Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

tap - tap - tap - tap - tap

His fingertips strike the linen of the sheet, beating out a rhythm he does not recognise, and knows he should: regimented, disciplined, and annoying in its regularity, like the dripping of a leaky tap that one can never fully stop. A vague sense of un-rightness plagues him as well; he cannot place where he is, or why, but that is much less a matter of concern than the blasted, implacable movement of his fingers, which he cannot still except with extreme concentration.

He doesn't think he ought to stop. The fate of the world might well depend on his mindless repetition -- he is convinced that the earth will stop spinning on its axis were he to wilfully stop the tapping. He doesn't much care about that on his own account; would cease if he could; but then he remembers that there are -- or were -- others than himself in the universe, and allows that it would be selfish to stop merely for his own sake, much as he'd like oblivion.

So he continues.

*****

"Oh, lawks -- 'E's done it again, Matron."

"Has he?" A rustle of starched apron against skirts, the sharp click of heels against stone draws nearer to his bed, and a sigh. "So he has, the... poor beggar. Wrap them up again, Dorrie, and have the orderly help you change the linens."

"But, Matron, he'll just do it all over ag- "

"I'll not have any patient of mine with sheets in that state, my girl. See to it."

Inarticulate grumbles from the higher, younger voice, and he spares her an uncharitable but justified Bitch, wishing he could manage to say it aloud. "Don't see why we can't keep 'im sedated," the Bitch mutters. "'E goes through more sheets than any of the others."

"Because the healer says not," comes the swift, reproving answer. "He does no harm to anyone but himself, any road. You just do as your told."

Hard-Heels leaves the room, and he is alone with the sulky little Bitch who, none too gently, interrupts the tapping to bind his fingers -- too tightly -- as she struggles and curses him for trying to keep the rhythm going; and then she stomps off, he presumes to find the orderly.

He hates how they speak over his head, as if he weren't there at all. He is there. The fact that he can't be bothered to acknowledge them doesn't mean he's lost either wits or tongue.

At least, he thinks not. He could speak, if he wished; if he really tried.

But it doesn't seem worth the effort.

*****

He's lost track of time -- fallen asleep, probably -- and his gut clenches immediately as he wakes: he panics for a moment before he remembers the rhythm and picks it up again, painfully, his bound fingers tingling and clumsy. He can't seem to flex them properly at the knuckle, and that is unnerving -- something important, that flexing, though he can't remember precisely why.

It's a long time before someone bothers him again. Hard-Heels enters with a quick tattoo of steps across the room, stops at his side, and tsks when she sees his awkward efforts. "Stupid little cow. Dressed them too tightly, hasn't she, sir?"

The bindings are loosed, and for one blissful moment he stretches his cramped fingers before the blood begins to rush back into them; and then he moans from the prickly-pain.

"I'll have a word with that Dorrie, I will," Hard-Heels mutters as she takes his hand and flexes it at the wrist, and works the fingers back-and-forth. (For all her sharpness, this one is gentler; she is patient, and waits for each slow tap against her palm before she intrudes to bend that particular digit, until the blood flow is back to normal.) "She'll never make Sister, don't you worry. I don't care how short-staffed we are, that's no excuse to hire bad help and then promote them."

Odd, that he should find someone so like-minded (though he can't seem to recall what abysmal staff he's had to put up with, he's certain he has): it almost makes up for being at Hard-Heels's mercy.

"At least she managed nice, clean sheets for you. I can't abide my people lying about in dirty linens, I really can't."

He can feel Hard-Heels smearing goo of some sort on his finger-ends, and more bandaging -- much better, he can bend them at the knuckle now -- and then she lays his hand back down on the counterpane, and stays with him while he begins the rhythm again.

"I wish," Hard-Heels says, her voice gone soft and a bit odd, "that I knew why you do that."

So does he.

*****

Days have passed: earlier there was afternoon sun streaming through the window and across the foot of his bed, and then another, later day, with cool morning light dappling the ceiling. He knows the passage of time only because of these moments of sight.

It always seems to be one or the other -- sight or sound -- but never the two together: only the rasp of the bed-linen, the stickiness at his finger-ends that catches and pulls at the fabric fibres, is ever concurrent with either, and that is short-lived; that's when they bind his hand. These, apart from an occasional, searing pain in his gut, are the only senses left to remind him that he still exists, though he wouldn't dignifying it by calling it being.

The light is across the foot of the bed again, now, and something stirs in his memory. Something about that shaft of light.... Not golden like this, no, but a sickly, dustmote-laden greyish-white, as it always was then and there in the Memory-place, reaching weakly across chipped and yellowed --

He gropes for the memory, catches it and duthches it tight, and he sees it through the eyes of a child and, for the first time, with frightening clarity.

*****

Keys, she called them. They made him think of nothing so much as a monster's teeth, as grotesque as the grinning, stuffed crocodile that hung above the counter in the shop below; but while the crocodile smiled incessantly, frozen forever, this behemoth gaped its jaw only when Mum was in a particular mood, when she bade it. It was, invariably, when his father stepped away from the shop for an afternoon.

She pulled a chain and key from about her neck, unlocked the monster's jaw, and sat before it, running her fingers over the ivory. It was old, that piano: squat, scarred, wonky-legged, and with a tinny sound that couldn't possibly be Quality; but his mum loved it, even when she winced at the sound. "Your granddad bought it for me," she confided to him once, very early on. "I began to learn when I wasn't much older than you." She played a timid string of notes, one right after the other, and then pulled her work-roughened hands away from the keys, tucked them into her lap, and stared at her cracked and blistered fingers.

The piano didn't seem to vicious and brooding now, not with Mum there to master it. He crept closer and dared to poke one of the keys, and jumped when the piano pinged out a high-pitched squeal.

"Gently," Mum chided, but she was trying very hard not to smile: he could tell, because the corner of her mouth tucked in the way it did when she was pleased with him. "Try again, but gently, and keep your finger on the key. Keep it pressed down."

He did, and marveled at how long the sound echoed through the flat -- but nothing else happened.

That seemed fairly useless. Most things did something: the broom in the shop could be charmed to sweep automatically (or had, until it had broken), and his father was always muttering about self-cleaning cauldrons and auto-grind pestles. Even the Diagon Alley busker's hurdy-gurdy was useful -- it blew coloured confetti into the air when it was cranked, and every once in a while it spat out a brass ring as well: if you were lucky and caught it, the hurdy-gurdy man would give you a sweet. (The boy had got very good at catching that ring, very quickly -- he didn't get sweets otherwise.)

"Is that all it does?" he asked his mum, of the piano.

Mum's eyebrows went up. "All it does? It doesn't do anything, the player does. You make the music." She was smiling at him outright, now -- he couldn't remember that happening often -- and she added, "It's not practical, of course, that's why your.... It's beauty for beauty's sake, that's all."

Her smile faded, and she glanced down at her hands, in her lap, where her fingers had twisted together: and he decided that he wanted, very badly, to see her smile again. "How does it work?" he asked.

She glanced at him sidelong through the untidy muddle of hair about her eyes, and her smile crept back. "You press the keys down in certain combinations, and it makes the music," she said.

"Show me."

"Don't think I'm up to a good demonstration just now," she whispered. "It's been...." She took a deep breath. "Let's make a bargain. I'll teach you a bit, and then perhaps I'll try to play. But," she added, "you mustn't tell your father. He doesn't approve." She slid to one end of the bench, and patted the space beside her: he clambered up with her, directly in front of the monster's mouth.

"Right. Now, there's a pattern to it. This," she said, and pressed a key midway in the long line, "is what we call middle C. It's important to remember that, that one in particular. It's how you find you way about the others and with printed music."

"How can you tell the difference?"

"Well, it's... it's near the lid-lock, for one, though it isn't always on all pianos. And all Cs have two black keys -- only two, not three -- above them. The next white key is D...." And she went up the line, playing each note as she told him its letter, until they were back to "C." It sounded different this time, higher, and yet the same.

"That's stupid," he blurted out once she'd stopped at looked at him. "They're not in order." (He knew his ABCs quite well, thank you very much, and had for a long time.)

"No, but it's the accepted way," his mum retorted. "I don't know why, but there it is."

"How're you supposed to remember where to jump back to A?"

"With practise. In the meanwhile," Mum said, "there are little tricks that help. The fourth note above C is what?"

"F," he said, after a moment's hesitation and a hasty counting of the keys.

"Right. And the white keys up from that, in thirds -- that's every other key -- spell out 'face.'"

At her unspoken urging, he fumbled at the keyboard and picked out a clumsy F - A - C - E.

"Yes, that's it. And the others are E - G - B - D - F," she said as she struck the notes. "'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.' And then you're back to F."

He repeated her words and action, and received a rare and welcome "Good," for his efforts, and a tentative squeeze of his shoulder.

She played for him for a while, then, with many fumblings and mis-struck notes, judging from her own displeasure with it: but it fascinated him, the way she managed to coax some loveliness from the wretched old piano. It lasted too short a time as far as he was concerned, though it mustn't have been: they only remembered the danger at the last moment, when the shop-door below shut with a bang, its bell jangling out a belated warning. Quick as a flash, Mum pulled the lid back down and locked it, and pushed him over to the corner where his primer waited; and by the time his father had climbed the crooked little stair, Mum was on her knees at the hearth scrubbing away at the coal-smut, and he had his nose buried in his book.

He wasn't memorising the stupid doggerel that filled the primer, though. He silently chanted F-A-C-E and E-G-B-D-F.

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. He rather liked that. He sensed -- hoped -- that it was true.

*****

"Any other incidents worth noting in his chart?"

"Well...."

Ah, Hard-Heels is there as well -- and she was at least attempting to protect his privacy. His fingers and their task were none of the idiot healer's business, after all.

"Judging by the bandaging, more with the fingers, I suppose?"

"I'm afraid so. There's nothing else, thankfully, none of the thrashing about that he did earlier --"

"No, no, there wouldn't be -- the Detoxifying Potion is doing an admirable job on the rest of the symptoms."

"It does seem a pity that we can't give him a bit of sedation, sir. If only his fingers had time to heal properly --"

"No, no, it's out of the question, I'm afraid. It might interact with the Potion, and cleansing his system is of primary importance right now. Not to mention the potential for addiction to the sedative itself." The Quack pauses, and then adds doubtfully, "Although I'm not certain this business with the fingers isn't a form of tremens -- perhaps there's been permanent damage."

"No," Hard-Heels quickly interjects. "No, I don't think it is. I've been watching him, you see, and there's a pattern to it. I can't quite seem to put my finger on it, but there's something he's doing, or thinks he's doing --"

He fights a moment of panic, fearing that Hard-Heels has found him out.

She hadn't had to tell him how awful a thing that could be: he didn't need a great deal of imagination to guess. He'd lived through similar incidents more times than he could remember.

"Well, he was a potions-maker," the Quack says, disinterest foremost in his voice. "Something repetitive like chopping and sorting, I suppose."

"Just keep an eye on him, then, and keep them bandaged --"

"-- and with any luck the toxins will be out of his system soon, and he'll wake. We might manage very small doses of sedative then."

"Yes, sir," Hard Heels murmurs, and he hears the measured thud of a very large man, treading lightly, moving away and out of the room. Hard Heels bends over him -- he can smell the faint verbena scent she uses -- and fusses with the coverlet. "That man," she mutters under her breath, "has all the warmth and sensitivity of a stick-insect. Only he's fatter."

She's said this, he knows, for his benefit -- whether she knows he can hear it or not -- and he hopes to Merlin that the amusement and gratitude he feels for her sub-rosa commiseration doesn't show on his face.

*****

The day he picked out a faltering but largely accurate tune on the piano was one of the few red-letter days of his brief life to date. It had taken a ridiculously long time, given that his practise was limited to an hour or two, once a week; but he managed after a fashion, doing it by ear, as his mum deemed it too risky to write it out for him. The parchment would be missed eventually, and in any case it cost too dear to destroy after every lesson.

"I can't teach you to read music, not without a bit of paper," Mum said, "but you're bright, you'll pick that up quickly enough if you like, later. At least you'll have good technique."

Whatever that was.

He dutifully practised his scales for her whenever the chance arose, at first impatient to get through it so she would play for him; and then he applied himself with more precision, anxious to please her. (She always seemed more relaxed and willing to play for him longer if he made an effort.) And the more he improved, the more she did as well: stiff fingers loosened, moved more quickly and surely, and every long once in a while she played a passage with such exactitude and confidence that he could hardly believe it was his timid, mousey mum coaxing such sounds from the instrument. It still played out of true, still jangled, as Mum couldn't risk discovery by having it tuned; but he began to sense what it ought to sound like.

And on the day he managed that simple tune, she'd put her arm about his shoulders and given him a good, strong squidge -- she didn't do that often, Father thought it silly and weak -- and whispered, "Very good, very, very good. What a good boy I have...."

Well, perhaps Father was right: he felt distinctly silly and embarassed at the overt praise -- and rather proud of himself.

If being a good boy got you this kind of favour, he'd have to try even harder. He liked it.

*****

" -- don't mean to be rude. It's just that --"

"-- I didn't think you to be quite so, erm, young. Because he's, ah, not, is he? Erm, what I mean to say is --"

"-- what with your, erm, formidable reputation as Minister's Counsel, I expected someone rather older."

"I don't see why you should have any expectations of me at all," a low, cool -- and female -- voice responds to Quack.

The woman's voice is familiar, somehow: it prickles at his nerves, and makes the hair on his arms and at the back of his neck stand on end, as if the temperature in the room has suddenly dropped.

"I, erm.... Well." Quack stops himself and takes a deep breath, apparently unnerved by the woman's reaction. "We really didn't know what else to do, you see. He's been through the full treatment, and we haven't had the expected response. Most patients have roused themselves well before now --"

"Suppose you tell me what exactly is wrong in the first place."

"Well, it's.... Surely you know. I mean, for a man to get in this state, he must have, erm, certain habits of longstanding dura--"

"I haven't seen him for many years, as it happens. I would hazard a guess," the Woman -- he started thinking of her in the capital -- says, her voice now positively icy, "that it's liver failure, judging by the jaundice. Although I shouldn't have to point out to you that there are several Alchemical and Potions reactions that can cause similar symptoms. You did actually draw blood and test him for alcohol poisoning, didn't you? I should hate to think you've treated him incorrectly. God only knows what kind of damage could have been done, and it would certainly explain his unresponsiveness."

He hears a muffled snort from the far end of the room -- Hard-Heels, he guesses: she must have crept in behind Quack and the Woman, and she appreciates the Woman's assessment of Quack every bit as much as he does. He gives them both full marks for being the perceptive female specimens they undoubtedly are.

"Wha--? I.... Of course we did the appropriate blood-work," Quack huffs. "Standard procedure. He had more alcohol than red blood cells left in his bloodstream."

"Biochemically improbable, I'm sure," the Woman shoots back. "I really don't see why you think I can help. As I said, I haven't seen him in years, and he made it clear that he liked it that way."

He senses that isn't quite true, though. Not the bit about liking it that way, at least. Needing it that way, perhaps....

"There's no one else left to ask, you see," Quack objects. "The authorities searched his house for any contacts at all, and the only personal letters they found were from a Professor McGonagall, and she's --"

"Yes, I know. He's not a soul in the world to look after him, so of course some brilliant sod pokes about the Marriage Registry and floos me up."

"I'd no intention of asking you to --"

A discreet cough from Hard-Heels's corner of the room interrupts what promised to become a lovely row. He's disappointed at that: the prospect certainly livened-up the place.

Quack continues more calmly, "I... simply wondered if you could shed any light on why he's not responding, that's all. Every damned test we run shows he ought to be out of the coma. His pupils are reactive, he produces involuntary responses to stimuli...."

The three of them are silent for a while, and then the Woman says, "The only explanation I have is that he always was a stubborn bastard, who insisted on doing things in his own way and at his own time. Sheer bloody-mindedness, in other words. He'll probably wake up when he's damned good and ready to, and not before -- if ever."

"Oh, come now, people don't will themselves into dying."

"You think so? If anyone could manage it, he could. Not that the man I knew would choose that course, but it has been more than a decade. People change."

"Well. I, erm.... I just hoped perhaps you knew of any medical condition in his family that might, erm, contribute to the difficulty."

"No, I don't. If he had any family left by the time we married, he never saw fit to introduce me to them."

"Ah. Well. I'm sorry to have bothered you, then, especially for what turns out to be a straighforward case. Of course I don't expect you to take responsibility for him, especially as he's wilfully got himself in such a stupid muddle."

He cringes inwardly -- not because it wasn't true, but because there nearly is a noticable dip in the room temperature the instant the words leave Quack's mouth.

"This man," the Woman says, voice very soft -- and after a significant pause which he instinctively recognizes as a tactic to produce maximum nastiness, and of which he wholly approves -- "performed honourable service in both wars against Voldemort. I'll wager he's seen more carnage and misery than you'll ever be able to imagine. That in itself deserves respect, even if you're incapable of feeling it for all your patients on principle."

He wishes he could see, at the moment: it would take a far tougher man than Quack not to quail under such a withering assessment.

"Erm.... I've, erm, other patients to attend to. Matron will show you out," Quack mutteres, and lumbers out of the room without his usual attempt to disguise the heaviness of his tread.

Hard-Heels clears her throat. "This way, madam --"

"I'd like to stay for a while, actually," the Woman says. "If that's permitted, of course."

"Oh. We don't have, ah, unrelated persons in the Critical Ward normally, but I've no objection."

"Thank you."

A scrape of chair-legs over to his right; a rustle of fabric and the creak of the leather seat as the Woman settles herself. The breeze her movement produces wafts another scent his way -- tantalising; something more than simply familiar, something that prickles at his brain's pleasure-centres. (Not at those of desire: he is incapable of responding that way, now, the alcohol having taken care of that problem quite a long time ago.)

"He's actually a decent clinician," Hard-Heels says softly. "He just makes an utter balls-up of dealing with conscious patients and their relatives."

"Which is, no doubt, why he deals with cases like these," the Woman says, voice laced with amusement.

"Right. He has a point, however," Hard-Heels continues, moving closer -- perhaps emboldened by the Woman's change of tone. "He just asked the wrong question in this case."

"Ah. What is the right one?"

"I agree with you on the stubbornness, as it happens -- but he's preoccupied with something...."

"He moves his fingers, you see. It's not twitches, it's too deliberate for that -- there's a pattern to it. The healer thought perhaps it was the Potions work, but I don't think so."

"How?"

"Like this --"

A pause, in which Hard-Heels presumably demonstrates.

"No, that wouldn't be it. I should know, I saw him work often enough."

"I can't quite place it, but perhaps you can. If you stay long enough, I'm sure he'll do it."

"Yes, I'll stay this afternoon," the Woman murmurs. "I cleared my schedule for the day, as I didn't know what to expect."

"Good. May I get you anything, or --"

"No, no, I'm fine. I'm sure you're very busy."

"I'll check in on you later, then."

Hard-Heels makes for the door, her steps confident and business-like, and she closes it with a soft snick of the latch.

"Well," the Woman says softly, after a long pause, "you've gone and got yourself in a nice pickle this time, haven't you? Literally."

His mind is confused by her proximity and his reaction to her, and another strange flash of isolated memories -- of a hillside; of this woman, slender legs trouser-clad; of the odd juxtaposition of pickle and troll mucus -- distracts him so that it takes him a moment to realise she's just twitted him for being an alcoholic idiot.

It would almost be worth the effort of waking to produce a sneer.

*****

He would never know what posessed his mum to buy the music-book, or how she'd managed it under his father's nose. She hadn't warned the boy: she'd simply returned from her shopping one day, casually put the basket of greens on the scarred work-table in the corner, and then waited until they heard a customer enter the shop. Then she'd dumped the vegetables on the table, snatched something from the bottom of the basket, and run to his room: he followed, and arrived just in time to see her slip something underneath the thin mattress on his bed. She didn't say a word: only laid a cautioning finger against her lips, hurried back out to the main room of the flat, and began scrubbing the dinner-turnips.

It was another week before his father left long enough for her to unearth the book.

"Scales first," she said firmly, and only allowed him to open the book once he'd done his repetitions perfectly. And then --

It was odd and wonderful to see those squiggles on the page, dancing along the lines and spaces, and to realise that despite the seeming chaos that they really meant order; to accept, as Mum told him, that by applying himself to the discipline of the straight and narrow, he could learn to play something lovely, if only he followed the rules and applied himself. And how nice it was when Mum showed him how those interminable scales and exercises he'd practised had a place: how F-A-C-E fooled you by starting on spaces and then hopped onto lines, and E-G-B-D-F flowed on, never seeming quite complete, always begging for a satisfying end....

That one was still his favourite, a mantra that he practised every night in his bed, fingers seeking out their proper placement on his rough, much-mended counterpane: Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.

*****

"There -- you see?" Hard-Heels suddenly whispers.

"Yes," the Woman whispers back. "He's done it off and on, all afternoon."

"Do you --?"

"No, not yet," the Woman says. "But you're right, it's something I ought to recognise."

He isn't being quite truthful with himself about the spying: he feels it rather nice that she's stayed, actually. Especially after he got a look at her.

He'd regained his sight at some point, quite briefly, this afternoon: he managed to turn his head just enough to see the Woman out of the corner of his eye. She didn't notice him, thankfully -- her head was bent over a book, something he was oddly unsurprised by, and she was totally absorbed in it. Not bad, was his first thought -- and it was true. Not a conventional kind of beauty, certainly: her nose was a trifle too long for feminine prettiness, and her hair pulled into an untidy knot at the back of her neck. Her eyes, though, those were quite fine any way you looked at them: they were lovely, but sharp and intense as well, unquestionably intelligent, and the look in them signaled clearly that she wanted badly to argue with the book's author.

What quite surprised him was her youth. She couldn't be more than forty -- a well-preserved forty, at that -- and he was.... Well, damn him if he could remember how old he was. And she'd implied they were married. Or had been at least a decade ago, if memory of her earlier words served.

Of course, an adder's tongue apparently came with the intelligence and attractive package, but one couldn't have everything. It was probably why they'd divorced.

"He's moved, hasn't he?" Hard-Heels suddenly notes, jerking him back to the present.

"Yes," the Woman says distantly. "Sneaky bugger didn't think I noticed. Not that I can tell if he actually saw or recognised me, but his eyes were open."

"Thought so," Hard-Heels said, voice intensely smug. "I knew we just needed to give him a little more time."

"Waiting out his sulks always was the best tactic," the Woman counsels her. "You'll see. After he wakes fully, you'll wish he were still comatose. He's most agreeable when unconscious."

"Don't think he liked that," Hard-Heels observes with a chuckle.

"No, they never care to have their flaws pointed out, do they? This one particularly." The Woman is silent for a moment, and then adds, "Never liked having his virtues made much of either, oddly enough."

They both fall silent for a while, and he has the uncomfortable feeling that they're staring at him, waiting for a response.

"Well," Hard-Heels finally says, "What I came to tell you was that Visitor's Hours are over, I'm afraid."

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry --"

A scrape of chair legs, and another hint of the Woman's scent as she stoops to gather her things together.

"No, I'm glad you stayed," Hard-Heels says. "He hasn't had a single visitor, you know."

"He cut everyone off in the end, so he wouldn't, would he? Even sent Professor McGonagall's letters back unopened. I doubt he even heard when she died, as he didn't show at the memorial service. I can't imagine him missing that by choice, only by ignorance."

Oh, blast. He couldn't understand why this McGonagall person should be so important to him, but he felt intensely guilty nonetheless.

"You're quite fond of him, aren't you?" the Woman suddenly asks.

"Yes, I am, rather --"

Oh, damn. Just what he needs, Hard-Heels mooning over him --

"-- unlike him, I recognised the name, you see, from the war and that business with the Ministry."

"Ah. And probably mine as well, then."

"Yes, but I didn't want to put you on the spot."

"Wouldn't have done. Or at least, I'm used to it now, ever since Fred Weasley wrote that awful book about the whole mess...."

(He isn't sure why, but the Woman's conjunction of Fred Weasley and awful seems entirely appropriate.)

"What is it?" Hard-Heels says, voice going sharp and anxious.

"Oh... nothing, really," the Woman says. "It's the beard, I think. In fifteen years, I don't believe I ever once saw him other than clean-shaven."

"Is it an improvement?" Hard-Heels asks. (He wants to smack her for the sly tease in her voice.)

"Just different, that's all. He looks like an entirely different person. Well, I'm off," the Woman says, her voice fading as she and Hard-Heels move toward the door: he strains to hear the last bit -- the last bit of her that he shall probably ever hear, given what she's said to Quack. "You will let me know if there's improvement or --"

The door closes behind them, leaving him alone with relief and regret for company.

It's inevitable that he should have done, in fact. He may have no memory of himself, of this woman, or of his behaviour toward her, but the Memory has reminded him all too well of what he is from: he doubts he has managed to be a much better man than that.

And with that, he ceases to torture himself with pointless speculation, and returns to the most important matter at hand.

Hard-Heels visits him the next day -- or the day after, he isn't certain which -- and commits the ultimate and dangerous indignity upon him of a shave.

And a hair-cut.

"There," she says, voice unnaturally bright as she brushes the wisps of cut hair away from his neck -- his now-naked and far too itchy neck. "Perhaps that'll set her more at ease when she comes back. You look far more human now."

He doubts that -- that the Woman will return, rather. He hasn't an opinion on his appearance.

And given the choice between a daily dose of Hard-Heels wielding a straight razor or of Quack's Skrewt-bile bougies, he thinks he'd prefer the purge.

*****

The boy never learned how his father sussed them out, but the man later reasoned that it was an unfortunate coincidence: something as mundane as the absence of dust on the piano, or an overly-enthusiastic sforzando on his mother's part that leaked through the thin walls and window-frame, overheard by his returning father.

It was quite neatly and cruelly managed. They'd been allowed to go out for an afternoon; this in itself was unusual, but not unknown -- they were often sent away when his father had special "guests" who wished to be certain their transactions were absolutely private. The boy's first inkling that something was amiss was when his mum stopped dead in the shop-door (he bumped into her bum, unable to stop in time); and then her basket and parcels slipped from her hands and to the floor. He peeked round her waist, and saw two labourers Levitating the piano down the stair.

"What do they think they're doing?!" he blurted out, far too loudly.

Mum shushed him, but it was too late: his father had sharp ears, and within seconds stepped from behind the curtain that separated the storeroom from the shop.

"Ted Edgerton's girls want one," he drawled, staring Mum down and smirking at her. "Got more than it's worth from him. It's not like you play any longer, is it? And I can't stand the sound of it even if you did. Only good for collecting dust," he said as he moved behind the counter, "and we've enough of that."

His mum didn't say a word: only stood and watched the yobs trying to bull her piano down to the shop. They were unskilled, more used to doing things the Muggle way, and bunged-up both instrument and stairwell badly before his father gave them the rough side of his tongue. At last they had it past the stair, and began floating it toward the door: but his mum didn't move when they reached her.

"I'm paying them by the quarter-hour," his father said in an undertone. "And Ted's already handed over the cash. I suggest you move. Now."

For one horrid moment the boy thought she would disobey; thought she might object, or tell the workmen that his father had no right to sell what was hers. He knew what would happen then: his father didn't like to be contradicted at any time, much less in front of anyone.

But Mum's head drooped, and she slowly bent down to gather up her parcels; and then she slipped through the gap between the piano and the display shelves, and crept up the stair without a backward glance. The boy stayed outside, watching as the oafs floated the piano -- its case now badly scarred -- onto a cart, and dumped it so heavily that its strings protested with a discordant twang: then they strapped it down and pulled the cart away, the piano-lid flapping with every bump over the cobbles.

His father, he guessed, had jimmied the lock to prove to his chum that it could be played.

*****

He opens his eyes and squints at the sunlight streaming through the window. It's a Seeing day, and he's a little disappointed at that: it's almost always impossible to re-enter the Memory on the days he can see -- some strange quirk of his synapses, he supposes, or something to do with the potions they've poured down his gullet.

Odd, that the Memory should be so important to him. He sensed from the first that it couldn't turn out well, but he's compelled to see it through to the end. He reasons that when you have no memories whatsoever, even the bad ones might be precious; might hold some clue or key to how one ended up at the present. He wants to know that very badly, now that it's clear he won't be allowed to slip away.

His disapointment at losing the elusive Memory is tempered, though, when he finds he has a visitor: seated in a chair near the foot of the bed, mussed hair glowing with a nimbus of sunlight, is a woman. It takes a moment's squinting to realise it is the Woman.

He debates playing dead to the world once more, but he's left it a moment too late: she's seen that he's conscious. He stills his tapping fingers with a great effort of will.

"Hullo," she says, voice soft. "Are you ready to stay awake for a while, now, or would you still like to pretend that I'm not here?"

He's not certain what to say to her, other than to return the salutation -- but all that comes out is a dry croak: the Woman rises and moves to the head of the bed, and he hears the chink of glass on glass; and then her cool hand is supporting his neck, and the glass is at his lips. He mucks it up, of course -- he seems to have lost the knack of swallowing voluntarily -- and much of the water spills down his chin, soaking the ridiculous gown they've dressed him in. He chokes and growls, and with a matter-of-fact "Never mind," the Woman takes the glass away, fetches a flannel, and pats away at the mess.

"Matron will be very pleased that you're finally awake," she says as she finishes cleaning him up and draws her chair nearer to his head. "Shirty as well as it's her day off and she's missed it, but pleased."

She opens a book, begins to read silently, and utterly ignores him.

He tries to give her his back, and only succeeds in tangling his legs in the sheets.

"You needn't fuss," the Woman says, and reaches over to twitch the sheets right. "I'm not going to sit here and chatter, but I'll keep you company and prevent that idiot from dosing you with salts and driving you mad. If it's conversation you want, though, you'll have to start it yourself." She buries her nose back in her book.

He tries to keep himself amused -- and ignoring her -- by counting the pock-marks in the plastered wall before him, but it takes more concentration than it ought, and his fingers resume their beat. He stops as soon as he can: but her damned observant eyes have noticed, of course.

"Matron's very curious about that," the Woman notes, marks her place with a forefinger, and leans a little closer to confide, "I shan't tell her what it is if you don't wish me to, though."

What? Has she --? No, she couldn't possibly have guessed. It's a bluff.

On the other hand, she seems to know far more of him than he does of himself, if there's any credence at all in her caustic remarks to Matron.

No, she must be bluffing, but it's an intriguing proposition -- to find out how much she does know, without giving himself away. He still fights the impulse to ask, and the break in concentration gives his fingers leave to begin tapping again....

He gives in to the impulse, with the sinking feeling that an inabiity to resist temptation has been one of his significant, life-long failings.

"What do you mean?" he manages to rasp out.

The words don't seem right: for a moment he thinks he's forgot the sound of his own voice, and then he realises that he's slurred the words as badly as if he were drunk. She notices too, and leans forward, brow furrowed.

"Hmmm?" Her expression clears. "Oh. I don't suppose I ever told you... ...well, I wouldn't have done, you weren't even remotely interested in my childhood. My mum had aspirations of me being a flautist, as my granddad was a famous one. My teacher insisted that I take Piano as well --"

"-- so I should learn Theory properly and be able to work with accompanists intelligently. I hated it, being stuck behind the piano practising it, too, when I could be reading a book -- great waste of time, I thought --"

"And the flute?" he interrupts, the words still shamefully slurred.

"Hmmm? Oh, I didn't mind that so much, at least until my adult teeth came in and I had to give it up anyway. At any rate, that's how I recognised it." She reaches over, lays her hand over his bandaged one (he jerks at the contact, but she ignores that), and gently taps it out with him. "Every - Good - Boy - Deserves - Favour. I shouldn't have guessed except that you do FACE occasionally as well."

"Shan't tell her," the Woman says as she pulls her hand away. "Wouldn't make any sense to her, anyway."

It does to the Woman, apparently -- he wishes he knew why -- but she returns to her book without enlightening him.

He decides not to let her off so easily -- besides, it's quite enfuriating that she's so quick to return to her blasted book: the least she could do is entertain him a bit. Moreover, he... he quite likes the sound of her voice when she keeps it pitched low.

"What - about - the - flute?" he tries, doing his best to speak more clearly. (It's still terrible, but there's an improvement.)

She glances over at him, expression suddenly wary and sharp. "You don't see why my teeth have anything to do with it?"

"No."

"You don't remember what my teeth used to be like?"

Not trusting his voice, he shakes his head.

"In fact," she says slowly, and lays her book aside, "you don't remember anything about me at all, do you?"

"Married," he tries desperately to derail her. "Were."

"Yes, but I've said that in your hearing -- don't think I don't know you might have been conscious. Do you remember my name?"

She has him there: all he can do his shake his head, and screw tight his eyelids against the humiliating prickle of salt-water.

"It doesn’t matter now," she says. "It's to be expected, given what your body's been through. Ought to be looked into, though. As far as the flute and my teeth.... Well, an overbite's not a great impediment, but a massive one is, especially when one is a bit clumsy. Giving it up was less painful than continuing to chip my teeth on it."

She returns to her book; he forebears any mental complaints about that, as he isn't in the mood to attempt more conversation (not with her continually getting the better of him, and with his alarming inability to speak clearly).

And so they sit together silently through an interminable afternoon, he staring at the ceiling and trying to control the bloody tap - tap - tap (though there's no point, now that she's caught him out), and she reading, occasionally helping him drink a time or two; and then he slips off into a Memory-less doze. When he wakes, much later in the evening, she's gone.

He's not certain which is greater: his relief that the bloody perceptive Woman has seen fit to leave him alone, or his loneliness now that she has.

*****

His father never mentioned the piano again. He had no need to: he was a master at the art of making others suffer in silence, and a dedicated hedonist in his enjoyment of their suffering.

The boy and his mum crept about the flat for the next fortnight, waiting for the inevitable retribution. Mum was not allowed to re-arrange their few bits of furnitures, but made to stare at the yellowed oblong on the wall where the piano once stood; the boy was set to preparing even more potions ingredients, and the most caustic, so that his fingers were soon as red and raw as his mother's.

Late one night in bed, back and buttocks still stinging from a particularly nasty caning earned for not chopping wormwood finely enough, the boy clenched his hands tight to prevent himself from doing his nightly finger- exercise, recalling his father's parting shot: "If it's the last thing I do, I'll teach you to put your hands to better use."

Every good boy deserves favour....

It's not true, he thought, and shifted to his other hip to ease the pain of a bleeding wound that the cane had ripped open at his waist. It's a lie. Or rather, he decided, every good boy might deserve favour -- but only the lucky ones got it.

He began to suspect that he was not one of the lucky ones.

*****

It's morning, and he's wide awake bright and early, musing over the last bit of the Memory. He's been kept too busy for the last few days to think through it: since he woke fully he's been poked and prodded, and been made to perform tricks like a dancing dog, until last night he snarled out a garbled curse at Hard-Heels -- Matron -- and she left the room in a huff. (He suspects he may have actually made Matron cry, but she got a bit of her own back with a defiant "She's right, I prefer you comatose," on her way out, so he decides they are even and at pax.)

He hasn't been able to return to the Memory since it left off at the beating. It's not the end of the story, he's certain: it's merely a fragment of a whole, one he finds himself anxious to explore. He imagines, though, that experience proved the boy's suspicion right time and time again, until childish hope was overwhelmed by bitterness and cynicism: they seem to come naturally to him. Honestly acquired, as it were.

But surely --

No, the man must have discovered -- or re-discovered -- the satisfaction of discipline and of choosing to do right, somewhere along the line: must have realised that reward lies not in the recognition, but in the doing -- in the journey; that a good act, no matter how badly it works out at first, might eventually be fulfilling.

So intent is he on his thoughts that he doesn't notice the Woman's arrived until she's pulling the chair over to his bed.

"Right, then," she says, and props her elbows on his mattress. (He wishes she wouldn't: it implies an intimacy that he's unable to reciprocate -- although if she keeps wearing that blasted enticing perfume, it might not be terribly hard to give in to.) "First off, you're a rotten beggar for tearing into Matron yesterday -- don't think I haven't had an earful about that --"

"Had - enough," he slurs out in his own defence.

"I'm sure, but they're trying to help. And they think they've sussed out the problem. You've had a stroke --"

"Stroke?" (Whatever it is, it sounds awful.)

"Cerebral aneurysm, bleeding in the brain."

"What they're going to do is get you on your feet once you're a bit better-fed, and see how well or poorly your motor-skills are faring. Matron and I suspect they're not too bad, not with, ah, your hand coordination being all right, but --"

"How long?" he demands.

She seems surprised by that, and then, with a long-suffering sigh, stares up at the ceiling. "A week or so to build up your strength, I suppose, and then a more thorough assessment, and then physical therapy for as long as it takes to help. Perhaps several months or --"

"Fuck - that," he says, fighting a rising panic. Merlin's balls, if he's stuck here for another month or more at the mercy of Matron and Quack, somebody will die -- and it won't be he. (He isn't certain how he'd go about accomplishing mayhem or manslaughter in his condition, but he'd do his damndest to find a way.)

The Woman isn't impressed: she glares back at him and drawls, "Amazing. You seem to get the nasty bits out perfectly clearly."

He nearly calls her something very nasty indeed, only just stops himself, and sneers at her instead.

"Let me think on it," she says, sighing. "We might be able to arrange out-patient therapy, though they won't like that." She glances at him doubtfully and adds, "Or perhaps not. Matron may be happy to see the back of you."

It takes him a full minute-and-a-half to spit the words out so that she can understand him, but he eventually succeeds in telling her that the joy would be entirely mutual.

*****

The solution to the problem -- when the Woman finally condescends to tell him, a week later -- is not only unexpected, but entirely unacceptable as well. Worse still, she's deceptive enough to try to sneak it past him under the guise of good news (or as good as it gets, at this point).

"Less damage than they feared," she says of his latest blasted physical assessment (and the less said of that the better), her tone brisk and the news without preamble. "No impairment on the right side, and only mild to moderate impairment on the left. They want you to work at walking and balance, as your left foot drags a bit. Your speech seems to be the most badly affected, but that will improve if you practise it. And then there's the memory problem --"

"Fine," he grunts. "When - do - I - go - home?"

"Well," she says, "you realise you'll have to stay in London for the therapy. We've found you lodging --"

"Bollocks. Elf --" (he's fairly certain he has one of longstanding) "-- will - pop - me -- over --"

"It's not possible," the Woman insists. "Out of the question. Besides, the more often you come to therapy, the sooner you'll --"

"Not - staying - in - London," he bellows, and founders about for a frustrating moment before he's able to remember the specifics. "PUCK - Puck - will - take - care --"

"Puck's dead."

He's not entirely certain that he's heard her correctly, until the look of horror and embarassment on her face convinces him otherwise. "I'm sorry," she stammers. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to tell you that way. I know you must have been fond of him."

He really does begin to panic then, scrabbling at the neck of his gown: he can't seem to get enough air.

"Oh, no," the Woman says quickly, and reaches for his hands and stills them. "No, no, it wasn't anything you did or didn't do, really. He was positively ancient, Severus. Surely you knew that?"

It's not so much the reassurance that stills him as it is the shock of her calling him by name: she's never done, not in all these weeks. While he knows the name must be his, and while it doesn't seem altogether odd to hear her say it, it doesn't feel as though it really belongs to him.

"Just... calm down and I'll tell you everything we know," she says. "I should've done before, but I knew it would upset you terribly."

"How?" he croaks. And how are you so bloody certain that I'm not responsible?

"Old age, that's all. The authorities think that's why you nearly died, because he wasn't about to watch after you." She hesitates, gently pries his fingers away from his gown, and guides his hands back to his lap before taking a deep breath and continuing. "We aren't sure which came first, his dying or your stroke, but by the time you needed to... bury the body, you weren't really in any condition to do a proper job of it -- but you did your best," she adds hastily. "The authorities sent me a full report. They could tell that you... couldn't quite manage to dig the grave very deeply, that's all, and you didn't do it with magic, which leads them to think you were already... impaired, but I'm not totally convinced of that. He'd been very carefully dressed and arranged, so that's how I know you were fond of him. But without him there to care for you.... Well, you just couldn't -- or wouldn't -- manage for yourself."

"Alcohol?" he manages to ask bitterly.

"That's what they can't suss out. Either you fell while drunk and struck you head, inducing the bleedout, or it simply happened on its own and you continued to drink. We'll likely never know, unless you remember. And the hospital has no family history for you, so they don't know if you've a genetic tendency for early stroke. It's a rare trait for wizards, but it happens, and alcohol would have exacerbated it."

"So," The Woman says carefully, "you can't go back to your cottage, not yet, not until you re-certify in Apparation and we're certain you can manage on your own. I wouldn't mind taking you back-and-forth, but I can't clear my schedule to that extent. Besides," she mutters a bit defiantly, "I'd worry about you too much --"

" --so you really ought to stay in London."

"Lodging -- where?" he demands immediately. (No sense in putting it off any longer: his nerves can't take the strain.)

"My flat," she offers weakly.

"No - bloody - way," he says definitively.

"Severus, it's rather nicer than when you were there last -- and larger, as I've bought the flat above -- and I gave up being stubborn and magicked it up a bit --"

"No - charity," he bellows.

At first she's shocked: and then she recovers and he sees just how quickly -- and frighteningly -- she can lose her temper.

"It's not charity," she hisses. "Or pity, before you think of that. And if you ever use that word again, I'll -- I'll -- ...If it makes you feel better, you can pay for the bloody room and board, but you are coming to my home, and you'll stay there until you've bloody well recovered as much as you can."

She looks as though she wants to throttle him with her bare hands; in fact, he's certain she wants to, until she lapses back in her chair, covers her eyes with one hand, and scrubs at them. When she drops her hand, he loses the heart to continue to defy her -- much: she looks tired, very nearly the forty he's estimated for her age, and he realises that while she hasn't been visiting him a great deal over the past weeks, she's been burning the candle at both ends; that worrying over him -- as she's apparently done, despite his assumption -- hasn't helped at all.

"Cottage - empty," he attempts in a last effort to save face. "Not - secure --"

"Yes, it is. They said they'd done, but I didn't trust them," she admits. "So I.... I'm sorry, but I popped over there and set everything right, packed a few of your things, and then I warded it up myself. No one's getting in there but you or me. And," she adds with a disapproving look, "I even refreshed that nasty little Anti-Muggle hex you set on the beach. Really, Severus -- instantaneous oozing pustules? Couldn't you just frighten them off and leave it at that?"

He doesn't remember setting that particular hexing ward, but he doesn't understand her quibble with the principle in any case. Every schoolboy would agree that oozing pustules were more effective, and far more fun -- for the hexer, at least -- than a mere fright.

It's a moot point, however. As matters stand, he can't speak a spell properly; he mighn't be able to use his wand properly, either -- they haven't let him try. And if he can't even move about well enough to manage things Muggle-fashion --

There's nothing for it but to give in, really. If Puck were there to look out for him, he should manage: but he admits that it's quite impossible.

"It mightn't be that awful," the Woman says, voice soft and ever-so-faintly wheedling. "I've more room now, and I brought some of your books and things back. I couldn't manage your equipment, not in the same trip, but if you like I can fetch some of it and set up a laboratory. Assuming," she adds hastily, "that you promise not to blow up the house."

Hah. As if I would. Or could, in this state.

"Fine," he mutters, eyes downcast, fixed on his hands. He's able to control the tapping much better, now, but his fingers still tremble with the effort to stay quiet.

"Did - I - have - any - thing - in - the...." he attempts, unable to remember the proper name, and looks at her.

She's still watching him carefully, her face pale and pinched. "In the furnace? Afraid so -- it had quite spoiled. A pity, because it looked promising."

"How --?"

"Not gold," she says, and then smiles. "But definitely much finer than base metal. You got quite far along with it, I think -- but then I never studied Alchemy, so I can't be certain."

"I brought your working journal," she says, and curls up in the chair -- quite inappropriately for a woman her age, but it seems to suit her -- "so you'll have plenty to occupy yourself with." And then she opens her satchel, pulls out a thick sheaf of foolscap, and begins to read, making notes in the margins as she goes.

"Needn't - stay," he says, managing to sound, even to his own ears, every bit as sulky and sullen as he feels. "Not - if - so - bloody - busy."

"I am, as it happens," she mutters back, not bothering to look at him, "but this is extra work, unfortunately, and on deadline. My publisher will be quite unhappy if I don't have an edited proof for him soon."

"What - is - it?" he asks, purely to be tiresome.

"The title alone will bore you to tears," she warns him, still focussed on the manuscript, and then rattles off, "A History of Wizarding Judicial Bodies, Procedures and Precedents, with Precis of the Newest Changes to Code. Or as I like to call it, The Big Bloody Doorstop Fred Weasley Dared Me to Write." She looks over at him, then. "I had no idea any publisher would be idiot enough to take it seriously. And one did, for a bloody big advance. So until the damned thing's in print my spare time isn't spare, and what's worse is that I owe Fred Arithmancy tutoring for his eldest, who's absolutely thick at it."

Oh, damn. Serious work. I.... Damn. I should keep my blasted mouth shut. Or at least not jump to conclusions.... Working, presumably, and writing seriously, and visiting -- not to mention looking after the cottage....

He feels every bit as ashamed as he reckons he ought to.

"Not - ungrateful - for - help," he stutters. "Just...."

"Too idependent by half?" she says softly, and glances up at him. "You always were, so I expected it."

"You - shouldn't - have - to," he insists, desperate to make his position clear. "Your - home. Impose... Imposit --"

"No, it's not. Not in the way you mean."

She must read the question in his eyes, because her lips quirk upward and she says, "You're thinking something along the lines of 'Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in'. Right?"

Damn. He hates that she can read him so easily -- it's spot-on.

"Acc - urate," he grudgingly admits.

"Not my words -- some American poetry that a friend lent me, once. And I think it’s bollocks, by the way. It's less having to take you in, and more wanting to," she murmurs, and looks back down at her papers: her pale cheeks begin to flush a delicate pink. "It's just me, so you're not putting anyone else out. You needn't feel badly about it."

That blush interests him greatly.

There is only one way to find out, though. And whatever motivates the Woman --

-- he'll certainly be more comfortable in her home than in hospital. The food could hardly be worse, no matter how bad a cook she might be.

"Thank - you," he manages.

She smiles rather absently but doesn't otherwise respond, intent on making a note.

*****

By the time Quack authorises his release a fortnight later, he's decided that even the seventh level of Hell would do for lodging. The Woman's flat isn't that, by any means: it's actually quite nice. He has a sense of deja-vu about the place --

-- but it's also terribly strange. He navigates easily enough (or as easily as he can given the damned cane he must use) as the lie of the rooms is, if not precisely familiar, then comfortable...

...but the character of the place has altered, he decides at last. There's nothing particularly remarkable about it: soft, warm colours, nothing frou-frou or disgustingly precious; but this aspect of it feels totally alien, although he's at a loss to explain how he knows she's made changes.

"I already put your things in the dresser," she calls down the hall after him. "That's the spare bedroom, now --"

"-- so you needn't worry that I had to move things about."

He stumps into the bedchamber (that damned left foot still drags) and peers into the adjacent room, discovering the loo. And bath.

"All yours," she says, popping her head through the bedroom door: she startles him, and he wavers on his feet for a moment. "I turned the flat above into a private suite, more or less -- my own bath and workroom, even. Razor and strop are in the medicine cabinet, and I picked up some other toiletries for you --"

(If he felt like an imposition before, he now feels an absolute burden. She's gone to a great deal of trouble for him.)

"-- and your books and things are in the sitting-room...." She stops in mid-chatter, looks very embarassed indeed, and says, "I haven't had time to go to the grocer's yet. Will you, ah, be all right if I pop round now?"

"How much... trouble... could I possibly get into?" he asks carefully.

"Don't ask that question," she retorts. "You've set several memorable precedents in the past." She turns and trots down the hall before he can snap back, and sings back at him, "Shan't be more than an hour," before he hears the crack of an Apparition.

*****

He only has an hour at most and he moves bloody slowly, so he has to choose his targets wisely. His discoveries include:

He tests it out loud, hoping the exercise will stimulate some memories, but it doesn't. It does, however, roll off his tongue a titch more smoothly than he might expect, given its unusual character.

He glances at the clock on the mantel: his search here has only taken ten minutes in all, and he weighs the risk of the next phase of his investigation.

Curiosity is obviously another of his failings.

It takes him another ten minutes to drag his blasted carcass up the stair to her "private suite".

*****

Once there and through the door of the suite -- simply one large, airy room, really, arranged in logical areas -- he has to collapse in a chair to catch his breath. (Another waste of five minutes, but he thinks it will be worth it -- no point in keeling over, although chances are he'd wind up dead and not bloody care when she discovered him.) When ready, he bypasses the work area at the north end of the room -- she's far too orderly to mix business and personal matters, he suspects -- and heads straight for her bureau. (Women are so predictable, always hiding sensitive information amongst their lingerie... ...though how he he's determined this, he isn't sure.)

Hermione Granger is, at least in this sense, a typical woman. Beneath her night-dresses he finds several bundles of letters -- some quite old, in awkward, adolescent scrawls from Ron and Harry (and judging by his reaction to that last, that's the nasty little bleeder whose pictures he loathed so), and many from Mum and Dad, and a notice of some sort declaring itself to be In Memory of Emily Granger. Another stack is postmarked AZ, U.S. -- the two ethnic gentlemen and their photo suddenly make sense; and he feels a pang of jealousy, because the younger one was rather a handsome devil. (They don't appear to be love-letters, though. It's disgraceful, how relieved he is by that.)

The third stack is in some ways the most instructive: these are from various Weasleys, often stuffed with photographs of an absolutely alarming number of red-headed children. (Among them is one of a bawling baby -- quite an active little sod, squirming about -- captioned "Fred's first, at last!", and he wonders if this is the poor little blighter who will be inflicted with Hermione Granger's tutoring.)

The Weasleys have tonnes of children, it seems, but she hasn't put any of the photos out, although she's kept them quite carefully.

There's one significant omission: not a bloody thing from himself.

Were it not for the sensitivity of his finger-tips -- and thank Merlin he's left with that, at least -- he would miss the faint rasp of parchment against the side of his little finger as he puts the bundles back. But he doesn't, and pulls it forth, and sidles back over to the chair to sit and read it.

*****

He loses track of time, puzzling over his letter. The references to Hogwarts (which rings a bell, but isn't immediately placeable), and to testimony and a file are rather alarming -- but not nearly as much as the overall tone. He's tempted to conclude that it was written before their marriage, but the dates don't add up: they've been divorced for a bit over a decade, apparently, and he's certain he hasn't lived on the island quite that long.

There are several inescapable conclusions, however.

The letter tells him nothing at all about Hermione Granger, but a great deal indeed about the kind of man he was in the not-so-distant past: callous, cruel, wishing to have nothing to do with someone who must have been an important part of his life. It disquiets him so much that he can only sit with trembling hands and stare at the parchment's end, where a scrawled and angry Severus Snape confronts him with irrefutable evidence of his past misdeeds -- whether he can remember them or not.

He's so rushed to get back downstairs by the time he pulls himself together -- in fact, it's been over an hour since she left -- that he nearly misses the note tacked to the back of the suite's door.

*****

He most certainly does not take his time, and twists that bloody left ankle on the way down: but when she -- Hermione -- returns from the grocer's, he's safely tucked up in the spare bedroom with a book (not one with her name on the fly-leaf, though by now he's conceded that she'll catch him out on that eventually).

"Sorry, the shop was packed," she says, poking her head around the doorjamb. "I hope you made yourself comfortable."

"Borrowed this," he mutters back, and nods at the book. "Haven't felt like moving about much."

"Really?" (She doesn't seem to believe him. Damn.) "So you've been reading all this time?"

"Yes," he retorts, not daring to look her in the face. (And thank Merlin she phrased it that way: it's strictly true that he's been reading, after all -- just not this book.)

"Hmmmm," she comments, staring at him with an insultingly speculative expression. "Well, you needn't feel that you have to stay in your room all the time. Except for the kitchen, this floor's yours alone." She disappears from his view, and calls over her shoulder as she moves down the hall, "Dinner should be ready in an hour, I think."

He hopes to Merlin that the swelling in his bloody ankle goes down by then. And if he wasn't certain before, he is now: it's going to be a very uncomfortable stay.

*****

Another fortnight passes before he feels comfortable prying any further information out of her. It's not been wasted time, as he's observed her carefully in what little interactions they have -- meals and Apparition to his therapy, mostly. (He hates the therapy. The physical bits leave him wrung out and exhausted, and the speech therapy is so very frustrating and taxing on his concentration that he's good for nothing afterwards.)

Hermione is exceptionally quiet and reserved: she leaves for her job -- at the Ministry of Magic, she once admitted to him with a grimace -- quite early in the morning, and returns promptly every night (on his therapy-free days, at least); she makes him his dinner, and then excuses herself to her suite. He can hear her moving about up there occasionally, and once in a while he catches a muffled expletive as she finds something in her manuscript which displeases her.

Other than that, she leaves him alone to amuse himself with the few of his own books and the many of hers, a situation which irritates him more and more as the days pass.

Well, if it's all up to him, then....

He decides to winkle things out of her in bits and pieces, and to try to patch together something like a whole from those.

*****

"How was I found?" he asks one Saturday morning.

She stops her dusting of the sitting-room baseboards -- and yes, he's taken the time to appreciate the sight of her on her knees with her bum in the air, though it's more of an intellectual exercise than anything else as his penis hasn't responded in the least to stimuli -- and leans back on her heels, and says, "The supplies delivery to the island."

"Ah. Missed me meeting them, I suppose."

"No, they missed Puck," she says, and starts polishing the baseboard again. "He always hid out near the quay to watch the boat come in."

"Boat?" he asks, feeling a bit queasy.

"Yes, a Muggle supply-boat from Ouessant. Usual method, out among the Channel Islands."

He sputters a bit, trying to find a way to phrase that a bit more tactfully, and she glances up at him and elaborates.

"No, it wasn't a problem -- he always bundled up, and the boatmen never got a good look. They apparently decided," she adds, scrubbing at a sticky bit of something on the wood, "that the island's owner was a misogynistic midget."

"But --"

"You picked your island well. The Ouessant Harbourmaster is a squib. Supplies were Apparated to his house, and he saw that they were taken by ship to your island. When the boatmen said they hadn't seen the resident and that the last delivery hadn't been picked up, he flooed the nearest Wizarding authority."

"Ah."

"I think he must be the only human being you had contact with for years, Severus, and that only by Owl."

He's about to question her further on that -- surely that's an error, he couldn't have been that much a hermit -- when the oddity of what she's doing strikes him.

"Why are you scrubbing that when a charm would be easier?"

"That charm never seems to do as good as job as me," she says, swiping at her forehead with her forearm. "Besides, it works off quite a bit of frustration, and it keeps my hand in. I've given in to Magic mostly, but not entirely."

It takes him a few days to work out the implications of that --

-- bloody hell, she's Muggleborn --

-- and another two to decide on logical grounds that it doesn't make a damned bit of difference.

*****

Supremely bored with the reading material available, and as he's not yet ready to tackle his laboratory journal, he watches her prepare a meal -- and he suddenly knows with certainty how they began.

"Ah."

She glances at him sidelong, her fingers stilling for a moment, before she parrots "Ah?" and returns to chopping broccoli.

"That's where we met. And how."

She give him another sidelong glance, transfers the vegetables to a saucepan, and says absolutely nothing, damn her.

"I taught you Potions," he states. "At your school I should think... Hogwarts, yes? ...not as an apprentice, since Law is your field now."

"And how did you deduce that?" she asks, avoiding his eyes.

"I taught you to use a knife in that manner, no-one else."

She shrugs and explains, "Some things stick with one, I suppose."

He has a vague sense that there's a jab in her response, but ignores it in favour of pursuing more urgent information: moreover, she's confirmed a great, missing chunk of his past -- a teacher of Potions at this Hogwarts place.

"So.... Was I a paedophile, or you a deluded, crushing student?"

"Neither," she retorts with a glare. "I was well past my majority when we married, thank you very much. With no carrying-on before then."

Well, that's one niggling matter laid to rest, and worth the effort -- even though she refuses to enlighten him any further, and answers him in sulky monosyllables for the rest of the evening.

*****

Several days later, over a very simple but nice meal of bangers and mash, he makes another attempt along the same lines. "Which of us was idiotic enough to ask for the divorce?"

"You," she readily admits. "And before you bother to ask, I still haven't the faintest idea why. You didn't ask for it, you just got it."

He reflects on that a moment, says, "It doesn't surprise me," and returns to his food.

He doesn't notice how still and icy a silence has fallen over the room until she huffs out a protesting "How dare --"

"My idiocy," he explains through a mouthful of mash. "I've no idea what you did to -- or didn't do -- to set it off, but I mean my idiocy. Not exactly a gentleman, was I?"

He risks a look at her, and finds her expression rapidly changing from indignation to dumbfounded astonishment.

What's even more amazing, even to himself, is that he actually means the sentiment about his former self's idiocy.

*****

It's rather strange to realise, but since he's been living in Hermione's home, damp, grey Spring has changed to mild London Summer: he finds that he likes sitting in Hermione's little garden in the single lopsided chair, and soaking up as much sun as possible. (It's another therapy, he convinces himself. He's picked up a nasty case of arthritis in one knee and hip somewhere along the line, and the warmth is very soothing.) On this particular day he stays outside long past her return home, and she brings him a drink after she's changed from her office attire.

It looks suspiciously like a mixed drink.

"What's in it?" he asks her, staring at the lime-wedge floating amongst the ice.

"Gin and tonic," she says. "Without the gin."

"Oh."

She shrugs. "Didn't expect the apple to be worm-free, did you?"

"It never is," he says, sighing, and takes a sip -- and then amends, "It seldom is."

She watches him speculatively, and then turns on her heel and putters among the flowering herbs she's planted along the fence.

Seldom, he decides as he watches her, is an important qualifier.

After all, one little worm doesn't make the entire apple rotten. You simply have to be more selective about the parts you choose to enjoy.

*****

In midsummer, he finally feels up to reading through his journal. He's prepared for it rather heavily, revising with an old Alchemy text -- some stupid sod named Bluett has scribbled all over the damned thing, though he admits that many of the notes make a great deal of sense -- and now thinks he can follow what he was trying to do, even if he can't duplicate it.

What he eventually understands of it astonishes him.

Bloody.... I was close. I was damned close.

It isn't that he had a great deal of success: far from it. The journal -- quite thick, its cover and his writing smeared and spattered with the residue of many a failed experiment -- is a catalogue of stunning and sometimes catastrophic failures.

Toward the end he'd made progress, and quickly. It seems as if something inside him had suddenly given way, like the bursting of a dam; the unlocking of a long-forgotten door with a new-found key.

It's a tantalising thought. He reaches over for the Alchemy text to check a few points which are still a bit hazy, and --

It's entirely possible that he could go back to his old life, whatever it was: the therapy is helping, if far more slowly than he would like.

He stares at journal under his right hand, where his fingers still gently tap out Every - Good - Boy - Deserves - Favour on therapy-days, when he's most tired. Yes, he's come a long way -- not only with the bloody therapy but, apparently, with the Alchemy (and therefore his soul's improvement) -- but he suspects he has a much longer leg of the journey yet to come. He is neither optimistic nor deluded enough to believe that one breakthrough will be the end of the hard work, not by a long chalk.

More to the point, he -- or his former self -- shut out all human contact for absolutely no reason at all. No sensible reason, at any rate.

He might very well end up just the same, he thinks, since he's so effectively alienated any past associates. Especially if he doesn't make a very hard effort to --

-- be sociable, he admits to himself with a wince. To be with people -- for the no-one part is the more important part of the equation; the how can be sorted out later.

The problem is, he doesn't give a bloody damn about anyone else, except one. He's grown accustomed to her in the last couple of --

-- four months, and he suspects he should... ...well, miss her. It's rather comfortable, the way that they've got on together (he often wonders what possessed him to leave), and as she's got no-one, either....

Yes, perhaps it's time to give up on his absolute hermitage. Perhaps it's time to rejoin the living. Time to face the challenge and responsibility of caring for someone.

Because he does, he grudgingly admits. He cares for Hermione. He could hardly not, given all that she's done for him, but he's willing to concede fondness for her as well.

There's the little matter of his relative uselessness, of course. But --

And perhaps -- just perhaps -- someday she might let me care for her in other ways, as well. I think it's possible, isn't it? Intelligent, attractive -- lovely, in fact, when she's not too tired -- relatively quiet.... Damn fine cook, not that that should matter, but still....

It's an attractive proposition -- to him, at least. He suspects she might have some very good reasons for feeling otherwise, her generosity toward him notwithstanding.

He sets aside the text and journal with remarkably little regret, and resolves to try to be a Very Good Boy indeed.

*****

Midsummer falters, then fails and limps into Autumn; and he too limps into a semblance of functionality, once his wand is back in his hand. To everyone's surprise he shows competence with his magic, remembering many spells and charms instinctively, although his conscious memory is still very much the same blank as before. (Blank, that is, except for the memories he's accumulated since Spring, and of the Memory, and the information he's winkled out of, and about, Hermione.)

To his great disappointment, his campaign of wooing-by-stealth has not been successful. The blasted woman seems intent on leaving him alone, and hasn't responded to his subtle gestures -- even after the bloody manuscript was completed and sent off, with much nail-biting and gnashing of teeth on her part.

This failure is probably his fault. In the end, he took the coward's way out: he hinted -- not all at once, mind you, but bit by bit. After that day of revelation he began to use her name, frequently (she didn't seem surprised); he brushed his fingers against hers as she handed him his tea (she neither flinched nor prolonged the contact, damn it all); he offered her his arm when, freed from the manuscript, she took him on an outing to Diagon Alley (she took his arm, but did not... cuddle); he made a not-entirely successful attempt at magicking the sitting-room clean for her, once he'd been allowed to practice elementary charms (which earned him thanks and a bemused shake if her head, but no overwhelming gratitude). A last, rather desperate mention of how much he was looking forward to his Apparation test so he could return to the cottage merited encouragement from her -- and nothing more.

He feels he has two options left, now that his testing-date is fast approaching: brazen it out and admit he'd prefer to stay with her --

-- out of the question, then you will be imposing --

-- or let her know that he wouldn't be averse to... company. Perhaps even companionship.

That, he decides, is probably the best option. Best to leave any further overtures up to her, after seeing to it (carefully) that she understands he'd like something more than a distant relationship.

He knows this a long shot. He's certainly no prize now, if he ever was: twenty-odd years older than she, crippled, practically no memory of some rather important things, and -- once he bothers to check the looking-glass in the bath -- no top specimen in the Looks department either, his gut paunchy with inactivity, his face lined, dour, and beetle-browed, his close-cropped, silver-shot hair going white at the temples.

Well, there's nothing to be done about that, and there's time enough to think about performance issues later. At the moment, he needs to get the quaffle on the right bloody side of the pitch before he can worry about how to get it through the hoop. (He has, needless to say, invested some of his recovery time in re-discovering Quidditch, and finds the game an apt simile for life -- though he wonders if all wizards find the terminology as suggestive as he does.)

*****

The island is, indisputably, his. The magic that surrounds and protects it resonates in his mind and stirs at his sense of pleasure, like a familiar, satisfying taste in his mouth: and for the first time in nearly a year he feels absolutely safe and very nearly whole, lack of memory or no. He can feel the tang of another's magic here, too -- Hermione's -- but he's oddly unconcerned by it.

"Stopped by recently, haven't you?" he asks her, voice gruff.

"Of course," she retorts, and leans against the retaining wall at the top of the stairs, the sea-wind whipping her hair into her eyes. "Just to clear away the dust and dirt. And to reset that damned ward on the beach -- though I canceled the pustules." When he shoots her an inquisitive glance, she adds, "It's awful, Severus, and it serves you right if you don't remember the hex. If you want it there, you'll have to look it up."

"And what did you replace it with?"

"A purely visual one -- nice, nasty hull-bashing rocks."

He reckons that will do -- for now. "Sufficient," he allows, stumps over to the front door, drops his valise, pulls his wand, and prepares for the moment of truth....

The ward recognises him and drops itself.

Thank bloody Merlin.

He opens the door, picks up his valise, enters, and is halfway into the low-ceilinged front room when he realises Hermione hasn't followed; and in something of a temper he limps back to the door and pokes his head out to stare at her. "Are you coming in or not?"

"Can't," she says, very quiet: he can barely make out her words over the wind. "I reset that to exclude me after last time, so you shouldn't have to."

He draws his wand, fumbles over the words for a moment, and then successfully changes the damned ward. "Now you can," he says, and adds in deliberate challenge, "if you like." And he turns and stumbles back inside, leaving the door open -- and leaving Hermione to decide for herself whether to follow him or not.

He isn't aware that he's holding his breath until, at the sound of the door closing and Hermione's steps behind him, he lets it out in a great sigh.

*****

"Much of it had gone off," she says from the door of the laboratory as he stares at the gaps in the jars and bottles. "I had to dispose of the more reactive things."

"Doesn't matter," he murmurs. "I won't be attempting anything soon."

"I made an inventory -- it's there on the worktable," she says. "All you need do is send it on, when you're ready."

"And the furnace contents?"

"There, on the bottom shelf, in the box."

He goes over to it, pulls it free, and prises open the flaps: it contains a smooth cabouchon of metal, a bit rusty with the salt-air that permeates and spoils everything in the cottage without constant attendance and many repelling spells.

"It was a lot more impressive-looking in February," Hermione says, and he can hear a smile in her voice. (If he didn't know her as well as he does, he'd think it pride.) "Don't let its appearance now fool you."

"I shan't," he whispers, and tucks the evidence of his failure -- and success -- away, and limps off to the kitchen to make them some tea: the cottage is nearly as chilly inside as it is outside, and Hermione's nose looks suspiciously red and ripe for a cold.

*****

"Puck is out there," she says, and nods out the kitchen window, toward a huge rock on the promontory.

"What, under that great bloody thing?" he asks.

"Yes. They'd... Well, they'd left the landscaping mucked up, so I straightened it out and moved the rock a bit further over on top of the grave."

"Probably what I'd intended, I suppose."

"Oh, I know it was -- you could tell someone had tried to move it, and they wouldn't have done."

"But that means I could still do ma--"

"Right -- which is why I think," she says, and glances at him apologetically, "that you didn't have the stroke until later, after you'd tried to move it. You must have been, erm --"

"Drunk, go ahead, say it --"

"All right, drunk when you buried him, and then tried to move that damned thing -- I don't know how you managed, it just about killed me -- and fallen and hit your head out there. Rain would have washed away any blood, as it was weeks before they found you."

"Logical," he mutters, oddly unconcerned with the matter-of-fact admission of drunkenness. "I must have given up and dragged myself in here, and collapsed."

"Yes. The symptoms of internal bleeding wouldn't have shown immediately, you'd simply have felt terribly stunned at first. Besides," she adds, and helps herself to more tea, "I can't imagine that Puck wouldn't have Owled for a healer -- whether you liked it or not -- if he realised you were that ill."

They sit silent for a while, contemplating the mute testimony to one aged, dedicated and, no doubt, long-suffering elf, and then Hermione cautiously offers, "You could hire another one, you know. There's no need for you to do without help."

"How would I find one useful enough?" he retorts. "He was an unusual specimen, and he could read and write. He kept my accompt-book for me."

"I know, I glanced at it," she admits to brazen nosiness, and adds, "I know of another elf who can read and write, actually...."

"And where would I find this paragon?"

"Um, probably still running loose south of London with the natives. But I somehow doubt," Hermione adds, and glances up at him slyly, "that you and Pinky would get along."

Enfuriating, how she can manage to twit him with knowledge he ought to have. But to be fair, she doesn't do it often: she's more apt to be annoyingly closed-mouthed, refusing to tell him about his former self and his past, much as he'd like to know.

He supposes that as much as it annoys him, he owes her a bit of leeway on the twitting, after all she's done for him.

*****

"So, which is it to be?" she asks, voice brisk, as the shadows lengthen toward evening. "Your choice. Weekly owls or floo-calls -- I'll have the connection made, as it's for my peace of mind -- or fortnightly visits? And do you intend to hex me on sight if you force me into resorting to the latter?"

Floo-calls would be most sensible, of course, and far easier on her. Unfortunately, he doesn't feel like being sensible: he feels like being totally selfish, just this once.

"Fortnightly," he mutters. "No hexing, no matter what state I'm in."

"Damn," she says after a moment's obvious surprise. "I was afraid of that. You can get into a great deal of trouble in a fortnight."

"Shan't. Not intentionally, at least."

"One never intends to, it just happens...." Her voice trails off, and then she perks up and says, "I think I saw an owl out in that stand of beech, by the way -- I assume it's trained. If you're nice and cajole it a bit, it might return to you."

"Shall, I suppose, but --"

"I stocked you up on owl treats," she says as she rises from the table, anticipating his objection. "Rabbit-flavour, as most of them seem to adore that."

Damn. He feels intensely guilty about his selfishness now: she's stocked him up on everything in the kitchen, most of it disgustingly healthy. He knows better, though, than to offer repayment: she got very red in the face and indignant the few times he tried to make her accept his money.

"Well," she continues as she dons her coat, and before he can spit out a thank you, "I'd best get back. I have an early start tomorrow."

"Right," he mutters, and stumbles to his feet, and follows her to the front door. "Are you --"

"No, don't come out without your cloak," she says, turning on him, and absent-mindedly plucks a bit of cobweb from the pullover she'd chivvied him into that morning. "Damn, I thought I'd got them all.... Two weeks, then, on the Saturday. If you need anything before then, I trust you'll find a way to let me know."

She steps outside where the wind is beginning to whip a light rain into the north-facing windows, and simply walks away from him until she Apparates out with a no-nonsense crack.

He closes the door and wanders back into the middle of the front room, staring at the familiar/unfamiliar furnishings: spare, threadbare, remarkably clean -- she must have taken a great deal of time to straighten up for him, one day when he thought she was at work....

He can hear the rain spattering against the window-panes, and the wind beginning to pick up, whistling round the corners of the cottage. He's in for a fairly good storm tonight, he can tell.

The cottage isn't that large, really. The front room -- what anyone else would call a sitting-room -- is about the size of Hermione's, the kitchen and bedchamber even smaller than hers (and what was Puck's room is nearly the size of his own); the laboratory is really the largest of the rooms, practically cavernous by comparison with the others.

It might as well be the largest of mansions, at the moment, and he the only occupant. He doesn't much like the feel of the cottage, now that she's gone.

Unremembered but longstanding habit takes him over to the far cabinet, which he opens and peers inside. This is one thing she hasn't bothered with, he knows immediately. Amongst the litter of empty bottles stands a lonely decanter of whisky, with barely two fingers' width left in the bottom. And it is tempting: any aversion potion they dosed him with has worn off well before now....

He knows, suddenly, why she's behaved so indifferently all this time: why she left him alone in London, why she warded herself out of the cottage, why she didn't respond to his overtures (because she's far too perceptive to have missed them, his lack of courage or no). She's giving him what she thinks he wants -- or what past experience has proven to her that Severus Snape wanted.

But I don't want that any longer --

Well, he can hardly expect her to read his mind, can he? And if he couldn't manage to twist his tongue around the words Stay, please before she left....

It's inherently unfair to expect her to stay, of course. She has her life and her work, and Merlin knows he must have put her through hell the first time.

But she came in. She stayed, until she had to go. And she promised to come back -- even if it's only to be certain I haven't managed to kill myself yet....

As long as she returned, there was a chance -- a chance to find the courage to say something; a chance to prove to her that, while he might not be whole and undamaged in body, the man he was becoming now wanted her in his life on whatever terms she would agree to.

It's a tiny hope, but enough to be going on with.

He closes the cabinet, and stands stock-still, staring out the window, and then with a start and a curse he realises he's managed to bollox-up something quite important. He grabs his cloak, detours to the kitchen for supplies, and limps out the back door into the now-steady rain, making for the stand of beech on the far side of his island.

*****

*****

Footnotes, such as they are.