So finally, here it is! But I warn you, people – the R is well earned in this chapter. If violence or semi-graphic rape is too much for you, please turn away from this! The same if you´re underaged!
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, except perhaps the plot. All hail J.K. Rowling!
-
The Heart of Darkness, Part II
Now, what the hell was that?, Hermione asked herself as she sat on the side of the bathtub, still dazed from her fall and the following shock.
He had been nice to her! Snape, who had used every chance over the last weeks to insult her, to hurt or mortify her, had let at least a hundred good chances for his stinging remarks pass. He had tried to help her, to comfort her. Gods, he honestly seemed to care for her well being!
That wasn´t good news. Not good at all.
Fighting the impulse to doze off again, Hermione slowly got to her feet and turned on the water. Then, she started the tedious process of undressing herself.
Gods!, she cursed under her breath, if that´s how my Grandma felt in her nineties, I can understand why she was always in such a foul mood!
Every muscle in her body ached, every movement was met with a painful protesting of her limbs. She felt dizzy already, although she had only been on her feet for a minute.
But at least she didn´t have to pretend that everything was well and walk down to Herbology with the other Gryffindors. She had done that, before, all the time praying that she wouldn´t faint in front of her friends. Being officially ill did have its advantages.
Carefully, so as not to slip and crack her head on the marble, Hermione stepped into the tub and let herself engulf by the hot, delicately scented water. Other than her Head Girl bathtub, where she had to choose the bath essence herself, this tub seemed spelled to sense its users needs. In Hermione´s case, it had obviously decided that relaxation was the most urgent need at hand.
Slowly, she felt the essences of herbs and spices soothe her cramped muscles, and breathed out a sigh of relief. Eternal thanks to whoever had invented this tub! After simply enjoying the warmth and smells for a while, she hesitatingly returned her attention to her body.
After weeks of fighting against its demands, she felt like a stranger to it. For a long time now, it had been nothing but the source of pain and suffering for her. A product she had to sell to her best advantage, a curse she had to bear.
She had lost too much weight, she realized critically as her hands scrubbed, foamed and rinsed. She´d have to eat as much as she could over the next week. Lucius liked his toys well-nourished. He wouldn´t be pleased when he saw her like this.
She dipped her head under the water to wet her hair, then chose a shampoo and started massaging her scalp while her thoughts returned to Snape´s mysterious behaviour.
If he had stopped treating her like an abomination, it meant that something had changed his opinion of her. She seriously doubted that the Headmaster, Professor McGonagall or Draco could have produced this change of heart, not with a man as stubborn and pig-headed as Snape was.
Which meant that something must have happened during the last week, something drastic enough to turn his open loathing into insecure politeness. Damn! She must have slipped something!
Every time she had surfaced from the madness of her dreams, she had asked him about her behaviour, about what she had said. His answers always had calmed her and she had hoped that, somehow, she had prevented herself from spilling too much information. But he had been a spy for years, handling and twisting dangerous information when she wasn´t even born, for goodness sake! She couldn´t believe a word he said. He was as good in the game as she was, perhaps even better.
But if he doubted the pictures from her mind… She lifted her hands to her eyes and saw that they were shaking badly. She had to be even more careful now than before. While he had believed to know her motives, to see through her masks, she had been quite safe with him, although not very comfortable. But if Snape now suspected that there was more behind her actions than he had assumed, he would go to great length to find out. And that she couldn´t allow.
He must never know, she swore to herself, shame reddening her cheeks at the thought of Snape finding out… , I mustn´t let my guard down! I must plan carefully.
But the planning wouldn´t work. Her mind was a turmoil of thoughts and fears, memories and images, and all she could do not to panic was concentrating on her hair, washing it two, three times until all the sweat and dirt was gone from it and she had calmed down enough to climb out of the bathtub and dry herself with one of the fluffy towels.
She´d have loved to apply a shaving charm to her legs and armpits, or to magically dry her hair, but her wand was still in the possession of Snape, and she didn´t dare to try wandless magic so soon.
The fresh cotton of the pyjamas felt wonderful on her skin, but she was shaking with weariness when she opened the bathroom door and stepped back into her room.
Someone had changed her bed linen and placed a tray of food on the bedside locker. The big windows were wide open and the fresh air caressed her face. A soft smile lighted her face as she climbed back into bed and arranged the cover around her. In a way, it felt still good to be alive.
The tray held a bowl of creamy soup and crispy, warm bread. She only realized how hungry she had been when nothing was left of her meal but a few crumbs. Carefully, she returned the tray to the bedside locker and stretched out in her bed.
I should send an owl to Draco, she mused while her eyes fell shut against her will, find out what happened while I was out cold…
But before she could even finish her thought, sleep had dragged her into its deep, dark belly. For once, there were no nightmares waiting for her there, but quiet, peace and resting.
-
She awoke slowly, her thoughts drifting directionless along the events of the last weeks. This was just a breather, a moment of quiet before the storm. But she had to be prepared to rejoin the hunt sooner or later.
Slowly she opened her eyes, enjoying that she was warm, full and without pain. But when her eyes fell on the chair by her bedside, her body stiffened to alertness. Snape was sitting in his armchair, reading a stack of papers and occasionally marking a line with his flowing, red-inked handwriting. No doubt one or the other student would burst into tears over those comments.
She felt vulnerable and naked when she realized that he had been watching her sleep.
Hermione must have made a noise without realizing, for suddenly his head rose from the paper and his eyes locked with hers, unguarded and opened as he hadn´t expected her to be awake. What she saw in those dark orbs made her shudder. Concern, worry and doubt. He clearly was suspecting something.
"How do you feel, Miss Granger?", he asked quietly, and his voice held nothing of his normal malice, "You slept well I trust."
"Very much so, Professor", she replied levelly, "I certainly feel much better. It won´t be necessary to watch over me any longer."
He didn´t react to her implicit demand, but silently left the room and returned after a moment with another tray that again held soup, bread and tea.
"You should eat as much as you can manage", he advised her, "You lost weight over the last fortnight."
"I noticed that much", she answered, her eyes fixed on the meal. Gods, she was hungry!
He let her clean her bowl without commenting on her appetite or eating habits. Another bad sign, but there was nothing she could do. She could hardly ask him to insult her a bit, as it made her feel better, could she?
Silence filled the room as he rid her of the tray and she studiously avoided his eyes, watching her folded hands instead.
"I have brought you something to read", he finally announced, and her head shot up in surprise, "You should spend another day in bed before you may try to stay up longer. I thought you might like to join me for dinner tomorrow evening in my library. You could spend the day there. It must bore you to see nothing but this room."
"The room is just fine", she answered cautiously, but as she saw how he stiffened with the decline of his proposal, she added quickly, "But I will join you tomorrow. Thank you very much for offering."
"It is nothing, Miss Granger. Call me if you need anything. I will be in earshot."
Only after he had left the room and closed the door she thought of looking at the book he had left her. It was a slim, leather bound volume. "The Art of War, by Sun Tse", the title read.
Despite her intentions, the book captured her. Sun Tse must have been a military genius of his time, she mused as she read his advice for generals and Princes, written down nearly two and a half millennia before she had been born.
Concerning warfare, he seemed as pragmatic as she had become over the last few months, favouring battles that were won without a sword drawn and wars of the mind rather than those fought with armies. But it was the last chapter of his "Art" that she read over and over again, and it was as if through the words of this old Chinese, Severus Snape spoke to her.
"Your surviving spy must be a man of outstanding intellect but with the outer appearance of a fool, of shabby looks, but with an iron will. He must be energetic, resistant, strong and courageous: well used to all sorts of dirty work, able to bear hunger and cold and willing to pile shame and disgrace on himself."
She smirked. No wonder this book appealed to her Potions Professor. But Sun Tse had considered his spies important enough to make them the main key to every war. Despised and cast out from human society, they fought in the shadows to protect this very society. The secrets, the shadows and the bitterness that turned them older than their years – in a strange, twisted way, she realized, she and her Professor weren´t different at all.
"Therefore, the enlightened leader and the wise general will use the most intelligent of their army as spies and achieve extraordinary successes this way."
-
Snape returned at dinner time, once again carrying a tray with a variety of dishes. But as she thanked him and examined her meal, she found her wand lying beside her plate.
Surprised and not knowing what to make of it, she looked up to the still standing man.
"Isn´t it too soon?", she asked him, not phrasing the question that was uppermost in her mind: Why do you trust me enough to hand me my wand? He probably had expected that question from her, too, but she didn´t want to enter that conversation, not if she could help it.
"Using magic should now be safe for you", he answered and settled down in the armchair she had come to think of as his, "But start slowly and be careful as you don´t know the effects it will have in the beginning. Eat first, though. You need to build up your strength."
She nodded mutely and turned to her meal, ignoring her wand completely as she didn´t want to show him how much it mattered to her. With the power of her wand and the magic restored to her, freedom seemed much nearer than before. Perhaps she even could get out of here unharmed, with all her secrets well kept.
When she had finished, she waited for him to leave again, but he made no move to rise or take the tray from her. Obviously, he wanted to watch her effort, and so she slowly, reverently picked up her wand and softly stroked the polished surface with her fingers.
"Try to lighten that candle over there", Snape advised her.
It´s not as if I´ve never used a wand, Professor, she thought angrily, but decided to keep her thoughts to herself. Instead, she pointed the slender piece of wood towards the candle and murmured a spell.
Immediately, a white hot pain shot through her head, causing her to let go of the wand and groan in agony. Snape was by her side in a heartbeat.
"Miss Granger", he asked concernedly, "What is the matter?"
She fought the tears that wanted to fill her eyes in reaction to the pain, and when she looked up at him, her face was under control.
"Nothing", she replied weakly, "Just a bit of pain. It was unexpected. I´m sorry, Professor."
"Well, now we know you have to start even smaller", he commented, taking up the tray from her lap and moving over to the door, "Take your time, Miss Granger. And don´t overexert yourself. I shall see you in the morning."
"Thank you, Professor", she called after him, "and good night to you."
-
Despite his warning, she practiced well into the night, until she could manage or even ignore the pain. She fell asleep with her hand curled around the dark wood of her wand, and when she woke in the morning, it was the very first thing she checked for.
She ate the breakfast that was waiting for her on her desk, took a shower and was delighted to find her magic strong enough again to apply drying and shaving charms to her body. She dressed into cotton trousers and a dark red shirt and felt human again for the first time in days.
Spending the day with working on her spells and catching up on schoolwork, she was surprised how fast the evening had come. As the huge clock in the library stroke seven, she descended the winding staircase and found an opulent meal and a fully robed Professor Snape waiting for her.
"You look much better today, Miss Granger", he commented in the silkiest of voices as he walked her over to the table and offered her a seat, "Has your magic returned?"
"At least part of it", she answered, thankful that he had opened conversation on safe grounds, "I haven´t tried anything big yet, but the basic spells do not pose problems anymore."
"You should give yourself time. All should return to you in a few days."
"I will", she answered truthfully, "And thank you for your support."
"Think nothing of it."
An uneasy silence settled on them as they concentrated on their meal. Finally, Hermione looked up to see him watching her. There was something indefinable in his eyes, a kind of insecure curiosity that made her nervous.
"So, tell me, Professor, is there anything new concerning Order business", she asked in an attempt to lighten the mood.
"Apart from the usual bickering and hierarchical disputes you mean?", the superior expression in his face made her smile, "Quite a lot, actually. The false information we planted in the ministry has finally born fruit. We know now that Fudge is keeping key knowledge from us, deliberately. Of course, there were wild discussions what to do and much ado about nothing, really, but in the end, they all agreed that listening spells should be placed in the Minister´s office."
"Finally!", Hermione said, deeply satisfied, "I had feared it would take them another lifetime to decide!"
"You knew about this?", Snape asked, sounding genuinely surprised. He had always considered the quarrel between Fudge and the Order as information only available to the Inner Circle.
"Let´s just say I found out about Fudge´s false play some months ago", she answered cryptically, "I talked to the Headmaster and he wanted to remove Fudge, but I convinced him that it is better to have an idiot who can be controlled as Minister than an unknown risk."
"My advice to Albus exactly", Snape commented slowly. Then, he filled her glass with deep red wine and offered it to her.
"Thank you very much, Professor", she declined, "But I don´t drink. It´s too…"
"Risky for a spy, I know, Miss Granger", he interrupted her, his velvety voice caressing her, "Just this once, though, I think you can make an exception. It will help you to relax, and relax is what you must do to get better soon."
Still she hesitated, but when his slender fingers presented the glass to her without making a move to withdraw, she finally took it and tasted the ruby liquid. She had never drunk a wine that delicious. It tasted like… his voice, she thought, but quickly banished the thought from her mind.
"What type of listening spell would you recommend, then?", Snape asked while casually refilling her glass from the crystal decanter. She hadn´t even noticed that she had emptied it.
"It should be a dormant spell, I think", she answered and returned to her meal, "activated by certain key words. We could make sure that…"
They talked on, discussing possible spell variations that Severus might present to the Order, and then turned to Potions and the research work he had been doing with Remus Lupin.
Hermione felt surprisingly at ease with her brooding Professor. He seemed to have completely abandoned his sneering arrogance, treating her as an equal and regarding her comments and proposals with the same serious care he might apply to a scientific article or a new experiment. She found that talking to him came quite natural to her. He made her laugh, and listened attentively, and the wine and the exquisite meal caused a warmth in her belly that spread through her whole body, until she was relaxed, satisfied and comfortable all over.
Finally, silence fell between them once again, but not the uncomfortable silence of earlier.
"So tell me, Miss Granger", Snape finally asked in a light tone, betraying nothing of his intention, "What do you know about Occlumency?"
For one seemingly endless moment, she could feel nothing but admiration as she stared at him wide eyed. Gods, she would never get that good! The subtlety this man was capable of mesmerized her. He had planned all this, putting her at ease, relaxing her, offering her wine. She never drank wine! And now, that her defences were down, he triggered the trap.Then, panic kicked in and her survival reflexes took over. Her face turned from shocked to innocent so fast that he wouldn´t have noticed her first reaction had he not looked for it carefully.
„Not much, Professor", she replied as lightly as he, „Harry told me something about it in our fifth year, when you were teaching him. Plus I have done some additional reading for a project some time ago, but there´s not too much in the library about it, I´m afraid. Why, do you consider using it on the Minister?"
"You know that you can trust me, Miss Granger, don´t you? I would never betray your secrets", he asked, and something in his voice made her wish to open up to him with all her heart, to tell him everything, to let him rescue her… but she had seen through his tricks now. No. She couldn´t trust him.
"Of course I trust you, Professor, though I don´t see how Occlumency can help us with our Ministry problem", she answered neutrally and rose from her chair, "But I´d better go to bed now. I feel quite tired."
With one single step, he had crossed the distance between them and was towering over her, his hand fixed on her shoulder. He knew! Gods, he knew!
"I know that you´re lyinig, Miss Granger", he said slowly, and the velvety whisper sent shudders of fear down her spine. "So why don´t we stop playing this little game and talk some truth instead?"
"I don´t know what you´re talking about, Professor", she stammered, panic now audible in her voice, "What does Occlumency have to do with…"
"Enough! Why are you lying, girl? What are you hiding?"
"Nothing! Please, sir, I don´t…"
"Then why haven´t you told me about the things Lucius Malfoy does to you? Why don´t you tell me something about the Dark Room, Miss Granger? Why it frightens you so much that you begged me to kill you before they could get you? Tell me of the games they are playing with you when the Dark Lord is in one of his fouler moods!"
Something snapped in the girl´s face, her eyes turning into those of a wild animal. She tore away from him, ripping her sleeve and stumbling forward with the force of her movement. Racing over to one of the windows, she ripped it open. She seemed willing to jump from it, but Severus was faster. He grabbed her, swung her around towards him and fixed her pale, sweating face in both his hands.
"What are you doing?", she screamed, fear shaking her voice, "Don´t! I can´t…not now!"But he had to know!
The moment he entered her mind again, he knew that she hadn´t even tried to defend herself the last time. But now she put all her strength in the wall that separated her thoughts from his, and he had to fight her every step of the way. He wasn´t sure if he would have managed her in a state of health and energy, but she couldn´t hide her weaknesses from him. He heard her moan in frustration and pain as he clawed at her mindwall, breaking through it with sheer, brutal force.
But what he found behind this wall of her mind were just the same images he had seen two weeks ago. He cringed under the knowledge of what was to come, and somewhere, far away, he heard Miss Granger mouthing words, begging and pleading for him to stop as she had done the day her hallucinations had started.
A stunning looking Hermione in a black evening dress made only to present her breasts in a better light. Men turning to watch her go, women eyeing her jealously. Draco Malfoy at her side.
Hermione holding a glass of dark red wine, sipping from it, her eyes glowing under the black night of her lashes. Suddenly, Lucius Malfoy standing before her.
"Well well, what does a little mudblood on a ball like this?"
"Waiting for you, Mr. Malfoy", wetting her lips with the dark wine and leaning slightly towards him.
"What should I want with a girl like you?"
"There are many uses for a mudblood, Lucius, and many of them can be enjoyable for both sides."
Lucius smiling, and a feeling of… lust surging through her groins. He lead her to a chamber and she couldn´t await his hands on her body.
Her groaning, as he ripped open the top of her dress…
A double defence, he realized, astonished at her expertise. She had combined a mental wall with a second wall of false images that would satisfy any Occlument with their realness. No one would look further than that.
Hermione kneeling in front of Voldemort, her forehead touching the ground.
"I know that I am but a low muggleborn, Mylord, but even someone like me can be of service to a great one. I know things valuable for you, I am the best friend of Potter and gaining Dumbledore´s trust. I only wish to serve."
Rising to the dark Lord´s beckoning and feeling power, triumph and gratitude. She had joined his rank. She was a Death Eater. She was serving the mightiest on earth.
Hermione standing before Voldemort. "He is a dirty traitor, Mylord, nothing more. He has betrayed you to the old fool ever since you returned!" Gleeful pride inside her. She had shown the old bat his place. She was a pet to the master, queen of the world that was to come.
"I can give you Potter, Master. It needs only a little time and a plan, and I will hand the little brat over to you", and the mighty claws of the Dark Lord would smash him, and she would watch.
He tried to push through the dancing images that surrounded him, taunted and mocked him, but it was useless. They were perfectly crafted, leaving no opening, no room to enter the mind that was hidden by them. Helplessly, he had to watch them unfolding in front of him.
Hermione kneeling once more. "Undress", the Dark Lord ordered her, and she obeyed, shrugging of her robes and standing in white nakedness before the inner circle of the Death Eaters.
"Everything for you, Master". She believed it. She would serve until her death.
The dark shapes of Death Eaters closing in on her, hitting and kicking her. Whipping her.
"This is what a mudblood gets if she wants to enter our circle."
Hermione screaming in pleasure, shivering with lust and begging for more.
"I thank you for the pain, Mylord! Everything for you, Master!"
He felt her body trembling under his hard grip. There was no way to reach behind these images. But he knew they were false now! He knew there had to be more to it! With all the power his finely crafted mind possessed, he rammed the barrier of imaged, again and again, hearing her cry out in anguish and pain, and finally, he felt the wall crumbling below his violent blows.
Hermione, writhing and moaning under the naked body of Lucius Malfoy, bitting and scratching him, drawing blood.
Hermione crying out as Lucius drove into her, slamming her head against a cold stone wall.
Her eyes wide open below the pumping body, her pupils nearly black, filled with lust, triumph, pain, the need for blood…
There was an opening! He could see it now – deep down within her pupils, a light flickered, a hint of something more, a tiny entrance to her soul. With the last of his strength, he pushed through, feeling himself drawn into the depth of her eyes.
She screamed, her hands ripping at him at him, trying to push him away with all the power the possessed, but he held on, nearly crushing her face below his fingers, and drove deeper into her mind. Deeper. And deeper.
And there, in the darkness of her heart, he found the horror.
He wanted to meet her again, barely a day after their last … activities. Apparating to the little hut he used as a meeting place, she had barely become aware of her surroundings when he was over her, taking her wand, warding the room and ripping her blouse open in a heart beat. He didn´t bother to drag her over to the bed. Gripping her hair and forcing her down onto her knees, he thrust his hot, pulsing cock into her mouth. She choked, but managed to change the sound into a lustful moan before it left her mouth. You can do this, Hermione, he heard her voice chanting in her head, you will survive this. Breathe. Lick. Suck. Moan! Hate burned inside her, but when he dragged her up and pressed her against the cold stone wall, her skirt up to her hips, even hate succumbed under the mountain of pain and fear. She closed her eyes and tried to think of something else, of the warm fire in the Common Room, of Crookshanks, purring in her lap, of the Great Hall´s beautiful ceiling, while she screamed with false lust and called his name, but he wouldn´t let her escape that way. And every ripping thrust drove the shame deeper into her heart.
"You are a mudblood whore, Granger, and you´ll never be more." She was kneeling before a full robed Death Eater, naked and shivering, her trembling body covered with bleeding wounds, "You´re not worth the dirt under our shoes, do you know that? But I´ll be generous, mudblood. Lick my boots – perhaps they will add some worth to your life. Lick them!" Boots, covered in the blood of his last victim. Do what must be done! Gods, I wish he´d just use Cruciatus! And she lowered her head over his boots and licked the salty blood. "I thank you, my Lord!", she whispered diligently and heard the raucous laughter of the Inner Circle, "Thank you for the pain!" Then a rough kick in her side sent her lying on the ground, with Death Eaters closing in around her. He had broken a rib, but he would break much more before the night was over.
Severus had seen enough. … He tried to pull back. Her body had long ago gone limp in his hands, and only the images and feelings that flooded his mind told him that she hadn´t fainted yet. But to his horror he found that he couldn´t leave her mind, that the walls he had overcome now kept him inside her mind, and before he could break the contact, before he could push her away and end their torture, new scenes stormed in on him, and he was lost again amidst the horrors that were her memories.
"Gods no!", she sobbed as the white searing pain that was Lucius filled her belly. She had been bleeding for weeks now, and was afraid that the pain would kill her before time. Suddenly, strong fingers tightened around her throat. She couldn´t breathe! Panic welled up in her, and then she heard Lucius´ voice whispering in her ear. "What did you say, mudblood whore?" "I said don´t stop, Lucius, don´t stop!", she choked, thinking: He would kill her now, and peace filled her at this thought. But then he was over her again, punching into her, hitting and biting her, ripping open the tender skin of her breasts. "Yes, give it to me, yes", she screamed, while tears where wetting her face, but it was dark, and he couldn´t notice, so she let them fall. No peace tonight, not for a mudblood whore.
Hermione sitting on her bed, nursing a deep gash in her thigh, crying soundlessly from the pain. So exhausted that she couldn´t even sleep anymore. Nightmares haunted her and it was too risky to steal more of the Dreamless Sleep Potion. And lessons would start soon… But no one must notice! No one must notice!
Frantically, he struggled against her defences that had become his cage. He had to get out! He couldn´t bear this any longer! For the first time in years, panic and fear made him unable to think and he fought blindly, just to get away from the pain, the horror, the shame that pulsed through her. But the next image made him freeze in shock.
His own face, towering over her, while his hands clasped her sleeves and forced her to meet his eyes. His presence in her mind, forcing her to relive the images she had planted in protection of the truth. He will hate me now, he thought with her and felt the hot pain of shame and humiliation course through his veins, he will see me as the whore that I am!
His eyes, dark with loathing and disgust as he led her go, pushed her away from him like something dirty and infested. I will do what must be done! I will do what must be done! Her chant in his ears, and then the feeling of the mask freezing her features, the cold numbness of control as he listened to his voice, insulting her and felt something breaking inside her, some warmth that was left suddenly vanish, some tiny, flickering hope go out.
He had done it. He had done to her what no Death Eater had managed before. She was dead now. She could as well stop breathing and let the darkness take her. And a memory filled his mind, even stronger than the ones before, of the silhouette of a man, crouching on the flow in darkness, a frightened face, white from the blood loss, and a voice, shaking with fear, calling her name…
Suddenly, he felt himself seized and hurled out of her mind with a power three times stronger than his own. Something hard stopped his fall and when he opened his eyes he found himself lying half sprawled in an armchair in his library. Nothing had changed in the room. But everything had changed inside him. Wild eyes searching frantically for the girl, he found her lying on the floor in a lifeless heap of clothes, hair and limbs. Her shoulders were twitching wildly, and her hoarse, shallow breath mixed with his.
Gods, what had he done! He had wanted nothing more than a glimpse into her true intentions, to finally know where she stood. Instead, he had pried on her, ravaged her thoughts and awoken memories too painful to be shared with others!
That she could feel all this and still go on with her task, that she could function as a normal being and act the loyal girl with those images in her mind!
How was she bearing this? He had never felt a person hurt that much and still live.
His head was blank. He tried of something to say, of anything to do that would make her feel better, but where normally the thoughts would dance inside his head, he could see nothing but those horrid images now, could hear nothing but her screams, feel nothing but her fear and shame.
But she wouldn´t move. She wouldn´t look up to him or react to anything around her. So he went over, and slowly, tentatively, placed a hand on her meagre shoulder.
"Don´t touch me", she hissed, stumbling to her feet and leaning weakly against the back of armchair, "How dare you touch me after what you did to me?"
"I´m sorry, Miss Granger, I…"
"There is no excuse for what you did just now, Professor", she screamed, turning the title into an insult that hit him like a fist in the stomach, "You are no better then they. They may have raped my body, but you raped my mind just now!"
"I know this doesn´t… I would never have done it if…But I had to know, Miss Granger, I had to know!", his voice rose in desperate plea for understanding, while he knew that she couldn´t forgive him, couldn´t show understanding for what he had done. He didn´t deserve it. Gods, she wasn´t the monster – it was him!
"So the world can return to normal again, now that Severus Snape has proven his superiority to a mudblood student", she said bitterly, cold radiating from her eyes, "I do hope it was worth it, Professor! Does it make you happy, to know that I am not as strong as you, that they have punished me sufficiently for daring to take over your place? Or do you want to go on breaking into my mind as if I was a cheap copy of Gringotts? Perhaps you´d like to fuck me, too, so that you really know me from inside out?"
She advanced towards him, her eyes burning with fury, and ripped open her pyjamas top. He backed away instinctively in shame and fear, "Miss Granger, please!"
"Oh, I see", she yelled, tears rolling down her face and lending to her eyes an unnatural brightness, "Not after what you´ve seen, Professor? Certainly you wouldn´t want to touch a whore like me, eh? Does it revolt you? Well, I´m certainly revolted by myself. I hope you draw some satisfaction from that!"
He could only stare at her, breathless, too shocked to think of anything but the incredible pain that shone in her face.
"I could kill you for this!", she whispered, her voice shaking as badly as her whole, trembling frame, "it was bad enough to bear when nobody knew, but now… Every time Lucius touches me, I will feel your eyes on me, I will know that you know…"
Suddenly, as if the shock of what had taken place finally caught up with her, Hermione´s face lost all colour and she choked, pressing her hand to the mouth to prevent herself from retching. He made a small, feeble move towards her, to support her shivering body, but she evaded his touch and fled from the room, up the winding staircase. He could hear her door slam shut behind her.
Then, there was only silence.
-
A/N: Hello again, everybody! This was a very hard chapter to write and it took me longer than I expected. I´m still not absolutely happy about it, but I couldn´t bear letting you wait any longer.
So here it is, for all of you to comment on, criticize or enjoy… Tell me if you like it and if all this is going into the right direction. I´m a bit unsure about it at the moment.
Next update should take some time, unless you somehow persuade me to work faster than I planned ;-)
Oh, and remember to leave your full e-mail address if you want to be sure that an answer from me reaches you.
All the best, Kayly