Severus let out a shuddering breath. The knife slipped from his fingers with a clatter, almost as loud as the door that Lucius had slammed behind him. The fire beneath the cauldron hadn’t had the chance to chase the cold from the workroom, but Severus felt chill to his bones. He planted his palms on the table and breathed deep in through his nose.
The faintest whiff of perfume clung to his robes, and it caught in his throat and threatened to choke him. He wanted the sweet scent of Hermione’s hair and the warm, woody signature of Lucius to ground him; to save him from the powdery perfume prison he was in now. With a slash of his wand, he extinguished the flame and strode from the room. He followed the familiar path to his room, the scent lingering like a ghost.
He stripped his robes off, leaving them in a pile on the bathroom floor, turned on the shower, and stared at his reflection over the sink. A whisper and the charms hiding the scars at his neck melted away.
What did Hermione and Lucius see in him? Lucius had shouted at him that he loved him. That couldn’t be true. It wouldn’t be, once Lucius learned the truth of where he’d been. How Hermione would feel about the perfume on his robes…
In the end, he supposed it didn’t matter. What was done was done, and he couldn’t change it now.
He gripped the sink until his knuckles blanched, staring hard at the vivid red scars he didn’t think would ever fade. And now he knew the truth behind it, the reason he stood here at all. The reality was crushing, and he staggered, his back meeting the glossy slate grey tiles of the shower wall. It should have sent a shock through his system, but he didn’t feel the cold as he sank down, huddled against the spray of the water.
He wanted to scream, to yell, but all that came out of his mouth was a gurgling sob. It ripped at his insides, the grief and pain burning worse than Nagini’s venom had. Somehow losing Narcissa was more painful than losing Lily, than dying, than submitting to the Dark Lord. And he still had to face Lucius, and Draco—Gods, this would destroy the boy.
But that would come later. Now? Now he just hurt. It physically hurt his chest to take a breath in. His nails drew blood along his thighs but the pain was overshadowed by grief. The grief he’d been putting off for three days as he read page after page after page of notes and explanations in Narcissa’s precise handwriting. Days without sleep or sustenance beyond the near constant stream of tea from the healer that had attended Narcissa in the last weeks and months of her life.
She’d tried to urge him to sleep, to eat, to no avail. He couldn’t bear to leave the journals and sheafs of parchment covered in midnight blue ink. Now they were locked safely in his workroom, waiting for his return.
He didn’t know if he had the strength to stand, to wash the remnants of Narcissa’s perfume from his hair and skin, and to search out the company of the only woman in the world who he thought he could stand in his current state, though he didn’t know how kindly she’d take his return.
He let the water wash over him, mixing with his tears, washing them away in cool rivulets. The water wasn’t warm by any stretch of the imagination, and it wasn’t long before his body shook, shivers sending his muscles spasming. He let it take him, the roar of the water drowning out everything else.
“Severus!”
He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting in the shower: cold, wet, alone, and in indescribable pain. He was aware of the presence beside him only because the figure jerked him to one side, fingers feverishly hit against his chilled skin.
“Your lips are blue! What are you doing?” The figure disappeared for a moment, and the water warmed, washing over him in waves. He tried to lift his head, to focus through the tears, but it was the scent of her hair as she cradled his head against her the identified her to him as Hermione.
She still fully dressed and now drenched to the skin, but she paid no mind, chanting warming, cushioning, and supportive charms around him. Diagnostic spells came next, and it registered that she thought he’d been harmed.
Severus tried to reassure her, but his voice caught in his throat, coming out as a rough grunt.
Her fingers traced the livid scars over his neck, searching for new injuries.
“Sev what happened? Where were you? Are you hurt? Where does it hurt?” Her hands were franticly skating over every inch of his body, hair sticking to her face and neck, eyes wide.
He cleared his throat, wrapping his hands around her wrists to still them. “I’m not injured.” His voice sounded weak, broken, and so unlike himself, he couldn’t blame her for the look of disbelief she gave him.
“Not physically,” he amended, and a crease appeared between her brows. “I didn’t…” His voice broke, and he took another shuddering breath, squeezing his eyes shut. “I was in France.”
Two hands cradled his face, and she pressed her forehead against his. “Why didn’t you just let us know you— I don’t— I was so worried.”
“I—“
How could he explain? That he’d held Narcissa as she died, that she’d died to save himself and Lucius, that now he didn’t know if it was enough, if they were dooming this woman to lose the two men that she’d once feared and now cared so deeply for. How did he articulate how desperate he was to save her from the agony he felt now?
“Severus?” Her voice was soft, uncertain, and he had to fight to open his eyes. She sat back slightly, searching his face for something. “I’ve never seen you cry. What happened?”
He squeezed his eyes shut again, feeling stripped bare, vulnerable in an entirely unfamiliar way.
Who had seen him cry?
Narcissa had.
Before her? Minerva? His mother? Lily, perhaps? He couldn’t say for certain.
“Okay. Okay. Can you stand? You need rest. Bed. Have you eaten?” She was reverting to caring for him so attentively it made his chest ache. He manage to shake his head, and she stood, turning off the water and returning with a towel— a Turkish cotton towel the size of a sheet, the only kind Lucius would even consider keeping in the house.
It was ridiculous, the way she wrapped him so carefully in it as she cast more drying and warming spells around them both. Ridiculous, but she was close enough that he could smell her hair and feel her skin where she touched him. It was ridiculous that he was crying, that his iron-willed walls had finally given way and he couldn’t even make his own body follow a command as simple as to stand. It was ridiculous that the gentle touch of a woman who’d grown into someone he loved from a girl he’d once hated was the balm to his aching soul.
He’d once wondered if he’d had a soul left, and why she of all people had seen enough good to save him from a certain death. And now again he was wondering why she was handling him with such tender care.
She was maneuvering him carefully to his bed, a light levitation charm allowing her to move him as easily as she would one of the many Weasley children. She settled him against pillows, tucking the dark satin sheets around him even as he wordlessly cried. He was too tired to try to stop her, too wrung out to even muster anger or embarrassment.
She murmured to him in a soft voice until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, her fingers stroking his hair as his breathing evened and he drifted to sleep.
He woke some time later, to a quiet murmur of voices. He could pick out Hermione, but the other female voice evaded him. It was familiar, but he couldn’t place it until he opened his eyes to find a curvy woman clad in a floral dress tapping her wand agitatedly against her thigh.
“Miss Bulstrode,” is what he’d meant to say. What came out was a dry sort of rasp.
Millie turned, and Hermione nearly shoved her out of the way to reach him first, perching on the edge of his bed and taking his hand in hers.
“Do you need water?” Warm brown eyes, like melted chocolate searched his face. He nodded, a searing pain shooting through his temples as he did. His breath caught in a startled gasp, his eyes watering and the air stinging his throat like shards of glass.
A straw pressed to his lips, and he opened his mouth obediently. The water was cool and soothed his throat incrementally, but the sharp pain in his temples and behind his eyes remained. Were the effects of Narcissa’s magic already fading?
He opened his eyes, trying to ignore the painfully bright light. He was dimly aware that it felt bright because the sheets weren’t black, but bright white. The dim candles around the room wouldn’t have felt bright if his head didn’t ache so horribly.
“You’re severely dehydrated,” Millie stated, crossing her arms and looking down at him with a calm, decisive air that she’d somehow developed since she’d been one of his charges. “You need fluids and rest, though you’ve been out cold for the last thirty some-odd hours.”
He closed his eyes, the light too much to bear along with Millicent’s too-loud voice. He didn’t feel as if he’d slept that long. Honestly it didn’t feel as if he’d rested at all, shadowy figures circling his mind and terrorizing him.
“I can give you some hydration potions, but plain water would be better. Food, too. Do you want me to tell Lucius to stop sulking, or…” she trailed off, a slight shifting of Hermione’s weight beside him making his stomach turn.
“I’ll go get something for you to eat and be back.” Millicent’s voice sounded further away, and a click of the door might as well have been a gunshot.
He cringed away, and Hermione shifted beside him again.
“I still don’t understand what happened, Severus.” Her voice was low, barely a whisper. “Millie came by after someone from the Ministry came by to notify Lucius that Narcissa passed away. You were with her, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” The single word was excruciating, and it seemed to echo around the room.
“Lucius has barely said a word since. He was here, until Millie told him to leave so she could examine you. I think she was hoping he’d object or it would shock him into speaking but he just… listened.” Hermione’s voice was sad, and he didn’t want to see the tears that were during gathering in her eyes.
“Narcissa…” Her name made his chest ache, but he pressed on, his throat scratchy and dry. “I didn’t realize what she’d done. And now it’s too late.”
“Severus I— too late for what? What did she do?” Confusion colored her voice, and a tear slid down his face, soaking into his hair.
“She saved us. Draco, Lucius…” he drew a rough, wheezy breath. “Me.” More tears trickled from the corner of his eyes. “And it killed her.”
Hermione didn’t respond, but she dabbed at his tears with a handkerchief, and resumed stroking his hair. He felt as if he should shake her off, tell her to leave, or somehow get her to stop, but he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but press his aching head to her thigh, and let her gentle ministrations carry him back to sleep.
When he woke again, Hermione was asleep next to him, curled into an impossibly small ball against his side. Lucius sat against the headboard, staring at the dark window, his fingers stroking absentmindedly through the ends of Hermione’s hair.
Severus wasn’t sure what alerted him, but Lucius turned his head slowly, meeting Severus’s gaze. Something was different behind his silver clouded eyes, something fractured and broken. It was then that Severus realized that Lucius’s walls had crumbled too.