And so comes another somewhat unplanned chapter. I swear, sometimes it feels like the plot of this story is taking me for a ride. I'm quite pleased with it, though. I've used a lot more dialogue than I have been, so it's a little shorter, but I think we get to hear the characters' voices a little more this way.
I have to say that I am also so totally stoked to see that this thing is well over 100,000 words now (it's currently 219 pages in Word). A couple more chapters and I'll be easing out of short story range. And I thought my 63-page thesis was a doozy…
At any rate, please read and review!
"Severus, if you had never turned, would this have worked on you?" Samantha asked as she idly twirled a stirring rod in her fingers.
Snape remained silent, leaning against the counter, lips pursed. Samantha wasn't sure if he didn't want to answer or simply didn't have one for her. He drew a breath, but paused for a moment before speaking.
"Are you worried that no one will believe this charade?" He asked in a not-quite-sarcastic tone.
"That's not what I asked you," Samantha said lightly. "I asked if you think it would have truly been successful."
Snape knew what he wanted to say. He would have given Lily his soul if she'd asked for it. Even if he'd known that she was only trying to get information out of him. He would have told her anything, given her any potion, any scrap of intelligence he could get his hands on. But could he say that now to Samantha? Was it even relevant?
If he wanted her to trust him, he needed to be honest with her. He needed to show her that he trusted her.
"There was only one woman who would have ever been successful," he said quietly. "Back then, anyway."
Samantha's brow furrowed in confusion.
"Who–"
"Lily Evans," Snape said before Samantha could ask the question he still wasn't sure he wanted to answer. But it was out. He'd admitted it.
But Samantha still looked confused. Of course. She had no idea who Lily Evans was.
"Lily Potter," Snape amended.
Samantha's eyebrows shot skyward.
"As in…Potter Potter?" She asked, knowing it was a rather inane question. Snape looked as though he thought it as well.
"If you mean 'Potter Potter' to be Harry Potter, then yes. The mother of Harry blessed Potter," he said, a sneer forming on his face.
"Severus, if you don't want to talk about this –"
"No, I brought it up," he said with a weary sigh. He must be going soft.
"You were in love with Harry Potter's mother," Samantha stated. Snape merely looked at her.
"Lonely though I may have always been, there is no question that none but her would have been successful. Not that, I'm sure, many women would be clamoring for the opportunity. She was…" he paused. "She was the only one."
"Is that why you and Harry are so – is that why you hate each other?"
"I don't hate him, per se," said Snape, surprising even himself with his answer. "But he is the spitting image of his father with her eyes. He acts like his father, he talks like his father, but he has Lily's eyes."
"A constant reminder that she chose him," Samantha said softly, almost to herself. Her head snapped up. "Oh Severus, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…I mean, that wasn't –" She stopped for a moment, a huff of breath escaped from her mouth in her irritation at her own gaffe. "That was incredibly insensitive of me."
"And entirely true," Snape said, incapable of completely keeping the bitterness out of his voice. "I may not hate Harry Potter, but I do hate James Potter."
"What happened?" asked Samantha.
"We grew up together," he started. "I knew her long before we went to Hogwarts. Then we finally got here and she was sorted into Gryffindor. It probably all started falling apart then, but we were somehow able to stay friends until our fifth year."
"Did she start dating James that year?"
Snape shook his head.
"No, that was later. It was my fault for the most part, though for many years I blamed it entirely on Potter."
Snape became quiet for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts, trying to figure out how to tell a story he'd never told anyone. Samantha could see he was having trouble continuing his tale. She stood and walked around the table to sit on the stool in front of where he was leaning on the counter. She didn't touch him, but her proximity seemed to spur him to speech.
"James Potter and his gang of friends were bullies," he stated plainly. "On the day of our Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL, they ambushed me near the lake."
"How many of them were there?"
"Four. There were always four of them. They called themselves the Marauders," he sneered the word. With a start, he realized that all but Wormtail were now dead. Of all the injustices, that waste of skin had to survive when the three who hadn't found it necessary to sell their souls were dead. Not just dead; murdered. Was there anyone in his year who had been able to lead a normal life after school? It was a wonder Hogwarts had any students at all.
"Was Remus one of them?" Samantha asked suddenly. She vaguely recalled a conversation with Lupin in which he'd told her that they'd been at school together. It would certainly explain why Snape had always been on edge around him.
Snape gave her a long look before slowly nodding.
"He was," he answered stiffly.
Samantha felt as though she wanted to apologize, though she wasn't exactly sure for what she should be apologizing.
"Was he – I mean, did he ever –"
"No, he never attacked me directly," Snape interrupted, knowing exactly what she wanted to ask and why she wanted to ask it. Lupin had been her friend and himself, well, he was her…partner? Terminology wasn't important now. The point was that she didn't want to think that Lupin had participated in the kind of tormenting his friends had so willingly visited upon Snape.
Samantha almost sighed in relief, but Snape continued.
"But nor did he stop them."
"Oh," said Samantha in a small voice.
"And certainly not on the day in question," he said, trying to finish his story so he could be done with it. "They ambushed me. Lily was there and she defended me. I, being the foolish sixteen-year-old boy that I was, couldn't let a girl defend me to a group of boys who already saw me as weak. I – I called her a mudblood."
Samantha wasn't entirely surprised by his admission. She knew well his temper and his propensity for saying incredibly hurtful, not to mention stupid, things when he was angry. Top that off with the immaturity and lack of restraint typical of teenagers and it was a rather potent brew.
"Did you apologize to her?"
"Yes. As many times as I could. I even threatened to sleep outside the entrance to the Gryffindor common room until she talked to me." Snape recalled the conversation vividly. He hated to admit that it still hurt.
"And she never forgave you?"
Snape shook his head.
"No," he said. "She cut off all ties with me that very night. She never spoke to me again."
He recalled the conversation so vividly, in fact, that he could still hear her words ringing in his head. You've chosen your way. How hard he had tried to convince her otherwise.
"Severus, please don't get angry at me for what I'm about to say," Samantha started cautiously. "But if she couldn't forgive you after you sincerely apologized for saying what you did, I –" She cut herself off short. She looked truly apprehensive to continue. "Promise me you won't bite my head off for this."
"If you can sit here and talk to me after knowing what I've done, I think I can assure you that I won't inflict any physical harm on you because of what you say."
Samantha was unconvinced, but continued nonetheless.
"She didn't deserve your devotion, Severus," Samantha said at last. She tensed, waiting for his fury to be unleashed.
Much to her surprise, he merely shrugged.
"She had it, no matter what she did. She was my first and only friend. My only real friend," Snape explained.
"No, Severus, if she'd been a real friend, she would have at least tried to accept your apology," Samantha forged ahead, knowing she was entering dangerous territory. "People make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes are – and there is no other way to put this – monumental fuck-ups. Friends forgive each other, or at least make every attempt to. Even for those monumental fuck-ups."
"I wasn't exactly hanging out with the best crowd either," Snape said, starting to get defensive. It was to be expected, of course.
"And her boyfriend was a bully," Samantha countered. She hoped she didn't sound as if she was trying to make herself out to be better than the woman. She merely wanted Snape to know that he deserved better in general.
"I'd like to stop talking about this," he responded, his voice tight. "Now."
Samantha immediately backed off. She'd pushed enough of his buttons tonight. She still didn't really have an answer to her initial question, though.
"Let me pose a hypothetical," she started carefully. "Had there been no Lily, or, at least, had she not held the place of importance in your life that she did, would this little plan of ours have worked? If you were, right now, faithful to the Dark Lord and I wanted to get information out of you in exchange for sexual favors, would you oblige me?"
"I don't know if I have an answer for that. I know others would believe it, especially those who know our – ah – history."
"There's my problem, though," said Samantha, sounding more than a little troubled. "Those who know our history are questioning my loyalties. If they thought that our little arrangement was anything more than quid pro quo, which Minerva would immediately suspect it was, the whole thing would be useless."
"You make them believe it is," Snape said simply, as though there were nothing easier to do.
"Subterfuge is not an innate talent of mine," Samantha admitted.
Snape rolled his eyes.
"Sometimes I wonder what that bloody hat was thinking," he muttered.
"Hey!" Samantha cried, slapping him playfully on the arm. "Perhaps it recognized the potential for it. Surely that's how it must sort the children. Eleven-year-olds don't generally have an appreciable talent for cunning."
"As you say," Snape conceded, though he still maintained an air of mock reticence. He sighed and his face became serious once more. "Don't deny that I'm your source, there's no one else it could be. Show them shame and embarrassment, but also resolve to do what needs to be done for the greater good. Minerva will go doe-eyed over that."
"And what about you?" She asked.
"What about me?"
"What if this gets out on your side of the fence? You need a cover story, too," she explained.
"Do you honestly think I don't already have one?" Snape asked, raising an eyebrow at her lack of forethought. He was the bloody spy; it had been his plan to begin with. "I don't answer to the Carrows, but if word gets out of this castle, I will explain that I have been able to turn you and you are acting as my spy in the Order."
"What if the Dark Lord wants to speak with me himself? What if he wants me to take the Mark?" Samantha asked insistently. She'd had a feeling that Snape would have to make up some story of her betrayal of the Order.
"He trusts me as much as he is able to trust anyone. He knows that I would be able to tell if you were lying and, as such, would not waste his time speaking to you himself," Snape explained calmly. "You will not need to take the Mark. Obviously, it would help you to keep your cover in the Order if you did not have it. The Dark Lord knows that. He knew I was distrusted by the Order because of my past and he wouldn't make the mistake of forcing you to do it."
"You hope," Samantha muttered. She felt uneasy about the whole thing. "I honestly don't know how you do it."
"I don't know how not to do it," he answered flatly. "This is all I've done since I was twenty."
"Yes, well, not being much older than that myself, I doubt I'd make it to your age at this rate," said Samantha. A smirk briefly crossed her face when she saw him grimace at her mention of their age difference.
"Must you?"
"Yes," she said, hopping off her stool and giving him a peck on the lips. "I must."
Samantha placed her hands on Snape's chest as his arms came to wrap around her waist. She stared into his eyes for a moment before sighing and laying her head on his shoulder.
"Tell me we're going to make it through this, Severus," she whispered. The rough wool of his coat scratched her cheek as she spoke.
Snape tightened his hold and buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply.
"That depends on what you mean by 'make it through'," he said, trying to avoid the issue.
Samantha scoffed half-heartedly, hardly expecting to get a straight answer out of him. She slid her hands up his chest and clasped them behind his neck as she repositioned her head to rest against his chest. Standing there like that made it easy to deceive herself into thinking it was all just one hell of a nightmare. But sooner or later she would have to let go and pretend to hate him even as she pretended to spy for him.
Finally, she pulled back, knowing that they had more to discuss. She sat back on the stool and leaned back on her elbows on the table behind her.
"We need to test this," she said with a resigned sigh. "I need some small piece of intelligence to pass along to Minerva. Not quite inconsequential, but not exactly mind-blowing either."
Snape crossed his arms and legs as he leaned against the counter, thinking of what he could give her.
"The Ministry is going to begin actively recruiting Snatchers by the end of the month," he said at last. "Some of the recruits will undoubtedly be under the Imperius Curse, especially those who would not be suspected of participating in such activities. They want to find people who Potter would trust."
Samantha nodded. It was important enough to pass along, but not a bombshell. After all, she would have to ease into prying information out of him anyway, right? No one would expect her to uncover Voldemort's every plan on her first try.
As she made her way back to her rooms, Samantha's mind buzzed with more thoughts than she had time to process. First and foremost was doubt. Was she doing the right thing? Was she right in trusting Snape? He had, after all, killed someone, no matter that the said someone had made him promise to do so. And was that even true? He seemed so earnest in his remorse. But hadn't he just said that spying was all he knew?
Was she naïve for believing anything he said? For trusting in him? She thought of Lily. She hadn't forgiven him after he called her a mudblood and here Samantha was giving the same man the benefit of the doubt after he'd committed murder. Not to mention having already insinuated that she'd been the reason her husband was dead.
It seemed that everything that worked in his favor had a corresponding doubt.
This was one of those moments in which she dearly wished she could consult Father Matthews. She wasn't sure what he would say of Snape's actions, but she was reasonably sure that he would tell her that she needed to forgive him. Certain though she was of his advice, she still wanted to hear it from him. But she knew it was too dangerous. Owls were monitored – especially those coming out of Hogwarts from known Order members – and apparition was out of the question. Any Muggle method of transportation would take far too long. No, she could not in good conscience make any attempt to contact him for his own safety. She would never be able to forgive herself if something should happen to him.
Going to Mass – at any church – was likewise impossible. With the Snatchers out and about and Death Eaters roaming freely, any attempt she might make to go could put herself, and any Muggles around her, in danger. No, she would have to console herself in the knowledge that she was ultimately doing the right thing. Though she now wished she had pressed harder to go while she had spent the summer at the Weasleys'. But she had been so distraught, so depressed, that she had completely detached herself from the world around her. At that point, nothing at all seemed to matter; she had barely been able to muster up the will to bathe and eat, much less anything else.
Snapping herself out of her thoughts, Samantha was mortified to find that she had simply been standing motionless in front of her door for God knows how long. She looked up and down the hall to make sure no one had been privy to her actions. Satisfied that all but she and the castle had witnessed it, she unwarded her door, made a cup of tea, and sat down to plot.
Knowing that she had to pass on the information Snape had given her sooner rather than later, Samantha resolved to speak with McGonagall the very next day. If she gave herself any more time to dwell on what she was about to do, she knew she'd never pluck up the courage to go through with it.
So pluck up the courage she did after she finished her final lesson for the day. Samantha raised her fist to knock on McGonagall's office door. She hesitated for a moment, but took a deep breath, screwed her eyes shut, and rapped on the door three times in rapid succession before she could change her mind. Samantha dropped her arm and rolled her eyes at her own behavior.
"Come in," she heard McGonagall's voice call from within. She took one more breath, opened the door, stepped in, and closed it quietly behind her. "Samantha, what can I do for you?"
"We need to talk," she said, her voice low and intense. "Is your office…secure?"
McGonagall immediately took her meaning and waved her wand, wordlessly casting what Samantha assumed was a silencing spell.
"It is now," said McGonagall, setting her wand back on her desk. "Why don't you sit down?"
Samantha did as she was bid. With her eyebrow raised in thought (something she'd never noticed she did until Snape pointed it out to her), she thought through exactly how to begin the conversation.
"I have some – ah – news for you," she started.
"News?" McGonagall asked, clearly confused.
"Information," Samantha clarified.
McGonagall looked fairly astonished at her admission, but remained silent.
"The Ministry is to start actively recruiting Snatchers within the month," she said, knowing she was now beyond the point of no return. Her pulse raced at the thought. "Obviously, they will have no reservations about using the Imperius Curse to acquire those whom Potter would trust in order to lure him out of hiding."
There. It was out, seemingly hanging in the air in the subsequent silence.
"Samantha, where did you get this from?" McGonagall asked, her face set in stern lines. Samantha wasn't sure if it looked more like worry or suspicion. She rather hoped it would be the former.
"That isn't important. It's –"
"It was Severus, wasn't it?" She asked suddenly. Samantha's mouth snapped shut. They had talked about this. If McGonagall was to guess that Snape was her informant, Samantha wasn't supposed to contradict her. Still, that meant that McGonagall would have to be persuaded that what she'd been told was true. Now it was time to start acting.
"Yes," Samantha answered softly. "It was Severus."
"Why would you trust anything he says? We all know what he did. How can you be sure that he isn't setting us up?"
Well, here goes nothing.
"We have an arrangement," said Samantha simply.
"Are you leaking Order –"
"No!" Samantha cried, perhaps rather louder than necessary. She clenched and unclenched her hands in her lap, waiting for McGonagall to come to the next logical conclusion.
"Then…Samantha, you aren't." McGonagall's voice was both apprehensive and accusatory.
"Minerva," Samantha started, trying to stop the woman from the rant Samantha knew she so dearly wished to deliver.
"We are supposed to be better than this."
Samantha only wished she could tell her what Dumbledore was putting Snape through, what he had made him do. No, they were no better.
"I do what I must," she said. The blush slowly creeping across her face was no act; though it was in no way due to the shame McGonagall thought she felt. She averted her eyes to make her embarrassment seem more convincing.
Samantha flicked her eyes back up to McGonagall to find that Snape had been spot on in his prediction of her reaction. Her eyes had softened and she looked caught between pride and sympathy at the burden Samantha was taking on. Samantha didn't particularly like the feeling that came over her. It was a complete and utter lie. The whole thing was a total charade. She couldn't even imagine what Snape felt. At least she was ingratiating herself to the Order, rather than making them hate her.
"He hasn't…hurt you, has he?" She asked in a rather motherly tone.
"No," Samantha answered. "And I don't think he is likely to do so. I believe he may still have a soft spot for me, which will obviously work to my advantage."
So that embellishment may not have been in the plan, but it seemed like the right thing to say. It would go a long way in explaining how she was able to acquire any truly important pieces of information she may offer in the future.
"I can't see how he could have a soft spot for anyone, but if you say so."
"Well, he is a man, after all, Minerva," Samantha said, a rather twisted smirk on her face. "Even evil bastards appreciate company from time to time and I am quite sure that he is used to such company coming at a cost."
It was a low blow, and she inwardly cringed at the insult, but it was necessary to keep both their covers.
"I am simply going to pass along everything he tells me. It'll be up to the more seasoned Order members to decide if it's legitimate," she continued. Given her own doubts, though significantly fewer than the rest of the Order, Samantha thought it prudent to add that caveat should Snape truly be working against them. Her stomach churned at the thought.
"Very well," McGonagall said with a nod. "Come to me as soon as you find out anything new."
Samantha nearly breathed a sigh of relief. She was in. There was, however, one catch.
"I would like it if my particular involvement with Severus could be shared with the fewest number of people as possible. This is not exactly the reputation I would like running through the ranks," she said. And it was true, even if she wasn't actually doing anything.
"Of course," said McGonagall. "I will keep this between you and I so long as I am able. It may be necessary to inform Kingsley of the source and circumstances of this information, but once it goes through him, no one else need know."
Samantha nodded in satisfaction. The less people she had to sell her story to, the better. Her reputation aside, it would mean convincing others of Snape's supposed depravity or at least of a rather pathetic desperation for female companionship. Either way, it was not something she wanted to do more than she had to.
A thought suddenly struck her, though it certainly wasn't one she could share with McGonagall. What if she was required to submit to questioning under Veritaserum? Perhaps Shacklebolt would require it in return for keeping her secret safe. The thought terrified her. She'd never once been under its effects, she would surely spill hers – and Snape's – secrets the moment the first drop hit her tongue. She couldn't very well refuse should they deem it necessary; it would be an implicit admission of her deception.
Despite this disquieting inner monologue, Samantha was able to calmly escape from McGonagall's presence so she could go fret away in the privacy of her quarters. Why hadn't Snape thought of this? Surely he must have. Not only was he a spy, but he'd been the bloody Potions Master for over a decade! Was this the proof of his duplicity? Had he planned this? Was he sending her into the lion's den, knowing all along that she would be devoured? She wanted nothing more than to convince herself that she was being far too paranoid for her own good. But the doubts remained. Which was he? Friend or foe?