Chapter One
The Darkest Night
Damp dread flecked her skin with tiny droplets of revulsion as she peered into the darkness. It wasn’t something solid that she was afraid of; it was the dark chasm just beyond her that threatened her the most. Maeve shrank back in fear at the prospect of stepping out into the void beyond what she knew. Treacherous tears threatened to fall onto her clammy cheeks. Just when she thought she was beyond the point of redemption she felt arms challenge her fright, taking her back to a point at which she could breathe real air and not the stale fetidness of the place she dreaded.
Severus looked down at her, his face harsh with worry but tempered with love. She looked gratefully into his eyes and recoiled at something, something fleet of foot that moved too quickly for her to recognise. With the ferocity of a tornado sweeping things up into the air she gave voice to a fear she could not rationalise. Her cries of grief wove a spell of such darkness around her that she knew she would drown in their slipstream. Huge, gulping sobs tore from a throat raw with grief and she grabbed hold of Severus’ dark robes, clutching tightly to the fabric and the man beneath, hoping that whatever it was she feared would never come to seek her out. Only Severus kept her from falling further into the despair that swelled at her shore.
And as her cries of anguish and pain reached their crescendo her hands flailed into thin air and she was left with an empty feeling of resounding loneliness. Loss pervaded the room as she opened her eyes to a pitch-black night, percolated only by the occasional owl-hoot and the sound of the hard wind in the trees outside the window. It was a dream, a nonsense created by her mind at a time of deep unease. It was only natural that as they prepared to go back to face the nightmare beyond the summer that she would feel such intense worry. Her hot head shifted on the cooler pillow and she was grateful for the chance to slow her breathing and concentrate on the certainty of a world made real by her consciousness.
She reached across to touch the man in her dream, the man who could chase away the nightmare of uncontrollable crying and irrational terror. All she needed was contact, to be brought back fully into her life before allowing herself to nod back off again. As her fingers crept across the pillows she realised something wasn’t quite as it should be. There was something missing. A breath, a rise in the sheets, the dip in the mattress as two bodies pushed the reluctant mass together and, most importantly, there was no warmth.
Maeve sat up and surveyed the emptiness with a heart still slightly out of kilter. Her head rationalised that he must have slipped downstairs for a glass of water, or perhaps he had heard a noise in the night. Something must have drawn him from his bed to create the emptiness beside her. With a sigh she flung back the covers and gingerly placed a toe on the cold floor, fumbling around with her feet to find her slippers. Once her soles were safely tucked into the warm sheepskin she stood up and padded softly across to the door. It opened with the customary creak and she peered into the gloom.
“Severus?” her voice was a low hiss, the reverence of the deep night making her lower her tone. There was no answer and she continued on her journey of discovery down the stairs. She looked into the sitting room and nothing but the pale embers of a dying fire reflected back against the darkness. Only now did the first strings of real concern begin to tug at her mind.
“Severus?” This time her voice was higher, shriller. Its warning note rang through the cottage but still it brought no response. Now she felt more than simple concern as she dashed through to the kitchen, the cellar and back to the sitting room. She raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time, her white legs flashing against the blackout of the night. She crashed through the door of the bathroom, the second bedroom and finally, wearily, she pushed open the door of the attic space and cried into it for her husband to reveal himself.
There was nothing, nothing at all. She was completely alone in the house and, for the first time since the incident at Abbeylara last year, she was absolutely terrified.
Night continued to swirl uneasily around the cottage, its harsh breath finding a way into everything, making the world a dark and difficult place. There was no moonlight, no stars dipping their faces to the earth in aloof acknowledgement of the slumberous world below them. Through the deep and fathomless dark hours a course of events unfolded that would not find their way to the secluded house in Antrim until dawn, by which time Maeve had become an uncontrollable mass of worry. She had sent an owl to Hogwarts, to Professor Dumbledore. It was entirely possible he had called on Severus to do some secret task, but if that were the case why had Severus not merely woken her and told her that he had to leave. Why did it seem as if her husband had never even been in the house?
She threw open the wardrobe, needing confirmation that he had been there, and picked at his robes with agitation. Where was he? Maeve passed the gilded mirror on the wall and could see the effects of the sleepless night and the worry. Her hair was a tangled mess that fell in a feral tumble across her shoulders and covered her face, shielding wild, haunted eyes from the burgeoning dawn that crept slyly over the mountain. A sense of needing to do something forced her into the bathroom to splash cold water over her face and run a brush through the rat’s tails of her hair, the pain caused by the rough brushing temporarily taking her mind of her strange problem. After pulling on a dress she moved down to the kitchen window and studied the red rays of sun that came running down the green hills towards their cottage. She hoped that the light of day would bring with it her husband, or at least news of where her was. She couldn’t have known then that the news, when it came, would have such devastating repercussions.
By nine o’clock there had been no reply to her owl and she knew she would have to leave in order to find out what had happened to Severus. She could send out her Patronus but she doubted very much if it would make it all the way to Hogwarts from across the Irish Sea, and if her owl had failed there was no reason to suppose her Patronus would fare any better. Maeve couldn’t help the unbidden smile that crossed her lips as she thought of Severus’ attempts to teach her to cast a Patronus. He had been horrified when she had told him it was a skill she had never acquired and muttered darkly about ‘powerful witches not achieving their true potential’. He seemed to think it was imperative that she learned as quickly as possible and some of their honeymoon had been spent going over and over the incantation. His patience had worn thin though as she struggled to master the task. The basic Patronus form was easily done, but using the spell that would enable her to communicate with Severus, and for that matter the other members of the Order, had proved more difficult. They had travelled out to a deserted forest, carefully losing themselves in its depths, and she had tried to send the silvery form of a raven scuttling through the trees. The bird had erupted from the end of the wand, spinning rapidly above her head before evaporating into the night with a faint caw. They had been due to attempt it again that very evening.
As she drew her light, summer cloak across her shoulders, breaking free of the memory of her impatient teacher, and took her broom out from the cupboard a rapid-fire knocking at the front door startled her. A chill settled on the cottage, as she knew, instinctively, that the visitor brought bad news. Her fear for her husband tossed her on a wave of uncertainty as she walked slowly towards the insistent knocking.
She hadn’t been expecting to see Remus, his face hard and impassive. His hair was considerably greyer than it had been at the start of the summer and the tan that had made him look so healthy had faded. It had only been a month, she thought with sadness, what had happened to make him look so ill? Behind him stood two other wizards, with equally hard faces and wands in their hands, ready for a fight.
“Maeve, is Severus here?” Remus asked, his voice cold and frightening.
“No, I don’t know where he is,” she replied, bewilderment ravaging her forehead into tight furrows. “I woke up in the middle of the night and he was gone. I sent an owl to Dumbledore to see if he knew why.”
The look of pain that crossed Remus’ face meant nothing to her but she reached out a hand to comfort him, whatever the source of his hurt. The two other wizards moved forward at the mention of Dumbledore’s name and one of them spoke, his manner threatening and coarse.
“Why did you contact Dumbledore?” he asked, baring yellow teeth as he spoke.
“Because he is my friend,” she said simply. “Because if anyone would know where Severus had gone to, it would be Dumbledore.”
“Was your friend,” the other one said through thin, cold lips.
“Stilwater! That’s enough.” Remus paused for a moment before looking at Maeve again. “I need to speak with you, officially. There has been some trouble, in London.”
“Trouble,” Maeve looked at the trio with rising panic. Her gaze settled on the rough-looking man that Remus had addressed as Stilwater. “What do you mean was… what is he saying, Remus?”
“Let’s go inside.” Remus was still unusually cold and it was this that really made Maeve uneasy. Whatever had happened had had a profound effect on him but she couldn’t understand his manner towards her.
“Of course,” she agreed, moving aside to allow them to enter. “Shall we go through to the sitting room?”
“Stilwater and Gorse can wait for us in the kitchen,” Remus said, with a nod towards the other wizards. They looked as if they were about to protest but Remus gave them a look that Maeve couldn’t interpret. It seemed to be a warning and they heeded it by sloping off through the open door that led to the smell of recently prepared coffee.
She followed Remus through to the other room and recalled their first visit here. Then he had been unwell; the slash of Voldemort’s magic had torn through him, leaving him weak and unguarded. Now he looked equally as weak but his guard was firmly up as he sat down on the sofa, avoiding her eyes. She hesitated for a moment by the window, not knowing whether to sit with him or take a seat on the chair by the now dead fire. Eventually he raised his eyes to meet hers, recognising her dilemma and feeling a pang of shame at his detached attitude. Here was the woman he regarded as his sister and she was afraid to sit by him. The events of the night had certainly made monsters of them all.
“Come and sit with me, Maeve,” he relented. She rewarded him instantly with a fragile smile.
She perched with unease on the edge of the dark cushion, waiting for her worst fears to be confirmed. Her hair, now tidy, still fell over her shoulders, making Remus want to reach out and touch it, touch her innocence before he imparted his shattering news. Remus was absolutely convinced that Maeve had no foreknowledge of the events of the previous night; it was this sureness that had made him insist he was the one to go and see her. Through the open window the trees could be heard, groaning slightly in the mournful winds that had settled on the mountain. As the curtain fluttered gently he could see two ravens perched on a branch, clinging tight as the bough swayed beneath them.
“What is it, Remus?” she asked, her desperation palpable.
“There has been an… an incident… in a village on the outskirts of London. A very serious incident.” He faltered, almost unable to continue as the dramatic images of the night re-played in his mind. “Severus was involved.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she said, the words so flat that Remus had difficulty believing she could be so emotionless. Her hands rested in her lap, white and tremulous as she twitched her fingers nervously against the thin cotton.
“No, Maeve, he is not dead. I’m afraid it is far, far worse than that.”
And now she knew something life-destroying had occurred and her face froze, readying itself for the mask she would have to wear when she found out the truth. Remus continued with some difficulty.
“There was an attack by Death Eaters, a very effective attack. We do not know how they found out that Dumbledore and Harry were there “ I do not even know what they were doing on their night-time ramble. But it is done, and no doubt we shall find out in due course who betrayed us.”
“Is Harry safe?” Maeve asked, concern for her husband temporarily put to one side.
“Yes, he is safe but he witnessed an event that may well affect him very badly over the coming months.” One more event on top of so many, Remus thought. One more death in a young life populated with them.
“What happened?” she asked. “Please, Remus… just tell me.”
Remus had to gather himself in order to say the words that he still couldn’t quite believe were true. Each time he said them or thought them they made the event more real, more undeniable.
“It’s Professor Dumbledore...” He paused. “Professor Dumbledore was killed in the attack. It was… oh, Maeve, I really don’t know how to tell you the rest.” His eyes were cast down towards the glossy welcome of the wooden floor.
“Remus!” His name was said so sharply that he knew he was being very unfair to her in taking such time to tell her the truth. But when she did know, what would she do, her world would be in ruins around her. How could he do that to her?
“I’m so sorry… so sorry… Severus killed him. He used the Killing Curse. Harry was there and saw it all. There can be no doubt about what happened.”
Maeve stood up; cold fire in her veins as she moved away from him, moved towards the window that she had looked out of so often. This was the window that Severus had bumped into on their first night when she had popped a champagne cork behind him; this was the window that they often watched the nightfall through as it stole over the trees. This whole house was filled with memory, happy, glorious memory… of love and passion and deep understanding.
“You are wrong,” she said, her voice muted. “Harry was mistaken.”
“Harry was not mistaken, Maeve. He saw what he saw. Dumbledore pleaded with Severus and Severus ignored him. There can be no doubt that it was your husband that murdered Dumbledore, no doubt at all. You understand that makes your position very insecure.”
“Severus did not kill Dumbledore,” she repeated. “It is not possible. What else happened?”
“So much. Draco Malfoy was there; apparently he too threatened to kill Dumbledore. It was only when he failed to do so that Severus stepped in and completed the task for him. I know this must be very difficult for you to accept, Maeve… but you must accept it before you face anyone.” His heart was breaking for her now. He knew what the rumours would be, knew that there was no way the vast majority of wizards would believe that she was innocent of the knowledge that her husband had planned this attack. There was strong evidence now that Severus had never left the Dark Lord’s side. How much information had he given? How many deaths had he caused? It was all so unbelievable; they had all wanted so very much to accept that Severus was on his way to redeeming himself, to forgetting his past misdemeanours.
“Severus did not kill Dumbledore.” Maeve repeated the comforting mantra, fighting a duel with words that she could not hope to win. “Where is Draco now?”
“He fled with Severus. There was a fight with Harry as he tried to apprehend Severus… a fight that Severus won.”
“And yet he did not kill Harry? Why would he kill Dumbledore and not kill Harry, Remus? If he was really working for Voldemort then he would surely have killed Harry… can you not see that? This is ridiculous.”
She thought back to her wedding day, to the uneasy truce that had sprung up between Severus and his young pupil. They had all been so happy, so very happy, and she couldn’t believe that anything could have destroyed that contentment. Whatever malign external forces had tried to destroy them, the one thing she had been sure of was her husband’s complete fidelity to their union. There was no way he would have done this; it could not be.
“We don’t know why he didn’t kill Harry, perhaps he was too busy trying to escape to have much thought for what he could do to him. Maeve, please… you must accept this.”
“DON’T TELL ME WHAT I MUST ACCEPT!” she roared. “I know the truth. I know that Severus could not kill Dumbledore ” he held the man in too much respect.” Maeve hadn’t even begun to think about the fact that Dumbledore was dead. That would have been too much for her to try and process, given what was being said about Severus. But the fact remained that Severus was not here, and had not been here the previous night. If he had not been here then where had he been? Why had he not told her he was leaving? She controlled the rage that was beginning to smoulder in the pit of her stomach, controlled the desire to rail at the world and its cunning ability to throw her into turmoil at every turn.
“Maeve,” Remus pleaded, knowing now that he had been right to be the one to break the news, no matter how difficult it was proving to be. “Come with me to London. I can’t leave you alone here.”
“I can’t leave,” she said, horrified at the prospect. “This is my home... this is where Severus will return to. How can I possibly leave?”
“No, you misunderstand. I can’t leave you here because the Ministry want you back in London. They need to search the house… just to see if there is anything… “ He trailed of, the import of what he was saying only just beginning to trickle into her brain.
“Search the house?” Her face crumpled. “Why should they search the house… this is my home, my home, Remus. What do they think they will find here… Death Eaters and Dark Marks. Why aren’t they out looking for my husband? He’s missing after all.”
“They are looking for Severus.”
Maeve glared at him. “They are looking for him for the wrong reasons though… they are looking for him to accuse him of a murder he didn’t commit.”
“I understand you don’t want to believe that he did this, but it happened. We have a captured Death Eater that has given us a full confession about their part in the attack and who has confirmed that Severus was the one who killed Dumbledore.”
“Remus, please leave me alone. I don’t want to listen to this any longer. I want to wait for Severus to come home in peace.”
Remus was now suffering a dilemma. He couldn’t leave her alone and he had orders from both the Ministry and from the Order to bring her back. But her denial of the events of last night was profound in its intensity and she would be in emotional difficulty if he took her back in this condition. Could he really do that to her given what she was going through? Her waxen face had turned away and resumed its scouring of the landscape outside the window. Would he be able to make her accept Severus’ culpability in this matter? Her faith in the man that had so cruelly betrayed them all would be touching if it weren’t so misplaced. And then Remus had a thought that made him thoroughly ashamed. With Severus gone, would she come to care for him in the same way she did her husband? Would he finally be able to settle himself into her heart in that way? He looked away from her, disgust with himself apparent on his face. She saw the look through the reflection in the window and misread it.
“Do you hate me?” she asked. “Is that why you look so disgusted? Am I now in the same place as my husband in your thoughts?”
“Of course I don’t hate you!” The defensive ring to his voice made her wince.
“Then why the look of loathing?”
“I hate what has been done to you. You had your happiness and then it was taken away. It should not have happened.”
“But you are the one taking it away with these lies! They are lies... I know my husband and he is not capable of this betrayal. Harry has always hated him, always looked for a reason to make trouble for him…do you believe Harry’s word in this matter?” Mistrust and suspicion are subtle things, creeping in at times of deepest vulnerability, breaking allegiances and tearing friend from friend. It was so now, as Maeve struggled with news she did not want to hear.
Remus moved across to her, his face trying to remain gentle in the face of such an incredibly difficult situation. If she met Harry in this state the two would rip each other apart irrevocably. He knew that Maeve might see his position in this as disloyal but he had to be firm with her from the outset. There could be no watering down of the truth for her, no matter how unpalatable it might be.
“Sadly they are not lies. Please, Maeve, please accept what I am telling you.”
“Leave me be, Remus. I need to think about what you have told me. I need to think about how I am going to prove to you that what you are telling me is not correct.” She was unwavering, the sunlight from the window making the brown wreckage of her eyes burn with conviction.
“I can’t leave, I’ve told you that.” He hoped she wouldn’t continue with this impossible plea to stay here, the Ministry would never stand for it.
“You can leave. You can give me an hour’s peace. Let me have some time alone with my thoughts, Remus. At least give me that.”
Remus looked uncomfortable. He knew that if he left her alone his companions would accuse him of giving her the opportunity to do something underhand, not that he believed for a moment that she would.
“You think I’m going to hide something, don’t you?” she accused, searing him with her feelings of injustice. “Do you believe I had a hand in any of this? Do you believe this is a conspiracy? Remus, do you really believe, in your heart, that Severus was capable of doing this?”
The silence that greeted her gave her the answer that she needed.
“I need to pack,” she said, turning dead eyes from him. “If you need me to come and vouch for my husband then I will. Something has been damaged here today, Remus and it has nothing to do with what happened in London.”
Her sudden grace moved Remus and he felt ashamed of his refusal to answer her question. By leaving it in the air, unanchored, he had allowed her to believe that he had no faith in her either. But she had no idea of the bitterness and raw pain she would walk into down in London. If she attempted to tell the world that her husband was innocent she would suffer, suffer deeply. Her shocked figure left the room with shoulders proud and head haughty. Remus gazed out over the relentless beauty of the countryside and wished that Severus had left it a little while before causing his wife such grief. He had known all along that Maeve would suffer for her husband, and now the rest of the wizarding world would suffer too. How life can be changed so utterly in the shortest space of time imaginable.
Maeve stepped into the room she shared with Severus and looked around, as if she would find him waiting there. At best she hoped to see some answers, some proof, as if she needed proof, that this was a nightmare grimmer than the one from the previous night. She needed to wake up and cast off this chain of events that were unfolding, link-by-link, around her. The bed was still unmade and she made a move to it, straightening their pillows with swift movements. As she did so his scent stirred from the weave of the fabric, making her stop, frozen in time with the ghost of her missing husband surrounding her. Lemon light came in through the unopened curtains and she rushed across and ripped them back, looking out into the garden that sat, unruly, beneath the windows.
“Where are you?” she whispered into the day. It wasn’t enough, a feeble murmur blocked by a pane of glass that would carry nowhere. She slowly released the catch and pushed the glass forward, leaning into the freedom of the fresh breeze. “WHERE ARE YOU?”
The words were ripped away, bounced along the ground and lifted up into the trees, where they stayed a moment, suspended. Then they fled, startling birds and causing sheep to halt their endless grazing and gaze skyward in wonderment at the unanswered question.
Dissatisfied, she closed the window again and turned to her wardrobe. She quickly took out a few clothes and placed them in a small, brown travelling bag. Maeve was absolutely convinced that she would be staying just a few nights and then going on to Hogwarts, where most of her things remained. And with that unlooked-for reminder of Hogwarts she began to cry. The thought of a Hogwarts with no Dumbledore was too painful to consider, too appalling to contemplate. The fat tears of anguish fell hard and fast, staining the front of her cotton dress with their ferocity. She didn’t hear the light tapping at the window at first for it was drowned in the flood of her sobs. When she did hear it she looked up, a leap of hope lifting her heart from its sorrowful position somewhere beneath her ankles.
She couldn’t see anyone at first, but then something shifted slightly and she caught a flash of red cutting across her vision. With little to lose she moved back to the window and undid it again, poking her head into the day beyond.
“Hello, my sweet,” a voice said from just above her. She looked up and saw the familiar, and welcome, face of Roderick Rampton. “Need a ride anywhere?”
“What are you doing here?” she asked, incredulity making her forget her predicament for a moment. “I thought you were in hiding?”
“I was, until I persuaded a few people that I was a little more innocent than I may have been.” He waggled a rakish eyebrow suggestively.
“Like who?”
“Like the Ministry. Dumbledore knew of course…but that’s beside the point. Do you want to get away from here for a little while?”
“Do you know... about Dumbledore... last night?” Maeve was ridiculously pleased to see him. In Roderick she found someone that wasn’t tied in any way to the past, to her past.
“Of course I know… surely you didn’t expect me to be in the dark at a time like this. I was there.”
“And?”
“I’m afraid it’s true.” He had the decency to look genuinely sorry for her. She staggered back, away from the window, away from the one messenger she believed in spite of everything. She looked as if she was going to be sick and Roderick slipped in through the open window. He landed softly on the floor and put out a hand to steady her, the invisibility cloak he had been wearing falling off him completely. He caught her as she fell, her mind finally closing itself off to any further pain.
Remus paced the room with increasing purpose. He had heard her cry ring out across the trees, had heard her close the window on her sorrow. He glanced at his watch and realised she had already been up there for more than an hour. Augustus Gorse had put his curious head round the door and asked what she was doing. Remus had tried to sound reassuring when he informed the Auror that she was pulling herself together.
“I reckon we should go and get her down. The Ministry will be waiting for her and we’ve been long enough already.”
“Have some sympathy, she’s going through a lot at the moment,” Remus admonished.
“Well, I’m not convinced she didn’t know. He was her husband after all... hard not to know, isn’t it?”
“She did not know,” Remus said, the ice in his voice ignored by the other wizard. “I will go and bring her down. Do not say anything about her husband to her face. In fact, don’t speak at all.”
With a swirl of his shabby cloak he left Gorse to his ponderings and sprinted up the wooden staircase. The smell of home permeated everything in this house, from the honey smell of the wood to the odour of freesias that fragranced every room. This was a house that knew love and knew it well. So how had it come to this?
As he knocked lightly on the bedroom door he could see through to the bathroom. Severus’ things were still there. Small male-looking potions lined up alongside two toothbrushes and there was a silk robe draped over the side of the bath that was too dark to be Maeve’s. His throat contracted with sorrow for her as he knocked again, this time pushing the door open slightly. He couldn’t quite believe what he saw as he stepped cautiously into the room, or rather what he didn’t see. She was gone; the only sign that she had been here at all were the custard-coloured curtains that licked at the walls through the opened window. There were signs of hurried packing, half-open drawers with gaps and gaping wardrobes that contained a few empty hangers. Remus walked to the window, not wanting to believe she could have been so stupid as to escape “ he was already speaking about her as if she was a fugitive and yet she had done nothing wrong. At least, she had done nothing wrong until now. He couldn’t understand her; surely she knew she would be safe with him. Had Severus returned while they had been busy doing nothing downstairs and spirited her away? But would she have gone? Would she have not tried to persuade Severus to stand up for himself? Surely, Remus thought, with a sense of surreal fear, Severus would never have harmed her in order to get her away.
He would have to go and report this to Stilwater and Gorse, and there would be now absolutely nothing he could do to protect her. She had sealed her own fate with this impulsive act. In fleeing she had ensured that she would be viewed as just as much a criminal as her murderous husband.
“Why, Maeve?” he asked the warm air. “Why?”
And the house seemed to sigh an answer back at him; she did it for love. What else would make her act in such an irrational and dangerous manner?
Stilwater and Gorse looked almost pleased to have their suspicions confirmed and, with a swiftness that left Remus adrift in the now empty building, they stepped smartly out of the front door and Apparated back to London. The stricken man stood in the kitchen of the cottage that had been Severus and Maeve’s first home together and he despaired. Of all the things they had expected this had been the last thing that could have been anticipated. Harry had told them a garbled tale of arguments overheard in dusty rooms at Grimmauld Place, of seeing Draco in Diagon Alley, of a strange book that had been discovered amongst things in the attic at the house he now owned and which was probably now uninhabitable for him. Above all, the vehemence with which he had threatened to gain his revenge on Severus had shocked Remus to the core.
There could be no happy ending now, for any of them.
Maeve regained consciousness as the broom had soared away from the Antrim coast. Looking down she saw the blazing blue of the sea and her eyes blinked at the burst of wind that almost blinded her. She was being held firmly around the waist by arms that were gripping a broomstick with some determination. The flapping red cloak that spirited in and out of her line of sight reminded her of who she was with and it was with a gasp of horror that she spoke.
“Roderick, what have you done?”
“What do you mean, what have I done?” he said cheerfully. “I’ve saved you from endless hours at the Ministry, that’s what I’ve done.”
“Don’t you realise how this will look?” Maeve realised how it would look ” she might as well be in collusion with her husband, wherever he was.
“They’re hardly going to think you were in on the act, are they? After all, you’re their secret weapon against Voldemort. They aren’t likely to toss you into Azkaban and throw away the key, are they?” She couldn’t see his face so she didn’t know if he was being entirely serious but he certainly sounded it.
“Roderick… I just don’t believe you sometimes, I really don’t.” Her exasperation dripped into the sea below. “We don’t even know if the Ministry know about my connection with Voldemort. You know Dumbledore keeps… kept… things close to his chest.”
“I know, I’m an enigma… I think it suits me, don’t you?” His infallible cheerfulness irritated her now but she couldn’t help feeling a little pleased she did not have to suffer the insensitive probing of Stilwater and Gorse. Perhaps when she did finally arrive at the Ministry she would get less intrusive interrogators.
With so many questions it seemed strange that they lapsed into silence for the rest of their flight. Maeve didn’t even ask where they were going; somehow it no longer seemed to be important. As Roderick dropped the broom into a steady descent she barely registered the grimy town that swept beneath them. She certainly wasn’t overly concerned by their proximity to Muggles as Roderick brought the broom to land in a small clearing of trees that seemed to be enclosed in a park of some description.
“This is where we get off and walk,” Roderick said, flipping his leg over the broom and her with it. “It’s not far. I think you’ll be very interested in what we find there.” In one hand he carried his broom and in the other her bag, which she took from him and slung over her shoulder.
“Where are we?”
“You don’t really need to know the exact location. Severus will probably tell you himself eventually. All you need to know is that this is a secure place known only to a select few. Certainly none of your friends within the Order will know about it, nor will the Ministry.”
“And what are we doing here?” Maeve kicked a few empty lager cans out of her way as they trouped through the narrow pathway that led out of the trees and into the main area of the park.
“We’re hiding you from those that will seek revenge for what your husband did. Aren’t I nice?”
“Roderick, this is very tiresome. Just tell me what is going on.”
“All in good time.”
And she had to be content with that.
They crossed a narrow footbridge that arched lazily over a dirty river. Maeve glanced down and could see a rusting shopping trolley sticking up like a wrecked ship, its wheels unmoving in the summer sunshine. The banks of the river were covered in old tyres, bags of rubbish whose sides had split, spilling their contents onto the grass like some venomous effluent, and there was the occasional cat nosing around in the detritus of human lives. Bleak would have been a flattering description of the place, she thought, as they left the bridge and began to cross a cobbled street towards a row of derelict houses. The maze of lanes and alleyways bewildered Maeve and she wondered how Roderick could possibly have any idea where he was heading. Small, enclosed yards backed onto shared passageways and it was through these that they went, moving swiftly from lane to lane. In the background she heard the muffled shouts of people in their houses, the occasional child’s cry, and a dog barked angrily as someone upturned a dustbin.
“Roderick, this is ridiculous. We shall be seen.” She looked up at the dirty windows with anxiety. The place may have looked abandoned but it was clear from the grey laundry that fluttered from a few plastic washing-lines that people lived here. He turned to her hurrying figure and smiled.
“I shouldn’t worry. They are used to seeing shadowy figures roaming the streets. We will not alarm anyone.”
She struggled to keep up, her feet tripping over rubbish and stones as she negotiated her way through the effluent of the Muggles that inhabited this awful place.
Finally Roderick began to slow down, his mouth counting wordlessly as he walked down another nameless alleyway.
“Here we are,” he announced in a low voice. With a gentle shove, he opened the filthy door that shielded the yard from the rest of the alley and stepped into the gloom. Maeve followed him, disgusted at the state of the small, concrete area in which they now stood. There was a rotting mattress propped up against one wall, while on another stood the remains of a child’s pram, its corduroy upholstery ragged and dirty. The ground was covered with rubbish, a stinking sea of crisp packets and beer bottles, buoyed by an underlying layer of indeterminable grime.
“Where is here?” she said, wondering what the awful smell was and where it was coming from.
“Here, my darling, is temporary home.” He drew his wand and whispered “Alohamora” at the gloomy entrance. The lock clicked and he pushed the door open with the tip of his wand, not wanting to touch the filth-encrusted handle.
He stepped in ahead of her, propped his broom against the wall, and surveyed the dingy hallway with distaste before moving forward to another yellowed door. She followed him in and closed the back door behind her. Her nostrils picked up a scent that was vaguely familiar but it was mingling with ancient, stale cigarette smoke and the cloying smell of cooking fat and she couldn’t place it. It comforted her though, without her knowing why. A glance into the kitchen as she passed it revealed nothing but a few rickety cupboards and a grease-caked cooker that looked as though it had been here for many, many years. Roderick stood in another doorway and beckoned her through. She stepped into a room that was lined with books, shelf after shelf filled with dusty, leather-bound obscurity. She ignored the ragged sofa, the shabby armchair and the unsteady-looking table in favour of the bookshelves, dropping her bag against the sofa as she went to examine them.
The layer of dirt on the windows and the dreary net curtains that covered the glass hampered the light coming into the room and she had to look closely at the spines to read the fading titles. She didn’t recognise most of them but some of the titles chilled her to the bone. Pestilential Potions and Their Uses by Malificus Bentinck, An Almanack of Moste Mortal and Divers Magick by Destry Willowblight, and Inferi; Faire or Foul? by Acheron Dei were just a handful that she pulled down and flicked through, wondering at their owner and his or her taste in reading matter. A particularly striking spine had a gold-embossed skeleton sandwiched between the title “ Carnal Theurgy And Its Application By The Incarnate “ and the author’s name “ Kentigern Snape.
Her eyes flicked over the lascivious illustration on the flyleaf and she turned the onionskin paper slowly, revealing a photograph of the author on the next page. She felt the bile rise in her throat as the dark eyes of the man who had murdered her mother stared up at her. He had been a disturbing-looking man, with his thin face and wild hair that rose from his scalp like a challenge. His right eyelid slowly dropped over his eye in a leisurely wink and Maeve could have sworn that he knew who she was.
“All right?” Roderick broke into her thoughts.
She ignored him, her fingers closing ever tighter around the book. She knew what she had seen in her dream, the flash of something she had found in Severus’ eyes. She had seen the bitter shadow of his father haunting him, stalking him through her nightmare. She slammed the book closed, dust jumping from its surface in a swirl of resentment.
“Whose house is this?” she said, her voice low with anger. “Where have you brought me?”
Roderick tried to look cheerful as he opened his mouth to answer but she beat him to it.
“This house belongs to Severus, doesn’t it?” She looked around her at the dour surroundings and wondered how he could have kept this secret. It was so different from Darkacre, although the heavy atmosphere was still the same. No wonder she had recognised the smell ” it was Severus’ smell. He had been here recently.
“It does,” Roderick had a strange smile on his lips. “It belonged to his grandfather, Lionel Snape, a Muggle, no less. It passed to his father and then, in time, came to Snape. Did he not tell you about it?” She didn’t hear the sly tone in his voice; shock veiled everything but the knowledge that Severus had lied to her, or at the very least been economical with the truth..
“No,” she fumbled towards the armchair, sitting down in a seat that her husband must have sat in many times before. “No, he didn’t. What else didn’t he tell me?”
“Who knows? I always thought Snape was a bit of a rogue myself.” Roderick was enjoying this, despite her solemn despair. “I did try to warn you a few times but you wouldn’t listen.”
“No.” She stood up again, looking around. “There is something wrong here. This could not be… there is an explanation for this. If he did not tell me about this place then he did not want me to know for a good reason. There is something we do not know. What is it, Roderick?”
“I think that things are what they are. You read too much into things, Maeve. He had a secret and he wanted to keep it close to his chest. I know it must be upsetting for you but I’m here if you need a shoulder to cry on.” He gave a casual shrug of his proffered shoulders.
“A shoulder to cry on?” The incredulity she displayed made him think she was perhaps over-reacting a little. “The world is trying to tell me something that I cannot allow myself to believe and here you are, presenting me with evidence of my husband’s other life. I don’t want a shoulder to cry on, I want bloody answers. I want to know where my husband is. Do you know? You seem to know everything else.” She glowered accusingly at him.
“Sadly, I don’t know. Wherever he is he will no doubt have Draco with him… the Ministry are searching all the obvious places. Darkacre, Malfoy Manor, and the cottage you shared. I only know about this place by accident. I overheard him speaking with Dumbledore about it “ shocking lack of security on their part “ and it wasn’t too hard for me to track it down. Not only that but Narcissa Malfoy knows where he lives. Very close those two were, and Narcissa Malfoy is a notorious blabbermouth.”
“What do you mean they were close?” She paled again. “And if Narcissa is a blabbermouth, what are we doing here?”
“Just after they left school, always seen around together… before she married Lucius, that is.” He ignored the comment about Narcissa and her rapid-fire mouth.
“I have to find him.” The urgency of her words told their own tale. Maeve couldn’t take any more information about Severus without hearing it from him, but she didn’t know where to begin. She couldn’t understand why he hadn’t even tried to contact her, knowing the sort of turmoil she must be in.
“What if he’s thinking about doing something stupid?” she asked. Roderick made a noise that was so inconclusive it sounded amazingly like a grunt, unusual for Roderick, who was an accomplished talker no matter what the subject was.
When Roderick didn’t provide her with an answer she crossed over to the window and twitched the curtain back. “I know you aren’t used to telling the whole truth, but I would appreciate it if you told me everything you know.”
“I don’t know much,” he admitted, annoyed that this was the case. His status with the Ministry was improved but he wasn’t exactly in the running for Wizard of the Month in Witch Weekly. “I know about this place. I know that Snape’s been running errands for Dumbledore all summer.”
Maeve looked thoughtful as she recalled the many times that Severus had had to pop back to England for a few hours here and there. Their unbroken honeymoon had hardly been peaceable, what with owls dropping in every day and the occasional Patronus breaking into the bedroom at all hours. She had asked him, but knowing the nature of his work for the Order had never pressed for real answers.
“I know,” Roderick continued, “that Dumbledore had been seeing a lot of Harry Potter, too. They has some sort of errand to run that culminated in Snape firing an Unforgivable, although it sounds to me like the old man was on his way out anyway.”
“Don’t speak of Dumbledore as an old man,” she snapped. “He may have been an old wizard but he was still powerful. Oh, Medusa… did Severus really kill him, Roderick? Did he really fire a Killing Curse? I knew… of course I knew… that Severus was capable of killing. It was a painful fact that I had to face, but we thought… I thought… that all that was behind him. Do you know what was said, Severus must have said something.”
“I have read the transcript that Potter gave to a colleague… it’s not pleasant.” He waved his wand and a pale parchment appeared in the air before him. Maeve reached out and snatched it quickly, hurriedly scanning it for anything, any small sliver of hope that would mean she could prove Severus’ innocence. Her mouth soundlessly mouthed the words as she read Harry’s account of the incident. As she drew to the end a sigh of relief left her lungs and she moved across to the chair again, sitting heavily and drinking in the smell of Severus that rose from its dusty arms.
“Have you read this?” she asked. “Really read it? Where did Dumbledore go last night?”
“I think it’s fairly clear cut to me.” Roderick was a little dismayed that she had not collapsed into a heaving heap of sadness. If she had seen something that he had missed he was going to be very miserable indeed. “Snape killed Dumbledore in cold blood, despite being begged not to.”
“You idiot! Dumbledore wasn’t pleading for his life… he was pleading for his death. I have to find Severus… you have to help me find him.”
Roderick looked nonplussed. There was nothing in that transcript to suggest that Dumbledore wanted anything other than to live. Nowhere did he say to the fugitive wizard “Please kill me now so I can escape the torturous nightmare of my life,” so how on earth had she arrived at that conclusion?
“I don’t see… well…we don’t know where they went. You would have to ask Potter.”
“I would, only Harry isn’t exactly going to want to talk to me at the moment, is he? What did he mean when he told Draco it was his mercy that mattered? Harry says that the sound of Dumbledore’s voice frightened him ” why should it? Perhaps because Harry recognised something that he didn’t want to accept. Severus has to kill someone he loved; the hate Harry saw was for himself, Roderick. He hates himself because he had to kill Dumbledore.”
“I think you’re jumping to awfully big conclusions,” Roderick said, his whole demeanour dismissive. “Just because Dumbledore didn’t explicitly ask Severus to save him doesn’t mean he wanted him to kill him.”
“Dumbledore was dying. Harry says he was weakening by the second in this account.” She waved the parchment triumphantly at him. “He even says that Dumbledore asked for Severus when they returned to the castle… he didn’t want Poppy, why was that?”
“Maeve, I understand he’s your husband, and that you want to believe the best in him, but you have to see that this is not going to wash with the Ministry. You will need to find proof of your fantastic theory and I don’t think there is proof. I think it’s as plain as the pretty nose on your lovely face what happened in that village last night. Severus has re-joined the Death Eaters and killed Dumbledore for Voldemort. There can be no other explanation.”
“YOU’RE WRONG!” she screamed, the mention of Severus re-joining Voldemort too much to bear. Reaching towards the table she picked up the glass lantern that sat there and threw it with some force across the room so that it shattered in shower of dusty, glinting shards against one of the bookcases. All this noise meant that they didn’t heat the gentle knock at the front door, or the voice calling through the letterbox.
“I AM NOT WRONG!” Roderick shouted back, his voice deeper but not nearly so forceful as hers.
“HE DID NOT DO THIS WILLINGLY!”
They didn’t hear the crack of the door as it was magically opened, allowing a cloaked figure to enter the hallway. It was only when the gooseberry-green door opened that they stopped shouting and turned to face the figure, whose face was obscured by a large hood. Instantly they both had their wands drawn and the newcomer slipped the hood from their face.
Maeve was astounded to see the frightened face of Narcissa Malfoy beneath the blue cloak, and Narcissa Malfoy was equally startled to be facing Severus Snape’s wife.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Roderick droned, replacing his wand and waiting for the fireworks to go off again.