Except for some OCs, the characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of JK Rowling. This chapter takes place between the timelines of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The Snapes stood in a dingy sort of neighborhood, their backs to a run-down square. They had been brought here by Remus Lupin, who checked his watch and looked around expectantly. A few other witches and wizards showed up, too. After a few minutes, the streetlights started going out. When the street was in near complete darkness, Albus Dumbledore stood before them. He looked at everyone and took a sort of attendance.

When he ascertained that everyone was present and was indeed who he said he was, Dumbledore spoke quietly, but so that everyone could hear him. “The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place.”

As they watched, a house became visible between numbers eleven and thirteen, squeezing them aside as it grew to be visible. Dumbledore tapped on the door. The door opened to show Sirius Black, his finger to his lips. Everyone filed in as quietly as possible. Dumbledore clicked an object that looked like a cigarette lighter and the lights all went back into the street lamps.

The need for quiet quickly became clear. Nymphadora Tonks tripped over the carpet in the hallway and slammed into the wall with a thud. Immediately a grim looking woman in a portrait came screaming to the foreground and started hurling imprecations upon the crowd in the hallway.

“My mother,” said Sirius quietly to everyone. “Here, the best room to meet in is the kitchen. Remus knows the way.” People started filing behind Lupin while he stayed behind to quiet the portrait.

As they arrived in the kitchen, Albus Dumbledore took Emily's elbow. “Emily, are you still decided against joining the Order?”

“I'm a Healer, Albus. We don't take sides; it would compromise our integrity in healing those who come to us. I will be here to help the Order insofar as I can, but I cannot join. Besides,” she gestured to the small head just visible under her cloak, “I have company with me.”

The blue eyes looked seriously at her. “I hope you are not forced to make a decision you would rather not make. However, I respect your reasoning. I think Sirius has a room you can wait in with Brendon while we meet.”

“Thank you, Albus.”

The voice in the hallway finally ceased and Sirius came and led Emily to a small sitting room. “It's not the big parlor. That room is still quite infected with whatever Kreacher allowed in here. Remus and I have made this room livable, though. Make yourself comfortable, Emily. Do you need anything?”

“No, Sirius, we shall be fine. Thank you.”

Emily took off her cloak and sat in an overstuffed chair. She checked on the small body pressed close to her own. Brendon was waking from sleep and rooting around. He often took a long feeding at this time of night. She unfastened her robe and let him nurse. The chair she was sitting in was quite comfortable for this purpose, with well-padded armrests at just the right level to support the baby and a headrest that curved right around her head. She wondered if any other mothers had used it in this way.

The rest of the room was equally cozy. There was a cheerful fire in the grate, providing just the right amount of warmth. A couch to match the chair was near the fireplace, against one wall. There was a table with an elaborate set of Wizard chess pieces upon it, halfway through a game. In a far corner was a desk, heaped with books. Emily smiled. That must be where Remus studied and worked.

“There she is, the blood traitor who thought herself too good for Mistress's son. Married to the half-blood and here she is with her half-blood spawn.”

Emily looked up at the house-elf who was before her. “You must be Kreacher. It's nice to meet you.”

The house-elf acted as if he didn't hear her, but his words betrayed the truth. “The blood traitor speaks to Kreacher. Should Kreacher punish himself for listening to her? What would Kreacher's Mistress say?”

“I wish you wouldn't. I hear you were very good to Regulus.”

“Did Mistress Blood Traitor know Master Regulus?”

“Not very well, mostly through what Sirius told me. He was grateful for what you could tell him about his brother's death. Sirius loved Regulus.”

Kreacher couldn't process this and started backing out of the room. “Does Mistress Blood Traitor have any requests for Kreacher?”

“No, thank you, Kreacher, you have been most kind.”

This sent the house-elf muttering out of the room again, leaving Emily to her own thoughts. After a while the baby stirred and fussed some more. He had finished with one breast and was looking for the other. Emily patted and rubbed his back to coax a burp out of him and then settled him down again. She was starting to feel the relaxation and sleepiness that nursing brought to her. She settled the blanket over the baby and wriggled comfortably into the chair, drawing her legs up under her.

The past month had been a bit of a nightmare. Severus had been summoned by the Dark Lord twice. He apparently had little aim other than making sure Severus would always come and come quickly. Very little information had been gathered for or by either side so far. It was as if the two sides were circling, taking the measure of each other.

It was turning Severus into a somewhat different person. A certain hardness had come over him even as he seemed almost exhilarated to finally be working at the task he had known was coming. Emily was sure that it was a sort of emotional protection against the horrors he saw and experienced at the Death Eater's meetings. He was not given the same privileges as the true Death Eaters, but he was often expected to at least witness the excesses of that group's destructiveness.

Emily was a little sad to see the difference. It was pretty minor, and well worth it if it helped him and kept him safer. With luck, Hope wouldn't notice it. She settled a little deeper into the comfort of the chair and the sense of wellbeing caused by feeding the baby.

“Motherhood suits you.”

Emily opened her eyes drowsily. Brendon was still firmly clasped within her arms, but he had wriggled around and gone to sleep, dropping the blanket onto the floor and leaving her completely exposed. Sirius was standing in the doorway; Emily squealed and covered herself.

“How long were you standing there?”

“I don't know. Was it a minute or days? When one comes upon something like this, he doesn't check his watch...”

“Sirius! Really!”

“Just for a minute, Emily, and may I just say--”

“No, you may not.” Emily's face was red and she was feeling a bit humiliated.

He sighed and looked away. “Well, then, I just need to let you know that the meeting is over, but your husband is still talking with Dumbledore. I'll be off, then.”

“Don't be silly. This is your sitting room, after all. So is this your family home?”

He walked into the room and sat on the couch. “Yes, the whole crumbling mass of it. It's not decaying physically so much as that the decay of dark magic has been set upon it. Molly Weasley is going to move in here with her brood. She intends to bring some order to the place. I wish her luck with it.”

Emily smiled and looked at her baby, who stirred a little in his sleep.

“So why won't you join the Order?”

“We went through this years ago, Sirius. I can't appear to take sides.”

“Lily did.”

“I can't comment on another woman's choices. I will say that she didn't really understand the culture at St. Mungo's. I was born to it.”

“Fancy you having pure-blood attitudes after all!”

“No, that's not it, Sirius. Members of my family have been healers for several generations. We were taught the lore and expectations of it as children. Healers simply do not take sides. Lily didn't have that advantage. She might have felt differently than she did if she had been raised with the understanding that I was.”

“I see.” He nodded and was quiet for a while. “Emily, I had wanted to say that you looked so right sitting there, with your child in your arms. I will never see that chair in quite the same way. If I have any regret in my life, it's that I didn't consider the possibility of having something like this with you until it was too late.”

“You never really considered, it, Sirius.”

“You're wrong, Emily. I did want it. I still do. I'm sure I would be terrible at it and that I have a lot to learn, but I want it. Seeing you tonight, in my sitting room...It never occurred to me before how incredibly sexy a woman can be as a wife and mother.”

“Ah, Black, I see you plan to spend this war sitting home and chatting up the witches while others go out and actually fight.” Severus was now standing in the doorway.

“Look, Snape--”

Emily saw nothing good that could come from the conversation starting and broke in. “Severus, if you're done here, we need to get back to Mum's house. There's no telling what mischief our daughter has gotten into with her grandmother.”

“It would appear, Emily, that our host has something to discuss with me.”

Emily could see a latent irritation growing on Sirius's face and was aware of Remus haunting the hallway behind her husband. She took a breath and tried a different tack.

“Severus, I hate to interrupt your conversation and I don't like to discuss it in front of these gentlemen, but I was hoping we could get home early enough to...” She broke off the sentence and blushed, looking into his eyes, willing him to accept her invitation.

He looked into her memories and caught a glimpse of a changing room and a new nightgown. “Ah, I didn't realize, my dear. I agree that we should get home.” He turned and glared at his host. “It appears I have a previous engagement. If you have something to say, Black, we can discuss it at a later time.”

---

Some time later Severus collapsed onto his wife, the new black lace nightie bunched up around her neck. They had attacked each other as soon as Emily had finished changing.

“Emily, I shouldn't have been like this. I should have—”

She put her fingertips over his mouth. She was still catching her breath. “I wanted it just as much as you did. There must be something about that house.”

“I thought it was seeing Black and Lupin. They get under my skin and it really—“

“Brings out the animal in you?” said Emily, mischievously.

He laughed and then became serious. He rolled to his side and helped her straighten her nightgown. “Emily, it's the way you let him talk to you. Everything he says is a proposition.”

“Of course it is. He doesn't even know he's doing it, really. It comes to him like breathing.”

“It's part of the entire picture. I'm not the same these days. I know it. I'm becoming harder, angrier. This,” he said as gestured to the bed, “is becoming more common. Don't tell me you haven't noticed. This isn't the man I want to be.”

She held his face in her hands and kissed him tenderly, on his lips, on his eyes and nose and then along the sides of his face. “I've noticed. I think you need it, Severus, to protect yourself as you do your work.”

“I don't want to be like this. If only...”

“Don't think about it like that. You do what you need to do, to get through this and come home. We will worry about what we want it to be like when we have the luxury. For now, just do what must be done to come back to me.”

“Fate was smiling upon me the day you pulled me into your bedroom.”

“We can only hope that she will continue to smile. Meanwhile,” Emily said as she kissed her husband's hands and slid them around her body, “I think we can show ourselves that we're still capable of sweetness, and romance, and tenderness...” She shimmied closer to him and started kissing with her lips as her hands stroked and caressed his concerns away, at least for the night. As the black lace floated to the floor he discovered that he was lost in the gentle warmth of their love and had no wish to be found.

A/N: Thank you very much for reading and reviewing. A special thanks goes to beta reader Trickie Woo, who worked particularly hard on this chapter and the next ones.