Love Will Lead Us

Love Will Lead Us

Disclaimer: The characters in this story do not belong to me, they belong to J. K. Rowling and her assorted publishers, long may they thrive. I\'ve just borrowed them for a bit to play.

Author\'s note: I\'ve been taken with the SS/NT pairing for a couple of weeks. If you don\'t care for it, please don\'t read. Also, please be gentle with any reviewing if you *do* read. I\'m posting this after a somewhat lenghthy absence from the fanfic world (of any flavor). This is the first thing I\'ve written in a long time that has any kind of \"flow\" to it. Stuff I\'ve tried recently was more along the lines of \"Fun With Dick And Jane,\" you know, \"See Spot run\" \"Verb Noun Verb.\" UGH. My muse has been in hiding for a while.

Also, this is \"self-beta\'d\" if there is such a thing. Can\'t blame any mistakes on anyone but me!


Chapter 1


Severus lay still in on his bed at Grimmauld Place, breathing in the warmth of the room, feeling the warmth of the bed. He was almost beyond coherent thought, simply a creature luxuriating in simple warmth...

Unfortunately, memories of the previous evening began to intrude.

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The Dark Lord had been in a jovial mood, so he was able to get away from the Death Eater meeting mostly in one piece. His body ached from the Cruciatus, but it had only been a light \"dose\" of the Dark Lord\'s seemingly favorite medicine. His right side and ribs were only a little bruised from where his old \"friend\" Lucius Malfoy had kicked him with one of his pointed boots as Snape writhed on the ground in pain from the Dark Lord\'s curse.

He managed to apparate outside of Grimmauld Place and stumbled up the steps into the building when it appeared. Once inside, he leaned against the wall of the darkened foyer, taking deep breaths, wincing when side and ribs protested. He mentally prepared himself for the grilling he would get in the kitchen by his fellow Order members. His pride was such that he did not wish to appear weak in front of his peers, he didn\'t think he could take any solicitude or pity that evening. He wanted to give his report and then make his way up to the rooms set aside for him. He wanted to sleep and forget the atrocities he had witnessed that evening.

He walked into the kitchen and was greeted by Albus\' concerned, \"my boy...\" Snape held up his hand asking for silence as he told them what had transpired that evening. Nothing new, except for more dead Muggle bodies at Malfoy Manor. Nothing new, Voldemort\'s megalomania continued to boil, but showed no signs yet of overflowing the pot into mayhem on a larger scope than dark revels and the occasional Muggle killing.

As he was speaking, he noticed that most of the persons present were looking away from him, either at their hands, or staring off into space, trying to distance themselves from what he was telling, from what he was stained by.

Only some were brave enough to look at him. Albus regarded him gravely. Snape knew that out of everyone present Albus was suffering with him, not just suffering his presence as some of the others were. Albus, and apparently, Molly Weasley as well. Her eyes filled with tears and overflowed as she looked at him with motherly concern. Snape almost grinned at the thought of Albus and Molly being his parents rather than the miserable excuses for parents that he had had.

As he finished his dry recital of the evening\'s grue, he became aware of a third set of eyes gazing at him, unblinking. Odd-colored eyes, he noted, one blue, the other a golden brown.

In the absolute silence following his tale, he looked over to see who else had the temerity to look at him, schooling his face into a sneer. Tonks. She had a small frown on her face that was offset by the bright sherbet orange hair topping her head. She was quite pale from what he had just told them, or it may have just been a side-effect of the goth attire she was wearing.

Her regard was unnerving. He stared back, his eyes challenging her to say anything. She blinked once and slid off the stool she had been sitting on, walked over to him and did the unthinkable.

Wrapping her arms around his bruised torso, Tonks hugged him. Burying her face in his cloak she held him with as much of her petite person as she was able. He made to push her away, but couldn\'t seem to escape her firm grasp.

He stiffened, opening his mouth to say something scathing. The scathing he was about to inflict upon Tonks dried up as his body gave way to the effects of the evening and began to shudder. She held him even tighter, making his ribs ache, but he didn\'t push her away. He couldn\'t. He was dimly aware that Molly was shooing everyone else out of the kitchen, clucking at those who seemed to want to linger to observe the odd spectacle of Snape struck speechless. Of Snape being \"hugged.\" It was too much.

Severus drew a deep breath, preparing to utter insult. Instead, his breath left his body in a half-sob half-sigh as he collapsed against Tonks. Supporting his weight, she steered him towards a nearby chair and set him down in it.

She crouched down on the floor and wearily looked up at his half-closed eyes. \"Wotcher, Sev,\" she said softly.

\"Miss Tonks. Nymphadora,\" he sneered, looking down the considerable length of his nose at her. \"Of all the abominations of this evening, being called \'Sev\' is the worst...\" The tirade that he had quickly and lovingly prepared in his head to disabuse her of any notion of his being in any way vunerable ground to a halt as he regarded her.

She was looking up at him, her eyes sparkling with tears, her mouth compressed in an effort to keep those tears from falling. She murmered something, her chin quivering.

He shook his head. He could have sworn she said \"glad you made it back in one piece, Sev...I was worried.\" Worried?

\"Miss Tonks, you have no need to \'worry\' over me,\" he ground out with a sneer firmly on his face, refusing to be an object of pity.

\"Oy, you old bat,\" she grinned a small grin at him as her tears overflowed. \"You\'re not that bad off if you\'re back to sniping.\" She stood and turned her back to him, wiping away the tears. \"How \'bout some hot tea?\" she muttered over her shoulder.

He watched her lithe figure as she quickly poured a cup before he could refuse her. He flinched slightly watching her, knowing her clumsiness when it came to objects made of china, or any objects in her path.

\"Bat?\" He looked up at her, quirking an eyebrow as she flawlessly handed him demitasse and saucer.

\"Bat.\" She confirmed with a small, watery chuckle.

\"Nymphadora...\" he drawled out her name after a sip of tea, his mouth no longer dry.

His mouth and sneering words dryed up promptly as she had stepped behind him and now dug her small hands into his shoulders, unerringly finding the worst knots in his muscles. For the third time in a short space of time she had rendered him mute, or almost mute, as he groaned in response to her worrying a particularly tightly-knotted muscle in his upper back.

\"There, Sev, you\'ll feel better once I\'m done.\"

Sneering again, he opened his mouth,\"...\"

And, dropping his cup and saucer, yelped in pain instead as she pummeled a particularily resistant group of muscles.

\"Miss...Tonks,\" he gasped as she worried his back. \"I... assure you... I have... enough bruises...with out your... abusing...me furth....\" And gasped again as a golden warmth began to seep through the muscles she had managed to unknot. The relief from the stiff pain in his shoulders and back was more unbearable than the pain itself. He squeezed his eyes shut as tears threatened to overflow his eyes. Panting, he bent over his knees, hugging them, fighting for control, overwhelmed by a flood of feeling.

\"And I thought I was the klutz, look what you did to Molly\'s china,\" she gently chided him as she cleaned up the tea-soaked mess. Closely watching his hunched-over form, she continued in a light tone, \"I dated a Muggle a while back, a masseur. He\'s the one that taught me how to work on some of the deeper muscle groups, get \'em loosened up.\"

She paused for a moment, debating with herself about what she was about to say. \"He was of the belief that we store our negative emotions in our muscles when we don\'t confront them, that\'s why we get tense. I used to have some awful backaches until that man magicked them away...\"

Tonks came back over to the chair where Severus was still bent over. Extending a trembling hand, she gently stroked the back of his head and whispered, \"Let go, Severus, just let go. I won\'t tell anyone...\"

His body shook as he fought to suppress the awful grief he felt. He was dimly aware that Tonks was now kneeling by his chair, an arm wrapped around his shoulders. A groan of anguish broke from his throat and he slid off the chair into Tonk\'s arms. She slid down to the floor off her knees and sat cross-legged, holding as much of him as she could in her lap. He buried his face in her ribs, shook and wept until his body and conciousness shut down...

Seemingly an eternity later he came back to himself. His eyes still closed, he tried to figure out where he was. What he felt of where he was seemed highly unlikely, so he opened his eyes slowly to bring himself back to reality. And opened his eyes to warm skin.

Severus raised his head from Tonk\'s shoulder. He leaned back a bit and saw that his arms were wrapped around her in a death grip. Tonks, wearied by her own evening adventures and apparently unperturbed by his clutches, had fallen asleep. Her mouth hung open, and a small huffing snore was emitted. The snore startled her awake and she jerked, her eyes flying open.

She looked at the man sprawled across her lap and reached up her hand, brushing his tangled hair off his face. She grinned at him and tweaked his pale nose. \"Not even red. You\'re lucky, I always look like I\'ve had the worst cold and chapped nose when I cut loose with the waterworks.\"

\"Tonks...\" he retorted threateningly.

\"With that conk you\'ve got,\" she snickered, ignoring the snarl in his voice, \"you\'d outdo Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer and Santa\'d hire you on the spot.\"

\"Rudolf?...\"

\"Muggle reference, never mind. It\'s a awesome, beautiful schnazz. I\'ve always liked big noses on men.\"

\"Tonks.\"

\"Hmmmm?\"

\"Leave my nose out of this.\"

\"I\'ve even heard it said that men endowed with big conks are, urm, amply endowed...elsewhere,\" she chuckled and burst out laughing at her own witticism, or perhaps in relief that the somber mood in the kitchen had lifted.

\"You are easily amused, I see,\" he murmured and half-smiled up at her.

Her laughter stopped as she looked down at his amused eyes. She opened her mouth to say something. Changing her mind, she closed her mouth and planted a small kiss on his nose. Looking into each other\'s eyes, the long moment seemed to extend into a small eternity of unspoken thoughts and unexpected feelings.

Suddenly realizing he was still in her lap, he quickly let go of her and rolled away onto the floor. The sudden contact of his ribs with hard tile made him gasp.

Tonks, moving quickly in her solicitude, emitted a small gasp herself as she rose too quickly out of her cramped cross-legged position. \"Here, Severus, let\'s get you up, and into a proper bed. This floor is too damn cold and hard for you to nap on.\" She grunted with effort as she helped the prone wizard drag himself upright and off the floor.

She wrapped his arm around her small strong shoulders, holding him firmly as he mutely tried to push away her assistance. \"Hush, now, let Mama Tonks help you upstairs.\"

His only reply was a snort as she helped him across the kitchen floor and out to the stairs.

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The sunlight shining persistently through the window kept him from falling back asleep. He closed his eyes against the bright light and cautiously rolled onto his back and slowly started stretching his protesting muscles. As he stretched out his left arm, he encountered warm flesh and events of the previous night came flooding back...

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A/N: Don\'t worry, lemony goodness to come! That\'s why it\'s here, rather than at other fanfic sites.