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Bette Grenville, Severus Snape’s one time nurse turned paramour, was worried. Sev had been back from teaching that Potter bloke for a week, and he had yet to come to their bed. He had spent his days slaving away on the still dilapidated manor, and his nights were spent sitting in the library, staring into the fire. He hadn’t taken to drinking, like he had before they’d first got together that New Year’s Eve several years ago. She was glad of that, but he wasn’t himself. He hadn’t snarked at Mr Anderson, her Lakeland terrier, with whom he had a nearly as complicated relationship as the one he shared with her. He had returned to his brooding, the way he had been before they’d begun having regular sex. She’d thought, with his admission about the strange world he came from, that they’d closer when he returned, but now…
She worried that she was losing him, and that made her heart flutter painfully in her chest. Even with his dark moods and his bitter outbursts, she loved him. She couldn’t lose him, she wouldn't let him leave her without putting up a fight. She’d pray to the gods tonight, and meditate after she smoked a bowl. Certainly an answer would be granted to her. She’d lost enough in her life, hadn’t she?
***
When had he fallen in love with her?
He’d been struck dumb the first time he saw Bette, his Bette, after he returned from helping Potter, and subsequently healing his own battered heart in the process. He had returned by train, the same way he’d left her. He hadn’t expected the painful lurch of joy his heart had given upon seeing her, fuzzy haired, and dressed as the stereotypical Bohemian. He hadn’t expected the instant and fierce feeling of possessive pride he’d felt knowing that he’d had her countless times and could, if he wanted, have her countless more. He longed to hear his name on her lips as he slid his cock into her tightness. He wanted her to scream his name as he she tumbled over the edge of ecstasy with him. He wanted to possess her and be possessed by her. That didn’t describe love, did it?
His own dealings with that emotion had been torturous and thwarted. From the time his mother expelled him from her body, to his near death by snake, he’d only seen love from a distance, an ideal he would ever enjoy in all its fullness. HIs feelings for Lily had never been reciprocated, and were tied up with the pain, fury, and inadequacy of his youth. He was coming to realize that he really had never experienced what he was feeling for his lovely Bette before, and it scared him.
His fear had to be dealt with before he could lay his heart at her feet. Perhaps she felt the same way, perhaps he was just a convenient fuck for her. He honestly didn’t know. So, he sat in the dark in his library in front of a fire that wasn’t needed, so that he could clear his mind and take down walls that had taken almost half a century to build. He wanted to connect with her in a way that he had never done with anyone before.
He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t let her leave him without a fight. He’d lost enough in his life, hadn’t he?
***
It was the dog’s grumbling that finally broke the spell that Severus’ thoughts had cast upon him. Mr Anderson stretched and gave a high-pitched, open-mouth, tongue curled whine as Severus absently patted his woolly head. He wondered where Bette was. Normally where the dog was, she wasn’t far behind. “Where’s your mistress, Cur?”
Mr Anderson finished his stretch and went to the door, looking expectantly at Severus. “Do you want out? Are there rabbits to drive mad?”
Mr Anderson returned to his side and placed a paw on Severus’ knee then went back to the doorway of the library. He gave a high yip, as if bidding Severus to follow him.
“Oh very well, you dastard.” Snape rose, feeling the aches of his muscles as they stretched after his long inactivity of the day. “Go, terrorize vermin, you psychotic mu…”
The dog, instead of going to the door, headed towards the stairs. It stood with one foot on the stair, looking expectantly at Severus over his withers. Perhaps Bette was in danger. Wasn’t that a trait of these animals, to alert someone when their provider of sustenance could no longer do that? His heart stuttered violently and then sped up, his breath came in gasping gulps as he took the stairs two at a time. He slid to a halt at the door of their shared room. It was closed, and the gap under it was dark. A strange, sweet odor, covering a vaguely familiar acrid scent, filled the air. Without thought, he blasted the door open with a wave of his hand, magic flowing around him as his eyes became accustomed to the dark.
She lay in bed, still and pale, limned in the silver light from the moon through the window. Her skirt was drawn up, and she her hand was just above her thighs, suggestive of activities in which she’d engaged recently. Her breathing was so shallow it was almost indiscernible. He sank onto the bed in relief, the weight of his body dislodging a small pipe. He picked it up, knowing what it was she had smoked. He was a potions master and a child of the seventies, after all.
It had been years since he had indulged. He and Lily had experimented one summer when they found her father’s’ stash in her his tool shed. What he remembered most about being high was a sense of sharp paranoia about the almost instantaneous erection that the noxious weed had given him. He had gone home and stroked himself to completion, revelling in the silky rush of feelings his hand had given him as he jerked off lazily in the stuffy heat of his room several times. The feeling of joyous lassitude had been with him for hours That had been their last summer together as friends. After that he had never indulged again. His chosen path had required a clear mind and utmost dedication.
He flipped the pipe around, noticing a small amount of the herb left in the bowl. The fear that he’d been mired in for the past week rose up and seemed to choke him. Perhaps…
Surely such a small amount couldn’t hurt his state of mind, not as it was.
He fumbled beside Bette and finally located a small lighter, one he had used for his occasional indulgence in tobacco, before Bette had let him know, quite hypocritically, she would not kiss him if he smelled of an ashtray. He put the pipe to his mouth, lit the lighter, and applied it to the bowl. Inhaling deeply, he sputtered a cough right away, expelling the smoke. Bette stirred, but did not wake. Once he quit coughing, he tried again, this time holding the smoke until he couldn’t anymore.
After several puffs, his vision softened and he felt a stillness settle over his mind. He leant back against the headboard, careful to put the pipe on the bed stand, and keep his shoes off the embroidered counterpane Bette had purchased a few years ago
The experience was different than it had been years before. Instead of the urgent pull of the carnal at his cock, he felt the blood pool in his belly and then slowly move lower. Instead of surging to life like it had in his youth, his cock unfurled as slowly as a hothouse bloom.
Somehow he found his hand on Bette’s freckled shoulder and his fingers slid the soft cotton of her tunic down, exposing a perfectly formed breast topped by a sweetly peaked caramel nipple. He moved to suckle it, wanting to taste the sweetness he had denied himself all week.
She stirred, “Sev?”
“Who else would it be?” His words rumbled through the space between them lacking their normal bite.
She twisted onto her side, depriving him of his prize, her hand moving to his face. “Mmm… I’ve missed this… you daft bastard.”
He pulled her tunic down further, exposing her other breast to his gaze. He attacked it, suckled as if he were a child deprived of sweets too long. She moaned his name. After that, it all became a blur of tongues and skin. His voice joined hers as she mounted him and soon, too soon, she collapsed on him, her breaths coming in sharp punctuation to her soft lips on his neck. “Don’t leave me, Sev. I love you too much. I might die.”
He felt her tears and tasted her sorrow, so similar to his own, with loss and his sense of overarching duty to people long dead. It seemed natural that he would join her, his own uncried tears ripping his heart open, making space for her.
He murmured, “Marry me.”
She nodded against his neck and suddenly their sorrow was gone. They’d found their other half, no matter how long it took each of them to realise it. Severus drifted with her that night of new beginnings. They both fell into sated slumber as dawn broke, knowing that they had a lifetime to live together.