At last I have made chapter ten my bitch. As always, very dear thank-yous to all you lovelies who have reviewed. I'm so happy to know you're all enjoying this, and that you think as highly of it as you do. I do hope I ended this chapter all right; Faith reckons it's fine, so I blame her if its unsatisfactory. ;) Also, a note to Elspeth: I've only read about half of Carpe Jugulum by Pratchett, so I didn't come across any Death scenes, no, but now I'm all keen to check them out. And yes, Gwendolyn thinks quite a lot of Poe, as does Snape, apparently, from the latter bit of this chapter. (Small disclaimer – I own no Poe things used here.) So. Onward we go...
Part 10 – Sanguinaire
The realisation of it was nearly tangible, and Severus staggered back from the doors as though he'd been struck. His second instinct was one that he followed without hesitation – to get the hell away from the scene that had caused him such a deplorable recognition. He hastened down to his dungeons as a scream of indignation filled his throat, which he swallowed back in favour of the enveloping numbness of shellshock. Every illicit notion that had entered his mind over the past few weeks came crashing into him, flooding his senses with the suspicions of old and the knowledge of the new. He didn't want to believe it, but the logical workings of his mind would not allow for the foolishness of denial. He had seen it with his own eyes, proof laid out in front of him as though irony were a corporeal thing that could be touched and scrutinised.
Why? Why her of all people? Why the hell did it have to be her?
She was sixteen. She was his student, for fuck's sake. She was sixteen.
Sickly sixteen, with envy-green eyes and lust-red lips...
No. He would not entertain such reprehensible thoughts, would not allow himself to be drawn any deeper into this sordid web than he already had been. It had exhausted him, yes, but it hadn't – he wasn't....
Exhausted, yes, exhausted and bewitched and...beguiled...
Not beguiled. Not beguiled.
He stormed into his office and slammed the door behind him with such force that his Slytherins asleep in their dormitories were likely to have been awakened by it, and for once, he didn't give the smallest shit whether or not his cherished snakes received their beauty rest.
A great beauty. A dark beauty. Envy-green eyes, lust-red lips, pride-pale skin and a greedy tongue – oh gods, somebody stop me...
He sagged down into his chair, running his hands along his face to push back his hair. If before he could not escape her body, now he couldn't seem to chase her face from his mind, all doe-eyes and deep pout of faux-virtue; his dead doll. His perverted Alice, the corpse of a once-brilliant bloom.
Wicked giggles and skin-on-skin grazes like bullets and the rustle of black material when she moves and the tart apple tang of her mouth and can't you remember the crushed velvet feel of her body?
No. No – dreams, all of it dreams. Nothing was real. Nothing had happened yet – no, no 'yet'. Nothing had happened. Nothing would ever come of this twisted infatuation. He was above that, above such a depravity to the character of his self-control. He would not yield.
In the corner, the Wolfsbane Potion bubbled loudly, as if to remind Severus of its needing to be tended to. The leather pouch in his hand became a blessed distraction as he rose, his well-practiced hands already itching to perform what they did best above all others, to coax the concoction into a gentle climax of final ingredients before diminishing the flame beneath it to give way to the afterglow of softly snaking steam.
~*~
The dormitory was still black and silent – with the exception of Tracey's quiet snores – when Gwendolyn returned from her impromptu gala with the Bloody Baron. She moved about the room by light from the tip of her wand, which she had propped up against her trunk as she dressed. She was halfway through lacing her left boot when there came a rustle from the bed to the right of her own, followed by a yawned "Lumos." Gwendolyn smiled – Pansy was awake.
She finished tying on the boot, picked up her wand and whispered nigh-inaudibly, "Nox." Its light extinguished, and for a few moments she was blind, until the curtains shrouding Pansy's bed parted, revealing the pug-faced girl's own wandlight. She stepped back a little, out of range of the dim illumination, and waited until the other girl had stretched and was on her way to the washroom before acting.
"Expelliarmus!" she hissed, and Pansy jumped visibly as her wand was wrenched out of her hand and flew across the room to land with a clatter near Constance's bed. "Lumos."
"What the fuck are you playing at, Cross?" Pansy demanded, her upper lip curled back in a disdainful snarl, though her eyes were wide and alarmed.
Gwendolyn advanced upon her so quickly that the pug-faced girl was backed against the wall before she could think to stand her ground in defiance.
"You know, Pansy, I really didn't appreciate that little going-away present you left me with. In fact, it kind of upset me." Gwendolyn frowned at her, schooling her expression into one of melodramatic hurt.
"Well...g-good. It was meant to," Pansy stammered, slowly growing bolder. She kept flickering her mean brown eyes past the other Slytherin at her still-lit wand on the floor, and they betrayed any bravado she was attempting to build. Predictably, she tried to make a dive for it – Gwendolyn put an end to that quickly. Exceptionally skinny as she was, Gwendolyn was a lot stronger than she looked. She grabbed the other girl by the wrist and used her own momentum to spin her around in an almost dance-like move, twisting her arm behind her back and slamming her up against the wall again. Pansy hit with a sharp grunt of pain, and Gwendolyn used her temporary disorientation to take hold of her other wrist, and pulled that arm back as well. The girl had rather small wrists, and Gwendolyn rather long fingers; she was able to pin both wrists with one hand, and used her other to point her wand at her still-open trunk.
"Accio dagger," she murmured, and Pansy started struggling as the knife reach Gwendolyn's hand.
"What the fuck?!" the pug-faced girl exclaimed, her voice cracking slightly as she tried to worm her way out of the taller girl's grasp. "Let me go, you freak! Let go of me!" Gwendolyn's response was to push the girl's hands up closer to her neck, and Pansy cried out as her elbows nearly snapped. By now, the other occupants of the dorm were beginning to wake, and peered out of their bed curtains to watch the unfolding scene through sleepy, half-lidded eyes. Gwendolyn was inwardly pleased that none of them seemed to be making a move to stop her – either from self-preservation instincts or apathy toward Pansy's well-being, she wasn't sure, nor did she much care.
She tucked her wand into the pocket of her robes, its lit tip still visible, and brought the dagger 'round Pansy's front to rest lightly on the girl's throat. Pansy froze, and Gwendolyn could feel her heartbeat speed up through her wrists.
"It pained me, Pansy. I mean, it really wounded me to know how little you value our friendship. I come here, we get along so well, and one day it's just snap—" She paused, pressing the cold sharp edge of the knife more firmly into the girl's skin – just enough for the pressure to be exceedingly uncomfortable, but not enough to draw blood. "—And you cut me away. Do you have any idea what that feels like? Do you know how much it hurts to know that your best friend can't stand you?" Out of the corner of her eye, Gwendolyn could have sworn she saw Blaise smirk.
"You're fucking crazy!" Pansy snarled, trying to mask the thick tears of panic in her voice.
"Then perhaps you should have thought of that before you decided to play your little games. Rule number one, sweet Pansy: Never fuck with crazy people. It's dangerous, and it's stupid – a fact the position you're currently in attests to. I'll warn you only once – I don't want you ever, ever touching my things again. The next time you do, I will drag this blade across your throat so quickly and so cleanly you won't even be able to gag out a scream. I will string you up like a side of veal if you so much as breathe on or near my personal belongings. Do I make myself clear?"
"...yes," she choked out.
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear you."
"Fucking yes!"
"Good. Thank you." With that, Gwendolyn withdrew the dagger slowly from Pansy's neck, took a step back, and released her hold on the girl's wrists. Pansy kept her back to the room for a few moments, composing herself and cradling one wrist that Gwendolyn's long nails had dug especially deeply into. There was a loud sniff, and she turned around, her face blotchy red from humiliation, and her eyes pink and glittering with tears. She studied the faces around her – one relatively unconcerned, two full of shock and apprehension, one smirking and spiteful – before stalking out of the room and slamming the door shut behind her.
The others said nothing, and Pansy wasn't seen again until History of Magic later on that morning.
~*~
"You held a knife to her throat?" Malfoy asked her as he sat down to breakfast, full of incredulity. Gwendolyn arched an eyebrow at him – she had mentioned nothing of the incident with Pansy to anyone, but word spread faster at Hogwarts than a wildfire during a drought. No doubt there would be nary a soul in the castle who didn't know of it by lunchtime. "Nott told me," he explained as though he'd been reading her mind. "He heard about it from Blaise. Is it true?"
"It is."
"How come you never told me she cursed your trunk?"
Gwendolyn shrugged. "There was no reason for you to know about it. She pissed me off, and I dealt with her. End of story."
"Somehow I doubt that. Pansy's not one to just let things drop. I know you can handle yourself, but it might be prudent to watch your back around her."
"I'm sure my back will be fine. Yours, on the other hand..."
"What are you talking about? It's not me she's angry with."
"And how long do you think that's going to last with you not immediately snubbing the girl who held a knife to her throat? She's smitten with you, yes, but she's not blind. It's not going to sit well with her that you're not leaping at the chance to avenge her."
Malfoy frowned – obviously, this hadn't occurred to him before. "Huh," he said, and took a bite of marmalade-drenched toast. "I suppose I'll deal with that problem when it presents itself."
Gwendolyn thought of suggesting that he end his and Pansy's relationship entirely – after all, it hardly seemed worth all the effort of fighting for it if Malfoy wasn't the least bit offended by someone threatening his girlfriend's life – but she didn't. Those decisions were his and his alone to make.
A flourish of black robes caught up in a breeze all their own swept behind where they sat, and Gwendolyn knew who it was even before she followed Malfoy's gaze back and up. Professor Snape glanced briefly between the two of them before his eyes settled on the female of the species, though they didn't meet her own.
"Miss Cross," he said softly, the undertones of his voice wary and irate, "a word."
Down the table a ways, a couple of first-years chorused a singsong "Oooh, some-one's in trou-ble," until Snape flashed them a warning glare. Gwendolyn rose and followed the Potions master out of the Great Hall and down into the dungeons, entertaining herself as they walked by looking for patterns in the theatrical billows of his robes.
"Sit down," he ordered her once they were inside his office, and she complied. He sank down into his own chair and rested his hands on top of his desk, his fingers splayed – a gesture, Gwendolyn had learned, that meant he was most displeased with the matter he was attending to.
Severus regarded the girl sitting across from him silently for a long while. Needless to say, he hadn't been thrilled when the Parkinson girl had rapped on his door earlier that morning shouting to high heaven of how she had been unfairly accosted by the other Slytherin, and it was not simply due to the gravity of the accusation.
It wasn't just the dreams, nor the shudder he'd had to suppress when Parkinson displayed for him the still-seeping nail marks on her wrists that he had abstractedly recalled marring his own back. The thing that perplexed him most was the Cross girl herself – whether or not she was actually aware of the effect she had on him. If she knew, then chances were she was using some sort of magic to trigger his illicit ruminations; he could put a stop to that, once he figured out how she was doing it, and escape the situation more or less unscathed. But if she didn't, if she truly had no idea of the thoughts that frenzied his mind and stirred his body...it was not the option he preferred.
He couldn't very well confront her outright about it, because the chances of it being the latter were far too high. It was too great a risk. She would be disgusted by the allegation, tell her parents, who would inform Dumbledore of what a lecherous monster he allowed to teach at his school, an act that would likely cost him his job, a tribute to the headmaster's cause or not. Though if things continued on like this, Severus couldn't be completely certain, despite what he told himself, that he wouldn't end up in much the same position. Gwendolyn Cross had already breached the substantial self-control he possessed, and being made to teach her, to see her day after day with his desire thrown back in his face...he was a strongly guarded man, but a man nonetheless, and he could never say with absolutely conviction that sooner or later he would not take matters into his own hands. Gods help him if that ever happened....
"Miss Parkinson came to see me early this morning. Do you know why?" he asked, discreetly gauging the girl's predilection toward lying.
"Yes," she said, and there was no lack of confidence in her answer. Severus' eyes narrowed.
"Then you'll understand when I ask that you explain yourself."
"The day I left for the winter holidays – right before I left, actually – I found Pansy bent over my trunk, mumbling something I could not understand. When I questioned her about it, she told me that she had just been petting Millicent Bulstrode's cat, who had wandered into our dormitory. I didn't trust her, of course, but I didn't bother to check my trunk as I was already running late and didn't want to miss the carriages. When I arrived home and opened my trunk, I found that the inside of it completely coated with slime. I had to replace all of my schoolbooks. Naturally, when I returned to school, I felt it necessary to inform her of my discontentment with what she had done."
"And you didn't think it a little...severe...to hold a knife to her throat?" He didn't wait for her to respond before questioning her again. "Why didn't you inform me of what she had done so I could deal with the situation accordingly? Perhaps you've led a sheltered life, Miss Cross, but surely you must be aware that threatening another student's life with a weapon, be it wand, dagger or other, is grounds for expulsion from any school, magical or Muggle."
"Are you going to expel me, sir?"
Do it, a voice in his head hissed. Do it and be rid of her. You have more than enough of a good reason. Offer to pack her bags, give her fare for the Knight Bus, just rid yourself of her damnable presence.
"...no, I am not."
You're digging your own grave, Severus. Don't be absurd. Put an end to this foolishness, these gluttonous thoughts. Remove this perverted temptation before it gains the upper hand.
"You're to serve two weeks' worth of detention. Every afternoon following your last class until the Monday after next, you will locate Mr. Filch. He will hand you off to whomever is seeing over detention hall that night."
You stupid bastard.
The girl nodded once. "Thank you, sir."
"Thank you, sir," the voice snapped mockingly. Could she be any more obvious with her counterfeit civility? She's ridiculing you, you realise. She knows what you think of her, what you dream of doing to her, and she's laughing at you because of it, the insipid brat. May I remind you of her youth – I realise it's been years since your last Arithmancy lesson, but surely you can calculate that you are old enough to be this girl's father.
"I'm being more than generous, Miss Cross. Another incident, and I will be forced to play a very different role. My favour toward Slytherin students can only extend so far."
What a repulsively ironic thing to say.
"I understand," she murmured.
"You're dismissed."
She nodded once more and stood, and made no haste in leaving the room.
Fucking little tease.
When she had gone, Severus lowered his eyes to his desk. His hands were tense, white at the knuckles as they tried in vain to grip the flat surface. He hooked his thumbs together and flexed spindly fingers as though creating a pale, disfigured spider, taut and impatient to pounce on a hapless victim, to weave a cocoon around a dead doll's throat and asphyxiate her existence from his own life, though he knew very well it was not his wish to exonerate the little Alice from his reality – he had turned his back on that chance already. What he wanted, to feed from her, he would not do. And so she would remain a skeleton in his web, and watch longingly through those envy-green eyes every kill that he made, as he would deny her the grace of her own death.
~*~
In History of Magic, Pansy could not mask her surprise that Gwendolyn was still amongst those who attended school. There was a thin bruise in the centre of her jugular from where the knife had been pressed most firmly, and her hand flew up to cover it at the sight of the girl who'd inflicted the faint wound. Tracey and Constance kept their eyes glued to Gwendolyn as she took her seat next to Malfoy and wasted no time in hissing things between themselves that were most likely malevolent. Blaise glanced up from doodling a caricature of Binns on a bit of scrap parchment, but didn't appear to care much one way or another about Gwendolyn's presence.
"What did he say to you?" Malfoy enquired as soon as she sat down. Pansy shot him a hurtful look, as he seemed more interested in the assaulter than the assaulted, but he either didn't notice it or ignored it, and she could only stare dejectedly down at her textbook.
"I've got detention for two weeks, and I'm not to slice any throats. Other than that, nothing much."
"Two weeks? Damn it. You're going to miss the first Quidditch match of the year – Slytherin versus Gryffindor. They beat us the last time we played them, but it was such bollocks. They only won because one of the Weasley twins – I don't know which one, but they're both Beaters – one of them knocked our Keeper unconscious. They managed to score a goal in the time it took his replacement to get his ass in the air; that's what did it."
Gwendolyn sighed – she really had wanted to watch that particular match. "Well, I'll be with you in spirit, if nothing else. I'll see if I can't be doing something that will allow me to keep an eye on the pitch."
Malfoy nodded just as the bell rang, and Professor Binns made his daily march through the blackboard. He took roll, and as he started writing out that day's outline, Gwendolyn found her mind slipping elsewhere as she copied down her notes, back to Professor Snape's office and the way he had simply looked at her for endless minutes before speaking. The intensity of his gaze had thrown her, though she hadn't outwardly shown it, and she had been leisurely in her leaving of the room, knowing that those black eyes were still focused on her and wanting them watching for as long as possible. That he was watching her at all gave her cause to wonder of his thoughts as he did so – were they indecent? Lewd? Criminally filthy? Oh, she hoped so. Wished it, even, that that ebony burn she felt boring between her shoulder blades meant something much more than remote calculation.
Unconsciously she balled her left hand into a tight fist, her nails nearly puncturing the soft pads of her palm. How she did love that burn, that searing pain he could mete out of her with his eyes alone. His touch would be excruciating, as agonising and forbidden as the Cruciatus Curse itself, and she craved it like water craves earth, wanted to lap at his scorching skin as the waves on the beach long to taste the shore, wanted to drown him until seawater became his second breath and he made his home in her depths. He could spend his free time burning baby fish, she mused, and smiled serenely to herself. I would catch him in my current, and we would dance in a whirlpool by moonlight, twisting and writhing until we exhausted ourselves and surrendered to the blistering day.
She finished her notes in an ostentatious flourish of old-fashioned loops and curls, and signed them at the bottom as though they were a letter.
"Who can tell me," Binns began, drawing Gwendolyn out of her reverie, "who was the first vampire to sign the edict banning the consumption of human blood unless willingly offered by the donor?"
The majority of the Ravenclaws and a handful of Slytherins raised their hands.
"Mr. Jamison."
"Jean-Pierre the Pacified," Christopher Jamison answered, a tinge of intellectual pride in his voice.
"More like Jean-Pierre the Pussified," Gwendolyn muttered under her breath, causing Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle to snort with laughter. Binns wasn't quite as impressed, ever irritated by the fact that one of his best students was also one to poke fun at his class.
"Miss Cross," he said smoothly, and Gwendolyn's eyebrows raised, "you have something amusing to add?"
"Oh, I highly doubt you'd enjoy it. It's not to your tastes, I don't think."
"Then kindly keep your comments to yourself."
"Yes sir."
The rest of the lesson continued on without further incident, and when the break bell rang, Gwendolyn remained in her seat until all of her classmates had gone. So unused to students staying in his room any longer than absolutely necessary, Binns didn't even notice her presence, and was halfway back through the blackboard when she caught him, resting a hand on his icy, insubstantial arm.
"Oh, Miss Cross. Terribly sorry – didn't see you there. What can I do for you? Surely you don't require assistance with today's assignment?"
"Not today's, no – it's...I assigned it to myself, really. I'm researching the Azkaban Trials out of a personal interest. The only trouble is, all the books that give detailed reports are in the restricted section of the library. I was wondering if you could write me a note granting me permission to see them? Please?"
Binns frowned at her, his bushy grey eyebrows furrowing and his great moustache twitching as he considered the request. "Oh, Gwendolyn, I don't know...ghastly things, the trials were. The atrocities confessed, families torn apart..."
"I can handle it," she persisted. I can more than handle it, she wanted to add, but kept her mouth shut. I might even be inspired...
"Well...all right," he finally gave in, and bent over his desk to scribble a short note to Pince.
"Thank you, sir," she smiled as he handed over the piece of parchment. She folded it up carefully and tucked it into the pocket of her robes. "Thank you very much."
"You're welcome." Binns nodded benevolently, and Gwendolyn slung her rucksack over her shoulder and left, heading immediately for the library, as she possibly wouldn't be able to make it anytime after her classes over the next two weeks, depending on how long her detentions were.
Pince had been sceptical of the note's authenticity for a couple of minutes before she allowed Gwendolyn into the roped-off section of the library, and it had taken the Slytherin nearly fifteen minutes to finally locate the proper sort of book and check it out. Glancing up at the wall clock above the librarian's desk, she swore softly – 10:21 a.m.; she was already late for Arithmancy. Professor Vector would be less than pleased.
Book tucked safely away, she took off at a run for her next class. It was on the fourth floor, just past the suit of plate armour that had a penchant for sticking out its steel leg to trip unsuspecting passers-by. She was halfway there when the staircase beneath her feet shifted, taking her away from where she needed to go and toward some wing of the school she had never explored before.
"Damn you, you abominable...thing!" she cursed it, stomping her foot down as the staircase swung around and came to a gently scraping halt. There was no way to tell when it would move again – Hogwarts itself was a completely random place with no set schedules beyond those of its staff and students. A temperamental place, too. Gwendolyn probably hadn't helped her case much by insulting it.
She was about to simply sit and wait for the blasted staircase to move again, as she'd no idea how to find her way around the particular wing it was pointed at, let alone knew how to get to her classroom from there – wandering half-blind around London had been one thing, but there were no rampant acts of torture to be found in any part of the Hogwarts halls (that she was aware of, at least) and she wasn't about to go and get herself lost for no good reason – when a familiar yowl caught her ear. She turned to see Mrs. Norris staring at her on the third floor landing with a nasty you-are-so-busted expression on her oddly lumpy face, and knew that Filch wouldn't be far behind.
"Oh, sod that," she muttered, starting up the staircase and into the mystery wing. She already had two weeks of detention ahead of her, and there was no way in hell she was going to be seen by Filch and given another two for wandering the school during class time without a pass from a teacher.
"What do you see, my sweet? Have we a rogue student in our midst?" Filch's croaking voice echoed as Gwendolyn rounded the first corner. She heard the thuds of his heavy-booted feet slowly but surely heading in her direction, and tried the first door that she came to – which was, of course, locked.
Pulling out her wand, she quickly pointed it at the knob and hissed "Alohomora!" The lock clicked back, and she hurried inside, shutting and re-locking the door quietly as possible behind her. Pressing her back against the wall, she listened as the caretaker approached, then stopped in front of the room Gwendolyn was hidden in.
"In here, my precious?" Filch gruffly asked the red-eyed feline, who released another yowl in response. There was a jingle of keys – Why would Filch need keys? Gwendolyn wondered – and the door gradually creaked open, concealing the Slytherin from view. The custodian stood in the threshold so long Gwendolyn's lungs ached from holding her breath, and it was by a sheer stroke of luck that the cat didn't actually sniff her out – perhaps Mrs. Norris was an acquaintance of Morgaine's, and was doing her a favour. Eventually, the door closed once more, and Filch wandered off, muttering something about dastardly owls always flapping about the castle and making mess. Gwendolyn exhaled, and surveyed her surroundings for the first time.
She appeared to be in a storage room of some sort, a veritable melting pot of all the classes Hogwarts had to offer. The shuttered windows cast streaks of sunlight across the mismatched contents – a few broken crystal balls from Divination classes gone awry, hordes of dusty old cushions, some of them spiky, others half-upholstered in plaid and half in polka-dots (obviously failed transfiguration attempts), chairs and desks with broken legs, and even a few ancient-looking cauldrons all warped and melted, some with holes in their bottoms (Longbottom's entire Potions career came to mind).
But Gwendolyn was most captivated by an odd-looking box-like contraption that had to be of Muggle origin, for she'd never seen anything like it in her life. It was roughly eight or so inches in height, at least a foot in width, and attached to its side was what looked to be a ribbon wheel, though it wasn't ribbon that wrapped around it at all – rather, upon closer inspection, it was film from a camera. Holding the pictures up to the murky, dust-clouded light, she saw that they were all nearly identical, as though each had been taken just a fraction of a second after the one before it.
"Curiouser and curiouser..." she mumbled to herself, replacing the film neatly back on its roll. Lying on the floor, connected to the device, was a slim black cord, at the end of which was a large hunk of rubbery something-or-other and two metal prongs, as though it were meant be attached to something else – to plug into something else. "Of course..." But there were no outlets for such a mechanism at Hogwarts – electricity and magic mixed horribly, she knew that much, so what was this strange machine doing at the castle if it wouldn't work? "Perhaps that's why it's in here." Still, curiosity got the better of her, and while she didn't expect anything much to happen, she flicked the switch on top of the black box from 'off' to 'on'.
Instantly, the thing started up, clicking madly and flashing blinding light in her face. Gwendolyn jumped back, startled at first, and then followed the light to where it was projected onto the stone wall.
Like any other ordinary picture, this one moved, but unlike any ordinary picture, it seemed to be telling a story. The room was filled with a rich, somewhat heart-rending symphony. There were no voices set against it, but every so often the jerkily-moving sepia-shaded people would disappear, and words would be put in their place. It must be what they're meant to be saying, Gwendolyn realised, utterly besotted with this weird and wonderful thing, even more so when she saw the figure that next appeared on the screen.
He was beautiful, in much the same way that she found Professor Snape beautiful, if far more exaggerated; darkly dressed, with a more inhuman look about him. His ears were large and pointed, his nose hooked and strong, his face elongated and thin. His eyes were rimmed with charcoal-grey, his eyebrows were thick, and formed a wavy V-shape low on his forehead, and underneath a comically boxy hat he seemed to be completely bald. His words flashed on the screen: "You are late young man," and Gwendolyn giggled at the familiarity in the tone of voice she imagined him to have. What was this intriguing piece of art?
She looked around her for anything that might have given away a clue to the answer she sought, and did not have to look long before she came across a stack of round canisters, each of them just the right size to hold a wheel like the one spinning speedily 'round the machine. The top one was empty, and labelled on its front was the word 'Nosferatu'.
"Nosferatu..." Gwendolyn repeated, allowing the name to roll leisurely off her tongue. "Magnificent. Who would ever have guessed that mere Muggles could create something as exquisite as yourself?" The canister, unsurprisingly, didn't answer her, and she replaced it back on top of the others. Returning her gaze to the pictures on the wall, she drank them in for a few moments longer before pressing the contraption's switch to 'off'. Filch had left, yes, but she couldn't be certain that he would stay gone, and it was safer without the sweet, sad music that accompanied the film. She would find a way to tamper with the volume later, as there was no doubt in her mind that she would be returning to this especially marvellous room.
She left the room, and when she stepped on the staircase it had apparently forgiven her, for it shifted back to its appropriate place almost immediately. Casting a last mournful look in the direction from which she had just come, she started once more for the Arithmancy classroom. She had missed nearly half the lesson, but after finding that particular diamond in the rough, she wasn't at all wary of whatever scorn Vector might toss at her because of her tardiness. A room such as that was well worth one extra detention.
~*~
Lunch hour, and again he was not to be found in the Great Hall. He didn't want to see her, didn't want those corpse-like eyes rolling in his direction like the bloated finger of a dead girl pointed at him in accusation of her murder. Didn't want to picture the wilted acid-bright flowers that framed her like an intoxicated aura, or imagine the soft feel of lips violet and cold and soulless trailing on his skin like chips of diamond and ice, elegant and cutting and agonising and sweet. Didn't want to see her until absolutely necessary, until the class bell screamed in his ears and he could hold out no longer and why did everything surrounding her revolve around this perversely saccharine tension?
It had been two weeks, two weeks and he had forgotten that she had taken to showing up early for his class. He wondered what that meant, if it meant anything at all. She entered the room and he wanted her gone, wanted to take hold of that damnable braid and drag her out of the dungeons, to the ends of the earth and beyond, but somehow knew, just knew that her scalp would leave a bloody trail and she would follow it back and force her presence on him again and make him stitch her hair back into her sticky bald head, and she would stare at him all the while with those dead envy eyes until he was obliged to sew those shut as well.
She copied down the assignment as she always did, quill scratching furiously into parchment, tattooing it with his words, and when she had finished, her glassy stare fell upon him, and a shiver haunted his spine and his pulse hammered against his ribs and his head shrieked with mad laughter "Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!"
But no – no. His composure remained impeccable, his breath even and smooth, his voice low and rasping and fluid when he could not help but ask of her, "Why do you study me so incessantly?" Would she lie? She hadn't lied before, earlier, about the girl with the bruise on her neck and the gouges in her wrists. And would he lie, if she asked of him the same question?
—Of course.
Her head turned ever-so-slightly to the right, and the corpse eyes became half-lidded with the scarcest of misgivings, and he was reminded of the way she would twist her neck to half-bury her face in his pillow when his phantom mouth would bite roughly into the pale flesh of her throat just before the symphonic crescendo of their nightmare sonata would rain down on them each night in his bed.
"Because I find you to be a creature of terrible beauty," she replied, her voice whisper-light and steel-sharp, and he regretted his query immediately. What the hell was he doing, pouring salt on this wound? She was a horrid little leech, a parasite, and he was feeding himself to her plague, a banquet of terror and flesh upon which he was allowing her to feast.
A moment of insanity, he told himself. A moment, nothing more. A quaint visit, a quaint visit is all, to her Night's Plutonian shore. Only once, and nevermore.
Gwendolyn's stare did not falter, did not waver, as she attempted to gauge the weight her answer had placed on his bony shoulders. But her Death remained unflinching, statue-still and infuriatingly Stoic. His eyes were locked to hers, and this time there was no key to break the gentle, holding spell adhering raven-black to envy-green.
"Miss Cross..." he began, velvet-voiced and still unblinking, and in a dank corner of her mind Gwendolyn heard a piercing scream. He could not finish before the bodies began to fill the room, and, ripping his gaze from hers, Severus had never been so grateful for grand interruption of adolescent ineptitude that sliced through the fog that had gathered between them. Discarding the glass eyes of his dead doll as so many had done before, he slipped back into the folds of reality, away from cabbages and kings to schoolmaster and eager Alice, to Potions master and obedient pupil.
Still, in cobwebbed crevice of his consciousness, he heard the caw of a raven, a caveat to remind him that he could turn a blind eye, but never a deaf ear, and a call as clear and coaxing as this would not be so easily silenced.