LAST TANGO IN PARIS
Chapter Eighteen

"You're going to Paris again tonight, aren't you?"

It was a pleasant, breezy evening, illuminated by the beginnings of a glorious sunset and underscored with a tranquil soundtrack of calling loons from the nearby lake. Severus had moved a card table out onto the porch; ostensibly, they were supposed to be playing chess, but the game wasn't really going anywhere. The dreamy lassitude of the Montana evening had infected even Sal's normally-competitive chessmen; on the sidelines of the board, a black pawn who'd finished reassembling her splintered torso was now allowing her hair to be brushed and rebraided by her white counterpart.

They'd had a late lunch and weren't particularly concerned with eating another meal, though the tin of chocolate-coated caramel popcorn Severus had bought on impulse last week at a specialty confectioner’s in Chicago had accompanied them to the porch, and was now - inexplicably - several inches emptier. There was a curious, not unpleasant residue of sugar on his tongue. His hands were sticky.

"Maybe," he said. "It depends."

"On what, exactly?"

Sal's tone was mild and noncommittal, but Severus had to fight the urge to squirm, nevertheless. He didn’t know how the old ghost had found him out, but his nocturnal visits had been common knowledge for more than a week now, and it was making him feel unaccountably guilty. "On whether she starts crying again," he said shortly. "What else?"

"My mistake," Sal said pleasantly. "And here I was thinking you only went when you couldn’t stay away.”

Severus glared at him for a moment, gripping his queen so hard that she squeaked in protest, then set her down again and dropped his eyes. “That too,” he admitted. “But mostly it’s the other. If you could hear her …”

He made a face. “I think you got the better end of the bargain, when Albus divided up that charm. Why couldn’t I be the one sleeping soundly through the night? It’s more in your line of work anyway, haunting is.” He knew he sounded petulant, but he didn’t care. “And if she caught you at it, she’d be more inclined to be forgiving. If my Apparation skills ever fail me, I’ll carry the scars to my grave. And it might be a short trip.”

Sal rolled his eyes, exasperated.

“It’s not as if you don’t have a valid pretext for dropping in during broad daylight,” he pointed out. “I don’t know why you’re bothering with all this cloak-and-dagger nonsense in the first place. You are her Secret-Keeper, after all, or one of them, at any rate. And you can offer her a brand of comfort that I can’t; you’re the only living person on the planet who remembers the poor girl’s name.” He studied the chessboard for a moment, then looked up without making his move. “I imagine that she’d be rather glad to see you, Severus, if you stopped by for tea. She must be terrifically lonely.”

“I shouldn’t be so sure of that.” Severus stared out across the scrubby little postage-stamp front lawn of the cottage toward the encircling phalanx of trees. It was that most magical of hours, when even the dubious charms of the crab grass were gilded like a Fabergé egg by the setting sun, and for some reason it made him think of Hogwarts and that long rolling expanse of manicured hill that stretched from the front doors all the way down to the lake.

Nostalgic, Severus? Get a grip on yourself.

“She’s fashioned a whole new identity for herself,” he said slowly. “Even her flat doesn’t look like a place she’d live in - there’s nothing of her former self in it; you’ve never seen such a drearily vanilla collection of rooms.” He linked his arms moodily around his knees. “And from the bits I catch of her comings and goings - I don’t hear much, but I can usually pick up on her state of mind, anyway - she seems content enough.”

He selected a kernel of popcorn and ate it slowly, his brow furrowed. “She doesn’t seem to have any trouble at all being Kate Billings,” he said finally. “It’s only when she remembers who she is, in fact, that she really seems sad. Frankly, I’m not sure that helping her remember her old life is really such a kindness.”

“Nor is it a kindness,” Sal pointed out acerbically, “to feed her delusions by letting her think that her dead husband visits her in her dreams. Get your head out of your arse.” He scowled. “Merlin knows that the two of you have enough communication problems between you to Obfuscate an army of star-crossed lovers; I’ll be the first to testify to that. But this is not the time, Severus!”

His wise old face was strained with worry and as serious as Severus had ever seen it. “That child is about to lose herself. The whole universe is trying to convince her that she doesn’t exist.” He looked grave. “And you’re the only one, I’m afraid, who can persuade her otherwise.”

They sat in silence following this low-voiced outburst, both more upset than they would have cared to admit, and watched the flame of the sunset curl into cinders and slowly wink out. Severus was the first to break the uneasy silence.

“Blame Albus,” he said, his voice edged with something that might have been bitterness, might have been simply resignation. “His one great weakness is his faith in mankind; he’s forever looking at me and seeing what I could have been, and not what I truly am. I’m the last one he should have entrusted her to, even if he’ll never admit it.”

“Perhaps,” Sal said. “Perhaps not.” His earlier censure had mellowed now into a kind of speculation that Severus found even more unsettling. “You could do worse,” he pointed out, “than to try to live up to Albus’s expectations of you. Haven’t you ever wondered exactly what it is that he finds so eminently worthy of redemption?”

Good question.

Severus had, in fact, spent hours contemplating that very mystery. But that had been a long time ago, and his speculations had grown weary and stale with repetition without ever arriving at a plausible conclusion. Now, the question just irritated him.

“If I spent all day trying to suss out what was on Albus Dumbledore’s mind,” he muttered, “I’d be as daft as he is.”

“Forget Albus, then,” Sal said, catching his eyes with a pale-grey gaze that was - coming from a man you could read the newspaper through, anyway - surprisingly steely. “Are you going?”

Severus sighed and tipped over his protesting king.

“I’m going,” he said through gritted teeth. “Just let me find my wand.”

**

He took the Apparation in several steps; it was a long way from Montana to Paris, and trans-Atlantic jumps were difficult enough without being two thousand miles away from the near coast when you made the leap. Beside that, the stops gave him a chance to focus his mind and wind down from what had been, for the two contented bachelors that he and Sal usually were, a most-heated discussion.

That child is about to lose herself. Get your head out of your arse.

Was he really overestimating her? As he winked into existence on an Atlantic City boardwalk and looked around for a salt-water taffy stand, Severus thought back to the last time he’d caught a mental glimpse of her during the day. Usually he didn’t hear dialogue, unless she herself absorbed and repeated it mentally; in this instance, he’d caught both the conversation and the glimpse of a face, thin and wiry and as streetwise as a sewer rat’s.

Doc! the teenager had yelled, and detached himself from the group he was loitering in to dash across the busy street to where Hermione was standing. Hey, Doc. Take a look at my arm.

Hermione, surprised, had hesitated, then shifted her bag to her other shoulder and palpated his skinny, rather grimy forearm gently in one hand. Good as new, she’d said. How does it feel?

Like it never happened.

The kid shot her a sly look. I’ll tell you my name, he’d said in conspirator’s tones, if you’ll tell me how you did it.

She had stiffened. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Like hell. You put your hands on me and the bone went back together. That’s some mad mojo you got, Doc. He leaned in a little closer. I owe you one.

You don’t owe me anything, Hermione said crisply. Just stay out of fights, okay? Especially if the other guy’s got a big stick.

The street kid, already poised to sprint back toward his compadres, grinned over his shoulder.

You’re okay, Doc. Peace out.

Severus had felt her reaction to the exchange across three thousand miles and a six-hour time change: glowing with achievement, lit up like a scoreboard. Peace out, she’d repeated to herself, and laughed to herself as she reshouldered her bag and continued on toward the clinic.

Easy to see that she loved her job. Harder, he admitted, to reconcile that happy, cautiously confident woman with the girl who wept almost nightly in his arms.

Which one was real? And did it matter?

He didn’t know. But one thing, at least, seemed obvious: this charade couldn’t go any farther. This was the night that he had to wake her up.

He wasn’t looking forward to it.

**

The soft sound of her weeping drifted in from the bedroom as he Apparated into the parlor, laden with bags, and laid down his parcels. Severus winced; this was always the most unpleasant bit, to hear the proof of her unhappiness both outside his head and in. He tossed his outer cloak over a chair, shook back his disheveled hair, and headed for the doorway.

“Not so fast, bucko. Hold it right there.”

The voice, a rich creamy contralto, startled him so that he spun round and knocked his elbow rather nastily on the door frame as he went for his wand. Gripping the injured joint, he glared into the darkness.

“Who’s there?”

“I’ll ask the questions around here, if you don’t mind.” A pinpoint of light flared as a match was struck; a moment later, the room was suffused in candlelight. In the mural on the parlor’s long wall, a tall cappuccino-skinned woman with a rather impressive bosom replaced the lighted candle in a candelabrum on the piano, then crossed her painted arms and fixed him with a challenging stare. “Maxine Winter,” she said by way of introduction. “My friends call me Maxie. Play your cards right and you might work your way up to it.” She reseated herself on the stool by the piano. “Severus Snape, I presume?”

Severus nodded. “The same,” he said crisply, brain racing as he tried to think of where he’d seen her before. “You were in Cairo,” he said at last. “The night we defeated Hatshepsut. Singing Duke Ellington.” He studied the mural - rickety card table, deserted piano and trap set, string bass on its side in the background like a reclining woman. “Where’s your band?”

“Elsewhere,” Maxie said shortly. “And now that I’ve satisfied your curiosity, why don’t you satisfy mine? What the hell are you doing here?”

Even on the best of occasions, Severus balked at trading verbal badinage with the artwork. With Hermione’s weeping echoing in his ears like angry surf, he simply didn’t have the energy to be duplicitous. “She keeps crying,” he said, his voice low and almost accusatory. “Can’t you hear it? I can - from the next continent over. And I can’t bear it. That’s why.”

“She doesn’t know it’s you.”

Merlin in a catsuit, how many times was he going to have to repeat this conversation today? “I know,” he snapped. “She thinks I’m Bill Weasley. Well, I’m not, and I can’t be, and believe you me, I’d bring him back in a heartbeat if I could, if it meant I’d be able to get a decent night’s sleep. But that’s never going to happen. I don’t like this any more than you do.”

“She doesn’t think you’re Bill.”

He frowned, the wind taken out of his sails. “She doesn’t? But that first night - she said - she called me -”

“Give her some credit,” Maxie said without heat. “She slept with the man every night for six years, didn’t she? She ought to know when it’s him and when it’s not.”

“Then she-” Severus felt fear and relief spiral through him in equally dizzying parts. “Then she knows it’s-”

“No.” Maxie looked at him hard. “Though possibly that should be remedied before the sun comes up.” She readjusted her snug red skirt about her bare knees. “She thinks you’re a priest,” she said, and smiled grimly as Severus gaped at her.

“She thinks I’m what?”

“The last occupant of this flat was a priest, and he died while living here.” Maxie rolled her eyes. “She found out from the kid next door, and it’s got her thrown off track. She thinks she’s being cuddled by the ghost of m’sieur le curé, and she’s having a hell of a time rationalising the fact that her phantom lover leaves a warm dent in the pillow to mark his passing.”

She lowered her voice to a meaningful whisper. “I don’t know what your intentions are,” she said. “Though if Albus Dumbledore chose you to be her Secret-Keeper, I’m willing to believe you don’t mean her harm. But this has to stop. She’s half-mad with grief already, and this bedroom charade isn’t exactly conducive to sanity. You want to come cuddle her out of her nightmares, fine. Be my guest. But for God’s sake, tell her who you really are. This is getting ridiculous.”

Severus had had enough.

“Don’t you think I would if I could?” he hissed. “Believe me, Apparating into other people’s beds under false pretenses isn’t on my Top Ten list for this evening’s preferred activities. If I thought for one moment that she’d accept comfort from me, I would certainly offer it to her. But I’m the last person Hermione Granger wants to see in Paris. The minute she finds out who her ‘ghost’ really is, all hell is going to break loose.”

“Damn right it is.”

The voice came from behind him. He and Maxie exchanged panicked glances, then spun as one to face the doorway.

They’d been so intent on their argument, Severus realised, that they hadn’t noticed when Hermione’s crying had stopped. It was hard telling how much she’d heard from the door; from the white, strained look on her face, she’d heard enough.

“Miss Granger,” he said weakly, and saw her jaw clench.

“Professor Snape.” She wrapped her arms around her thin torso, trembling against the door frame in an attempt to keep her voice even. It shook anyway. “What a … pleasure.”

Ruthlessly, he swallowed the apologies that tripped to his tongue; it wasn’t going to help either of them for him to fall apart too, no matter how defensive he felt. “You’d better sit down,” he said, wincing at the cold edge in his voice. “I’m afraid I owe you an explanation.”

“That you do,” she said, her voice as icy as his. “But I’m afraid I don’t want to hear it. Get out.”

This, Severus hadn’t expected. “What?”

“They’re small words, Professor. Not much chance you can misunderstand them, even as thickheaded and disregarding of my feelings as you obviously are. Get. Out.”

He took a step toward her. “Hermione-“

“No!” She was shaking with anger, her eyes blazing. “You - degenerate. You - pervert. You - you sneak. You betrayed me. You lied to me.”

“Hermione, listen. I never meant …”

“Go away.” Her voice was harsh, the end of each word on the point of breaking. He’d never seen her eyes so cold, so dead. “I never want to see you again. Just … go … away.”

She had slid down the doorframe to sit on the floor, and was huddled into a trembling pajama-clad ball, head buried in her knees. Severus took a step toward her, and was halted by a warning shake of Maxie’s head.

“Not now,” she mouthed, her dark eyes almost sympathetic as she took in the look on his face. “Not yet. Just go. She’ll come round.”

Severus wasn’t so sure of that.

But he left anyway.

**