He can't be still any more.
Chapter Text

Snape came into the cottage uninvited and without notice, crossing the small living room in three strides and invading her cramped bedroom. He looked dark and forbidding as ever. She'd barely had time to jump from her bed and now fidgeted uneasily under his gaze, suddenly keenly aware of the child things and open books strewn over the whole room... of herself, haphazardly dressed at four in the afternoon under the lab coat, her hair sticking out from a hastily made bun, her blouse redolent of potions ingredients in various states of preparation. She couldn't help blushing.

She'd often dreamt about his barging into her bedroom, true, but in her dreams it was always in order, nicely turned out and inviting, and either they were in the middle of a wild embrace begun in the lab, or the man had slipped into the cottage in the middle of the night intent on seducing her during her sleep, sitting by her sleeping form (in a seducing nightgown, although she didn't actually own one) and confessed his long-hidden love in tantalizing whispers...

Well. Reality check. He was probably sick of waiting for the promised batch of AcneRepair potion she should have completed this morning, and here she was, looking for all the world as if she'd snuck out to her room to take a nap. And nowhere was the book she needed right now, to help her get whatever was wrong with the bubbling goo in the lab right again. She'd been reading it at three this morning, though... should be on her bed. Or under it. She stole a glance at him.

His expression of faint disgust and reprobation didn't differ much from this he usually sported. He scanned the room wordlessly, and she was sure her internal chaos was to blame, when she thought she saw his face soften, the time of a blink, as his eyes stopped on Berenice's pajamas, the ones decorated with pink-teddy bears and baby elephants. The girl had triumphantly brought them home from one of her London sorties with him, and they were now thrown near Hermione's pillow and her own ratty bedclothes, the soft garments huddled together like a puppy with its mother. The girl did have a room of her own, but truth be told they still slept together, most of the time.



"I have come," he said stiffly, "to-"



"The batch is almost finished," she hastened. "The reaction is taking longer because I put in the colloidal gold as a stabilizer, and-"

"This is not what I have come to talk about."

She raised interrogative eyes at him.

"May I?" he asked formally, if a little late, his eyes his eyes on the Berenice-battered sofa near the fire in the living-room.

"Of- Of course, Severus." They'd agreed on given names years ago, but the sounds still felt unnatural in their mouths and ears. "Please get seated, I'll put on some tea. Berenice won't be here for another three hours, she went to the school's representation rehearsal."

"I haven't come for Berenice, either."

He sounded stilted and forbidding, as if gearing himself for a particularly unpleasant chore.

He wants the cottage back. He wants to stop the cooperation. She tried to quell her panic. Thanks to their common venture, she'd been able to save enough money for a place of her own, if the need arose, and the contract between them promised her long-term royalties. Besides, she'd been thinking of a new potion, and if he wanted out she could market it on her own, keep the totality of the money for herself. But the tears were coming up all the same.

Disjointed distraught thoughts attacked her mind. He wanted out. What would Berenice say? She'd never known life without the man... And she'd have sworn he loved the little girl, too... Maybe he had a new girlfriend, didn't want the Know-It-All to interfere this time. He'd have kids of his own... men did it all the time, leave their families for a woman, and it... this cooperation-cum-godfather... it wasn't even a real family they had. Maybe if she'd taken the time to dress and tame her hair years before, flirt with him a little... the tears were brimming now. She viciously repressed all feeling. She had three children to feed and educate, university tuition for Rose looming since they wouldn't let Scorpius pay for it, her part of the wedding to pay for... she couldn't think of herself and her stupid girlish fantasies. She'd hear his proposal and make the most of it for her family. Which didn't include him, thank you very much.

She brought back the tea and cakes platter with trembling hands and a stoic face. His own features were pinched, his eyes lost into the fire, grim.

That's it, then, both of them thought with equal dismay.

She cleared her throat. "Sugar and cream. Have a puff, please..." Oh the unbearable triviality of it, when he was clearly gearing up to slash her only, her miserable link to him and all that could give her an illusion of happiness. She knew exactly how to prepare his tea, which cakes to bake to make the huge nose quiver in delight before his thin lips bit into the pastry. The way his eyes rolled over the tiniest little bit, and the boyishly happy smile he'd bestow upon her as he chewed, all the poor trappings of a false domesticity that would never blossom into a real home now. Her throat clenched in misery.

He bit into a puff the way Socrates must have drunk his cup of poison. Not a whiff of a gesture of appreciation, she noted. His eyes were still fixed on the flames. "I have come," he said stiffly, "to..." He stopped.

Merlin damn it all. He'd rehearsed his opening twenty times, the timing of his visit a hundred... and he was sitting here, like a fish out of the water, with a cream puff that tasted like ashes in its fish-mouth. Mind blank like a fish, too. But his blood wasn't fish-cold. Oh Merlin. How could he have foreseen, how, that she'd be in her room, on her bed,facing away from him on all fours for Merlin's sake, that she'd be looking so deliciously ruffled from the stewing and the brewing, the smell of her and of Berenice rising from the sheets like so many snakes calling to him to scoop the witch in his arms and dive with her into the large bed and show her, just show her what he'd spent two whole nights trying to find the words to tell her. Unbidded came a vision of her in that too-many-washings-soft-looking absurd pink training pants and t-shirt he'd glimpsed on the bed, and of Berenice in the PJ's they'd chosen together, cuddling on the bed together. And of himself, looking at it from the other-his- side of the same bed, where he'd be lounging with a book in his hands and his eyes on them. His heart jumped, stopped, and his throat convulsed.

It had been a mistake to come. You just had to have seen her expression when she'd noticed him in her room. He didn't need twenty years of spying to make the difference between a woman enchanted at finding her... suitor in her room, and the half-furious, half-frightened glance she'd given him as she jumped to her feet, her stilted politeness... But Scorpius had sounded so sure. One more Malfoy mistake, then. At his expense.

It was the end, this way or that, he decided. He'd make one attempt, then turn over the cottage and the firm to her, retire from Hogwarts, and leave. He just wouldn't take it anymore. Couldn't.

"Yes? You wanted to..."

She looked worried. Very worried. Maybe she knew what was coming, and was silently praying for him to go away before he opened his mouth and irremediably forced her to avow that he disgusted her. She wouldn't say so, of course, she was too nice for that. Too nice for him, too. So much misery, and he only wanted to talk to her. Oh. That was an idea, that....

He dove in. "I wanted to talk to you." Powerfully witty that, he complimented himself.

She nodded, quietly, as if preparing herself for a blow. "I'm listening."

Oh. That was one of his cue words. Something he'd prepared. Then he should say... he should say... "Scorpius. Scorpius, like Draco, is my godson, and he came to talk to me. About his incoming nuptials with Rose. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh, that." The relief in her face was unmistakable. "Yes, they told me last Sunday. That's quite good news, isn't it? Unless, of course," her face clouded again, "you're opposed to the union."

"Yes. No. I mean, why should I?"

"Because," she said slowly, "we're Weasleys. Not aristocracy. You represent the Malfoy's interests. I'm a Mudblood. If you forgot, the groom's great-aunt carved it on my arm. And we're not exactly on a comparable financial standing with the Malfoys. Rose will sign any reasonable prenuptial," she hastened. "She's not a gold-digger, you kn-" And she bit her lip and shut up. "I'm sorry."

"For ever what?" Had she gone off the deep end, too? And who cared about her blood, apart from noticing how attractive it made her when it came up to her cheeks, like now?

She was really pretty when she blushed. It made her look so much younger, carefree... And now the pink tinge was spreading, all over her face, down to... down to where? He pinched the bridge of his nose and forbid himself sternly to think of her, on all fours, on her bed, with that blush spreading to... Stop.

"For ever what?" His voice was little more than a croak as he repeated himself in order to get a grip, but she took it for a threat.

"I didn't mean to remind you of any..."

Oh, that.

"Never mind. I haven't thought of Alexandra for a long time, and she was, indeed, a gold-digger. Rose is not, and if her blood is pure enough for Scorpius it certainly is for me, who never put much stock on parentage. I don't object to the wedding in the least. The opposite is true, actually. Rose is a comely and altogether recommendable young lady." He felt an uncommon surge of satisfaction at having proven his ability to align three coherent sentences. And he'd gotten in the mother's good graces, too, what with that open-minded blood statement on top of all. After all, he was himself deeply in... whatever, with a Mudblood. Back to Square one, then.

"You didn't come to discuss the color of the tablecloths at the reception, did you?"

Just be done with it, bow out, and let her match her napkins with her tablecloths in peace.

"So?" Her voice, always assured and sometimes shrill, was lower, subdued. Afraid?

"Scorpius told me, that..." Love me, marry me, let me take you to bed and love you until I die in your arms, he wanted to throw himself on his knees, or her on her bed, but words worth being said eluded him. His mind went blank again. She didn't help him out of the long silence, just kept her brown, intelligent, understanding warm eyes on him. They proved his undoing.

He just wanted them to understand him, too. Once in his life. And if she told him off, well, he'd be exactly in the same position he was in now. That's what Scorpius had told him, and he was right, for once. And she didn't financially depend on him anymore. In any case he'd make her a much richer woman when he left just after she'd refuse him, so it wasn't morally reprehensible to let her know. Only to let her know. He'd turn the cottage and the business over to her and disappear as soon as she made it clear she wasn't interested. She couldn't be interested.

Could she?

"Scorpius told me it would be awkward for you to find me as your male counterpart at the wedding, because of- of the events that surrounded Berenice's birth."

This time he could just see how the blush spread down to her belt. Farther down?

"I wouldn't dream of depriving you of playing any role you and Scorpius would want for you, either at the wedding or in the young couple's life, Severus. We've been working together long enough, before and after Berenice... You've been nothing but a friend and a support all this time. I certainly will not be standing in your way."

Now. Now he must remember how he used to love playing with his life, once, the exhilarating feeling of throwing it all in the wind and seeing if it would fly or... fall.

Severus Snape, who'd spent twenty years risking his life, fighting the most dangerous criminals during and after the wars, and carelessly betting his very existence as an everyday event, now took a deep breath and made the boldest step of his life.

"I don't rightly know for Scorpius," he said, "but... I would like to play for you the role he is playing for Rose. Only, of course, I'm older, and... I've been alone and unaccustomed to human company for more than forty years, so... you know... what say you, then?"
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