Fire.

It was all he could see—angry red and yellow flames devouring everything in sight. The carpets, the walls, even the ceiling succumbed to their insatiable tongues. Severus could feel its scorching heat as it consumed the very air in the room, drawing closer still.

So high was the temperature that his face pearled with sweat. His hair curled in protest before dissolving altogether, while the skin of his arms and legs blistered under the heatwave.

The blazing monster bit into him in an attempt to swallow him whole, aiming to leave behind little more than ashes. A scream was ripped out of his smothering lungs, and—

A hand shook him awake, and his eyes flew open. The flames were gone, and Severus felt himself shiver from the cold of their absence.

“Shhh. It’s okay; you’re safe,” Saturnine reassured him.

Her face was inches away from his, and he could feel the warmth of her breath ghosting on his cheek with every hushing exhale.

Her eyes, the same azure-blue they had always been, were intent on him—twin pools of pulsing liquid so vibrant and alive that he was forced to believe that they were real. That she was real.

“It’s okay—shhh.”

Despite himself, Severus reached out. Trembling hands blindly surged forward to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. Saturnine met his searching fingers with hers, and cold met warmth again. But it wasn’t enough—it wasn’t nearly enough. He needed more. His battered body, all the way down to his throbbing core, needed more. More warmth, more safety, more certainties. And he held on. He used whatever strength he had left in him to haul her forward.

She went willingly, whispering in his ear, “It was just a nightmare. It’s over now; you’re safe.”

Severus doubted the veracity of her words. Was anything over? Was he safe? He couldn’t believe it, but at least she was there. And at that moment, that simple truth was enough. The rest, for once, could wait. He didn’t need to know the answers to everything as much as he needed to feel her presence by his side.

As he grabbed a handful of his sister’s hoodie, holding on for dear life, Severus Snape decided that, for once, he could be selfish. And he indulged in the warmth before drifting back to sleep.

The next time he woke up, Saturnine was still there. And he resigned himself to the idea that she was indeed here, strange as that might be. Fifteen years without so much as an owl, and she’d just waltzed back into his life as if no time had passed. Worse, for months, she’d duped him—playing the part of shy, nervous Professor Nine so perfectly that he never once suspected her true identity. His own sister, for Merlin’s sake—how could he have missed that? How could he have let himself be so focused on everything else that he’d missed the enormity of what was right in front of him?

He felt like punching something or someone. But as he tried balling his right fist, he quickly abandoned the idea. The simple act of lifting his aching fingers off the bed set his arm on fire. He sighed in discontent. There was little that Severus disliked more than feeling impotent, for it required him to depend on someone else. Forced to lay there in that strange bedroom without even knowing where he was, he felt betrayed by his own body. And he wondered if death would have been a better solution—a kinder one.

Looking around, Severus took in the foreign room he found himself in. It was sparsely decorated, with two beds on either side. A wardrobe sat next to his and a small desk next to his sister’s, right under a window that showed him a bright blue sky. On the wall past the foot of his bed was a door that was slightly ajar and seemed to lead to a bathroom. There was another door on the wall opposite that he guessed led to the rest of the house.

His sister was lying on her side atop her bed, one arm used to prop her head while the other held a book. She wore a simple pair of denim blue jeans and an oversized navy-blue hoodie. Her hair had been braided into a long plait that she’d tossed over one shoulder, and her feet were bare. The pose was eerily familiar.

When he sighed heavily again, she glanced his way.

“Your magic’s depleted, Severus. You ran yourself dry,” she said as if that explained everything. “You’re pretty banged up, too.”

He felt like pointing out that he knew that already—the Mediwitch had explained his peculiar situation. Saturnine was dead wrong if she thought extreme exhaustion and memory loss were one and the same, but he held his tongue. Without knowing more about the situation, where he was, and who else was there, he had better tread cautiously.

Saturnine got up a moment later. She disappeared into what he assumed was the bathroom for an instant and came back out with a glass of water in her hand. He tried reaching out for it but couldn’t lift his arm more than a few inches. His sister sat on the side of his bed, helped him to lift his head high enough so that he could drink, and pressed the glass to his lips. A good thing he’d held his tongue earlier, then, or he’d still be parched.

“Where are we?” he asked once he’d gotten several sips down.

“Cove Cottage, Western Cornwall,” she said, placing the glass on a nearby bedside table. “Dumbledore owns it. It’s pretty removed and protected by a Fidelius Charm.”

That reminded him of something she’d said at the hospital. “Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter?” he asked.

Her eyes drifted towards the bedroom door, and it was answer enough. “They’re here, too—currently sleeping in the other bedroom,” she explained. “It’s just the four of us here.”

He had to hold back another disparaging comment. The last thing he needed was Dumbledore’s wonder boy at his bedside while he recuperated. His godson he could tolerate, but he drew the line at James Potter’s progeny.

“How are you feeling?” Saturnine asked.

“Like I’ve been trampled over by a Hippogriff—several times,” he replied, feeling that sounded only slightly better than the truth, which was that he felt as weak as a kitten—and just about as useless.

Reaching for something in her pocket, Saturnine produced a tiny white pill. “There’s unfortunately very little that I can give you,” she said, holding it out to him. “No magic means that we’ll have to resort to Muggle medicine.”

He eyed the small white lozenge warily. There had to be something else, something more he could take. But he knew there wasn’t. It was his craft, after all, and he’d learned long ago that magic was the one essential component you couldn’t dispense with for a potion to be effective. A potion always reacted to the magical core of the person imbibing it, using it as the final catalyst to make the enchantment work. No magical core meant no magical medicine—no potions. Physician, heal thyself might work in the Muggle world, but the same couldn’t always be said to a potioneer. And wasn’t that another one of Fate’s cruel jokes at his expense?

Resigning himself to a slow recovery, Severus opened his mouth to accept the pill, and Saturnine pressed the glass to his lips again. Cornwall was supposed to have some nice cliffs, he remembered. Maybe he could find one nearby to jump off of and put an end to his misery.

***

“What are you doing here?” her brother asked after waking up from another nap, and Saturnine froze where she lay sideways on her bed, hand locked mid-way in the act of turning a page. She had known the question would come. It had always been expected—and yet, she felt unprepared. What could she say? What answer could encapsulate the last fifteen years and their current situation?

“Short answer?” she asked. “Dumbledore.”

Severus huffed at that. “And the long answer?”

She left her book by her pillow as she stood to make her way to him. Sitting by his side, she took a good look at her brother’s face to gauge his state. Severus seemed more together than he had been the last times he’d woken up. Weakness and pain were still very much present and easy to read off the tired lines of his face, but there was a certain clarity to his dark eyes.

“He came to get me—asked me to help keep an eye on Harry,” she explained. “The old codger phrased it in a way that made it hard for me to say no.”

The beginning of a smirk appeared on her brother’s tired face. “I know the feeling. Where did he find you?”

Ah. So that was what Severus wanted to know, she understood. Her brother was curious to find out how long she’d been back in Britain. Knowing he wouldn’t like the answer, she decided on telling him the truth anyway. There was little point in lying to him—he could always find the information for himself, if he went looking for it. “I came back in 1989 and worked for the Aurors. I stayed until last April. Shortly after, the old man tracked me down.”

She saw the flash of hurt in her brother’s eyes as the news sunk in. Half the time he’d thought she’d been abroad, she had been but a couple of miles away.

“You or Leen Nine?” he asked eventually.

Again, Saturnine understood the question for what it was. Severus wondered how he could have missed hearing about it through the grapevine. The answer was that the circumstances had made it so. Her stint at working for the Ministry had been peculiar to the extreme. But for all its downsides, it had afforded her the benefit of anonymity.

“Me,” she answered, “but I was a well-kept secret. I rarely ever went to the Ministry and only worked some very specific missions. Few people knew about me.”

That was a crude summary of what it had really been like, but it would have to do, she decided. This was not a discussion that her brother was up to having at the moment. She expected him to push the subject. But to her dismay, he went in another direction.

“What was the plan, then?” he asked with a dark sneer. “Was Professor Nine supposed to finish the school year and then just disappear? You’d have gone back to being an Auror?”

The implied ‘without saying goodbye’ remained unsaid, but it was clearly audible in his tone. It was a fair question, but Sweet Circe, did it hurt. The truth was, Saturnine didn’t know the answer. At first, it had been the plan. She had been sent to Hogwarts to protect Harry, to play her part, and pretend like Severus was just another teacher and that they didn’t know each other. She’d avoided him as much as she could. But her first look at him had been too much already. And the past nine months had left her heart aching something fierce.

“I couldn’t have,” she admitted, and it was the truth. “I don’t know how, but—I would have told you.” She couldn’t bear to look at her brother’s face as she said it—not because she was lying but because she dreaded what she would read in his eyes. What if he hadn’t wanted to know?

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry it came out this way,” she added after it became clear he wouldn’t say anything. “I never meant to tell you like this.” She looked at him then, but Severus was as collected as he’d ever been.

“What’s the plan now?” he asked.

“School’s over. The students have been sent home early—except for the fifth and seventh years, who stayed behind to take their exams. Aurors will be there to ensure their safety.” She paused to steel herself before delivering the one bit of news that was sure not to go down well. “Both boys need to be kept safe, and you need a place to recuperate. So, Dumbledore figured Cove Cottage was ideal for the four of us to spend the summer.”

Severus choked on his surprise, and she had to reach for the glass of water. “Three months,” he coughed after taking a sip. “He wants me to spend three months babysitting Potter?”

“And Draco,” she added. “But I’ll make you a deal. I’ll handle Harry if you handle your godson.”

He narrowed his obsidian eyes before arching one eyebrow. The first, Saturnine knew, was a good indication of how little he thought of the idea, but the second let her know he was considering it anyway. “You’ll be staying, then?”

Returning the glass to the nightstand, she offered, “I have promised the headmaster that I’ll be staying here until the end of the holidays, yes. Someone needs to look after the boys—and you.”

“I don’t need help,” he scoffed as if the mere suggestion that he did had offended him.

Saturnine had to smile at the petulant tone, for it was oddly familiar. “I’ll be sure to remind you of that when all that water you’ve been drinking for the past hour is done making its way to your bladder.”

“I won’t be needing your help for that!”

“Sure you won’t.” She smiled as she hooked a thumb towards the door that stood on the wall facing him, some ten feet away. “Bathroom’s just through that door—feel free to walk over there whenever you feel like it.”

Leaving him be, she returned to her bed and flopped down to continue reading the book she had taken from the cottage’s library. It was a Muggle fiction, the story of a private detective in the south of France.

Saturnine lost herself in the pages for all of ten minutes when her brother started fidgeting with the blankets. Though he kept trying to be discreet about it, she could feel the nervousness ebb off him in waves. She pretended not to notice until he started huffing and moaning.

“Everything okay?” she asked, flipping over a page.

“Fine,” he muttered darkly.

She kept reading for another three pages until an exasperated huff made her stop again. She could have let her brother sweat it a little while longer, but there was a lot of patching up to do between them, and it had to start somewhere. Leaving her book behind, she got up and moved to his side.

“Ready to admit you might need a hand after all?” she asked, crouching down by his side.

Severus stubbornly stared at the ceiling as if she wasn’t there. Saturnine counted to twenty in her head, and then she pushed the blankets away. Without giving him a chance to accept or refuse her help, she reached a hand behind his shoulder to help him stand.

She helped her brother to his feet, and he swayed, only managing to stay upright by leaning heavily against her side. The way to the bathroom was slow going, but they made it inside eventually. She left him sitting on the closed toilet seat before leaving the room to go wait by the door.

Severus didn’t utter a single word on either part of the journey to and fro. Saturnine said nothing either and worked as quickly and efficiently as possible to make this humiliating experience as easy on him as she could.

Once her brother was safely back in bed, she went to retrieve a wet flannel to wipe away the sheen of sweat that pearled on his brow due to the exertion caused by the short trip to the facilities. Severus endured that last bout of humiliation as stoically as the rest.

Saturnine couldn’t help but bend down to place a small kiss on his feverish brow when she was finished. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know this is hard for you. But I’m here if you need anything, okay?”

There was no answer from him—not that she’d expected one. She pulled the blankets over her brother’s thin frame again before returning to her own bed.

***

Albus Dumbledore had been right again, and Severus was forced to admit that Saturnine was a good choice of nurse for him—not that he would ever admit to it aloud. But in the privacy of his convoluted thoughts, he saw the truth for what it was. He would never have let anyone else manhandle him the way he let his sister do it. His wounded body trusted her implicitly, as it always had. Furthermore, Saturnine seemed to have learned a thing or two; somewhere along the line, she’d acquired some proper medical training. It showed in the way she removed the large bandage that covered his sore middle and then cleaned the wound using various unguents and cream—of the Muggle variety once more. The wound left by Dolohov’s last attack was large and an angry crimson. It was croissant-shaped, started an inch left of his navel, and stopped about three inches below his armpit. It had been stitched closed the Muggle way, too, and that would leave quite the scar. Once she was done, Saturnine dressed the wound again before applying fresh bandages to secure it in place.

“You seem to know what you’re doing. How?” he asked, unable to restrain his curiosity.

“I rented a flat from a Mediwitch in Switzerland for a while. She had a small private practice in the countryside and could sometimes do with a second pair of hands—she taught me the basics.”

“You’ve become good at many things,” he said.

“As have you,” she replied, her tone conversational. She covered him with the blanket again. “How’s the pain? Do you need a pill?”

He nodded. Loathe as he was at taking the white tablets, the pain had flared when she’d applied the last cream, and he needed something to take the edge off—even if it took the edge off other things as well. Merciful Merlin, what he wouldn’t give for one of his trusted potions—or three.

“I hate how these make me feel,” he admitted after swallowing it down and returning the glass of water to Saturnine’s waiting hand. “Like my brain’s filled with cotton.”

“We could try switching to another brand, but I doubt it would be any different.”

He felt like shrugging his indifference but couldn’t muster the energy. In the end, he settled for a long, suffering sigh.

“We need to talk about something,” Saturnine said a moment later, seating herself more comfortably by his side now that she was done tending to his wounds. “If you feel up for it.”

Wondering which can of Flobberworm she was about to open, he nodded for her to go ahead.

“The Dark Mark,” she started, and he tensed at the words. “I know the Dark Lord can’t use it to get to you while your magic’s awash. But I’m worried about Draco. Actually, I can’t begin to fathom why he hasn’t tried to summon him already.”

Severus felt a small sense of victory at that. The Dark Lord could try all he wanted; he wouldn’t be getting through. He’d seen to that. Draco was protected—for now. “He won’t be able to. Until Monday.”

“Why?” Saturnine’s eyebrows shot up. “What did you do?”

“Gave him a potion to render it useless for a week,” he replied.

“What? When?” she asked. Then a thought seemed to strike her. “Wait—it was when we were in the basement, wasn’t it? It was one of the potions you gave him?” He nodded. “And—you took one yourself just before we entered, didn’t you?” Another nod. “So, Draco needs to take another dose on Monday. Have you got any left at Hogwarts?”

Severus shook his head. “It doesn’t keep. It has to be made fresh once a week.”

He could see her do the math and make the connections. “A good thing you had some on you, then. How long have you been brewing it just in case something like that should happen?”

The answer was easy enough. “Since the day I chose to become a spy.”

“Oh, Severus!” she said softly, and he hadn’t heard his name laced with that much anguish in years. Her fingers wrapped around his an instant later.

While his mind despised the condescension, his body welcomed the warmth.

“Give me the recipe, and I’ll brew a new batch each week,” she promised, and he rose an eyebrow at that. “What? I’ll have you know that I’m quite good at Potions. I got an O on my Potions’ N.E.W.T., remember?”

He did, and he knew she could probably do it, but he profoundly disliked having to rely on someone else for something so vital to his survival. “Some ingredients will be hard to get by.”