LAST TANGO IN PARIS
Chapter Five

 On a clear day, they could see Canada.

Great-Uncle Nestor had chosen his plot of property well, Severus thought; if ever a man had wanted to remove himself from the human race, it had been his great-uncle, and if ever there’d been a place where that was possible, it was this one. A hundred and twenty acres of pristine virgin-forest mountaintop, it was warded all round its perimeter with Weather Charms that had been in place for the better part of the century and stocked with enough carnivorous wildlife to eat Kansas City like a canapé … meaning that no one – and by that, he meant no one – ever tried to breach the interior of his sanctum. Not hunters, not fishers, not even the brash young extreme-sports enthusiasts who haunted nearby Glacier National Park from November till May with their designer backpacks and space-age snow gear.

And certainly not the locals.

As far as he knew, the residents of the small town at the base of the mountain thought their peak to be uninhabited; after all, there wasn’t so much as an access road, or even a hiking trail, leading up to the top. And it wasn’t like Severus had broadcast his existence, either, in the three-and-a-bit years he and Sal had been living there.

It was like Sal pointed out – why shop at the ma-‘n’-pa in poky little Brush Pine, when you had an Apparation license? Not like you’re planning to walk down the mountain, anyway, he’d said. Why settle for green bananas, when you can get them ripe right off the tree?

Despite the inherent good sense in this argument, Severus had been cautious at first, only Apparating as far for their fortnightly groceries as the big supermarket in Helena that had the organic-produce section and the two aisles devoted to imported specialty foods. That way, at least – he told Sal – they could keep some decent tea in stock … innovative as the Yanks had proven to be about a hundred other things, he just couldn’t get behind Lipton tea bags.

But then, inevitably, came the Frivolous Side Excursions, brought on by a seemingly innocent fireside fantasy one blustery snowbound afternoon in February: wouldn’t it be nice, Severus had said lazily, if he’d thought to pick up a box of cigars, before he left town?

Mm, Sal had agreed, opening one eye. What’s stopping you, then? I hear Havana’s wonderful this time of year.

That had been the first one – one moment snug in the flickering firelit cabin with its snow-silvered windows, the next gasping in the brutal humidity of a Havana street corner. The cigars were worth it, though, and the experience opened the door to a previously-unconsidered world of delicacy-inspired decadence: California oranges, red wine from French vineyards, Colombian coffee beans, Greek olives cured in oil, vanilla-sweet cannoli – creamy and melting in their crisp sugary tubes of pastry – brought back boxed and still warm from a side-street bakery in Little Italy.

Books. From everywhere.

It was a sweet life, made sweeter by his ability to – in the midst of chair-napping, or playing chess with Sal, or crunching out to refill the birdfeeders, or unpacking the Chinese takeout they’d called to San Francisco for – stop everything, look at his watch, and say to himself: ah, yes. It’d be the Hufflepuff fourth-years right about now.

Yes, life was good – and he’d known it would be, that was the thing. Which was why he’d ignored all hints, gentle and otherwise, to leave a forwarding address when he left Hogwarts … and why he’d gone to such great lengths to renew the Unplottability on Great-Uncle Nestor’s cabin.

Still, if Albus Dumbledore wanted to find you, he probably could. Which was why it didn’t come as such a great shock, to look up one afternoon from the delights of an open-air vegetable stand on the Baja Peninsula, and to see him standing there.

**

"Hullo, Albus," he said guardedly, and got a mellow smile in return.

"Severus. You’re well?"

"Quite, thanks." Severus looked down at the tomato he’d just picked up, examined it mechanically for soft spots, and put it into his basket. "And you?"

I’m not going back, he wanted to say. I’m not going back to teaching, ever again. And don’t you dare ask me; I’ve paid my dues to you.

But he didn’t, and perhaps he hadn’t – can you ever repay someone, after all, for saving your life?

Hard to say.

"Well enough," Dumbledore said, "well enough."

They stood looking at each other in the hot July sunshine, surrounded by the lazy hum of insects and the rich acidic smell of tomato vines. Severus, who had gotten into the habit of wearing Muggle clothes around the cabin, but nevertheless couldn’t wrap his brain around the idea of wearing them out in public (he’d had quite enough of that in Rome, thank you very much), compensated for the heat during his shopping expeditions South by changing into his lightest summer-weight robes – still black, naturally – and adding the precaution of a white clergyman’s collar. In addition to staving off Muggle curiosity about the rest of his clothing, this little dab of white at his throat had the side benefit of assuring him a sumptuous discount at Doña Elena’s produce stand; Severus had been most embarrassed last December, when he’d stopped in on a whim for some green chilies and had gotten home to find she’d slipped two jars of homemade strawberry preserves into his bag, along with a Christmas card addressed to el padre generoso, showing the Holy Family picked out in gilt against a blue flocked-velvet background.

Amusing, this … especially in retrospect; Sal had insisted that he save the card, which was still taped to the freezer-compartment door of the cabin’s refrigerator, surrounded in magnetic poetry doodles. Now, however, Severus found his disguise merely awkward – especially since Dumbledore was tricked out for the occasion in beachcomber’s drag: Bermuda shorts and Birkenstocks, covered by a violently flowered Hawaiian shirt that reached nearly to his bony knees and hung open in front to reveal coy glimpses of a lily-white, gently concave chest, behind the snowy curtain of his beard.

You look like Jerry Garcia’s grandfather, Severus thought, and heaved a mental sigh: leave it to Dumbledore, and that damned self-confidence of his, to pull off an outfit like that one. Mildly disheartening that it still bothered him, that the old Headmaster could still make him feel stuffy and pedantic by comparison, even when they’d barely said two words apiece.

"Is everyone well?" he asked finally, to break the silence. "At Hogwarts?"

Dumbledore looked grave. "At Hogwarts, yes," he said, after a bit of a pause. Severus felt one eyebrow shoot up; apparently, he thought with a touch of aspersion, merely seeing Albus in the flesh was enough to bring out his long-dormant Teacher Face.

"And elsewhere?" he persisted. Albus shook his head.

"I can’t imagine that you’d have heard," he said, idly rubbing a bit of tomato leaf between his thumb and forefinger, "and it’s sad news, no doubt about it. It’s the Weasleys, Severus."

Severus frowned. "Arthur and Molly?"—and then, as Dumbledore shook his head, a bright hard stab of comprehension nearly made him drop his basket.

"Hermione," he said, and just the sound of that long-silent name on his lips made a cold shiver tap-dance up his spine. "What’s happened? She’s not—"

"Severus." Dumbledore passed a weary hand over his eyes, and suddenly the bright loud Muggle clothes looked strange on him, like a red rubber nose on a corpse. "Pay for your tomatoes," he said, "and let’s go. I need to talk to you and Sal together."

**

"The Fidelius Charm?" Severus asked, incredulous. "Are you mad?"

They were at the butcher-block table in the cabin’s skylit kitchen, drinking Chianti from a straw bottle and eating chili so heavily spiced with cayenne that even the Perlucioed version of it was turning Sal pink around the edges. Dumbledore spooned a bit of his onto a saltine and chewed ruminatively, his eyes closed, before answering.

"That," he said, "would probably be a matter of opinion. But in this instance? No, I don’t think I’m mad." He took a sip of his wine. "We’re not the most innovative group of people in the world, wizards aren’t," he said. "We only really change something when we have to, when it doesn’t work anymore."

Another sip, a faraway look. "It’s always been true that the structure surrounding the Fidelius was flawed – ever since its inception, we’ve known it. But it was so difficult to master, and so rarely performed, that the problems weren’t readily apparent … until James and Lily." He sighed. "To the best of my knowledge, no one’s used it since – not for anything important, anyway."

"Can you blame them?" Severus asked, and Dumbledore shook his head.

"No – it was well and truly bungled, all right." He reached for another stack of saltines. "But apart from that individual situation, the Charm itself was flawed. Too much pressure on one person, mostly. That’s why I’ve changed it."

Sal, who’d been staring moodily into his Perlucioed wineglass – he hadn’t said much, ever since they’d heard about the attack on Hermione in Cairo – looked up at that. "Changed it?" he said. "How?"

Dumbledore looked a bit more cheerful. "It was Miss Granger’s situation in Alexandria last year that gave me the idea," he said. "I confess I hadn’t given Duathor bint-Hussein much thought in the past – she’s more historically interesting from a Potions standpoint, generally speaking, and that’s never been my subject – but it was deucedly clever, the way she used that Dividing Spell. And I thought, the other day … why not try that on something other than a book?"

Severus, in the act of pouring himself some more Chianti, froze with the bottle tipped halfway to the glass. "Like a Charm?" he asked, and Dumbledore nodded happily.

"Got it in one."

Severus set the bottle down heavily. His mind was racing. "So that’s why you wanted to talk to both of us together," he said. "You want each of us to take on half of the Charm." He frowned. "But –"

"Yes?"

He shot a quick glance at Sal. "I thought the Fidelius Charm would only work on a Secret-Keeper with a living soul," he said. "Doesn’t that preclude spirits?"

Dumbledore smiled.

"It has in the past," he said. "But then—"and here, he glanced pointedly at the other side of the table, where Sal was swilling wine from a ghostly glass—"most ghosts don’t sit down to meals, either, and you seem to have gotten around that."

"You can’t Perlucio a spell," Severus argued, and got a shrug for an answer.

"No. But what that handy little charm demonstrates," Dumbledore said, "is that everything exists on both a corporeal and a spiritual level." He took another bite of chili and closed his eyes again as the bite of the peppers hit his tongue. "And that’s the fault line along which I intend to Divide the charm."

"Fine," Severus said sharply, a little nettled by Dumbledore’s offhand manner. "But then, that begs the question – why us? Aren’t there plenty of ghosts at Hogwarts? Plenty of wizards? I’d think Arthur Weasley would be banging down the door to be Hermione’s Secret-Keeper, along with his wife and daughter and every one of his remaining sons. Not to mention every teacher at Hogwarts – we all liked Bill. Aren’t you travelling a bit far afield?"

"Bill’s not the issue anymore," Dumbledore said with a warning in his voice, and Severus wondered, not for the first time, how he did it – how all that facile hail-fellow-well-met business could fade in a heartbeat to carefully-banked anger and a rush of power that slapped at you across the table, even as he drew it in again. "Hermione is. And you and she were … close, were you not?"

Severus blew out a breath. "We were," he admitted. "Though I don’t see why that –"

"Don’t you?" Dumbledore rubbed his eyes wearily. "That’s why the Potters chose Sirius, after all, even though I offered – he and James were so close they practically dreamed the same dreams." He shook his head. "That’s why I never understood why they switched … but never mind that now. The stronger the bond, the stronger the Charm, Severus. Like a million other things. And she loved both of you."

"How is she?" Sal asked suddenly. Dumbledore shook his head.

"Too quiet," he said. "Too thin. She’s at Hogwarts right now, until we can get the Fidelius in place, and she doesn’t have enough to do there. She’s not learned to grieve yet, and now to lose not only her husband but her freedom – to be denied even the support of her family, for fear of endangering them …" He shrugged. "Even for a quick student, it’s a hard lesson."

"Can’t you keep her safe at Hogwarts?" Severus asked. "It worked for Potter, after all."

"Harry needed an education," Dumbledore said. "He needed to know who he was. Hermione knows who she is – she doesn’t need shelter right now, so much as she needs a purpose."

"A purpose," Severus repeated. "And what’s that, pray?"

"In the short term? Altruistic work – she’ll be a doctor in her friend’s clinic – and the continuation of her research. After she’s got that sorted out …"

"Yes?"

Dumbledore shrugged. "You know her as well as, or better than, I do," he said. "Do you really think for a minute she’s not eventually going to track them down, and make them pay?"

"Revenge?" Severus rolled his eyes. "Not a very Gryffindor sentiment, Albus."

"We Gryffindors," Dumbledore said, "prefer to call it justice." He took a pointed swig of his Chianti. "Are you in, then? Sal? Severus?"

"I’m in," Sal said, and Severus, meeting the old ghost’s eyes across the table, grimaced and conceded defeat.

"I’m in," he said. "But I still don’t like it."

**