This chapter contains some adult themes including rape.
JK Rowling is the master creator of all things Harry Potter and, more importantly, all the perfectly subtle deliciousness that is Severus Snape.
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Circe woke with her back pressing against a freezing stone floor. It took a moment for her to apprehend that heavy chains bound her wrists and ankles. Before she had realised what she was about, she panicked. She wrenched on the chains that bound her, her back arching up futilely against the alien coldness of the floor and her wrists beginning to bleed as she tugged unrelentingly on her bonds before the sight of her own blood caused her to calm.
What am I doing?
She knew better than to panic blindly like that. She had been in worse situations in battle. When those that would breach Cybele came bearing down upon her in droves, she always kept her cool, never sure if back up was nearby. She could remember herself now. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She could feel her hair sticking to her forehead, wet with sweat, curls wrapping uncomfortably around her neck. Her dress sat lightly on her body and she wished she could tug it down around her legs and pull it up about her chest. The room smelt dank and rotten, there were sounds of revelling above her, the torches in the room were burning low and, now, there was another sound. Someone was coming down a set of stone stairs (surely stone and surely leading here) she was sure led to the room where she now found herself captive. She breathed deeply, clearing her mind and bodily preparing herself. The door creaked swiftly open and a cloaked figure swept in, spelling the door shut behind him as he quickly crossed the room towards Circe. She uttered an involuntary gasp as he knelt next to her, his earnest face coming into her line of sight.
"Professor?"
Severus Snape rubbed a hand, roughly calloused from years of dextrous work, across the beads of sweat on her forehead.
"Everything is going to be alright Miss Dumbledore. I will get you out of here. Do you have any strength?"
She nodded, confused. The alcohol was still pulsing through her blood but she knew she could fight.
"Very well child. I will unbind you and you will follow behind me. There are a great many of them upstairs but I won't let them touch you. There is a floo in the room directly above us, you can floo to your father."
"What about you?" she shivered.
"I cannot see what import I could possibly have on this decision Miss Dumbledore" Snape snapped impatiently at the restrained girl before him.
"You can't just spoil everything for what they may do to me," she started.
"You don't want to know what they may do to you Miss Dumbledore" his voice was terse and irate. "This is the only option; I will not let anything happen to you. They know who you are. They know you are Dumbledore's daughter and they know you possess great magic. If I had have known that they had intelligence on you, I would have protected you, I would have alerted your father, but as the matter is . . ." his sentence trailed off.
"I know what you would have done professor. I know what you are."
He scoffed.
"Honestly professor," she proffered her most confident smile. "Anyway, there are far more important things at stake; even if you unbind me, I will not follow if it risks your position. I'm tougher than you think. Just leave. Tell my father where I am but don't do anything foolish."
Inwardly he gaped at her – this tiny creature, unafraid, undaunted by what the Death Eaters would do to her, if indeed she had any concept of what was to come. But by the time he had mustered a counter argument, the door had swung open and five Death Eaters walked in, hooded and masked. Snape barely had time to reposition his mask, but when his hand flew to his face, he found it in place. He glanced at Circe who gave him a small smile in response.
"Now, now Cousin. Wait your turn." The unmistakable accent drawled from the mask of the man standing directly behind him.
"Turn? How gracious of you cousin," Snape bit back, "however, I don't really relish the flesh of half-breeds."
He withdrew to the only exit, his mind racing. Was she bluffing? Would she really sacrifice Merlin-knows-what for his safety?
He had little time to think. As the first Death Eater approached her, a blinding flash of orange threw the man backwards, his body repelled to the opposite side of the room with a resounding crunch.
"Why don't you remove her wand first?" came one helpful companion's suggestion.
"I did, you great troll," the man groaned between gasps, "It's right here." His trembling hand raised her 12 inches of cherry wood with a Naiad hair core. A disquiet fell across the assembled sadists before more blinding lights burst from the apparently defenceless girl and they flew backwards, crumpling into heaps on the floor. Some were unconscious and a few were bleeding badly. Severus allowed himself a moment of reassurance before heading upstairs.
It took them eight days of starvation and crucio, when they could get a shot in, before they broke her and Snape still hadn't had a reasonable chance to send a message to Dumbledore
Or even Black he thought resentfully.
He was scared now as he saw her; blank, expressionless, her cheeks sunken slightly, her hair wildly knotted, her white dress stained with her own blood, urine, and sweat, her blood drying on her lip where she had bitten down too hard and across her ears and cheeks where she had been struck. As much as he admired her resistance, he knew it would be all the worse for her now. Fortunately, the Death Eaters where too ashamed by their inability to tame her to inform the Dark Lord of her presence yet, but Snape knew when they had finished with her body they would give her mind to the Dark Lord. He had to do something now, and bugger the consequences. If she wouldn't follow him, he would lead an armada here to save her.
It was well past midnight two days later when he finally had a chance to steal away, unnoticed, past the Manor wards to disapparate to Hogsmeade but it wasn't before he heard the first piercing scream and he knew they had begun. He would save her; his mind chanted as he raced through the grounds to Hogwarts, he would save her. He had to.
Circe vaguely registered the obsolete fragments of her dress being torn unceremoniously from her body as she struggled to swallow. Days without water had left her throat coarse and days of vomiting up bile had left her mouth rigid, the foul scent rising to her nostrils above the metallic tang of blood and acrid scent of urine. If she was absolutely honest, her sudden and absolute nakedness assuaged the heat that had been screaming in her chest for days. She knew it was a fever, she knew she should fight it but, if she were to die here, she would allow herself that one feeling of relief before she was forced to fight tooth and nail to take as many with her as possible. A girl must have her luxuries after all.
She was once again chained down, this time to a soft, velvet covered bed. At least it felt like velvet. After days spread upon the bitterly cold stone floor, the roughest hessian could have felt like finely spun silk. Her aching body was glad of it, but her mind was screaming as the group of bodies closed in around her. Despite herself, Circe let out an involuntary whimper as the first approached her, his robe thrown aside and his trousers unbuttoned. Those gathered grinned cruelly as the man at the foot of bed pulled her protesting legs open before plunging into her unceremoniously. She screamed, the thick flesh of his penis breaking through her, her hymen ripping, her walls tearing and her head pounding. The last thing she heard before she passed out was the snickering and jeering of those watching and the soft panting of the man pumping in and out of her.
Circe didn't know how many men raped her that night before Snape returned. She could smell him even if she couldn't see him. His mind was racing, his body sweating and she could smell the repulsion sitting in his stomach. The sudden bombardment of empathetic feeling was so foreign after being so long deprived of anything but the cruellest interactions. It almost shook her from the place she had found deep within the recesses of her mind. It almost felt like being alive again. Slowly, cautiously, she allowed her consciousness to seek him, allowed her mind to float beyond the immediate torment to focus on nothing but the salvation that was the self-abasement standing in the shadows.
He was furious. There was no going back now. He was furious; exhausted and more frantic than he ever remembered being in his long and arduous life. The stupid headstrong girl had incessantly refused his attempts to remove her from this torture pit. As formidable as his talents were, Severus Snape was not fool enough to think that he could face the forty or more Death Eaters that were currently occupying the house and get Miss Dumbledore out alive without some cooperation from her. And this was the result. His incessant warning meant nothing to her; perhaps he had overestimated her intelligence.
But never her resilience.
Circe Dumbledore had proven herself beyond remarkable; she had endured more than most that Severus had ever seen in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor. As hurt as he was with her implacability in putting him in such an untenable position, he could not help but admire her.
Stupid girl. Her arrogance in her fortitude has cost her dearly.
But why didn't you save her?
Snape's eyes closed, trying to shut out the sight in front of him. He didn't know why he came to this room after he had met with Dumbledore. He felt he should be near her until help arrived. If that was all he could do for her, he would. But as he watched them line up to repeatedly rip into the pallid figure surrounded by red velvet that mocked the blood that trickled from her wrists and ankles and across her thighs, his mind broke. He was going to kill them - all of them. Fuck the consequences - he would save her. The mantra started as his hand surreptitiously reached into his cloak to retrieve his wand. Suddenly a fragile voice echoed inside his frantic mind.
Don't you dare Professor.
Miss Dumbledore? His mind responded, focusing solely on the girl being raped on the bed close by.
Yes Sir. Her echo was sounding a little weaker now as yet another Death Eater clambered on top of her.
Circe, help is coming, please; just hold in there. Please stay focussed.
She didn't respond. The creature above her had slapped her face with half his might and she was gone; unconscious again. Her vivid green eyes closed and long black lashes rested on her pale, blood-stained cheeks. Snape shut his eyes against the sight only to whip about, drawing his wand as the heavy oak door behind him suddenly burst open in a fury of flames and splinters. Taking in the scene before him, he lowered his wand as curses began flying and the enraged figures of Dumbledore, Black, Lupin, the two Potters, Alice Longbottom and Alastor Moody moved lithely around the room, dodging, cursing, punching, kicking until all the Death Eaters present lay unconscious on the ground. Snape rushed from the shadows he had receded to, reaching the dark figure that had collapsed mid-thrust above Circe. He pulled it off roughly, violently throwing it to the floor and rushing to Circe's side. Her eyes fluttered open as he noticed her torn lips, her broken nose, her ripped cheeks...and her eyes. Her customarily vibrant and excitable green eyes were almost blank but somehow, through the terror, through the blood and thirst and cold and half shattered face, she mustered a small smile for him.
"You didn't do anything foolish did you Professor?"
He dragged his eyes from hers and spelled her binds away, realising the room was full of people who loved her and loathed him, before turning to the others, his face stoic and expressionless.
"Take her now," he addressed Dumbledore; "if you would do the honours Headmaster?"
Dumbledore, his bright blue eyes still filled with rage and hurt at the state of his daughter, raised his wand. In a second, Snape was unconscious on the freezing blood stained stone, lying among the Death Eaters he so hated.
