This chapter is definitely rated M, there's going to be some violence so just a warning puddin's.

Flashback Continued

When they had finished it was the dead of night and it had begun to snow. Rose rested her head against Lucius's bare chest and he was caressing her long braid. After a long silence, she sat up.

"Shouldn't you leave...what about your wife?" She asked, not wanting to get him into trouble.

"She thinks I'm on a trip for the Ministry. I meant to tell you earlier, she thinks I'm going to be gone for a week." Lucius smiled, kissing her hand and her arm.

"A week." Rose smiled.

"Will you spend it with me?" He asked as she moved to sit in his lap. He began to kiss her shoulder while he waited for an answer. He traced circles on her back and smiled when it made goosebumps prick up on her skin.

"What can we do for a week?" Rose giggled, shivering a bit.

"This," Lucius whispered in her ear, gently biting her earlobe.

"Lucius, we aren't good for each other." She observed, pulling back.

"We're perfect." He assured her. "We make each other forget everything. We make each other numb."

The next week she spent every night with Lucius and each night she forgot about her pain for a little while. Durning the day her and Severus had been exploring Diagon Alley and some other wizarding markets to get him supplies for his new potion's Professorship at Hogwarts. After starting to see Lucius she began to leave him really early each day. Toward the end of the week, Severus was starting to get upset about it. They were having lunch in the back of a dingy pub. Rose got up to leave again, but as she excused herself Severus cut her off.

"Why do you keep having to leave?" Severus asked. He wanted to talk to her about Lily, he wanted to make sure she was okay.

"It doesn't matter." Rose defensively answered.

"Rose. I'm trying really hard to deal with this too. Please. You don't have to do it alone." Severus pleaded. She felt tears welt in her eyes, she didn't want to tell him. She was afraid. She knew Severus was the only man she could love and she didn't want him to know she had been seeing another man to try and forget her feelings for him. She avoided his gaze. She knew she wouldn't be able to lie to him.

"I'm not doing this alone." She answered and tried to leave but Snape stood and grabbed her wrist.

"Rose?" He asked. She bit her lip and looked him straight in the eye.

"I've been seeing Lucius." She answered. It hung in the air for a long while.

"What?" Severus turned bright red. "Seeing Lucius? I...I don't understand."

"Don't be a child." She snapped.

"He's a death eater!" Severus snapped back.

"And so were you!" She frowned. Severus felt his chest tighten up. "Lily told me about how you tried to make her one too." Severus ignored her.

"Rose he's married. He has a child." Severus scolded. "Why aren't you thinking about this!?"

"I will not be scolded for how I'm choosing to deal with this!" She frowned.

"I'm trying to help you," Severus answered, not knowing that dealing with the pain of losing Lily was only half of why she had been seeing Lucius. Rose thought of what she could say to get him to stop questioning her.

"Why didn't you try to help when there was a war going on? You're as guilty as any one of them for Lily's death." She froze and became immediately regretful. Severus had to sit down because of the rush of nausea the statement gave him. He turned sickly pale and bit his lip. She saw his eyes fill with tears and she fled, tossing some coins on the table for her food.

It was their last night together, when she got to the room she saw a chair in the middle of the room and a whip on the bed.

"Lucius?" She questioned as he tucked her hair behind her ear.

"Let's try something new tonight." He whispered. "Take off your shirt." Rose was hesitant.

"Trust me. This will help you forget." She did as he asked and sat in the chair. Lucius tied her wrists to the top of the chair and her legs to the chair. He went to the bed to retrieve the whip.

"Rose, you know I love you?" His eyes were fixated on her skin.

"Yes." Once she answered he brought the whip down hard on her back and she yelped in pain. Lucius felt shivers go up his spine.

"Lucius!" She cried. "I don't want to do this anymore." He ignored her and brought the whip down again. She yelped and tried to shake out of her restraints.

"Rose. I love you." He whispered, his pupils grew wider when he saw the blood that began to run down her back.

"Lucius please stop!" She begged. He lashed her three more times, taking delight in her screams of pain. After that, he was finished and dropped the whip on the ground. Rose was sobbing and bleeding all over. The second Lucius untied her arms and legs she limped away from him and raised her wand.

"Rose please, you don't understand." He tried to touch her but she pushed his hand away. "I had to. I needed to suppress this thing inside me that wanted this. I had to punish myself for wanting a muggle-born."

"Get away from me." She pulled on her shirt and stepped away from him as he begged for her forgiveness. She ignored his apologies and apparated away.

The only place she could think of was Severus's Slytherin head of house quarters at Hogwarts. He had a room near the dungeon. She collapsed in front of his door sobbing and shouting for him, hitting the door with her fists. He immediately shot up out of bed and ran to the door.

"Rose oh my god." He picked her up from the ground and brought her inside his room. "Whats wrong…" Mid-sentence he felt the warm blood on her back.

"Lucius." She managed to say between hyperventilating. Severus picked her up and set her on the bed. He pulled her shirt up, grimacing at the wounds.

"Rose take this off." He rushed over to his desk and collected a few bottles of ingredients, quickly mixing them in a beaker on his desk. Rose had taken off her shirt and was having a hard time breathing. Severus took the beaker and sat in front of her. "Please breath." He took her hand in his and took deep breaths, she followed his example and began to breathe easier on her own.

"Rose, I'm going to put this on the wounds but it's going to hurt." She nodded, sniffling. There were thick streaks of black makeup running down her face with her tears. Severus went to her back and brushed her hair to the side. Taking some of the goopy potion he had just made in his hands. "Deep breaths."

She continued the breathing and he began to patch up her back with the potion. After she had been patched up and changed into some of Severus's clothes they were resting. Severus held her in his arms, trying to calm her down.

After she had been patched up and changed into some of Severus's clothes they were resting. Severus sat on the bed with his back against the headboard and held her in his arms, trying to calm her down. She nuzzled into his chest.

"I'm sorry about what I said this morning." She sniffled. "I'm sorry about Lucius and everything…"

"Don't be, just rest for right now. We can talk in the morning." Severus sigh, he had forgiven her already and didn't want to revisit the surge of pain from earlier.

"What's going to happen Severus." Rose cried "I've been ignoring McGonagalls letters for months, she's not going to want to help me after this."

"Rose, please. I promise everything will be alright." He knew that McGonagall was trying to offer her a professorship at Hogwarts to keep an eye on her and help her from self-destructing like she had been.

"Where will you sleep?" She asked as he got up and laid her down.

"Don't worry about me." He pulled the covers up. "Sleep."

"Okay." Rose closed her eyes, quickly drifting off. Severus took her bloody clothes to his bathroom and washed them in the bathtub. In her pants pocket, he found the scrap of paper that had the address scribbled on it. He clutched it in his fist and thought for a moment before putting it into his pocket. He finished washing her clothes and hung them to dry.

When he went back into the room he checked on her and was relieved to see her fast asleep. He scribbled a small note in case she woke up before she got back that told her to wash up on change into another one of his shirts so she wouldn't bleed all over her clothes as it healed. Once he laid the note beside her on the pillow he left with haste and apparated to the cottage.

Severus noticed tracks from Lucius's boots imprinted in the fresh snow. He stuck his hands in his pockets and followed them to the Three Broomsticks Inn. When he slinked inside he noticed him immediately. Lucius sat in the corner of the bar in a booth that was reserved for special patrons. As Severus approached the table he saw an empty bottle of Dragon Barrel Brandy resting across from Lucius. The wizard was pouring himself a drink from a second bottle that appeared to have been just opened as Severus sat in front of him.

Lucius hiccuped and took a swig, looking Severus dead in the eye.

"I couldn't stop myself." He stated. "You see, there is this urge within me. I couldn't do anything."

"Oh its the imperius curse again? Save it." Severus coldly spat. Lucius was quiet for a long moment.

"Severus. I'm serious. I would never deliberately harm her. I think I'm in love with her." Lucius began to cry. "Oh god, what have I done." Severus felt his blood begin to boil.

"You cant fool me." He snapped. "How dare you take advantage of her like this."

"You don't understand." Lucius reached into his pocket and tossed a small box on the table. "I was going to leave Narcissa for her." Severus stared a the box for a moment. He picked it up as Lucius cried into his glass, pouring himself another.

"Did you tell Narcissa of this news?" Severus took the ring out of the box and studied it.

"No." Lucius sniffled. Severus put the ring back into the box and slid it to him.

"I'm going to tell you what you're going to do Lucius. You're going to take that ring, go home, and forget about all this nonsense." Severus ordered. Lucius looked at him with sad eyes. "Now."

The wizard got up and threw some change on the table to pay for the drink. He apparated away and Severus sat alone for awhile, trying to stifle his thoughts. He felt a strange mix of jealously and protectiveness. He had only felt this one other time and that was toward James when he and Lily were together.

"It's not the same." He told himself as he got up to go and began to stifle the emotions in his mind. "It can't be the same."

The next morning Severus and Rose met with McGonagall and explained what happened. Rose apologized to her about ignoring the letters. McGonagall was kind to her, as she had always been, especially when Rose explained that she was scared of Lucius confronting her in Hogsmeade, or being out on the street if she couldn't work. She was mostly afraid she would drive herself mad.

"Well, Rose. It appears the subject of my letter will solve these things you're afraid of." McGonagall smiled, she waved her wrist and a few papers came to her desk. As they floated over she dipped a quill into some ink. "Now dearie, how would you like to teach at Hogwarts?"

Rose froze, she felt tears of joy come to her eyes. But she was also shocked.

"What?" She asked.

"An arithmancy position has opened. And I know how much you love and excel at the subject." McGonagall was filling out a few different lines on the parchment.

"I would love to Minerva. But do I really deserve this?" Rose exclaimed, her mind spinning.

"Dearie of course you do." She finished scribbling her signature and the terms on the paper and passed it to Rose. "It also sounds like you could use this to get your life back together. I will require that of you Rose." Rose looked up at her before she signed and nodded. As she did Minerva glanced over at Severus. He had bags under his eyes but he watched Rose with a loving and caring glance.

"Severus I can take her from here. I'll show her the room and office, thank you." Minerva watched as he stood up and shared a smile with Rose before exiting the room.

Rose was taking a bath a week after she had been hired. She used it as her solace. In her Professor quarters, she had a bathroom with a large tub. It sunk into the floor and she could sit up to her chin in steaming water. Each day she did it and each day she also felt more cleansed.

The back wall of the bathroom was covered in mirrors and she studied her wounds each night. They were getting better, but it was clear early on that they would scar. She was upset about everything, how Lucius could do this to her. She got up out of the tub and drained it. After drying herself off and wrapping a towel around her she entered her room. It was still plain. There wasn't much but a desk and a bed. At that point, she didn't have any belongings or clothes. Each day she wore the same robe. But she was surprised to find a large arrangement of roses on her desk. She looked around and saw a house elf in the corner.

"It's a delivery, for you miss." She thanked the elf before they apparated away. Her gut sank. She walked over and picked up the card that came with it.

"I love you. Please let me see you again." It read. Lucius's signature was below the request. She sat on the bed and covered her face.

For weeks after that, he sent letter after letter, begging to see her but she continued to ignore his advances until one day they stopped coming.