FIC: "Triptych" for tarteaucitron

[bethbethbeth]

Recipient: tarteaucitron / girl_tarte
Author: kelly_chambliss
Title: Triptych
Rating: R
Pairings: Eileen Prince/Tobias Snape; Eileen Prince/Sybill Trelawney
Word Count: 14,050
Warnings/Content Information (Highlight to View): *one episode of spousal abuse*
Summary: He hadn't married the girl for love, Tobias was the first to admit it.
Author's Notes: tarteaucitron, you said you like stories that "illuminate canon" and that "focus on buried emotions and resentments, frustrated ambitions, or awkward compromises" -- so out of your list of characters, I immediately thought of Eileen and Tobias; I suspect "resentment" and "frustration" pretty much define their lives. I tried to work in the "alternative p.o.v.s," too. I hope the result is something like you had in mind.

Thank you to my excellent beta-readers.

---

Tobias

He hadn't married the girl for love, Tobias was the first to admit it. But then, she hadn't married him for love, neither.

That sort of thing hadn't been so important back then: you looked to marry someone steady, a girl who could keep your house without asking for more than you could make, who knew how to make a little go a long way. You wanted a sturdy girl who could give you children and then raise them proper, to be respectful and hard-working.

And it weren't like she got nothing in return. You knew what your woman was due: a man steady in his turn, who would support her as best he was able, who wouldn't drink up his pay packet nor raise his hand to her. A man who would look out for his sprogs, would see the boys learnt a useful trade and the gels kept themselves decent so they'd be in the way of finding a steady man of their own.

Then when the kids was older, they could add their own bit to the family till, and a man could start to take life a little easier.

That was how it was supposed to work.

But life never worked the way it was supposed to, not if your name was Tobias Snape, any road.

Still, when he'd first laid eyes on Eileen Prince in the public bar of the Bell and Candle in December of 1957, he hadn't realised how pear-shaped it was all going to go, had he?

But one thing he'd thought he'd knowed straight off: he'd thought she was a good girl. She'd been with Mrs Jenkins, the elderly widow who lived three doors up from the Snapes and who had been such a help during Tobias's mam's final illness. Mrs J had said her niece might visit, her youngest brother's daughter, just a few months out of school. She'd been a scholarship student at a boarding school, or so Tobias understood. A nice girl, Mrs J had said, and she looked it.

She weren't no beauty -- lank dark hair, heavy features -- but she was dressed proper, in a blouse buttoned up decent and a dark skirt and flat shoes. Good bust, too, a man couldn't help noticing a thing like that.

Tobias had stepped over to their table to give a "good evening" to Mrs J, and she had introduced him to the lass. "My niece, Eileen Prince," she said, and Eileen had offered her gloved hand, all polite, like. And she didn't look at all bad when she smiled, just a little shy, which was a good thing, to Tobias's mind.

He'd offered to buy a round and was pleased when Eileen asked only for an orange juice. It wasn't that he was so stuffy as to think that a woman shouldn't have a pint every now and then -- he knew things had changed a lot in the decade since the war; nice women did things now they would have been ashamed to do when he was a lad. But still, if he had his choice, Tobias preferred a girl who was a little more old-fashioned.

It had been a pleasant evening. Eileen had seemed a modest girl, not like them giggling ones what was always talking about themselves. She'd spoken only briefly about the job she'd soon be starting in a chemist's shop. She seemed much more interested in what Tobias did -- hadn't looked down on him for being just a mill labourer; in fact, she'd asked all about his work: what his job was, how he looked after the machines, how he had a reputation even on the other shifts of being a man who was a wizard with repairs.

"Is that really what they call you, then? A wizard?" she'd asked, smiling broadly, and of course at the time, he hadn't known why she'd been so tickled. He'd just thought she was impressed by him, more fool he.

Tobias had seen Eileen and Mrs J at the pub the next night, too, and as they were getting ready to leave, he'd offered to call for them the following evening, if they planned on coming.

"Oh, it's not so easy for these old bones to be going out every night," Mrs J had said. "But don't let me stop you -- you young people have your fun."

So he'd known his courtship had her approval, and Eileen's quiet smile had indicated that she wouldn't say no to walking out with him.

They'd gone to the Bell every night of Eileen's visit fortnight, and Mrs J invited him one day for tea, too. "A home-cooked meal will do you good, Tobias Snape," she'd said. "I know how it is with you men living alone -- I wouldn't be half surprised to find you do all your eating out of tins."

Tobias had laughed and confessed to the sin. The tea had been hefty: a good, thick stew and fresh bread, and lemon tart for afters. Mrs J had been at pains to inform him that the baking was Eileen's work.

On the Friday before Eileen was to leave, Tobias asked her formally if she'd go out for a proper meal with him.

He'd been giving his situation a lot of thought. Mrs J had called him a "young person," but he wasn't. He was 39, almost forty -- twenty years older than Eileen -- and it was high time he settled down. He'd put off marriage, first because of the war, then because of his da's death, and then again because of his mam's, but now he had nothing to wait for: he needed only a suitable, sensible girl, and from what he'd seen of Eileen, she was that.

He took her to a posh place, with white tablecloths and linen napkins, wine glasses, two forks apiece, and real flowers, and he made his offer.

He'd spelt out everything, the good and the bad. It was only fair that the lass knew what she would be signing on for, or so he'd thought then. It never occurred to him that she wouldn't think he deserved the same. But then, stupid pillock that he'd been, it never occurred to him that there would be anything "off" about her that he'd need to know in the first place.

"If it's romance you’re after, you won't find it with me," he told her. "But if it's security you want, a home of your own and a home for your babes, you'll have that. I'm in good health, and I've got a bit put by. And I might have a pint or two of an evening, but I'm sober; my wages will come home with me, you need have no fear about that."

He'd expected some shyness on her part, maybe a little blushing or stammering, but she'd surprised him by looking at him with what he now thought had been a calculating eye and nodding briskly. "It's quite a lot to consider, Mr Snape," she had said.

"You don't have to say yea or nay just now," he'd replied. "You think about it. Come look at the house if you like."

She'd liked. "It's nowt fancy," he'd said, as they walked along the river after eating. "Not many mod cons. But it's kept three generations o' Snapes warm and dry, and I wouldn't mind making it four."

He'd watched her face closely as he'd opened the door, and they stepped straight from the street into the sitting room. But she hadn't seemed dismayed; she took it all in matter-of-factly: the tiny lounge, the kitchen with its plain deal table and its ice-box, the small garden with its necessary.

Well, she hadn't said no straight off, so Tobias had taken heart. It wasn't as if he thought he had owt to be ashamed of, anyway. His sort of life, plain and steadfast, was good enough for her auntie; he didn't imagine that Eileen had been brought up much better.

When they'd finished the house tour -- it didn't take long, of course -- Tobias thought of offering tea, but Eileen was already lifting her coat from the back of the settee and slipping her arms into the sleeves.

"Thank you for showing me the house," she said. "It's cosy. I'm sure we'll be happy here."

Tobias wasn't sure he'd heard her aright. "We'll be happy?" he said. "Do you mean -- you're saying 'yes,' then?"

She'd nodded. "I am. I'm honoured by your proposal, Mr -- Tobias, and I accept."

"But don't you want to think it over first, talk to your auntie?" Her parents, he knew, were dead, killed in the Manchester Christmas blitz of 1940, when Eileen was only two years old; she'd been raised by a gran, also now gone. Now that she was giving him the answer he'd thought he wanted, he felt a sudden stirring of doubt. She was young; he didn't want her to make such a decision without advice.

"Aunt Ida thinks it's a fine idea; she says you're a good man. Sober -- most of the time." She grinned at him suddenly, and Tobias had his first inkling that Eileen Prince might not be quite so serious and demure as she had so far appeared. She stood looking at him, as if expecting something, and he felt wrong-footed somehow. It was a feeling he would come to know well over the years.

"Well, then," he said awkwardly. He supposed he should give her a kiss or summat; he hadn't intended to, not before she'd give him his answer -- kisses were for when you was actually betrothed. And Tobias wasn't fond of kissing in any event; he'd avoided it those few times he'd turned to prossies to satisfy his needs.

Still, Eileen was going to be his wife, so he supposed he'd better start getting used to things. A quick buss on the cheek would be enough.

But Eileen forestalled him by holding out her hand. "I'll try to be a good wife to you, Tobias," she'd said.

They'd shaken on it.

***

"I'll try to be a good wife," she'd said, and there had been a year or so, at the start, when he'd believed he'd not been unhappy.

They'd married at a registry office a month after his proposal, just four of them present: Tobias, Eileen, Mrs J, and Jem Babson, who'd been Tobias's best mate in primary school and who still worked side-by-side with him at the mill. He'd agreed to stand up with Tobias, as Tobias had done for him.

Mrs J gave them a nice meal after: roast chicken and potatoes, followed by a pretty cake from a shop, all over sugar roses, and a toast of champagne. Jem had made a funny speech, and they'd all laughed when Eileen had got bubbles up her nose.

In the evening, Tobias had walked his new wife to her new home. He'd moved her things in earlier. She hadn't come with much -- just a few baskets of clothing, a small hope chest of linens, and what looked like the remains of her childhood: a box of odd, swirly-glass marbles and a half-dozen battered books. Plus there were the things had belonged to her gran, that Mrs J had been saving while Eileen had been at school: some hand-painted china plates, a set of silver teaspoons, photo albums.

Mrs J's gift was a silver cake-stand what had been give to her by her late husband on their silver wedding. It was handsome of her, Tobias thought. He'd always regretted that Mrs J had died so soon after. He hadn't even known she'd been sick.

But he hadn't been thinking on death then, not the night he'd brought his bride home. What man would, on his wedding night?

Tobias had been Eileen's first -- her only -- man, and he'd not been sorry to find her rather charmingly nervous after she'd put on her hope chest night-dress and climbed into the big old bed with him. He'd been gentle with her, patient. Even she admitted that.

Throughout those first months of their marriage, he'd been careful never to be importunate. That had been his da's word, "importunate." His da hadn't been much of a man for talking, but he'd learnt Tobias that much.

"When it comes to. . .physical relations, lad," he'd said, the one time he'd discussed such things with his son, "a woman's never going to want to have you as often as you want to have her. That's just the natural way of things. So you got to meet her half-way. Don't be importunate. If you ask only half as often as you want it, and she gives in to you twice as much as she wants to, you'll get along fine."

And that's what Tobias had done. Once a week, every Saturday night, he'd lifted the hem of Eileen's night-dress and put himself slowly inside her, resting his weight on his arms so he wouldn't be too much of a burden to her. She'd clutch his shoulders and rock with him, making soft little sounds that drove him on faster. He tried not to hurt her, tried not to take too long, tried to remember always to kiss her when he finished.

He'd done his best by her. And she'd not complained. If she'd been unhappy, how was he to know? She'd been a quiet one right from the very start, and if she'd got quieter as time passed -- sullen, even --well, that had seemed a normal thing to him. His own da had never been one for conversation. He thought he remembered his mam being chattier, specially when he'd been a wee lad, but by the time he'd been old enough to pay attention to such things, his mam had become almost as quiet as his da, speaking only when there was need, and it hadn't done none of them any harm.

He hadn't known of any problems with Eileen. She had kept the house all right, had his meals ready when his shift was done. In the beginning she'd often gone to the pub with him, but a lot of his time had been took up with darts, and she hadn't got on too well with the other wives, so she'd started staying home. She didn't seem to mind, and Tobias had been relieved; it saved a bit, and he didn't have to worry about her when he'd go off with his mates.

No, Tobias had done his best by Eileen. If maybe he didn't pay her as much mind as she would have liked, at least he'd never lied to her, not like she done to him. And if he'd come to do the things he'd swore to her he'd never do -- drink up his pay, raise his hand to her -- she had only to look to herself for the reasons.

***

They'd been married over a year before he found out the first ugly truth about her -- that she had strange and fearsome powers, the sort of thing what got people put to fiery deaths back in the old days.

He'd only found out because of the children -- or more to the point, the fact that there hadn't been no children.

It weren't for lack of trying -- Saturday nights had been regular as clockwork, and in the first two or three months, well, he'd done the deed a little more often; she hadn't seemed to mind. But it hadn't made for no baby.

Eileen had finally said she was going to see a doctor. Tobias didn't put much stock in doctors, but he hadn't said no. He didn't even fuss when she said she weren't going to the free local GP.

So she'd gone, and when she'd come back, that's when she finally decided that maybe he deserved to know what sort of a. . .a thing he'd married.

"I've found out what we can do about the baby," she'd said. "But there's something you should know first."

And then she'd told him -- told him that she was a witch, that she had magical powers. She'd taken out that. . .that wand and showed him. At first he'd thought her mad, but gradually, he'd come to believe her. What choice did he have?

It was a good thing, Tobias thought then and now, that he had never been a religious man, never been one to believe in holy ghosties and eternal hellfires, because if he had been, the sight of Eileen with that wand, the sound of her muttering spells in foreign tongues -- he'd have been convinced it was the devil's work, right enough.

It had taken him the better part of a week to settle in his mind that she were telling the truth. He'd talked more than he had in years, asking her question after question. And most of the time, he hadn't liked the answers.

For starters, the school she'd gone to had not been girls' boarding school at all, but a school for magic. Most of her family had been magical, although her aunt had been something called a "squib." There was an entire magical world, with a government and laws and a PM. She'd shown him spells and books and moving photographs.

Finally, he had believed.

And then the anger had come: anger that she hadn't told him sooner, before he'd taken an oath with her, before he had taken her into his house and bed for all to see. It wasn't as if he could leave her -- the Snapes didn't hold with divorce, there had never been such a thing in the family. Not that everyone had chosen a partner well, of course not, but that was why you waited. That was why you didn't choose a bride for a pretty face, or let your willy make the choice for you. He'd done what he was supposed to: he'd picked a girl what had seemed level-headed and frugal and healthy.

And she'd turned out to be a liar, or as good as. And a freak and a pervert. And she didn't even seem at all ashamed of herself.

"I didn't tell you because I knew you'd act like this," she'd said, flicking her hand at him. "And it's not something that really matters. I told you, I've given up the wizarding world, it's betrayed me. Haven't I been living like a muggle all these months? If it wasn't that you need to be part of the baby spell, take a few potions and follow a few rituals, you would never have had to know. Nothing is going to change, don't you see? Everything is just like it was."

"Nothing is like it was!" he'd shouted. "And now you want me to do some magic mumbo-jumbo to make a baby with you? Will it have these mad powers, too?"

"There's nothing mad about it. Magic can be used for good or ill, just like anything. The baby might be magical, it might not. There's no telling until later."

He'd stormed out of the house then, intending to go to the pub, but he hadn't wanted to face his mates. So he'd walked in the rain until he'd come to a different pub far from his local.

And there he sat with pint and pipe to think about what to do.

***

In the end, Tobias had gone back to the life he'd made with Eileen. He couldn't forget that they'd got their start built on a lie, but the more he thought about it, the more he considered that perhaps this "magic" wouldn't be such a bad thing. She'd already said she wanted to keep it from the neighbors, so there'd be nothing to mark the Snapes as different from everyone else. It weren't like they'd have freaks hanging about their house. As Eileen said, she wanted nothing to do with them magical folks.

As for the magic itself -- well, it was bound to be dead useful, weren't it? It would be like winning the Sweeps, Tobias had told himself. They wouldn't want for nothing: he imagined Eileen getting them food and money and clothes by magic. She could tide them over the lean times -- and maybe they wouldn't even have to have no lean times. Tobias wasn't a greedy man; he didn't want riches or to get above himself. All he asked was a little security, maybe a few extras now and again -- take a caravan at Blackpool for a whole week, maybe.

It was in picturing himself buying his little lad or gel a donkey ride that Tobias realised he'd already made his decision: he was going to give it a go with Eileen, see if they could make that baby, magic or no magic. They'd be a family, and the magic wouldn't be a problem, just be there for them to use it when they needed it, and otherwise they'd be normal.

Normal.

Just the word made Tobias's gut twist, and he ordered himself another lager. Third? Fourth? Like it mattered.

No, there was nothing normal about Eileen Prince, and magic weren't the half of it. Not by a long chalk.

Not that he'd had much to do with magic, in the end. He should have known better than to think Eileen would use it to help them. Stingy, she turned out to be -- mean and close, with magic and truth and just about everything else. He'd never got a bloody thing out of her powers. "You can't get food with magic," she'd say. "You can't get money with magic. You can't do this, you can't do that. . ."

"Well, what blasted good is it, then?" Tobias had finally shouted. She'd tried to explain, but he'd never understood. All her talk of Statutes of Secrecy and Gramp's Laws and Second Theorems of Transfigure-whatsis never made no sense to him. Just excuses, that's all they was. Excuses. So that she could cut Tobias out of her life, make him a stranger in his own home. A stranger to his own lad.

Oh, aye, the lad. Yes, they'd had their baby all right, him and Eileen. Peaked, dark little thing, just like his mam. He'd been a difficult infant, cried fit to bust all the time. Then when he'd been a little older, he'd got quiet -- too quiet. Always watching Tobias with them black eyes. Uncanny, it were.

Still, Tobias had had hopes for his boy. Of course he had. And they'd had some good times. He'd take little Severus out with him sometimes, to darts at the pub. Eileen would never go -- things was over between her and Tobias by then -- but the local women would take charge of Sev, fuss over him, spoil him with too many crisps. Tobias let them call the lad "Sev" because Eileen hated it so. Well, to hell with her, he'd thought. She was the one what give the boy that blamed stupid name in the first place.

But then had come that never-to-be-forgotten championship darts night.

Tobias had taken five-year-old Severus with him; he'd thought it would do the boy good to see his da proclaimed the winner, watch people shake Tobias's hand, slap his back, ply him with pints.

All that had happened, right enough. Jem Babson had hoisted little Severus high so's he could see the final winning throw, and the lad had lifted his arm in a cheer.

And then he'd made coloured sparks shoot into the smoky air. The lad had raised up his hand and made bits of fire fall on people's heads.

The women had screamed, and the men had beat out the sparks on each other's shoulders, and the host had taken Tobias aside to tear strips off him for letting a child light fireworks in a crowded pub.

Not until later was Tobias able to find comfort in the fact that everyone assumed a logical explanation for the coloured sparks. At the time, he'd felt only horror: his lad was magic.

It was after that night that Eileen began to turn the boy against his own father. She'd gathered him to her, told him he was magic and special and that his da weren't. He'd come home one day to find her showing the lad her wand and them funny swirly marbles of hers; seemed they were from some magic game Eileen claimed once to have been good at. When Severus had touched the wand, a few sparks had come out of it, and Eileen had looked at Tobias with what he'd been sure was a smirk of triumph.

Somehow the years had passed, and now his boy was going off to that bloody magic school. It's all he'd talked about since the day he were old enough to know what it was -- his mother filled his head full of tales, o' course: fairy tales, like as not. But the boy was set on going. When that ruddy owl had brought his letter of acceptance yesterday, Severus had grinned like a person possessed, he were that chuffed. It was the first time Tobias had seen a smile on his boy's face in months, for the lad had turned out sullen like his mam. Never happy, except at the thought of leaving his home.

His son was a stranger to him, yet another thing Eileen was to blame for.

Many times she goaded Tobias into shouting at her so that he'd look bad to the lad. And then when the boy was old enough for school, she wouldn't use her magic to fix his too-large, cast-off clothes -- she wanted him to think his da couldn't provide for him, even though the mill-layoffs weren't none of Tobias's fault. Yes, maybe he drank up a little too much of the housekeeping, but who could blame him? No work and a freak of a wife who now disgusted him too much to even touch, except in the anger she drove him to.

Tobias finished the third -- fourth? -- lager and swiped his sleeve across his mouth. He didn't care how nasty his coat got; Eileen could just do the wash. She couldn't be a proper wife to him any more; she could at least continue make herself useful in the house.

A proper wife -- no, she weren't. She was a freak, and not just because of the magic. To think that he'd once slept in a bed next to her, been intimate with her. . .

He needed another drink.

No, Tobias had not had marital relations with Eileen for twelve years, not since just before Severus was born. Those last few months of the pregnancy, she'd been too uncomfortable. Then after the birth, she'd been too sore, though he'd expected that, of course. He'd been willing to wait.

What he hadn't expected was to come home from his shift, looking forward to seeing his four-month-old son, only to find his whore of a wife in bed with someone else.

With a woman.

With a frizzy-haired witch of a woman who'd gazed unblinking at Tobias through big spectacles, staring at him bold as brass with her hands all over his woman.

And today, more than ten years later, when Tobias had been on his way home from the pub, he'd thought he'd seen the bitch leaving his house again. He couldn't swear to it, he'd just had a brief glimpse, but that wild hair had looked all too familiar. . .

If it had been her, there was nothing he could do about it, though, and the thought made Tobias punch the bar in anger. The landlord, ringing up a drink at the till, looked over at him but didn't say anything; he was a man knew how to mind his own business, Gil was. Well, he wouldn't be much of a licensee if he wasn't used to seeing men in a temper.

Not that the temper was going to do anything for Tobias but give him a sour stomach. He wouldn't even get the satisfaction of a good row with Eileen. If he mentioned the frizzy-haired woman, asked if she'd been in the house, Eileen would just lie about it. Deny it up one side and down the other. Of course she would, she was a liar and a freak. And a pervert.

So he was going to have another drink. And then another, if he wanted it. Why shouldn't he? He didn't have no pleasure in his home or his family, the very places a man ought to feel most comfortable.

What kind of a piss-poor life was it, when beer was all he had left?

***

Eileen

She'd never intended to hurt anyone. Well, except maybe Sybill. Just a little bit, to make her sorry. But she hadn't intended to hurt Tobias, not at first. She'd meant it when she said she'd be a good wife to him.

And she'd tried. No one could say she hadn't tried. Hadn't she lived in his grim little house and given up her magic? Hadn't she done her wifely duty by him as long as he'd wanted her? That's what her gran had called it, "wifely duty." And Eileen had done it, every week without fail, even though Tobias never gave a thought to whether she got any pleasure from the act.

She'd kept the house well, too -- still did, and on virtually nothing. No matter how worn, everything was clean. Even Severus -- no matter how old or unsuitable his clothing, she always made sure it was clean.

But did those things ever matter to Tobias? No, he never noticed what she did do, only what she didn't. Always after her to use her magic to get them something for nothing, even though she had told him over and over again that magic didn't work that way. Anything you conjured didn't last; you could only use it temporarily.

Like poor Severus's clothes -- Tobias was always complaining about Severus's clothes, as if it was her fault that the lad had to wear his father's cast-offs. But she couldn't be constantly changing them into something better. They were already so old that the make-up of the fabric had weakened; even if she'd re-transfigured them every day, they wouldn't have held their shape, and the lad would have found his things leaping back to their original form in the middle of the day.

She'd told Tobias this. Told him and told him, but he didn't listen. Just grumbled and drank and glared daggers at her, when he came home at all.

He hated her. That was the long and short of it. He hated her, had done ever since the day of Sybill's first visit, when Severus had been just a wee mewling babe. Tobias had seen Eileen in Sybill's arms, and life had never been the same.

But Eileen and Sybill hadn't been doing anything wrong. Not really. Oh, Tobias always ranted about perversion and adultery, but it wasn't true. Each time he told the story it got worse, until to hear him tell it, she and Sybill had been naked in Tobias's bed, their hands buried in each other's quims.

It hadn't happened that way at all, of course. Yes, it was true that when Tobias had come into the sitting room on that long-ago afternoon, Eileen had been locked in Sybill's embrace. And yes, it was true that they had been kissing, that Eileen had felt those soft lips on hers for the first time since that glorious agonising summer of 1957, had felt those gentle fingers curl round her breast.

But they both had been fully clothed and would have remained so, no matter what Tobias thought. Sybill had already begun to pull away even before Tobias opened the street door. If he'd only been a quarter of an hour later, Sybill would have been gone, and he'd have been none the wiser.

They'd have still been a family, she and Tobias and Severus, or as much of a family as Tobias would have let them be, for Eileen didn't doubt that he'd have managed to spoil everything sooner or later. He might not have hated her, though, might not have judged her for something that was never her fault. She couldn't help that she still loved Sybill. She had never done anything about it, just kept it as her own secret, something to hug to herself and take refuge in when times got bad.

Still, it had been a hard life for her, never to be touched in love since she was eighteen, and if she'd turned bitter with the gall of it, who would say she didn't have cause?

Even Severus had turned against her, withdrawing into himself more and more, spending all his time with that Muggle girl. Part of Eileen was glad that Severus would soon be going to Hogwarts -- he'd got his letter yesterday -- because she thought he might be happier among his own magical kind. Yet another part of her dreaded losing him, and she'd spent a painful hour in tears today as she thought what life would be like with him gone.

Then, out of nowhere, Sybill had arrived. People could say what they would about Sybill Trelawney, call her a fraud or a loony, the way even her Hufflepuff housemates had done in school. They could say she didn't really have the Sight. But today, when Eileen had most needed her, Sybill had known and had come to her.

At least Tobias hadn't walked in on them this time. If only he hadn't done so that first time.

***

It was a game Eileen played often -- "if only." If only Tobias hadn't come just then, on that almost-spring day over a decade ago. Or if only he hadn't kept holding things against her, no matter how much she explained, no matter how much she showed him, over and over again, that she'd lived up to her part of the bargain about being a good wife.

No, she would never have loved him, but he hadn't wanted her to, hadn't loved her himself. But she'd kept his house and raised his boy, and you'd think that would have counted for something.

Or if only Sybill had been braver. The Sorting Hat had known what it was about, when it didn't put Sybill into Gryffindor. If only she had stood up to her family on that dreadful autumn afternoon after their seventh year, when Sybill's father had come upon them in her bed.

The day had started so blissfully, with the owl bearing the letter saying that Eileen had been accepted into a Potions apprentice program. She'd Apparated over to share the news with Sybill, who had been entirely happy for her and for once hadn't predicted a single catastrophe.

"We can get a flat of our own, together," Eileen had said, whereupon Sybill had burst into tears.

"It's too perfect," she'd said, proving her prescience once again. It had been too perfect, and Eileen should have known it would never last, but she'd been young then, and had still occasionally -- foolishly -- allowed herself to believe that things might work out well for her.

She and Sybill had been alone in the house, and they'd let their excitement carry them into bed, and then Mr Trelawney had walked in, much as Tobias would do a few years later. He hadn't even done his daughter the courtesy of knocking first; he'd just opened the door, saying, "Sybill, your mother wishes. . ." before he'd seen them.

At least he hadn't raged and shouted the way Tobias had, not that things had been any different in the end. He's just said, in a dangerous low voice, "You will put your clothing on, Miss Prince, and then you will leave this house and you will not return."

They'd kept Sybill away from her after that. When three days went by with no word, Eileen had sent a frantic owl, only to have it return with a note from Mr Trelawney: "Do not attempt to communicate with Sybill. She will not reply."

Eileen had burned the parchment in a flash of fire from her wand and had waited for Sybill to find a way to reach her.

She never had. Whether it was because she was too cowardly to defy her parents or because she hadn't really wanted Eileen after all, Eileen didn't know, but October had turned to November, and November to December, and it had been time for Eileen to visit Aunt Ida. And still she heard nothing.

That's why she had decided to accept Tobias Snape. To show Sybill that Eileen was wanted by others, that she wouldn't wait forever. She'd sent a letter, charmed to be legible only to Sybill and disguised to look like a sales circular, saying, "I've received an offer of marriage," and she'd hoped, even prayed, that the idea would shock Sybill, would force her to take a stand against her family.

She heard nothing. Not even after she'd sent a second owl with the time and date of ceremony.

She'd gone to the registry office with Tobias, and when noon came and went, with no Sybill, Eileen had straightened her spine, said "yes" to the clerk, and signed the marriage certificate with a flourish.

And hoped Sybill would be very, very sorry.

***

But if she was sorry, she didn't say so. Sybill never replied to the owl, and Eileen had not seen or heard from her again until that ill-fated afternoon over two years later, when she'd shown up without warning, saying she'd come to see baby Severus.

That's when Eileen learnt that despite her careful charms and enchantments, the owls had never reached Sybill. She'd had to find out about the marriage through a tiny notice in The Daily Prophet, and she'd assumed that Eileen had no longer wanted her, had wanted a man and a family instead.

"You'd said once that you would like a baby, do you remember?" Sybill asked, her eyes large and sad behind her spectacles.

Of course Eileen remembered; they'd been walking hand-in-hand just inside the Forbidden Forest on a warm afternoon of that seventh-year spring, talking of their hopes and dreams.

"I said I wanted a flying carpet, too. We were just larking." A baby had just been a fantasy then, not a real option, although of course now she wouldn't part with Severus for anything.

"I know, but directly you said it, I knew you would have one someday. And this morning, when I awoke, I could sense that he had come. I felt that I had to see him today."

"The Inner Eye told you?" Eileen asked, teasing. It was an old joke between them.

"Oh, yes, partly -- that and corrective lenses," Sybill said, with her gentle smile. "But I also just wanted to see you."

By the time Eileen had rescued one of Sybill's trailing scarves and smoothed it lightly onto her shoulder, by the time Sybill had caught her hand and kissed it and they had fallen into each other's arms, by the time Eileen had realised that Sybill still loved her, still wanted her, Tobias had come home.

***

When she'd seen Tobias standing in the door, the thought of Obliviating him had flashed through Eileen's mind, but of course she hadn't. The taboo against self-serving Obliviation was strong. And even had she been willing, she doubted her skills were up to the task. Obliviation was a precise and difficult art, and like so many gifts, was not one she possessed.

So there had been nothing for it but to face Tobias as he had stepped into the room and seen her and Sybill together.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" he had demanded, looking from one to the other of them.

Eileen had tried to make the best of things. "What do you mean?" she'd asked, cursing herself for being unable to resist smoothing her hair and blouse. "I'm having tea with a former schoolmate; she's called to see the baby. Sybill, this is my -- "

But Tobias was having none of it. "I don't care if she's the former Queen of Sheba" he snarled. "I saw what you two was up to. I know perversion when I see it, and you have the bloody cheek to do it in a man's own house! With his baby a-laying right there in its cot!"

The moment stayed with Eileen like a photograph, all of them standing in pained tableau in the cramped front room of Spinner's End -- Tobias, rigid with anger, his hands balled into fists as he stared at them, his mouth working as though he were trying and discarding words, finding none of them strong enough to express his outrage. Sybill, her eyes huge behind her spectacles, her hands clutching futilely at her throat. Eileen herself, watching her own hands twist together, feeling as if they belonged to someone else.

Then time began again, with Tobias turning on Sybill. "Dyke! Whore!" he'd thundered. "Get out of my house. I never want to see you near my wife again."

He'd sounded like the patriarch in a bad Victorian melodrama, and Eileen had, in fact, felt something like a spectator, watching her own tragedy play out as Sybill had hurried to the door without a word, pausing at the threshold long enough to mouth "I'm sorry" before she slipped into the road and disappeared from Eileen's life for over ten years.

~*~*~*~*~

Three times so far in Eileen's marriage, her husband had hit her. The aftermath of Sybill's visit was the first time, and it was the only time that had frightened her.

The other episodes happened in the heat of arguments, when they'd both been shouting, each giving as good as they got, when drink and too many hard words had driven Tobias momentarily over the edge. The blows hadn't been hard, more like shoves than anything else, as if he'd wanted to repudiate her more than hurt her. "Repudiate" wasn't even a word he would know -- it was something he could only enact.

But the first time had been different. Tobias hadn't shouted, and he certainly hadn't been drunk. He'd just been so tightly-wound that he could barely force words through his clenched teeth.

"Is that what you are, then? One o' them lezzies? Have you been taking that bitch into my bed?"

She'd known it would be useless, but she tried to explain. "Tobias, nothing happened here. Not in this house, ever. Sybill just came to see the baby -- "

"Is that what they taught you in that freak school of yours? Perversion? And now you plan to do the same thing in my house?"

"Nothing happened! She --"

"'Not in this house'. Then where?"

Eileen had been confused. "What?"

"You said nothing happened in this house. Then where? Have you been sneaking out when my back is turned? You've been meeting your fancy woman, spending filthy days in her bed, while I'm working in the mill all hours?"

"No! This is the first time I've even seen Sybill since I met you!"

"I won't have that dyke's name spoken in this house! You tell me the truth, now. You owe me that much. Have you ever had. . .unnatural relations with that. . .that -- ?"

She hadn't been able to stop herself; his words cut too deep, and she shouted, "It's not unnatural! It's not!"

She'd been loud, insistent, talking to Sybill and to Sybill's family as well as to Tobias, because she knew it was what Sybill had once thought, too. To Eileen, her feelings for women had only ever seemed normal and good, but she knew that Sybill had initially feared that she and Eileen were unnatural, that they were sick or wrong, and that the world would respond to their love just the way Tobias was responding now.

And yet every time they had been together, it had felt right. It still felt right, and Eileen had to fight down a wave of desire for Sybill so strong that for a moment she could scarcely breathe.

"It's not unnatural," she said again, whispering this time, knowing that Tobias had his answer.

He'd hit her then, twice, deliberately and methodically, his face expressionless. She'd have minded less, she thought, if his features had been twisted in anger, if he'd seemed to be acting out of pain or hurt.

But instead, he simply smote her, indifferent and untouched, as if he were an instrument of impersonal cosmic justice, and it was that notion, not the pain, that made her burst into tears as poor infant Severus began screaming and Tobias put his cap back on his head as he opened the street door once more.

"A boy needs his parents, both of 'em," he said. "So you'll go on living here, and you'll mind the lad and keep this house. And I'll provide for my boy and for his mam. But from today, you're no wife of mine."

***

In her more cynical moments, Eileen called that exit "Tobias's finest hour." Vengeance is mine, sayeth Tobias. Strong words, they'd been, and hard.

But they were words he hadn't kept. In the end, he hadn't provided for them, though she had to admit that the fault was not been completely his. He'd not been lying, though, when he'd cast her off. From that afternoon forward, he never touched her as a man touched a woman; the days of her "wifely duties" were over.

She didn't care. Lying under a grunting Tobias had never been her idea of a good time. No, she didn't miss his attentions, and when he'd bought two second-hand single beds, wrestled them up the narrow stairs and into their bedroom by himself, she had neither helped nor objected.

He hadn't left her alone in other ways, though. Always whinging, carping, grumbling, sniping -- when he was home at all, that was, and not out knocking back lagers with the lads. Truth be told, she preferred him being gone. When he was home, he shouted, and she shouted back, and when he was little, Severus would cry, until Tobias would start shouting at him.

Eileen could have taken her boy and left, of course. In theory. She didn't have to stay with a man who hated her. But where else could she have gone? She had no money -- the bit left to her by Aunt Ida was long spent, and she'd never done any training beyond Hogwarts; she'd given up her potions apprenticeship to marry. In any case, her few N.E.W.T.s hadn't been spectacular -- just the one "Outstanding" in Potions; it's not as if employment would be easy to find even if she returned to the wizarding world.

So she was stuck, and she knew she shouldn't be surprised. In fact, she could almost have laughed, if it hadn't been so pathetic. What had ever happened in her life to make her think that the world would ever do better by Eileen Prince than the soot-blackened wasteland of Spinner's End?

***

Well, there had been one thing -- just one, but for a time, it had seemed as if it might be enough.

There had been Sybill Trelawney.

The first time she had really talked with Sybill had been near Christmas of their sixth year at Hogwarts. She'd never spoken with her previously, although Eileen had known who Sybill was, of course, the way one recognised the people in one's own year, no matter what their House. And even if Sybill hadn't been in the same year, she was hard to miss, so tall and skinny, with her wild hair and her giant glasses and her many haphazard shawls. Eileen supposed she needed the shawls to keep her warm, as painfully thin as she was -- like a broomstick with arms.

Sybill was a loner, the way Eileen was. Neither of them had been popular, but at least Eileen had been mostly ignored. Sybill, on the other hand, was the sort of obvious oddity who seemed to invite persecution. Not only her looks, but her distinctive voice and her sometimes hysterical insistence on predicting disaster -- all these combined to make her a figure of fun among the students.

Girls would sometimes imitate the breathy, near-tears way that she answered questions in class. Or they would make pointed remarks about people with the gift of Sight who couldn't see how pitifully hopeless they were. Snickering boys would use hook charms to snatch her shawls away.

Sybill hadn't seemed all that bothered, though. Most of the time, she managed to head off the hook charms before they succeeded in catching anything. As for the girls' remarks, she just never quite seemed to hear them.

For her part, Eileen had paid little attention to the mockery. She had enough miseries of her own, so beyond simply being glad that it was someone else and not herself who was the target of the tormentors, she'd given no real thought to Sybill.

Until that night in sixth-year, when Eileen had ended up sitting with her at the Three Broomsticks. It had been a Hogsmeade Saturday, the last before the long Yule holiday, and nearly every eligible student had come into town -- to shop, to eat, just to enjoy the sense of imminent freedom.

Eileen had planned to spend the day with Rachel Bloom, one of her friends -- oh, face it, her only friend -- the only other Slytherin from the upper-years gobstones team. But in those last few months, Rachel had gone off gobstones and gone off Eileen, too. She'd taken up with some boy, a Slytherin fifth-year whose name Eileen simply refused to remember. Rachel had cancelled their Hogsmeade afternoon at the last minute, making up some excuse, but the truth was that she wanted to spend the time with him.

So Eileen had gone by herself, to show Rachel that she could have fun without her. If Rachel thought she was going to sit around moping because her friend had better things to do -- well, Eileen had better things to do, too. She'd go to the Broomsticks, she decided, and treat herself to a butterbeer and a hot lunch with all the trimmings.

The pub had been jammed, of course, and if a little part of her had hoped that someone would notice her, hail her, invite her to sit with them -- well, she'd have been disappointed. But luckily, she hadn't had any such hopes. She didn't need or even like her schoolmates; she preferred to be left alone. She managed to get the last table, a tiny one for two near the door.

The food menu was written magically in the air above the bar, and Eileen had just decided on "plaice/chips" when the words shimmered and disappeared, indicating that the selection was sold out.

Typical. She was on the verge of giving the whole afternoon up as a bad job and going back to the castle when a wispy voice had asked, "Is this seat taken?"

It had been Sybill, a floaty length of fabric wrapped round her head and the inevitable shawls slipping off her shoulders. Eileen had been irritated -- the last thing she wanted was to be seen in the Broomsticks with the school oddball. But there didn't seem to be any way out of it, so she had said, rather grudgingly, "No. You can sit down."

Sybill had smiled, and Eileen noticed that she didn't look so unfocused and confused when she did. Her cheeks had been flushed a delicate pink from the cold, and her frizzy hair, seen close, was actually a riot of tight, golden-brown curls. She'd not been exactly pretty, but she'd seemed more appealing than odd at that moment, and Eileen had offered a half-smile in return.

Sybill's brows gathered in a concerned frown, and she startled Eileen by taking one of her hands in both of her own and squeezing it.

"Your aura is unhappy," she said. "Won't you tell me what's troubling you?"

***

Eileen ought to have found the question absurd, or intrusive, but Sybill had seemed so genuinely interested and sympathetic that to her own surprise, Eileen didn't brush her off, the way she did most overtures from students. Instead, she found herself telling a shortened, deliberately humourous version of Rachel and the boyfriend.

Sybill had laughed with apparently real pleasure and then said, "I wonder what Rachel will do when she finds out that her beau steals kisses from Betty Meadowes next to the Greenhouse Three compost heap?"

"What, you saw this in your morning tea or something?" Eileen snapped. Rachel was a touchy subject for her, and she wasn't really in the mood for crackpot divinations.

"No, I saw this in my evening walk back from checking on my Herbology project," Sybill said. She tapped her temple under her glasses. "Sometimes the Inner Eye gets channelled through the Literal Eye. Helped out by corrective lenses, of course."

And she had grinned.

Eileen had laughed aloud. There might be more to this Sybill Trelawney than. . .er. . .met the eye.

They'd continued to talk over lunch, more and more comfortably as time went on, and an hour had flown by before Eileen had realised it. They'd walked back to Hogwarts together, talking about classes and N.E.W.T.s. By the time they reached the entry hall, they'd agreed to study Potions and Divination together in the library twice a week.

By the end of their sixth year, Eileen Prince and Sybill Trelawney had been fast friends, accepted as such by the other students, and mostly left to themselves. Eileen hadn't minded; Sybill was all she needed.

By the end of their seventh year, they had become lovers.

***

It had happened unexpectedly, just as their entire friendship had.

They'd been working in the library with a lot of the other seventh-years, N.E.W.T exams being almost upon them, but the evening had been so unseasonably warm that even Sybill had divested herself of all but one shawl, a diaphanous silver cloud that floated about her, alternately concealing and revealing her light summer robe and the lithe, graceful figure that Eileen had been noticing more and more.

Eileen had always found women appealing; she was attracted by their looks and their scents and their moves much more than she'd even been attracted by any male. And she knew that it was possible for women to love women the way husbands could love wives -- that's the way her gran had explained the relationship between two middle-aged witches who had lived down the road from them when Eileen had been a girl. Miss Bertram and Miss Warren, they were called, and Eileen had once asked her gran why they had not married.

Gran had pursed her lips and said, "They're different. They're husband and wife to each other, which won't mean anything to you now, but it will when you're older."

"But. . " Eileen had begun, but Gran had cut her off.

"No more questions. You'll understand when you're grown.

And with that Eileen had had to be content. But she'd thought about Miss Bertram and Miss Warren many times over the years, and when she was fourteen, she'd chanced upon an article on "sapphism" in a Muggle encyclopedia at the library near Gran's. Then she had understood at least some of it: women could love women with their bodies.

The way she was realising she would like to love Sybill.

On that hot Hogwarts night, she finally decided to do something about it.

She never knew where she got the courage -- or foolish daring -- to act. She wasn't a risk-taker by nature, and she usually stopped herself before trying things; she knew they were unlikely to work out, so what was the use? Gobstones had been an exception, but by the time she'd got to Hogwarts, she'd already known she was good at the game, for she and her gran had always played.

No, there was no knowing just why she decided to take Sybill's arm that night and urge her to her feet, unless she'd been taken over by one of that Lovegood boy's weird creatures. That was the laughing explanation she'd offered Sybill later, during that brief and wonderful time when it seemed that things might work out.

"Come on," she said. "Let's get some air, I'm perishing."

They'd gone to the Astronomy Tower, as had so many amorous Hogwarts students before and since, and there Eileen had pulled Sybill to her and kissed her, had run her hands down the thin back, feeling the delicious arc of her spine as they held each other, had even felt the breathtaking softness of Sybill's small breasts as they pressed against her own chest.

At that time, Eileen had not really understood all that loving Sybill might mean. She knew that she could make herself feel hot and shivery at the thought of Sybill's fair skin and expressive thin hands. She knew she could conjure a throb of pleasure between her legs when she lay in bed at night and called to mind the rise of Sybill's breasts under her robe or the length of her lean thigh.

But not until she stood with Sybill in her arms did she think consciously of what she might actually want to do with her -- how she wanted to unbutton her robes, pushing each button slowly through its buttonhole, touching her lips to each bit of fair skin as it was revealed, until she could push the fabric of robe and camisole off Sybill's shoulders to finally bare her breasts.

From out of nowhere, it seemed, Eileen's mind was crowded with images -- of Sybill naked on a bed, her hair spread on the pillow, her legs spread to Eileen's touch. The other girls in her Slytherin dormitory had sometimes giggled about touching themselves down there, but Eileen had never tried it before. She wanted to now, though, more than she thought she'd ever wanted anything. She wanted to touch Sybill, and the sudden thought that Sybill might someday touch her. . .

The notion hit Eileen like a slap; she gasped and pulled away from Sybill, who assumed she was upset or horrified.

"I'm sorry!" she'd cried as she tried to straighten her spectacles, her eyes wide behind them. "I didn't mean. . ."

"But I did," Eileen heard herself say. "I wanted to, and I want to again."

***

To Eileen's inexpressible delight, Sybill had wanted to, too. They had experimented more and more as their seventh year had rushed to its close, and finally, just a week before the Leaving Feast, they had taken a blanket and pillows (discreetly shrunken) with them into the grounds, had hidden themselves on the far side of the lake, and had lain naked in each other's arms for the first time.

They'd started by undressing each other slowly, getting to know each line and curve of each other's bodies, touching and tasting. Sybill had been shy at first, blushing furiously under Eileen's gaze, and they had both been nervous. A bit of tentative exploring was all they managed, but it had been enough for the moment.

Yet when they'd finally dressed quickly, neither looking at the other, and hurried back to their Houses, Eileen was already wanting more. She could hardly wait for their next encounter.

Since their night on the Astronomy Tower, she'd been practicing in her bed at night, the curtains firmly closed. She would think about how Sybill looked and felt and how her lips had tasted, and then when she'd feel that telltale throb between her legs, she would reach her hand down, to stroke and pull and rub until finally she could make herself shudder with a pleasure that she hadn't the words to describe.

She wanted to give that pleasure to Sybill, and to have Sybill give it to her.

When it finally happened, on the very night of their very last Leaving Feast, Eileen had felt shaken to her core; her hips had arched off the ground of their own volition, her fingers had dug into the blanket as she looked to keep some grasp on a world that was rapidly sliding out from under her, so much pleasure and love at once that she thought she would come apart from the force of it.

When her vision had finally cleared, she'd looked up to see Sybill gazing at her with a troubled, teary expression, her eyes without their glasses seeming almost as if they belonged to a stranger.

"What's wrong?" Eileen had asked.

"Are you. . ." Sybill whispered, pulling her robe around her shoulders, "Do you. . . I mean, are you ever afraid that this is wrong, what we're doing? Not wrong like it would be with a man you're not married to, but. . .should girls do this? Is it normal?"

"Yes," Eileen had said firmly, reaching over to wind her fingers into Sybill's curly hair. "Yes, it's perfectly normal; it's even mentioned in books. It's not wrong at all, and someday we'll have a flat together, and we can do it all the time, in a proper bed."

Sybill had given a sort of sobbing, hiccuppy giggle. "I thought I was supposed to be the Seer. What else do you find in your crystal ball?"

Eileen felt relieved, almost giddy. "Well, madam, you are the Seer. Why don't you tell me?"

"No." Sybill was suddenly solemn. "I want you to do it. Tell me our future."

And so Eileen had spun the tale that had already taken root in her mind, how they would share a flat and study, she with a Potions apprenticeship and Sybill under the tutelage of some elderly Divinations mistress. Then someday Eileen would own her own Potions shop, and Sybill would offer consultations in their parlour to troubled souls who needed the consolation of visions into other worlds.

They would live together and love each other and be happy.

***

Except that things hadn't worked out that way, of course, and she should have known they wouldn't. What right had she to believe in fantasy stories? What right had Eileen Prince to happiness? Wasn't she the girl whose teachers had written reports saying she "was awkward in dealing with others" and "prefers to blame the situation and her classmates rather than take responsibility for herself"? Hadn't her gran's neighbor been overheard to call Eileen "that pitiful, sullen Prince child"? Hadn't Professor Slughorn, her own Head of House, chosen to deny her his mentorship even though he knew her ability with Potions?

No, in reality, her future had turned out to be as bleak as the streets of Spinner's End, and by the time Severus had been born, Eileen had been resigned to it. Even after she'd seen Sybill again and had learnt just how badly Fate, in the shape of misdirected letters and tyrannical fathers and husbands, had done her wrong, Eileen had accepted her lot.

What else was there to do? She'd let her mind toy with suicide, but even as she'd thought about the potions she'd mix, she'd known she wouldn't go through with it. Severus needed her, and besides, she wasn't about to give Tobias the satisfaction.

She and Sybill had loved each other and still did, but when had love ever been enough in this world?

Sybill's visit to the baby had renewed their love, but then just like that, Eileen had lost it again. She had tried not to let herself repine. She'd told herself she'd get over it. People did; no one ever actually died of a broken heart. She had a home, and she had her baby, and she had once known love, and that would have to be enough.

And she thought she had got over it. She'd raised her boy and stood up to Tobias when she needed to and told herself that if her heart was bitter, it was no more than she ought to have expected out of life. When had anything ever lasted for her? Her parents blown to bits before she had ever known them, her gran gone, her aunt gone. Her one love gone.

Still, she'd pressed on. She'd sealed her heart, except to spare a little for Severus, and she'd pressed on.

Then today, the day after Severus had received his long-awaited Hogwarts letter, Sybill had appeared again on the doorstep, and at the sight of her, Eileen had felt her heart come to pieces once more.

***

Sybill

From the start, they'd been misfits together, she and Eileen. Oh, Sybill was under no illusions about how the world viewed her -- she wouldn't have needed to be a Seer to notice their scepticism, their subtle (and often not-so-subtle) mockery. Very few people believed in her Gift, and they never minded letting her know it.

Well, such was the plight of visionaries in an age as prosaic as theirs. And perhaps it had always been thus -- Madam Blastasky (her first and dearest Divination mentor) had told her the story of Cassandra, a witch of ancient times who had been gifted with the Sight, yet who had been fated never to be believed.

From the first day she heard of Cassandra, Sybill had always felt a strong kinship with her, for here was another woman who had understood the peculiar pain that came with being both knowing and powerless. It was the burden of the Gifted, one that Sybill had expected always to bear alone.

But that had been before she'd known Eileen.

For Eileen had understood -- not really about the Sight, because unfortunately, Eileen could be as sceptical as anyone about Sybill's ability to See. No, what Eileen understood was the anguish of being an outcast.

And "anguish" was exactly what one felt. Sybill was not being overly-dramatic to use the word (whatever her teachers and Housemates might have said). While she did believe that she tended to feel things more strongly than many people (it was part of the Gift), she wasn't exaggerating about the pain of never being accepted.

That's what Eileen had understood: how one was constantly bruised (emotionally speaking) from the blows (not literal, of course) of the disdainful world. One had to try to ignore them, but that didn't make them any less felt.

Eileen had felt the blows, too -- from indifferent teachers, who wouldn't take the time to look behind her (admittedly) prickly façade, to callous Housemates, who hadn't cared if they hurt her by their clique-ish ways, to that red-faced, shouting Muggle husband who had so terrified Sybill on that day long ago -- that best and worst of all days, when she'd both regained and re-lost Eileen's love in a single swoop.

Eileen's love. It was. . .well, a person lived many lives, of course, and time could be malleable, but Sybill didn't think it was tempting fate too much to say that Eileen's love had been the best part of this plane of her existence. From the very moment that she'd seated herself at that small table in the Three Broomsticks during their sixth year, she'd felt their connection, even through Eileen's unhappy aura.

That aura had confused Sybill a trifle at first, for it had been -- not dark, exactly, but dull and thick, with not a glimmer of translucence anywhere. It was only later, as Sybill grew older and more experienced, that she recognised the dullness for what it was: depression, an inability to see the colours of the world.

Sybill herself almost always saw the colours, no matter how difficult life became, and she loved the fact that, by the middle of their seventh year, she had seen more brightness than flatness in Eileen's aura. She knew she was not being immodest to believe that it was her own friendship that made the difference, although she had seen Eileen's potential for happiness, even on that first night.

When Eileen had told the story of her friend Rachel's defection from their Hogsmeade weekend, she had told it so well, with such wit and perception, that Sybill had been enchanted even though she'd felt Eileen's pain. As a serious person herself, one who never understood how to make people laugh, Sybill admired people like Eileen, with her facile tongue (just how facile, Sybill was to learn later) and quick mind. And once she was able to see behind Eileen's sad aura, she found a clever, thoughtful girl who was willing to love and be loved.

Love and be loved -- Eileen had done both, and so had Sybill, during the whole of that shimmering spring and summer of their final year at Hogwarts. Never before or since had Sybill felt more in tune with the spirit of the entire universe.

In after years, she'd decided that her own happiness must have blocked her Sight, for she'd had not an inkling of the doom that had awaited them in the form of her own father. On that fateful afternoon, Eileen's aura had been clear; there'd been nothing, not the slightest hint that their whole cosmos was about to collapse. Everything had been bright.

And then Papa had come home.

A part of Sybill had always known, of course, that Papa would never approve of her relationship with Eileen, but she'd thought that before she'd need to face him with the truth, she and Eileen would have time to establish themselves in their new lives. She'd imagined that when she did confront Papa, she'd do so with the welcome strength of Eileen at her side.

How could even a Seer have imagined that excruciating scene in her bedroom: her father looming in the doorway, Eileen beside her in bed, her aura black with rage, and Sybill herself, so paralyzed with shame and humiliation that she couldn't speak?

When Papa had ordered Eileen out of the house, she'd dressed quickly and departed -- really, when Papa was in one of his towering tempers, no one could do other than obey him. But Sybill had expected that her love would soon send word to her about where they could meet. It never occurred to her that Eileen might be waiting for word from her -- Eileen was the clever one, the practical one. . .Sybill had just assumed. . .

After Eileen left on that sad afternoon, Papa hadn't even waited for Sybill to get dressed; he'd merely used his wand to drape the duvet over her and had told her, scathingly, that she'd been made a fool of, that her "perverted whore" of a false friend had used her, ruined her, and was now no doubt laughing at her.

Sybill hadn't believed a word of it. But when days passed without word, she began to worry that perhaps Papa had been right. Oh, not about Eileen laughing at her (for Sybill had always known that wasn't true), but when he said that Eileen wouldn't wait for her, that she'd move on with her life.

Then she had seen the wedding notice in the Daily Prophet.

The world had gone dark for a moment, and for the first and (Merlin please) only time in this life, Sybill had felt as if the Sight deserted her.

Of course, by the time she learnt the truth about Eileen's marriage, their karma had inevitably shifted, hers and her darling's. Their time had passed.

Yet nothing could destroy the memory of those brief, shining moments when their souls had been one, when they had been together to soothe and comfort one another against life's vicissitudes. They had healed each other, and Sybill loved Eileen for that (and for so many other, private things).

That's why Sybill had come to Eileen's side today, even though last time, when Eileen's tyrant of a husband had summarily ordered her from his home, she had vowed that she would never insert herself into Eileen's life again. She'd felt that she had indeed been wrong to visit Eileen (a married woman and a new mother), and she'd vowed to leave her dearest in peace with her little family -- no matter if it meant that Sybill had to stake her own heart in the process.

And she'd kept that vow until today, although periodically over the years, she'd Seen glimpses of her love. She often let herself remember that glorious evening at the Divination commune, where all the members had brought their mental powers together (just for practice; one needed to keep the Sight supple). When it had been Sybill's turn to look into the crystal, and she'd thought about the thing she most wished to See -- well, she had Seen it.

She had Seen Eileen. True, Eileen had been in that dreary Muggle sitting room, but she had been laughing, swinging a little dark-haired toddler into the air as he, too, had laughed. . .

Sybill had Seen that Eileen was happy, and she had sobbed aloud with the joy it. And the anguish.

***

The years had passed, and Sybill had continued to live in the Divination commune, where she and the others, women and men both, had practised their skills and raised what food and wool they needed to sustain themselves. If she had not been exactly happy, she had at least been content.

She stayed busy with so many interesting things. Her days were spent baking and sharing the tending of cows and crops; her nights were given to pursuing her Gift with the crystal and the tea leaves, warming herself periodically with sips of healing sherry. She collected delicate china tea cups (for one must have beauty) and knitted herself soft, colourful shawls (for one must make one's world vivid) and took long, soul-cleansing walks.

Yes, she had been satisfied. She had her work and her pleasures and her memories: of Eileen's happiness and of the love they had so passionately (if so tragically briefly) shared.

It had been enough. . .until this morning.

This morning, when she had arisen with the larks, she had immediately sensed a disjunction in the cosmos, and she had known at once (as one knows these things) that all was not right with Eileen.

Her first instinct had been to rush to her love's side, but she had hesitated. It had been years since they'd seen each other -- eleven years, two months, and eighteen days, to be exact, from 14 April 1960 until today, 2 July 1971. She supposed her precision might surprise people; Sybill knew that to the outside world, she sometimes seemed fey (for she dwelt so much among th'untrodden ways, as the poet said). But living in her own world never meant that she was unaware of the everyday one. She remembered the dates perfectly.

She wanted to see Eileen, but there were many issues to consider. First was the length of time since they'd met; so much would have changed. And of course, Eileen was a married woman. That fact alone should have made Sybill keep her distance, because. . .well, because Sybill couldn't promise herself that she would let the marriage matter to her when she saw Eileen again. She couldn't promise that she wouldn't take Eileen into her arms the instant she saw her. That was the sort of thing she was never able to know in advance (one's own mind, ironically, could often be the hardest thing to See).

But then again, Sybill knew herself to be a woman of maturity and sensitivity; surely she could visit an old friend, to offer succor, and not behave with any indignity? Of course she could.

So she waited until noon, prepared herself a light luncheon that she served on her prettiest plate (for why shouldn't one's meals be aesthetically pleasing?) and then, after a fortifying nip of a little something to warm her bones, she Apparated to that world of towering chimneys and terraces of blackened brick.

To Eileen's world. Eileen's door.

She paused, letting her Sight assess the sooty little house; she didn't want to encounter the husband or the boy. But she sensed only one essence within.

So she knocked.

The door opened, and there was Eileen, frowning as if she expected to find an unwelcome salesman. She looked weary: her cheeks were gaunt, and her hair was scraped back into a tight knot from which one lock escaped to droop untidily over her face.

But none of that mattered to Sybill; she cared only whether Eileen would welcome her. She watched the tired eyes widen with amazement as Eileen recognised her.

"Sybill," she whispered, and tucked the lock of hair behind her ear in a gesture so quintessentially Eileen that Sybill felt herself near tears.

But they were not tears of regret. No, as Sybill stood on that bleak doorstep, the years seemed to crumble away. It was felt almost as if no time had passed at all, as if they were girls again, coming face-to-face in a crowded pub. She spoke the same words she'd said when they'd first met:

"Your aura is unhappy. Let me help you."

Eileen's lips quirked in a near-smile, and she answered with their old joke: "The Inner Eye guided you here, did it?"

That was the moment when Sybill could See that everything would be all right.

"That and corrective lenses," she said.

***

Eileen made tea, and they drank it at a battered table in the kitchen, the thin northern light from the small window doing little to brighten the gloomy space. Normally Sybill would have found such surroundings a pall on the proper balance of her humours, but today, beyond a sadness that her Eileen should have to live with so little beauty or softness in her life, she felt nothing but the lightness of her own being.

Staying away from Eileen had been a mistake; they belonged together, Sybill could feel it so strongly now. The doubts she'd had as a girl, the worries that their love and their pleasures were somehow wrong. . .all those had long burned away.

Now she felt, somehow, as if this dark, stuffy kitchen were the brightest and breeziest place imaginable; when she closed her eyes briefly, she could actually See the sunlit tile floors and billowing white curtains that defined the spacious home where their souls dwelt, hers and Eileen's. Or would dwell, once Eileen's own humours had been adjusted.

The main threat to Eileen's balance at the moment, Sybill learnt, was the painful change that loomed over her: her boy Severus would soon be heading to Hogwarts, the beginning of his slow but inevitable movement into his own life.

"He got his letter yesterday," Eileen explained, twisting the tea towel in her hands. "He's thrilled. Anxious, but thrilled. And why shouldn't he be? He wants to get out of this place, and who can blame him? I certainly don't."

"And you believe you cannot face life in this cold, empty house without him?" Sybill asked, breathless with the sorrow of it, but Eileen snorted.

"I'm not that weak, I hope," she said. "Of course I can face life. I've faced plenty up till now, haven't I? But I'll miss him."

"You love him," said Sybill, breathless now with thoughts of the power of a mother's regard for her child.

Eileen nodded. "I do. Oh, we have our clashes, don't think we don't. He's got a lot of his father in him. I'll miss him all the same, though. But at least he'll have his own life now. He'll be happy."

And you aren't Sybill suddenly Saw clearly. You haven't been for years.

It seemed only right to reach out to take Eileen's hand in her own, to stroke the pale wrist, to bring the thin fingers to her lips. And it seemed only right that Eileen should move around the table and pull Sybill up from the chair and into her arms.

At least this time, Sybill thought to ward the room against unexpected incursions by Muggle husbands.

"Come home with me," she whispered, touching her lips to Eileen's cheek, but Eileen shook her head.

"I've the lad's tea to get, and it wouldn't work anyway, Sybill. We can't just go away together, even for an afternoon, not after all this time."

"Why not?"

It was a genuine question, for suddenly, the universe shifted, light poured from the Heavens, and everything seemed clear and simple to Sybill.

She'd had this experience before, of slipping into an altered state, where all impediments disappeared, and the things one wanted appeared to be within easy reach. Sometimes, true, the state followed upon the sipping of a quantity of sherry. But often the shift came on its own; Seers couldn't predict where their Visions would take them.

Eileen, meanwhile, stepped away and crossed her arms over her chest, her brows knotting. "Why not? You're supposed to be the Seer, aren't you? And you don't 'See' the problems? What good are a few hours of happiness? They'll just make it all the harder to come back to real life."

"They'll be real, too, the few hours. There are many planes of reality, you know, and --"

"Oh, please, spare me the Seer's Creed. This is the only plane of reality -- right here, in Spinner's End."

Ordinarily, Sybill would have found a response of this sort to be hurtful, no matter how well she knew that Eileen tended to retreat behind surly savagery when upset. But today, in her enhanced state, she felt only a heightened understanding of the conflicts that must be raging in poor Eileen's heart.

Mere words would have been inadequate, so Sybill moved forward to put her arms around Eileen again and hold her close. After a moment, Eileen relaxed, sagging against her, her own arms stealing round Sybill's waist.

"My boy will be home soon," she said finally. "Tobias, too. The dole centre will be closing."

Then, her voice muffled by Sybill's shoulder, she said, "I've never cheated on Tobias, you know."

Our love would never be a cheat, Sybill thought, but didn't say. It was early days, and she couldn't quite See where this path might lead, not yet. For now, there was only today, this moment, this perfectly-right moment with Eileen in her arms.

Still, there was one future truth she actually could See, and she uttered it: "I'll visit you again. Often."

"I don't know. . ."

"Yes," Sybill said firmly. "I See it."

Eileen didn't make their "Inner Eye" joke; she only tightened her hold.

"You and I will find a way, and things will be all right," Sybill said.

The Visions were crowding thick upon her now: she Saw images of herself and Eileen, somehow younger again and together, standing hand-in-hand in some sunny land, smiling.

She Saw her soft, pillow-covered bed at the commune, with Eileen in it.

She Saw them together as old women, grey and a trifle stooped, still in sunshine, still smiling.

Then the Visions faded, but the sense of rightness and truth remained. Sybill kissed the top of Eileen's head and smoothed back the again-errant lock of hair. Everything was going to be fine.

"Your boy will thrive at school," she told Eileen. "He'll be happy, I know it. No harm will come to him there, not at Hogwarts."

Eileen didn't reply, but Sybill knew she had heard. And she was sure Eileen believed. How could she not? It was all so clear.

For several timeless minutes, they stood together in the charmed circle of their arms, as the shadows lengthened and a mill-whistle sounded in the distance.

Everything would be fine.

Sybill could See it.

---

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