Falling Stars, Part 5
Title: Falling Stars
Rating: PG, Angst
Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?

Falling Stars, Part 5

“And you say that he was willing to do that?” Juliette stared at Severus with a look that was equal parts irritation, mystification, and sadness.

“He was willing to simply throw his life away on a single interpretation of a prophesy? How dim is this child?”

Chuckling at her mildly irreverent wit and amused that she’d make a comment like that about the cherished boy-who-lived, Severus stared at his diminutive wife, feeling somehow relieved that she had not falsely improved her appearance in the intervening years. The early gray that dimmed her once ebony hair felt familiar to him as though he had been with her to watch each hair turn. It mattered not that crows feet and age spots finely decorated the skin beneath her eyes; he still found her handsome. The sharpness in her eyes had not faded a twinkle, though it did have a taint of worry and sadness. The creases in her forehead, too, were new and spoke of worries and stresses that he would ask her to share if she could come to terms with how their life would have to be if she joined him in his new duty.

A life on the run was what he and Potter most likely faced, at least until Minister Fudge was removed from office… and from power. In truth, the boy –when they spoke that morning- seemed ready to thank him and go off on his own- to live as a hermit in the forbidden forest until the prophesy was no longer a threat. It had taken Severus nearly two hours to be certain that he had finally and fully convinced the boy that the only way past the prophesy was through it, which meant living under Severus’s protection.

“It is not actually matter of intelligence: he’s simply a Gryffindor.” he answered smirking comfortably as he watched the humor spark in her steel grey eyes.

“Oh, Merlin, No. A Gryffindor. What a burden.” When her hand came up to dramatically cover her face, Severus’s throat suddenly tightened with anger.

“Juliette?” he choked out, as he pulled her hand down and traced a trembling finger down a long jagged curse scar that ran between the tips of her fingers down the back of her palm, and across her wrist. “H-h-how did you come by this?”

Whoever had cursed his wife was going to suffer years of misery.

“It wasn’t Alfred… was it? I have known him to be cruel. But, you are of pure-blood; I wouldn’t have sent you to him otherwise. I was sure that he would not dare.”

“No, Severus, it was not your cousin, but one of his guests.”

“Who was it? How dare anyone hurt you? You were his guest. My wife. Family. Why didn’t he defend you?”

Alfred should have known his duties and protected her with his very life. She was his family. Irrational anger aimed both at Alfred and at his guest surged through Sevrus, nearly overwhelming his self-restraint, and - if it were not for his duties to Potter- he would have immediately apparated to his cousin’s manor to take the man to task. It was absolutely unthinkable that a guest should distress a family member of the host, much less actually harm one – not matter what the provocation. His hand ached to do the small jerk that would pull his wand from its wrist sheath. His mind coursed with numerous curses that could be used to take appropriate revenge, and …

The almost ice-cold touch of her palm on his cheek brought him out of his rage.

“Severus, don’t. There is something much more important that you can do for me than get revenge.”

“What?” he quickly suppressed his rage – willing to give any reparation she asked for to compensate for his not being there to protect her much less sending her there in the first place.

“Forgive me.”

“Miss Granger said that you claimed to want my forgiveness, but I know of no reason why you should feel the need to ask for it. Even if there were another – it has been seven years since we even wrote to each other. I have not expected that you would stay unattached.”

“No!” She answered sharply. “No, that I would not do. Anyway, you should know that I am not well-suited for other men. They want delicate creatures to hang off their arms and coo at there inanities. No that is not it, but Severus, you might consider it worse.”

Startled by the sudden upsurge of relief at her comment, he studied her carefully, wondering what she might consider worse.

“Tell me.” He grimaced at how tense his voice sounded.

“Do you remember the winter that we went to Dover? Six months before the Potters were murdered?”

Severus nodded cautiously. Merlin, but Dover was haunting him this week.

“Do you remember that there was something that I wished to tell you?”

Thinking back, Severus wasn’t sure that he did, but he did remember there being an odd sort of urgency to her behavior.

“And the months following? When I was hiding here in Hastings? You had forbidden me to contact you because you were afraid that I could be used against you?”

“No, that wasn’t precisely it; I feared more that you could have been hurt if someone tried to – not that you could be. Juliette, I would have then and still would exchange my life for yours.”

The anguish and pain in her eyes shocked Severus thoroughly, despite her lightly worded response: “Ayhhh, your Gryffindor is already mellowing you – such melodrama, such maudlin thoughts.”

“Juliette…”

“No, let me speak. Severus, when we met in Dover, I had asked you to come so that I could tell you that I was five months pregnant with our child. A daughter. Three months later, she was premature and the healers weren’t certain if either of us would survive because of a bleeding condition that I’ve carried from my mother’s side. By the time we were released, the Potters had been killed; you had been picked up by the ministry and were going to be tried in a few months time; and anyone with any relation or association to a perceived or suspected death eater was being harassed both officially and unofficially. Severus, I couldn’t cope with it all. I let my sister talk me into giving Celeste to her to raise. “

“Then, after you were freed, you convinced me that it wasn’t safe for you to acknowledge our marriage, yet, so I kept it from you. I was afraid that you would want to take her to Hogwarts and raise there, so that you could keep an eye on her and protect her. For all your many complaints against Gryffindors, there are times when you suffer from some of the same protective urges as they do. You do! In any event, I have never felt that Hogwarts was as safe as you seemed to believe. That’s why I turned you down in Dover. To me, having Professor Dumbledore there just made it the ultimate target. When your Gryffindor finally showed up, I was proven right a couple of times over. Then seven years ago, he came back and you sent me to your cousin for protection. Against Mariana’s judgment, I decided to take her with me.”

By the time that Severus had gotten over his shock, he was almost prepared to see the blaze of pain that crossed her face. Something had happened, and somehow, he knew that it had had to do with the curse scar. When she stayed silent, either expecting his condemnation, or unable to move forward without his help, he whispered softly: “I rarely find myself in the position of agreeing with Miss Granger and –in fact- find it almost distasteful to do, but in this one instance, I must say that she was entirely correct in her assurances. Juliette, do you really believe that I would have wanted our child to suffer like that? To have her come to a school where I was hated and she would probably have found it impossible to have friends? To have her made an open target to both sides? But, your right, I would have demanded that you bring her to me, to Hogwarts for I knew of no place safer. Your decision was well made, and needs no forgiveness. You need no forgiveness.”

“Oh, oh…oh.” She swallowed fiercely. “I do though, I – Severus – I made a mistake. A horrible mistake. I never told her. I never wanted her to know how he was, how prejudiced he was. I wanted her to grow up happy – with your family. The were the only extension of you she had, so I never told her. I never told her.”

“Told her what?” Severus coaxed his normally self-contained wife. To anyone else in the room, she would have seemed supremely composed, possibly stately. But, the hand Severus was holding was trembling so violently that he had to wrap in both of his. Her eyes were blinking rapidly with unshed tears, and her lips were pressed so tightly that he almost had to wonder if she was holding back a hiss of pain.

“Tell me, Juliette.” He commanded softly. “Tell me.”

“How they were. How they viewed muggles.”

Severus hadn’t realized that he had caught his breath until a slight buzzing in his ears reminded him that she hadn’t spoken in close to a minute. He had to shake his head to clear it, so he could understand. She had not told her daughter how prejudiced his family could be. In itself, that did not sound like a mistake that she would need forgiveness for unless…

“Juliette? What happened? Please... tell me what happened. Is she alright?”

His cousin had stepped aside and chosen not to defend his wife… and possibly his daughter. Severus knew of only one reason that he would, but his wife seemed beyond confirming it with her iron dark curls slowly dropping to cover her wrinkled face as it sunk into age-speckled hands – as though doing so could hide her from events that had already happened. But, in reality, he knew what happened. He knew from his own life. From his mother’s life. From his family’s treatment of her.

“She fell in love … with a muggle.” He stated, not needing to ask it as a question. The simplicity of his statement as well as the accuracy seemed to be enough to get her started again as she nodded.

“They killed him when they found out. Your cousin’s son and one of their guests. ‘Before something untoward happened.’ They said. But, she was… she was already. They would have had a son.” Her resolve finally broke and wells of tears poured down her cheeks.

Looking at her hand again, he knew the rest, but it burned in his throat until he said it.

“They cursed her, didn’t they?”

“Over and over, cruciatis, sectumsempra, agnio animus, reducto, but the cruciatis the most. Over and over again.” She continued to upset to recognize his flinch at hearing that one of the spells they had used was one that he had created. “Until she nearly died, too.”

“Where is she?” He could barely speak through the rage and torment ripping through his chest. When she suddenly stilled and looked up at him with something that was almost fear, Severus felt his heart plummet. For brief seconds, he had believed that was the worst of it.

“She… when she… I let them think that she had died. I had taken her to a healer, who said that she would protect Celeste until I could find better, safer accommodations for her, so I let your cousin think she was dead. Severus, I couldn’t send her back to my sister. Our families know each other two well. They would have known that she was still alive and could go to the ministry. So, I had to look for someplace else. I had to go, but … while- while I was away. She did something horrible. Severus, she poisoned them. She paid a serving girl that they had been abusing to let her into the manor, and she poisoned them. When I got back, I did the only thing I could think of to cover it up. I cast the dark mark in above the manor, set it on fire, and ran with her. The maid might say something, but I don’t know.”

Her story was finally finished. He could feel it as his nervous tension finally ebbed away.

“You did the right thing.” He answered even as he clutched a sweaty palm to his head.

“It was self defense. She had no choice.” The burning was rising in his throat again, but this time he realized that it wasn’t from emotion.

“Where is she?” But somehow he already knew, even before a dark haired- heavily scarred girl in a serving girls outfit stepped beside him.

“Right here, Dad. I’ve been serving you … tea… all night.”

When she set a tray on the table between them, beside the tea pot, a potions vial glowed sickly yellow and green.