"Trade disagreements between European and Asian sorcerers brought about the International Warlock Convention of 1289, in which representatives from each country converged to discuss trade negotiations, and to promote good will between wizarding governments. Needless to say, it all failed miserably when in September, a group of Sardinian sorcerers protested against the delegates from Romania and Japan, the former of which were composed nearly entirely of wizards-cum-vampires, and the latter of which decided it would be in their best interests to send a particularly shrewd and vicious group of goblins, one of whom felt it necessary to assault the Sardinian warlock Efisio's kneecaps when he refused to concede to an international tariff on Drooble's Best Blowing Gum and are any of you paying any attention to me at all?"
Rosaline looked upon her class with weary exasperation. The second-year Gryffindors, normally a fairly enthusiastic group, were wilting in their seats like a bunch of old flowers. At her question, a few of them glanced up apologetically, but other than a bit of shifting to slightly better posture in an attempt to appear interested, their dazed dispositions held fast. It had been the same for quite a few days now, and the History of Magic professor couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty and discouraged at their continued apathy.
"Look," she sighed, "I know I've been doing my best Binns impression as of late, and I'm sorry, but would you please humour me and at least act enthralled by what I'm saying?"
"It's not that, Professor," said Hermione Granger, the only one in the class who hadn't appeared on the verge of sleep all period long.
"Well then what is it? I know these last few days have been...tense," To say the least... "for everyone, but life must go on. Final exams are not going to be cancelled because of one act of vandalism."
"Yes ma'am," the bushy-haired girl nodded, "but...perhaps if we knew a bit more about it all, we wouldn't be so nervous about it. People, by nature, fear what they don't understand---perhaps if we better understood it..." she trailed off, looking imploringly at her teacher.
Clever girl, Rosaline mused grimly to herself. Too clever for comfort. I sincerely hope she's not getting at what I think she's getting at... "And just what is it you wish to better understand, Miss Granger?"
"The Chamber of Secrets," the girl said simply, and Rosaline looked away, as if the words pained her. The sudden air of attentiveness from the other students that drew into the room like a sharp intake of breath did nothing to alleviate her unease. Inwardly, she cursed Snape for the thousandth time and leaned back against her desk, tucking an errant lock of hair behind her ear. Well, at least they were genuinely interested now, even if she immediately wished they had kept to their daydreams...
"It's nothing more than a ridiculous legend, really," she reluctantly began.
"Please, Professor," Granger urged, looking hopeful, and Rosaline sighed again, knowing her performance in class had recently been rather lacklustre, and she did still owe them all for Lockhart...
The thought of toothy blond wizard and the note he'd sent with his foul bouquet sealed the deal.
"I suppose I should start at the beginning. Er...let's see..." she rifled through her thoughts, and was surprised to find that she didn't have to dig deep in order to recall the information she was searching for. "Well, as you all know, Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago by the four greatest witches and wizards of that time---Rowena Ravenclaw, Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff, and Godric Gryffindor. Working together, they built this castle in order to teach children who showed signs of magical ability how to hone and utilise their powers, and for a few years, they did just that." She lowered her eyes, gazing off to the left as she always did when she became entangled in memories, her recitation forming on her lips as if she were reading from an invisible book.
"But the concord between them did not last for very long. A rift formed between Slytherin and the oth---" she paused, blinking once as though she were a record and had hit a skip in the music, "---between Slytherin, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. The former wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families, whilst the latter two felt that students of Muggle parentage had every right to be taught how to use their abilities as well."
"What about Ravenclaw?" asked Dean Thomas, knitting his brow in curiosity.
"She...she refused to take a stand either way, at first. She didn't want to be forced into taking sides."
Granger raised her hand. "But---why not? She couldn't have been that indifferent in regards to who she taught, if she built her life around it."
"She wasn't indifferent," Rosaline shook her head, frowning. This had never been in any textbook---how did she know all of this? "She sided with Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, but she couldn't bring herself to...to tell Salazar that..."
"They were involved?" squealed Lavender Brown, looking a little disgusted and very fascinated by the prospect.
"Yes...but...her silence couldn't hide her opinions forever. Sal---Slytherin---he was not a stupid man, nor was he blinded by love. Eventually, he discerned Rowena's silence on the matter to mean that she stood against him. She had betrayed him, and he lashed out, getting into an enormous quarrel with Gryffindor and leaving the school."
"But not b'fore he built the Chamber," Seamus Finnigan put in knowledgably. "The slippery git."
Rosaline arched an eyebrow. "Indeed. According to legend, he sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that no one would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school. The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber and unleash the horror within, to purge the school of all who he had deemed unworthy to study magic."
"That's so mean," Brown exclaimed, sulking. "He just left her? What a pillock!"
Her professor shrugged, a strange sadness settling on her features. "She broke his heart."
"That makes no difference," the blonde girl shook her head. "You don't walk away from love."
A few of her classmates sniggered at her romantic proclamation.
"Slytherins don't have hearts, Lav. They can't love," sneered Ron Weasley.
"All humans have hearts, Ron," Granger scolded him, rolling her eyes in a superior fashion.
"Fine then---Slytherins have no souls. Happy? They still can't love."
The girl scoffed, and returned her attention to the front of the room. "Professor---what exactly do you mean by the 'horror within' the Chamber?"
"It's believed to be some sort of monster only the Heir of Slytherin can control," Rosaline supplied, waving her hand as if to clear the conversation from air at the students' nervous looks. "But the Chamber is only a legend, a fairy tale. Nothing more than a bit of propaganda created to reinforce people's negative opinions of Slytherin House, and I must say thus far it's done its job." She looked pointedly at Weasley, who blushed a bright crimson and sank down in his seat.
"But Professor," said Finnigan, "if the Chamber can only be opened by Slytherin's true heir, no one else would be able to find it, would they?"
"The castle has been searched by many learned witches and wizards, Mr. Finnigan---"
"But Professor," piped up Parvati Patil, "you'd probably have to use Dark Magic to open it---"
"And you'd have to be related to Slytherin---" Thomas chimed in, and Rosaline bristled as her discomfort concerning the subject multiplied by leaps and bounds.
"Enough!" she snapped, visibly shaken. Her clammy hands trembled, a sudden spark of impatience crackling in her mind. "Any further discussion of this topic and I'll have you all hanging by your thumbs in the dungeons for a month!"
The students collectively recoiled at the uncharacteristic outburst from their usually timid and benevolent teacher, and Rosaline felt as though she could be sick as she took in their wide, troubled eyes.
"...Professor?" Patil meekly ventured. "...are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Rosaline mumbled quickly, balling her hands into fists and pressing her nails into her palms as if to hold herself to reality through the pain. "I apologise, I don't know what came over me, I just...excuse me for a moment..." She left the room hurriedly, and could hear the gossiping whispers of the students from ten feet down the corridor, where she leaned against the stone wall and rubbed her temples in an attempt to compose herself as the world around her spun dizzyingly fast.
You do know what came over you, her mind berated her. You do know. There's no other explanation---
No. That's preposterous. It's mad, and I'll be damned if what happened on Halloween didn't disprove my own madness. That bastard felt it, too, no matter how much he denies it, he felt it too and madness is not contagious!
Disproved madness, proved this. How else can you explain what you know? What you remember?
"No," she whispered aloud. "This is not happening. There is no logical reason for this to be happening, not to me and not to him."
A second voice joined her own inner monologue, rasping and inhuman, manic. Suffocating.
The Chamber of Secrets has been opened! Enemies of the Heir, beware! Beware, Rosaline, or he'll come for you, too!
"Damn it, shut up!" she shouted, her left fist hitting the wall with a harsh scrape and a horrible cracking sound. She pulled back with a stunned gasp, cradling her injured hand as it throbbed with a dull ache. She shut her eyes tightly in a wince, opening them a few seconds later to inspect the damage she'd inflicted upon herself. Her knuckles were bloodied, but there didn't appear to be anything else wrong. Slowly, she curled her fingers experimentally, then grimaced when her ring finger bent in quite the opposite direction than it was supposed to.
"Ugh, lovely...certainly could have handled that more intelligently..." she muttered to herself. "Idiot..."
The voices rattling around in her skull had quieted, and in the peace of silence she took a breath and collected herself, then made her way back to her classroom, keeping her injured hand behind her back so that her students would not see it. There was only twenty minutes of class time left, then school hours would be over; she would go to the hospital wing then. She was going to have one hell of a time explaining this to Pomfrey...
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Lumos."
The dead language of the softly spoken word mingled comfortably with the musty scent of the aged books contained in the Restricted Section. A long, pale finger ran over the worn leather bindings as dark eyes skimmed over the titles plated into them. Pig's Blood and Phoenix Tears: Properties of Curative Potion Ingredients, The Plunderings of Porgrot, the Pirate of Portsmouth, Portents of Death and Doom, and, finally, Possession: Bewitchments of the Bereaved.
The book was cold to the touch, as though it had been kept in ice. He slid it out of its place in between The Portal Phenomenon & Possible Paradoxes and Pervis the Pragmatic Pogrebin Poacher's Personal Potions, whispered "Nox," and turned to retreat back to his private chambers, intent on a night of heavy reading.
He did not get far---only a step---before he collided with a body he had hoped not to see, let alone touch, anytime in the near to distant future. It started back in surprise, and would have crashed into the stacks if he hadn't reacted and caught it by its slim wrist, pulling it upright once more.
"You," he hissed, sneering down the History of Magic professor.
"And you," she countered, only half sarcastic, watching him with almost panicked eyes, like a little bird perched dangerously close to the waiting jaws of a snake.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, his gaze boring into her, burning through the chill of night. She glanced down at the book he held; the silver letters of its title reflected in the dim moonlight that shone through the narrow windows of the library.
"The same thing you're doing, apparently." She hesitated a moment, then jerked her wrist out of his grasp. He shot her a contemptuous scowl, and pushed past her to leave. Rosaline swallowed with some difficulty, gathering her courage before starting off after him.
It had taken her hours of brooding contemplation to finally decide to tell him of what she had learned---the secret knowledge her mind had literally absorbed from the ether---and she had imagined it was going to take many days for her to work up the nerve to actually approach him about it, with the excuse of needing time to research her theory further. Coming across him now, it felt like something more than a coincidence. It's now or never, she told herself as she willed her body to follow him. Though never's looking rather appealing at the moment...
Trepidation still wrestled with anger inside of her. On Halloween night, it had not taken long for her fear to quickly turn into rage, and she often wished the transition had happened sooner so that she could have done something a bit more dignified than collapse into tears. Perhaps now, she would get her chance to let him know precisely what she thought of terminally stubborn, sour men who took pleasure in physically intimidating women. Perhaps, as long as her bravado held strong; she didn't have the best track record with bravado.
He rounded on her within ten paces, his robes billowing out impressively, like a matador's flag. Briefly, she wondered if that was a natural talent or if he had practiced it in front of a mirror.
"Are you following me?"
"I---" she cleared her throat, trying to get her voice to rise above a whisper, "I need to talk to you."
"Then I recommend you schedule an appointment with my secretary," he rejoined, eliciting another spark of impatience to flare behind Rosaline's eyes. She quickened her steps until she matched him stride for stride.
"I will speak with you now," she said forcefully, and he jerked away when she laid a slowing hand on his shoulder, pausing to turn on her at the top of the first staircase that would lead them down to the ground floor of the castle.
"What's this?" he asked, voice low and silky, and a strange combination of annoyed and amused. "Has the little urchin grown a spine?"
"The bottom-feeder certainly hasn't," she spat, resisting the urge to shrink back under his icy glare, finding it increasingly difficult to look at him. Snape didn't respond, and resumed his course for the dungeons. Rosaline followed without delay. "You can't just walk away from this."
"Watch me."
"You won't just walk away from this. If you were going to, that book wouldn't be in your hands right now."
He dropped the text immediately. It tumbled down a few steps, creasing pages and denting the cover. Rosaline winced---Madam Pince was not going to be happy about that. She picked up the book, but did not cease in her pursuit.
"There," Snape growled. "You have what you came for. Now leave me in peace."
"You can't honestly believe it's that simple!" she said, her voice rising shrilly. "Can't you feel it? There is no peace for us. There's not going to be any peace for us until they have finished what they've started."
"The only thing I feel, Professor Rosebridge, is the irritating buzzing of a persistent mosquito screeching in my ear."
They reached the bottom of the staircase, and Rosaline grabbed him roughly by both shoulders and spun him around to face her, inwardly shocked and a little proud of her audacity. Snape appeared to be the same, his sneer slightly weaker that normal, though his eyes still threw daggers in her direction.
"Take your hands off me," he murmured, deadly quietly. She did, and forced herself to hold his stare. The blackness of his eyes seemed endless, and she repressed a shiver at their coldness.
"I know who they are." The words tumbled from her mouth before she could think. Snape's gaze narrowed, his nostrils flaring slightly.
He did not want to be here. He didn't want be anywhere near her, especially at this time, so close to the witching hour during which they had been most strongly affected by the ethereal goings-on flitting about the castle. But he had to hear her out---he did not need the book she was clutching tightly in her arms to aid him in his quest to discover precisely what the phenomenon was that plagued them both so intensely. He did not need to read about it, not when he could feel the answer in his bones.
Possession; n.: Being controlled by passion or the supernatural.
Or in their case, the passion of the supernatural; spirits---not ghosts in the classical sense, but entities composed of the remnants of the souls of the dead, often times found in the belongings of the deceased, like a stain or a watermark, or a fingerprint. Vague and incorporeal, yes, and usually weak, which was why possessions were so rare in the first place. It would take a formidable soul deeply wronged to be able to affect a person beyond a bit of gooseflesh rising on his or her arms, or an uneasy shiver.
"S-Salazar Slytherin, and Rowena Ravenclaw," she stammered, a nervous hitch in her voice. Her face flushed pink and she averted her eyes, as if her admittance of her suspicions were cause for embarrassment.
And Snape apparently agreed. He said nothing as he started down the second staircase, and this time it took Rosaline a few seconds to follow him.
"I know it sounds mad," she went on. "This whole situation is mad, and I don't know how or why they're doing this to us, but I'm telling you I know I'm right---you've got to listen to me!"
His jaw clenched tightly, and he sped up his pace. Frustration gripped Rosaline like a fist of ice compressing 'round her throat, filling her lungs with glacial breath, and she stopped abruptly.
"Don't you dare walk away from me!" she snarled in a voice that wasn't wholly her own, but strangely layered, as though two persons were speaking through the same body. Snape froze, a familiar wave of cold crashing against him with none of the vacillation with which it had gradually flowed around him a few nights before. His anger sharpened as a feeling of betrayal unfolded within him, filling him with disdain and disgust, and hurt.
Slowly, very slowly, he turned to face her; she was standing deathly still ten feet away, tight fists topped with white knuckles. Her hands were the only part of her that were shaking. Her face was drawn into a severe glare, but her eyes...she had never fully mastered the ability to shutter those particular windows to her emotions, and now he could quite clearly see the fear she was valiantly trying to keep from him. The knot in his stomach gave a painful wrench.
"Why not?" he asked her scathingly. "What danger is there for me now, with your knife already embedded in my back?"
She winced, and he smiled, wanting her to savour the sting of his words. The sting was all that was left now---they had already shared everything else.
"...it may be my knife, Salazar, but if it is in your back then it is there by your own hand. If you feel you have been slain, then it has been by your own arrogance, and not by me. If you believe otherwise, warlock, you are a fool."
He stared at her, his expression unreadable. After a few moments that felt as though they stretched across an eternity, he tilted his head in a small, agonisingly formal nod. "It's such a relief to finally know your true feelings of me. Good-night, milady."
Rosaline felt the notoriously telling ache begin to prickle behind her eyes as he turned and began to saunter away from her once more. Then, just as swiftly as it had come over her, the eerie coldness left her body with a sound similar to that of a sudden gust of wind rushing past her ears. The oppressive weight of the foreign emotions dissipated rapidly like a ribbon being untied from around her throat and chest. Her knees buckled at the sudden release, and she crumpled to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Severus felt his own body sway, and grabbed onto a nearby banister to keep himself steady until the dizziness passed, and the world around him began to right itself. He swallowed roughly as the phantom feelings fled his mind, then glanced over at the History of Magic professor, who was still on the floor, also leaning against the banister, and looking up at him with a grim tenacity in her eyes that blended with their lingering fearfulness.
"Now you will believe me," she said, her voice hoarse and strained. Snape kept his silence, and she rose on tremulous legs to stand, but made no move to go to him. "We need to see the headmaster."
Something akin to anger flashed in his eyes. "No."
"But---"
"I said no," he repeated, his tone low and dangerous.
"I don't care what you said!" Rosaline snapped. "I am not a student for you to order around!"
He was upon her in an instant, backing her further against the banister so that she was partially bent backwards over it. "You will not tell him," he hissed, forcing himself to ignore the disquiet that rippled through him at having his face so very close to hers.
"W-what---" she stuttered softly, trying not to lose her nerve, "---what are you going to do if I r-refuse to comply? Push me over the banister? Crack my head against the wall until I fall into a coma?"
"Tempt not a desperate man, Professor Rosebridge."
"Why are you like this? We know what is happening, we know who is responsible---what is it you believe you can gain by denying that?"
Snape's upper lip twisted back into a sneer, and he stepped away from her brusquely. "This wouldn't have even happened tonight had you not insisted on following me down here," he growled, avoiding the question.
"Yes, it would have! They would have drawn us here regardless---or have you so quickly forgotten Halloween? We were six floors apart, and still it happened. This is beyond our control, Snape, why can't you admit that?"
Again he said nothing, and Rosaline exhaled loudly in aggravation.
"Damn you, answer me!"
"I am not a student for you to order around," he mockingly hissed. "My reasons are precisely that---mine, and you have no right to pry into matters that are none of your concern."
"None of my concern?" she gaped disbelievingly. "I'm sorry, I must have missed the part where this only affects you. Must not have been wearing my Snape-centric spectacles at the time, forgive me. No, Professor, I'd say that this---and your absurd secrecy---are very much my concern."
He glared at her spitefully, wanting now more than ever to take her up on the suggestion of putting her into a coma, and had to consciously force his hands to remain at his sides to keep from strangling her into silence. Instead, he continued to keep his responses under lock and key, refusing to yield. For a few moments, there was quiet between them, and then it finally seemed to sink into that clever Ravenclaw brain of hers that continuing her interrogation was futile. For all the stubbornness she had shown herself capable of, Severus had well more than double that amount. He watched the anger gradually fade from her face, a pleading look briefly taking its place, soon followed by one of hopeless acceptance.
This time, when he stalked away, she did not chase after him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Repulsive---sadistic---obstinate---prideful---egotistical---abhorrent---infuriating bastard!" Rosaline shouted, her words punctuated by her punching of a pillow (somewhat less satisfying but also less physically damaging than hitting a stone wall). She had fumed all the way back up to her rooms, and once she had both shut, locked, and placed a few sloppy silencing charms on her door she had wasted no time in venting her dissatisfaction with the Potions master.
The abused pillow flopped forlornly on its side, and Rosaline scowled at it derisively---this wasn't working.
She quickly scanned the bedroom, searching for something both heavy and of no remarkable value. Her eyes fell immediately upon Lockhart's wilting bouquet that she had not yet gotten around to throwing away. Perfect.
The thick glass vase shattered noisily against the wall, the shards tinkling musically to the floor. She jumped, her heart skipping a beat at the startling sound of it, then smiled in short-lived satisfaction. That had helped some, but it didn't change anything. With a loud, irritated sigh, she allowed herself to fall back onto her large, plush bed, and stared up at the dark navy blue canopy.
"Why the hell are they doing this to us?" she asked no one in particular. "Why the hell is he...why must he be so...so...maddening?"
We're all mad here, a voice in her head answered her, and she groaned.
"Gods, not you again...who did I wrong in a past life to deserve this?"
Interesting choice of phrasing.
She didn't reply, hoping it would take the hint and bugger off, but really not expecting herself to be so lucky.
She wasn't.
Rosaline, Rosaline, Rosaline...tut tut tut...what are you doing, you silly little girl?
"You sound like Gilderoy Lockhart."
Ouch. Someone's feeling snappish. Snappish denotes a lack of control. Are you losing control again, Rosaline dear? Are you...losing it?
She swallowed, and rolled over on her side, tucking her legs tightly to her chest in her best impression of a pill bug and squeezing her eyes shut.
Oh, now, don't be like that. You were so...liberated...a moment ago. Letting off a bit of steam. Little fissures making your walls that much weaker. You are still quite weak, you realise. One might wonder just how long it will take for those walls to crumble, how long it will take for you to...feel. What do you feel now, Rosaline? We're all simply dying to know.
"Shut up," she mumbled, pressing her head into one side of her pillow and folding the other side over her exposed ear.
Please. You know better than that, and you can't get the pillow inside your head now, can you?
"I said shut up," she hissed, her eyes opening widely. She waited a few moments---nothing but blessed silence, outside her head and within. It had listened to her for once.
No---it had obeyed her for once. It always listened.
Rosaline shuddered.
~*~*~*~*~*~
In his own rooms, Severus paced in front of the crackling fireplace, taking a drink from the brandy snifter loosely clasped in his right hand every five steps. Five steps, drink, turn, five steps, drink, turn. He had already refilled the glass for the third time, and though he had far from a weak tolerance for alcohol, he was bordering on intoxicated, the sensation fuelled by more than just the brandy.
Damn that woman and her presumptions! If she only knew...if she only knew...
But he was not about to enlighten her. He had meant what he said: His business was his, and she had no right, no fucking right...
Ah, but she had been right about one thing---this concerned both of them. This and only this, and it did not work out in his favour that "this" was so personal a matter.
Damn it, why couldn't she understand? The others understood. "Severus Snape is Severus Snape, and if you know what's good for you you'll let him be just that." ---Calamitus Kettleburn to Poppy Pomfrey, 1987. (Pomfrey had then commented that Snape wouldn't know what was good for him if it sprouted wings and flew out of his arse singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," but that was of little use to his current ruminations.)
The others understood, yes---but the others knew. She was scarcely more than a girl. Only five years younger than he, granted, but infinitely more naïve than he had been at her age, from what he had seen. A coy, nervous thing that was likely to jump in fear of her own shadow. Immature and ignorant, he was inclined to think of her more as a student than as a professor in her own right. And when the queer creature wasn't pissing herself with fright, she was insolent as a youth, surprisingly argumentative and demanding, nothing more than a spoilt brat. No wonder she had tried to off herself---perhaps she had a keen sense of self-awareness.
Five steps, drink---but he did not turn this time. After a moment's hesitation, he set down the brandy glass and sat down at the bench of a very old, narrow piano that occupied one corner of his lounge. Music was not his passion, but it was a guilty pleasure, almost a secret shame. He had been taught to play as a child at his mother's insistence; his precise, elegant fingers and impressive memory had made him a natural at it, and once he could play well enough to be paraded about at his parents' dreary dinner parties like some precious jewel (it had not taken him long to acquire the skill sufficiently), he was allowed to stop once everyone thought him something of a prodigy. Knowing that his father considered it a frivolous ability, young Severus had consented to cancelling his lessons, though every so often he would visit the grand piano in the parlour of the Snape family's formidable home and play whatever came to mind. He found the exact action of it---the way his long fingers moved gracefully and flawlessly over the keys, the attention one had to pay to timing and sound---soothing, an attraction that had carried over into his more practical and just as enjoyable art of potion-making.
This piano was not the magnificent instrument he had left behind at the Snape Estate, but he took care of it, kept it clean and meticulously tuned, and it served him well whenever he needed to relax or sort out his thoughts, both of which he was requiring now.
At the touch of the first key, he felt the tense pain occupying his temples begin to ebb away. Another key, and then another, until the notes eventually formed a random melody he had composed as a child, a combination of bits and pieces of various famous works that he had never cared to name.
Why couldn't she understand?
The question floated back into his head, and amidst the notes chiming gently in the air around him, he began to answer himself.
She does not understand because she does not know. She does not know, because you have not told her. She will not know, because you will not tell her. She will never understand, because you will never allow her to.
Never allow her to...no, he supposed he wouldn't. He wouldn't allow a great many things.
She might have been fine with the emotional maturity of a twelve-year-old, but he was not. His element was one of control, his mind itself like a potion---a creation based on precise measurements and watchful timing, with careful attention paid to every detail. This...situation...was a mistake in the mixture, a cog thrown into the clockwork. A variable ingredient tipped into the cauldron, though when, how or why he did not know, for Snape never turned his back on anything, nor did he ever blink. That something so critical managed to slip through his defences was, for lack of a better term, deeply embarrassing to him, and the thought of sharing that fact---and what it did to him, how it made him...feel---with anyone, was greatly enraging.
It was beyond his control, and that was unacceptable. A gross violation of his body, his mind, his very emotions, and what gave them the right---they were a thousand years dead, what the hell gave them the right to do this to him?
Karma, he thought to himself, a bitter smirk curling at the corners of his mouth. And though still not completely convinced of her innocence, Snape had to wonder what gave them the right to do this to Rosaline as well. She was a Ravenclaw, yes, but there had been thousands of Ravenclaws to pass through Hogwarts---and thousands of Slytherins as well, which begged the question: Why them, specifically?
Despite his persistent playing, Severus' mind offered him no answer, and in time he abandoned the piano, picking up his brandy glass once more.
Five steps. Drink. Turn.
~*~*~*~*~*~
A/N: Well, that was fun. I think it came together better than the last chapter (or it was just easier to write)...anyway, hope some people liked it. The plot's starting to thicken in my head, which is good.
Many thanks to all who've reviewed thus far. You've all been lovely and encouraging and stuff.
Minerva McTabby: I'm so glad you're enjoying this! (Because I love all your stuff, even though I've...yet to tellyounevermind...::cough:: I'm bad.) And yes, Jane Grey did get the chop at seventeen, but people did have to grow up faster back then (she's already been married for quite some time by then), and I figured over four and a half centuries of being a ghost might have allowed her to mature emotionally beyond that. She watched Rosaline grow up, so she's going to be a bit motherly regardless of her age of death. ;) As for the Gilderoy/Gryffindor parallel...::sniggers:: I so hadn't even thought of that. But it does seem to fit, in a very insulting-to-Godric sort of way (which I like and will now consciously make an effort to include). Thanks for the enlightenment. ::grins::
Dahlia: Yesss. Good to know that that's clearly coming across. ;) Darkness and revulsion and turmoil (oh my).
Faith Accompli: You've heard me gush already, go sod y'self. ::duck:: But yes, I think wee Morag may have to play a bit part in the future...
Veruka: Soon enough? They are a little ways up shit creek, aren't they? And I hid their paddle. Oopsies. }:)
Atheis and Aeris Gainsborough: ...I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you're not Lockhart fans. And they're not really reincarnations, it's...it's explained in a future chapter.
Amanda: No, they're not conscious of what they're doing, in a sense. Again---future chapter explanation. Too much explaining to do here. Just...uh, wait and read. :)
Hope this part's been enjoyed as much as the last. Thanks for reading and reviewing and whatnot.