A/N: I know it might look as if I'm rushing to finish the story, but the fact is that I am inspired, and that it had been a long time since I'd seen a story so clear as this one, and I'm just taking advantage of this before it goes away.

This part is harsh, but necessary... There are no descriptions of Minerva's rape, and I won't include them unless I really feel it's necessary for the story.

Anyway, I hope you like it. Dark times are coming for Minerva and Severus.

Enjoy ^_^

HOGWARTS 1997

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Chapter 21

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Broken

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Severus Snape had spent a terrible night waking up every now and then. At first he thought it was because of the noise coming from the party going on in the Great Hall, but at the end he decided to admit that the reason of his insomnia was the emptiness of his bed.

He'd been waiting for Minerva until late at night, moving a chair in front of the enchanted mirror so he could read while waiting for her image to appear on it. It never happened, and at some point, he decided to put his book down and move under the sheets of his bed.

...

He entered the Great Hall expecting to find her already sitting on the professors table, with an excuse for not sharing her night with him. She wasn't there.

He took his seat in the Headmaster's chair, next to Amycus and Alecto, who were having a conversation about the best curses to use while torturing someone, and had his breakfast without taking his eyes away from the door. She never came.

Not willing to make himself noticed, he waited for someone else to be the first to leave the table. That was Pomona Pomfrey, as usually, since she liked to clean up the Hospital Wing before the children started to go there with silly headaches and tummy aches. When the school nurse was halfway to the door, Severus stood up and stopped behind Filius and Pomona for a moment. He bended over between the both of them and the couple looked at him.

"Professor Sprout," he said aloud and politely, as if he was going to ask her about work, "have you seen Minerva?" he whispered this time.

"Not since last night," the herbology professor replied with the same secretive tone of voice, "she left very early."

"We thought she was going to finish the party with you," Filius joined them, making sure nobody else would listen.

"Obviously, she didn't," Severus talked to him as if he was one of his students making a stupid point in his class.

"I'm sure she was just tired and went directly to bed," Pomona assured him, and Severus just nod his head at her in agreement before leaving.

…

The Gryffindor common room was crowded with students when Severus came in. It was Saturday and since nobody was allowed to leave the castle, the children had to hang out inside. He should made a mental note of what a bad idea that was when it came to having intimacy for them.

Ignoring the stares at his back, he knocked at Minerva's door three times and then called her, reminding himself he was not alone.

"Professor McGonagall," he said, "might we have a word?"

He was surprised when the door opened immediately, as if she had been waiting for him.

"Good morning, Headmaster," she replied with businesslike politeness, "what can I assist you with?"

She had a smile on her lips and she was wearing a high collar tartan dress buttoned on the front, with long sleeves that only showed her fingers. She looked fine, but there was something in her eyes that he couldn't read.

"May I come in?" Severus asked, already stepping into the room.

"I'm sorry, Headmaster, but I am not alone," she said, moving away to let him see that there was a student sitting in her office. That explained why she hadn't come to breakfast.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he apologized, stepping back, "I didn't know you had any tutoring today. I was just checking," he tried to choose his words correctly since they were clearly being watched, "that you weren't... indisposed."

"Obviously, I am not," she replied, that strange shadow in her eyes still haunting him.

"In that case, I shall return to my duties," Severus nod his head in form of a salute, he was dying to ask her what was wrong, but he couldn't when they were surrounded by sneaky kids. "if there's anything you need…"

"Actually," she said before he leaved, and he looked at her disappear behind the door and reappear again with her wand, broken in three pieces on her hands. "I would usually sent it to Ollivander to mend or re-do, but…" she left that 'but' hanging on the air. Severus understood what it meant: 'but he has disappeared', 'but I am not allowed to sent owls out of the Castle'... things she would rather not say out loud, for fear or pride.

"Of course," he said, taking the pieces of the wand carefully, hiding his joy for being needed by her, "you'll have it back tomorrow morning. May I ask what happened to it?"

"It slide from my fingers," she explained, "some student stepped on it."

"I hope he received a good week of detention for that," he pointed, his Slytherin side coming out.

"Of course not, Headmaster," she replied indignated and he was amused of having started an argument, that encounter they were having was too tense for his delight, "accidents happen, they are not reason for punishment. Now if you excuse me…"

"Yes, of course," he accepted to leave, thinking that a sharp reply from Minerva was always a sign that she was in good shape, but that shadow in her eyes, that something he'd seen on them… there was something wrong, and he didn't know what it could be..

Minerva watched Severus leave from the frame of her door and once he was behind the Fat Lady's painting, she looked at the boy sitting in front of her desk and said:

"You may leave now, Mr. Longbottom. You've been of great help."

"I could ask some students to watch over Snape if you wish, Professor," the young boy said as he passed by her.

"That won't be necessary, Longbottom, but thank you," she greeted him with a polite nod of her head and closed the door.

Suddenly, there was silence, and calm, and loneliness, and fear.

Air. She needed air. Minerva felt she was suffocating in that small room, enclosed in that tight dress. She rushed her hands to the buttons of her blouse and undid them nervously. It wasn't enough. Her lungs demanded more air, her breathing fastened and a pain in her heart struck her.

She rested her back against the wall, closing her eyes, trying to pace her breathing. As it slowed down and that pain abandoned her, she began to feel sick and a sudden need to throw up invaded her stomach.

She let her body slide down the wall, scratching her robes against the sharper stones, and when she hit the ground, she broke down into tears.

The loud noise of the slamming door brought Minerva back to herself, to the present, to reality. She was laying naked on the cold floor of Septima's classroom. She was alone.

Minerva dragged herself to the closest chair, and used it to hold herself as she stood up with great difficulty. Her entire body was in pain and when she tried to step, she felt a sharp pain in her side, which reminded her that she had felt one of her ribs crack when she'd been savagely pushed against the professor's desk.

With a move of her empty hand, she turned the lights on and looked for her clothes. There was blood on the floor and on some of the furnitures around, specially the desk, where her dress was hanging.

Painfully, she limped to it and raised it up her head so it would slide down her body. It was tore up on one side, but it still covered her nudity, and it wasn't like she had anything else to put on. While she cleaned the blood stains with some wandless magic and the last of her energy, Minerva tried to look for her underwear, but it didn't appear, neither did her shoes.

When she considered the classroom was like it was supposed to be so nobody would guess what had happened in it, she left.

The corridor was empty and she began to walk as she could, not knowing where to go. When she felt a crack under her bare feet, she bent down to pick her broken wand and continued her way. Her first instinct was to go to Severus. Feeling him holding her tight was what she wanted the most at that moment, she needed the safety of his touch, the warm of his body, he needed his love. But she couldn't go to him, he would go after Carrow the same minute he learnt about what he'd done. He would kill him, for real this time, and Minerva wouldn't be able to stop him and he would raise the suspicions on him over the Death Eaters and get himself killed too.

No, you can't go to Severus, Minerva, she said to herself.

Then she thought that in normal circumstances the right thing to do was going to Poppy, not only so she could heal her wounds but because she could proceed with the proper tests to report Carrow. But those weren't normal circumstances. There was no meaning on getting tested because no aurors would come.

That thought relieved her somehow. It wasn't that she didn't want the man to pay for his crime, but knowing that no one would be asking her to tell them every single detail of the previous moments of her life took her to thinking that maybe, just maybe, she would be able to forget the incident soon and go on with her life.

Of course she was wrong, and she knew she was, but she wasn't about to admit it yet. She needed to know that she was still in hold of something in her life, even if it was the false hope that she could deal with this on her own.

So she ended up in her own rooms after what seemed the longest journey around the Castle she'd ever taken. Fortunately, it was so late that no soul was around and even the paintings were sleeping.

As soon as she found herself in the intimacy of her private chambers, she got rid of the dress and threw it to the fire. She then walked straight into her bathroom and took a box from a cabinet. It was filled with potion vials, gauzes, sirings and other medical stuff. She grabbed a needle and a string and sat on the toilet, crossing her legs with the right one on top.

It was when trying to thread the needle that she realized her spectacles were broken, so once more, she had to cast a wandless spell to fix them.

Once the needle was ready, Minerva bended over to have a better look of her leg. On the center of her right thigh there was a deep cut still bleeding. As she wiped out the blood, Minerva felt the the cold blade of the knife tearing up her skin again as Amicus claimed "now, we're even."

Very slowly, she stuck the needle on her skin at one edge of the wound, and as the little stick of metal came out by the other side, Minerva realized that it would have been a wonderful idea to pour herself a long shot of firewhiskey before doing that.

Poppy Pomfrey was climbing the stairs when she saw Minerva passing by the corridor. Her friend seemed in a hurry and she wouldn't have interrupted her race if it wasn't because she noticed the professor was slightly limping; something the common eye wouldn't see, but that it wasn't unnoticeable for her.

"Minerva, dear," she said, and McGonagall turned around, staring at the young Ravenclaws that had stopped to smile at the nurse's familiarity with their professor.

"Yes?" she waited for Poppy to catch her.

"What happened to your leg?" she asked.

"Nothing," she lied badly and without looking at her friend.

"You're limping, Minerva, I'm a mediwitch, I see these things."

"It's just an old wound reminding me that I'm not young anymore," Minerva explained.

"Would you like me to take a look at it?" the nurse asked.

"There's no need, but thank you Poppy," she was about to excuse herself to leave when she heard her name being called once more.

"Professor McGonagall," said Severus, and both women turned around.

"Well, I'll see you later, dear," Poppy left before Minerva could ask her to stay.

"Good afternoon, Headmaster," she greeted.

"I was just going to your office to bring you this," he said, showing her a small long packet that could only contain a wand.

"Thank you very much," she took it, and restrained her wish to unwrap it immediately. They stayed a moment in silent, she wanted to leave but didn't know how to do it without being offensive. Then, he suddenly bended towards her.

"I was hoping you'd come to my rooms tonight," he whispered in her ear so nobody else would listen, "you didn't," and his breath brushed her skin causing her to shiver. She needed him, she needed his embrace, his touch. She moved away.

"I was feeling a little dizzy," she lied, "maybe tonight."

"It's a date," he stated, "9 o'clock," and after that they took separate ways.

…

Minerva unfolded the packet as if she was a little kid the morning of Christmas. She took the wand, her wand, her new wand, with both hands and very carefully. She needed to test it first, make sure it suited her, that it was an exact replica of her old one, that it wouldn't fail her at the last minute.

With a soft move, she pointed to a piece of parchment in her desk and transfigured it into a beautiful purple butterfly that then turned into a blue bird and finally into a dark crow before becoming a parchment again that she tore into pieces angrily.

For some reason, she'd thought that having her wand back would make her feel better, that the sorrow and fear that had been stuck in her stomach for the last two days making her sick at any moment would vanish. They didn't. She had her power back, but she felt as miserable as she did the day before.

After cutting the extra string, Minerva looked into the box for the bottle of Skele-Gro that she knew she had because she always took it with her during the quidditch games ever since the incident with Lockhard and his ineptitude. When she found it, she raised her head and poured two drops of it into her mouth hoping that would be enough to heal her broken rib.

It was then, and only then, when she allowed herself a moment. A moment to breathe, to close her eyes, to feel nothing… but she realized that her mind wasn't about to listen to her will, because all she could do was seeing his face, hearing his voice, feeling his touch.

She submerged her entire body into the water of her pool-size bath and swam to the deepest point, holding her breath until her survival instincts pushed her to the surface against her own will.

It wasn't that she wanted to die, but it felt good to be in control of something. Outside the water she felt the pain of her wounds, the sore skin of her bruises, the dirtiness of her more private parts and that sorrow that she had to fight not to cry. Holding her breath inside the water, all she could feel was the need of her lungs for more air.

Minerva looked at herself in the mirror as she unzipped her dress. As the fabric slided down her body, more bruises could be seen in her reflection. Holding her wand tightly, she brushed her recently abused skin with its tip and the purple marks seemed to disappear. Even she was amazed by her good work, and she took her fingers to the zone under her right breast, where only a moment before there had bid a wide bruise. When she touched it, she felt a strong pain that brought tears to her eyes. Alright, she thought, so she hadn't healed the bruises, she was no mediwitch, but at least Severus wouldn't see them.

After having cast a glamour on the scar of her leg and the other recent cuts and scratches that she had, she raised her head to have a better look of the thin red mark around her neck, where the charmed leather collar that had prevented her to transfigure herself had been.

She closed her eyes and she felt his fingers on her neck after she was almost passed out on the floor, whispering some spell that unlocked the collar's clasp, finally letting her free of it.

When she saw the time on the clock of her wall and Minerva realized she had skipped breakfast at the Great Hall, she knew Severus would be there soon to check on her.

The thought flattered the professor for a minute, and she even thought of just jumping to his arms in tears as soon as he trespassed her door… but she made the idea vanish soon. She knew how he would react because he'd seen him when Carrow had attacked her in her classroom. She had been able to stop him that time telling him no harm had been done but… but this time… It was different this time. There was nothing she could say to stop him, to calm him down, because there had been harm, too much harm done.

She decided to leave. If Severus didn't find her in her rooms then there would be no need for explanations, for lies. At least, not yet. When she opened the door, she encountered her common room crowded.

"Good morning, professor," a familiar sweet voice said, and she looked at her right to see Neville Longbottom coming down the boys rooms.

"Good morning," she said, and she suddenly had an idea, "Longbottom, would you mind coming in for a minute, please."

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TO BE CONTINUED...