Many thanks to JKR for the characters and the background to move the pieces around. Thanks also to all those who have reviewed, emailed and expressed interest over coffee. Short chapter, but I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am.

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"I have no real desire to continue discussing this tonight," Snape said. He watched Hooch circle him warily. His fingers flexed, curved, savoring the brief memory of control and the quiver of flesh beneath them. In the frigid air, her breath was visible and quick.

"Nor do I, but I have no answers from you," replied Hooch, still out of arm's reach. He cursed himself inwardly for noticing, for wanting.

"Answers are dangerous."

"Why in Merlin's name did you choose to brand yourself with evil?"

"That is not up for discussion right now, nor my reasons for betraying those I swore allegiance to for life."

"Whose blood was it?"

"Another Death Eater." Grinning slightly madly, he waited for the next, almost certain question. Why, why, why...

"Why?"

"For failing an assignment."

Snape turned away. Gods, he wanted to sleep. This day had involved entirely too much talking.

Alone, he moved silently in the semi-darkness of his rooms. A long acquaintance with the objects therein had left him with little need for light to navigate.

Snape paused before one of the floor to ceiling shelves, which held an odd assortment of objects. Some were pieces leftover from his youth, others collected over the years as talismans for one time r another. Snape hefted the steel and smiled a little. Sad and a little strange that someone thought steel and faith were the only way to keep back the darkness. Still, it had a comforting weight, and he could easily imagine killing with it. He replaced the cross bound in red copper wire and headed for the relative safety of the bed.

The dreams go deep, deeper still.

He dreamed. Of her pale flesh, colored with trails of blood. Of her wordless howls, her ragged breath as his fingers slowed the flow of blood in her throat. The same blood that Drenched his mouth when Malfoy bid him to taste while Voldemort looked on impassively from his chair. Snape kissed the wounds on her hands, where the blood dripped between her fingers, and felt Corinne flinch. Lucius always was too dramatic, his cravings indiscriminate. He'd licked Snape's lips afterwards.

"What do you want?"

The voice hissing at his ear, breath over his skin, the finger tips resting on his neck, tightening slowly until they held his head firmly up, by the scruff like a kitten.

"Satisfaction."

"Not funny, Severus."

Fingers stroked his lips, his chin, up over the bones of his face, tracing the lines worn in his skin from cares and pain. He couldn't see anything. There was only the voice, and the caresses that began as feather touches and slowly became needles. He screamed while the sensations combined unbearably and he fell over the edge into deeper blackness...

...only to open his eyes in his own bed, panting and shivering.

She would go to Dumbledore of course. There was little more he could tell, and would respect the intimacy of what he did know. story would lack some of the finer, delicate details but only the essentials mattered. Besides, why would Hooch want the reasons behind his actions? Few asked and even fewer understood. Snape watched Hooch surreptiously at breakfast. She neither spoke nor acknowledged him, save for a curt nod. Snape couldn't decide if it was more irritating that she obviously knew he didn't want to speak to her, or that she wasn't speaking to him. He found the thought vexing and turned it over and inside out many times in his mind on the way to his lessons.