-1Maddy lay there listening to her heart beat. It was fast and she knew that it wasn't from the physical activity that she had done that night, for that had been over an hour ago now. No, her heart had been beating fast from the moment she had been thrust into the room. The same two words had been rolling around in her head for the last few hours, "Why me?" She still had no answer.

She could hear the traffic go past on the muggle road nearby, with the occasional siren, telling her that they must be in some major city, London maybe. The deep, uneven breathing of the man next to her was the only thing telling her that he was still as wide awake as she was. But unlike Maddy, he had not stirred at all but lay still, as if dead, his breathing the only sign of life.

"You can go whenever you want." The voice surprised her even though it was barely a whisper.

Unsure whether to answer or just pretend to have not heard, Maddy froze.

The man turned to see if she had heard.

She answered then, "It's O.K. I can stay a few hours more."

Still looking at her, the man said "Did they tell you to stay till morning, or until I fell asleep? Because I can tell you now, sleep will not come for me tonight."

Maddy froze again. She had been told that the man would not know that she had been forced there, and that it should stay that way. How did he know now? Would he tell them that he knew? Would they punish her like they said they would? What about her family?

She had to get him to understand. She had to make him not tell. "They told me to stay till morning. They said that there was a charm on the room. That they would know if I left too early."

The man turned his head away from her and went back to staring at the ceiling. " You had better stay where you are then or you won't get paid. Or you'll get punished… whichever one you are."

"Paid!" The word was out of her mouth before she could stop herself, but the anger and hurt boiled up out of nowhere. This was a dangerous man she was lying next to and it wasn't just her life on the line. Such a remark might be her last.

The man took a deep breath and held it in for a long moment and then breathed out evenly, "Yes. Paid. I think they have stopped with the whores, anyway. They always seem so used; someone elses reject. Besides it's so easy for them just to scare someone into the job now."

He let out a mirthless laugh; its hollowness sent a shiver down Maddy's spine.

He turned to look at her again, "Who do they have?"

"My family, my mum, and my dad, and my younger brother Dave. Fuck, they probably have Arnold the dog, too. Bastards!" Hot tears burned down Maddy's face and she backed away from the man next to her as far as she dared.

"Merlin!" the man mumbled, "Are you a pure blood family?"

"Yes we are. But it doesn't seem to matter, I'm still here."

"No, you're wrong. It does matter. It's why you're here. They wouldn't want me here with a muggle borne or a half blood. They won't hurt your family if you do what they want. They want me to…. Well they want me to seduce you. To keep you."

"Keep me" Maddy couldn't keep the disgust from her voice. The tears turned into sobs.

The man took another deep breath, "Bad choice of words. They want me to find a wife and they think that this is just another way for me to pick one."

Neither of them spoke for some time. Maddy calmed her sobs to silent tears.

"That's just the way things are." The man said as if to a third-party, but there was only himself and Maddy in the room. She wondered if he had been talking to himself.

After a few more moment of silence Maddy ventured to ask something that she had wanted to ask since the evening had begun. "You're that Snape guy, aren't you?"

If there was a way for the man next to her to lie even more still, she had not known it till this moment. "Yes." was all he answered.

Maddy pressed on despite herself, "It's just …I remember you. From Hogwarts. Potter and Black they used too…. Well… I always thought that it was a bad choice to have someone like that for head boy. I mean some of the pranks the pulled…. They weren't even funny, they were just mean."

Snape looked over with an arched eyebrow. "Is that only what you think now that you are here? Now that your family's lives are on the line?"

The tears that she had just managed to get under control threatened to take hold again at the mention of her family. "I remember the time they dangled you upside down in the air, and then…. I saw that…they came after you. That was just mean."

Snape looked deep into Maddy's eyes. She felt suddenly exposed, as if he was looking at her soul; as if reading her very thoughts. With a jolt of fear she wondered if he was, she had heard such magic was possible.

Finely Snape looked away and spoke, "I don't remember you from Hogwarts. Were you one or two years below me?"

"Three years."

Snape took in a sharp breath, "But then, you haven't finished at Hogwarts yet? You'll still have your seventh year to complete."

"Yes. They came and took us just outside of Kings Cross. My parents had just come to meet us as we got off the Hogwarts express. "

"Merlin, you're only seventeen." Snape sat up now, "What am I doing?!"

Maddy curled into a ball, trying to make herself as small as she could. The news of her age had angered Snape. Maddy wasn't sure why, but it had, and Death Eaters were not people to anger.

She had see the mark on his arm that night and it didn't take a genius to work out why someone would have the dark mark tattooed on their arm. She had guessed that it was Death Eaters who had originally taken her, but when she had see the mark on Snape's arm, she was sure of it; she was sure of the real danger this put her in. There were rumours of the viciousness of the Death Eater's attacks. Once again Maddy thought of her family and wondered what was happening to them. The tears started afresh.

"Don't!" yelled Snape, "It won't help you!"

But there was no stopping Maddy's tears.

Snape pulled back the bed sheets and swung his legs out of the bed, so that he sat on the edge with a his back facing Maddy. He dropped his head into his hands. Maddy couldn't help but feel the slightest twinge of rejection. Was she so worthless, to be pushed aside so easily after she had served her purpose? Of course! What else could she have expected, but still she could not help but feel hurt by her captor's disregard.

A new feeling started to spread through Maddy. It seemed to spread through her veins like a heavy lead. The intense weight gathered against her chest, constricting her breathing. At the same time the heaviness brought a hollow feeling. This feeling was unlike anything Maddy had felt before, a mixture of guilt and disgust, of being violated and used. She had a sudden desire to be clean and at the same time she began to feel numb to everything, as if she was in someone else's body; in someone else's life.

Her tears dried up, and as she looked around the room with her new sense of numbness, she realized that Snape had got up from the bed and now stood with his robes slung loosely over his body, a drink in his hand, his eyes firmly fixed on Maddy.

"Are you alright?" asked Snape, " Would you like a drink?"

"Why do you care?"

"You've been lying there, crying for quite some time and I'm partly to blame."

"Yes, you are." The words came out of Maddy as if they belonged to another person, "How come you need your Death Eater Friends to go and kidnap girls for you? Can't you get one for yourself? Did the girl you picked, not want you?"

Snape let out a laugh that was more of a snort and stared down into his drink. "Maybe." he was silent for a moment. "You're too young to have been brought here, it shouldn't have happened."

Maddy began to feel like herself again, soiled, but herself none the less. She shuffled down to the end of the bed and looked at Snape. If she was not just mistaken, the man in front of her had just apologized. "Why do you care about what has happened to me?"

"Don't ask me questions like that," said Snape evenly.

It was small, but she saw it. It could have been the light flickering in his eyes, but despite everything that had happened to her, Maddy wanted to think the best of this man. Maybe, it was a hint of remorse, disgust at his current situation. The fleeting look had gone from his face almost before it was there. For the first time that night Maddy wondered if her captor was just as much a prisoner as she was. Her numbness left her as she began to feel sorry for this man who couldn't sleep, who couldn't find himself a girlfriend, who perhaps couldn't even like the person he had become. It might not have been correct, but Maddy found it easier to deal with what had happened to her that night if she held on to this new view of Snape.

Glancing around for something to break the silence, Maddy's eyes fell upon the bottle of wine.

"What's the difference between a good wine and a bad one?"

Snape picked up the bottle and poured some into a fresh glass. He brought it over to Maddy and sat beside her on the bed.

When dawn finally broke, Snape had taught her the difference between Chateau Cardboard and a fine vintage wine and they had drunk the whole bottle together.