Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, and Ollivander's stood. Emily ducked into a deserted alley for a moment, dodging puddles and patches of dingy snow, Obscured herself, and then Apparated into the northwestern-most corner of the top floor.

The club suite was exactly the sort of thing that would appeal to Lucius – tall, paned-glass windows draped in heavy, richly coloured velvet, the most classical and picturesque kind of dark antique furniture, silver candelabra, vast Oriental rugs before a roaring fire in the hearth, and vases of hothouse flowers even in the depths of winter. It was exactly the sort of apartment a captain of industry at the height of the British Empire might have kept for his private amusements.

Lucius was reclining on the silk-covered bed paging through the Daily Prophet when she appeared. Platinum hair loose around his shoulders, wearing a foulard silk dressing gown – under which he appeared otherwise naked. He looked up placidly when she arrived with the usual crack of Apparition.

"There you are," he said, his usual drawl full of anticipation. "Now get undressed and come directly to bed." He patted the space on the luxurious duvet next to him. Emily set her trunk down with a little intake of breath – he was, simply, too beautiful.

"Dear Lucius – you certainly aren't one of those men who finds it difficult to articulate his own wants and needs, are you?" She paused for a moment, very deliberately pulling off her gloves and cloak, and dropping them on a nearby armchair.

"You mean to tell me that there are men out there who have difficulty articulating what they want and need to do to you? Idiots. Fools." He put the paper aside. "Come here and I'll articulate some wants and needs, all right."

"Well, who could resist an invitation like that." Emily let her robe fall to the floor as she crossed to the bed – as soon as she was within reach, Lucius had hooked an arm around her waist and had pinned her on her back on the bed, making her gasp with startled excitement. Then he bent down and put another of those absolutely toe-curling kisses on her lips again.

"Did you miss me?" he asked, moving his lips a fraction away from hers.

"Horribly," she whispered.

Lucius glanced down and ran a hand over her silk-covered breast. "It's criminal to cover up a body like yours. From now on I forbid you to wear any clothes when you're with me." He insinuated a hand under her skirts and drew it up the inside of her thigh – and his dark blonde brows went up in pleasant surprise when he discovered her lace stocking top. "Well, except black lingerie – that I'll allow. But nothing else, mind."

"Might that make mingling at the next Ministry ball a bit difficult?" She was lifting her face up to him for another kiss.

"If I had my way, I'd put your naked body up on a marble pedestal in my drawing room for everyone to admire. Properly lit, of course." He was teasing the scrap of black lace knickers down over her thighs and off – "And no knickers. Black lingerie is splendid, but knickers are out of the question." Having removed the offending knickers, he slid that hand back under her skirt – and those clever fingers were soon driving her to absolute distraction.

"All right," she managed to gasp.

In another second he had whisked her up, twitched his robe and her skirts aside... and very slowly lowered her onto his lap, penetrating her to his silky length. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, kiss him, and grind greedily down on him – but he held her inexorably in place, one arm around her waist, one fist tight on a handful of her hair. "Just come," he whispered, those cool, unshockable grey eyes fixed on her face. "I want to watch you."

Her entire skin flushed with embarrassment – but perversely, that only added to the arousal she felt. Something about being observed so intently at in this most intimate of moments was terrifying – yet, at the same time, immensely gratifying. Most recently, she preferred to pull a comfortable veil of misdirection over herself and retreat from situations that made her feel too intimately exposed – but now – her heart raced, vision blurred; she could feel every bead of sweat on her brow standing out in stark relief. Then the orgasm welled up within her, and she could only cling to him, trying desperately to catch her breath.

"You're beautiful," he whispered. "The most perfect beast I've ever seen." His grip hardened around her waist – in another second he had forced her onto her back on the bed, taking her hard and selfishly – but she felt herself going liquid under his rough thrusts. Only after he had wrung another racking orgasm from her did he take his own climax, with a savage tenor groan into her neck.

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"Now that's what I like to see. Lucius with his hair looking as though he's just been well shagged," she murmured when they were both lying spent and drowsy amongst the silk pillows some time afterward. She smoothed a tendril of silver-blond away from his eyes with a caressing gesture.

"So what is the attraction for mussed hair with you?" he asked, smiling lazily. "First you wanted to muss my hair at Beltane, and now, any number of years later, you still want to see it mussed. My barber is going to have fits." He turned into her caress like a cat being stroked.

"Well, you see, that was the polite way of putting it. Now in light of what's happened this evening, I feel absolutely free to tell you what was really going on that Beltane. You see, I suspected that underneath your prim exterior, there was lurking the Shag of the Century."

"Dear Emily, you say the sweetest things," he drawled, pressing a long, lazy kiss on her neck. "You thought I was prim? Isn't that a word usually used to describe nuns and schoolgirls?"

"Nuns, schoolgirls, and sweet little Ministry clerks who show up to welcome banquets in perfectly starched shirts and Windsor-knotted ties under their impeccable wizard's robes. You must have been dying of the heat, poor thing." She had draped herself over him, whispering humidly into his ear. "And that ever-so-icy-cool demeanour. You might as well have had 'Melt Me' tattooed on your forehead... "

"Anyone would have been melting after seeing what all you lot wore to dinner," he said, drawing a languid hand down her back. "Does anyone ever wear a petticoat where you come from?"

"It's never cold enough to need one. You looked a great deal more comfortable once we got you into some proper clothes. Well, to be perfectly honest, you looked positively gorgeous when we got you into some proper Arcadian clothes."

"Did I," he said, smirking.

"Oh, yes," she whispered. "Positively fuckable."

His hand tightened on her thigh with a convulsive shudder. "So much that you chose me to plunder your maidenhead... "

"Listen to you – plunder my maidenhead. Truth is, I just wanted to lure you out into the woods and shag you senseless."

"And I've hated every bastard who's ever had his cock in you since... " He lowered her onto the silk pillows, parted her thighs, and covered her body with his own again. His movements were slow, languorous, unhurried; as though he was enjoying his possession of her, the sight of her hair spread out on the pillow beneath him, more than any desire for sexual release.

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After three long, miserable years of widowhood, it felt unutterably luxurious to make love until she was exhausted, sleep all night in a man's warm arms, and then wake up with her lover beside her again. While Emily was still dozing in bed, Lucius got up and returned to bed freshly bathed and shaved – his pale hair was nearly transparent wet. He smelled deliciously of that English lime water he used sometimes.

Breakfast appeared on the bedside table precisely at ten a.m. – blackcurrant scones with lemon curd and Devonshire cream for him, fresh whole-wheat baguette with butter and lavender honey for her, hothouse berries with clotted cream, fresh orange juice and champagne. It was simply blissful to share breakfast in front of the fire, both wrapped in dressing gowns, and listening to his satirical sort of Noel Coward arch-snob's gossip while the snow came down outside. After breakfast, he got up and drew her a bath, and then he wrapped her in one of the hotel towelling robes and combed out her wet hair with a chased-silver comb. She needed to do absolutely nothing other than sink into the warmth of his attentions and let him arrange everything.

"Whatever possessed you to cut off all your hair?" he asked. It had been no longer than chin-length when she arrived at Hogwarts, but due to the cold weather, she had let it grow a few inches until it covered her neck. "It reached your waist when I was a page."

"Imagine you liking long hair – I can't see that at all," she said with gentle irony. "I could have the long hair then because we had indoor plumbing at Beauxbatons, and I had a lady's maid to carry my bathwater when I lived in the castle. But I cut it all off when the last Orc conflict broke out – I couldn't be always primping during wartime. Not to mention everyone else in my unit who's never had a maid or valet usually keeps theirs short, and no one pushes the whole I'm-titled-and-you're-not bit in the field. You know how it is at home."

"Yes, I know. But I rather liked your hair long. Grow it out again," he said, tilting her face back and kissing her lusciously.

"All right," she said, kissing him back.

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After the bath, Lucius took her back to bed and found some rather creative uses for the cool, slippery Devonshire cream left over from breakfast, which turned into a prolonged session of soixante-neuf – with him, it was just too easy to close her eyes and let herself drown in sensory bliss.

When they were both spent and glowing, all appetites sated, Lucius opened the Daily Prophet that had been sent up with breakfast. He seemed to enjoy reading the business and government sections with one hand, while stroking the woman languidly draped over his other side with the other. Equally enticingly, he seemed to personally know most of the people whose Ministry and business dealings were being written about, and he interspersed his reading with commentaries on exactly what it was those people would most like to hide.

"Oh, look, Charles Wilkes – that's Elvia's uncle – is funding the Opera now, how very philanthropic of him. The Prophet's raining kudos down upon him as a patron of the arts – I wonder what they'd say if they knew he's having an affair with the artistic director. Beatrice Parkinson is back on the Zoological Gardens committee – I wonder how long it'll be before her husband makes her give that up. He's the most jealous man alive, Emmitt. I think he'd keep his pretty little wife in a box in his pocket if he could – she's almost twenty years younger than he is, you know." He shook his head. "Poor Beatrice. But at least she's well taken care of."

He turned another page. "Oh, look, that horrible undersecretary of Fudge's is calling for stricter regulation of the prescribed school curriculum at Hogwarts. Some parents have complained about their children being subjected to Unforgivable Curses in Defence Against the Dark Arts class. So, you've been using Cruciatus on the little brats when they annoy you?" He glanced down at her with an indulgent smile and gave her thigh an affectionate pat. "Good work, dear. Carry on, then – but if you could just conveniently forget to punish Draco, I'd be profoundly grateful."

"That's not my class she means, that's Moody's class," Emily said with a soft laugh, snuggling her cheek against his shoulder.

"And speaking of excruciating pains at Hogwarts – how is Cousin Severus behaving himself now?" Lucius asked, still caressing her thigh. "No more scolding in front of the other faculty, I hope?"

"No. I barely see him," she replied, and the subject of Professor Snape was dropped.

Somehow, even as she was lying in bed with him, it seemed as absolutely natural to conceal her training sessions with Snape and everything else she knew about him from Lucius, as it did to conceal her new affair with Lucius from Snape. Some people may have found this situation awkward, but Emily was not the sort of person who found it difficult to keep a secret.