Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related concepts are owned by someone who isn't me. The rest of this they wouldn't want to own, so we'll call that stuff mine.

Holly Polter

Author's note: An apology to the readers who were tormented by the previous version of this chapter when it was first released. I forgot that this wasn't supposed to be Holly's world and wrote a chapter of nightmares. As the reviewers reminded me, this is supposed to be fun (at some level). This one is a little more so.

= Chapter: P.3 - Pass the Salt =

(21st December; on the shoreline nearest to Azkaban)

Severus was bewildered. How had he ended up with this burden?

Upon separating from Potter, Severus noted that the Dark Lord's assault had broken all the island's enchantments. Thus, he retreated to the shoreline. Hiding behind a boulder, he sent his Patronus back to the woman - the creature - that had dragged him into this mess.

He didn't expect her to show up soon after. Her scream of terror sent a shock through his bones. He barely had enough self-control not to rush into the crowd of Weasleys and ... do what?

It was true that the imp bore too close a resemblance to Lily, but he wanted nothing to do with her. Because she was with Potter, of course.

If not for that...

He heard her scream again, and this time he couldn't hold back. He Apparated right in the midst of the Dementors attacking her.

Once he had a strong hold, he used an expanding Shield charm to push the spectres off, so as to avoid a splinching. He then Disapparated them, away from the noise and the storms of Azkaban.

They arrived at his own doorstep. Thunder and rain were crashing down in Cokesworth as well, as if to suggest that the battle still in progress might only be over the hill, beyond the crumbling spire of the mill's chimney. That landmark had always resembled an admonishing finger in his eyes. He heard its judgement in his mind in the voice of Pince, the librarian; 'Naughty boy! Just what do you think you're going to do with that girl you're hiding in your cloak?'

The house opened to let him inside. He brought his bundle up to the guest bedroom and placed it on the bed, surprised at how light a burden it was. Did he feel stronger in this situation, or was the creature truly so drained of substance as to feel as fragile as spun sugar? He swaddled it with summoned blankets and comforters.

Its condition brought to mind a picture he'd seen of a Russian girl liberated from Dachau. Paper-thin skin stretched like milky cellophane across a bare framework of bones, easily countable. Watery eyes, nested with sagging skin lining the eye sockets, rolled towards him with some fractured intent. He couldn't sense recognition in them, nor even gratitude - just a guarded attention. It might not be able to act on anything, but the thing would observe him just the same. The stare unnerved him.

Falling back on God-given British instincts, he went to make tea.

At the woodblock counter in his kitchen he found himself unable to stop shaking. Everything he had done this day was a risk, and now he had stolen Potter's pet, only to have it dying in his guest bed. As a spy, he should have left it behind - to punish Potter for his foolish plans and his even more foolish deviation from them. As a Potions Master, he ought to have twelve possible remedies in mind, with at least a few directly at hand. Instead, he was brewing Ceylon.

Lily liked Ceylon. The creature mimicked Lily. A part of him hoped it wouldn't like the taste.

He backed into the room with the tray and turned, only to discover that the thing was standing right before him, a near-corpse in the tatters of her knee-length undergarment. It fought to balance on unsteady limbs, its mottled grey forearms wrapped around its own shoulders as if to hold itself together.

"Wha' you wan' from me?" it croaked.

The sound of a voice, though it was not quite her voice, was nonetheless shifting his perspective on his guest. He replied, "What do you mean?"

"Why?" she wheezed. By rasping her throat she generated enough moisture for her to speak once more. "Why do this? Do I mean something to you?"

"Yes. You mean something to me."

"What will you... want from me?"

Severus paused at the phrasing. Was she asking out of fear or was it an offer, a bargain to be negotiated before she would accept any further help?

"Kindness."

He had intended to say 'a debt', or 'gratitude', or possibly 'respect', but his subconscious outmaneuvered his cunning. To see her face turn fearful at the request for kindness sent a chill down his spine.

She nodded her head in grudging agreement and then sat back down on the bed, curling tighter into her own arms while she watched him lay out the tea.

He stood back to allow her free access to the tray. When she leaned forward, he took the opportunity to Reparo her chemise. The fabric un-tore itself, restoring weave and resilience. She looked at it and then looked up at him again.

It affected him. He had been stone-faced up until now, but the look in her eyes, the fear, the pain, the dread over whatever it might cost her for what he provided had completely disarmed him. He fumbled an excuse and left the room.

[[]]

For five days he hadn't slept. She didn't sleep. She moaned like a tormented ghoul, in that sort of 'oh God help me, not again' cycle of suffering that would typically shut down a normal person's brain in order to preserve one's sanity. Her body refused to let her sleep, and without sleep a person couldn't heal. He tried Stunning her, which kept her silent and unresponsive for a while, but the effect would dissipate and she would rouse, fully aware and suffering a spike in pain.

At first he had tried the usual curatives, but they were either immediately regurgitated or consumed yet ineffective. Spells had similar results. One attempt at a skin-freshening charm had caused cracks to appear across her body like the surface of dried out mud puddles. After that, he was very cautious to consider potential side-effects. The more a spell or curative relied on magic to work, the worse it seemed to fare for her.

The only thing that had helped, perhaps ironically, was the tea. After any torturous treatment, she would beg for tea. He would bring a new pot. She would sip it down over an hour, measuring out the consumption. Soon after, she would be repaired. Not improved, but corrected back to merely near-corpse condition.

Five days. Nine Wide-eye potions for himself. Twenty-two pots of tea for her.

Why continue? How many times should Sisyphus advance up the hill before he got the message? He wasn't good enough. He lacked something. His only hope lay in tea and sympathy, and he was running out of tea, if not the...

Sympathy.

Severus was nearly giddy as he climbed the stairs to the spare bedroom. He opened the door and looked at her. Closing his eyes, he brought himself back to a cruel moment of joy that she had given him.

The woman stepped up from the pool, sheets of water glistening as they slid off her skin. 'You never saw me like this before, now did you, Severus?'

"Expecto Patronum."

His diaphanous doe cantered out from his wand, looking this way and that, but it stood idle when it saw no Dementors nearby nor messages to send.

"At her!" he insisted. The doe turned in the direction indicated by his wand. It stepped next to the bed, close enough to the headboard that it could nuzzle against her cheek.

The woman squinted in pain, but then she murmured the first actual sentence he'd heard from her in days; "Too fuckin' bright." She then reached up and grabbed the luminous doe by the throat

His patronus then split open, releasing a radiance too intense for his eyes. There was a sound like a great inhale, and then the room went dark. The only light was now a glow emanating from beneath Holly's skin. Her body stiffened and stretched out to furthest extension. The light made her buoyant, to the point where she was levitating a few inches above the covers.

She coughed; her body convulsed, the glow beneath her skin winked out, and she fell back onto the bed.

Severus rushed over to check that the process hadn't simply finished her off. Her body swelled, taking in a deep breath. Her skin seemed to pulse and soften with returning vigor. It had a living warmth to it.

She was asleep and healing.

Severus tucked her under the covers, and then left her to rest. He was asleep soon after.

[[[]]]

After the wake, after the cleanup, Harry found himself unusually antsy. The Weasleys were all quite fatigued, which was to be expected. He didn't want to interfere with their grieving or the ways they went about forgetting that they were grieving.

He spent an afternoon just watching the snow fall before it occurred to him what was preying on his mind.

Snape has my cloak.

It also occurred to him that he was making a host of assumptions; that Snape had escaped the prison, for one. That he had survived any battle damage afterward. That Voldemort hadn't summoned him and then executed him once he'd figured out that Snape was the one assisting Harry in killing his followers. That Snape hadn't lost the Cloak. That he hadn't handed it over to Voldemort to buy his life back or just as a demonstration of loyalty. Many assumptions.

It took three different Divinations, but the cards, ashes, and sticks all said that Snape was secure and holding onto something precious to him. The symbology was all about forts, treasures, and (of all things) diligence. Divination worked so much better for Harry once he recognised that trying to divine what might happen was ten times harder than divining what is happening or what has happened already.

The trick now was to figure out where Snape would hole up while on holiday. He didn't know a spell or ritual for that, so he used his mirror to ask Sirius. While his godfather wasn't aware of the Professor's movements, Remus overheard their discussion and chimed in that he had visited Snape at home for Wolfsbane potion during his time teaching Defence. Now Harry had an address.

He had planned to take the Knight Bus there alone, but Ron insisted that he come along as backup, and because he'd always wanted to ride the Knight Bus. Also, Hermione had left to spend the rest of the Yule break with her parents, so he was restless.

"I thought you broke up."

"Well, we did, but then she and I... we were in my dad's shed after everything... ". Ron had his hands as if holding an invisible ball, but he then interlaced his fingers and wiggled them.

"So you're dating again?"

"No." Ron's hands separated as if magnetically opposed. "Never again. Too painful. We're just good friends... who will never ever get closer than arms length, lest terrible things befall us all."

"Like what?"

"The shed. The whole bloody shed fell on us, mate. Nails, fishhooks, jars full of metal parts and glass beads, not to mention the roof slats and a foot of snow frosting us. It's enough to make you believe in omens."

"Or maybe your dad didn't want anyone shagging in his shed."

"Either way, thinking of her like that makes me afraid of sudden calamity."

[[[]]]

Holly awoke to the sound of rain pattering against a window. She caught the scent of several candles struggling to burn away those pervasive odors of neglect - mildew and mothballs.

Muscles all over her body protested her decision to sit up. It reminded her of the deep bone-stretching feeling from when she had gone through an accelerated puberty. Even her eyebrows hurt.

She blinked away the sleep to absorb the dull blue-grey light that illuminated the room. Stained lace curtained the window - the pattern matched the edging of the duvet. It was like a dead granny's old house, kept unchanged because the current resident did not care enough about style to replace anything. There was also this aura, almost like a scent, that reminded her of capers- intense pickled bitterness, but only in small pockets of concentrated ire.

Holly looked across the room at the dusty mirror on the vanity. Some sort of muddy Inferius with hair like tarred straw was staring back.

Still alive? How surprising.

Stumbling out of the bed, her whole body shivered in the chill air. She found her nun's outfit folded in a pile by the window, no doubt repaired since the Dementors had torn into her. Despite the chill, she left the wool clothes aside. She could barely lift them. The habit felt too heavy to wear.

Scavenging through the closet, she donned a patchy but warm housecoat, threading her arms into the sleeves with painful movements.

Oh, my kingdom for some thick socks and a pot to piss in.

Exiting the bedroom, she found another drab bedroom on the left and stairs leading down. Holly padded down the narrow stairs to a door set close to the bottom step. When she opened the door, warmth washed over her from the well-tended fire. Shivers of pleasure swept over her from the radiance. It felt wonderf-

Cold enveloped her. The firelight disappeared. The steps turned icy and she nearly lost her footing, and then a presence shoved her to make sure she fell. She landed painfully, sprawled on the last two stairs.

She looked up to see a frail, pale woman with stringy black hair bent over her. Empty eye sockets nonetheless radiated a kind of muted rage at her.

It took several breaths to recover her composure, but Holly didn't give up the staring contest. "You want me to be fearful, but I'm not playing with you today, Mrs. Ghost."

Her defiance was enough to frustrate the spirit into screaming.

"Oh, honestly!" she retorted. "You'd prefer me walking around naked, would you?"

The ghost's expression changed to a sullen grimace.

The cold swept away and the light returned. Holly let her body run through the panic-induced shivers that she'd put off.

When she could stand without bracing herself with the doorframe, she took a better look at the warm room - some sort of study. Every wall was full from floor to ceiling with books, excepting only the roaring fireplace, two other doors, and one small window with a curtained view of the cobblestone street. Just enough floor space remained for a threadbare sofa, well-worn reading chair, and a coffee table losing its varnish. She navigated around the furniture and through the door in the cross corner. It led to the kitchen, another cluttered affair with an exit out to the yard and a closet pantry fit in beneath the staircase.

"Where in Hell is the loo?" She'd opened every door in the house without finding one, and the frustration was adding to her growing need to pee.

Mounted over the kitchen sink was a single spigot for water. A glance out through the window above it into the yard revealed a muddy path in the slush to an outhouse just off the back, next to a soot-stained bin. The clues were coming together for her.

This is an old mill town cottage like they have in Cokeworth. I think this is Cokeworth.

Snape.

Her body gave her a last warning, so she hopped up to squat in the sink, hiking her housecoat and chemise up to the waist to get a clear shot. She balanced at the edge, with her other hand braced on the spigot.

Releasing her bladder relieved her of the focus on the immediate, allowing some fuzzy memories to surface. Mostly these were of being propped in bed, sipping tea brought by the same dark, unwashed man who alternately was feeding her poison or casting interesting variants of the torture curse on her. It took effort to connect that memory to the identity of Severus Snape.

She heard the latch of the front door turning in the next room.

It startled her into action, which in this case meant slipping from her perch on the edge of the counter to drop into the sink itself, scraping her back on the spigot and soaking her bottom in her own piss. She then discovered, to her mortification, that she couldn't quite find the leverage or strength needed to get herself up and out of it.

Snape entered the kitchen with a grocery sack to find her fruitlessly kicking her legs out from where she was sitting in the sink.

He stopped at the doorway. "I bought more tea."

Holly stopped struggling. "Brilliant," she said.

A gesture from his wand lifted her out of the sink and set her to standing. He stood staring at her while she straightened her bedclothes.

Finally, she said, "I would like to take a bath. How exactly do you do that here?"

She could sense a flash of embarrassment from him, but he regained his composure quick enough. He then summoned a coppered-tin tub from where it hung on the wall near the stove. A spell enlarged it until it could fit a crocodile. He then ran water from the spigot through a twisty path in the air to fill the tub. The water bubbled with warmth as it flowed across the base.

"I will get you some bathing oils, some soap," he muttered on the way out. He returned a few minutes later with arms overloaded by a dozen small bottles and five bath towels. By that point the tub was filled and steaming. He set the supplies on the seat of the sole dining chair, then turned to face her.

Holly had been considering this moment while he was rummaging, trying to calculate what might equal 'kindness' for the debt she had accrued.

"Will you be joining me, then?" she said. Rather than wait for the reply, she turned away from him to strip off the housecoat and chemise. She felt a spike of emotion from him - something hot, unexpected and quickly suppressed. When she turned back, the door to the front room was closing behind him.

She was stunned. After staring at the closed door for a bit, a shudder from the cold brought her back into the moment.

This really is a different world.

Holly clambered into the bath. Heat enveloped her, seeped into her bones and filled her up with a prickly flush across her skin. She submerged completely, only extending an arm out of the water to grab a bottle of primrose oil and empty it into the mix.

[[[]]]

From his chair, Severus was startled by the clanking ring of his doorbell - and old brass manual thing which normally couldn't be approached, much less rung, by muggles. He rose from the chair and opened the door. An ill feeling flopped in his stomach.

Sirius Black took off his purple top hat and tipped his shaved-bald head. "Afternoon, good fellow."

Remus Lupin stood two steps behind. "I'm sorry about this, Severus, and I wouldn't have said anything if I'd known he would want to come here."

"You tell me that Snape is living in his old mum's house in a greasebottom muggle manufacturing town and expect me not to want to see it in person? More fool you."

"Get out of here, Black."

"That's Mr. Edge in public, if you please. I'm not leaving just yet. There's a matter that needs resolving between us. Now, are you going to let us in, where you no doubt have all sorts of tricks and traps to protect you, or do you want to argue with us out in the street?"

Once inside with the door closed behind them, Severus said, "Don't sit. What matter did you wish to discuss?"

"The part where you abandoned Harry at Azkaban."

'Mr. Edge' spoke at length about all the ways Severus had proven himself unreliable, treacherous, and otherwise difficult for his poor sensibilities to handle. Once his tirade began to repeat, Severus ceased just yawning to annoy him and actually replied to the accusations.

"Get the facts straight. Potter abandoned me, to fight the Dark Lord. I stayed, hidden, in hopes I might still drag him away from the confrontation, but the boy couldn't resist his need to prove himself better than anyone. Once I saw that escaping unnoticed was a lost cause, I sent word to the only one possibly sane enough to handle his stupidity, that succubus he's mistaken for a mother figure."

"Don't you dare-!"

"I'm the only one clear-minded enough to see what she is, but that didn't keep me from informing her that the boy was in danger. I stayed long enough to witness your arrival to help, then left before the Dark Lord might detect my presence."

Severus was about to add a sharp mention about Black pissing himself when the Dementors approached, but the doorbell once again rang its ratcheting paean.

His visitors fell silent, moving to draw their wands. He gave them a disdainful look to stop them, then answered the door. Two more wizards were standing on his doorstep.

"Snape," said Corban Yaxley. Seeing the harsh face of his fellow Death-eater, Severus stepped back, effectively inviting the man inside. Yaxley strode in past him, followed by Amycus Carrow.

Yaxley nodded at the other visitors. "Gentlemen."

Black leaned forward to offer a handshake. "David Edge, of Edge Endeavors, based in Hogsmeade. My companion is Mr. Wulfjohn; he handles my accounting. We're visiting the Professor on a business matter. And you?"

"Yaxley. He's Carrow. I work for the Ministry, but we're here on a personal matter."

"How surprising. Mr. Snape was just saying how he's such a private man who doesn't receive visitors, ever."

"We don't typically meet here," said Yaxley. "In fact, it is Professor Snape's absence from our usual haunts that brought us here."

"Missed a few funerals, he did," said Carrrow, "We were concerned that Snapey didn't come because he don't like us no more."

"Were they good friends?" 'Wulfjohn' asked Yaxley. "Mr. Snape and your... fellows?"

"Not for us to say."

Lupin said, "Well, we're sorry for your loss at least, then."

The doorbell clanked again.

Carrow, being closest to the door, turned around and opened it before Severus could protest.

"Excuse us," said a young redheaded man, "but is this the residence of Professor Severus Snape?"

"'Oo are you?"

Fred and George Weasley pushed their way into the room while both shaking Carrow's hands. They had to push; the room was getting a bit crowded.

"Hey, It's Mr. Edge! We were hoping to see you soon, too. Our business-"

Severus seethed, "This is not a conference center, gentlemen."

"Why are you here?" asked Yaxley.

One twin smiled his way and said, "Actually, we had a proposal for our potions Professor about some products we're developing, and-"

The door was pushed open again, admitting Walden Macnair - all twenty stone of him beneath a heavy wool cloak that seemed to fill a quarter of the room, nudging everyone else deeper in to what remained. He bellowed, "Who is she?" and gestured towards the back of the house, wand in hand. His human eye was glaring at Severus, but a new marble eye with a glowing red iris pointed straight in line with his pointed wand.

Severus suppressed his panic.

At least three men replied, "She, who?"

Macnair stepped forward and demanded, "That squib you've got. Bring her out here!"

"Can this place even fit another person?" asked Mr. Edge.

"What's with the eye?" one twin asked.

The other said, "You can tell someone's a squib from here?"

Carrow snorted. "Snape... with a girl. Of course it's a squib."

"She's barely lit," Macnair said. "Has to be a squib. Or dying."

Edge asked Carrow, "When was the last time you went out with a witch?"

"Yesterday," he replied defensively.

"Your sister doesn't count," Yaxley said, "As for me, I'm married; we don't 'go out'."

"1981," offered Wulfjohn, but he then said, "No wait, last month."

"You could lie a little better, y'know," his companion teased.

Soon, the cacophony was as tightly-packed as the room occupants.

The doorbell rang behind Macnair. The other twin was still close enough to reach behind him and pull the door open. From behind Macnair's bulk, the twin said, "You should come back later."

Ronald Weasley replied, "Fred? What're you doing here? And what're me and Harry supposed to do in the meantime, shop glamourous Cokeworth?"

Four men said, "Harry... Potter?"

There was a mad calamity of wand pulling.

Severus called out, "No! No! Not here!" to no avail. The air crackled with potential spells drawing energy together.

Harry drew in a deep breath, then said, "Stop."

Everyone froze for a moment. Severus had felt the pulse of magic from Potter as it had petrified every muscle in his body for just a second. Even his heart had skipped a beat.

The door to the kitchen opened.

The woman strode in, dripping water from the soaked housecoat clinging to her body. She said, "Severus, those towels are hideous with mildew. I can't possibly use-" She stopped short as everyone there turned to face her.

Severus could sense the reactions from most of them; raw lust at first, followed by recognition from Potter's allies with an accompanying sense of horror and betrayal. From the Death-eaters came amusement mixed with either envy or contempt.

He sighed. "Gentlemen, this is Professor Heloise Polter."

"She's not fat," Carrow said. "M'nieces said she was fat."

Severus had sensed nothing from Holly at first, but now she was radiating lust; it flowed out from her towards every man in the room who had expressed interest upon her appearance. Her hand fingered at the lapel of her housecoat, then slid down, opening it to expose her wet skin.

One of the Weasley twins was so shocked that he dropped a small egg-shaped trinket to the ground.

A moment later, the egg erupted into an invisible sphere filling the room. It forced all occupants against the walls, ceiling, furniture, and unfortunately for Carrow, into the fireplace, then held them there. Lupin ended up entangled with the hanging chandelier, knocking hot wax around as all the candles were snuffed. Potter was pinned between the front door and its frame. Only Holly was free, having been bounced back into the kitchen with a yelp.

After a minute of painful groans and the smell of Carrow's robes burning, all his visitors who could do so Disapparated, leaving only Potter and the youngest Weasley boy. Severus then dispelled the Protego. Another spell sealed the house from further intrusions.

He dragged the two boys to standing. "Why did you come here?"

"We came for Harry's Cloak," said Weasley. "What's Holly doing here?"

"Why would you care?" replied Severus. "You and your sister left her behind, Weasley, so I rescued her. Since then she has been staying here, with me."

Potter visibly restrained a reaction. He then raised his wand and said, "Accio Cloak."

Snape said, "That doesn't work -" but was proven wrong when the fabric slipped from between some books on a shelf and folded itself into Harry's open hand.

"It does for me."

"And why didn't you do that on the battlefield, Potter?"

Rather than reply, Potter pushed him aside and stormed through the door into the kitchen. The door slammed shut behind him, followed by the sound of a spell sealing it.

Severus was interrupted from undoing the spell by a sharp pain in his left arm.

Weasley asked, "What's wrong with your arm?

"The Dark Lord is summoning me, no doubt to answer for what Yaxley, Carrow, or Macnair just reported." He growled at the boy, "Be gone from here by the time I return."

[[[]]]

Once Harry had sealed the room, he turned to look Holly in the eyes. He received a sudden flood of information, causing such vertigo that he had to clutch onto a counter to keep from falling.

In the burst, Harry got the sense of Holly's fear and horror at the hands of the Dementors, her feverish suffering while trying to recover, and how recently she had regained relative health and sanity. Threaded throughout was the tone of her feelings of weakness, vulnerability, and most of all, hunger.

He could feel her reaching out to him. He held his arms open and she rushed into his embrace. The moment his hand touched her neck, he felt her drawing strength from him. Her skin heated beneath his palm.

"You didn't need to explain anything, Holly. Even if you'd had to... sleep with him, I'd understand."

Holly mumbled into his armpit, "But you're happier that I didn't, right?"

"Hell, yeah."

Moments later the door unsealed. Ron poked his head into the kitchen and said, "We should go, but I need to use his loo."

"He doesn't have one," Holly said. "That's why I was bathing in his kitchen."

Ron snorted. "Well, that explains a lot. C'mon, we've got a bus to catch."

Holly cleared her throat.

"What?"

"Well I just thought it'd be more direct, safer, and cheaper if you were to use the Floo to get back to the Burrow."

Harry said, "You said you can't Floo."

"I don't have to," she said. "I'm staying."

"What?"

"If Severus returns with Death Eaters, or worse yet Riddle himself, and I'm not here to answer questions, he's a dead man."

"But-"

"Harry, I'll be fine. And if I'm not, I'll just Vanish."

"That makes sense," Harry said. "Ron, you go ahead. I'll be along in a little while."

Ron shrugged, then left the kitchen. They could hear his departure shortly after.

"Well done with the vocal compulsion," Holly said, "but don't make it a habit."

Harry hmm'd, then leaned back to look Holly in the eyes. "Still hungry?"

They traded lascivious visions, and then made them real. Having rough sex on the kitchen flagstones wasn't the most wondrous experience, but it served Holly's need for Harry's magic to restore her strength. Harry was happy to provide, and his enjoyment added to the satiation she felt.

Holly's body glowed for a minute before fading to her usual pale skin.

"You know what I want more than anything right now, Harry?"

"What's that?"

"Shrimp cocktail. But after that, I'd want you to keep making love to me in every corner of this house. The problem is -"

"You're tapped out?"

"No, I'm a machine. More sex only makes it easier for me to continue. I could keep going like this for days. No, the problem is that having sex in another man's house with his guest is rude on the outset, but we're moving into the part where it's vindictive. You should go."

"And you're going to stay?"

"For many reasons, yes."

Harry sighed.

Holly helped him clean up, and then he left through the Floo.

[[[]]]

A day later, Severus crawled out of the Floo onto his rug. Muscles all over his body were still clenching from the Dark Lord's Cruciatus spells. He flipped onto his back to find Holly crouching down next to him. She was wearing her riding boots, jeans and a fluffy jumper, and her hair was fully black, making her seem less like Lily, yet somehow more like herself. More like him.

"You're still here," he wheezed.

"I still owe you."

"You seem stronger."

"Harry's love has that effect on me."

Snape grimaced. "Don't speak of him here."

"That's entirely likely to happen again while I'm still here. Shall I leave?"

"No!" He winced in trying to grasp her arm. "Please, don't. Please stay."

"Kindness, then. I will care for you as you cared for me. Better, even, since I'm not a cheapskate and can appreciate the value of soap and hot water."

"Cheapskate?"

"You had a bunch of gold and silver just laying around, so I went out and pawned it so I could replace all your linens. Bought a few outfits for myself, some food... a furnace, water heater, gas cooktop, flush toilet..."

Severus groaned. He tried to growl a protest at her but ended up in a coughing fit.

"Just kidding. Your mum showed me the secret door." To prove it, Holly showed him a small potion vial with pink and green layers swirling within it - a combination dreamless sleep/numbing potion from his personal stores in the unit two doors down. "Open wide."

He did, swallowing the curative without difficulty. "What will you do while I rest?"

"Whatever I want, Mr. Snape," Holly teased. "One shudders to think of the possibilities. For one, I'm thinking of cutting your hair..."

He gurgled once before succumbing to the potions.

[[[]]]