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A Better Fate COMPLETE	By : FemmeBono Category: HP Canon Characters paired with Original Characters > Het - Male/Female Views: 3299 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
Sorry as always, but there is an end in sight to this! I have the chapters planned out, and simply need to get them typed out and posted. And now I have real incentive to get this done in the next few months. Call it a resolution, but every WIP will be completed by mid-April. Scout's honor.

　

　

Cht. 9, Confidential Confidences

　

The next day's dawn crept in a pale pink, heralding a beautiful day ahead. Severus, now more in tune with the ways of nature, considered it a good sign for his impending lesson. Their day ran much as the day before, with a light breakfast, and very little talking. More, it was a time of reflection and clearing one's thoughts.

Toward mid-day Latiaran herself made up his bathwater, again sprinkled with bits of rosemary and other herbs. She lay a few hanks as well on the edges of a smoldering fire and busied herself with preparations while he lowered himself into the screened off tub. He sighed deeply, allowing his mind to wander where it would. More than once it returned to Lasair, and what she might be doing down the hill with the others.

He wondered, as always, what the next few months would bring, particularly the wedding and all that came afterwards. He wondered at how he would be received when he returned to Hogwarts and the magical community, and moreover he wondered how his ethereal bride--whomever she was--would be received, as well as the tale that surely required telling of how he came to be wed when everyone believed him dead.

Then too, he wondered if anyone had checked on his body. Before he could dwell overmuch on the thought, he heard Latiaran clearing her throat softly just on the other side of the screen. She draped another indigo colored shift over the screen's edge and he watched her shadowed form move away and turn to the pallet in the center of the cave floor. At that point, Hermione stepped back into the cave as if sensing that the time had come.

Within minutes, he was dried and dressed, lying on the ground between the two women. They lay their hands gently over his as he drifted off to a quiet place in his mind, lulled by Latiaran's soft voice.

"Let yourself drift," she said, "and find yourself floating away on the breeze to wherever you choose to land."

***

By that point he was already winging his way down the hill swiftly as a sparrow spanning the lengths of forest, straight back to their camp. He saw the newest neophytes lugging huge baskets of produce from the fields into the opening in the hollow of the tree.

In the clearings there were students thrusting and parrying in mock battles with staffs, others training in hand-to-hand combat tactics and still more using solely magic. Beyond them, in a clearing nearest the fields, stood Ferghus using both magic and sheer strength with physical skill.

He watched, in spirit, alongside a group of more advanced students as Ferghus traded and blocked blows from Declan, another trainer. With a swift spin the russet-haired man transformed into a large gray wolf before their very eyes. Not to be outdone, Declan stepped back and shifted into a lumbering bear who reared up and swatted a huge claw at the snapping and snarling beast on the ground. Before he could land a blow, however, Ferghus shifted again, this time into a long thick rattlesnake to which Declan promptly traded his form for a mongoose. Ferghus shifted back again, a sheen of sweat across his brow line and watched as Declan moved back to his own form and the men reached across the dusty circle and clasped hands laughing and tired.

With a thought, Severus moved away, winging through the crowd across the fields and into the forest. His thoughts took him straight to Lasair, who stood in a simple kirtle as she washed out linens and shifts with a few other girls. The gown was a thinner weave and clung to her legs with damp from wading into the water for the laundry. She turned, clipping a long shift onto a line strung up between the trees and her hair caught the light, shining with a coppery cast to her soft brown tresses.

Severus felt his chest ache with want, yearning for this girl--this woman, he corrected himself--who called to his spirit with her own. "Lasair," he whispered, and started when she looked up and around as if she had heard him. She looked, for a long moment, just off to the side of him, as if sensing his presence. He saw her mouth his name, for her voice was too soft to reach him, before she shook her head and resumed hanging clothes from the basket at her feet.

"Severus," he heard another voice in his head say, "it's time you were back with us." Recognizing Latiaran's voice beckoning, he found himself flying back over field and meadow again, up the hill before sliding back into his body like a hand into a well-fitted glove. His eyes fluttered open and he wiggled fingers and toes as instructed, to get himself used to physical sensations again.

***

He sensed Hermione move quietly away toward the kettle by the fire. Latiaran herself patted his hand once more and reached for the basket of food they had nearby to help ground him again. Before he could take the tea or fruit offered though, he realized what state his spying on Lasair had left him in, and launched himself to his feet. "Severus! You're far too weak still!" Latiaran called after him.

Ignoring the fae princess, he staggered out the door and back down the path to where the trees marked the beginning of the forest. He stood before a small brook, similar to the one he had seen Lasair doing the washing in, and allowed his mind to fill with the vision he had just left. Again in his mind's eye he saw her slight form in the flimsy gown, draping softly down from her high rounded breasts, the wet cloth clinging to her delicate legs and her dark brown waves streaming down her back. He pictured those light fingers touching him instead of the linens and felt himself grow stiffer still. Here alone, knowing no one had followed him, he allow the fantasy of her to fill his mind.

He lifted the shift with one hand, only to grasp his turgid length with the other and let his image of this fairy girl take over stroking the veiny flesh. He could see her almost as clearly as if she were standing before him, lips slightly parted, chest heaving with desire as her breath quickened with his. He saw her step back, untying the string gathering the neckline of her kirtle and drawing it down over the shoulders to pool at her feet. All too soon he felt the tightening, heralding his climax and watched with a shudder as his seed emptied out onto the bare ground. Sighing deeply, and feeling more lightheaded than before, he dropped the shift back and brushed off a bit of stray lint. He kneeled carefully to the ground and splashed some cool water on his face from the brook, drank deeply as he was parched, and slowly rose to climb the hill once more.

If the ladies noticed anything amiss in his appearance prior to his departure, they did not let on. Instead Latiaran regaled him with the many reasons not to try too physical a task so soon after a walkabout. Hermione simply regarded him as a puzzle that needed figuring out. Either way, Severus allowed himself to be plied with a large crust of bread, the remaining cheese and an apple before they all turned in for the evening.

***

The next morning they rose early. Severus, since he had been thoroughly drained, slept through another dreamless sleep like the proverbial dead. Waking only to find Hermione shaking out her blanket and Latiaran cleaning the ash from the fireplace, he shifted and stretched. Both women looked up and greeted him when he rose, yet Severus, being a poor conversationalist first thing, merely grunted and moved to the commode for his morning ablutions. He ate a hurried breakfast and began clearing up his bedding as well, packing it for the trip back.

Latiaran ushered them on when they had finished, urging them not to wait while she cleaned and cleared the site. Taking her word that they were not needed, Severus began a quiet trek down the path with Hermione close behind. For several minutes, neither of them spoke, and Severus ultimately surprised himself when he broke the silence. He turned back once, to see Hermione deep in thought.

"I confess myself rather amazed, Miss Granger," he said. "I would think it unlike you to go for such a space of time without a word."

Well used to his acerbic humor by now, Hermione simply replied, "Hermione. I'd prefer now if you'd call me Hermione."

"If that's alright," she added quickly.

"Severus, then," was his only reply. For some moments more they remained quiet, then he smirked as her voice this time broke the silence. It seemed she could not keep her counsel after all, he thought.

"I think I'm still processing everything that I saw," she said, by way of introducing a topic. "I mean, it wasn't just being there and seeing things as they were happening, was it? I felt like I could feel what everyone else was feeling, or just a bit of it, really."

"As did I," he replied. And he had. He remembered feeling a punch of adrenaline and showmanship watching the boys fight, as he had sensed a lighter feeling of wistfulness emanating from Lasair. "I suppose it's the way that sort of magic works. In spirit we feel more things, other senses are heightened and perceptive without the encumbrance of our bodies."

"Perceptiveness is a good word," she said, seeming to struggle with something. He glanced back once and she appeared to wrestle with the words, her forehead puckered. "I saw--I saw Ron…with Hannah Abbott. They were clearing a lot of the damage and rubble. But I noticed a cord, a sort of filament between them that was gold. A brilliant gold, like it emanated light or something. And I knew…somehow…that they were connected more intimately than we ever would be."

She ended on a whisper, a sort of wistful plaintiveness to her voice. "It makes me wonder if I have my own cord attached to someone. I think I knew that, deep down, he and I would never be. I always felt--like, erm--well, like I was kissing my brother. If I'd had one. I never really could bring myself to go much further with him."

Severus looked back again to see a creeping flush spread from her neckline up to her short curls. "I did think that you were a bit closer to him than you were with Potter, or at least it seemed so. Am I to take it then that you have never given yourself to someone?"

He had no idea what made him ask it, but before he could take the statement back she answered, "no! erm, no…I suppose I've always been more old-fashioned about that sort of thing. I really want to know that I have a true relationship--a real commitment before…that."

Severus nodded glumly ahead of her. In for a penny, he thought… "I, likewise have never bothered." He could sense her tense behind him with shock at what he divulged. "No doubt…no doubt, you have heard by now of where my affections lied for the longest time."

"Yes," she said a bit guiltily, for in her dreams she had traveled back and heard Harry's pronouncement of Snape's true allegiances.

"Well, as that naturally never came to any fruition, I ultimately channeled my energies into other avenues. Making advancements in potion making, keeping my dueling skills sharp, thanks to Filius and Albus. I did attempt a few dalliances in the ten year respite I had between wars, but they never ignited that spark in me and most of the women were so vacuous I tired of them all too easily. Then the Dark Lord returned and all energies went to stamping him out again… In the end, any relationship would have been far too much of a liability and frankly speaking the very thought of any of the slatternly wretches in Knockturn Alley turn my stomach."

"There hasn't been anyone you've wished for since?" Hermione ventured softly as they walked slowly through the trees that now thinned out around them.

"I would not put it out of my mind entirely now," Severus began. Then he added, "before long, after all, I am to be married. As are you, in fact."

They now walked amiably, almost companionably, side by side now that the path had widened and they were nearing the settlement again.

"Yes," she said, her face a mix of trepidation and a spark of hope.

"Is there someone who has caught your eye here?" he wondered aloud, amazed still at this sharing of confidences that he himself had invited.

"I admit," she said slowly, the flush creeping up again, "there is someone."

"But," she added resolutely. "It's not who we want so much as who we're given isn't it?"

Severus nodded resignedly. "That is quite true."

　

　

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A bit of a cliffhanger, I know, but understand that with this (yay!) lengthy chapter comes the promise of an ending soon. Keep posted!
- 8
- 9
- 10
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A Better Fate *COMPLETE*

A Better Fate COMPLETE