Chapter 5: A Bishop Alone

Snape closed the door behind Hermione Granger with a mixture of relief and regret. "Cherished---" The word slipped from his mouth before he could bite it back as he'd done all evening.

In the next second, he cursed himself roundly for his weakness, his craven longings. She's a child, for Merlin's sake--- just a child.

Except that she wasn't, exactly, not in body--- certainly not in intellect--- and not even by law.

And he'd been alone for so very long....

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, fighting the ache in his skull, and dragged himself toward his office. He'd a few sleeping potions locked in the bottom drawer of his desk, against nights like this---

No, not "like this". He'd never had a night "like this" in his life. Not even that dreadful night when the realization of what the Death Eaters truly were--- what he was--- had come crashing down on him had been so terrible. That night, he'd merely been horrified, sickened at what he'd become, what he'd allowed himself to be part of... but he had at least been horrified, and nothing else. Tonight... tonight, despite the violent roiling of his stomach, despite the self-loathing chewing a hole in his vitals... his blood still burned at the memory of her under his hands, all soft yielding flesh and delighted whimpering....

I'm sorry, Hermione. Sorry, not only for what he'd done, but for enjoying it. For--- Merlin help him--- wanting so much to do it again....

He opened his eyes at the door to his office, leaning on the doorjamb, sweeping a glance around the room. Everything somehow seemed different--- though perhaps (he hoped vainly) it was merely the unaccustomed warm glow of the fire and the lamps around the chess table.

Too warm in here, really, and too bright by half. A flick of his wand, and the lamp flickered off; another, and the hearth was cold again.

He started for his desk, wanting nothing more than the Dreamless Sleep Potion he kept there. It was stronger and more effective, for him at least, than the stupid "Sweet Dreams" Potions most people used. Even a potion had to have something to work with, and there was nothing in his subconscious that would produce anything but nightmares.

Dreamless Sleep Potion--- and a very cold shower. He usually felt the need to bathe after being in Lucius Malfoy's presence--- and a Dark Revel was enough to make him want to scour his skin raw in near-boiling water, by way of disinfectant. Tonight, though, offering any sensual pleasure to his sensitized skin was courting danger. He would not--- would not!--- violate her innocence any further, even in the privacy of his own thoughts.

He got the vial out of his desk and started back across the room, when something caught his eye--- his cloak, still draped over the chair where Hermione had sat. He went over and picked it up.

A few strands of her soft long hair clung to the dark wool, like spun bronze against the black. Gently he disentangled them from the wool--- evidence, he told himself, and safer for her if I take them; give them back to her when she's here next. Hair could be used in any number of spells and potions, many of them not to the advantage of the one whose hair was so used.

Carefully, he drew the strands one by one out of the wool, winding them into a little coil round one finger. They were so curly that they coiled up naturally, reminding him with a pang of the feel of the soft woolly mass of her hair under his hands, the way the little spring-curls had wrapped round his fingers as he combed them. So much like affection....

He raised the cloak to his face--- her scent clung to the wool with the soft hairs: tears and sweat and a sweet-sour sharp scent he knew too well, familiar and yet unique, distinctly hers. He moaned aloud at the memory of her naked body, all ripe untouched curves and eagerness....

And he'd twisted that innocence, hurt and frightened her and made her love it. Merlin's bones.

Never mind that he could name the biochemical reactions that contact had produced in both their bodies--- a comprehensive knowledge of human biochemistry was necessary to a potions maker; how else could one design compounds that would affect the body's complex systems? But the clinical analysis of what had happened between them tonight did nothing to dull his... appetite. He'd always been smugly amused by men who allowed those appetites to rule them, reveled sardonically in his own triumph over those feelings. But tonight he was as starved as any of the brutes he'd ever mocked.

The cloak, impossibly, seemed still warm from her body, reminded him of another memory, more innocent though no less painful: the moment by the hearth when he had opened his arms to her and she had come to him. For a moment he could actually feel her in his arms again: soft warmth cuddling against him with no trace of shame or reluctance--- or desire either; just the simple innocent want of comfort and care. Her light curving weight on his lap, the way she'd burrowed close to him for comfort; the softness and scent of her hair under his cheek and hands.

He closed his eyes, hearing in his mind the words he'd wanted to say to her, countless little endearments--- love, sweet, treasure--- and the one that had most frequently come to his lips, bit back and twisted into the more innocent "child"--- cherished. He'd had to twist that word, to fight the urge to shower her with tenderness he'd no right to give and she certainly wouldn't want--- hadn't wanted; look at the way she'd flinched when he'd called her "sweet"--- certainly an innocent enough term. She was anything but his lover, and he had to remind himself with every breath that if she was not literally a child, she was certainly an innocent; he had no right to foist his own selfish longings on her---

It came to him, then, with a flash of humiliating insight, that he had not wanted her body half so much as he had simply wanted some human contact.

Wanted a little kindness. Wanted someone to be close to him of their own free will; or at least, not to mind it too much. Shameful, for a man of almost forty, to admit to being as love-starved as a child--- but he was. He couldn't remember the last time he'd touched anyone, or been touched, in any but the most perfunctory manner.

He sank into the chair by the cold hearth, shaking. That had been the root of his stupid weakness--- the weakness begun not tonight when he'd found her in Malfoy's dungeon, but weeks ago, when he'd had Hermione serve her first detention as his lab assistant. Or perhaps before... what had he begun to feel a certain fondness for the girl? His lip twitched in spite of himself--- it might have been as early as the first day he'd had her in class, when she'd actually got out of her seat in her eagerness to answer a question. If it hadn't been for Potter's very presence setting his teeth on edge, she'd have very likely gotten a smile out of him for that little performance.

Not that it would likely have mattered to her. Not that his thoughts or feelings mattered to anyone... even himself.

He shivered violently in the fast-cooling room; normally he didn't mind the cold--- at least, not the cold outside him. It was the lump of ice in his chest, where his heart should have been, that had always sent him huddling under the quilts as a child, trying to warm something that the goosedown couldn't touch.

But she had. Without laying a hand on him, without being--- thank Merlin--- anything more to him than his best student should be, she had sent a finger of warmth into the chill inside him. That first peaceful evening working on the anti-lycanthropy potion--- the first time in a very long time he hadn't needed to shout or sneer in order to get results from a student, when she'd simply and efficiently anticipated his thoughts, or so it had seemed--- he'd found something like companionship from her. Found out he could still feel, like a human being.

Not that it would have led anywhere improper--- his guts twisted with bitter longing as he imagined what it would have been like simply to have the pleasure of guiding that mind, in however small a way... to have someone around who didn't despise him. He didn't think he'd imagined her fascination, with the experimental process at least; she hadn't minded that it was him she was working with.

And then Lucius Malfoy had taken that fragile rapport and twisted it forever.

He felt his hands clench into fists. He wanted to wring the other man's neck--- or cast Cruciatus and make him writhe--- while Hermione watched.

Not that it would heal her, mend the harm that he'd done her. But he rather thought she might like getting a little of her own back. There was a core of steel there that might let her surprise even herself.... He'd seen it a few times in class--- and out--- but tonight, watching as she reasoned her way into joining the living chess game, was the first time he'd truly appreciated her potential.

If he hadn't already destroyed it. If it wasn't too late for her to own all that she was, thanks to him....

He forced himself to take a deep breath. He'd just have to see to it than it wasn't, then, wouldn't he? To take care of her... give her the tools to get to the eighth square intact....

If it were possible. He knew all too well that pawns were he first piece to be sacrificed in any chess game.

He forced himself to his feet, draped the cloak over his arm, and went back to the desk.

Nothing less than asphodel and wormwood would do for tonight. And a bath in ice water.