Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"Standing Stones" (2/?)
by Christine Anderson
aka Lilly Malfoy

From that day forward my burdens grew lighter. I still thought it best to keep my distance from the world, but I was no longer closed off from everyone. I had Severus, who would drop by fairly often with the tallies of points he'd taken from my students, their potions grades, or anything else he thought I might need to know- and there would be an exchange of looks, a quick touch, brush of fingers or his hand on my shoulder, sometimes a brief kiss if the coast seemed clear enough. Little things, all of them, but they made all the difference. They- he- made those terrible days bearable.

He still does, in fact.

Together we kept our secrets, as we'd always done. It was easier now; being professors rather than students had a great many advantages. One of them, and perhaps the most personally gratifying, was the ability to tell off nosy old Argus Filch. I started out being polite and digressed from there, but the first time Severus ran into him, well- the gloves, if ever they'd been on, came off. Filch learned to keep his nose out of things that didn't concern him. And I must admit that once Severus had opened the door to being as rude to that fool man as he deserved, I didn't waste much time about walking through it myself.

I don't suppose Filch ever thought to ask what might have been bothering me. My friends and comrades amongst the Hogwarts staff, by contrast, seemed worried because I still wasn't speaking to them. Truthfully I did not know what to say- I didn't want their sympathy, their offers of help, or their fond recollections of my brothers, my parents... I spoke to hardly anyone even at the funerals.

All I could do, it seemed, was stand in the rain, between Severus and Dumbledore, barely nodding as each person passed me. After a time it seemed as if Severus's hand upon my shoulder was all that was holding me up. And several times, when I felt as if I might wilt from the strain, he bent his head to whisper bits of encouragement.

I saw the others nodding to themselves then, looks of relief upon their faces. At least, I could almost hear them thinking, saying to each other, she hasn't shut out Severus Snape. Merlin only knows what she sees in him, why they've been friends so long, but as long as there is still someone... And they went away, if not exactly satisfied, at least aware of the fact they could quite truly say I wasn't their problem anymore- that it wasn't as if I were facing it alone.

Little did they know, the last thing they needed to worry over was that I would be alone.

We thought none of them knew, of course- and mostly they didn't. But because almost no one knew, we had let ourselves believe that no one did.

Foolishly we had forgotten Albus Dumbledore, who has always known everything that goes on in and around Hogwarts. It is a good trait for a headmaster to have, but one forgets how much potential trouble rests in a friend with the same ability.

Obviously, we would not be able to keep our relationship secret forever. And in the long term, we really weren't going to want to. For now, though, we had thought it best to continue as we had been, with our clandestine meetings in dark and out of the way places. From our student days I had an appreciation for the dungeons and their ability to hide things; they had been good places to meet and plot things we knew would get us into trouble, and even better for brewing up things we weren't supposed to know how to make. Now I learned to appreciate those damp, cold rooms all over again, because even more than the corridors of Gryffindor Tower belonged to me, the dungeons were the domain of Severus Snape. No one would trouble us there; no one would dare. He grew angrier in those days, a little more ruthless, a bit more unfair. It was all an act, of course, so that they would loath him, fear him, and stay as far away from his dungeon office as possible.

Well... most of it was an act.

In a way, I felt like a guilty child, sneaking about the castle. But the dungeons were the safest place for us then; my domain was out of the question, being full of students who were almost never in bed, or so it seemed. Not that the Slytherins were any better- if anything, they were probably worse. But they were away at the other end of the long dungeon hallways, more likely to sneak out the other way if they went anywhere at all.

And neither of us was quite ready, at that point, to propose meeting instead in my room or Severus's in the staff quarters, that implying as it did- and as it would, if anyone found us there- a progression in our relationship that we were not quite ready for. Yet.

Mostly- very much like the children we'd given detention for being caught at the same things in the same places- we embraced, we kissed, and we talked. We talked quite a bit, because we could rarely do it so freely. We would begin by talking about our students, recent goings-on in the school or at the village, and move on from there.

I'm certain that when Dumbledore found us one night, unruly students was exactly what he thought we were.

"What is this? Hello? Who's here?"

Severus and I looked at each other, and I could see the thoughts crossing his face as they must have been crossing mine. Should we hide, should we lie, pretend we'd been doing nothing- But even as we thought about it, as one we shook our heads.

At the first sound of Dumbledore's voice, I felt Severus's arms tighten protectively around me. "No," Severus said softly. "No, I won't hide. I don't care-"

"Sev," I whispered. I raised a hand to his face. "Are you certain?"

He nodded. "I am. I won't behave as if I am ashamed of this," he said, and there was a catch in his voice as he spoke.

Dumbledore stepped into the light of the pair of candles we had lit. "Severus?" A pause, as he took another step or two. "Minerva?"

I raised my head from where it had been resting against Severus's shoulder, just enough to look at him. He nodded. So. It did seem to make sense, and if Severus saw it in the same light, well- then he must have known all along.

As Dumbledore came into the light, I lay my head back against Severus Snape's shoulder. Deliberately, Severus took my hand from his face, brought it to his lips, and kissed it.

"Ah." Dumbledore smiled. "Yes, I had thought I would find you two here..."

"Good evening, Headmaster," Severus said. He seemed suddenly as if he were shielding me- as if he expected Dumbledore's reaction to be negative, perhaps even violent. I realized as his arm shifted position that he was moving it so he could get at his wand.

I nodded at Dumbledore; I could not find my voice. I respected no wizard as I respected Albus Dumbledore, and I had always valued his opinion, but if he had come here to voice his disapproval, we were going to have to disagree. I was not looking forward to it, but I would not-

"Minerva," Dumbledore said kindly, with another smile, "you can, at your convenience, stop looking at me as if I were about to have the audacity to tell you how you ought to be living your life. An expression which, I believe, is based on the erroneous assumption that I disapprove. Which I certainly do not."

"You- what?" Severus asked.

"Did you think I never knew how hard it has all been for you, children?" He said 'children' as if it were an endearment, as if we were dear to him in that way. I believe now that we are, that we were then, also. "And did you think that, whatever I might think, I would be foolish enough to tell either of you to turn away from love?" He shook his head. "It is rare enough, even in the magical world, my friends."

"I..." I trailed off, scrambling for the words. "Damn Filch! Severus, I know you have an understanding with him- Merlin's ghost knows why- but this is the last straw, absolutely the last straw, and when I catch up with him-"

Severus looked at me as if he had suddenly found himself embracing a live wire. Dumbledore, though, only laughed.

"Minerva, Argus is far too busy warring with the students to have discovered anything about you two. And I dare say that after the little chat he and Severus had the other day, Argus will be going out of his way to stay out of yours."

I looked up at Severus; he nodded. "He is right," Severus said. "But- forgive me, Headmaster, but if you aren't here to voice your disapproval, and Filch didn't send you, then what-?" He cut himself off; I could see that he didn't want to be rude by asking the headmaster what the devil he wanted with us at this hour, but he was thinking about it. Severus...was always Severus.

"Well," Dumbledore smiled. "Don't you think it's time that the two of you came in from the cold?"

Severus and I looked at each other. He squeezed my shoulder, and I brought my hand up to cover his.

"It is complicated," Severus said.

"To be sure," Dumbledore agreed. "But you can't be comfortable down here."

In fact I both was and wasn't, and for quite similar reasons. I was comfortable in the dungeons because they brought back memories of those old school days, running about after hours, plotting with Severus and with Lucius, with Dora Clearwater and all of the others.

It was the memory of those others that made me not want to come back here. But not coming here left us nowhere to run to, and without some safe haven I would have had to give up Severus. We would have had to give up each other.

At least we stayed out of Dungeon Thirteen, where most of it had taken place- where Severus had once saved my life, where Dora had shown me the engagement ring Lestrange had given her in seventh year...

"Ah," said Dumbledore, as if he had read the looks we exchanged and had understood them. We had become experts at communicating volumes without speaking a word, and it would not have surprised me to discover that Albus Dumbledore had learned the trick as well.

"Well," he went on. "That does make a bit of a sense, doesn't it? Though one wonders that you haven't frozen to death."

I wrapped Severus' cloak a bit tighter around me; his arms about me helped a bit. "We manage, Albus," I said. "We manage."

A smile crossed his face. "Yes, I can see that, but-"

Severus glanced at the hourglass perched on a shelf. I could see him tallying up the moments- because we only had so much time.

"Headmaster," interrupted Severus, and he was getting annoyed now; he'd lost his patience, which usually he had enough of to show the headmaster the respect that Severus, somewhere deep inside, believed that he was due, "perhaps if you could tell us why you've come. We haven't much time left before the students will be up and about, and-"

"Of course, Severus. I would normally not trouble to interrupt you, but tonight- I believe I have something that may help."

"Oh?" Severus asked. "Indeed?"

"Indeed." Dumbledore smiled. "I have come to offer the two of you a sanctuary of sorts."

"There can be no sanctuary here, not for us," Severus said.

I nodded. "I don't like it, but Severus is right. The others will not understand."

Dumbledore, for just a moment, looked the part of the wizard who had defeated Grindelwald, looked the part of the wizard who even the rising Voldemort seemed to fear, as he said, "In time they will understand. If necessary, we will make them understand. Both of you have done too much for all of us, to be treated-" He shook his head, and the kindly old headmaster was back. "But that's for another day. Right now, I would ask you to remember this: Hogwarts has many secrets, my friends. Many. And those who call Hogwarts home can always find what they need here, if they know where to look for it. If sanctuary is what you seek, you will have it here."

Severus and I looked at each other. "Where?" Severus asked.

"It is easier if I simply show you..." Dumbledore turned, and whipped off a cloth covering a mirror standing in a corner of the room. He raised his wand. "Vas remo."

The glass shimmered, rippled, and turned black. "After you," Dumbledore said.

Severus and I stepped through the glass together. I stumbled on the other side- the mirror was raised on a platform like a step.

"Minerva-"

"I'm alright, Severus."

We began to examine our surroundings then. It was not, as I'd first thought, a single room, but a series of them, paneled in dark wood, rather like the staff room. Several tall windows looked out over the school grounds, and I could see more of them in the next room, and the one beyond that.

"Clever little enchantment, that," Dumbledore said behind us. "It's a variation on the Great Hall bewitchment- shows the view from the east side of the castle. We're actually in the middle of the fourth floor somewhere... I think."

On the walls hung the Hogwarts crest, and those of each house; Gryffindor and Slytherin were slightly more elaborate. I reached up to touch the Gryffindor crest, and realized that it was inlaid with real gold.

"How long has this been here?" I asked.

Dumbledore shrugged. "Who can say? It always manages to be found when it is needed. You can get here from anywhere, any mirror in Hogwarts large enough to step through. No one but the three of us knows the mirror spell."

Severus turned away from his examination of the Slytherin crest with a very strange and thoughtful look upon his face. "The three of us," he said. "While this...is not a place one comes alone."

Indeed it was not. With its battered antique furniture, cushions of green and red, wall hangings of silver and gold between the house crests, with all of its little nooks and crannies, all of which seemed just large enough to hold a pair comfortably- if they were rather comfortable with each other.

"Indeed, Severus," Dumbledore said. He looked sadder than I had ever seen him. "There would have been four once, before the rise of Voldemort." He lifted a framed photograph I had not previously noticed from a side table. In it a much younger Dumbledore smiled and waved, dancing about the frame with a young woman I had never seen before. She was not exactly pretty, but her eyes were sharp, and from her expression, she must have been very kind.

She must also have loved him very much.

As- I saw, pretended not to, as Dumbledore wiped a tear from his eye- As he had loved her.

"Her name was- Well. Her name is not important for the two of you. But we were a bit younger than you yourselves when we met. She was Sorted into Slytherin. I-" he touched the Gryffindor crest "-was not. And while the inner-house rivalry was not what it is now, there were...tensions between our Houses. I would have married her in a heartbeat, but she refused. Looking back, I suppose that she was right to- the way things turned out..." He sighed. "It was, ironically enough, the year Tom Riddle came to school that we thought things had changed at last, that it might be safe... When the Chamber of Secrets was opened, I knew we had made a mistake. She was always stubborn- she wouldn't listen. She left one morning to visit some old school friends. I never saw her again. But I did receive an owl one night, several weeks later. After I had been given enough time to worry, to wonder...to hope. It was from Riddle, though he was signing his letters 'Lord Voldemort' by that point. He had asked her to join him, and she had refused. He killed her, probably the very night she was to meet those friends.

"That is the closest Voldemort has ever come to striking at me directly. More devastating, though, than any attack he might make upon me...and he knew me well enough to know that."

Dumbledore sighed. "I tell you this, as a warning- for your risks are different, but quite similar. I know it will change nothing for either of you- and she would not have changed her mind, either. Even knowing how it would end." He pushed his glasses up on his nose. "When we needed to hide ourselves and what we felt for each other from the world, this is where we came. When we needed it, it found us. Use it well."

And with that, he turned and stepped back out through the mirror.

---

Though the mirror room would later become our sanctuary, in those days we were as yet unsure of it. It did not feel as if it belonged to us. We met instead in Severus's room, on the first day of the first long weekend of the school term, when most of the students had gone home, and even the majority of the staff was not there.

It was not the first time he had asked me to stay with him, but it was the first time I had quite dared say yes.

Time was fluid, ever flowing, in a world where nothing ever seemed to change. Had it been months since we begun, he and I, or was it only days? (Summer... the summer my brother died... months, then. It had been months.) And even that fluid thickness of time seemed to stop that night, in Severus Snape's bedroom with its green and silver bed hangings, row upon row of shelves overflowing with books. It was dark, but the darkness didn't last; Severus waved his wand, and candlelight glowed from nearly every surface.

Standing there in the candlelight, suddenly I wished to waste no more time. The robe slid easily from his shoulders under my hands, as I felt him gently drawing the pins from my hair. It fell around me then in the old dark cloud that was so familiar, which I had missed more than I should.

"I should have cut it, after all..."

I did not realize I had spoken aloud until those lovely hands ceased their movements through my hair. "You will not."

Gryffindor courage deserted me then. I knew he loved me, but did he truly care, so much?

Looking into his eyes, I saw that he did.

The candles burned low, flickered as we moved past them. Bare skin beneath our hands then, scars along his back and shoulders; I wept when I saw them. But he was not the only one with scars. Severus's fingers paused at my collarbone, at the old wound my garments always, always covered- single deep gash, mark of a knife...

There was a sharp intake of breath; his. "Who did this to you?"

"Shh," I whispered, "shh..."

"Who?" he demanded.

I kissed him instead of answering, pushed him back against the bed, arms locked around him, my fingers brushing his scars even as I denied my own. I kissed his mouth, his neck, and at last those very scars.

"Who did this to you?" I countered very, very softly.

He tensed. "I don't-"

"Then don't, darling. Let's not speak of it, shall we?"

"Minerva..."

I wanted to scream, to clench my hand into a fist and strike him- him, who had been the one to show me, when my beloved brothers were too busy, always too damned busy- he who had taught me in the first place, how to throw that punch. But seeing the scars, I knew that I couldn't- that if I were to strike him, I would have to really, truly mean it...and I didn't.

I burst into tears. "Oh, Severus, Severus... Please..."

He said nothing, only held me in arms that had never felt so solid, so strong. He brushed the tears from my cheeks, and kissed me softly.

It began as a gesture of comfort, a reminder, perhaps, that whatever had happened to me, I was not alone. But he did not pull away, and I found that I couldn't, either... and so it went on, becoming in the end something else.

It was possible we had let it wait a little too long. I had last known this touch in the arms of an awkward and very nervous Gryffindor of my year, whose awkwardness in ordinary things continued into his lovemaking as well. One disastrous night had ended that relationship, and he'd refused to speak to me again. And as for Severus...

Looking at him, I realized I didn't want to know if there had been other women, or who, or when...

I hadn't known I was crying again until he kissed my tears away. Severus didn't speak, but he must have seen everything in my eyes...

And then I shook my head, tossed my hair over my shoulders. I whispered his name, and bent to kiss him again.

It was the last time either of us spoke before dawn.

There were awkward moments, but we learned. We learned together, and it was glorious. Candles burned down to stubs, and his beautiful, scarred body upon green silk bedcovers became my whole world. It was all I wanted, all I needed...

The scars were still there in the morning, as of course they would be. But in the night we had learned that they did not need to vanish in order to be healed.