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UnBroken	By : OddDoll Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 6172 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 41
- 42
Unbroken
By Odd Doll
Chapter 42
A refreshing breeze blew in through the open window, stirring the long gauzy curtains and drying the sweat from their recent love-making. Phoebe lay flat on her stomach, Severus on his back, eyes half shut.
"I will miss this," he said.
"But not my clutter?"
The corners of hips mouth turned up, but he wisely said nothing. "I will also miss trouncing you at pinochle."
"And my cooking."
"Yes, that."
"Although, you're getting to be pretty handy in the kitchen."
Silence in the room for the next few moments. They listened to the muted sounds of shore birds, an incongruously melancholy sound.
"If I die..."
Severus placed a hand on her hip, then rolled to face her. "I will mourn you for the rest of my life."
"What a singularly depressing thing to say." She smiled softly but it soon faded.
"Phoebe, don't go there. You're mentally letting go." He ran his fingers through her hair. "You sneaked off again today."
"Like you haven't done that. And your secret owls. I feel like I never did manage to convince you that I wouldn't abandon you."
He deliberately ignored this and kissed her bare shoulder to distract her. "Are you alright?"
"What if I panic again, Severus?"
"It turned out fine, didn't it?"
"I got lucky."
"We got lucky. And you got mad. It can be a useful emotion."
"Maybe I should just stay out of it. Let everyone else go and run things from behind."
"We need you, Phoebe. Not just for your skill as a duelist." He smirked. "Thanks to me."
Phoebe snickered.
"But people look up to you. You give them hope."
"And if they knew about the panic attack on Avalon? You didn't tell anybody, did you?"
"No, I didn't. It's none of their business."
"But it is. They're relying on me."
He felt the tension in her body and pulled her closer. "Then let's plan for it. You plan for everything else. Let's just say you are definitely going to panic at some point. I'm not going to tell you not to worry, but I will promise to be by your side every second. I will never let us become separated, and when you panic, I will have you out of there. I promise."
"O-okay," she said, seeming confused, but she relaxed a fraction. She rolled over and put her face against her chest.
He gripped her shoulder. "Don't let go. We have strong people. We've had three months to prepare. And Prince Harry Potter will arrive and save the day."
She rose to all fours, then backed off the bed. "Let's get moving, then."
*****
Everyone gathered outside, awaiting the outcome of Voldemort's ultimatum. Harry hadn't been sighted for hours, and Severus feared the worst.
Phoebe and Severus, caught in an eddy of the tide of battle, remained inside in the eerie sudden quiet.
"We should find a way outside." Phoebe whispered in case any Death Eaters lurked with them in the back corridors.
Even where they crept along in the dim light, they heard the cries of dismay from outside the castle.
"That fool boy did it," Severus said.
"Sacrificed himself."
"It won't make a damn bit of difference."
"Yes it will," said a woman's voice from behind them in the corridor.
They spun, wands raised. Narcissa Malfoy stood there in a small patch of torchlight. She held her wand, but kept it lowered by her side. Slowly, as if an afterthought, she raised it.
"I'm to kill you, Severus Snape."
"I'm opposed to that."
"I suppose you would be."
"You'll go through me first," Phoebe said.
"How sweet. Snape's found a woman. He'll betray you, Baher. It's what he does."
The denial formed on his tongue, but he held it in. He trusted Phoebe, trusted she believed in him. He would never betray a woman he loved. He didn't need to say so. "You seem reluctant to avenge your late husband, Malfoy," he said instead.
"It was never about revenge, Snape. Lucius was a snake. I'm happy to be rid of him."
"Then what have I ever done to you?"
Narcissa stood there, her visage unsteady in the wavering torchlight.
"Voldemort is pulling your strings, isn't he?"
"You're a traitor, Snape."
"You killed Jim Robinson," Phoebe said, raising her wand a little further. Sensing Malfoy's ambivalence, he place a hand on Phoebe's arm.
"Let us go, we'll let you go."
"Severus!" She tried to yank her arm away, but he held firm.
At that moment an enormous cheer arose from outside the castle.
"I told you," Malfoy said. "Potter lives."
He tightened his grip on Phoebe's arm. Not enough to hurt, but enough to show her his sincerity. "Trust me, Phoebe. It's for the best."
"Why? How on earth could the world be a better place with her in it?"
He wouldn't say it in front of Malfoy, but if Potter were really alive, he believed he would succeed. And in a world without Voldemort, Malfoy might be someone valuable to have as an ally. Or at least someone who owed him her life.
"Trust me," he whispered for Phoebe's ears alone. "Please."
Phoebe stared, searching his face as if she had never really looked at him before. He wondered what she saw there, but she nodded, a slow dip and raise of her head.
Louder, he said, "Truce?"
A few jerky inches at a time, Narcissa lowered her wand. "Truce." She turned and walked away.
Severus and Phoebe both watched warily until she disappeared at the juncture of the next corridor.
"Come," he said. "The fighting is far from over."
*****
Severus paused for a moment at a corner, struggling not to cough at the dust from shattered masonry, and the Muggle tear gas the Pall Bearers had obtained for them. The Death Eaters' attempts to clear it from rooms had just moved it elsewhere, but it allowed the Order, prepared with masks and spells, to spread silently throughout the castle in the confusion it created.
Behind him, Phoebe cleared her throat softly. "Where to?"
"Everyone seems to have assembled in the Great Hall."
"Can we make it there?"
He peeked around the corner, a quick glimpse to take in the rubble of centuries-old columns and the bodies lying among it. In that seconds-long glance, he recognized the form of a childhood friend. Without time to reflect, he let the image pass.
"Follow me."
They moved silently from their hidden spot, stepping around the dead.
She spoke in a whisper, although the corridor was deserted. "We caused a lot of damage, even without Unforgivables."
"A Reductor curse cast at a person can kill."
The halls, which had seen death and destruction just an hour before, now lay eerily silent and dimly lit from the few remaining torches and lamps. Suits of armor sprawled on the stone floors, struggling to right themselves. Metal hands flopped, legs shifted. The sight unnerved Severus more than the first Reductor cast his way. One had hit Phoebe on the upper thigh, leaving a shallow wound. Dust-caked blood coated her jeans. She had sealed it, but it would leave a scar if dittany was not soon applied.
In the clearer hallways, they ran toward the sizzling of curses and the shouts of the combatants. Their ragged breaths made a counterpoint to the sound of Phoebe's athletic shoes slapping against the stone, and the heavier thud of Severus's boots.
At the entrance to the Great Hall, adults and children alike fought the remaining Death Eaters. Phoebe grabbed his arm.
"Are you okay?"
He kissed her lips once, hard, and jumped into the fray. Behind him, Phoebe shouted, "Reducto," and a Death Eater he hadn't seen fell to his left. He sprinted across the room to a better vantage point, Phoebe's footsteps behind him lost in shattering noise and confusion.
Together they crouched in the lee of the stairs with Minerva McGonagall. Dust coated the long skirt of her robe and her hat had been among the casualties. She pointed her wand at a pile of rubble across the room. "I count four of them left. They're making for the doors."
Behind what had once been a staircase to the second floor, but was now a pile of rubble in a shallow crater, shadows shifted. "Should we let them go?" Severus asked.
Phoebe craned her neck for a quick glimpse of the room. "They're outnumbered. Even if they made a dash for it, they won't make it."
"You're outnumbered! Surrender." Severus's silky voice was now a harsh bark.
Sudden silence reigned as the combatants waited for the Death Eaters' response. A crowd murmur spilled from the open doors to the Great Hall, but none of the heat and excitement of combat. An expectant hush fell with the settling dust.
"We surrender!" echoed against the marble walls of the foyer.
"Throw out your wands."
Four wands arrowed out from the remains of the staircase to clatter against the marble at the center of the room. Four Death Eaters rose with their hands in the air. Members of the Order rose from behind the columns and chunks of stone they used for cover, quickly bound the group, and herded them to the Great Hall.
Severus motioned to Phoebe. The excitement over, his heart now decided to flutter in his chest. He leaned back against the hard stone, his breathing rapid.
"Are you okay?" Phoebe asked for the umpteenth time that day.
"I made it through the whole battle."
"Severus?"
McGonagall's eyes flashed in his direction, dark with concern. "Do you need to leave?"
"Not for a wagon-load of chocolate frogs." He grinned, but it was a nasty one, teeth bared.
Phoebe slowly stood from her crouch, her gaze trying to take in every direction at once. She held out a hand. "Let's go to the Great Hall. Something's going on."
He stared at it for a second, then allowed himself the luxury of leaning on someone else. "I might have overexerted myself just a tad." He rose to his feet, head swimming, his heart doing flip-flops like an overexcited toddler. "I'm actually better than the last time." He leaned a little in her direction.
"We could stay out here," she offered. McGonagall had already risen and made her mincing way through the debris to the doors.
"And miss the excitement? No."
The pushed their way into the crowd at the doors to the Great Hall to find Harry and Voldemort facing off across an expanse of empty floor. They circled one another, the gathered crowd of hundreds watching silently. Severus edged between them, slipping through like an eel through water, making no commotion. At the inner edge of the crowd, Order members waited, wands raised, for the slightest sign that Voldemort had the upper hand. They agreed it was Harry's destiny, but they would take no chances.
So far, Harry held his own.
Severus raised his wand like the others. Unlike the other members of the Order, an Unforgivable lay poised in the back of his mind, ready to be unleashed against the monster who had killed Lily Potter. Harry could fulfill his prophecy, but Severus would not miss the opportunity for revenge if it presented itself.
What would Phoebe think? flitted through his mind. At his shoulder, wand raised, a cold, intent expression across her pretty face, she seemed ready and capable to do the same. He understood, in that fleeting moment, why he and Phoebe worked when he and Lily had not. He loved her warmth, her humor and intelligence, but they fit together like two pieces of a puzzle at the juncture between her willingness to do bad things to get what she wanted out of life and his innate malice.
She glanced at him, as if sensing his attention, but turned back to the face-off. Harry and Voldemort argued about the wands they held. Voldemort's chest rose as he inhaled to shout a curse. Severus's fingertips tingled with the power he held ready. Beside him, Phoebe tensed. Then the two wizards shouted curses at each other.
"Expelliarmus!"
"Avada Kedavra!"
Golden flames erupted, the curses collided, and seconds later, Voldemort lay dead.
The Hall erupted into shouts and screams and laughter. The crowd mobbed Harry Potter, who cringed under the onslaught.
Amidst the confusion, Severus took Phoebe's hand. Tears of joy made streaks on her dusty cheeks, but he kissed one anyway.
He kept to the edges of the crowd. No longer a Death Eater, never truly a welcomed member of the Order. Like many, he had his own, personal reasons for celebration, but he preferred to do it quietly and in private. Phoebe leaned away, wanting to embrace one of the Weasley clan. Her caring personality needed the touch of others. He needed solitude.
He let her hand slip from his, confident that she would return to him.
*****
Phoebe followed Severus down the maze of corridors into the chill environs of the dungeons. No daylight reached here, and the only light came from the charms they had both cast. Phoebe exhaled a cloud of vapor with every breath.
"They don't heat down here?"
"They used to, but all the teaching seems to have moved upstairs. Foolish."
"Why?"
"Some coursework, like potions, is dangerous." He stopped where a door had been blasted off its hinges and lay in the corridor, and raised his lit wand to the darkened doorway.
"I suppose my impenetrable seals were actually impenetrable, so they gained access by brute force."
"This was your office?"
"Yes." He stepped into the room beyond, but Phoebe cautiously waited behind. Raising his wand overhead, he found the high light fixtures and lit them. Utter devastation met them. Shattered glass lay everywhere in puddles of spilled potions. Several had reacted with each other, leaving blackened goo or, in one case, something orange and green that writhed and bubbled.
Pieces of the desks and work tables, large and small, had fetched up in every corner, and over everything lay a drift of paper from shredded books.
And the word 'traitor' had been written in red on every wall.
"Someone was really mad," Phoebe said as she started to enter the room.
Severus put a hand out. "Wait. It's dangerous."
A few steps at a time, he moved about the room, clearing potions off the walls and floor with Evanesco. Much of the glass went with it.
"I don't see a single unbroken jar or vial in the entire room," he said. He waved a hand. "It's safe to come in now."
"What is that written with?" she asked, gesturing to the graffiti.
He walked up to the nearest wall to examine the writing. "Paint from a wand."
Phoebe came to his side and hugged him. The embrace was still too new to him to not to give him a thrill. He kissed her cheek.
"How do you feel? I know how you felt about this place."
"Not as bad as you might think," he said slowly. "I'm angry about my books, I guess. It took me years to accumulate my library. And some of the potion ingredients were quite rare. But otherwise, I feel surprisingly little."
He held no regrets. Somehow in the last few months, the longing to return to Hogwarts and peacefully live out his days as a teacher had waned to a sort of nostalgia for a life he never truly had. He stepped out of Phoebe's arms, but kept her right hand in his left. Together they circled the room, looking for anything undamaged. They found a brass inkwell, an iron crucible, and his childhood copy of Advanced Potion-Making.
Keeping the book under one arm, he left everything else and drew Phoebe to the doorway. She looked up at him questioningly when he didn't move for a time, but she didn't speak. Then, partly because the mess disturbed him, and partly as a symbolic gesture, he raised his wand and cleared every bit of debris, graffiti, and broken furniture, until all that remained were bare stone walls and the light fixtures hanging from the ceiling.
Phoebe gasped but only said, "Starting over?"
"Something like that."
In the corridor he raised the door, using Reparo on the hinges, and fitted it back into the frame. Lastly, he extinguished the lights and turned his back on his former life.
"Let's go someplace where we can talk, Phoebe. I have something to say to you."
"Outside. The weather is fine and this place..." She shivered a little.
"I know a place."
*****
They arrived at a small courtyard that, despite its secluded location, had not escaped the devastation within the castle. Phoebe kicked at the pieces of broken stone as she followed Severus to a low wall surrounding a raised flower bed. The first frost had killed off many of the tender plants.
"This is a melancholy place," she said.
"Fitting, perhaps."
"Why?" She sat beside him on the wall, although there were several intact benches scattered throughout the courtyard.
He took her hand again. He couldn't seem to let go of it, and Phoebe welcomed the anchor it served for her. Their last love-making had been a desperate thing where they clung together as if it would be the last time.
"You've been quiet the last few days," he said.
"So have you, Severus."
They kissed, and she inhaled the scent of him mixed with late roses, felt the rough wool of his shirt. Her arms wound around his neck and she couldn't let go. "Severus," she said, suddenly sad. As if he sensed it, he pulled back.
"Severus, I keep trying to think of reasons to stay, but I have to go back to California. The contractor is floundering at the resort. I need to build my house. I can do that safely now." The words started to spill out, each more anguished than the last. "I know you're where you want to be. You can have your life back--"
He place a finger over her lips. "Phoebe, hush."
She blinked away the tears on her lashes.
"I have a confession, Phoebe."
"What?"
"I lied to you."
"You did? About what?"
"The owls."
Confused by this change of subject, she couldn't speak for a few seconds. "What about the owls?"
"They weren't to someone about a place to stay. They were to the pharmaceutical potions maker that produced my heart medicine."
"Severus, you promised not to talk about that!"
He gave her his best haughty smile. "I know, but I am a rather arrogant man. I wrote to tell them that I had made improvements in their method of making the potion. The witch who wrote back was quite impressed."
"Of course she was." She pursed her lips. "I suppose I'm not really that mad."
"Good, because she offered me a position with their firm."
"Will you take it?" She didn't know if she should be happy for him or fall further into despair. "Where is it?"
"In San Jose. The witch says that is seventy miles from Monterey. Easy Apparating distance. If I were living there, that is." He placed his palms on either side of her face. "Do you want me, Phoebe? Could you live with me?"
"I've been living with you for the last six months, you moron." Her arms were already around his neck, but she pulled him even closer and simply held him there. He moved his arms to around her waist and squeezed her as tightly as she did him.
"From the first moment I saw you, Phoebe, I dared to hope my luck had changed."
"It has, Severus. I promise." She turned so she could look at his face. "Could you live in a sex resort? At least until I build my house?"
He stiffened, a momentary shudder. "How much would I see?"
"Nothing. It's all kept behind doors."
"Then it will be fine."
They remained there in the courtyard for a long time, kissing and talking, holding each other and laughing. Each knew they had flaws, that the lives fate dealt them had shattered their personalities into fragments, but they complemented each other. Together they were more -- safer, surer of themselves, loved. Together they were unbroken.
The End
- 41
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UnBroken