Part Second: The Hart Rampant: Chapter 23, Part 2

Chapter 23, Part 2:

Severus Snape was acutely aware of the fact that he had not been a saint all of his life. He knew that he had done things in the past that many would consider cruel, vicious, even evil. But he had no fecking idea what he had ever done to this damned woman to deserve to be ridiculed like this.

He had expected subtle mockery, poisonously smiling malice, and evasive responses to his questions as to what the bloody hell had gone on the previous night – but instead, she had come up behind him while he was alone in the teacher's lounge, put her arm around him, actually kissed him, and said, There you are, as though she had been eagerly awaiting him all day. Mockery, malice, and evasion he could take, but this... she had been hostile previously, but even at her worst, there had been a line she wouldn't cross. In her own strange way, she always observed the proper rules of engagement, had always fought fair.

Now... she knew how he had felt in September. This was just exquisitely cruel. She had waited all year to get in this Mercit shot, to go for the kill where she knew he was vulnerable – and at that moment, he hated her, and hated his own weakness over her even more. He felt his face flaming, felt a tiny muscle contracting uncontrollably at the corner of his eye. When he finally turned to face her, he was unable to keep his hurt pride off his face, try as he might to contain himself.

He waited for some polite, poisonous remark, a knowing little smile – but instead, her eyes widened, and the smile fell from her face like a dropped stone. Then, to his great surprise, she didn't look even remotely triumphant; no, she looked like she'd received a slap when she expected a kiss. Then the light weight of her hand was gone from his shoulder, and all sense of her physical presence was silently gone from behind him.

Snape stood up and spun around, demanding, "Would you mind please explaining what that was all about?" – but the question fell on a completely empty room. The door was half ajar, and she was gone.

Miss Spelled-With-a-Y had, once again, vanished.

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Later that day, Barty Crouch Jr. held a meeting with an associate in the back room of a seedy little Hogsmeade pub called the Boar's Head.

"You're making me wonder what I paid you for, when your contract keeps flouncing around looking fresh as a daisy," Crouch demanded. "Why didn't you make an end of her last night, when she was in London?"

"Couldn't manage it. She had some bloke with her," the man in grey protested in a decidedly surly voice. "Bastard was draped all over her. Would have had to do him first to get to her, and you didn't pay for a two-fer."

"I told you that time was important," Crouch snarled. "It's been days – and a woman can get an awful lot of talking done in just one hour, you understand."

"I know that," his companion protested. "I'm doin' me best here, all right?"

Crouch flung back in his chair, glowering down at the table top for a moment before turning back to his companion. "The fellow draped all over her... did he have long blond hair? Rich clothes?"

"Nah, nothing like that. Dark hair, worn clothes. Just some bloke. But takin' two is a ruddy lot harder than takin' one, and that you can be sure of. What if this bloke had gotten it into his head to try and play Sir Galahad or sumthin? Then your contract could have run off and been to the police now, and then no one'd be able to get to her."

"Sounds like a bloody lot of excuses to me," Crouch growled.

"I'll get it done, all right?" the grey man snapped. "Just leave the little tart to me. She'll ne'er trouble anyone more, once I'm through with her."

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Emily went back to her own classroom after Snape's – snub? rebuff? cut direct? – whatever it was. One thing had been well and truly established – he hadn't been anywhere near as happy to see her as she had been to see him.

She didn't have long to think it over, however, because her Gryffindor-Slytherin fourth year session was beginning to trickle into the room and take their seats, some of them greeting her politely as they went.

For the practical part of their exam, she took them in groups of five into the bathroom and stood them under a light shower wearing their Protective Amulets for exactly thirty seconds. She then graded them on the amount of water they dripped on the bath mats after emerging. Not surprisingly, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy emerged from their showers barely damp, and Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle both looked as though they had taken a dip in the lake with their school robes on.

After that was done, all she had to do this session was collect the last of their end-of-term compositions and give them their final in-class assignment, their choice of five out of ten possible essay questions written on the blackboard. The work should take up their entire class period, which meant that all she had to do was work on grading their compositions while they all sat silently and wrote. Thankfully, her students settled down quickly and got right to work, and soon the only sound in the room was that of rustling parchment, scratching quills, their faintly anxious breathing, and the occasional drip from an incompletely dried robe.

None of her students seemed to have noticed how rattled she was – they were probably rattled enough themselves by final exams. Emily took refuge at her desk behind a large stack of parchment scroll compositions and forced herself to work on grading, trying not to think of what exactly could have happened to make Severus – no, they seemed to be quite distinctly back on a Professor Snape-Professor Swain basis again – so furious with her in the ten hours that had passed since she had put him to bed.

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Finally the class period was over, and her students stopped writing and brought their compositions up to her desk. "Thank you all very much, ladies and gentlemen, it's been my pleasure to work with such a bunch of bright young people this year. I'll be glad to see all of you at the Third Task tomorrow and at the Leaving Feast."

The class began to break up and leave the room, some of the students stopping by her desk to shake her hand and say good-byes. Hermione Granger came up with a particularly starry little grin on her face, tailed by Potter and Weasley, and they thanked her for an interesting class in turn. "You're welcome, you lot, it's been lovely to know you. Miss Granger, maybe you'll teach Faery magic someday yourself. No hard feelings about the veela Glamour, I hope, Weasley? And good luck tomorrow, Potter."

Some of the Slytherins stopped by to say goodbyes as well. "I liked this class – are you coming back next year?" Pansy Parkinson asked.

"Yeah, are you?" Draco Malfoy asked. "If you are, maybe we could have inter-House fencing teams or something."

"No, I'm not, sorry," Emily told them. "My assignment was for one year, and I have classes to teach at home. Though inter-House fencing teams sounds like a great idea, Mr. Malfoy. Maybe some of you lot can start that up fifth year."

Draco looked a bit crestfallen when she said she wasn't going to be staying on staff at Hogwarts. He lingered until almost everyone else had gone, then asked another question, one that clearly had a great deal of import for him. "Professor? I wanted to ask you – how do you get to be a Tithe page? My father told me that you have to be recommended by courtiers, or sentries, or something, but I can't get him to tell me anything more about it now."

Emily had a very good idea as to why Lucius might be discouraging his son's interest in the Tithe recently, but she kept that to herself. "Maybe your father doesn't want to continue with the custom, Draco," she told him. "Or maybe your mother's told him she doesn't want you to go away for so long."

"But after I'm seventeen, it would be my decision, and I want to go," the boy persisted quietly. "Would you recommend me?"

She hesitated for a long moment, looking at his sullen, hopeful face. Of course she had already begun campaigning for Hermione's inclusion, and inviting Draco to Court would be complicated now, even if his parents had been absolutely willing. He might be just another Lucius, there solely because of family legacy, and interested in nothing but Fae women and revelry... but then, Draco wasn't Lucius. She had seen ample proof of Draco's superior talent and genuine intellectual curiosity all that year, and of course it wasn't fair to let her estrangement from his father colour her opinion of Draco's true worth.

However, she still absolutely wanted Hermione as her Tithe candidate, and if she wrote recommendations for both Hermione and Draco, the fact that Draco's family had produced some generations of previous Tithe pages might be seen as greater qualification than Hermione's glowing recommendations from Emily and both of her parents. There were other courtiers who might be persuaded to recommend Draco, but then she ran the risk of potentially excluding Hermione from the running. The situation would be difficult.

"I'll see what I can do," she said finally.

"Brilliant," Draco said, grinning hugely. He gave her hand a good wringing, and then, to her surprise, leaned forward and put a very teenage-boyish sort of peck on her cheek. "Thanks so much. You won't regret it."

As she watched him gather up his bag and leave for lunch, smiling like that... Emily sent a fervent wish up to the Lady of the Worlds that Draco wouldn't turn out to resemble his father in temperament as he did in appearance. And then she wished just as fervently that her own father was here, so that she could have a good long talk with him about this Tithe page situation.

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The Slytherin-Gryffindor session had been Emily's last class of the day, leaving her with two hours free before supper. She could have taken her grading to the library or the teachers' lounge, but what with the way both Professor Snape and Professor Moody were acting, she didn't feel like leaving her own classroom at that moment. She settled down at her desk with a pile of end-of-term composition scrolls, a quill, and a bottle of red ink.

Perhaps a quarter of an hour later, there came such a curt, definite knock on her classroom door that she glanced up, startled. A moment later, Professor Snape silently glided into the room, scowling like to make the stoutest-hearted Gryffindor run the other way. Emily gulped.

"Er... good afternoon, sir," she said, surveying him apprehensively. "Can I help you with something?"

"Yes, I'm hoping you can," he spat back, coming to a stop directly in front of her desk. "Would you perhaps like to explain to me exactly what I am to make of the events of last night?"

Emily stared at him in disbelief. "Don't you remember anything at all from last night?"

Snape glowered at her, but not quite as energetically as usual. "I remember going with you to that... establishment, supposedly to get a progress report on Liria's condition. You went off to talk to some people you knew, and I drank some blue liqueur at the bar that proved to be... rather more potent than I thought."

"It's quite potent, yes." She kept grading papers, eyes on her desk. "It's also a euphoric hallucinogen."

"Ah, yes," Snape said, worlds of withering contempt contained within his tone. "I noticed that. Rather too late to keep from making a fool of myself, unfortunately."

Earlier that day, facing his cold greeting in the teacher's lounge, Emily didn't think it was possible to feel any more crushed then she had then... well, evidently there were even more levels to which her spirit could be trampled. She thought he had been wonderful the night before – and he thought he had made a fool of himself.

Emily didn't glance up from her scrolls of parchment. "Well, if your hangover is much improved now, Professor, I'd say there was no harm done."

"I do hope I didn't make too much of a spectacle of myself," he said, still very stiffly.

"No, you weren't any worse than anyone else there. I think you may have the only one declaiming curiously paraphrased Shakespeare, but no one else was paying any attention. Then I took you back on the Knight Bus – I didn't think you were in any condition to Apparate – and we came back here, and I dropped you off at your quarters. I made sure no one saw us."

"I would... appreciate... if you wouldn't tell anyone the story of my, ahem, adventures with Faery liqueurs that act as euphoric hallucinogens, madam," Snape said. His manner was now so stiff that she was afraid any movement would break him.

"I wouldn't even imagine doing such a thing," she replied faintly.

"Well... " He seemed as though he had expected rather more of an argument from her and was a bit unnerved when she simply and readily agreed to his request. "Thank you for showing a bit of discretion."

A bit of discretion. Oh, please – the previous evening he faulted her for being uncommunicative, and now, he was faulting her for being indiscreet – who knew what this man wanted any more. "Of course, sir. Think nothing of it," she said tightly.

She was expecting him to excuse himself and leave her alone at that point, but he did not. He hovered, a dark blot in her peripheral vision. His eyes were like a chill weight on the side of her face. "Emily?"

"Yes, Professor?"

"Are you quite sure that's all that happened?" he asked. His persistent questioning felt rather like a fly settling again and again on an exposed wound.

"That's the most of it," she said inanely.

"Weren't we going to meet with Dr. Orson? I thought that was the whole purpose of going... ?"

"I did meet with Roderick and Catherine. I talked to them for about an hour. They turned up just after eleven."

"They did? Where was I?"

"You were asleep," she said, dipping her quill again.

"Oh." He nodded, looking discomfited. "I thought I dozed for a rather shorter time than that. How is Liria?"

"Roddy said that he left her in the care of a friend's mother outside of Rivendale – they had struck a deal that she would help with the harvest in exchange for her room and board. He said that she was eating well, though she had to discipline herself not to sleep too much. She was being very good about dosing herself with small amounts of the detox potion every day. Roddy was impressed with how determined she was to get well. No allergic reactions to the potion – though she did have her clammy and weak spells, but Catherine said that's to be expected. Anyway, after their harvest is done, she intended to make her way to Greenbarrow Castle. I gave her letters of introduction to the King's head steward, and to my parents as well. One of them will find her a job."

"All right then, it sounds as though she's quite safe then. Did Catherine ask why I was so... tired?"

"I told them you drank some absinthe without knowing its properties, and they understood – you're hardly the first person to end up in that situation. Unfortunately there's no such thing as an Arcadian warning label. Cat gave me the hangover remedy for you."

By the Lady – he really didn't remember a thing. Or was pretending he didn't remember. And if he didn't mention what had happened on the way back, then she was going to just let him not remember, to pretend not to remember. Her cheeks were burning, and she wanted him out of her classroom, rather badly, if only he would stop looking at her.

"All right then. Good afternoon, Professor," she said, dipping her quill again, with every indication that she wanted to get back to work.

"Now, Professor, I'm not quite sure that that's all that happened," he said, folding his arms over his chest in the adversarial posture she was so used to seeing from him.

"Why is that?"

"Because I have a rather interesting bite mark on my... " He traced a finger over his –

"Collarbone?"

"Yes," he said, tightly. His tone implied that she was quite a cruel thing indeed to be chewing on him unawares like that.

"Oh," she said calmly, not raising her eyes from the parchment in front of her. "Really. Does it look anything like this?"

She pushed the neckline of her velvet robe off her right shoulder – where an oval blue bite mark adorned the pale flesh.

Snape stared at it in frozen horror. Emily readjusted her robe and went back to grading her papers.

"Good afternoon, Professor," she said again, in a tone that knew he was now going to walk away from her without a backwards glance, and that gave him her unconditional permission to do so.

"Good afternoon, Professor," he replied, then turned and moved toward the door.

She waited to hear it slam, but it didn't – instead, a black-robed arm swept the entire pile of essay papers, her cup of quills, and everything else on her desk into an untidy mess on the floor.

"Excuse me! People working here, dammit!" she cried in a fury.

Snape perched insolently on the side of her now-empty desk. "Oh, what are you worried about? I'll save you the trouble now and just tell you that no one in your fourth-year class can write anything as interesting as a bloody grocery list. I know from long and painful experience."

She looked at the quill in her hand, the only item left within arm's reach, and threw it at him. He put up an arm and deflected it easily.

"Now tell me the truth about something, if you're capable of it. Can I actually assume from these rather unmistakable tooth marks that you assumed that I had wanted to kiss you for the last hour and a half again, or some such?"

Oh, that was nice – so he'd reverted back to the level of a small boy who thought girls were yucky, evidently. "Actually, you started that kissing nonsense by kissing me. You kissed me quite a lot, actually." She wanted to add that he had actually enjoyed kissing her so much that he had gotten harder than a block of granite and then asked, nay, pleaded for, a repeat of their activities in the King's Cross callbox, but didn't.

"I think I may have some memory of that." He had averted his eyes, made the admission absolutely matter-of-factly. Did he genuinely not remember much of the night before, or was he mocking her? She simply couldn't tell which with him – everything he did seemed calculated to be impossible.

"Well, good, because it happened," she said, as if daring him to deny it. That's all right, sir, go ahead and forget me, I'm not terribly memorable. "You started while I was sitting with you at the club, and then you hadn't stopped on the Knight Bus all the way back to Hogsmeade. Some people saw us in the club, but it's unlikely that you'll ever run into any of them again. On the bus, I made sure no one saw us."

"I can't imagine that was terribly pleasant for you," he snarled, in an even more flinty tone than he usually used with her.

Emily's face flushed, and suddenly there was an embarrassing tightness in her throat, pressure building behind her eyes. "I've endured much worse," she snarled back. "Good afternoon, Professor."

"You simply will not talk about this at all, will you? As always, you're just bound and determined to be as uncommunicative as possible." He was scrutinising her again – that pitiless, deliberate black gaze that wanted to ferret out her every secret and mystery until there was nothing left of her at all. She wondered why he bothered – with him, there would never be any talking about anything, there would only be listening to him berating her, since things were apparently all very much back to normal. She wished very badly for him to go away and leave her alone.

"I asked you a question, madam," he said, very softly.

She pushed her chair back with a bang and began picking up the parchment scrolls from the floor, hurling them back onto her desk. "And if we do talk about this, what will come of it? You say you can't remember much of what happened last night, but you're absolutely willing to just assume that whatever it was, it had to involve me doing something offensive, or humiliating, or generally hideous to you. You wake up with a missing block of time, and that's the first thing that comes to mind. So you just go ahead and believe that I did, and we'll leave it at that, all right? Now if you would please leave me the bloody hell alone."

"Dammit – why do you always have to be so difficult!" he rasped.

Emily laughed, harshly and cruelly. "You have got some indescribable nerve saying that about anyone else, do you know that? I don't even know why you're even bothering to come ask me anything about last night – it's clear that you've already made up your mind as to what happened. I've really no idea why I was expecting anything else from you." She banged the last scroll down on her desk with a vicious little thump.

"I've no idea as to what else I'm supposed to think," Snape snapped back. "Is there something I'm forgetting? If so, then please do enlighten me."

They both paused, regarding each other over her desk for a single long, blistering moment – and even if she could possibly have explained all that had been tender and exhilarating about the previous night to anyone, the last person she would have wanted to tell was the bristling, scowling man before her.

"Oh, fuck it – why even try." She turned hard away from him with a despising air. "I already know what you'll think of it, so I'll not bother. You've already made it quite clear that if you did have a favourable opinion of me once, for about three hours, you sure as flaming Christian hell don't have one now, and you are nothing if not eloquent about your dislikes. You told me that I was an amoral rake, and that you wanted no part of me. When you indicated that whatever there was going on with us was over, it didn't occur to me to disbelieve you in any way – "

"I didn't say that," he snarled. "And I didn't call you an amoral rake – "

"Oh, close enough! From where I'm standing, you first tell me off completely – twice – and then you spend the rest of the year insulting my teaching, my morals, and generally everything about me, and then you decide to get pissed as a newt at a nightclub and practically devour me as though you were entitled to first devouring rights, and then you have the colossal gall to storm into my classroom the next day and snap at me as though you were some holy innocent that I've offended, when all I did was not slap you away when you decided to... you know, if I had done to you what you're trying to do to me now, there would be nothing left of me but a smoking crater. Because we both know damned well that you wouldn't put up with this sort of shite for a second."

He didn't move from her desk, arms still crossed over his chest. His eyes shone with immobile rage.

"You know, if you had only said, that night at the Malfoys – 'I am not especially pleased about the way you treated me when we first met, I think I deserve better than that, and you had best not imagine that I can be had that easily, thank you very much. I now expect you to knock yourself out trying to win me over because I am absolutely worth such attention,' I would have... "

"Would have what?" Every word sounded bitten off and spat.

"Would have..." She could feel her heart booming against her ribs. "Would have knocked myself out trying to win you over, you great bloody idiot."

They stood, both breathing laboriously and looking as though they would have liked to tear the other limb from limb.

"Now, my dear colleague, do allow me to suggest that you go find someone else on whom to inflict your insincerity, your trifling, and your games," she said, in a tone of crushing scorn. "I am tired to death of being endlessly punished because I had the nerve to actually find you attractive once or twice."

The red-black eyes glinted savagely. "As the pot said to the kettle," he whispered.

She felt, at that moment, quite capable of throttling the man to death.

"Well, sir, if you have taken it upon yourself to personally show me what it is to be seduced and unceremoniously abandoned – you indeed have your revenge. Bravo – really well done." She crossed to the door, and was gone.

He made no attempt to stop her.

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After Professor Swain ended their conversation, Snape went back to his office, busied himself with a variety of small, menial tasks, and tried to will his hands to stop shaking.

Really, he didn't know what Albus was thinking, asking for her to be sent here. Not one of his better hiring decisions, truly. It seemed to him as though any of the previous Defence Against the Dark Arts professors would have been a better choice – even the bloody Lupine was capable of upholding his end of a conversation. Even that ridiculous fraud Lockphart managed to answer a plain, simple question when one was posed to him. Why would she not tell him what happened the night before? How bloody difficult could that be? Really, if being kissed had been so dreadfully unpleasant for her, there was always the option of saying, "Stop that," before it got to the point of love bites, wasn't there?

Why had she acted like that when he had gone to speak to her? The second she heard his voice, she had spun round and stared at him like... oh hell, the woman was a faun, there was something profoundly trite and unoriginal in describing her as such, but when he had gone to her classroom, she had looked at him like a startled deer before a very large clawed and fanged predator.

The very last reaction he had expected from her when he confronted her over the previous night was hurt. Evasion, antagonism, more of her general smarminess, certainly, but not that drooping, averted-eyed sort of broken-spiritedness. And he had no bloody idea what she was so damned hurt about. It was one thing to discipline a student, one thing to face a hostile enemy – but to antagonise a vulnerable woman made him feel like the most contemptible bastard alive.

Good lord, previously, he wouldn't have flattered himself to think that he had the power to hurt her. He hadn't fancied he had any influence over her at all – she was serving as his combat instructor out of duty. She was teaching them all out of duty. If she enjoyed the work, if she liked and was liked by some of her students and colleagues, that was just a fringe benefit.

For a moment he felt wildly nostalgic for the previous year, before he had ever known she existed. Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban, yes, but suddenly that didn't seem so bad by comparison. He hadn't been unhappy before she arrived, not really. He hadn't been madly happy, either, but neither had he been abjectly miserable.

Teaching at Hogwarts, with all its attendant privilege and influence, was much more palatable than being a bullied, powerless student here. His father's death meant that he could live the remainder of his life without any more contact with that malevolent, hateful old man. When his mother died, he had been miserable, as was proper and expected – but the last thing he would have admitted to anyone was that all he felt upon the death of his father was blessed relief.

Now. He had a job, a decent income, a place to live, people he interacted with every day, some measure of respectability in society. The work was interesting, even if the students were almost without exception a lot of blithering dunderheads. The reliable predictability of his life had been comforting – school year at Hogwarts, summers watching the old pile of a Snape Hall deteriorate. Albus at least was good company, in the moments he had to spare. Try to win the Quidditch Cup, try to win the House Cup. Try not to worry about where the Dark Lord might be.

But then in 1991, Harry Potter had started at Hogwarts, and all hell broke loose. Quirrell suddenly became a threat that first year. Then the Chamber was opened the next. Snape had been steeling himself to go down and face the basilisk himself, probably stepping over the corpse of that idiot Lockhart on the way down. Then Black had escaped in 1993, and the ingrate Potter had the nerve to start hero-worshipping the bastard instead of seeking the proper punishment for him. Then in early 1994, the Mark had reappeared, had been getting clearer ever since, which filled his belly with cold, creeping horror. Suddenly Lucius was inviting him to social events again, taking him aside for special confidences, the way he used to. That had been enough to make the last vestige of his sense of security and contentment fall into a cureless ruin.

And then, to crown it all, that goddamned woman arrived. Not since the Sorting Hat had been clapped on the scarred head of the younger Potter had someone's presence made him feel so unnerved.

Every bloody day, there she was, going about her business in his sanctuary. The castle that was his safe haven – she seemed to think it was a prison. She spent most of the first term moping around, huddled under thick robes and cloaks. Always seemed to be shivering. She sat on the window seat in the teacher's lounge, gazing out of windows at the snowy fields, the autumn rain, head bent like a stone caryatid with the weight of a building on her shoulders. Yes, no doubt she felt far from home, but that was no reason to sit about pining like some bloody heroine out of a Gothic novel.

Then they had both gone to that damned house party in November – he now wished that he had just sent his regrets and avoided all of the sturm und drang that had gone on that weekend. Yes, perhaps he'd been a bit hard on her, but she had taken so bloody long to try to talk to him about their first meeting that it had amplified the hurt and disappointment he already felt. Merlin knew a man had the right to express his opinion when he felt ill-used, and he had been, dammit. Later that evening... all he had done was sit there and listen when Lucius told him about the tragedy three years previous – and it seemed to him that she had taken him more to task for listening than she had Lucius for telling him. I didn't want to come here, she snapped at him, eyes flashing with hostility, making it so very clear that he was the enemy. Certainly Lucius's set were hardly known for their inclusivity, and he'd heard that her half-siblings were less than thrilled to have a Faery sister – but hadn't she ever noticed that she couldn't judge all humans by that standard? Yes, Narcissa had had that ridiculous crying fit and screamed at the sight of her other form, but he had dismounted and tried to help her up, thanks. He'd gotten knocked down for his trouble, but you didn't hear him screeching at her about that. Perhaps next time he should just leave her crying in the snow, how about that.

He crossed to the ashcan and emptied the dustpan into it – but his hands were still a bit shaky, and he got ash all over the floor. He swore eloquently to himself as he swept it up again.

Then the second term started. By the end of January, she had that new bloom to her face, that new animation in her manner, and he knew something had changed. He couldn't stand the woman, but her absence on weekends annoyed him to no end. Then Lucius let him know she was his latest plaything after the Second Task, and after that, he had come to hate everything about her – her laugh, her manner, her hideous beauty. The way she sauntered down the halls chattering with people, never noticing him at all. The way she could be playful even with some of the most hard-bitten little punks of Slytherins. Around every bloody corner she might be smiling at someone else, but all smiling stopped the second she saw him. The discontent spread in him like gangrene, poison in the blood.

I had a date, she had said. Well, that was fecking quick, wasn't it. Just use us and throw us away, my Lady, we're all disposable enough.

But now he couldn't just despise her, couldn't simply put her on the same shelf with all his other antagonists and betrayers, because despite a year spent freezing and stinging each other, in which she'd gotten up to heaven knows what with heaven knows who and how many, they'd apparently gotten back around to feeling like they had in that fecking callbox. The idea of that left Snape's hands damp enough to make his grip on the phials he was replacing into a standing rack feel a bit iffy. The question of How does she really feel about me is a difficult one for any man to face, much less a man who can hardly imagine a woman having any sort of tender feelings for him at all.

Snape had been putting some stoppered glass specimen jars away in a cabinet – but he set one of the things rather precariously on the edge of the counter, and it had skittered off the side and shattered on the stone floor. Somehow it did him good just to hear the goddamn thing smash.

He had gone on with this kind of frantic tidying and furious ruminating for some time. Only when he noticed that supper would be starting in ten minutes, and he was absolutely starving, having missed breakfast and taken only a light lunch that day, did he finally button up the collar of his robes, wash his hands, and head down to the Great Hall.

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Emily had gone into her office after her colleague had practically chased her out of her sodding classroom. Really, between the psychotic Professor Moody and the amoral rakishness of one Professor Severus Snape, there was nowhere one could count oneself safe in this castle, was there. She sat at her desk until the sun went down, but did not get up and light a lamp when the daylight faded. She was in a rather lucid, fatalistically-staring-into-the-dark sort of mood, actually.

Yes, she should have known that it had been asking too much of Fate to think that he could possibly have meant all he said last night and felt the same about it the next day. He was good at being amazingly passionate when he was alone with her late at night with clothes coming off, and then not being able to stand the sight of her in the cold light of morning with his colleagues around him, wasn't he.

Yes, of course – everyone knew that Faeries were only good for one thing.

She felt frantically homesick for a very long moment – in the Court of the Third Kingdom, people either wanted to have sex with you, or they didn't, and either hated you, or didn't. None of this Severus Snape kind of I hate you except for when I want to have sex with you ever went on there.

Someone knocked on her door – and she heard Irma's voice out in the hallway calling her name. "Emily? Emily, are you in there?"

She got up, half-heartedly smoothed her hair before opening the door. "Yes, Irma – what is it?"

"Someone's here to see you in the foyer downstairs," Irma said. Her eyes narrowed faintly with concern as she surveyed the younger woman's face. "Are you all right, dear?"

"Yes, fine, just having a frustrating day, is all. Who's here to see me?"

"He didn't give his name, just asked for someone to fetch Lady Swain-Tumnus," Irma said. "Rather nice-looking dark fellow in a brown cloak. And I do believe he was another Faerie."

Emily's brow creased. "Ah, thank you, Irma."

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A crush of students were milling about in the Great Hall when Emily arrived there, having just come from their last classes of the day before supper. Through the sea of black school robes, she spotted someone in rustic Arcadian clothing with thick, cowlicky brown hair and a tweed cap in the foyer of the Grand Hall, talking to Argus Filch in a familiar accent. Then, a voice she knew was calling to her. "Emily? Emily! There you are, my girl, thank the Mother I've found you."

"Euan?"

Sir Euan Doggins, Steward of Greenbarrow Castle, had apparently dropped by for a visit.

Emily immediately rushed forward and embraced her old friend with the ardour of one who has missed home for a very long time. He hugged her back just as robustly, kissed her hair with a rough-voiced, Dear girl, you've been missed.

"You can't imagine how much I've missed all of you," she said, aside to him, unable to keep her voice from quavering. "I can't even tell you how ready I am to go home."

Doggins looked troubled by her words. "I can't tell you how ready we are to welcome you, child. But please, when you've heard the tidings I bear, remember to look kindly on the messenger."

Then he reached into the breast pocket of his brown linen doublet for a letter, written on fine handmade parchment and bearing a red wax seal with the device of the cup and grapevines, and ribbons of black and violet, and handed it to her. Emily recognised that seal immediately – the letter could only have been written by the King himself. She took it from him, broke the seal, and stepped aside for a moment to read it.

Gwydion wrote to her in Old Arcadian, as was traditional for such kingly missives, but a simultaneous translation has been provided for the readers of these chronicles:

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To Lady Emily Swain-Tumnus, Master-at-Arms of His Majestie's Fianna, Greetings.

My dear kinswoman,

I have long missed thee, dear one, long wished to see the return of thy sweet face and devoted heart to under my roof again. Often have I reflected, during these long months of thy absence, that thy noble mother and thy fair self have been far more to us than niece and great-niece, far more than guardians of our realm. Thou hast long been to me as my own childe, my daughter, one whose loyalty has been tested in battle and always proven steadfast and true.

It had been my fond hope to pen this missive with greetings, an expression of my joy at soon being reunited with thee. As it is, however, I can only send my regrets that I write thee not with tidings of joy, but of sorrow. It is as we feared, my childe, the truth has proved an unbearable burthen for the Lady Grainné Robinett. She died early this morning, long heartsore and unhinged in mind by the death and disgrace of her son.

As you know, the Robinett family has long served the Crown as courtiers and servitors, though I fear the best days of this noble line have passed. The sons of this generation personify little of the fine qualities we once loved in their fathers and grandfathers. Tales have come to our ears of how the Robinett scions have become best known not for loyalty and courage but for enmities and guiles, grudges and deceits; and these tales were given hard proof with the most foul murder of thy dearest lord Tumnus, by their youngest son, Jayson. I have seen the filial grief of the brothers surviving, Lord Steifan and Lord Richert, and have heard tell of their dark whispers of who is to blame for the breakdown of their mother's health. I fear that in such grief, murderous intent could be kindled were your return to be celebrated at this time. From this, my dear one, comes my fear for thy safety if thou return to us too soon.

I have known thee since the day thou wast born, and I know immediately what thou wouldst do upon these tidings. Thou wilt return home regardless, and thou wouldst make these antagonists back their fighting words with their swords. But as thou art my daughter at heart, I find that I must in this matter let our Sovereign prudence and caution overrule my fatherly desire to embrace thee once again.

That said, I give you this ORDER and COMMAND, as your Liege, your Lord, and One who loves you with all his heart: Do not yet return to Arcadia. Stay in the Second World until I summon ye home again.

This is not punishment; I bear thee no ill will. May my True Name witness I give this order solely for thy protection. I love thy brashness of spirit, Emily, but I love to see thee living even more. Always remember that, even if thou grievest and lament to see these words.

I give you no charge and no mission for this time apart other than to make thyself as happy as thou can, and find some place where thou canst cultivate thy many talents. I do not see this as a long separation, perhaps a year entire at longest. But know that in the end, when I have deemed the danger past, thou wilt always be welcomed back home with joy and abiding love by –

~ Your loving kinsman

His Majestie Gwydion Greenbarrow V

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No, she said, in a faint, despondent voice, glancing over the King's letter again. No. This can't be true.

She turned a tragic face back to Doggins – "So Grainné died – and the Robinetts are on about how it's my fault? By what logic does that make any sense?"

"I don't think any would claim that logic informs the actions of Grainné's sons in their grief, dear hart," Doggins told her, compassion in his voice.

"Tell me the truth – am I being punished? Is that it?" she whispered.

"You know better than that," he said, a very gentle note of chiding in his voice. "It's not forever – think of it not as an enforced sabbatical, but an extended vacation. There's all the Second World to receive you, and thou may go wherever thou wishest! What I would give sometimes for such freedom and leisure."

"But it's not home," she said disconsolately. "All year, I've been looking forward to the day when I can go back and see all of you again – "

"I know, Emily, I know," Doggins said, in a voice that understood her sorrow all too well. "Now I cry your pardon, Lady, but I must go. But I will welcome you home with all my heart when Gwydion calls you back again."

"Euan, do you have to go right away? Can't you at least stay for supper?" Emily asked, her voice breaking.

"I wish I could, but you are not the only of the King's subjects needing his attention this day," he said, his voice gravelly with emotion. "If it were possible I would stay until you were comforted, but I must needs tend to other business. I am so very sorry." He embraced her again and kissed her forehead. "May our Mother bless you and keep you."

"And you as well, wherever your journey may lie." It was hard to let go of Euan, after the day she had – if Emily could have had her way, she would have taken him for a quiet supper in some dark corner of the Three Broomsticks, poured out her troubles to him, and begged him for all the news from home. But she knew all too well what sort of other business the King entrusted to Sir Doggins and knew that he would not have left her so soon had matters not been urgent. It was like Gwydion to send an old friend to deliver this news rather than have it sent to her by owl, but she almost wished he had, rather than feel the grief of this parting.

With that, Doggins reluctantly made her a small bow and was gone out the great front doors. Emily watched him go, feeling more abandoned than she could have ever imagined. She turned toward the Great Hall, only to meet the impenetrable black gaze of none other than her colleague, onetime lover, and now despised antagonist, Severus Snape, watching her from the landing. Who knew how long he had been standing there – and of course she couldn't have gotten bad news from home without him being right there to see it.

In a less emotional frame of mind, she might have noticed the expression on his face was not one of satisfaction, or suspicion, but truly something closer to concern. At that moment, however, she couldn't endure having his eyes on her for even one second longer. She turned and rushed from the foyer, crumpling Gwydion's letter in her hand.

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What a bloody rotten day this has been, Snape thought, mechanically forking into supper. Usually he could rant, scold, and rage all day as part of his usual teaching routine, but the scene with his colleague had left him exhausted.

Then on top of it of all, he of course had to come into the foyer just as she got that message – and seen the expression on her face when she read it. Professor Swain left the foyer looking distraught, and then she never showed up to supper. Her accustomed chair beside Madam Pince and Professor Sprout sat empty.

She was an immovably supercilious, self-satisfied little thing – she wasn't supposed to look like her entire world had just crashed around her ears and was spectacularly burning. She wasn't supposed to embrace some messenger like he was the only friend she had in the world, and then seem utterly bereft when he took his leave of her. The last thing he had ever expected to feel for Lucius's insufferable little princess was sympathy.

He was still in an agony of worry over what had happened the previous night, and now he was painfully curious about the message she had received – had someone in her family died? Had another conflict broken out? Was she going to have to leave that evening and resume her command? It must be difficult for a military officer to be sent on this mission an entire dimensional plane away, where she knew virtually no one, when she was so obviously concerned about the safety of her home country.

What the hell was going on?

All right – this was getting abjectly ridiculous. Their discussion was not over; something more had to be said. And if she didn't have the sense to say it, he would.

Snape finished his supper very early and excused himself with only a brusque nod to Dumbledore, and resolutely went in search of his colleague.

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Emily had completely forgotten supper, forgotten where she was going, and headed toward her office only by force of habit. All that she could remember at that moment was I can't go home again.

Yes, it was true, it was what she had feared. Her sense of cold triumph and righteousness following the trial by combat three years ago had soon faded, leaving only the consequences to those surviving to be considered. Gwydion hadn't forbidden her to challenge Jayson, had said publicly that he stood behind his kinswoman absolutely, although his opinion of her chosen method of justice remained unchanged. Their relations had been strained for some time following, but she had not realised how much the anger must have lingered in him.

She had defied his wishes, and in doing so, had alienated the King completely. Gwydion despised her.

It hadn't been a diplomatic-outreach mission – it had been his way of getting someone he loathed out of his sight... and now she couldn't see her parents, or cousins, or Bill or Victoria or anyone else she loved for another whole year. Stay in the Second World until I summon ye home again... oh, please, she knew what that meant. Go away and stay there. Fucking Lucius had been right – this was exile. Polite, unofficial exile, but it certainly had the same fecking effect as a bloody Geas of Royal Anathema, didn't it.

She couldn't have prevented the reaction that followed when she was finally alone in her office. Perhaps she could have taken this latest royal command more in her stride if she hadn't been horribly betrayed by Lucius less than a month earlier. Perhaps she could have even taken both the command and Lucius's betrayal more easily if she hadn't had her last secret hopes regarding Severus completely dashed one hour earlier. Whatever it was that finally broke through a knight's stoicism, the message or Snape's latest rejection, she couldn't have said, but it did.

Once Emily's office door closed behind her, she sank down to the floor, wrapped her arms around her knees, and let the tears that had been pricking uncontrollably behind her eyes for so long today come, at last. The rest of the castle's inhabitants may have been at dinner, entirely wrapped up in anticipation of the Third Task tomorrow, but one person spent that time in her darkened office, weeping bitterly.

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Professor Swain wasn't in her classroom, nor in the teachers' lounge, nor in the library, so Snape headed to his colleague's office. He had been raising his hand to knock on her office door, when he heard something and stopped, silently pressing the tips of his fingers to it instead. He paused for a moment to listen.

It was a sound he recognised immediately. Coming from somewhere below the door handle, the rasp of ragged sobbing. As if she had gone into her office, sank onto the floor just beyond the closed door, and started to cry. He had heard this before – this kind of ugly, trapped, hopeless weeping; the sort of thing his mother sometimes did, taking such pains never to let him see it or hear it, but that he knew about anyway.

He knew, then, that whatever news had been contained in that message, it was something poisonous. This wasn't the sort of woman who was given to self-indulgent sentimentality or histrionics – even when he panicked for a moment and struck out blindly, she had quite literally taken it on the jaw, with casual good grace. For her to cry like this... something horrible must have happened.

No... this wasn't the time. She wouldn't want to be disturbed when she felt like this, and even if he had tried to comfort her... Merlin knew if he was any good at comforting other people. Only rarely did the Head of Slytherin ever have to extend solace to another person – the only time he ever really bothered with it was when Slytherin students had deaths in their families. Even then, his means of caring for them would be to let up on them in class for a week or two, perhaps gruffly inquire as to how they were holding up once or twice in the month following, maybe three times if the student was female, or very young.

But this was entirely different. Professor Swain was a grown woman, and she had, if only for one evening (two evenings?) been his lover. For now, he would let her have her privacy, her solitude, and her dignity. She wouldn't want to be caught crying, by anyone.

He straightened up, soundlessly, and moved away down the hall, so quietly that the woman on the other side of the door would never know that she had been overheard.

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Quarter of an hour later, Snape was alone in his classroom again.

So perhaps she hadn't tried to make a fool of him. Whichever way he had gotten pissed as a newt on some unfamiliar intoxicant, it now seemed as though it had been through his own honest mistake. And, somehow during this... adventure, he had ended up losing enough inhibition to actually give in to his desire to kiss his colleague again. Apparently the nibbling had been mutual. The very idea that he was capable of such brazen effrontery made his mouth go dry.

If he could infer anything at all from their shouting match in her classroom, it seemed somehow that she hadn't minded the kissing so much as she minded being confronted in anger over it the next day. And it also appeared that he might have gotten unwarrantedly angry at her just in time for her to go down to supper and receive bad news from home.

Oh, by Merlin – why was this happening? Why like this, and all at once? How was it that they could be sniping at each other in the Leaky Cauldron earlier that evening, and then impassionedly kissing each other a few hours later?

Was there no sense, nor reason, to anything women did?!

Bloody hell, perhaps... perhaps he just couldn't expect her to be the sort of woman he knew, because she wasn't what he knew, pointed ears, shapechanging, and all. Perhaps he should have known that from the first night he met her, when she took all precedent for the way other people treated him and stood it on its ear. His view of himself had been simple – I am Severus Snape, the Potions master. I am feared by hundreds of schoolchildren, alumni beyond reckoning, and almost all of my colleagues. No one has loved me since I lost my mother, but I could give you ten feet of scroll on those who hate me. I was insufficiently evil to be a Death Eater, and am now insufficiently decent or good to be a member of normal society. You aren't supposed to smile at me like that and ask me to tea, madam, it's simply not done. Take your pretty eyes and fetching way of listening and sod off, you. Just leave me alone.

But there was something delightful about the way she had approached him so fearlessly, something about that moment in the King's Cross Lost Items office that made him endlessly replay it in his mind as though searching for the secret of its charm. The Fae were a secretive people, yes, an elusive lot – but somehow that didn't make them cold or unexpressive. No, even when they found ways to distract you from seeking the real answer to your questions, they never lost that warmth, that sympathy. Such beautiful, animated, fascinating enigmas for you to project your own desires upon.

The truth was (face it) – he didn't want her to leave him alone. He hadn't wanted her to leave that night in September, and he didn't want to be alone now. He wanted to talk to her and wanted to hear her honest answers to his questions. Especially if the answers to those questions led to more impassioned snogging and mutual nibbling.

Without truly realising it, Snape was perhaps for the first time trying to puzzle out how to best communicate with a woman he cared about. He was certainly not the first man to ever face this daunting and enigmatic task, and he was working from a position of little experience, much negative example, and much fear, so perhaps he can be forgiven for not coming up with exactly the right approach on his first attempt.

After some time, he decided on a new course of action. He was going to see her that night at seven p.m., and would ask her how she was then. Just ask her. If she felt like talking about the message she had received, he would encourage her to elaborate on what had happened. Perhaps if that went well, and she seemed amenable to talking, he would confess to his great curiosity about all that had happened the previous night. Then he would just... ask her for more details and do his best to listen without judgment. He didn't claim that he understood women, not an iota... but clearly, his earlier method of questioning had not been an effective one, and perhaps it was time to try a different tactic.

But when Snape arrived at the practice studio at his accustomed time of 6:53, he found it entirely deserted, all the lights out.

He waited about for perhaps a quarter hour, then half an hour, getting more frustrated and annoyed by the minute. She had now and then been five or ten minutes late, but there had never been a night that she failed to show up at all, especially for this bloody long.

Then he realised – she wasn't coming.

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Emily had finally cried herself out in her office. She lifted her head from her hands, and leaned back against the door, feeling numb, resigned, and exhausted. Her watch read 7:27 p.m., and her stomach was rumbling – she had missed supper entirely.

Then she remembered – oh, bloody hell, it was Wednesday, she had an instructional session with Professor Snape tonight, and she was already late, and that was only going to give him even more reason to berate and belittle her. She stood up, started to try to think of what she was going to teach him tonight, which would dictate what exactly she should wear, be it the chainmail or just some sweatpants and a t-shirt or –

And then the decision was made – Dammit, no.

She had worked quite long enough at trying to teach him anything. All she had been trying to do during their training sessions was to give him methods of preserving his own mean, craven little existence, and he had resisted her every step of the way. Resisted her at best, and openly insulted her at worst. Screw it. He would get no more of her time.

Dumbledore had asked her to instruct him in her means of self-defence, to impart to him the best of her knowledge – and she had. She'd taught him more than anyone else at this school. The Headmaster hadn't specified how long she would have to train the thankless bastard, or when she could stop doing so. It was the second to last week of the school year, and the Third Task was tomorrow, and she now thought she had devoted quite enough energy to Professor Severus Snape, thanks.

Fuck him, she thought. I give up.

No, tonight, she damned well didn't feel like having yet another argument with that crusty, unendurable botch of wretched human nature. Tonight, what she really needed was to get out of this castle.

She paused for a moment to wipe her eyes and smooth her dishevelled hair in the mirror. Then she threw on her cloak and picked up her pocketbook. A minute later, she locked her office and was heading for the main entrance, the one that let out onto the front green, the lake, and the path toward Hogsmeade.

What cares I for human hearts, she muttered to herself, sniffling. Soft and spiritless as porridge. A Faerie's heart beats fierce and free, dammit.

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Just before Emily crossed the great front foyer to the front doors, someone stopped her with a firm, gnarled hand on her wrist.

"Something wrong, lassie?" Professor Moody was looking curiously down at her – exactly the last person she wanted to see at that moment.

Emily's stomach contracted with apprehension. "Nothing's wrong," she said.

They regarded each other for a long moment – her eyes riveted on his face, nostrils quivering ever so slightly as she waited for more signs of aggression; both his brown eye and his electric blue one were regarding her as he might have a particularly exotic and interesting, and dangerous, animal in a zoo.

"I just need to get out of here for awhile," she said, pulling against his grip with the clear indication that she would very much like for him to let go of her now.

Moody relinquished her with an elaborate politeness, and she left Hogwarts through the great main entrance.

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How very fecking polite of Professor Swain not to at least let him know she wasn't going to show up that evening, Snape thought to himself as he stalked back down toward the Slytherin dungeons. Somehow he had lost any desire to seek the woman out to give her a piece of his mind, however, and now planned to head back to his own apartments, drink a double whiskey, and just go to bed and let this thoroughly unpleasant day finally end.

But then, as he started down a staircase toward the landing of the great front entrance, he spied a familiar fair-haired, black-cloaked figure walking very fast toward the front doors, apparently on her way out. He stared at her in dismay, very nearly called out to her – Emily, where are you going?

She was hurrying across the foyer so quickly and seemed so distracted that she nearly bumped into Moody, who had apparently just come in from a trip down to Hogsmeade. Moody reached out and caught her wrist, stopping her. Snape couldn't hear what was said, but it looked as though he was asking her a question, and she was making some kind of denial.

It also looked as though she didn't want to be anywhere near Moody at that moment – she looked down at his hand on her arm as though some large, noxious insect had lit there. The two of them watched each other closely, hands clasped around the other's forearms as if checking for hidden blades. They looked like the most polite and civilised pair of sworn enemies imaginable.

Then she turned and walked away from him and out the front doors, not exactly fleeing, but wasting no time in putting distance between herself and Moody. Although her spine remained stiffly straight and her chin up, and her attitude betrayed no fear, Snape knew a strategic retreat when he saw one.