A Small Case of Bad Timing.
Maeve adjusted her rumpled clothing, smoothing down creased skirts over the pleasure of the past hour. Severus remained lying on the bed, his body covered by the rough, institutional blankets, and a look of fleeting ease on his face. She bent to scoop up the spilled parchments that he had disturbed earlier and piled them neatly back on the empty bed, her hair falling over her face in a tangled mess. There was a natural comfort to be had in the aftermath of their lovemaking, a sanctuary from whatever was going on around her. She wondered how she had lived without the intensity of this contact, this steadfast love.
“I’ll send Harry an owl.” Her sudden drift back to reality almost broke the languid mood, as she walked over to her meagre pile of belongings and picked a brush from her bag. “We could be in Grimmauld Place by tonight.” The prospect of the relative comfort of the old house was making this drab place look more and more uninhabitable by the hour.
“Allow me,” Severus said, watching her raise the brush to her unruly hair. He sat up, blankets falling from him to reveal a chest free from the confines of clothing, and she settled herself on the bed to luxuriate in the sensation of having her hair brushed like a child. How much he had changed, that he would share a moment like this. That he would be so tactile. It would have been unthinkable just a year ago.
“I will pop out for a little while later. I need to deal with Filch.” His words, more than hers, reminded them both of what was still left to be accomplished.
“Do you think you will be able to get the information from him?” She moved her head gently, swaying against the motion of the hairbrush. There was an uncomfortable pause before he replied. The brush stilled against her head and she felt the uncertainty in his fingers.
“I need to prevent Filch disclosing what he knows to Potter.” The brushing recommenced but it was her turn to halt its progress with a jerk of her head.
“What do you mean?” she asked, turning to him, doubt flitting across her features. “You know something, don’t you? You always know something.” There was power in his knowledge, power that never failed to unnerve her.
He looked at her bleakly for a moment, his chest rising and falling with the weight of his indecision. She loved him, was his wife, but how much of his past did she really want to know? And how much could he risk telling her before he poisoned her mind with the taint if his memories?
“I know that Filch keeps many secrets for many people,” he said, placing the brush carefully on the bed, his fingers teased by the long, red hairs that were caught in its bristles.
“For you?” Maeve felt the nasty stench of the Hogwarts caretaker in the room.
“For me.”
She stood up, agitated by the prospect of a new revelation. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said, “if it will cause harm.”
“You once said you were sick of secrets,” he pointed out. Could he not tell her, his own wife? Would it be fair to unburden his darkest secrets to her?
“And so I am.” She stood by the door, her hand resting discouragingly on the handle. “I want you to be able to tell me things without having to fret over my reaction. We’ve revealed the worst of our secrets to each other. What more can there be?”
“I’ve killed people, Maeve,” he said. The words demanded a significant reaction, but she allowed no hint of fire to taint her response.
“I know you have.” She nodded her acceptance of this sad fact. “I always knew. You could not have been a Death Eater and not have killed people.”
“I killed people who did not deserve to die.” The admission sat uneasily on his lips.
“Does anyone deserve to die?” Her matter-of-fact attitude was a defence against having to think too deeply about her husband being on one end of a murderous wand. That those fingers, which paid her such tender attention, could have been the channel for unforgivable death was an ache she could not dull. She knew that Dumbledore’s demise had been something apart, convinced as she was that there had been complicity between Severus and the dying man. But innocent people? She released the door handle, clenched her fingers into her palms fiercely in an attempt to halt any words she might have that would wound.
“Perhaps not.” He bowed his head, looking down at the grey fabric that covered him. “Perhaps some do. Perhaps I do, for what I have done in the past.”
“Your introspection is pointless,” she said, freeing her fists. “What’s done is done. It can’t be undone. I accept that you killed people. I am not innocent of that charge myself.” Her hands weakened further and she moved back to him, sitting on the edge of the creaking bed. “What is it you want to confess to me?” Her head was inclined towards him, eyes strafing his for the secrets he kept. “Is it something to do with Filch?”
“I killed Regulus Black.” The admission just fell out of him, a simple sentence that could easily have been a request for a cup of tea or for her to pass him his shirt.
Maeve’s eyes widened just a little and her lips parted slightly, waiting for words to come from her mouth. “I see,” she said finally, looking away from him. “You killed Sirius’ brother.”
“Yes. I killed Sirius’ brother. But it was pure coincidence that Sirius hated me.” He watched her expectantly, waiting for her response.
“Why?” The question was simple, and deserved a simple answer.
“Why did I kill him? Because I was ordered to do so. I had little choice in the matter.”
“There is always a choice.” Her voice was colder than she intended it to be. She did not want this to become another of their scenes. Maeve understood that these small confessions where a way for Severus to examine his past, and to try and show her the depths of his degradation before she had been brought to him, dying. He wished to bare his soul for her, and she wished to cover it in her comfort and allow it to rest.
“It is easy to say that,” he said, “with the benefit of distance between the event and where we find ourselves now. At the time I was impressionable, rising through the Dark Lord’s ranks.” He saw the distaste on her lips and in her eyes and wished he could alter what had been, if only for her. But he could not, and she had expressed a wish to know, needed to know at least some of the truth behind what had happened that night.
“Why did you not tell me this when I told you about the locket?”
“I needed time,” he admitted. He pushed his hair back, gripping it tightly away from his face, as if to clear his vision of more than just a physical obstacle. “I was distressed by the news that the locket had been damaged. I needed to understand the connection between his death and what Potter had discovered.”
“And do you understand?”
“I was summoned to Hogwarts by the Dark Lord,” he began, allowing himself to move his memory back to that night, a night he had done well to forget, along with all the other killings. “He told me he had something, someone, that needed taken care of. When I arrived in the Forbidden Forest he was there, with Filch and Black. Black was on the ground, pleading for his life.” For all his remorse, Severus couldn’t help the curl of a sneer at the image of Regulus Black pleading for his life. He tried not to compare the image to Dumbledore’s dying face but found he couldn’t, and the sneer dissolved. “Filch was given a whispered instruction by the Dark Lord, who then turned to me to finish him off. I think, had Filch not been a Squib, he would have been given the task. I still don’t know why the Dark Lord did not do it himself, but, for whatever reason, he ordered me to do it.”
“And so you killed him,” Maeve looked at her fingers as they knotted themselves in her skirts. “But you had to. You had no choice. Had you refused, you would have been killed.”
Severus looked at the top of her bowed head, wishing, as he always did when faced with her brutal understanding, that he could change his past for her. He reached out a hand and rested it on her cap of shining hair, feeling the soft strands beneath his fatal fingers.
“I am sorry,” he whispered.
“I know,” she murmured. “I know you are, Severus.” She raised her head and his hand slid down to her cheek, staying there for a moment, fingers brushing at the start of a tear that pressed up against her eyelashes.
“What happened then?” she asked, wanting to get this over with so that she could stop feeling so wretched. Severus dropped his hand completely and sighed.
“The Dark Lord left. Disappeared into the forest like a thief into the night, leaving me with Filch, and Black’s dead body. And if killing Black had been an act of cowardice, what I did next was even more so. I left Filch to take care of the body, instructed him to make it look like an accident, that something from the forest had been at him.” There was another shaking sigh as he tried to finish the tale. “And then I scuttled off to Hogsmeade, pleased that I had ingratiated myself even further with the Dark Lord.”
“You were young, too young to understand what you were doing. You were involved in something that gave meaning to your life. You don’t have to make excuses for your behaviour, not to me.”
“Your understanding leaves me at a loss,” he said. “I wonder what you are doing with someone like me, someone so damaging.”
She shook her head, trying not to give in to her emotions as she faced her husband’s fears. “I love you. You can’t account for that.”
“And I still don’t know why.” His dark eyes were overcome by self-loathing, and he looked away from her, but not quickly enough for her to miss the settling of the darkness on his face. “I believe that the Dark Lord had discovered what Regulus had done and had summoned him under false pretences. Perhaps Regulus still believed some of his lies. I think that the Dark Lord retrieved the Horcrux and transplanted it somewhere.”
Maeve had grown accustomed now to knowing when he was being evasive. She saw it in the obscuring of his eyes and the tilt of his shoulders. “Where?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking at her once more. She knew he was using Occlumency then, saw it in the deep curtain that fell over his face, and she was suddenly furious.
“How dare you!” she hissed. “How dare you try and shield your thoughts from me? You think I would use Legilimency against my own husband? You think I would stoop that low?” She stood up and backed away.
“No, Maeve, please.” He followed her, desperate to make amends for that moment of weakness when he had once again tried to protect her from something she did not know. She had reached the door and was struggling with the handle when he caught her shoulders, wrenching her free from her escape route. “I did not mean to hide something from you. It is an instinctive reaction now. It was not meant to deceive you, but to shield you.”
“I don’t need shielding,” she spat. “Have you not learned that yet, after all this time? You come to me with tales of your killings, and I offer you understanding. What else is locked away in that mind of yours that you think can cause me harm? Is it worse than what your father did to my mother? How can it be worse than that?” Her face blazed with indignation and Severus felt himself curl up beneath her fire. The wound of his father had still not healed, as he had suspected it would not, but this was the first time she had used it in such a way, a way designed to hurt.
“There are some things you should not know about, for your own protection. You will find out eventually, but not now. That is the way it is, Maeve. I did not make it so, would not have it so, but there it is. You need to accept that. Since that day in the forest, when you brought me news of the Horcrux, I have made my investigations and have been rewarded. I know where that Horcrux is, but I cannot tell you until the time is right. It is for your own sake, not mine, that I keep it from you. It would be easy for me to share my fears, but I do not.”
She raised her face to him, anger being leeched away by the realisation that she had used his father against him in the heat of an argument. Shame mingled with sorrow as she reached for his hand, clutching at it to stop herself from crying. Albert had never said anything about the emotional turbulence that being with her husband would cause her, but then, Albert didn’t have the first idea about their shared past.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for making this harder than it needs to be. I know you wouldn’t hide anything to delude me. I know that. I just don’t understand why there are things I can’t know.”
“Leave your burdens be, until the moment you need to carry them,” he said gently, squeezing her hand tightly and making her nails dig into his palm.
“And save your Occlumency for Voldemort,” she retorted. “It is not something you will ever need use with me.”
“Let’s place this to one side for now, and get on with the things we need to accomplish today. You need to let Potter know you want Grimmauld Place, and I need to arrange a meeting with Filch.”
“You need to be careful, Severus,” she cautioned. “He’s hardly trustworthy. How will you be sure any meeting you arrange is secure?”
“Because Filch has as much to fear from the Ministry as I do, at the moment. If I am captured, he will be in serious trouble. I know far too much about him, and him me. He would also not like his status as a squib to be widely known.”
Maeve accepted the reassurance, but she did not do so lightly. It was never advisable to be bedfellows with someone as shadowy as Filch, and dangerous when your life was part of that equation.
They parted on better terms than they could have hoped for, given he nature of their conversation. Maeve held him for many minutes longer than was necessary as he prepared to leave their shelter for the second time that day. She bathed in his smell and the comfort of his robes as he rested his chin on her head. Severus took her own, softer, odour to his heart as he prepared to leave for a meeting with someone who was the exact opposite of everything his wife was. With murmured goodbyes, they parted at the entrance to the bunker, and Maeve waited a moment, knowing that her owl was hidden amongst the trees. Bran came swooping low, flashing through the trees as quickly as he could. Maeve closed the heavy door and took the bird down to their living quarters.
“I think we may be on the move again, old friend. It seems like we are going for the wizarding record of the most homes lived in in one month.” She produced a smile that was not true, and reached for a piece of parchment. In her head, she was already rearranging the furniture in the drawing room or Grimmauld Place, and choosing her bedroom.
One of the first frosts of the season had settled over Hogsmeade, as Remus and Felicia arrived in the slumberous village. They popped gently onto the street that ran past the Shrieking Shack, Remus having chosen the destination carefully. He wanted no secrets from his new fiancée, and this felt like the best way to introduce him to his life. Sparkling beneath its hoary cloak, the decaying building didn’t look quite so forbidding, and Remus led her towards the hanging gate with an easy smile on his face. She looked up at the building, her breath fogging the air in front of her, and rested her hands on the fence that cordoned it off from the pavement.
“Sure, it’s not so bad,” she said, her lilting voice warming Remus’ chilled ears. The cold had become biting in a very short space of time, and they were not well enough muffled against it. “Although I’d maybe think differently if you wanted me to live there.” She looked up at him with a grin. “You don’t want me to live there, do you?”
“No,” he said, putting an uncertain arm around her shoulders, still not quite accustomed to being able to hug her at will. “I most certainly don’t want us to live there. We won’t be living anywhere secure until all this is over. You know that, don’t you?” Remus was still waiting for her to fling her arms in the air and say that this was all a huge mistake and that she wanted to go back home as soon as possible. He had found himself repeatedly giving her points of return throughout all their conversations, and each time Felicia had laughed it off.
“I’m not bothered about safety, you big lummox.” She wriggled in the cold and moved closer to the warmth of his body. “So long as I’ve a roof over my shoulders and a bed to rest my head, I’ll be fine. And you, of course,” she added, with a wink.
“You don’t feel we’re rushing things?” Remus asked guardedly.
“Not at all,” she replied. “Can’t do it soon enough. Did you not say there were married quarters in the big house for us?”
“I did. If you are absolutely sure, I can arrange with an official and we can be married this week.”
“I think that’s just wonderful. And in the meantime, I’m sure there are some rooms to be had here. Sure, we’ve even heard of Hogsmeade in Ireland. It’s a grand place, by all accounts.” Felicia pulled him away from the sugar-coated shack and back into the middle of the street. He cast one look at the place, and found he could now disconnect himself from the events that had marred his time at Hogwarts. The Shrieking Shack no longer had the power to cause him discomfort, not with this spark of a woman at his side. He resolved to find Harry just as soon as he got the chance. Without that disagreement, none of this would have happened.
They made their way towards the Three Broomsticks. Remus was aware of a shift in the atmosphere as they moved closer towards the main part of the village. There was no noise of any kind, no one out in the streets. Houses were firmly closed against the world and, down a side street, they could see, and hear, the swinging sign of the Hog’s Head. The pub itself looked shut, its windows emitting no light.
“That place looks like a kip,” Felicia commented, as they took in its barred doors. “No wonder it’s closed.”
“It’s not usually closed,” Remus muttered. “It’s usually one of the busiest places in the village, if you’re of a certain type. But something happened there, a few nights ago, something that must have affected it more than we thought.”
“Doesn’t look like business would be brisk anyway,” she said. “This place is deserted. What’s happened?”
“There was an attack. Looks like everyone’s bolted to their holes.” Remus hurried her up a little, aware that the quiet was unsettling. “The Three Broomsticks should be open. Madam Rosmerta wouldn’t close her doors for anything.”
They moved quickly and found that the Three Broomsticks was the only source of either light or sound in the whole place. Its rosy windows gleamed, and the door opened occasionally to allow a hasty, swaddled figure in or out. Felicia smiled to hear the occasional burst of music, although there was no cheery laughter spilling into the night along with the candlelight. Remus pushed open the door and allowed her to step out of the cloak-penetrating breeze.
Once inside, Felicia grinned with delight. This was her type of establishment, with its wide, well-lit bar and the plethora of chairs and tables that huddled through the main bar area. She had hold of Remus’ hand as she dragged him towards the bar, eager to sample what the pub had to offer. Madam Rosmerta was busy with a young, round-shaped wizard, but turned as the door banged shut behind the new arrivals. As soon as she saw Remus accompanied by a young lady, she raised an eyebrow with surprise, and it flew even higher when she realised the young lady was holding his hand. In all the time she had known him, she had never seen him with a woman, certainly not one as perky-looking as this.
“Good evening, Remus,” she said, her face wide with happiness at the prospect of some juicy gossip. “And this is?” She turned to Felicia, who slipped up onto one of the rickety stools that lined the bar and smiled, sticking out her hand.
“Howya?” Felicia grinned as Remus stepped forward, almost shyly, to make the introductions.
“This is Felicia, Rosmerta,” he said, coughing before adding, “my fiancée.”
“Really?” The landlady’s smile grew even wider. “Well, well, well. Congratulations, both of you! When did this happen?”
“Yesterday,” Felicia grinned, waggling the finger that held Remus’ mother’s engagement ring. “He’s such a sly old dog. Came over to Ireland to surprise me.”
“How marvellous!” Rosmerta reached behind her and took a large, shimmering bottle from the back of the bar. “I think this calls for some Fiesta Fizz, on the house, of course.”
As Felicia and Remus looked on, she poured the bubbling, frothing liquid into three, long-stemmed glasses, and re-corked the bottle, looking at them expectantly. “Well, come on then. Let’s drink to your future.”
As they all raised their glasses, and the cheery clink signified the sealing of a ritual completed, a hooded man sat in the snug, watching them carefully. He grimaced as the newly affianced couple kissed gingerly, before breaking away to converse with Rosmerta again. He sipped from his glass, irritated by the moustache that caught the froth of the beer. It was only when the door opened, and Argus Filch entered, did he move, crossing quickly to the embittered caretaker, and shoving him back out into the crisp night.
Remus secured Felicia a room for the night, although she insisted on paying the bill in advance ‘to avoid any fuss later’ and was shown up to her room, with a rapidly tiring Remus in tow. Once Remus was certain that she was happy, he announced that he needed to get back to Hogwarts. Felicia grinned, and reached up to kiss him.
“And you’d better see to it that we get this wedding out of the way soon,” she insisted. “I want to move in as soon as possible. This is all very nice, but it’s not the same as being with you. Not like we were in France.”
And suddenly, for Remus, the memories of their time in France were warm again. They no longer held the misery of regret in their sun-soaked days; they held the promise of something new and wonderful, of a re-birth of sorts. He found himself kissing her with a little extra fervour, as he prepared to take his leave.
“Take care,” she warned. “How will you get back to the castle?”
“It’s not far,” he said. “I’ll Disapparate to the gates and walk from there.”
Felicia looked a little concerned as he closed the door behind him, remembering the uneasy atmosphere that had stalked the streets of the village below her. But it was a short distance; surely he would be safe.
Hurriedly exchanged owls had brought Maeve the welcome news that Grimmauld Place was hers for as long as she wanted it. Harry was pleased to think that he would know where she was if he needed her for anything, and that Grimmauld Place would be lived in. He felt almost sorry for the house that had known nothing but sadness and anger within its old walls. He’d also received a surprising owl from old Albert, asking him if he wanted to spend Christmas in Godric’s Hollow. The old man’s letter had been quite poignant in its tone and Harry was finding it hard to refuse his request. It would be different, of that he was sure, and it would get him away from any thoughts of the current state of affairs. But Christmas was a long while away yet, and there were more important things to think about, like Filch.
Maeve had been quite specific in her letter; Filch was not to be approached under any circumstances, but he couldn’t figure out why. The old caretaker was quite the cantankerous so-and-so, but it wouldn’t harm to ask a few questions, surely.
Ron had disagreed with Maeve and said they should ask him anyway, but Hermione had stuck up for the former teacher, pointing out that her advice wasn’t to be taken lightly. Although Hermione could be awfully persuasive when she put her mind to it, both Harry and Ron looked sceptical about dropping the Filch matter. It was only when she pointed out that Filch was the most unapproachable person in the school, and that their chances of getting him to talk were slim, did they drop the subject. Ron and Harry had eventually gone back to poring over parchments and old books in an attempt to find out more about the death of the man that lay buried in the cemetery, while Hermione tackled her homework.
Maeve, meanwhile, was eager to leave the drab bunker for Grimmauld Place, but was being thwarted by her husband’s absence. She couldn’t just leave without him, and yet, he hadn’t said when he would be back. Leaving him a note saying ‘Gone to Grimmauld Place’ was probably rather rude and no doubt he would give her a telling-off for doing it. Her shoes made an irritating crack against the concrete floor as she paced from one end of the bunker to the other. Her boil of impatience was almost ready to burst when she heard the door scrape open, and she was there in front of him almost before he’d finished closing it.
“We can leave straight away!” she called, almost leaping into his arms. As she looked up into his face she realised he was suddenly looking very fragile and she took a step back. “Are you all right? You look a little strange.”
“I’m fine,” he muttered, brushing past her to find the retreat of their living space, calling over his shoulder, “I’m just not going anywhere tonight, so we should make ourselves comfortable.”
Whatever Maeve had been expecting, it hadn’t been this frosty attitude, and she wondered if it was in some way related to their earlier contretemps. She hurried after him, her happy dreams of sleeping in a comfortable bed evaporating along with his rapidly moving back.
“What happened? Did you meet Filch?” she asked, breathless from catching up with him.
“In a manner of speaking.” He undid his cloak and flung it onto the bed, his normal fastidiousness forgotten. “I don’t really want to talk about it. I just want to sleep.”
Maeve scooped up his discarded garment, feeling his warmth in the material, and instead of hanging it up, held the cloak to her, a replacement for the man who seemed to want little in the way of comfort. Severus was releasing his shirt from his trousers as Maeve watched him, uncomfortable with his agitation. There was something in the insipid atmosphere of this bunker that was making them blend in with its nondescript surroundings. She began to feel if they stayed there long enough they would indistinguishable from the pallid walls.
“It would take us no time at all to get to Grimmauld Place,” she pleaded. “We would be more comfortable there.”
“I do not wish to venture into the world of Potter tonight,” he insisted, kicking shoes at the floor with force. “Although you may go, if you wish.”
“I don’t wish to be anywhere without you.”
“Spare me the sentiment,” he said, ripping the covers back and preparing to slip beneath the sheets.
“Severus, I know this meeting with Filch must have been hard.”
“You have no idea.”
“But there is an opportunity for us to be comfortable. We could take it. I don’t want to go alone.”
He continued to settle himself in the blankets, not looking at her. “You cannot be comfortable with just me? You need the trappings of that gloomy house?”
“You know that’s not true,” she said, holding tighter to the cloak. “You know I am happy enough wherever you are.”
“Then why the urgency? Why can you not just be content to lie here tonight and move in the morning?”
She hesitated, watching the harsh Muggle light of the bunker mutilate the curving lines of his shoulders. His hair skidded across his neck as he turned and prepared to settle down for the night. “I wanted us to be comfortable,” she said weakly. “But perhaps I was being stupid. I have the comfort I need here.”
“Are you sure this life is for you, Maeve?” he asked, testing her with his penetrating gaze. “Would you not be happier at Rathgael? Is this too much reality?”
“Don’t be so ridiculous!” she snarled, her sudden anger making her throw his cloak down. Unbuttoning her shirt, she glowered at him in the harsh light, and then, tiring of it, extinguished the glare and left them in darkness. Severus was left to snatch the sounds of her clothes being cast aside, as she moved to prove her commitment to reality. He moaned a little as she slid into the bed with him, her warm skin bringing life back to the body that had been made frigid by Filch’s games.
As her warmth brought his flesh back to life, she sighed and the thoughts of the re-arranged furniture at Grimmauld Place dissolved into the much more pleasurable prospect of curling up with her husband.
The following morning restored her excitement at the prospect of moving. Unfortunately, it also brought Severus a headache that she attempted to remove with a quick potion cobbled together from the things she could find in the undergrowth surrounding the bunker. It wasn’t up to her usual standard “ something he lost not time in telling her about “ but it seemed to clear his brow of the heavy furrows that it had had when he first woke. She busied herself with having a shower in the temperamental Muggle contraption that clung to the wall of the stale-smelling cubicle. It insisted on scalding her and then promptly freezing her, as it struggled to cope after years of disuse.
She stepped back into the dormitory, a grey towel the only thing between her and the cold air. Severus was busying himself with a parchment that looked like it had seen better days, and he tutted over it with alacrity.
“Are we going to Grimmauld Place this morning?” she asked. “Or do you have something to do?”
Severus regarded his wife, finding it not too difficult to tear his eyes away from the dry paper in his hands to take in the steam rising from her pale flesh. He was reluctant to return to Grimmauld Place, not because of any danger he might face there, but because he hated the stench of Sirius Black and the memories he contained. The walls would close in around him, brimming with Potter and all he had come to signify.
“I have things to do,” he said slowly, almost, but not quite, lying about it. He did have things to do, although they were not, strictly speaking, the most pressing matters he had ever dealt with. “But you may go on ahead. I will see you there tonight.”
She didn’t object to going alone, but she would rather he had offered to accompany her. The house could be a dark, brooding place when you were alone in it.
“No, that’s fine,” she said, chasing the moisture from her limbs with the rough towel. “I can travel by air anyway. You can Apparate down when you’ve finished doing what you are doing. Will you bring our things with you?”
“If I must,” he grumbled, taking his eyes from the sight of her naked legs. “It will be late though, you should not hesitate to eat or go to bed.”
“Don’t leave it too late,” she insisted. “It’s a lonely place without company. I’d like to spend some time with you without having to worry about Voldemort popping up.”
“The Dark Lord will not ‘pop up’. Not yet anyway.” His black eyes flicked back to her as she dropped the towel completely and went to pick up her clothes.
“Severus...” She paused in her actions, holding her undergarments loosely in her hand. “Why do you still refer to him as the Dark Lord? It’s vaguely unsettling to hear you speak of him as if he were still your master.”
“In a sense he is,” he replied, distracted from his reply by the curve of her stomach against the white cotton in her hands. “He will remian my master for as long as I try to defeat him. Only when he is gone will I be free of him.”
“But do you have to call him the Dark Lord?” she pressed, stepping neatly into the skimpy garment she held.
“Maeve, do we have to have this conversation with you naked?” He stood up and placed the parchment back with the others, trying to control the surge of desire he felt. Life was going to get very difficult if she insisted on this brazen behaviour. “I have to call him the Dark Lord. I need it to be a habit. It would not do for me to slip and refer to him as Voldemort in his presence, would it?”
“I suppose not,” she admitted, not entirely convinced. Throwing the rest of her clothes on, she quickly kissed him, made sure she had her wand, and asked him one last time if he was sure he did not want to come with her.
“No, you go on,” he insisted. “There will be no danger for you there.”
Maeve nodded and they made their way to the door, Severus feeling slightly guilty that he was sending her out on her own. They said their goodbyes before opening the door, enjoying one last embrace before she stepped into the bright sunlight of the late autumn day. Severus watched as she slowly disassembled before him, his last solid image of her was the fluttering mane of hair that seemed to hover in the air, even when the rest of her had gone. But eventually it too disappeared and he was left with nothing but the bunker for company. He strode back inside and sat heavily on one of the chairs in the room that he assumed must have been their recreation room. A wobbled-legged pool table stood in the middle of the floor, evidence of nesting mice in its pockets. A dust-laden clock on the wall had stopped at two thirty and he wondered why it had chosen that moment to die. His guilty fingers stroked the chair arm’s faded upholstery as he tried to decide whether he had been a coward in not wanting to face Grimmauld Place immediately. But it was done, and he did have things he needed to get on with. The parchments he had were worthless; he would have to try to find a way of obtaining more information. Perhaps a visit to Malfoy Manor was called for again.
Maeve was as cold as the streams of air she settled herself on, penetrating the molecules of damp air on her journey. She eventually dropped back to earth in a quiet corner of Grimmauld Place, behind a short wall of dustbins. The smell was appalling and she quickly patted herself down and hurried away from the smell of rotting vegetation and dirty nappies. The run-down square looked the same as it always had; peeling paint and scruffy gardens were the order of the day. She approached the wall where she knew the house would appear for her and felt the small key in her pocket. Harry had owled it to her when he had received her positive response and had told her to keep it safe. There was only one in existence, and without it the house would be almost impossible to get into. She pulled the small piece of black metal from her pocket and slipped it into the keyhole that magically appeared in the door’s flaked paint. There was the sound of clicking and of bolts drawing themselves back. The door shuddered slightly as the key disappeared and Maeve watched it slowly open in on itself, allowing her the first whiff of the stale air behind it. She quickly shot up the steps and looked for the key, but it seemed that the house had taken ownership of it for the time being.
The house was as she remembered it. Someone, Molly presumably, had tried to have it re-painted, but the damp was working its way through the bright white paint and, once again, the house looked like it was beginning to fester. The portrait of Mrs Black was still covered by a coat stand, but there were no coats hanging there, a measure of how lonely the house had become. She moved to rectify this and hung her coat over the curtains that covered the old harridan. She moved almost gingerly through the house, peering through doors and half expecting something or someone to shoot out of the dark corners. It was the most unnerving place she had ever been in.
The drawing room was in darkness, and she hauled back the curtains to let in some light. There were signs of Harry and Ron’s recent occupation: a sweet wrapper crumpled on the table, a dirty glass left on the mantlepiece, where it had left a ring as a calling card. Molly would have been furious that they had left this mess behind. She could almost hear the echo of the older witch’s shrill voice screeching for them to clear up after themselves. Maeve dropped herself onto the sofa and surveyed her new home critically. It was shabby, although during its heyday it must have been quite elegant. She felt a little like a trespasser, being here alone. In the past the place had always been alive with life and others. Now it seemed like it was hers, and Maeve wasn’t sure she was comfortable with that.
She got up again and moved through the rooms, a phantom in what felt like another world. In the study that Harry had used so extensively, she could smell the lingering odour of cigars, a taint that had eaten into the very fabric of the room. If buildings could express feeling, she thought to herself, this one would be pure melancholy. Pulling down the old books, she ran a finger over the spines, wondering how long it had been since they were read and loved. What use is a book if it isn’t being read? These were redundant, and she could feel their wretchedness.
She found herself lost for a time in this world of dying books, turning pages that were thinned with age slowly and carefully. It was only when she looked at the clock and realised, with astonishment, that it was already just past two in the afternoon, did she snap the book that she was browsing closed and made her way down to the kitchen.
Here, as in the rest of the house, a feeling of lethargy prevailed. Even the clock’s ticks sounded slower and less urgent than any other clock she’d heard. Opening a few cupboards soon revealed a few tins of food, but a trip to the shops would have to be made a priority at some point. She flicked her wand at the large cooker and one of the hobs flared into life. Clattering about, she opened a tin of soup and poured the contents into the heavy pan that she had pulled from a shelf. Deep down, Maeve was still mildly annoyed at Severus for not coming with her, but if he had things to do then he had to do them. But it would have been nice to share this simple meal with him.
The flame slowly warmed the chicken concoction and she set the table for one, a lonely setting, in her mind. As she moved to get a spoon from a drawer her foot connected with something that rang metallic against the floor. Looking down, Maeve could see the glint of a black key and, with some relief, bent to pick up what she assumed was the house key that the door had so rudely swallowed.
As her fingers made contact with the metal she could feel instantly that this was not the same key. It had carvings on the side and was sending a warning tremor up her arm. Instead of heeding the cautionary quiver, she brought the key closer to her and could pick out ravens down the side of its length, ravens that were distorting and bleeding into one another. She frowned, wondering why her throat suddenly felt it was in a vice.
The kitchen began to grow dim as her eyes failed to pick up the light. Something was trying to consume her; she could feel its jaws snapping at her soul. Now she tried to act on the warning, tried to cast the key away, but it was welded to her fingers, pinching at the skin, trying to be absorbed into her. Hard fear began to clog her veins as the green shade of something rose up around her. And then she was screaming, the agony of this attack finding an outlet in her throat.
Whatever it was required more fight than she had. She thought of Severus, of the husband who would not come with her. She tried to understand what was happening ” why would a key have this affect on her? ” but she couldn’t think. All she could do was try and flee from the pain that was spreading from her fingers to every part of her body with alarming speed.
Her legs gave way, as she was flung to the floor, and she knew she was dying, knew that whatever had chosen her body to wage this battle in was stronger, more powerful. It felt as if her lungs were filling with fluid and the seeping death that was turning her fingers bluish reached her heart. As convulsions ripped through her, the key finally detached itself from her fingers. Her twitching form finally came to find some rest as the hob she had lit was blown out by the flight of the energy that had been released into the room.
As the chicken soup congealed in the pan, so, it seemed, her blood congealed in her veins. As her breath began to be more wraith-like, the clock struck the half-hour, heedless of the fact that there was, once again, no one to hear it.