"I Promise"
'Thank God for my own room,' thought Hecate Winter calmly, looking about the Head Girl's room with satisfaction. 'Thank God there will be no more unwanted roommates bursting in just as I'm getting ready to go to bed, gabbing on and on about how cute that Draco Malfoy is...' Hecate let out a sigh of content, "Finally...what I've been waiting for."
* * *
Potions moved slower than usual, mostly due to the fact that Hecate had finished her Sleeping Draught fifteen minutes ago. Harry Potter looked at her with slight envy; he was still struggling through N.E.W.T. Potions, and so far, the Sleeping Draught was turning into a gloppy mess. "You should be finished with your Draughts by now," said Professor Snape, glaring at Harry nastily, "so swap with your partner and drink. Hopefully, Potter and Longbottom will be paired up together so they can finish each other off simultaneously." Neville's looked no better than Harry's, and Hecate chuckled slightly at Snape's joke.
Luckily for Harry, however, Hermione paired up with Neville; Ron Weasley, however, was up in the hospital wing from a Quidditch injury, so Harry was left partnerless. Unfortunately for Hecate, so was she, being one of the less popular members of Slytherin. "Winter and Potter, pair up," said Snape, noticing the two house outcasts. Harry's shoulders sank; he knew how much Hecate loathed him. Hecate, however, had another reason to hate him; Harry's potion looked like uncooked clam chowder, and she was afraid to drink it. "Swap!" said Snape, "And make it quick!" Hecate hesitated, "Here's mud in your eye, Potter," she grumbled, swigging his potion quickly. For a moment, nothing seemed wrong, 'Perhaps he did it right and it just came out with the wrong color and texture.' Then she felt her stomach drop; at least there was the reassuring thud of Potter landing on the floor next to her; clearly her Draught was correct.
Hecate passed out quickly.
* * *
When she awoke ten minutes later, everyone else was standing over her, including Harry, who felt awful about the incident. Hecate lifted her head slowly, then noticed Harry, "I'm sorry!" he said, "It wasn't a Sleeping Draught! It was a-" Hecate stopped and looked at her hands; they were green. "A VENOMOUS TENTACULA POTION?!" she shrieked, "WHY I'LL KILL YOU!" She sat up abruptly and the blood rushed from her head, and she promptly passed out again.
* * *
The second time Hecate awoke, her skin was a normal color, "Stupid Potter," she said nastily, "A dash of leech juice, not the whole bloody vial!" "I already said that to him, so you had might as well keep that to yourself," said a voice, and suddenly Hecate realized where she was; in the hospital wing. The voice belonged to Professor Snape, who was sitting in the corner of the room, looking at her with a slightly pleased expression. "I'll take it fifty points was deducted from Gryffindor," she said hopefully. "Only twenty-five," he said, "unfortunately." She nodded, "Either way, I'll be off to my dormitory now..." "Unfortunately that's a no as well," he said, "Venomous Tentacula potion can cause a person to randomly collapse for at least a day, so you'll be here until tomorrow morning."
Hecate punched her pillow angrily, "But I don't need to stay here! I'm one hundred percent fine!" "Just give it a minute," replied Snape calmly. "What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped, then her eyes rolled up, and she collapsed a third time onto the pillow.
* * *
At lunch the following day Hecate was almost fuming; so far, her History of Magic class had gone badly; she had accidentally set fire to Hermione Granger's robes whilst Professor Binns' had been droning on about...something or other. Another goblin rebellion of some sort, maybe. It really was amazing what boredom could cause you to do, much less zone out. Henceforth, she would be doing detention with Binns for three hours. 'Stuck with Binns, the great bore. Probably end up getting bored to death...' she thought bitterly. She was seated at the end of the table, alone, when someone approached her; as it turned out, it was Potter. "Oh what do you want?!" she said, "Come to give me another one of your disastrous potions?!" His face turned pink, "No...actually, I came to apologize." She did a double take, "Do what?" "Apologize," he repeated, "for that...disastrous potion. If I had known it would put you in the hospital wing...well, if I had known it wasn't a Sleeping Draught..."
Hecate groaned inwardly at his struggle for words, "Fine, fine, apology accepted, now let me eat my lunch in peace!" Potter looked slightly startled, then shuffled off to the Gryffindor table. "Stupid Potter," she muttered, stabbing her steak-and-kidney pie with venom.
* * *
Dinner occurred without a hitch, except for Snape coming up to her and telling her that she would be serving detention with him instead; apparently, Binns was off at a last minute ghost convention of some sort or another. When she had finished her dessert, Hecate slowly picked herself up and headed to the Slytherin common room; she had an hour until her detention began. Upon her arrival, the common room grew silent for a moment, then returned to its' usual dull roar. In the meantime, Hecate went up the stairs and said the password (swizzle stick) that allowed her into her private room. For some time, she played her oboe, a long, thin, black instrument that only Muggles were familiar with.
It was half past seven before she finally looked up at the clock.
She gasped with horror; she was half an hour late to detention. Immediately she jumped up and began sprinting about the room, trying to put away her things so she could dash down to the dungeon, but then she heard a knock at the door. Assuming it would be Snape, preparing to kill her, she opened the door slowly, only to reveal Draco Malfoy. "What do you want?" she said. "Nothing, except to tell you that Snape is down there in the common room, and he is in a right state." He grinned nastily at her, "Forget about your detention?" She grinned back at him, "Just as you forgot that the stairs turn into a slide when a boy goes into the girls' dormitory." "What?" he said; suddenly, there was a loud whooshing sound, and Draco disappeared down the slide, yelling curses all the way down. "Fool," she said, grabbing her black cloak and sliding down after him, landing lightly on her feet.
She was still for barely a second when a pair of hands grabbed her by the cloak and dragged her out of the common room. "Professor, I'm sorry..." she said breathlessly, trying to put on her best, 'I'm just a poor, innocent girl' face. "You are half an hour late!" he snapped, finally releasing her and allowing her to walk behind him. She could barely keep up with his long, angry strides, "I was just practicing sir! I didn't mean-" "Be quiet you foolish girl! You've already landed yourself an extra hour in detention just for this alone!" Hecate silently kicked herself, also wishing she could kick Snape at the same time.
* * *
Two hours into the detention, Hecate's hands were raw; she had been cleaning cauldrons and scraping gum off of the bottoms of the worktables for so long that her eyes were burning and her hands were pink. "I hate manual labor," she muttered bitterly as she scrubbed. "Did you just ask for another hour, Miss Winter?" said Professor Snape from his desk. "No sir," she said, turning and facing him with her best sucking-up smile. Surprisingly, he smiled back; she was so taken aback by it that she almost did a double take, then remembered her manners.
Until he said, "Wipe that damn smirk off your face."
Her smile dropped, "Yes sir."
* * *
At the end of her ruthless, four hour long detention, Hecate felt as if she were about to go to sleep on her feet. Luckily, Snape had disappeared into his office some time ago, so she could at least sit down and relax a bit whilst scrubbing out the cauldrons. She laid her head down on the rim, dreaming of her satin-sheeted bed, and promptly fell asleep.
Ten minutes later, she received a rude awakening.
"THIS ISN'T NAPTIME, MISS WINTER! GET UP!"
She jerked awake and nearly jumped out of her skin, then looked up at Professor Snape with humility, "I'm sorry! I just felt so tired!" He glared at her, "If it wasn't for the fact that you're in my house, Winter, I'd give you another detention. But seeing how it's twelve o'clock at night..." 'Please let me go, let me go to bed...' she thought hopefully. "...I'll just give you one more hour of detention, then you'll be free to go," he finished. Her heart sank, "Thank you, Professor."
So for the next hour Snape came up with a new way to keep her awake; making yet another Sleeping Draught. She fetched the ingredients from their individual stores, and had just grabbed the jar full of dried nettles off the shelf by Snape's desk when she noticed something particularly...odd about the shelf. At least eight feet tall, and quite sturdy, it seemed rather...wobbly. She paid it no notice until she got back to her cauldron, then realized that the bottom supporting beams of the shelf were breaking. Snape noticed none of this and continued to grade papers at his desk, marking a large 'F' on Neville Longbottom's paper with satisfaction.
It occurred in slow motion; the shelf fell and was clearly going to dash Snape's brains out all over the floor; Snape noticed what was happening and leapt up from his desk, but was far too late to get out of the way in time.
"IMMOBULUS!" screeched Hecate.
Everything, including Snape, froze in midair, the shelf halfway to crashing down upon his head. Hecate scrambled to his desk and grabbed him quickly, afraid that hitting him with an Unfreezing spell might also hit the shelf and cause the whole thing to fall to bits. As for her, she had never drug a six foot six inch two hundred pound immobilized man twelve feet before, but she hoped she'd never have to do it again. Now she understood why people whined about having to move dead weight. Luckily for the both of them, they got out of the way just in time; the shelf collapsed ten seconds later, the Freezing charm being one of her worst. Snape fell to the ground once he was Mobilized again, then turned to his desk to see it completely flattened underneath the gigantic potions shelf.
Hecate and Snape both got up slowly, approaching the shelf and desk carefully; Hecate bent over to inspect the broken beams of the shelf. The supporting beams had clearly been sawed in half by...someone. "I think someone is trying to murder you," she said softly, looking at the very intentional work. Snape bent over and had a look; it was painfully obvious. Hecate stood up, "Who would try to kill you?" Snape's face went a little paler, "Can't think of anyone." She nodded, "Well..." she turned to the fallen shelf, "Reparo!"
The beams of the shelf immediately re-forged, and the smashed potions bottles molded themselves again; the desk, however, would need to be replaced. Hecate and Snape put the shelf back up, then began clearing away the trashed desk. Then Hecate noticed something that had fallen on the ground; it was a scrap of parchment, and slapped on it was the Dark Mark, in bright, vivid green paint. "Professor..." she said, turning to him and showing him the parchment. He stared at it for a moment, then snatched it away, "Someone's idea of a sick joke," he snapped quietly.
Suddenly, Hecate realized everything in a heartbeat, "You were a Death Eater, weren't you?" He glared down at her, "The Headmaster trusts me indefinitely..." "That's not what I said," she replied softly, "I trust the Headmaster's judgment, and I trust you. It's not a matter of trust; it's a matter of new and old bonds, isn't it?" He continued to glare at her, then suddenly snatched his forearm painfully, "Get out of here..." he growled. "No," she said slowly, "you're hurt." "No I'm not now get out of here before someone Apparates in here and finds you!" he said, trying to scare her off. "It's impossible to Apparate or Disapparate on Hogwarts grounds; I read it in Hogwarts: A History," she replied, taking his forearm gingerly and inspecting it with care.
He snatched it away angrily, "Get out of here!" he bellowed. "I'm a seventh year Slytherin, my entire family is filled with Death Eaters, and I'm going to be Branded when I graduate," she snapped, "so don't you dare tell me no!" He stopped, "What you're telling me..." "Could very well lead to you sending in a league of Aurors to kill off my family," she said, "but I don't care anymore. I hate my family as it is. I just want to see what my arm will look like once I'm Branded!" He hesitated; she saw the moment and took his arm, ripped back the sleeve to reveal the black, angry-looking Dark Mark. She held out her own forearm; it was completely white, devoid of any mark...so far. "That's what it'll look like..." she said slowly, after a moment of observation. "Does it hurt much?" she whispered. "In the beginning," he said, "but you get used to the pain."
She released his arm slowly, "I'm afraid." Suddenly Snape saw Hecate Winter as something more than a student; more as a comrade-in-arms. He could still recall when he was first Branded; the fear, the excitement, the horror... He looked down at her gravely, realizing the path that lay before her, "You're being forced into it, aren't you?" She looked up at him; tears were shining in her black, orb-like eyes, then nodded. "My entire family...I'm distantly related to the Lestranges, and the Dolohovs, and you know that they're all Death Eaters too... There's no escape for me. Join or die. Or better yet, join or be tortured into madness, like the Longbottoms..."
Snape winced at hearing of the Longbottoms; thankfully he had not been witness to the crime of Bellatrix Lestrange... "My aunt, did you know?" said Hecate, guessing his thoughts, "Aunt Bella, for short. How I hate her...oh how I hate her...it's no wonder I can never look Neville in the face. No wonder I hate Draco Malfoy, or Crabbe, or Goyle...or Marcus Flint. They say there wasn't a witch or wizard who went bad that wasn't in Slytherin. Look at me; I guess they're right, aren't they?" The tears began to flow down her face, "I'm doomed! Once Dumbledore finds out, I'm dead! I'm dead either way! There's no escaping it! I don't want to die! I just want to get away from all of this...this madness! And this is all end!"
Everything became clear to Snape now; why she hated her house so much, why she resented Harry Potter, why she always looked away from Neville Longbottom...why she loathed Draco Malfoy... "I'm just another tool," she said, "another part of Voldemort's awful regime...another...another life to be spent killing Muggles or torturing Aurors..."
She burst into tears, turned away from him, tried to hide it. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she muttered, desperately trying to halt her crying, "but I'm afraid...we graduate in a month, and then I'll belong to the Death Eaters for good! I'm afraid!" Snape suddenly felt the anger swelling up inside of him; just another innocent life to Voldemort...another life to spend on something evil...and of all the lives, it was his brightest student... "...And the War is going on right now too! I'll be dead within minutes of being inducted into his stupid army! His awful, awful army! The young ones, we're all Auror fodder to him! We're worth nothing!" she stammered, still trying to stop her crying.
Snape suddenly wrapped her up in an embrace, feeling her pain from years passed. "He won't take you," he said quietly, allowing her to sob uncontrollably into his chest, "he won't. I promise." She looked up at him, "You promise?" He nodded reassuringly, "I promise."
To Be Continued...
'Thank God for my own room,' thought Hecate Winter calmly, looking about the Head Girl's room with satisfaction. 'Thank God there will be no more unwanted roommates bursting in just as I'm getting ready to go to bed, gabbing on and on about how cute that Draco Malfoy is...' Hecate let out a sigh of content, "Finally...what I've been waiting for."
* * *
Potions moved slower than usual, mostly due to the fact that Hecate had finished her Sleeping Draught fifteen minutes ago. Harry Potter looked at her with slight envy; he was still struggling through N.E.W.T. Potions, and so far, the Sleeping Draught was turning into a gloppy mess. "You should be finished with your Draughts by now," said Professor Snape, glaring at Harry nastily, "so swap with your partner and drink. Hopefully, Potter and Longbottom will be paired up together so they can finish each other off simultaneously." Neville's looked no better than Harry's, and Hecate chuckled slightly at Snape's joke.
Luckily for Harry, however, Hermione paired up with Neville; Ron Weasley, however, was up in the hospital wing from a Quidditch injury, so Harry was left partnerless. Unfortunately for Hecate, so was she, being one of the less popular members of Slytherin. "Winter and Potter, pair up," said Snape, noticing the two house outcasts. Harry's shoulders sank; he knew how much Hecate loathed him. Hecate, however, had another reason to hate him; Harry's potion looked like uncooked clam chowder, and she was afraid to drink it. "Swap!" said Snape, "And make it quick!" Hecate hesitated, "Here's mud in your eye, Potter," she grumbled, swigging his potion quickly. For a moment, nothing seemed wrong, 'Perhaps he did it right and it just came out with the wrong color and texture.' Then she felt her stomach drop; at least there was the reassuring thud of Potter landing on the floor next to her; clearly her Draught was correct.
Hecate passed out quickly.
* * *
When she awoke ten minutes later, everyone else was standing over her, including Harry, who felt awful about the incident. Hecate lifted her head slowly, then noticed Harry, "I'm sorry!" he said, "It wasn't a Sleeping Draught! It was a-" Hecate stopped and looked at her hands; they were green. "A VENOMOUS TENTACULA POTION?!" she shrieked, "WHY I'LL KILL YOU!" She sat up abruptly and the blood rushed from her head, and she promptly passed out again.
* * *
The second time Hecate awoke, her skin was a normal color, "Stupid Potter," she said nastily, "A dash of leech juice, not the whole bloody vial!" "I already said that to him, so you had might as well keep that to yourself," said a voice, and suddenly Hecate realized where she was; in the hospital wing. The voice belonged to Professor Snape, who was sitting in the corner of the room, looking at her with a slightly pleased expression. "I'll take it fifty points was deducted from Gryffindor," she said hopefully. "Only twenty-five," he said, "unfortunately." She nodded, "Either way, I'll be off to my dormitory now..." "Unfortunately that's a no as well," he said, "Venomous Tentacula potion can cause a person to randomly collapse for at least a day, so you'll be here until tomorrow morning."
Hecate punched her pillow angrily, "But I don't need to stay here! I'm one hundred percent fine!" "Just give it a minute," replied Snape calmly. "What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped, then her eyes rolled up, and she collapsed a third time onto the pillow.
* * *
At lunch the following day Hecate was almost fuming; so far, her History of Magic class had gone badly; she had accidentally set fire to Hermione Granger's robes whilst Professor Binns' had been droning on about...something or other. Another goblin rebellion of some sort, maybe. It really was amazing what boredom could cause you to do, much less zone out. Henceforth, she would be doing detention with Binns for three hours. 'Stuck with Binns, the great bore. Probably end up getting bored to death...' she thought bitterly. She was seated at the end of the table, alone, when someone approached her; as it turned out, it was Potter. "Oh what do you want?!" she said, "Come to give me another one of your disastrous potions?!" His face turned pink, "No...actually, I came to apologize." She did a double take, "Do what?" "Apologize," he repeated, "for that...disastrous potion. If I had known it would put you in the hospital wing...well, if I had known it wasn't a Sleeping Draught..."
Hecate groaned inwardly at his struggle for words, "Fine, fine, apology accepted, now let me eat my lunch in peace!" Potter looked slightly startled, then shuffled off to the Gryffindor table. "Stupid Potter," she muttered, stabbing her steak-and-kidney pie with venom.
* * *
Dinner occurred without a hitch, except for Snape coming up to her and telling her that she would be serving detention with him instead; apparently, Binns was off at a last minute ghost convention of some sort or another. When she had finished her dessert, Hecate slowly picked herself up and headed to the Slytherin common room; she had an hour until her detention began. Upon her arrival, the common room grew silent for a moment, then returned to its' usual dull roar. In the meantime, Hecate went up the stairs and said the password (swizzle stick) that allowed her into her private room. For some time, she played her oboe, a long, thin, black instrument that only Muggles were familiar with.
It was half past seven before she finally looked up at the clock.
She gasped with horror; she was half an hour late to detention. Immediately she jumped up and began sprinting about the room, trying to put away her things so she could dash down to the dungeon, but then she heard a knock at the door. Assuming it would be Snape, preparing to kill her, she opened the door slowly, only to reveal Draco Malfoy. "What do you want?" she said. "Nothing, except to tell you that Snape is down there in the common room, and he is in a right state." He grinned nastily at her, "Forget about your detention?" She grinned back at him, "Just as you forgot that the stairs turn into a slide when a boy goes into the girls' dormitory." "What?" he said; suddenly, there was a loud whooshing sound, and Draco disappeared down the slide, yelling curses all the way down. "Fool," she said, grabbing her black cloak and sliding down after him, landing lightly on her feet.
She was still for barely a second when a pair of hands grabbed her by the cloak and dragged her out of the common room. "Professor, I'm sorry..." she said breathlessly, trying to put on her best, 'I'm just a poor, innocent girl' face. "You are half an hour late!" he snapped, finally releasing her and allowing her to walk behind him. She could barely keep up with his long, angry strides, "I was just practicing sir! I didn't mean-" "Be quiet you foolish girl! You've already landed yourself an extra hour in detention just for this alone!" Hecate silently kicked herself, also wishing she could kick Snape at the same time.
* * *
Two hours into the detention, Hecate's hands were raw; she had been cleaning cauldrons and scraping gum off of the bottoms of the worktables for so long that her eyes were burning and her hands were pink. "I hate manual labor," she muttered bitterly as she scrubbed. "Did you just ask for another hour, Miss Winter?" said Professor Snape from his desk. "No sir," she said, turning and facing him with her best sucking-up smile. Surprisingly, he smiled back; she was so taken aback by it that she almost did a double take, then remembered her manners.
Until he said, "Wipe that damn smirk off your face."
Her smile dropped, "Yes sir."
* * *
At the end of her ruthless, four hour long detention, Hecate felt as if she were about to go to sleep on her feet. Luckily, Snape had disappeared into his office some time ago, so she could at least sit down and relax a bit whilst scrubbing out the cauldrons. She laid her head down on the rim, dreaming of her satin-sheeted bed, and promptly fell asleep.
Ten minutes later, she received a rude awakening.
"THIS ISN'T NAPTIME, MISS WINTER! GET UP!"
She jerked awake and nearly jumped out of her skin, then looked up at Professor Snape with humility, "I'm sorry! I just felt so tired!" He glared at her, "If it wasn't for the fact that you're in my house, Winter, I'd give you another detention. But seeing how it's twelve o'clock at night..." 'Please let me go, let me go to bed...' she thought hopefully. "...I'll just give you one more hour of detention, then you'll be free to go," he finished. Her heart sank, "Thank you, Professor."
So for the next hour Snape came up with a new way to keep her awake; making yet another Sleeping Draught. She fetched the ingredients from their individual stores, and had just grabbed the jar full of dried nettles off the shelf by Snape's desk when she noticed something particularly...odd about the shelf. At least eight feet tall, and quite sturdy, it seemed rather...wobbly. She paid it no notice until she got back to her cauldron, then realized that the bottom supporting beams of the shelf were breaking. Snape noticed none of this and continued to grade papers at his desk, marking a large 'F' on Neville Longbottom's paper with satisfaction.
It occurred in slow motion; the shelf fell and was clearly going to dash Snape's brains out all over the floor; Snape noticed what was happening and leapt up from his desk, but was far too late to get out of the way in time.
"IMMOBULUS!" screeched Hecate.
Everything, including Snape, froze in midair, the shelf halfway to crashing down upon his head. Hecate scrambled to his desk and grabbed him quickly, afraid that hitting him with an Unfreezing spell might also hit the shelf and cause the whole thing to fall to bits. As for her, she had never drug a six foot six inch two hundred pound immobilized man twelve feet before, but she hoped she'd never have to do it again. Now she understood why people whined about having to move dead weight. Luckily for the both of them, they got out of the way just in time; the shelf collapsed ten seconds later, the Freezing charm being one of her worst. Snape fell to the ground once he was Mobilized again, then turned to his desk to see it completely flattened underneath the gigantic potions shelf.
Hecate and Snape both got up slowly, approaching the shelf and desk carefully; Hecate bent over to inspect the broken beams of the shelf. The supporting beams had clearly been sawed in half by...someone. "I think someone is trying to murder you," she said softly, looking at the very intentional work. Snape bent over and had a look; it was painfully obvious. Hecate stood up, "Who would try to kill you?" Snape's face went a little paler, "Can't think of anyone." She nodded, "Well..." she turned to the fallen shelf, "Reparo!"
The beams of the shelf immediately re-forged, and the smashed potions bottles molded themselves again; the desk, however, would need to be replaced. Hecate and Snape put the shelf back up, then began clearing away the trashed desk. Then Hecate noticed something that had fallen on the ground; it was a scrap of parchment, and slapped on it was the Dark Mark, in bright, vivid green paint. "Professor..." she said, turning to him and showing him the parchment. He stared at it for a moment, then snatched it away, "Someone's idea of a sick joke," he snapped quietly.
Suddenly, Hecate realized everything in a heartbeat, "You were a Death Eater, weren't you?" He glared down at her, "The Headmaster trusts me indefinitely..." "That's not what I said," she replied softly, "I trust the Headmaster's judgment, and I trust you. It's not a matter of trust; it's a matter of new and old bonds, isn't it?" He continued to glare at her, then suddenly snatched his forearm painfully, "Get out of here..." he growled. "No," she said slowly, "you're hurt." "No I'm not now get out of here before someone Apparates in here and finds you!" he said, trying to scare her off. "It's impossible to Apparate or Disapparate on Hogwarts grounds; I read it in Hogwarts: A History," she replied, taking his forearm gingerly and inspecting it with care.
He snatched it away angrily, "Get out of here!" he bellowed. "I'm a seventh year Slytherin, my entire family is filled with Death Eaters, and I'm going to be Branded when I graduate," she snapped, "so don't you dare tell me no!" He stopped, "What you're telling me..." "Could very well lead to you sending in a league of Aurors to kill off my family," she said, "but I don't care anymore. I hate my family as it is. I just want to see what my arm will look like once I'm Branded!" He hesitated; she saw the moment and took his arm, ripped back the sleeve to reveal the black, angry-looking Dark Mark. She held out her own forearm; it was completely white, devoid of any mark...so far. "That's what it'll look like..." she said slowly, after a moment of observation. "Does it hurt much?" she whispered. "In the beginning," he said, "but you get used to the pain."
She released his arm slowly, "I'm afraid." Suddenly Snape saw Hecate Winter as something more than a student; more as a comrade-in-arms. He could still recall when he was first Branded; the fear, the excitement, the horror... He looked down at her gravely, realizing the path that lay before her, "You're being forced into it, aren't you?" She looked up at him; tears were shining in her black, orb-like eyes, then nodded. "My entire family...I'm distantly related to the Lestranges, and the Dolohovs, and you know that they're all Death Eaters too... There's no escape for me. Join or die. Or better yet, join or be tortured into madness, like the Longbottoms..."
Snape winced at hearing of the Longbottoms; thankfully he had not been witness to the crime of Bellatrix Lestrange... "My aunt, did you know?" said Hecate, guessing his thoughts, "Aunt Bella, for short. How I hate her...oh how I hate her...it's no wonder I can never look Neville in the face. No wonder I hate Draco Malfoy, or Crabbe, or Goyle...or Marcus Flint. They say there wasn't a witch or wizard who went bad that wasn't in Slytherin. Look at me; I guess they're right, aren't they?" The tears began to flow down her face, "I'm doomed! Once Dumbledore finds out, I'm dead! I'm dead either way! There's no escaping it! I don't want to die! I just want to get away from all of this...this madness! And this is all end!"
Everything became clear to Snape now; why she hated her house so much, why she resented Harry Potter, why she always looked away from Neville Longbottom...why she loathed Draco Malfoy... "I'm just another tool," she said, "another part of Voldemort's awful regime...another...another life to be spent killing Muggles or torturing Aurors..."
She burst into tears, turned away from him, tried to hide it. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she muttered, desperately trying to halt her crying, "but I'm afraid...we graduate in a month, and then I'll belong to the Death Eaters for good! I'm afraid!" Snape suddenly felt the anger swelling up inside of him; just another innocent life to Voldemort...another life to spend on something evil...and of all the lives, it was his brightest student... "...And the War is going on right now too! I'll be dead within minutes of being inducted into his stupid army! His awful, awful army! The young ones, we're all Auror fodder to him! We're worth nothing!" she stammered, still trying to stop her crying.
Snape suddenly wrapped her up in an embrace, feeling her pain from years passed. "He won't take you," he said quietly, allowing her to sob uncontrollably into his chest, "he won't. I promise." She looked up at him, "You promise?" He nodded reassuringly, "I promise."
To Be Continued...