Troublesome

As you very well may have noticed, this is the end of this one. Was a fun ride, let me assure you. Thank you to all of you who reviewed, and those of you who liked this story, I'd like to apologize for not posting it sooner for you. There was so much more I wanted to add to this story but I figured it'd be moot because it's all pretty much cut and dry. I really like to go through and add background stories for my characters, even if I don't add them to my story though in this case, I really wish I had. I know, I'm such a nerd.

At any rate here's the epilogue, I hope it's satisfying. I had originally started something completely different for it but decided to do something different. I've been going through this horrible depression and I guess I have been for some time now which is why this story is so dark. These past few months have been hell on earth so forgive me if this chapter isn't one hundred percent perfect.


Thirteen Years Later

Leilene, in all her years at Hogwarts, had never day dreamed during class. But today she feels sort of sleepy and she finds it hard to keep her eyes open as the Transfiguration professor lectures them. She’s a pretty young thing, had only started a couple of months prior.

“Leilene,” The Professor is saying. Leilene suddenly wakes up fully, embarrassed. She thinks she’s in trouble by the look on the Professor’s face but then she notices a prefect standing in front of the class. “You’re needed in the Headmistress’ office.”

Leilene stands, shaking a bit. She’s scared. She’s not sure what she’s done to be in trouble. She tries to think of what she’s done but she’s so nervous her mind merely stumbles over her memory. She’s not sure whether or not she should take her book bag, so she leaves it and follows the prefect out of the door and through the school.

“You’re not in trouble,” the prefect says. Leilene nods slowly, not sure what to say. She is scared. The prefect is trying to make her feel better but all she’s doing is scaring her even more. If she isn’t in trouble, what was going on? And then it hits her, as she enters the Headmistress’ office. Now Leilene isn’t a stupid girl. She was sorted in to Ravenclaw for a reason. Her whole body grows numb and it’s like some one has injected a stiff stick down her spine. She can’t move.

“Miss Prince,” The Headmistress says. “Please have a seat.” She’s gesturing to a chair in front of her desk. Leilene’s legs some how guide her to the chair and she sits just as her knees give out from under her.

“Leilene,” some one is saying. It doesn’t seem to be coming from any one standing in the office. Leilene looks up at the wall of portraits. All of them are empty except for one. “She’s gone. “

Leilene tries not to cry. But she can’t help it. She’s crying because her Gran is the only one she really has-had. The only thing she has left of her father is the portrait. She’s an orphan now. She knows it had to happen sometime. Gran had been sick for a while now. Leilene never thinks about her Gran dying. But it happened. Now what?

“I’m…I don’t want to go to an orphanage.”

“You don’t have to,” he says. “Leilene, this is Evelyn McAllister.” Leilene turns her head abruptly. There’s a woman, standing, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. Leilene stares for a moment. The woman is pretty, with blonde hair that is thick and hangs to her shoulders. Leilene thinks for a moment she’s looking at a mirror that shows her the future but the woman’s nose is much to short to be her own. “You’re going to go live with her.”

“Leilene,” the woman’s voice is soft and she’s biting her lip. Leilene brings a hand to her own lips; Leilene does the same thing when she’s thinking or nervous. What the woman is about to say, Leilene already knows. “I’m your mother. Your father and I agreed,” she glances nervously at the portrait as though she’s asking permission to talk about him. “We agreed that if something ever happened to Eileen or him that you’d come to stay with me.” The room is silent. Evelyn is staring nervously at Leilene as though Leilene might refuse. But how can she? Leilene nods and stares at her feet. She can feel the woman easing up.

“Miss Prince, I’ll allow you to go home with your mother tonight, if you wish,” The Headmistress says. Her voice is calm, not at all like her usual stern manner. Leilene doesn’t care. The Headmistress seems to pick up on this. “I’ll send your things along.”

“She loved you very much, Leilene. She would have wanted it this way,” her father’s portrait says. “I wish things could have gone differently, but this is how it is.”

Leilene stands and faces her mother. Her mother holds out something that’s glowing blue. It’s a Portkey. Leilene reluctantly puts a finger on it. As soon as she touches it, she starts spinning. She closes her eyes and when she opens them, she’s in front of a large house. Before she can take it all in, a cat comes bounding off the porch, meowing loudly.

“That’s Murray,” Evelyn says. Leilene bends down and scratches the black and white cat behind the ears. Murray begins to purr and meows loudly when Leilene stops. Leilene scoops the cat up in her arms and the cat closes it’s eyes, grateful for the attention. The cat stays put as they walk up the front walkway, Leilene lagging behind. Evelyn unlocks the door and steps inside. Leilene follows her in cautiously. This is her new home…why does she feel like she’s some sort of a Martian?

Because you are, she thinks to her self. She didn’t want you in the first place, anyway.

The house is quiet and neat. It’s not anything fancy but it’s quaint. Leilene takes in her surroundings, wondering to herself if she’ll like it here. Everything seems nice. There’s no evidence that any one else lives here.

“Your room is upstairs,” Evelyn says as she breaks the quiet. Leilene notices that Evelyn is looking at her in a peculiar way. Her eyes are shiny behind her wire framed glasses. Her mouth is some what slack. Leilene can see that Evelyn is still some what young, maybe only a little bit older than Professor Abbot but yet there is something old deep with in her. “I’m sorry…I haven’t seen you in so long…” She turns and leads Leilene up the stairs, down a hallway and at the very end of the hallway is a door. Evelyn opens the door and allows Leilene room to step in.

The room is not small but it is not large. It’s perfect for Leilene. The bed is a double mattress sitting on top of a wooden frame. It’s just big enough for Leilene to curl up and go to sleep on while she sat a book down beside her so she could pick it up first thing in the morning.

“I hope it’s big enough,” Evelyn says as she pulls the light blue curtains from the window.

“It’s just right,” Leilene says. Her voice feels foreign in the house. A million questions flood her mind. They are questions that she never thought she’d have a chance to ask. Often at night before she went to bed, Leilene wondered about her mother. She wondered who she was, what she looked like but most of all she wondered why. Why had Evelyn just given her up like she was a piece of old clothing that didn’t fit anymore? Leilene wants to be angry. She wants to want to scream and shout and call Evelyn awful names but Leilene knows that with out Evelyn there, she’d be a complete orphan. It is hard to hate some one when they were opening their home in a time of great need; like now. Above all else, Leilene is relieved.

Evelyn stares out of the window. Leilene notes how she seems to get lost in her own head. Leilene has the same problem only she knows how to control it. Sometimes it was alright to get away from reality. Perhaps, this was Evelyn’s problem, Leilene couldn’t help but think. She stays away from reality. She stayed away from me because I was too real.

“I know you must think I’m an awful person,” Evelyn says with out turning around. “And I’m sorry that I wasn’t around as I should have been. “

Leilene sits down on the bed and studies her mother’s back. Evelyn’s shoulders are slumped and she’s shaking slightly, as though she’s crying. But her voice is crystal clear. This woman, Leilene decides, has been through hell. She’s finally gotten over it and then this happens. Couldn’t Gran have waited a couple of years to die? Couldn’t she have waited until Leilene was out of school? That would certainly have made things much less complicated. Gran, Leilene thinks sadly yet fondly, is an inconvenient person even in death.

“It’s alright,” Leilene finally says. Evelyn turns around and faces her.

“No, it’s not. What I did to you…what I did to your father…was cruel. There’s no excuse for it. But I want to make it up to you. You’ll always have a home with me.”

Leilene is comforted by these words but yet there is something that it lacks. There was no way to make up for all the lost years. If Evelyn wants that she’s only hurting herself more. The only way to make up for lost time is traveling time its self and time travel is not an option. Leilene feels like telling her all of this. She feels like telling her that the only thing to do now is to get on with life. What is everyone’s obsession with the past? What good does regret do? Leilene wants answers but some how she knows that it’s not going to solve everything. A day at a time. A day at a time. A day at a time, a mantra that Leilene is all too familiar with.

“Do you have any more children?” Leilene wants to know. Evelyn shakes her head.

“No, I’m not able to anymore. My husband and I have thought about adoption but I always sort of knew I’d get you back.” Evelyn sits down next to Leilene.

Leilene knows how she came to be. Gran told her everything. Leilene isn’t sure how the conversation was started or if it even was a conversation to begin with. Gran loved to speak of her son and Leilene loved to listen. Leilene had vague memories of her father. It seemed that when ever Gran spoke of him, the memories would become stronger, more visible. She doesn’t remember what he looks like. She remembers the feeling of jubilation when ever he’d come home. What she remembers the most is the way his arms wrapped around her little body encompassing her making her feel safe and warm.

When ever Gran spoke of Evelyn, Leilene tried her hardest to remember something. The memories she has of Evelyn are not her own. The only memory she has of Evelyn is the picture Gran had given her for eleventh birthday to take with her to Hogwarts. It’s a picture of her father and Evelyn standing in Gran’s living room. Evelyn is holding her father’s hand and it’s apparent that she’s pregnant. Evelyn is biting her lip in the picture, looking every where else but at the camera. Leilene understands now that Evelyn was very young when she got pregnant and that Severus was not her first choice in a husband. Leilene is not angry. She understands. Father, Dad, what ever she calls him, is almost old enough to be Evelyn’s father.

“So, tell me about your life,” Evelyn says. Leilene stares at her for a moment. She isn’t quite sure how to answer her mother’s question.

“It’s been normal, I suppose. I spent most of it with Gran…” Leilene begins to feel a sinking feeling dropping down to the pit of her stomach. Her grandmother is gone. She will never come back. Not now, not ever. It’s hard to imagine, it makes Leilene feel so stricken with grief that she feels as though her head is about to implode. Gran was sick; she had been for a while. Leilene knew she’d die eventually but it never really occurred to her that it’d be so soon. Gran was such a strong woman and her death seems completely ridiculous. “I’m…going to miss her…”

“I understand,” Evelyn says. “She was a different sort of person, I’ll give her that much. Very stubborn if I remember correctly…Severus was got that from her.”

“You know, I remember once, Dad came home and he was hurt some how…Anyway, I remember him and Gran really getting into it because she was hovering over him, trying to patch him up.” Leilene smiles at the memory. The squabbling in her head is almost completely incoherent but she knows what’s going on, oddly. Evelyn smiles back at her and it throws Leilene off guard. It’s a worn sort of smile. It’s the smile of some one who was once troubled but has clawed their way to recovery, barely making it in time. Strangely enough, Leilene always expected Evelyn to have the smile Leilene had practiced so many times in front of her mirror. Evelyn’s smile was real.

“Do you remember your father much?”

“Some things, I guess. Gran talked about him a lot. She talked a lot about you too.” Evelyn frowns a bit. “But they were mostly good things. She said you were really pretty and nice even if you were a bit mixed up. She said you were a lot like her.”

“Funny, I never really got the impression that she liked me much.”

“Oh, that’s just Gran. She didn’t like much of any one but I think you earned her respect which should mean a lot more to you than her liking you.”

“She respected me?”

“She respected you for learning to live your own life despite the stones that weighed you down. She told me that.”

There are tears in Evelyn’s eyes now and she wipes at them, trying to disguise the fact that she had the ability to cry. Leilene merely observes her thinking to herself that Evelyn, Mum, what ever, probably hadn’t cried in a while. She needs it.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m so happy to see that you grew up with some one who loved you enough to tell you the truth. I wasn’t your mother, she was, but I’d like to be now. I never regretted you, not once. I regret the way I treated you and your father…If there is anything you want to know…anything…”

“It’s alright,” Leilene says as she shifts uncomfortably. This is not the sort of conversation she wants to be having. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself? What do you do for a living? What about your husband?” Leilene thinks that if she steers the conversation away from her that it will ease the tension. It works for the moment as Evelyn wipes at her eyes once more with a tissue she has conjured with her wand. She bites her lip and sniffles a bit.

“I’m a Healer, a psychologist if you will. I run a counseling service out of this house. My mother doesn’t approve and my father died a few years ago so he doesn’t really have much of an opinion. My husband’s name is Liam; he works at Saint Mungo’s as a Healer. We met while we were in school, before I got pregnant with you and during the war we opened an underground clinic to help those who had been injured by Death Eaters.”
“What house were you in at Hogwarts?” It’s a good start, Leilene thinks. Evelyn is starting to brighten up more and it’s a small step but Leilene finds her self able to think up more questions for her mother.

“I was in Slytherin. Your father was my teacher.”

Leilene blanches as something jolts within her. Gran hadn’t told her about that. The one little statement throws her completely off guard as though some one has taken a brick and thrown it at her head.

“Were you…when I was…”

Evelyn merely nods. “It was my fault, really. I was going through a hard time. Some how I involved Severus and you were…well…here you are now.”

“Did you love him?”

Evelyn stares at Leilene, looking some what affronted and some what surprised by her question. Leilene hadn’t really meant to ask but it was something she’d always had wondered. Gran had made it seem like Evelyn hadn’t really much cared for Severus but if that were so then how had she come to be? She imagined her father, an older man, had found Evelyn in a bar or somewhere and had saved her from a rough situation. It was a vivid day dream she kept solely for herself before she fell asleep each night. Gran had never tried to hide the fact that her son had once been a Death Eater and it horrified her to imagine that perhaps Severus had taken Evelyn some what unwillingly. Never before had Leilene had the chance to even ponder that perhaps Severus had been Evelyn’s teacher at one point but now that she thought on it, it made sense.

“I love him very much, much more than I could ever show him. You may not know this,” Evelyn covers her face with her hands, a fresh round of tears pouring from her eyes. “When I was working for the clinic…we received bodies…I…he was there…and I…I never thought I’d ever get over it…” Leilene watches as her mother shakes and sobs. It makes Leilene want to cry herself. She can’t imagine what that must have been like. Horrible images of her father’s pale body lying lifeless floods Leilene’s mind. “I just didn’t realize how much he meant to me until it was too late. I just wish I had gotten the chance…”

“I think he knew,” Leilene whispers.

***

That night, Evelyn lies in bed next to Liam but she’s not there. She’s back all those years ago, before Liam came home from work, surprised to see a step-daughter he’d only met once before, before she could remember. Of course he didn’t know then that was his step-daughter. He loves her instantly, much like he loves Evelyn, not caring who she was or what she had done.

No, Evelyn is back in the clinic, right after the Battle at Hogwarts, sorting through injured people and wading through more than her fair share of dead bodies. They’d been given strict instruction by the acting Minister of Magic –put into office almost as soon as Voldemort’s body fell to the floor-to immediately incinerate Voldemort’s body, a task Evelyn had looked over herself. Unceremoniously, he was set on fire by her wand and instantly he was a pile of ashes, though not grey like many of the other unrecognizable figures she’d done before. His were dead black, almost muddy, as though they’d been produced by Hellfire. She swept them into a dull bag, almost afraid to do so, as though he would rematerialize before her eyes if she let one single speck of his dust fall else where but that bag. Who or where they went to, Evelyn didn’t know. She didn’t really care either. Her mind was else where, wondering if Severus had survived or what had happened to Leilene. Were they both safe and sound?

Her fears, her worries were put to rest when another worker -swamped by mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and any one who’d loved anyone present at Hogwarts, flooded into the clinic asking about the welfare and whereabouts of the ones they cared for- rolled in another body covered by a bloody sheet into the incineration room.

“Another pariah,” she sighed. “He’s been printed and identified but no ones’ come looking for him yet. These two hour maximums are killing us.” People who had come in looking for a lost one, a loved one, were nearly inconsolable when they found out bodies not claimed within two hours were cremated. Most of them had been there before the deadline but couldn’t push through the paper work in time. It broke Evelyn’s heart to do this but it was a disaster and they had to be quick. It was hard work passing out bodies. It was easier to pass back a bag of ashes instead.

The worker left and closed the door behind her, blocking out the sounds of wailing and screaming from the waiting room behind her. Evelyn tried to block her mind from the emotion. A hand was poking out from the sheet, and she got a clear view of that awful mark. A death eater. Even though this person, this shell of a body had been on the wrong side, it didn’t make the task any easier. She pulled the sheet back and prepared herself to undress who ever this was, to clean them up to burn them up.

It was hard to look at the dead in the face. Evelyn found her task much easier if she didn’t at all. This person, this pariah, an apparent outcast, as the clinic worker had said, hadn’t died suddenly nor painlessly as so many others had died. This person, this man, had bled to death. Evelyn nearly vomited at the sight of so much blood and to make matters worse, the wounds in his neck were still oozing blood. Evelyn closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, composing herself. It had to be done, she told herself. She felt around in her pockets for the bottle of dittany and applied a few drops to the wound to cease the bleeding. No new skin grew; the skin around the wounds merely bunched up and closed it’s self off grotesquely, making it look as though the man had gills.

Evelyn siphoned off the blood, carefully vacuuming it up with her wand. It wasn’t too hard of a task but she took a little bit of time doing it because the next step was to strip the body down. The robes would be thrown away. Evelyn could manage most of this with out looking the person in the face but for some odd reason, she felt compelled to look at this man in the face and as soon as she did, she gasped and back pedaled into the wall behind her, hitting her head, causing her vision to blur and her body to seize for a few moments.
Nothing could have prepared her.

“Jesus Christ!” It was a muggle expression her mother hated for her to use but after spending a little time in a muggle psychiatric ward, she’d picked it up with out meaning to.

Not even old fashioned therapy would help her recover from the sight of her dead husband lying before her with his black eyes wide open, staring at her.

“Jesus,” she gasped again. She slowly blinked, wishing it to be some one else, thinking it could possibly be just a delusion. Of course she was scared for him and maybe this was just her fears getting the better of her but there he was. She bit down on her lip harder than she’d ever before, trying not to scream. She tasted blood. It was him. It was real. She couldn’t stop the tears that leaked from her eyes. “Oh, Severus…”

She approached the body, brushing his cheek with her finger tips. She could not nor would not cremate his body. She lifted his left arm and used a glamor charm to cover up the Dark Mark. No matter what any one said, she wouldn’t allow herself to believe that he was truly the Dark Lord’s. Why else would he be dead? She rolled his sleeve down and covered it. Next she closed his eyes and placed one arm across his stomach. The other one went behind his head. The way he slept. He was only sleeping.


Until that point, she’d been some what numb.

She draped her self across his chest and sobbed hysterically, remembering him, remembering when her mother had wanted her to sign those papers, wanting to sign over her rights to Leilene. She’d refused. Evelyn had always harbored some hope that when she got better, they’d be able to get back together. Now it couldn’t happen. That was still her husband and she was a widow now. The divorce hadn’t been needed. She only wished she’d listened to her mother and had gone and had him sign the stupid papers. At least she would have seen him one last time. She wondered if it would have made this easier. The only thing she had left of him was his letters. Never once had he mentioned their marriage, only saying her was concerned about her education. She’d gone back and taking her N.E.W.T’s after she’d gotten out of the muggle hospital. She’d even worked hard enough to get her Healer certification. She wondered if he known that, if he was happy for her.

Leilene was with his mother. He’d written to say that she was happy but if something here to happen to him or Eileen, he’d requested that she consider taking her. Evelyn knew he’d kept them both safe which was one less thing to worry about.

The funny thing was that he still smelled like he always did. Evelyn inhaled deeply until his scent was no longer noticeable.

“Evelyn,” some one had opened the door but Evelyn didn’t move. “We’re backed up, what’s taking so…” Evelyn didn’t need to look up to know that it was Liam, the boy she’d gone to school with, the man she’d opened this clinic with during a dire time of need. “Evelyn…Evelyn! Shit!”

She felt some one trying to pry her away but she held on to Severus’ hollow shell of a body, not even aware that she was screaming at the top of her lungs. The only thing she could hear was a dull roar in her head and her own beating heart.

“Hey! I need help in here!” As soon as Liam yelled, a group of people rushed into the room and arms stronger than Evelyn wrenched her off the body all the while she kicked and screamed.

“That’s my husband, goddamn it! Let him be! He’s asleep!” She watched as two people quickly replaced the sheet over Severus and started to wheel him out. “Don’t you dare fucking cremate him! He’s claimed, goddamn it!”

“Evelyn, please calm down! He won’t be cremated, they’re taking him down to storage…”

“Goddamn!”

The strong arms were clinging desperately on to her, thousands of voices were sounding in her ears and through her blurry tear filled vision, she could see people in the waiting room with their own troubles peeking in curiously.

“Open, your mouth Evelyn,” Liam commanded as he shut the door. He had an uncorked phial dangling between his fingers but Evelyn kept her mouth clamped shut, still trying to wiggle free from the grips of the two men keeping her restrained. One of them placed a hand over her nose, pinching it shut, forcing her to open her mouth. Before Evelyn had time to react, Liam had poured the contents into her mouth. She tried to spit it back at him but the other man was rubbing her throat firmly, forcing her to swallow it. Within a matter of seconds, she’d lost all will to fight back and was thusly freed. All she could do was melt to the floor where she screamed and cried until she could not any more.

Evelyn barely remembers the funeral. She barely remembers Eileen refusing to let her hold Leilene but hugging her none the less. The only thing she can remember shortly after that was her second wedding, to Liam, one she didn’t fuck up entirely.

And now she was here.

And now Leilene was here, almost a woman.

Evelyn stares into the darkness, remembering Severus and Severus only. She remembers the way his voice sounded, the way he smelled the way he walked but mostly she remembers his touch. The way his hands caressed her body, the way he seemed to make her feel whole when ever he was inside of her. Not even Liam could do that to her.

It’s funny, Evelyn thinks. Back then, I wanted nothing to do with him, I hated him for taking care of me. I hated him for getting me pregnant. Most of all I hated him because I tried so hard not to love him. And it didn’t work. Now I hate him because I do love him and because he went and got himself killed. I hate him because there wasn’t a single thing I could do to prevent that.

I hate me, mostly. I hate me because I can’t let go of him. I hate me because I allow myself to love some one who doesn’t and cannot love me back.

Evelyn is still not back in the present. She’s back to when she was sixteen years old, when she’d first met Ulric Parkinson. It was sometime after their first initial meeting, in the summer, and he was signaling for her to meet him outside. She can’t remember exactly whose party they were attending or if it was even a party to start with.

Ulric wasn’t a handsome man but Evelyn never felt that she was a pretty girl. He had a large belly and walked with a stiff limp but Evelyn loved his eyes. They were the most unique shade of brown, almost amber, perhaps even golden. They held certain softness to them, something Evelyn found comforting.

She didn’t spot him at first once she was outside. She peered around a few hedges, around groups of people outside, smoking and laughing loudly. He was on the side of the house in a small fold that opened to a large path that led around the expansive garden.

“Hello, Evelyn Hewitt,” he said with a chuckle as he held his arm out for her to take. “What brings you out on this dreary summer evening?” The ground was damp with previous rain but it was an otherwise warm and dry night.

“I do believe that I was summoned here by a gentleman, a gentleman that I cannot find. Have you perhaps spotted him?”

“I don’t know about gentleman, but I think I can do for now.”

It wasn’t that Evelyn was looking for a father figure or anything of that sort. She just wanted some one who cared about her, something she thought she was lacking. Ulric, she realizes now, hadn’t cared for her. But Severus had and Evelyn can’t figure out why. Was it because she carried his child? Why had he allowed her to infest his life so? Why?

Evelyn stares blankly around her bedroom, mainly at her wardrobe. It’s only a shadow, there’s hardly any moonlight out tonight. Liam snores gently beside her and grumbles softly in his sleep. It startles Evelyn for a second when she vaguely realizes she’s been half asleep and has just been jostled out of her sleep by her husband who has gone portly over the years.

A shadow creeps in a dark corner of her room, startling Evelyn again fully because there’s no light that falls on that corner to produce a shadow. She watches a second as the shadow travels along the wall. Evelyn jumps out of bed suddenly, thinking if it’s a mouse or something else, her movements will startle it but it keeps moving steadily out of the room. Evelyn follows it, though she’s not sure why, all the way down stairs. It stops in her living room, finally, but its still there, in front of the large stationary muggle style portrait of her and Liam on their wedding day. Liam is muggle born and Evelyn finds his habits of keeping his muggle traditions a wee bit tiresome but in a loving sort of way.

“I imagine, that you were a lot surer of yourself here than you were on our wedding day,” a voice, nearly a whisper, says. “Though, I must say you were much more beautiful at ours.”

“Sure of myself?” Evelyn whispers back, not sure what else to say. She is sure that this is only a hallucination from her constant thinking about him but she’d grasp on to that if needed. To have him back, only if in her mind, was better than nothing at all. “I was a bloody mess. Nothing was right, my dress was too small, my hair was too big, and the cake wasn’t ready…”

“But you married him despite it all,” the voice says. The tone is slightly jealous but then again he was always a bit possessive.

“I married you too, didn’t I?”

“I suppose so…if you could call it a marriage…” The shadow solidifies into a definite shape though his features aren’t clear. “At any rate, thank you for taking Leilene. My mother is eternally grateful. She was a bit scared to go at first but I convinced her you’d take care of Leilene.”

Evelyn reaches out to touch him, hoping she can, but he whips around and grabs her wrist. His touch is airy, not human in anyway but it is undoubtedly him. Evelyn curls her fingers, still trying to touch him though it is almost impossible to do so with out hurting herself.

“You were married to me first, Evelyn,” he says. “I’m not of this place anymore but once you aren’t either, we shall be together again like we were so intended. You weren’t supposed to marry McAllister. You were supposed to be with me.”

“I don’t understand,” Evelyn stutters.

“I’m bound to you. That ceremony we did when we were wed melded our spirits into one. That wasn’t a wedding ceremony that was a binding ceremony. As long as you’re still here, I’ll be here with you. I’ve always been.”

“Where you there when they brought your body into me to cremate?” The memory is still fresh in Evelyn’s mind.

“I couldn’t comfort you no more than I could comfort you when you found out that I was the father of your unborn child. It was something you had to grieve through on your own.”

“Goddamn!” The uttered obscenity hangs in the air and Evelyn finds her self collapsing on her couch, her mind not being able to comprehend this all. “You were there…all that time…all the while I was missing you and you were right fucking there, weren’t you?”

“I was, I am.” She feels him sit down beside her and he places a wispy hand on her arm.

“Why are you showing yourself to me now?”

“You need me, you need to know that I’m here, for Leilene’s sake. “

“I have Liam,” Evelyn says stiffly and jerks her arm out from under his touch. “He loves her, you probably saw them at supper. “

“But you don’t love him.”

“Of course I do,” Evelyn says.

“You married him for the convenience of it all, to please your mother; to try and convince yourself and everyone else around you that you were okay all the while you wished that he was me. Don’t dare to deny that, Evelyn. Don’t you dare!”

“You aren’t here! You’re fucking dead, Severus! DEAD!”

It’s quiet. Evelyn’s scared he’s going to vanish again and she desperately tries to think of something to say, something that will erase her previous statement but she can’t. God help her, she can’t. Was he here to punish her? To make her face the truth? At least Liam loves her though Severus is right. She never tried to hide the fact that she doesn’t love Liam the way he loves her. It’s wrong of her but she’s happy with him. She cannot have what she wants so she makes do.

“I am not alive, about that you are right,” he says slowly. “But I am real.”

“Prove it to me,” Evelyn said. She clutches to the hem of her night gown, hoping not to get derailed on this crazy ride. “Goddamn it Severus, prove to me that all of this is real and that I haven’t gone completely off my rocker!”

“You have to trust me on this, Evelyn,” he shifts next to her but Evelyn won’t stand for it. She won’t let him snake his way out of this one. She reaches for what she thinks is the lapels of his robes and clings on desperately. They too feel as though they’re made out of air, something unworldly.

“I spent two months in a muggle mental hospital, Severus,” she pleads. “I have to know if this is real or if I’m just so crazy with grief right now that I’m imagining you! I can’t do this and if you aren’t real I have to get rid of you…I can’t live like this…”

When she’s touching him, she can’t breathe. It’s as though he’s made from her breath. She wants this to be real, she wants to know if he’s there like he says he is. Is he there every single time she and Liam make love? Was he there through her seven miscarriages of her intended children she found out later could never be? Was he there when she realized that Leilene was the only child she could ever have and had missed out on most of it? Has he watched her tears fall? Could he see something she could not?

Ever so slowly, he moves his hands down, where to exactly, Evelyn isn’t sure. They seem to disappear completely. But then they start to resurface but this time one of them possesses something. His dark hands unfold before her eyes to reveal the ring he’d gotten her all of those years ago. Evelyn takes it shakily and closes her own fist around it as she clutches it to her heart.

It’s as though the wind is blowing directly on her lips. Evelyn closes her eyes, wanting more. It’s the most exhilarating feeling to be kissed by some one who doesn’t belong on this plane of existence. She wants nothing more than to end it now so she can be with him forever.

A light flashes on near the stairs, illuminating the couch. Evelyn looks up quickly and back at Severus, catching a glimpse of his full being. His skin is as pale as ever though not dully pallid like it was before. It glows almost and the lines that once creviced his face are gone. He’s young and Evelyn has never felt such yearning for any one or any thing in her life.

For one brief moment.

Then he’s gone.

“Is everything okay?” A voice calls down the stairwell. Evelyn sees the silhouette of her daughter standing at the top of the stairs.

“Everything is fine,” Evelyn calls up, trying to catch her breath. She needs to sound normal. No one could know what had just happened to her. She looks down at her hand still clenched tightly in a fist. Her nails are digging crescent shaped wounds into her palm. She’s scared the ring isn't real or that it will ebb away just like Severus.

“I heard voices, I thought maybe a burglar or something,” Leilene says. She makes no move to come down the stairs.

“No, I just couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d have a spot of tea and watch the telly. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s fine. Just wanted to make sure.”

“Alright. Good night darling.”

“Good night, Mum.”

The ring is still there when she finally unclenches her fist.