Part Second: The Hart Rampant: Chapter 16

Chapter 16:

Severus Snape performed his first successful bit of magic with a Faery True Name – a simple Nox spell – in December of 1994.

To create his True Name, he had pored over lexicons and grammars of eldritch languages whose native speakers had been dust for centuries. Aramaic. Syriac. Akkadian. Biblical Hebrew. Etruscan. Gaulish. Not Latin – it was too common to suit his purposes. He wanted the proto-tongues of Latin, the oldest languages he could find. He studied the origins of each letter, their corresponding sounds – or rather the theories of various linguists as to what each letter had sounded like, for there was no one left alive who knew for certain. He had worked at this task until his eyes burned and his hands went numb, and he had fallen asleep in his desk chair on weekends.

A little over two months after he had first been told, by a woman that he distrusted, that Words of Power existed, he had created one – and his only seemed to grow more powerful the more he used it. At first, he had discovered he could put out his bedside lamp without his wand. A month later, he could put out every lamp in his personal quarters simultaneously, and had to be careful not to douse the torches outside in the hall as well.

Then he had turned his attention to the Faery magical arts.

In the weeks before the Yule Ball, he had asked Draco Malfoy for copies of his class notes on Obscurantis, saying he wanted them for another student who was having difficulty. (For some reason, the younger Malfoy was devoting himself to the study of Fae magic with uncharacteristic diligence.) In truth, he wanted the notes for himself, and spent the entire second week of December poring over them.

The first form of Obscurantis – the ability to make objects impossible to focus upon, and thus render them invisible – proved surprisingly easy, once he got the hang of it. He would gaze at an object, imagine it fading from sight, visualise the setting behind it through its solid mass, speak his Word of Power under his breath – and suddenly only he would be able to see its transparent image, while it was entirely invisible to anyone else. Or, at least he thought it must be invisible to everyone else; he really wasn't sure just yet as to how to test this new ability in a quantifiable manner. After all, one couldn't very well go about asking people: "So, does that thing I just Obscured look invisible to you? You know, that thing there, can you not see it?"

Then inspiration struck just before the end of term, in his double Potions session with the Gryffindor and Slytherin fifth-years. He took out two large glass jars of live beetles – the big slow stinky ones, one jar of red carapaces and one of black, and put them, opened, on the usual worktable inhabited by Fred and George Weasley (or as he thought of them, Fredngeorge, since they were as much of a unit as Crabbengoyle.) He positioned them right where the twins would need to reach past them in order to get at their components for the latest practical session. Then he Obscured both jars and sat back to watch the fun.

Either the Weasleys would reach around the jars and ask him why they were there – or, even more satisfyingly, they would ignore the jars entirely until they had knocked them to the floor, scattering beetles in all directions. As the fifth-years headed toward their worktables, Snape had to make himself stay turned toward the blackboard, lest his smirk give him away.

As he had hoped – there was a crash of glass breaking and two identical howls of Shite! He turned furiously on the twins.

"Weasley, Weasley – what fresh disaster are you responsible for now? Can I not turn my back on you for one instant without the two of you finding some new and ingenious way to bring the entire school down around our ears?" he demanded, wafting down the classroom aisle to where the twins were dithering over the spreading mess of spilled beetles. "I cannot believe anyone could be capable of such carelessness. Repair the jars and pick those up immediately," he snapped at the twins, who were looking at him in bewilderment. "Make sure you sort the red ones from the black ones. Don't stand gawking – they're getting away."

"Professor – I didn't – we didn't – " said the first head of Fredngeorge, shaking itself in confusion.

"We weren't being careless – I didn't even see them!" the other one protested. "They just came out of nowhere – "

"Came out of nowhere?" Snape intoned. "Two huge jars of live beetles? You didn't see them?"

So. It worked.

"Well then – when you finish picking them up, do be certain to head down to the hospital wing and have your eyes checked, both of you. I shall take ten points each from Gryffindor if Madam Pomfrey tells me tomorrow that you haven't been to see her."

Snape turned and swept back up toward the front of the classroom, coughing a bit into his hand to cover the jubilant laugh that wanted to rise up out of him. Admittedly, this wasn't fair – but the twins owed him for all the Obscured Dungbombs in cauldrons that year and for all the pranks they had played on him in the years previous. After all, he hadn't deducted any points from their House. "One of the red ones is fleeing under the bookshelf, Mr. Weasley. I suggest that you capture the little fugitive immediately. And remember these are paussine beetles, and they will squirt you with stinking venom if you make them feel threatened, so I do advise caution in picking them up."

As he watched the glorious aftermath of a Weasley-twins type of prank – successfully perpetrated against the Weasley twins, who were still scrambling frantically after a lot of stinky bugs – he had to admit that against all propriety, against every bit of better judgment he had... Obscurantis was fun.

Later that week, Snape had been sitting in the main library copying a potion ingredient list out of a book, when that annoying Swain woman breezed in and spent the better part of a half hour arduously hunting up a stack of seven or eight books from a list in her hand. Then she left the stack unattended on a table while she had a cosy girl chat with that dear chum of hers, Irma Pince. For one very, very long moment, Snape thought about Obscuring her stack of books and letting her look for them for awhile, so that she could see what it was like to worry that all of one's labours had been wasted – just for his own personal amusement. Maybe he would even hand them back to her with a look of angelic innocence on his face, after she'd had a little while to get frustrated and upset about losing them.

But – he decided against it. He would be damned if he was going to stoop to her level.

Besides, most likely she was able to use the third form of Obscurantis and could see though it, so it wouldn't have worked anyway.

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By the second week of February of 1995, Snape became aware that his perceptions were subtly different.

He had been walking on the edge of the Forbidden Forest one afternoon, just for a breath of crisp cold air, and to get away from the noise and clamour of Hogwarts for awhile before the hellish commotion of the upcoming Second Task. Then suddenly, he had seen a shadowy figure off to his right, tearing off a small branch of a tree and nibbling at the tender green shoots within. Snape had come closer for a better look – and discovered a slender, graceful apelike creature, like an orangutan, but built more on the minimalist, silvery lines of a greyhound. As he drew near to it, it spooked at the sound of his approach and ran off into the trees.

When Snape reached the spot where he had seen the silver beast, he noticed several tufts of some silky, iridescent material hanging from the bark of the tree it had been foraging. Snape picked up one of these tufts, discovering it to be soft, silky hair. Shed fur, apparently – and so reflective that he would have sworn that he could see the slushy snow on the ground through his own palm.

He knew there were creatures in the forest that he could see, but that were invisible to others – the thestrals, for example – but this creature was something he had never seen before. Only one sort of magical creature shed fur like this – a Demiguise, the type of creature whose fur was woven into Invisibility Cloaks. Now, he had seen one in the Forbidden Forest. This was extremely odd, for when he had studied fantastic beasts, he had thought that Demiguises only lived in Asia. But, of course, the Forbidden Forest was a country unto itself.

But it wasn't just the Demiguise in the forest, as he discovered that weekend.

He made another trip into Diagon Alley – another fruitless attempt to locate some more gillyweed in this distinctly gillyweed-less season. On the corner of Diagon Alley and Sartor Alley, a pair of black-clad teenage girls were busking for spare change – one playing the guitar, and the other singing in a sweet, lonely soprano. He had stopped to listen for a moment, when suddenly he had blinked, hard, for their appearance had subtly changed to his eyes. He noticed that the rusty black lace dress on the singer was actually lustrous, diaphanous silk, the kind of thing that he had often seen Professor Swain wear, and that the guitarist was not wearing an oversized black t-shirt and well-worn leather jacket, but an elegant black silk Renaissance-style shirt and what looked like a handcrafted leather doublet. The black dyed hair on both girls was far from some cheap dye job – it was lustrous and alive, the variable blue-black of natural hair. The pale, pale skin was not due to powdering, but natural. Both of them had eyes like vast orbs of stark, deep black.

Then he suddenly noticed the pointed ears on both of them.

Faeries. Glamoured to pass for human – but suddenly the Glamour had fallen away to his eyes, and he was able to see them as they were. Now, he wondered, how many times had he passed Glamoured Faeries on the street and taken them for ordinary Muggles or wizards? He had no way of knowing. In September of last year, he had kissed a woman, partially undressed her, made love to her – without ever knowing what she really looked like until the following morning. But now – one good look at her in King's Cross, and he would have seen her true face, known what she really was.

Now I am schooled in picking incognito Faeries out of crowds, he thought, dropping a Sickle into the guitar case on the sidewalk. Both performers smiled thanks to him as he moved away into the crowd.

It had to be the third form of Obscurantis. He had gone to bed one day without the ability, and the next day, he had it. He hadn't worked at it, hadn't practiced it – the ability seemed to have simply clicked on somehow.

He wanted – rather badly, truth be told – to ask Emily Swain if this sort of thing was normal. However, he doubted if she would tell him, and in his experience, asking that irritating female a direct question tended about as rewarding as trying to dig through cement with nothing but one's fingernails.

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Of course they had said seven p.m. last time, so of course the Potions master arrived right at 6:53 for their Wednesday evening session. When one was meeting Professor Snape for any reason, it really was advisable to just count on getting started ten minutes before one actually agreed to get started, Emily reflected sourly.

They had been going over the Arcadian style of sword combat for some time now. It was a more involved system than the entirely linear French and Italian systems of sport fencing, but Snape had of course memorised all thirty-two attacks, sixteen parries, and any number of evasive movements with all the thoroughness and cerebral élan she had come to count on from him.

Unfortunately, she had finally hit a snag in the staggering rate of his progress, and the existence of that snag was not doing either of their never-admirable tempers much good.

Emily had been drilling him on the same defensive parries and evasive movements all evening, and he had been doing well for the most part. But there were a few types of attacks that he failed to evade with disturbing regularity – if she targeted either of his shoulders, high chest, or upper arms, and he couldn't parry immediately, he would take the hit every time. Bladework was most definitely his strong suit, but his tendency to put all of that emerging agility into his sword arm and none into the rest of his body was proving to be his greatest weakness – and Emily was swiftly becoming impatient with this failing. Snape picked up everything else at such a blinding speed that a halt in their progress chafed at the perfectionism that came out in her where martial disciplines were concerned. He was, quite simply, too impressive of a student to get hung up on something like this.

"No – you're doing it again, don't you see? If my point is already that close to you, and your point is all the way over here, there's no way you have time to parry it, you have to dodge. Just get out of its way. You know the proper form – you can recite the names of the evasive movements back to me like they were your ABC's. Try it again." But again, the evasive movement was beyond him, and her point hit him solidly in the shoulder

"So this is what all those hedgehogs we used to Transfigure into pincushions felt like," Snape observed pointedly, rubbing at his shoulder.

"This is not as hard as you're making it out to be," Emily chided him. "I'll demonstrate. Come en garde, and come at me in sixteenth." He took the attack – and as usual his form was nearly classically beautiful – but as his point approached her left shoulder, she turned, dropping her shoulder backwards and out of the way of his sword's point. She extended her right arm in response, and landed a solid attack on his left side. "There, that's what you should be doing. You have several different muscles in your shoulders and back, and I guarantee you they are not all fused together the way you seem to think they are."

"Some of us aren't quite the boneless wonders our instructors are, madam," he snapped in reply.

"Be that as it may – someone has a big glaring weak point in his defences for an enemy to exploit, sir," she retorted. "Look – I know you're going to dismiss this as flattery, but you're very talented. Your form is exceptionally good, and spatially, you're a bloody genius. But – "

"I knew there was going to be a but in there somewhere," Snape muttered.

"Your range of motion – is nonexistent. No offence, sir, but your back is so tight that if I stuck a lump of coal between your shoulder blades, by tomorrow, you'd have a bloody diamond. So I see extreme measures are being called for." Emily went for one of the chairs beside the work table and set it down in front of him. "Here. Sit in that backwards, and lean your arms on the chair back and just sort of let everything fall forward. Take the jacket off."

He groused and complained, but finally she got his jacket off and had him settled into the chair. Once he was sitting in front of her in only his thin cotton jersey, she began to gently knead the space between his shoulder blades.

"What are you doing?" he asked, recoiling.

"Don't worry, sir, I'm not going to mug you," she said, in mild reproach. "You've held your shoulders rigid for so long you've shortened the muscles – they're used to sitting still in one position. Now we have to lengthen them a bit and accustom them to a broader range of motion."

"Is this really necessary?" he growled into the chair back.

She paused. "If you continue this kind of training in your current state, sir, you're just asking to get injured," she said, with a severe look at the side of his face. "You do realise that you're not going to fight a lot of attackers off with a sprained shoulder or a torn rotator cuff. So, yes, it is necessary. Now – breathe deeply and try to relax. Let me know if anything hurts."

Emily resumed her work on his shoulders, leaning into him with slightly more force, using her thumbs to gently rake across the stiffness between his shoulders. Snape gave a little involuntary gasp as she started on his right shoulder.

She paused. "I'm sorry, does that hurt?"

"No, it doesn't hurt," he admitted grudgingly, exhaling hard.

She found a massive knot of tension just below his neck, and started on it with slightly stiffened fingers, trying to gradually knead out the spent muscle toxins he had accumulated there – no doubt the result of years of being irritated at the antics of students in the classroom. Snape let out another of those involuntary small gasps as she did.

"That's been aching for awhile, hasn't it?"

He exhaled hard again. "Somewhat."

The knot began to break up, and she applied more pressure to it, dragging her thumbs across it until his shoulder released the tension and hung more freely. Then she moved over to his left shoulder for the same treatment – gradually his muscle tone was starting to feel more like supple human tissue than stiff modelling clay. As Snape was facing away from her, she wasn't certain if he was absolutely hating this or allowing himself to enjoy it, but at least he had stopped complaining and let himself relax. For several minutes, the room was silent, other than for the sound of his slow breathing.

After about twenty minutes, she had moved from his shoulders up to the back of his neck, prompting another of those small catches of breath from him. "You must get a lot of tension headaches," she remarked.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because the muscles in the back of your neck are like rocks. Go ahead and let your head hang down on the chair back. Try and relax your neck." She gently began to work on the muscles at the base of his spine, and felt him leaning slightly into her fingers, probably unconsciously. His skin felt pleasantly warm to her perpetually chilly hands, just like it had the first night – but she pushed that memory away with a guilty frisson of conscience.

Gazing down at the bent, dark head of the man in front of her, Emily felt the smallest, strangest rush of compassion for him – from the burden of tension in him, and from the silent sense of relief now expressed in his posture, it felt as though he must have been run ragged for a very, very long time. What could be going on that would make him feel so much strain? Teaching? The intelligence duties he had taken on for Dumbledore? Or something else entirely?

Suddenly she noticed it seemed very quiet in the room.

"Er... Professor?" Emily said.

"Yes?"

"You're going to need to remember to breathe, sir."

"Right," he said shortly, and exhaled hard and lustily.

She resumed working on his neck – now the two ancient knots of tension at the base of his skull felt more like damp putty than rock as they began to uncoil and break up beneath her gentle, but persistent, hands. They weren't going to get as much work done that evening as she had hoped, but why stop now – from his physical reactions at least, Snape seemed to be enjoying himself, and the Mother knew he seemed to need a bit of tension relief. Parry drills could wait.

"All right," Emily said some time later, getting up from behind him and moving her chair back to under the table. "Is that better?"

"A bit," he admitted grudgingly, slowly stretching and then standing up. "You've done this before, if I'm not mistaken."

"It's part of our medical training. Someone gets a leg cramp or whatever, and everyone knows how to help him, that sort of thing."

"All right, should we get back to work, then?" he asked, shaking his dark head hard for a moment.

"The session is over, sir – it's nine-ten." She had been working on his back for over an hour.

"Is it?" He glanced a bit guiltily at the clock.

"Don't worry about it. Shall we say same time tomorrow?"

"Yes, that's fine. Thank you, madam."

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When Emily got back to her rooms from Snape's instructional session that evening, she heard the familiar rustleflitterflitter... taptap... of one of Lucius's urgent-post messenger owls at her window, and rushed to open it.

Darling –

9 PM Friday at the Porpentine – top floor Minister's suite. Plan to stay till Sunday noon.

Her reply was equally terse:

Darling –

I can't wait – especially if you have another important business deal pending.

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Professor Snape hadn't even bothered to put the new copy of Swain's Encyclopaedia into the Slytherin Common Room library. It had gone straight into his personal quarters and onto his desk. Now, it was full of tiny bits of paper with handwritten notes scrawled on them.

Luckily, if the man's daughter was about as forthcoming as a block of cheese, at least her father was capable of communicating information effectively. Snape had to admit – Buckminster Swain's scholarship was impeccable. For one man to have written such an exhaustively comprehensive encyclopaedia of a magical culture that possessed so little by means of mass media or written records was really quite an accomplishment.

He had been referring to the book for several days before he noticed a couple of sentences in the foreword – Most sincere and affectionate thanks to my wife Elaine and my daughter Emily for their invaluable assistance in compiling many of these entries. Without their tireless assistance, this book would never have been completed.

Unfortunately, however, he had still not found any reference to or precedent for spontaneously occurring mastery of the third form of Obscuratis, search as he might. Under the OBSCURANTIS entry, Swain's description of the means of acquiring the third form detailed a long, involved process of thinking of nothingness as a diffuse substance that could be brushed or fanned away, like smoke, and training one's mind to somehow detect solid fact from a fleeting nuance of information – Snape didn't recall ever having trained himself in this art. His own new ability was still a mystery to him.

That Thursday night, Snape was sitting at his desk with a cup of steaming Earl Grey tea. He opened his copy of the Encyclopaedia to an entry he had marked the night before:

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"FIANNA. Proper Noun, Military. Syn. Champions of the Red Branch, Fenians, the Shining Host. See also Finn mac Cumhail, the Nine Knightly Orders of the Royal Banner.

As of this writing, each of the Nine Kingdoms keeps a standing army of Masters-At-Arms, knights, and journeyman squires, or squires who have been deemed battle-worthy. How large and how well-equipped that army is has generally depended on the economic prosperity of the Kingdom backing it and the Kingdom's need for protection against hostile action... '

According to Swain – to attain the rank of knight, a journeyman squire must have completed three criteria. First, he or she had to have demonstrated great skill with the bow and the sword. Second, he or she had to have great facility with the Faery magical arts as well. Last, he or she had to be commended for this rank by a knighted commanding officer who was familiar with that squire's ability in active combat.

Upon being named a Knight Protector of the Realm, the master armourers of the knight's kingdom forged a vorpal blade, or Orcleofian (See Armaments, Historical and Modern), which was then conferred upon him or her in a private ceremony attended by his or her commending officer and the reigning monarch. Armed with these blades, so sharp that they could slice through the trunks of trees with one blow, Fianna knights were the front line among ground troops – the first ones into battle after the opening arrow volleys from the archers' corps. It was commonly believed that a single Faery knight, clad in mithreal armour and armed with a vorpal blade, wielding the chimerical arts of Glamour and Obscurantis, was a match for some times his or her number of rampaging Orc warriors. Platoons made up of journeyman squires followed the knights into battle, largely to wipe up whatever they didn't finish off completely.

After the account of the hierarchy of Fianna warriors, and a summary of training methods (Snape skimmed over that section, as he was already comparatively well-versed in Fianna martial disciplines and the philosophy behind them), the author proceeded into an account of the knightly Orders of the Nine Kingdoms. Each Order seemed to be named after a goddess, or goddess aspect, of some sort – the First Kingdom gathered its knights under the banner of Our Lady Cerridwen, who presided over wisdom and agriculture; the Seventh Kingdom gathered under a sea goddess called Fand, the Pearl of Beauty; the Second Kingdom under a mare goddess called Mother Epona. As for the Third Kingdom –

'The Order of the Morrigan.

Founded by Queen Andraste Greenbarrow in 2068 (approximately the eleventh century by human reckoning), the Third Kingdom's military Order takes its name from the aspect of the Mother Goddess thought to preside over justice, the prophetic arts, righteous fury, and vengeance. In her darkest and most extreme forms, the Morrigan (or Morrigu) is thought of as the Arcadian Goddess of War, Lust, Fate, Death, and Revenge. The Morrigan is often associated with the most unsettling, unpredictable, and terrifying aspects of feminine energy; it is said that this Order waxes most powerful under female leadership. Legend has it that the Mother Goddess, in this aspect, lived in a house built from the bones of war casualties next to a river of blood. The Morrigan is said to watch over battlefields in the form of a crow or raven; as such, the Knights of this Order do not harm or kill these birds. (See Morrigan, Triune Goddess, Badb, Nemain, Dagda, Brigid, Tuatha de Danaan.)'

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Snape paused in his reading, taking a long swallow from the cup of tea on his desk.

"The Morrigan is often associated with the most unsettling, unpredictable, and terrifying aspects of feminine energy." Well, somehow that wasn't too surprising.

Rivers of blood. Houses built from bones. War, Lust, Fate, Death, and Revenge. And Professor Swain and her countrypeople evidently considered the Morrigan to be a... beneficial deity.

He bent over the book again.

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'A comparatively late arrival in the Arcadian wartime theatre, the Third Kingdom had long been known as a leader in artistic and cultural standards, more inclined toward perfecting the art of winemaking, singing ballads, and creating new dances than taking up arms. Given its relatively remote location from the borders previously disputed with the Orc Princes, the Third Kingdom enjoyed several centuries of peace and prosperity until the turn of the Third Age, when a Baalorite army estimated at some five thousand moved on the Third Kingdom's capital city of Rivendale in 2970, or 1937 by human reckoning –

Under Lady Elaine's direction, the Order of the Morrigan has enjoyed a tremendous upsurge in military power... '

After the First Defence of Rivendale, Lady Elaine Greenbarrow went on to emerge as the greatest military leader of her generation. There was a long account of her accomplishments, battles won, attacks beaten down, treaties negotiated, advances made in the fields of armoury and combat training, people signing up for service in record numbers. (Snape could definitely feel something of a husband's adoration of his wife in the author's lovingly detailed accounts of her achievements and his high-flown language in describing her charisma as a leader.)

Snape turned a page and came across a pen-and-ink portrait of Lady Elaine Greenbarrow, done around the time of her victory at Rivendale – and for a single long moment, he just stared. Lucius Malfoy had told him that Professor Swain's mother was quite beautiful, and admittedly her daughter was no mountain troll, but... well, he hadn't expected her to look like that.

He turned another page. As the history of the Third Kingdom's recent military actions continued, soon the next generation of knights trained with Lady Elaine began to contribute notably to the security of their nation – people with names like Greenwood, Mustardseed, Priquette, Doggins, Rymer, Peshka, Robinett (Robinett?), and several Greenbarrow cousins. Gwydion's eldest son and crown Prince, a fellow named Corryn Greenbarrow, also seemed no stranger to armaments, though he seemed more of a diplomat and negotiator. Backed by the might of his cousin Elaine's military, it had been this Prince who had authored the latest non-aggression treaty that had been accepted by the Orc tribes in (1989, by human reckoning.)

Another familiar name was mentioned amidst several other accounts of notable second-generation knights trained under Lady Elaine –

'SWAIN, Lady Emily Beauregard (2994 – ). Also known as Lady Snickersnee, Lady Whispersnickt, Our Lady of the Blade. Platoon Commander, His Majesty's Seventh Ground Infantry...

Lady Emily, only child of Elaine Greenbarrow Swain, was knighted at Lady Elaine's commendation for exceptional valour in the Second Defence of Rivendale, a joint effort with the Sixth Kingdom's Order of the Lady Cliodhna... '

The Second Defence of Rivendale had apparently occurred in (1987 by human reckoning), and by 1988, Professor Swain had apparently seen active combat at least a second time –

'... Lady Emily was awarded the King's Arms for exceptional valour after her platoon successfully defended the portal town of Ardensea against surprise attack by a superior force of Baalorite warriors. Her lieutenants, Sir William Blake, Lord Corvus Greenwood, Lady Victoria Priquette, Sir Colin Doggins, and Lord Jayson Robinett (Lord Jayson Robinett?), were all knighted at her commendation...

Lady Emily is one of only seventeen living Third Kingdom knights to receive the title of Master-At-Arms, for skill in swordsmanship. Following the acceptance of the 3022 Peace, she now serves as a bladework instructor to the next generation of Third Kingdom squires.'

Well. There was no fatherly pride in that description either, now, was there.

In a moment of curiosity, he turned next to the index and looked up a second name. Listed amongst the notable Knights-Commander of King Armus's Order of the Lady Cliodhna was –

'TUMNUS, Sir Dorien Aeros (2999 – ). Also known as Sir Nevermiss, Sir Surety. Platoon Commander, King's Fourteenth Archer's Corps.

... Sir Dorien Tumnus has the interesting distinction of being the only Fianna knight ever to have been court-martialed for insubordination on the day of his Orcleofian Knighting ceremony.'

All right, that was something one didn't hear of every day. Snape would have written, "... the dubious distinction of... " but then, he hadn't been the man's father-in-law.

Snape skimmed through the biographical account – Tumnus had been knighted at twenty-two, under rather unusual circumstances. An area of shared border between the Third and Sixth Kingdoms was apparently hotly contested by the Baalorite Orc tribe, leading to numerous joint military efforts between the two knightly Orders. During an early conflict in the hostilities that would lead to both Gwydion and Armus declaring war on the Baalorites in (1986, by human reckoning), members of Dorien Tumnus's archers' corps unit, including his commanding officer, had been captured by the enemy. Tumnus had proposed an exceedingly risky rescue mission to retrieve them. His plan had been rejected by the Fianna authorities – so he mustered the rest of his unit and went anyway. The mission was a resounding success, and the commanding officer Tumnus rescued had knighted him on the spot.

Sir Tumnus was also mentioned as having been decorated with Gwydion's Arms for exceptional valour at the Second Defence of Rivendale – the same honour accorded to his wife.

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Snape checked the publication date of the Encyclopaedia – copyright by author 1990, Obscurus Books. Just one year after the peace was signed. Most likely, Dorien Tumnus would have had less than a year left to live when this book was published. This entry being a military history, of course there was no mention of the author's own marriage to Lady Elaine, the birth of their daughter, and that daughter's marriage to a Sixth Kingdom knight who had aided in the Second Defence of Rivendale. And it was unlikely that anyone could have foreseen the end of that marriage.

Snape leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing, and spent a single long moment coldly despising Jayson Robinett. To have fought in a war under someone's command, to have been commended to the rank of knight by that commander – surely one could expect that to create at least gratitude and respect. To then repay that commander by shooting her husband, a decorated hero in his own right, in the back less than two years after their marriage... while he personally felt that the character of Robinett's commanding officer left much to be desired, it still seemed a piss-poor way to treat anyone else. For a moment Snape wondered if the Robinetts were somehow related to the Malfoys.

His gaze fell on the tiny clock on a shelf of his desk – he would have to hurry to be on time for his seven p.m. instructional session with Professor Swain.

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Well well well – good Professor Snape was late, Emily thought. He hadn't shown up till 6:57 that night.

"Good evening, sir," she said. She had been going over both of their accustomed practice swords with the whetstone and oil that night, and was still finishing that work when he arrived.

He met her greeting with a formal inclination of his head. "Madam."

"How are you feeling?" she asked, with a moment's upward glance from her work.

"Er, fine, I suppose," Snape replied, after a short pause. From the tone of his voice, Emily was briefly left with the impression that he was not often asked that question.

"I mean, how's your back?" she clarified. "Any soreness?"

"It's all right," he said. "Nothing to complain about."

Well, Severus Snape with nothing to complain about – this evening was off to a good start, wasn't it. She put the oiling brush aside and slid out from behind her worktable. "I thought I'd show you a couple of upper back stretches tonight before we got started, so you can warm up with them later. Your habitual posture is very dignified, but it isn't going to do wonders for your flexibility." She thought dignified was a more neutral word to describe him than the slightly more obvious intimidating.

"Part of a Professor's job is to set a model of deportment for the students here, madam," he said, a touch defensively. "I can't always be slouching about like some common – "

"I understand, sir. That was an observation, not a criticism," she interjected. "Of course you have to maintain a certain professorial demeanour, or the students would eat you alive – I know that. I do teach school and all, you know," she said, echoing his comment of a few weeks earlier. He glanced sidelong at her – quoting Snape back to himself provoked the thinnest of amused grins from him.

Again – she pulled out one of the chairs, put him in it in front of her with his back to her, then took about ten minutes in showing him how to stretch and warm up the muscles of his back and shoulders. His agitation and discomfort with her physical nearness seemed to have subsided a great deal – even when she planted one hand in between his shoulder blades and pressed forward, while pulling back on each shoulder in turn, it was far more comfortable and businesslike. His expression remained impassive, though his physical reaction betrayed some release of tension. Even if the man himself wouldn't acknowledge that this kind of physical activity felt good, his body was a great deal more sensible.

"There you go – try grabbing something immoveable, like a railing, and using it for a counterweight for stretches. You'll want to do that regularly or you'll end up with the same sort of strange physique I have."

"'Strange physique'? How is that?" Snape glanced quizzically back at her.

"Oh – if you continue this sort of training for any length of time, you'll definitely notice that people who use a sword a lot invariably end up with a much more developed set of muscles on the side of their sword arm, unless they take the time to diligently work out their opposite arm as well. I'm horribly lazy about that sort of thing, so as a result I end up looking a bit lopsided in my swimsuit in summer." This provoked no response from the good Professor – but then, Emily reflected, who knew if the man owned a swimsuit, or if he did, if he cared one bit as to what he looked like in it.

Emily stood up, stretched a bit herself, and then handed Snape his accustomed practice sword. "All right, let's get started. Let's take it from where we left off the other day – parry drills eight through sixteen, and the first ten evasive dodges."

"Again... ?" Snape said impatiently.

"Again," she said, with a little raise of her own sinister eyebrow.

Not surprisingly – the drills went noticeably better this time, and by the session's end, Emily was impressed with her student's progress and told him so. "There – much better. Nice work, Professor."

Just before the clock reached nine o'clock, Emily turned her attention back to her work table, on which her miniature leather-roll armoury was now lying open. "Before you go – we're going to start on dagger training the week after next, so let's get you a new accessory to go with that amazing array of black cloaks. This one's nice." With a silent recitation of her True Name, she returned a wicked-looking eight-inch dagger to its usual size, then handed it to him, grip first.

Snape crossed to her, and accepted it very carefully. Emily came around the table and corrected his grip on the blade – not overhand, but underhand, blade pointing up in parrying stance. This time there was no moment of resistance before he accepted the idea of following her lead.

"See, a dagger grip is almost the same as a sword grip – it's an extension of your forearm, only now your reach is eight inches longer, not thirty-six inches longer. The wrist should be rigid," she said. "That one's very well balanced. It has a nice feel to it and flies true. But don't mistake this for a strong distance weapon like a bow – it's far harder to throw a blade with enough force to penetrate a target than it looks. It took me years to get even remotely competent at it."

He glanced sideways at her. "You seemed to know what you were doing on the day of the hunt."

She grimaced at the memory. "Thanks for saying so, but I thought my work was awfully sloppy on the day of the hunt. There's no reason to take five blows to kill a quarry like that."

"Perhaps you weren't in your best form," Snape said. "You did burn your hand rather badly the night before."

Well, that was highly unusual – both for him to make an allowance for something she had done less than perfectly, and to say so in such a simple, sincere tone. Emily wondered briefly if this had been the day he demonstrated Calming Draughts to his classes, or some such. It wasn't that she disliked this civility and politeness on his part – in months past, she would have welcomed it – but now, she wasn't sure what to make of it.

"I'll look forward to the week after next then," Snape said, and made to hand the dagger back to her, but Emily held up a hand and stopped him.

"Actually, that's for you – you'll need something to practice with. You'll want to go over dagger parries this weekend – those are in the last section of the folio I lent you." Emily picked up a leather sheath from her tiny armoury and handed it to him as well. "You'll want to keep it in this. That's a folded mithreal blade – it ought to last you forever. And when you're not fighting off enemies, it'll make a phenomenal letter opener."

Again, that provoked the thinnest of amused grins from him. "Are you sure you don't need it?" Snape asked.

"I have any number of that kind of dagger, sir, and that's not my favourite," she replied offhandedly. "Same time this coming Monday?"

"All right. And... thank you," he said. He tucked the Faery dagger under his arm and left the room.

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Professor Snape had gone into London that week, both to hunt for Potions ingredients and to indulge himself with several hours in the great Main Library of Magic near Gringotts. Whenever his students had been particularly obnoxious, or his work had been proceeding thanklessly, he liked to take refuge in the vasty stacks, breathing the smells of old parchment and ink and poring over a stack of whatever he felt like studying that day. He knew any number of hiding spots in that Library that were probably only known to him and the caretakers, where he most likely could have sat and read without seeing another soul for days on end. He spent most of that evening holed up in one of them researching antidotes for the new class of exotic poisons, based on the defensin-like proteins in platypus venom, that had been turning up recently. (Whatever Professor Swain had done on Wednesday, he had to admit, it allowed him to sit bent over books for rather longer than before without his neck aching.)

There had been an old beggar inhabiting the steps to the Library for most of the year – Snape couldn't remember exactly when the man had appeared, but he was now so much of a fixture there as to be nearly invisible. Just a spindly old man, clad in many layers of dirt-crusted, indeterminate rags, rattling a cup of change at passers-by, with the occasional plaintive chant of Spacumchange? Some destitute Squib with untreated schizophrenia, no doubt – Snape usually cut his eyes away from the man's indignity when he passed, but if the weather was especially bad, he would drop a few Knuts into his cup.

As he passed the old vagrant on his way down the Library steps, the grime and shabbiness of the man's appearance fell away like a mist dispersed by a keen wind. Snape suddenly looked at a wizened imp of a man, maybe four and a half feet tall, with luxuriant grey hair and long, pointed, tufted ears. Quite clean, full-fed, and healthy-looking, actually, with bright, crinkly eyes, and wearing a shaggy patchwork coat pieced from what looked like the pelts of many creatures. He noticed he was being closely observed and turned in Snape's direction with a broad grin.

"Fine evening to you, sir," he said, tipping his cap. "Spare some change?" Even his diction had changed – from the wavering, querulous tones of the beggar to a sprightly, distinct voice. His accent was much like a provincial version of Professor Swain's more cultured tones.

Snape moved closer to the man, curious. "Of all the Glamours a Faerie can put on, I don't know if that's the most glamorous," he observed.

The old man's eyes widened with a warm smile of recognition and interest. "So, thou sees the Sentry of Diagon Alley, then – hail and well met, my fine Monsieur Lenuit."

Snape was momentarily startled – it was rare than anyone greeted him so cordially, especially someone he had never met before. "Er... hail to you, sir."

The old man was studying Snape's face curiously, still smiling. "Perhaps he's a Tithesman, page to a king. Perhaps I'll see him in the Circle. Perhaps he has news for me from my Lord. Only he knows if he'll tell." He waited, face alight and expectant.

Snape found this reply perplexing. "I was never a page to a king. What do you mean, see me in the Circle? What circle?"

The old man's expectant expression closed – as if he had greeted someone he thought was a friend, but then found himself facing a stranger whose identity he had mistaken. "Spare some change?"

"Oh, all right," he said, annoyed at this sudden rejection. He stooped and dropped a Sickle into the fellow's cup, wishing to sustain this conversation for some irrational reason. The old man had been so friendly, inviting dialogue – now he was acting as though Snape was just another indifferent stranger. Evidently there was some password he hadn't given, some shibboleth he hadn't recognised, and now he was the outsider again. "You're a sentry. What are you watching for?"

"Change, of course," the shaggy fellow said, rattling the cup in his hand. Something in his tone did not sound as though he was talking exclusively of Sickles and Knuts.

"What do you mean?" Snape demanded. But then his attention was distracted by a loud screech off to the right – some child having a tantrum, being carted off by its harried mother. When he turned back to the old man, he was gone.

Snape breathed an indrawn hiss of irritation. Well, that was typical.

He mused over what had the old man called him as he continued back toward Hogwarts. My fine Monsieur Lenuit – he searched his memory for the meaning of that particular phrase. His French, admittedly, was rusty. Nuit meant "night"... le was a grammatical article... Monsieur was a masculine honorific, of course... so the old fellow had addressed him as... Mister Night?

What an odd thing to call someone. And, of course the fellow had not bothered to tell him his own name.

Why Faeries were all so bloody neurotic about their names and their business, he would really never know, Snape reflected with a dire shake of his head.

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As she packed a small overnight bag for her latest tryst with Lucius, Emily wondered what the Headmaster or anyone else on the staff thought of the rate at which she was spending weekends away from Hogwarts. As her weekends had become more frequent, a few of her colleagues had gotten around to casually asking where she was spending her time. Luckily, Emily did have a small circle of friends around the U.K., concentrated in Cambridgeshire, and one long-time friend, a Muggle-born witch named Aelfraith Reilly, in Dublin, so it was easy to imply that she was spending the weekend at the home of some friend or another if anyone asked. Irma Pince had been very gently teasing her now and then about whether or not some nice man was in the picture, but Emily doubted if the librarian actually believed there was.

When she appeared in Lucius's latest luxurious hotel room in London, she briefly wondered what Irma would say if she knew that there was in fact a man in the picture, and who that man was.

As always, he looked absolutely gorgeous, sitting at a desk with some documents and a quill in front of him, in shirtsleeves, loosened tie, unbuttoned waistcoat, and a black ribbon starting to give up its grasp on his silver-gilt locks. He had the kind of directionless, helplessly silky hair that no ribbons or restraints ever managed to keep hold of for long.

"Good evening, my dear." He beckoned her forward with a languid gesture.

"Did you have a nice Valentine's?" She dropped her cloak and robes onto a carved armchair and slithered around the desk to kiss him.

"Oh yes. A better time could not have been had. Oh joy, oh bliss, oh rapture," he said ironically.

"Any sightings of that elusive bird, the nude Malfoy female?" Emily reached for the buttons of her spidersilk frock. Very likely the number of nude females recently sighted by Mr. Lucius Malfoy was about to go up by one.

"Alas, no, but at least the exterior of this year's negligee was a rather pleasant silk instead of scratchy lace like the last one." Lucius watched the buttons of her frock coming open with interest.

"Am I to understand from all this that perhaps the marital bliss is just a bit... infrequent at home?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?" he asked.

"Well... you did seem to be trying awfully hard to get me into bed with you awhile ago." That frock lightly wafted down into a soft puddle around her feet.

"You were what one calls a 'high-risk, high-yield investment', my love. Now come fuck me."

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Lucius was in one of his quieter moods that evening. Once in bed, he took a long, slow time about completely undressing her, caressing each part of her as though he was later going to sculpt her from memory. He wanted to take a long slow time in making love as well, prolonging the act until every stroke was a moment of breathless suspense. By the time he finally took his own pleasure of her, she was wrung out with orgasms, sweating and exhausted.

Afterward, he only wanted to recline against the cushions with Emily's tousled head pillowed on his chest. He kept gazing off into the distance with an intensely satisfied look on his face, as though he and only he knew a glorious secret that everyone else in the world would kill to hear. Now and then he would look down at the woman lying in his arms, and fairly glow with smug contentment.

"Mmmm – look at that face. Feeling a bit like the King of the Second World tonight, love?" Emily asked.

"Who wouldn't, after a day like this. I'm very nearly in danger of having everything I've ever wanted," came the purring drawl. "So tell me, is there anything that you want, my love?"

"Nothing, really," she said, shrugging. "I'm quite contented with how happy you always are to see me. The occasional smashing pair of diamond earrings are icing on the cake."

"Oh, come, surely there's something you would let me do for you?" he asked. Emily knew it was not unusual for Lucius to be taken by extravagantly generous moods now and then, when everything seemed to be going especially well for him.

"Well... I'm always cold here, unless I'm in bed with you," she confessed. "How about persuading one of those mineral hot springs above Rivendale to move to Hogwarts? Just until I go home in September?"

"Please, love, you're resisting me," Lucius purred. "Are you sure you wouldn't like something? Some grand indulgence, some enemy brought low? How about a nice bit of revenge on good old Snape, perhaps?"

"No need. I can scarcely believe it myself, but he's actually being rather decent lately," Emily said.

"Is he," Lucius said. "Well, isn't there at least some absolutely perverted sexual fantasy you want me to fulfil?" He stroked a shivery fingertip down her spine.

"Oh – so your real motivation comes out," she said, laughing. She searched her memory for some idle desire he could satisfy, just to make him happy. One had to be careful with him though – if she said she wanted the Hope Diamond, she suspected he would have somehow have gotten it for her. "Oh, I know. I'd love for you to give me the grand tour of Malfeasant sometime, when we don't have to deal with Druella's dirty looks or your brother-in-law breathing whiskey down my neck. I just love these grand old English country houses, with all the art and gardens, and I never get to visit them anymore."

"Ah, yes... I'd imagine Elsie and Priscilla aren't exactly showering you with invitations to visit Swaincroft," Lucius said, very, very delicately.

She looked away. "Well... let's just say that getting snubbed by Elspeth and Priscilla and the rest of that lot is something like getting kicked out of a coma ward," she said, with a scornful laugh. "And a very tweedy and frumpy one, at that."

"With lots of small, yappy dogs underfoot," he said. "But really, just the garden tour of the house? I can probably manage that."

Emily knew that he would try to fulfil her idle wish for her, and whatever it was that he did in the end would be splendid. Lucius always took such wonderfully good care of her. Now she was coming to expect it, look forward to it.

This was always the greatest danger with him; she could look into those sublimely self-assured grey eyes and see herself reflected ten feet tall, invulnerable, and utterly beyond reproach; as capricious and unaccountable as some Greek goddess. All that beauty, power, and endless confidence, greedily satisfying his own lusts without a trace of shame or self-consciousness.

It was so very easy to forget about everything and everyone else when she was with him.