Chapters 241-250

The Hour that Sleeps the Swan

Hermione lay naked on her mattress. Moonlight silvered the stone of her cell. Goose bumps traced her arms and legs, pearlescent on skin too white from many months spent indoors. The tiny hairs on her skin prickled. She couldn’t tell when she’d fallen asleep or why she’d woken. But her legs were slightly parted, offering the sensitive skin of her vagina to the night. She did not need to touch herself to know that she was wet with need. She arched her hips upwards, a sigh on her lips. A sigh and a name. Severus…The syllables drifted away on the breeze like the distant sound of wings.

Suddenly the sound was closer, wings beating, the swishing of feathers against stone. A shadow darkened the window. For second it was absolutely black inside Hermione’s cell. She couldn’t breathe, her heart hammering. At the same time her womb tightened with arousal, and her clitoris pulsed.

In a rush of wings, a majestic black bird exploded into the room. One stroke of his wings brought him to her corner of the cell. He settled between her legs and spread his wings, craning his long, elegant neck.

How strange, Hermione mused. I thought black swans only live in Australia.

Suddenly she felt a delicious pressure against her clitoris. It might have been the gentle touch of a beloved finger where she needed it most, or the soft stroke of a black feather—she couldn’t tell. Without warning, her release washed over her. She shuddered as her pelvic muscles spasmed, as she gasped and writhed.

Severus, she moaned. Severus…

In the morning, Hermione woke curled up tightly in her blankets. It was spring once more, but the nights were still cold. But when she rose to dress for the day (wondering as she always did, why she still followed such routines), she found a single white feather on her sheet.

oooOooo

More than a year. Severus closed his eyes and lowered his head to rest on his folded hands. He knew that no one would notice him. He was just another black-robed man praying in the cathedral of Chartres. More than a year. Whoever had been behind the leeching curse had never made another move. Had never made a move and thus, never made a mistake that could have led to capture.

He inhaled the scent of old stone, candles and cold incense. More than a year, and two years since the day he was married. Case closed.

The lisping voice of the court scribe that read out the parchment that relegated Hermione to nothing more than a note for the court files of the Wizengamot. Harry at his side, stony eyes black and hard. Ron and Lois—Lois round and sweet in the sixth month of her pregnancy—and he at a loss as to how he ought to react to her concerned words…Minerva, suddenly looking old and frail and tired. Draco quivering with anger. Like bizarre translucent, silver-hued jelly.

He’d run from the Ministry and Apparated straight to Chartres. Why to Chartres? Because he liked pain? Because it was the first spot he could think of that fit the description of ‘as far away from here as humanly possible’? He couldn’t say. But he sat here now, hands folded, torn between the urge to smash the altar at the other end of the cathedral and throw himself down on the ground before it in supplication. Severus exhaled a shuddering breath. He ought to be grateful. Harry’s influence had granted him another two months respite, a slim, infinitesimal chance, but a chance nonetheless.

But now it was over.

Case closed.

Movement, the swish of robes, the warmth of a body settling on the chair beside him. For the first time Severus realised that he was sitting on the labyrinth he had once shown to Hermione.

‘Monsieur,’ a gentle voice said. ‘Please, do not be concerned that I approach you. But I think I saw you at the Cimetière Saint Chéron about a year ago.’

Severus jerked upright, his right hand midair, his fingers itching to slip his wand from the sleeve.

A monk in Franciscan robes sat next to him, observing him with kind grey eyes. ‘Monsieur, please, do not be upset. But I believe you knew my uncle, Abbé Absolon Rigaud. If I am not mistaken, you are Monsieur Severus Snape, are you not? I am Nihel Servais Rigaud. As you can see, I followed my uncle’s footsteps. If not in his Order, at least in his avocation.’

The tension drained so suddenly from Severus’ body that he sagged in his chair. The monk did not move, but regarded him carefully.

‘You were dear to my uncle’s heart,’ he said. ‘Before he died, he asked me to…’

‘To what?’ Severus snapped, rallying. ‘Stalk me on cemeteries?’

The corners of the monk’s mouth twitched. ‘Not quite.’ He leant back in his chair, his hands resting on his knees. ‘He asked me to watch out for you, and for your wife.’ The monk hesitated. ‘And to offer you spiritual succour should you need it.’

Severus couldn’t help himself, he started laughing. Choked, desperate. It was a cruel sound. A crazy sound.

‘What can I do to help you?’ the monk asked.

Severus wanted to laugh again, but when he inhaled, the sound that emerged from his throat was a sob, almost a wail, as bitter tears spilt from his eyes.

‘Nothing,’ he whispered. ‘No one can help me.’

‘If there is nothing anyone can do,’ the monk said calmly. ‘Would you care for a walk? The garden of the bishop is especially lovely in spring.’

oooOooo

Hermione finished the sentence and saved the file. The batteries of the laptop were almost empty. Not that it mattered. She had written what she always wrote.

A prayer for forgiveness and a confession of murder. A hidden call for help.

But would anyone ever read it? And if they did, would they understand it?