Sub Rosa

Thanks to my reviewers whom I adore.

tamargrl - I have the story written to about chapter 35 so far, so don\'t worry that I will abandon my poor readers to their cruel fate. It somehow got a lot bigger than I first imagined it would.

sillymom - Thank you for your kind words, I do have a couple of other ideas for fics, but this one has grown so large that until I finish it they will have to wait.

Chapter 13 – Consequences

Severus received his latest owl with a snarl. Ever since that blasted Garden Party he had been inundated with invitations; some merely suggestive while others were, well…lewd. McNair’s wife had been blunt to the point of offense and Narcissa’s offer was frankly, terrifying.

He was flummoxed by the entire situation. He knew he was no matrimonial prize nor had he ever been such a center of feminine interest. Oh certainly, he had found women through the years who were neither put off by his manners or his looks and who were willing to engage in mutually satisfying arrangements, but these were infrequent occurrences.

Besides the fact that he found women who were interested in him a rare breed, there was also the Voldemort issue. To sleep with a woman usually involved removing his shirt at some point. Even at its faintest, the Dark Mark was only a turn-on to a certain kind of woman and that sort weren’t the ones he wanted. It was a dilemma he was quite used to.

Which is what made the present situation stunningly different from his usual life. He couldn’t imagine what had triggered this intense interest in him. He went to the Garden Party, he was polite, he was bored, and he knew of nothing he had done to warrant this onslaught. Kathryn had been polite; she…had talked with Narcissa for quite a long time.

Suspicion began to tickle his mind. She had been angry at what all the women had said about him. What had she saidat Nat Narcissa had made a comment about how kind she was to spend time with him. She had been enraged on his behalf, but she wouldn’t have… she didn’t… She couldn’t have…oh gods, what did she do?

Five minutes later found him banging on her chamber door, the letters grasped in one hand and his temper barely held in check.

“Enter, Severus.” She called from inside and the angel gave him a sleepy look as it drifted aside to let him in.

He stormed in, cloak flapping around him and stopped in shock at the sight that greeted his eyes.

Kathryn was sitting cross-legged on the floor with papers spread all around her. Pictures, graphs, charts and newspaper cuttings all littered the ground around her. She was in jeans and a t-shirt, her hair was tied up hastily and messily and she had a quill clamped between her teeth. She appeared to be making notes as she crawled around the floor.

“What are you doing?” He snarled. She looked up at him shock and he instantly regretted his tone.

“Analysis.” She responded curtly. She grabbed her cane from the floor and levered herself painfully to her feet. “Every situation has a pattern; there are connections to things that sometimes you can only see by placing things next to each other.” She pointed at an area of clippings -- “Recent Death Eater attacks.” She pointed to a nearby area -- “Reports from field agents.” He was directed towards another area -- “Histories of the fams ats attacked.” She looked back at him. “Somewhere in this room is the key to Voldemort’s thinking, the patterns of his mind, how he chooses his victims.” She handed him her notes and he realized they were actually arithmantic equations. “This is my analysis of his pattern so far.”

He stared at the paper in his hand in shock. He read the runes and symbols as they danced across the page, so far beyond him that he could only vaguely grasp what she was doing. From what he could understand of the abstruse equations, she was literally using arithmancy to map Voldemort’s thinking process. He shivered; the numbers were a frighteningly orderly and precise picture of a madman, but a madman with a plan and a system.

“This is incredible.” He whispered.

“Only if it works.” She said, pushing hair out of her face. She looked absolutely exhausted and he handed her back the papers with a small nod. She caught sight of the letters in his hand. “What’s all that?” Shked ked him puzzled.

He suddenly felt rather foolish for having been enraged over something so trivial while she was up here wrestling with a psychopath’s mind. Before he could withdraw them from her gaze, she had cocked her head and began to read the top page, the blush that rose up her neck and face alleviated some of his feelings of hard usage and he smiled.

“I seem to have acquired a fan club since the Garden Party at Malfoy Manor.” The flinch was tiny, but he ned ied it nonetheless. “Would you like to tell me about what you discussed with Narcissa?” Her eyes widened and then she sighed.

“I said nothing. She made a lot of guesses which I didn’t correct, but I didn’t actually say anything.” She responded, looking both defiant and embarrassed.

“Very Slytherin.” He chuckled. “What did you imply?” She relaxed a little at his chuckle, shrugged and settled herself into one of the green wing chairs in front of the fire. He settled ithe the opposite chair and waited.

“She said I was kind for spending time with you.” She flushed angrily at the memory and he felt warmed again by her instant defense of him. “I lost my temper.” She admitted and hunched a little in the chair. He raised an eyebrow. “I told her there were ‘compensations’ for spending time with you.” She was blushing now and he felt his jaw going a little slack. “I mentioned the correlation between size of nose and well…other parts of the male anatomy.” She trailed off and his jaw dropped completely. “After that she started guessing and I just looked innocent and smiled; everything after that was her invention.” She frowned. “Though it does make me wonder about Lucius.”

“Kathryn, you implied that we, that you and I, were…” He stared at her, stunned.

“They all talked about ys ths though you were some toad, Severus! It made me so angry; not one of them has your brilliance or your courage let alone your integrity! To listen to their self-congratulatory posing and their illiterate ramblings while they ran you down -- it was unbearable!” She trembled in her chair, fury writ large on every feature and he sat there, completely undone. He couldn’t speak he khe knew something maudlin and self-pitying would come out of his mouth if he opened it.

She slowly calmed down and then started to look concerned at his silence.

“Are you really mad at me?” Her voice was suddenly unsure and she was watching him with burgeoning fear. He shook his head, still unable to speak, but she relaxed some.

“Kathryn.” He didn’t know what to say. “Albus kept me from Azkaban eighteen years ago because he said he knew I wasn’t evil. He knew iten wen when I didn’t know it, he did.” He stopped, not sure he could continue.
Kathryn rose and began making tea, giving him the time to collect his thoughts. Watching her set the kettle on the hob to boil while the tea things came floating from the kitchen, listening to the rattle and clink of china, was soothing.

“Albus has known me since I was eleven years old. I could expect him to see things that even I didn’t see; besides he’s Albus.” They both chuckled at that. “You have now known me for only a little more than a month. I don’t understand how you can see me so clearly.” He trailed off again, but she nodded, handed him his tea and settled back into the chair with a small sigh and began to sip daintily.

“A little over a year ago, my partner betrayed me and left me for dead.” His head jerked up as she began to speak in the flat tone reserved for things too painful to even think about. “I knew it was coming. I let it happen.” He stared at her, suddenly scared. “I was so consumed with guilt about Cairo, so convinced I was at fault for his breakdown, his weaknesses, for all the deaths and all the horror, that I was willing to die if it could save him, if it could appease the angry dead. It was appallingly stupid of me.” She shook her head as if to clear it and he sipped his tea, shaken from his stillness into motion.

“I was dying and I knew it and suddenly I could very clearly see all the choices and decisions that had brought me to that moment.” He nodded in perfect understanding. He remembered his own moment of near suicide and epiphany. “When I finally recovered enough to know I was going to live, I was so relieved, so happy and also so profoundly grateful a sea second chance.” He nodded again, seeing in his mind the night, eighteen years ago, his head in Albus’ lap, weeping for all his mistakes and the words that gave him his second chance.

“Then I found out that I was crippled, that most likely I would never be a field agent again. I thought that I was being punished for my earlier mistakes; that the Universe was trying to make me pay for all the things I had done wrong.” He sat quietly feeling each thing as she said it, seeing the parallels between their lives, her leg crippling her career, his reputation and past crippling his.

“We are very much alike, you and I.“ He said softly.

“We are the same, Severus.” She smiled then with a sad, wise smile; the kind of smile that is bought with blood, grief and bitterness, the smile that comes with acceptance of the cost. He returned it and they sipped tea quietly, each deep in their own thoughts and memories long into the night.


The next morning he caught Draco grinning at him from the Slytherin table and he sighed. Now that he knew what Kathryn had set in motion, he understood the subtle jibes Draco had been aiming at him lately. He would have to deal with it, but he was unsure of how to do so exactly without endangering either Kathryn or his own self. Narcissa could be vicious if she thought she was being played.

His eyes drifted over the rest of the hall and his glance came to Potter and his retinue. Normally Potter could be counted on to glare or scowl at him, but today he just returned the look coolly and turned back to talk to Weasley. Granger actually gave him the tiniest of nods before returning to a conversation with Longbottom. It was unprecedented and he turned to Kathryn with suspicion in his eyes.

“Are you going to change the opinion of everyone in England about me?” He hissed to her. She looked up and then followed his eyes to the Gryffindor table. Her low chuckle was ahe rhe reply he needed. “How do you do it?” He asked sarcastically, but she took him seriously and cocked her head to one side in thought.

“I tell some truth and then let them judge for themselves.” She thought some more. “Then I remain neutral, trying to see every side; it’s an analyst thing, I’m afraid.” Her voice was so low even he had trouble hearing her and her cup of tea hovered in front of her mouth to hide the movement of her lips.

“So a little truth was enough ake ake Potter like me.” He muttered darkly.

“No, he still hates you; he just knows he has to work with you.” She turned and smiled sweetly at him. “He will be professional but I doubt he will ever be your best friend.” Severus almost choked on his coffee. The image of himself and Potter as best friends was unwelcome at best.

“Thank the heavens; I don’t think I could survive a friendship with the pride of Gryffindor.” He spat out the words with considerable venom.

“I only hope Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger manage to survive it.” Kathryn’s voice was perfectly serious and Severus nodded. The thought had occurred to him far too many times. How many would Potter take down with him, all unwitting?