That's Mrs Agatha Snape to you (agapanthus) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2009-08-10 08:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! [1980-08] august, agatha snape (née chubb), severus snape |
Who: Severus & Agatha
When: 9 August 1980; Sunday; Afternoon
Where: The Snape household, specifically Severus' shed/workroom
What: It's time for the Talk
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
Agatha stood in the middle of the back doorway and stared out at the shed in the backyard. She knew Severus was in there. He'd spent a lot of time in there over the last couple of days. She wasn't sure if he was hiding from her, hiding from himself or hiding from something else entirely. Or perhaps even a bit of all of those. She would have liked to have given him that solitude for a bit longer but she'd decided that enough was enough. She was tired of being lied to, tired of being shunted to the corner and while she was also sure she might not like the answers she was determined to get, she wanted them anyway. She drew in a deep breath then let it out slowly as she stepped out of the house. She closed the door behind her and walked down the path to the shed. She paused outside for a moment, one hand on the door handle, realising this was her last chance to avoid all of this. She could turn around, go back into the house and keep her head down. Or she could open the door, demand the answers she wanted and accept the consequences, no matter how good or bad they were. That first thought was tempting but she wasn't the sort of person who liked to live their life blind, willingly like the pureblood princesses or otherwise. So she turned the handle and pushed the door open. She strode into Severus' sanctum sanctorum with her most determined expression on her face. "Severus, I think we need to talk." Agatha's thoughts about Severus were not so entirely incorrect as he would have liked to have said they were. In a way he was hiding - somehow trying to build up reserves again so that when he faced work on Monday he was ready for the lie again. He was trying not to think about what might happen if the Death Eaters found about this before the Order was ready - before he had an opportunity to tell Agatha - before everything. He stared into the empty cauldron in front of him thinking that he should start the blood replenisher that had been his excuse to come out here. His wife's voice disturbed his reverie and his brows furrowed slightly his dark eyes still on the cauldron in front of him. They did need to talk and he knew it and he wasn't certain how much longer he could put it off. The truth was that Agatha was going to have to be told. This wasn't the sort of thing he could keep hiding from her. It perhaps wasn't the sort of thing he should have ever hid from her and as much as he had wanted to put it off one more day - one more hour - she was right. He swallowed, lips suddenly dry, hands feeling clammy, and he turned around to look at her, his dark eyes guarded. What was she going to say? He didn't believe her a strong Purist. She hadn't agreed with Lucius' school, she'd had questions about things in the past - he'd been the person defending Death Eater policies to her. But when it all came down to the truth, would that mean anything? Would she be willing to accept that he was a completely different man than she thought she had married, or would she run away? Whatever happened, Severus thought, he would give her the choice. "Yes, I think we do," he flexed his hand nervously and he waited to see what she would ask first. The truth Severus, he told himself firmly. The truth. Agatha wasn't sure if she was surprised that Severus had agreed with her or not. Part of her had been sure that he would fob her off in some way, hustle her back to the house and not talk about it as he had so many times in the past. But then part of her had also recognised that things had been... different of late. More serious. More... final. People who she'd never thought would die had died. Albus Dumbledore. Rodolphus Lestrange. So... now she had her chance to ask and she found it frustratingly amusing that she was suddenly bereft of questions. She'd had so many over the last few months but they all seemed to have run off and hid right when she needed them the most. "Are you..." She stumbled to a halt. "Are you... do you really believe what the Death eaters believe?" Severus was quiet for a moment. He wasn't quite certain what he'd expected her to ask. Maybe something about the earlier events of the weekend, his still somewhat bandaged hand, the missing wand, or maybe something about the radio broadcast or something else entirely. He hadn't really expected her to start with something so simple - and yes, he realised it wasn't simple because when he answered it truthfully, everything else unravelled, but on the other hand, it was extraordinarily simple. He picked up the wand, the new one he'd purchased at Diagon Alley on Saturday, and moved a cauldron off of a chair so that Agatha could sit if she wanted to. It was a distraction, and it wasn't keeping his hands from being sweaty. He put the wand away and turned to look her full in the eye. The word was harder to force out than he'd expected it to be, but then again, he'd been lying for so long: the truth. "No," he said. And he was silent for a moment before he let out a shaky breath and swallowed tightly. "No," he repeated, as if uncertain she'd believe him if he only said it once. "I mean, if you want to get technical," he offered, waving a hand in the air. "It probably depends on what precisely. Do I believe traditions and etiquette is important? That respect and family is essential to a good community? That Muggle and magical intermarriage is a bad idea? Yes. Those things I agree with. Do I believe Muggleborns should be killed, or that Pureblood wizards are better than any other type? Do I believe people should be killed for their beliefs or persecuted because they happened to say the wrong thing publicly? Do I believe family and blood and money should be an all expense paid pass to do whatever the hell you want without consideration that you're ruining another human being's life? Or that you should be told whom you can or cannot marry? No. "In the end even with the things I acknowledge as important there's really no answer but no." And there it was. The thing Agatha had suspected for some time from things Severus had said, had not said and had refused to say. She couldn't help but feel relieved and she sank into the chair he'd cleared off gratefully. It was a relief to know her husband wasn't a Death Eater in anything other than name. She had her moments of doubt as well as moments when she could have sworn her suspicion was true. She could only agree with him on the need for respect and the importance of family. She often thought tradition and etiquette could be stifling but there was a time and a place for both, they just needed to be flexible enough to move with the times and not get bogged down and assume that was was acceptable two hundred years ago was still relevant today. "I..." She gave a weak laugh. "I have never been more pleased to hear anything." She looked over at Severus. "Neither of us had much choice in this marriage but I wanted to make the best of it. I just... wasn't sure if that could ever really be possible if you really believed all that... that tripe." Severus watched her and listened as she spoke. There was an immediate sense of relief at her choice of words. It wasn't hugely surprising, to be certain, but there was still relief there. The marriage hadn't been much of a choice for either of them, and there were days he was amazed that it seemed to be working as well as it did, but he didn't particularly want it to fail. He'd watched his parent's marriage fall apart and he didn't want his to fail - not really. But the problem was that this wasn't all of it. Even if she was relieved to know that he didn't actually believe the tripe - as she'd put it - she might not be relieved when she knew that he was and would continue to put his life on the line to do something right and that by doing so he may have put her life in danger as well. "Before you get too relieved," he said grimly. "That's really not all of it." He had no idea how to tell her this at all. He had no idea even where to begin to tell her this part. It was one thing to not believe it and be living a lie - it was quite another to not believe it and be fighting for the other side. It might have made sense to go over and stand next to her, but he couldn't bring himself to move his foot forward even the slightest bit. Deep down, he couldn't help a sense of terror that she would run away, or would hate him, or would tell someone - even though reason and rational thought might have suggested otherwise. Somehow she wasn't surprised to hear that either, not after the events of this weekend. Not after he'd come back on Friday night, grim-faced and injured, looking like he'd been crying, looking almost like he'd sold his soul to the devil. She'd wondered once or twice whether Severus was involved in something bigger than she'd thought and now she was almost certain of it. Certain that he had been swimming in some very deep waters and from the look of him, doing it without any kind of safety net or help. "I... I think I know that," she said quietly. "Even if I don't know what it is. I think I've known for a while that you've been involved in something... big. Something dangerous. Why else would you be so fanatical about the wards here. I might be able to brush it off as just the aftermath of the events at the Foundation except you were concerned about that long before then." She nibbled on her bottom lip again, feeling a bit like Alice must have just before she took that trip down into Wonderland. "So what is the rest of it?" Severus stared at her for a moment. His wife frequently surprised him - and he supposed that was perhaps because he really didn't know her that well all things considered. Just barely six months - not even a year - and much of that time they'd only spoken a few times a week. He wondered briefly if he had been so transparent and if so did everyone in the Inner Circle suspect something? But no, Agatha - there had been times he'd shown something or another to her. In theory, his secret was safe from the Inner Circle and the rest of the Death Eaters - at least for the moment. He placed his hand on the nearby work bench and was quiet for a moment. He had to trust her - even if it was pulling against everything that he normally would have done. She had no love for the Death Eaters and Severus was certain she had no love for the war and thus far only six months or no, she had given him no reason to not trust her. "I've been feeding information to the Order of the Phoenix - the vigilantes - for just under a year," he said quietly. He forced himself to look up at her face, to try to figure out what she was thinking. "I've been spying within the Death Eaters since November of last year, within the Dark Lord's Inner Circle for the past four months. If they discovered it, death would be kind, and I'm afraid that I have put you in danger simply by association - and now that I am telling you this you are absolutely in danger," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. Everything from the past few months, from the past forty-eight hours kept playing in his mind and Severus wished for the millionth time that he could simply disappear and ignore it all. It would be easier to know that whatever the Order was doing, he could help them with it - but once again he would no doubt be relegated to waiting and hoping that in the end they'd pull it off. "I should have told you," he whispered hoarsely. "But I didn't know if I could trust you," his voice gained some volume then, carrying on with determination. "I should have perhaps never agreed to marry you, but I didn't know how to say no to Mr Lestrange, and then-" he'd been lonely, so very lonely and the idea of having someone particularly when he'd realised that he didn't dislike Agatha had been encouraging. "And then I realised you weren't a staunch Purist like your father, and I wanted to, but-" he broke off again. "If you don't want to stay with me, Agatha, I will not hold you to your promise. I am not precisely the man that you agreed to marry, and therefore noone would fault you for it. "Whether you agree with the Purists or the Death Eaters or not, this is an entirely different matter," he said grimly. "This is you putting your life on the line if you stay with me. If you do not pick up your journal and turn me in right now, you would be considered a traitor. Thus if you want out and the ability to claim no knowledge of these events should what I am doing be discovered, I will arrange it and I will not think poorly of you for it." For a moment Agatha could only stare at him, almost unable to take in what he'd just revealed. For a moment all she could feel was fright... no, not fright, terror. For herself, for Severus, for her family who would be tainted by association if this was ever revealed. But then something pulled her out of that. The word 'tainted'. As though it was a bad thing to want a bit of freedom in this world. As though it was wrong to want people to be treated equally. As though working against people who would kill innocents and let dangerous werewolves roam freely was wrong. Anger took over almost immediately. Anger at Severus for hiding this from her, for knowingly placing her in danger without any way of protecting herself and her family. Anger for being so... cavalier. But then her good sense reigned her in again. No, she couldn't imagine Severus had been cavalier about this. Someone who had been cavalier wouldn't be sitting there waiting to see whether his wife was going to knock down the house of cards he'd built. Not that the anger had gone away. Though now it was a bit more nebulous. She did feel angry that he'd concealed this from her, concealed so much of himself from her. The anger was joined by the fear again because they were in danger. She understood now why he'd been so willing to teach her Occlumency and she suddenly redoubled her resolve to learn it to the best of her ability. What Severus had done, was doing, was horribly dangerous. And it was so incredibly brave. That thought forced its way through the fear and anger and stilled her. It would have been so easy for Severus to do nothing. To swallow his doubts and reservation and just keep going the way he had. He had rank within the Death eaters and a good job. The world was a good place for him. But he hadn't. He'd taken his doubts and done something about them. More than she'd ever done though she supposed by telling Miss Pinkstone what she had she'd taken that first step along that path. Severus had done more though and she realised something else. She was so terribly proud of him. She licked her lips, trying to put her tumultuous emotions into words and her voice was shaky when she spoke. "I think you're doing the right thing. I'm... angry you didn't trust me. I'm frightened for you, for me, for my family. But I still think you're doing the right thing. I'm not sure I could have done it... do it." She gave a wan smile. "I think I'd be... a bit of a coward if I left you for doing the right thing and I try not to be a coward." She was frightened though, terribly frightened and she knew her hands were shaking. This was more than she'd expected and she knew she was stepping into the unknown right now. She was choosing to align herself with her husband and set herself against some very, very ruthless people. Look what they'd done to Mr and Mrs Burke and they weren't even traitors. Mrs Burke was a Lestrange by birth and they'd still thrown her into that horrible rehabilitation centre. If they found out what Severus was doing, if they found out she supported him, she couldn't imagine they'd be treated even half as well. They were halfbloods after all, not purebloods, not even fullbloods. "What..." she began then she went on in a rush. "What happened on Friday?" Severus watched her, watched the flurry of emotions across her face. Occlumency lessons or no, Agatha was not particularly good at hiding them yet, and for the moment at least, he was thankful of that although in the back of his mind he knew that was a danger of its own. It was a danger that could be dealt with in its own time. For a moment it was on the tip of his tongue to say 'please say something', but then she did - and he swallowed hard at her words. She wasn't leaving. She wasn't leaving? He felt as if he'd known that she wouldn't tell. Even though it had taken him to this point - this point where he felt as if the end was so very near (one way or another) - to actually tell her about what he was doing his instinct had said she wouldn't tell. But that was different than staying. It was far different than willingly standing by his side knowing that he was a traitor to the current government and what might happen to him if he was discovered. He had gone over false memories - verifiable reasons for why she might leave him - unfaithfulness, or abuse of some variety. None of them were pretty for him, but they would surely have been believable. He pushed his hand off the worktable then, the momentum of the motion forcing his foot forward as he crossed the room in a few steps and pulled up a chair in front of her, sitting down into it and reaching for her hand. She was trembling and Severus swallowed as he brought his eyes up to meet hers. "You've every right to be angry," he said. "I'm sorry, Agatha. I-" A dark look crossed his face at the mention of Friday and he swallowed, his hands sweaty with nerves and worry. He didn't know how much he could tell her before she might crack under the pressure and he couldn't give her too much - he'd given her enough he thought to himself as he ran a thumb across her wrist. "Friday-" He stopped holding silent for a moment, a second, a third. "Friday." He bowed his head, a hand reaching up to the back of his neck to rub it. There was so much to Friday, but he supposed what it boiled down to - "Friday is the reason I'm telling you this today," he said finally. "I - The Dark Lord is dead." It was a split second decision that he hoped was the right one. "No one knows," he looked up at her again. "Well, no one among the Death Eaters or their supporters and I'm not telling them. We're going to-" he laughed shortly, nerves on edge. "We're going to put another bloody ward on this house, Agatha. And then we're going to wait until the Order is ready, and then we're going to pray to whatever gods there might be out there that his death is enough to break all of them. And if it is we have a chance at a normal life. And if it isn't -" He didn't want to think about that and he shook his head. "I'm not sure it matters anymore." She stared at him with disbelief. The Dark Lord was dead? Strangely enough she didn't doubt him, perhaps it was because it was such a huge thing. Who would lie about something like that? But... she couldn't imagine how such a thing could possibly be done, especially after he defeated Professor Dumbledore. "He's dead?" she whispered. "How?" It was... momentous. Incredible. It was a relief. If he could be defeated then anyone could. The rest of the Death Eaters could be defeated. They could all be free from having to live like this. "What ward?" she asked. She felt stunned. It was almost too much to take in all at once and she almost felt overwhelmed. The only thing that kept her from breaking down entirely was the fact that she'd known something was going on. Not that she'd ever imagined anything like this but it was enough to allow her to keep herself together. Severus wasn't certain how to answer the first question, but the second he knew and the answer slid off of his tongue instantly. "A Fidelius charm," he said softly. "It'll go on top of everything else that we have, but it is almost unbreakable. A secret keeper will keep the secret - in this case the location of our home - and only the secret keeper can reveal that secret. The secret keeper can tell your parents and brother the location and they will be able to find us, but any one else - even if they knew exactly where to look - would walk by and see nothing. There is no stronger charm. I have held off on it because to use it seemed to make it so obvious that there was something to hide, but considering the attack upon the Greengrass home, I am less worried about that now. And with everything -" he swallowed. "I swore to protect you, Agatha, and I will do everything in my power to keep us safe." "The Dark Lord was killed with a killing curse from behind him, unfortunately not in time to save two very good Aurors and a baby less than a month old," he returned to the first question matter of factly, as if stating the events in such a way would make them easier - it didn't. He wondered if the fact that he knew so precisely would give him away. At the moment at least he didn't much care. He kept his hand on hers, looking at her gently. She nodded slowly. She remembered what they'd learned about the Fidelius in NEWT Charms. It was a powerful piece of magic and it would protect them extremely well. Once behind it, no one would be able to find them. "We should... we should make sure we have an area in the house we know we can apparate straight into," she said, still in a shaky voice but trying to think nonetheless. "Just in case." She blinked as she took in the details of the Dark Lord's death. It seemed so... mundane in a very weird way. That he could be killed so easily. Not that it really was easily but she'd somehow expected that he was so horribly evil that it would need some elaborate ritual or something like that. Then something about the description pierced her shock and she stared at Severus. "You were there?" she said, her voice becoming a squeak. "You know who did it?" Then her eyes widened as the implication of the whole thing sunk in and a more horrifying thought occurred to her. "Severus?" Her voice was faint, filled with the stunned realisation that had just come to her. "Did you kill him?" She didn't hear the answer as everything she'd heard and that last realisation finally overwhelmed her and she fainted. Once again Agatha surprised him and he moved quickly forward to support her head and lean it back in the chair. She wasn't the type of girl that fainted - at least, he hadn't thought she was. A woman who had played a Beater on the Quidditch team at school seemed highly unlikely to be a fainting type on a regular basis. But then again, he'd never seen her take quite as much as he'd just given her before either. With his wand he summoned a potion, uncorking it and waving the scent under her nose, feeling almost absurd as he did so and certainly feeling awkward. What in Merlin's name was he to do with an unconscious woman? "Agatha," he said softly. "Agatha, please," he shook her shoulder gently. "Agatha please wake up," he said simply. Darkness fled to be replaced with a truly hideous smell and the realisation that she'd fainted. Agatha coughed and her eyes fluttered open to find Severus leaning over her looking worried and a touch awkward. It was the awkward part that caused the anger she'd been feeling to evaporate for the moment. That he could do all he'd done and still feel awkward spoke volumes for him. It was rather endearing to be honest. "Oh, I can't believe I fainted," she said, blushing even though she felt rather disgusted at herself. She wasn't one of those precious princesses who fainted. The fact that she'd just had more shocks and surprises thrown at her than any normal person could be expected to cope with didn't occur to her. Then she remembered what had caused her to faint and the blush faded almost instantly. She was half-afraid of the answer to the question she'd asked but she felt she had to know it. She had to know it all. The old saying 'In for a knut, in for a galleon' never seemed quite so apt as it did right now. "Severus," she said softly, catching his hand. "Did you... did you kill him?" Thank Merlin she was reviving. He didn't move back from her, his eyes still searching her face to make certain she was all right, and only when he was convinced that she was did he place the potion to the side and sit back from her a little bit. If she'd stayed that way he had no idea what he would have done and he was momentarily very thankful that he did not have a proper pureblood wife, but rather one that seemed to be taking everything he was throwing at her reasonably well - all things considered. And he was throwing quite a bit. "It's all right," he said finally, in not the most soothing of ways but then this wasn't precisely the most soothing of conversations. If she wasn't leaving, she needed to understand fully what they were up against so that she could make the decision with open eyes, and that meant harsh and probably painful truths along the way. He swallowed at the repeated question - he'd half hoped she'd forget about it. "I've been responsible in one way or another for more deaths than I'd like to count. This is the only one I do not regret or feel guilt over. Yes. I killed him. Not in time for Frank and Alice and Neville, but he'll kill no more families pureblooded or otherwise." His hand almost unconsciously squeezed around hers and he could almost feel tears pricking at the corner of his eyes again. The walls slamming into place were almost automatic - men didn't cry and Agatha would know men didn't cry and he had already cried once this weekend and that was enough. He blinked, avoiding the full feeling in his eyes. "The Order doesn't want me to say that - they're going to give the credit to the Longbottoms - but you deserve the truth I think." "I know this is a lot," he added. "Are you sure, Agatha? If you want all this to disappear I can make it happen and I speak honestly when I say I will think no worse of you for it. What I am doing -" He swallowed. "It isn't something you chose and it's still not over. I feel like we've reached the point where it's close, but I don't know what that end will be. The Order has been picked off one by one - even if they were working with Albion, they do not have many either. The Death Eaters still out number them, but we are perhaps on more of an even playing field than we were. We have no Albus Dumbledore, but they have no Dark Lord either. But the end may not be what I am hoping for and if it isn't - there's a good chance they'll have learned what I am doing at some point in the meantime. If the outcome isn't favourable and we live to talk about it we might have to leave. "I don't want to lose you," he sighed. "I don't want my marriage to fail because of secrets I've kept, but I also need you to know that this is no small thing. It's dangerous - it's incredibly dangerous, and I would be foolish if I didn't tell you that I was terrified - and we may not win. And you should know that. You have to know that before you say you are staying by my side. You perhaps didn't have a choice before, but I'm giving you a choice right now. I just know that I can't keep living this way. Agatha, the death, the lies, it's destroying me. And I can't keep lying to you." It was perilously close to overload again. Severus had killed the Dark Lord. It was at once both shocking and eye-opening. Shocking that someone actually could kill the Dark Lord after all the rumours and whispers about him, after hearing of the battle at Hogwarts and knowing he'd survived that. Eye-opening that he could be killed by someone so ordinary. Not that Severus wasn't extraordinary in his own way but he wasn't some great hero or possessing any powerful, magical artefact. He was just a man, just a twenty-year old man. "Let them," she whispered as though someone else could hear what they were talking about. "Let the Longbottoms be the heroes. Let the questions be asked about them. You'd hate the questions and the stares and the whispers behind your back. Let people think the Longbottoms did it. They're not here to answer any questions so people will let it lie. Those who need to know the truth, do." She reached up and placed a hand against his cheek. She could see his was struggling with tears and Merlin knows she didn't blame him. How hard must it have been to know he could not save the Longbottoms and their baby? How hard must it have been to cast that spell at the Dark Lord not knowing if it would actually work and knowing that if it didn't, he would die. She pulled him close and kissed his forehead gently. "I'm not leaving," he voice a shaky whisper. "I'm scared and there's part of me that would love to run, to go far, far away and hide but I'm not going to let that part of me win." She swallowed hard and licked her lips. She was trembling again but she couldn't seem to stop. "It seems to me that... that we should stay and fight. That if the Order and Albion are that light on for numbers then... then they'll need all the people they can get. And you have to teach me. You have to teach me Occlumency so I can hide all of this and you have to teach me how to fight properly with more than just my Beater's bat so that when the times comes I can make a difference." Tears welled in her eyes and slowly trickled down her cheeks. Tears of fear and sorrow and rage and any number of other emotions that were swirling through her. She brushed her fingers over Severus' cheek. "No more lies. No more lies between us. We're going to face this together and... and I don't know if we're going to survive but we're going to do it properly." The only thought that crossed Severus mind as she spoke was that he did not deserve her. Hoping for some one that might stay by his side was something eternal - it seemed that the idea of someone that would stick with him through anything and everything was something he hadn't been able to give up since Lily, really. But being faced with Agatha's apparent willingness to do so was something else entirely. He accepted the kiss, standing and pulling to her feet by her elbows, wrapping his arms around her so that they could stand together, each supporting the other one for the moment. Had something truly good come out of this entire year? He had accepted the proposal because he hadn't known what else to do with it, but this woman standing in front of him right now was someone he could truly respect. "No more lies," he repeated. "You've got to learn Occlumency, Agatha," he added to her, raising one hand and wiping tears off of her cheeks. "You've got to - in the meantime, you should avoid any social engagements. I know Bellatrix Lestrange is a Legilimens, but there are probably others among Death Eater circles, and I refuse to put you in any more danger than you are already in. I'll have to go back to work. I have to pretend that everything is normal and nothing has changed, but we'll have the Fidelius on our house within a few days, so you'll be safe behind that charm, and you are right that we will need a place we can Apparate into if necessary." It was all logical, reasonable instructions, and he didn't know how to tell her that the words she was saying to him right now meant the world to him. That somehow in the past few moments, the task ahead of him suddenly seemed surmountable. "And I can teach you some things," he added. "Some duelling things, although I'm hoping you won't have to fight too much you should be prepared for anything right now. But tomorrow night? We'll do it together then." And it sounded so much more palatable than doing it by himself. He let out his breath. He'd been holding it, both literally and figuratively afraid that she would want to run, but she didn't. Lily had, Agnes had, Agatha wasn't. Something stirred inside him, and he tightened his grip on her elbow for a moment. They would do this together and hopefully when it was all over they would still be in this together. It was a remarkably odd feeling to feel as if he had someone who would support him. Agatha suddenly giggled and if it there was a somewhat hysterical edge to it, well, that was perfectly understandable under the circumstances, wasn't it? "I can just tell them I've been feeling ill," she said, mirth adding itself to the conglomeration of emotions within her. She was probably going to need a calming potion to have even half a chance of sleeping tonight. "I know what assumption they'll make and every woman gets a lot of consideration for that." And it didn't matter if it all came to naught because then it could just be a touch of the flu or a stomach bug, such things happened all the time. She sobered and nodded. She was going to get her books out tonight and start reading up on every bit of defensive and offensive magic she could find. And she'd practice here on her own as well as much as she could. Because she wouldn't just be preparing for some sort of fight between Albion and the Order and the Death Eaters but also just in case everything went badly and Severus was found out. She had to be prepared, she just had to be. "Tomorrow night," she said with a determined look. "And you mustn't go easy on me. They won't so you can't." For the briefest of seconds Severus' stomach did a full drop, but then his brain caught up with him and he knew that she wasn't actually pregnant, she was just going to allow people to think that she was, and there was nothing wrong with that - they had been married a proper amount of time after all. "So long as it is a hypothetical, pretend baby," he managed dryly, and his lips quirked slightly. She looked all right, if frazzled, and he was suddenly so very thankful for her presence in his life. He reached up and pushed her hair back from her face. "I won't," he said calmly, and he wouldn't. In some ways he already hadn't been, but now that she knew what was at stake he was certain she would demand more, and he would provide it. He had no idea how much could be taught in a week or two, or a month or two - it really depended on how quickly the Order was able to pull together for the battle - but he would teach it as quickly as she could learn it. "Agatha... thank you," he said softly. "We'll get through this," he promised. It might not be true, and they might not, but he was certainly going to fight it with everything he had. "We'll get through this, and we'll do it together. And bloody hell, I could really use a cup of tea, you?" She giggled again, partly at that abrupt look of horror that flashed through Severus' eyes as well as what he said. "No, no... no babies. Not yet anyway," she said, calming herself quickly as she heard that slightly hysterical edge in her laughter. "Now is definitely not the time." She nodded. She knew there were other things she wanted to know, other questions she wanted answered but she wasn't going to ask right now. She wasn't sure she could handle anymore truth right now. In fact she felt as if she'd explode or just lose her mind if she got any more shocking truths. The laugh she gave then was far more genuine though still shaky. "Tea would be wonderful. Though I also wouldn't say no to a calming potion. I think I'll need it to sleep tonight." Severus was grateful she recognised that the timing at the moment was not particularly great for babies. He wasn't certain when he would feel comfortable with their being babies, but certainly not right now or any time in the near future. The blood replenisher could wait, he thought, and he reached for her hand and nodded, the corner of his lips turning up slightly again. "Fortunately for you, you happen to be married to someone who brews a particularly brilliant calming draught," he then gave her a slightly more serious look. "There are details we will need to work out - the secret keeper, practise sessions, perhaps some other things - but for right now I think we should get that tea and maybe a calming draught for you and when you're ready we'll talk about the rest of it." And by that he meant everything they hadn't talked about - his past, his present, and his hopes for the future, even though they were so elusive to him right now. He led her out of the small shed and back towards the house for tea and calming draught. They were walking hand in hand. |