yiota ~ no need to fear, Glory won't play a big role in the course of the story
Vivian Marie ~ yes, he is constantly growing to be more and more like his mother. Somehow this whole "Oh Harry resembles James SOOOO much" we're always getting in the books began to bore me ^^
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Chapter 10: Judas Iscariot and the Whore of Babylon
Whistling, Harry strolled through the empty corridors of the castle, his brilliant green eyes sparkling cheerfully. If one asked him, these Christmas Holidays were one of the best he had ever spent - and all thanks to a certain curly-haired Slytherin girl with the bitiest wit and the sweetest smile one could imagine.
He blushed a bit when he thought of Glory. By now the two of them spent almost their entire time together; they played chess, went for endless walks around the lake or simply talked to each other and he couldn't help but feeling himself growing fonder of her with every passing day. True, there was no denying that she was your typical Slytherin, ambitious and cunning, but then she was also clever and extremely funny. Instinctively she understood him in a way even Ron and Hermione did not, and she could make him laugh even when he felt particularly gloomy with the world around him.
Of course he knew that not everybody would understand this blossoming friendship between them - to understand this he just had to look at the faces in the Great Hall when the two of them sat together at the meals.
A sardonic little smirk quirked at the corner of Harry's lips. The students for one thing obviously thought that Glory had coaxed his subconscious and therefore treated him with the same uncertainty they would have shown towards a lunatic, but the reactions of the teachers´ were even more particular. While most of them began to talk about ragging hormones whenever they turned their backs on him, Dumbledore would always twinkle delightedly when he saw the two of them together (a fact that irritated Harry to no end), Professor McGregor would smile her catlike smile as though she knew something he still failed to see and Snape...
Well, the Potions Master wouldn't give him any hint about his feelings, although Harry could often catch him staring at him as though he wanted to tell him something, as though he expected the boy to understand some ominous message in his eyes only intended for him. But he would never speak to him in public, not even to take points from him, something he hadn't done in weeks by the way.
Harry frowned when he thought about his former most-loathed teacher. By now he had come to the conclusion that the public Snape and the private one were two entire different personalities that acted completely separated from each other. Admittedly they both shared a tendency to biting sarcasm, but the Snape Harry met whenever he went to the dungeons to get himself a new Dreamless Potion (he had made peace with the snake on the emblem so that she would let him in without password) definitely wasn't the downright unfair bastard he knew from his lessons. Perhaps, the boy thought pensively, this was what he was like to his own house. Almost nice.
A melodic female voice behind him suddenly made him jerk back into reality. "Harry? Oh Merlin, you're the Saviour of the Hour!"
Surprised the boy turned around and caught sight of his DADA teacher who was right now carrying about ten books on her slender arms and obviously barely able to keep her balance. "Would you mind..."
"Oh, of course not." Hastening to her side, Harry caught some of the books before they could fall to the floor. "Where do you want to bring them to?"
Pushing a golden lock back behind her ears, the Professor gave him a thankful look. "To my rooms if you don't mind. Oh Harry, you are such a sweetheart!"
Turning deeply red, the boy nodded hastily and began to head towards the blonde's chambers. A sweetheart?!
Trying to disguise his embarrassment, he let his eyes wander over the titles and found himself rather astonished at the choice of titles. "Are all of them from the Restricted Area?" he asked flabbergasted.
"Hm? Oh, yes, they are." She twinkled teasingly at him. "And don't even begin to give me lessons like your friend Miss Granger tends to, I'm wanting them for my personal lecture, not to corrupt my students."
Harry had to grin at that. "Hermione always tends to overact", he explained cheerfully, remembering the S.P.E.W. campaign his bushy-haired friend had started last year. "It's her way of showing that she cares."
The blonde wrinkled her pretty nose. "That may be as it is, but I swear, if I hear one more `But Professor McGregor according to A way to Self Defence for Underaged Wizards, you are not allowed to teach us these sorts of spells´, I will go mad!" Annoyed, she shook her head so that her golden locks flew elegantly through the air. "I don't get it. When I was of her age, I would have killed to learn some of the spells I'm teaching you now!"
Remembering what Snape had told him about the blonde's history, Harry couldn't help but frowning almost imperceptively at these words. Well, if one wanted to be completely honest, she had almost killed someone in order to fed her obsession with the Dark Arts...
Obviously he hadn't so much of a pokerface as he had always assumed for she suddenly eyed him suspiciously. "Do *you* think that I some of the stuff I teach you is too dark, Harry?"
"Oh no!" The boy hastened to reassure her, shaking his head urgently. "Not at all! You're the best Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher we ever had."
For one moment he felt slightly guilty towards Professor Lupin, but then he couldn't deny the fact that his father's old friend, although very had competent at the defence against Dark Creatures, had ignored most of the other areas. Professor McGregor on the other hand possessed an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of all sorts of dark arts that existed and didn't hesitate to answer all questions one could have concerning them. Although he was very sure that he shouldn't knew half the things he had learned about Forbidden Curses and Enchantments this year, he really felt that he had never had before such effective DADA lessons.
A triumphant little smile quirked at the corner of the blonde's delicate rouge lips for one moment. "I try my best", she returned, trying to sound modestly and failing miserably, before suddenly bursting into girlish giggles, her expression open and mischievously like that of a young girl. "But I have to admit that Miss Granger isn't too wrong with her judgement", she acknowledged in a comparative whisper. "I actually would have difficulties to explain a headmaster less indulgent than Professor Dumbledore some of the things I teach you."
"So why do you teach us this stuff?"
She shrugged nonchalantly. "Nearly every spell can be used in order to cause damage to others", she returned carelessly. "And doesn't one of these old Muggle proverbs say that an attack is sometimes the best defence?"
Harry had to laugh at this wilful naivety. "Somehow I doubt that the Ministry of Magic would accept this explanation."
She giggled girlfully. "So we better thank the heavens for Professor Dumbledore´s never-ending understanding and don't mention to anybody that I taught you the Torquerus Curse."
Before her rooms, she stopped in her tracks and murmured the password ("Madhatter´s tea party") before entering it. "Why don't you sit down for a moment, Harry", she invited him graciously as they had put down the books on her table. "You must be tired of carrying all these stuff." When he saw his hesitation, her smile widened. "No hysterical breakdown, cross my heart!"
Laughing despite himself, Harry took seat on the sofa and let his eyes stroll around the beautiful decorated room. Obviously the Professor had been in real Christmas spirit lately for everything in the room, even the little Slytherin crest on the wall, was covered by shiny balls and glittering ribbons. "I really like it in here", he told her honestly.
"I'm glad to hear this", she thanked him with her most beautiful smile. "You know, Severus was visiting me a few days ago when I had just finished the decorations and he nearly got an apoplectic fit. Told me something about being a ridiculous woman with a plebeian taste and that he would rather die than to rearrange his holy sanctuary for something as unnecessarily as Christmas."
Harry grinned. "Sounds just like him", he returned, his voice gentler than he intended.
Professor McGregor arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "Oh, you should have seen him when we were still students", she returned, chuckling a bit at the memory. "He always used to stay the winter holidays here in Hogwarts, you know, and every year he managed to annoy everybody without exception with this unqualified disgust for every thing connected to Christmas. He spent hours in the library and when one asked him whether he didn't want to celebrate a bit, he always rambled about Christmas being a tired religion made up for people to become lazy and sleepy." She wrinkled her pretty nose. "A way to spent the holidays, really!"
The boy laughed at the description when a strange fact suddenly hit him. "He always stay over the holidays?" he prompted curiously.
The blonde nodded. "He never got along too well with this family", she replied cryptically. Her eyes laid with sudden intensity on him. "Knowing Petunia, I suppose you stay for the same reason?"
Harry's eyes widened in astonishment. "You know my aunt?" he asked with unhidden surprise.
The blonde wrinkled her nose. "We've met once or twice", she acknowledged, an unmistakable expression of disgust on her face. "An awful person! I never understood why somebody like Lily got such a sister!"
"Oh, Petunia is actually the most likable of the lot", Harry returned, his expression matching her easily. "You should see my uncle and my cousin; *those* are the real pains in the..." he stopped himself quickly, but the blonde only giggled before suddenly turning very serious.
"Harry, listen, I know that it is none of my business, but...", she hesitated shortly, biting her bottom lip like uncertainly. "Your family...they never hurt you, did they?"
It took one moment for the boy before he understand what the professor meant. "No! No, really, they never... hit me." He shook his head urgently, shocked by the mere idea. "They barely touched me at all if they could help it."
Professor McGregor looked very thoughtfully. "I see", she answered slowly.
Harry began to feel like a small animal on a lab table under her eyes. He had never really told people about the years with the Dursleys, too afraid of how he would be treated if he did. The admiration he got because of being the Boy Who Lived was burden enough, he did not think that he would be able to stand pity. "It wasn't that bad, really", he finally muttered quietly. "I don't care about them anyway."
The blonde's expression wasn't changing though. "Families are a curious thing", she remarked cryptically, finally tearing her eyes away from him. For one moment she stared into nothing, then she continued in a seemingly unconnected thread, "Do you know that I am the only Slytherin of my family? My parents and my elder sister were all in Gryffindor."
"Really?"
"Yes." A strange little smile appeared on her lips. "Of course they told me that they did not mind my sorting, but somehow I knew right from the beginning that it would not be that easy. I've always been different from them, even before I was sorted into Slytherin, you know." She laughed shortly, but it was a sound without any pleasure in it. "Strange little Morrigan with her fiery ambition and her wild dreams of success and greatness. I don't think any of them had ever truly understood me."
"You must have felt quite bitter", Harry returned sympathetically, knowing just too well how it felt to be outcasted by the own family.
"That, my dear Harry Potter, is about the understatement of the year." In spite of her cheerful tone, her eyes suddenly seemed wary. "I still remember how jealous I used to be of my sister. I was the smarter and prettier of us both, I was more successful than she could have been in her wildest dreams and nevertheless Mona was everybody's favourite. Never me. No matter how hard I tried, everybody would always prefer her. Mona McGregor, the perfect little Gryffindor whom everybody loved."
Harry nodded slowly. "I know what you mean", he returned quietly, remembering the long lonely years at the Dursleys. There had been a time when he had thought that he could win their affection if he just became perfect, if he just did everything they wished. He had been desperately disappointed. "Are you still in contact with your family?" he eventually asked, trying to force the memories back.
She didn't look up. "My father died six years ago, my mother two years after him."
"Oh." Not knowing how to react to this, he asked the first question that came to his mind. "And your sister?"
A sudden jolt visibly stabbed through her as though his question had somehow wounded her very being. "Killed by Death Eaters", she replied shortly.
Harry felt like being hit by a ton of bricks. Oh, he idiot! He thrice-cursed idiot, he had completely forgotten about that! Staring helplessly into the beautiful, now completely empty blue eyes, he desperately searched for words to make up for this unforgivable mistake. "I'm sorry," he finally whispered. "Really, I'm so sorry."
"Don't be", she returned softly as a look of great fatigue settled briefly on her face before she shook it off again. "Well, thank you for helping me with the books anyway."
"No problem." Hesitantly, Harry stood up, still angry about himself. "Do you want me to leave now?"
A soulless little smile appeared on her lips. "You feel everything way too deeply, Harry", she told him softly. Then she stood up abruptly. "Don't close the door, I come with you."
"Oh." Again the boy hesitated, not sure how to act with these constant changes of mood. "Have you forgotten something in the library?" he finally asked. "I could get it for you if you like to!"
"No, nothing like that." The eerie smile widened. "I just thought that I would want to have a word with Severus."
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Standing on the Astronomy tower, Severus Snape felt the first bands of pressure gathering behind his eyes, the sure sign of a buggeringly nasty headache on its way as he tried to drown out the shrieks of a group of first years that had remained at Hogwarts over the holidays. It had not been a good day, not by any means. First, he had corrected the test papers of his sixth year Hufflepuffs, learning that not one of these brain scattered morons had listened to anything he had tried to teach them for the last five years (not that this had come as a great surprise), after that he had run into Trelawney who had told him once more some foolish nonsense about his soon-to-come painful death (no surprise there either) and now as a culmination this unnecessary headache. Oh, and not to forget the ever-present concern about Potter, always stealing his peace lately. He just wondered what would come next.
"So you still come up here."
He tried not to froze too visibly as the familiar feeling of anger of being caught tickled down his spine. "Morrigan", he greeted her blankly.
The blonde chuckled quietly as she walked gracefully to his side. "I live for your enthusiastic greetings, Sev."
Snape's lips thinned as he mustered the woman beside him. In times past he could have discriminated her arrival through the inferno of riots and the stink of death, but it had been too long, and he had become too weak, and he had... forgotten. And there was always a price for the forgetting.
A little smile began to play around the corner of her mouth as she noticed his sour mood. "I somehow thought that I might find you here. Back in school, you and Lil always used to hang around up here", she explained in a light tone that clearly betrayed the cold, merciless calculation in her eyes. Playing with a strand of her gleaming hair, she eyed him openly, the deceitfully sweet smile still on her lips. "Do you remember the time when you..."
"Get to the point or leave me in peace", he interrupted her roughly, unused to words that meant absolutely nothing, and too tired to play this game of wits she was so talented at. These days he was tired of almost everything.
The smile became more honest, but still she stubbornly refused to leave him to his silence. "I don't think that you know what you want," she finally returned, using the words like a weapon as she gently caressed them lovingly to her own cause. That had always been her strategy, and she was the best when it came to games like these. Following his gaze down to the students beneath them, she sighed softly. "Innocent mankind playing in the Garden Eden", she observed in the same light tone as before. "Sheltered and guarded by a loving Godfather, also known as Albus Dumbledore."
He couldn't help but smirk at the comment as he finally turned towards her, taking a momentary risk that went against all of his instincts and immediately regretting it when he looked into her eyes. "And where does this leave us?" he asked, unable to keep his voice under the strict constraints of coldness.
Her smile widened while her eyes remained frightening blank. "Us? To the never quite appreciated roles of Judas Iscariot and the Whore of Babylon, I would think." Eventually she tore her gaze away from the students and stared intently at him, searching for a flicker of the man she once knew in the depths of his eyes. "They are so young", she whispered. "Oh, Severus, were we ever like this? Were we ever this heart-wrenching innocent?"
"We lived in a different time", the dark-haired man replied softly, despite himself feeling the old connection to her, the damn sympathy that had once nearly destroyed his life. "These children...they will never understand what greatness is, not like we did, and frankly I consider it better this way."
"Do you?" The blonde laughed a little, her ocean like eyes fixed on some distant point on the horizon only she could see. Then she sighed deeply. "Ah, Severus, do you recall those days? Lucius, you and me, we were the greatest thing this school ever knew. We had it all, power, reputation, glory and fear."
"Yeah, we had it all", he replied bitterly. "All the fame, all the power and all the despair."
Her smile was bittersweet and somehow melancholic. "Anything has it's price. The friendship with Lily meant peace, sure, but that was not the choice we made."
Severus shook his head, something missing from in the depths of his black eyes, a light that had been there before and was now conspicuously absent. "Was there a choosing?" His voice sounded tired even to him, but the remark was biting, holding a deeply hidden enmity. He hated her; oh how he hated her, this pale butterfly like beauty with whom he now spend his days. But then he loved her also, loved the person that she once had been and even that she was now; his love was as unconditional as hers. "Was there a time when we decided which path to take? I can't remember."
This time her smile was warmer. "Speak for yourself, Sev" she teased him, her voice somewhat softened. It almost seemed a return to the way things were, to the light and incense of childhood. But then she shook her head again, her eyes as distant as before. "I certainly made my choice. Wrong or right, I choose and I never felt regret."
He didn't answer to this but followed her gaze once more to the wide expanse of the garden which now laid in perfect silence before them. Everything was quiet, and at peace, but in the same time Snape couldn't help but feeling tortured.
What could be more of a purgatory than silence when within the silence you were prey to all the demons of your past, the regrets of your present and the uncertainty of your future?
Unwillingly he shook his head, feeling how the sudden movement increased his pain. "Dammit."
"Headache?" she asked softly. "Why the hell don't you take a potion against it?"
"Mind your own business, Morrigan!" he snapped, feeling the magic of the moment vanishing. Eying her angrily, he finally regained his composure. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
Still she smiled. "Obviously I wanted to see you."
"I didn't mean the Astronomy Tower", he shot back, annoyed at her calmness. Shaking his head angrily, he snorted loudly. "But then you probably don't know yourself why you have taken the Defence Against the Dark Arts Job. As I know you, you have probably seen the advertisement in the Daily Prophet and spontaneously decided to make my life a living hell by coming here to torture me!"
She arched an eyebrow, obviously amused at this statement. "Could be right", she admitted. The words are punctuated with a wink and a sparkling grin, the gesture tinged with the love and hatred that had remained of their shared life. "But then I am getting a good idea of what I am doing here."
His black eyes laid with frightening intensity on her, before he suddenly sighed heavily. "Why, Morrigan?" he asked tiredly. "Why this all?" He swept a hand out in an all-encompassing gesture, indicating the world, them, heaven, hell. Life and death.
She paused, caught off guard, and for a moment he believed to see a softening in her countenance that hadn't been there before. "I could ask you the same, you know", she said after a while, her voice tired, but at peace. As much at peace as she could be, anyway. Resting a weary head on his shoulder, she looked down at the gardens beneath them. "But even if we would tell each other our deep dark secrets, what sense would it make? Truth, after all, is a rather biased thing."
He smirked sadly, letting his fingers trailing through the golden silk of her hair, admiring the way it gleamed in the sun. "Of course it is. How else could we bring ourselves to believe it?"
Caressingly she touched his fingers. "I've missed you, Sev."
He hesitated for one moment. Then he gave in. "I've missed you, too."
Standing there in her warm embrace, Severus realized resigned that she hadn't answered his question but he knew that he would not push her further. It has always been this way with them. There were rules that both observed, boundaries they did not cross. Even in the face of death.
Her smile was less burdened than before, but now carried regret as she trailed a light kiss on his mouth. "I think you are a hypocrite, Sev", she informed him in a carefree tone, watching him for a reaction almost curiously. "You admit that you missed me and in the same time you refuse to acknowledge the past we once shared. The persons we were and still are."
Despite the wariness within him, the Potions Master still managed to summon the energy to glare at her. "You are the one to speak, Morrigan!" he snarled sarcastically, freeing himself out of her arms. "Always playing the sweet little girl so that mummy and daddy won't be disappointed in you. Isn't this role becoming fucking boring with the years?"
"I'll have you know that it is a hell of a lot more productive than holing up here and brooding like an overgrown bat over the past", she shot back in sudden fury like always refusing to see the things which did not suit her.
As they tried to stare each other down with exactly the same hateful expression in their equally cold eyes now, their dislike of one another was naked for one moment, invitingly so, for they both knew that they were at last honest to each other.
* Lily, you know how much Morrigan means to me, but please understand that you cannot trust her completely. She would carelessly cut you and laugh while you're bleeding when she's in the mood for it and I'm not joking *
The blonde was the first to regain her composure. "My poor Severus", she said softly. "So broken, so lost. Love must have been a Slytherin, don't you think?"
With these words she turned around and left him alone, never looking back.
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Heading back to the familiar comfort of his dungeons, Snape let himself sink in old memories of the days he had spent together with Morrigan in this place what seemed a lifetime ago. How the blonde had worn her beauty like armour. Daughter of fire and flames behind the face of heaven's most innocent angel. Even after all the years he could still recall the few times they had been together as if it were yesterday, could still recall the way he had felt almost clumsy next to her self-assured need. Grave soil and bits of crisp, broken flowers on the ground where they had laid down, taste of salt and desire on their skin. But loneliness, he added wistfully, loneliness had never been assuaged in their embrace. In the contrary, it had been doubled, multiplied with every moan, every stolen graze of fingertip on flesh.
Perhaps, he admitted to himself, perhaps it could have been different, could have been - his face twisted - comfort, if only he had been a bit less self-absorbed, less self-destructive and not so scandalously bitter. If only she had tried not to act like a cunning manipulative bitch but like the friend she had once truly been to him before all this madness started. Instead they had used each other; Snape because he had needed someone to fill the void Lily had left in his life and Morrigan because using people was what she did best. But as it had turned out, being lonely with someone else was even worse than being lonely by oneself.
And then Voldemort had stepped into his life. Voldemort who had chosen him for his weaknesses as much as his strengths, because he had foolishly assumed that they would make him easier to control. And for a while, it had been that way. Snape had been ruled by his need and his hunger, and in the name of sating that fierce desire, he had been quite...
He shook his head in rough denial, feeling how the movement increased the ache. For one moment he shut his eyes, then he continued his path.
Morrigan was right of course he could just brew himself a pain numbing solution - he was Hogwarts´ Potion Master for Merlin's sake! - but somehow he had stopped to mind the pain a long time ago; he had learned to accept it, to deal with it, to enjoy it, even, sometimes - admittedly in a sick sort of way. Suffering and desire, the best teachers one could have wished for had taught him that there was no difference; Voldemort, Lucius, Morrigan and least but not last Lily Evans.
Oh Lily, can you see us from wherever you are now? Can you see us tumbling on this blood-stained way, hoping that it will lead to salvation while at the same time fearing that we head towards hell?
He could still remember Lucius smiling wistfully, saying, "Nothing quite as attractive as pain" in a tone as if he were telling the world some sort of fucking revelation. How Morrigan had laughed at these words. "That's what it is all about", she had said after regaining posture. "We are not in love with each other. We are in love with the pain."
And she had been right like always.
Lucius. Morrigan. Himself.
He knew now that the bond between them had nothing to do with embraces, chaste or lust-filled. It had neither been about life nor soul. It had not been about love or friendship. It had been about pain.
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Author's Notes:
I have to admit that I'm rather nervous about what you think about the conversation between Snape and Morrigan. It was kind of hard to write it because I didn't want to give to many hints about the soon-to-come end of the story and now I really need some back-up. Please!
About my comparison with Judas and the Whore of Babylon; I just thought that Judas as the prototype of the spy and traitor would suit Snape. Concerning the whore...well, it seemed appropriate. Let me know what you think about it!
Vivian Marie ~ yes, he is constantly growing to be more and more like his mother. Somehow this whole "Oh Harry resembles James SOOOO much" we're always getting in the books began to bore me ^^
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Chapter 10: Judas Iscariot and the Whore of Babylon
Whistling, Harry strolled through the empty corridors of the castle, his brilliant green eyes sparkling cheerfully. If one asked him, these Christmas Holidays were one of the best he had ever spent - and all thanks to a certain curly-haired Slytherin girl with the bitiest wit and the sweetest smile one could imagine.
He blushed a bit when he thought of Glory. By now the two of them spent almost their entire time together; they played chess, went for endless walks around the lake or simply talked to each other and he couldn't help but feeling himself growing fonder of her with every passing day. True, there was no denying that she was your typical Slytherin, ambitious and cunning, but then she was also clever and extremely funny. Instinctively she understood him in a way even Ron and Hermione did not, and she could make him laugh even when he felt particularly gloomy with the world around him.
Of course he knew that not everybody would understand this blossoming friendship between them - to understand this he just had to look at the faces in the Great Hall when the two of them sat together at the meals.
A sardonic little smirk quirked at the corner of Harry's lips. The students for one thing obviously thought that Glory had coaxed his subconscious and therefore treated him with the same uncertainty they would have shown towards a lunatic, but the reactions of the teachers´ were even more particular. While most of them began to talk about ragging hormones whenever they turned their backs on him, Dumbledore would always twinkle delightedly when he saw the two of them together (a fact that irritated Harry to no end), Professor McGregor would smile her catlike smile as though she knew something he still failed to see and Snape...
Well, the Potions Master wouldn't give him any hint about his feelings, although Harry could often catch him staring at him as though he wanted to tell him something, as though he expected the boy to understand some ominous message in his eyes only intended for him. But he would never speak to him in public, not even to take points from him, something he hadn't done in weeks by the way.
Harry frowned when he thought about his former most-loathed teacher. By now he had come to the conclusion that the public Snape and the private one were two entire different personalities that acted completely separated from each other. Admittedly they both shared a tendency to biting sarcasm, but the Snape Harry met whenever he went to the dungeons to get himself a new Dreamless Potion (he had made peace with the snake on the emblem so that she would let him in without password) definitely wasn't the downright unfair bastard he knew from his lessons. Perhaps, the boy thought pensively, this was what he was like to his own house. Almost nice.
A melodic female voice behind him suddenly made him jerk back into reality. "Harry? Oh Merlin, you're the Saviour of the Hour!"
Surprised the boy turned around and caught sight of his DADA teacher who was right now carrying about ten books on her slender arms and obviously barely able to keep her balance. "Would you mind..."
"Oh, of course not." Hastening to her side, Harry caught some of the books before they could fall to the floor. "Where do you want to bring them to?"
Pushing a golden lock back behind her ears, the Professor gave him a thankful look. "To my rooms if you don't mind. Oh Harry, you are such a sweetheart!"
Turning deeply red, the boy nodded hastily and began to head towards the blonde's chambers. A sweetheart?!
Trying to disguise his embarrassment, he let his eyes wander over the titles and found himself rather astonished at the choice of titles. "Are all of them from the Restricted Area?" he asked flabbergasted.
"Hm? Oh, yes, they are." She twinkled teasingly at him. "And don't even begin to give me lessons like your friend Miss Granger tends to, I'm wanting them for my personal lecture, not to corrupt my students."
Harry had to grin at that. "Hermione always tends to overact", he explained cheerfully, remembering the S.P.E.W. campaign his bushy-haired friend had started last year. "It's her way of showing that she cares."
The blonde wrinkled her pretty nose. "That may be as it is, but I swear, if I hear one more `But Professor McGregor according to A way to Self Defence for Underaged Wizards, you are not allowed to teach us these sorts of spells´, I will go mad!" Annoyed, she shook her head so that her golden locks flew elegantly through the air. "I don't get it. When I was of her age, I would have killed to learn some of the spells I'm teaching you now!"
Remembering what Snape had told him about the blonde's history, Harry couldn't help but frowning almost imperceptively at these words. Well, if one wanted to be completely honest, she had almost killed someone in order to fed her obsession with the Dark Arts...
Obviously he hadn't so much of a pokerface as he had always assumed for she suddenly eyed him suspiciously. "Do *you* think that I some of the stuff I teach you is too dark, Harry?"
"Oh no!" The boy hastened to reassure her, shaking his head urgently. "Not at all! You're the best Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher we ever had."
For one moment he felt slightly guilty towards Professor Lupin, but then he couldn't deny the fact that his father's old friend, although very had competent at the defence against Dark Creatures, had ignored most of the other areas. Professor McGregor on the other hand possessed an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of all sorts of dark arts that existed and didn't hesitate to answer all questions one could have concerning them. Although he was very sure that he shouldn't knew half the things he had learned about Forbidden Curses and Enchantments this year, he really felt that he had never had before such effective DADA lessons.
A triumphant little smile quirked at the corner of the blonde's delicate rouge lips for one moment. "I try my best", she returned, trying to sound modestly and failing miserably, before suddenly bursting into girlish giggles, her expression open and mischievously like that of a young girl. "But I have to admit that Miss Granger isn't too wrong with her judgement", she acknowledged in a comparative whisper. "I actually would have difficulties to explain a headmaster less indulgent than Professor Dumbledore some of the things I teach you."
"So why do you teach us this stuff?"
She shrugged nonchalantly. "Nearly every spell can be used in order to cause damage to others", she returned carelessly. "And doesn't one of these old Muggle proverbs say that an attack is sometimes the best defence?"
Harry had to laugh at this wilful naivety. "Somehow I doubt that the Ministry of Magic would accept this explanation."
She giggled girlfully. "So we better thank the heavens for Professor Dumbledore´s never-ending understanding and don't mention to anybody that I taught you the Torquerus Curse."
Before her rooms, she stopped in her tracks and murmured the password ("Madhatter´s tea party") before entering it. "Why don't you sit down for a moment, Harry", she invited him graciously as they had put down the books on her table. "You must be tired of carrying all these stuff." When he saw his hesitation, her smile widened. "No hysterical breakdown, cross my heart!"
Laughing despite himself, Harry took seat on the sofa and let his eyes stroll around the beautiful decorated room. Obviously the Professor had been in real Christmas spirit lately for everything in the room, even the little Slytherin crest on the wall, was covered by shiny balls and glittering ribbons. "I really like it in here", he told her honestly.
"I'm glad to hear this", she thanked him with her most beautiful smile. "You know, Severus was visiting me a few days ago when I had just finished the decorations and he nearly got an apoplectic fit. Told me something about being a ridiculous woman with a plebeian taste and that he would rather die than to rearrange his holy sanctuary for something as unnecessarily as Christmas."
Harry grinned. "Sounds just like him", he returned, his voice gentler than he intended.
Professor McGregor arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "Oh, you should have seen him when we were still students", she returned, chuckling a bit at the memory. "He always used to stay the winter holidays here in Hogwarts, you know, and every year he managed to annoy everybody without exception with this unqualified disgust for every thing connected to Christmas. He spent hours in the library and when one asked him whether he didn't want to celebrate a bit, he always rambled about Christmas being a tired religion made up for people to become lazy and sleepy." She wrinkled her pretty nose. "A way to spent the holidays, really!"
The boy laughed at the description when a strange fact suddenly hit him. "He always stay over the holidays?" he prompted curiously.
The blonde nodded. "He never got along too well with this family", she replied cryptically. Her eyes laid with sudden intensity on him. "Knowing Petunia, I suppose you stay for the same reason?"
Harry's eyes widened in astonishment. "You know my aunt?" he asked with unhidden surprise.
The blonde wrinkled her nose. "We've met once or twice", she acknowledged, an unmistakable expression of disgust on her face. "An awful person! I never understood why somebody like Lily got such a sister!"
"Oh, Petunia is actually the most likable of the lot", Harry returned, his expression matching her easily. "You should see my uncle and my cousin; *those* are the real pains in the..." he stopped himself quickly, but the blonde only giggled before suddenly turning very serious.
"Harry, listen, I know that it is none of my business, but...", she hesitated shortly, biting her bottom lip like uncertainly. "Your family...they never hurt you, did they?"
It took one moment for the boy before he understand what the professor meant. "No! No, really, they never... hit me." He shook his head urgently, shocked by the mere idea. "They barely touched me at all if they could help it."
Professor McGregor looked very thoughtfully. "I see", she answered slowly.
Harry began to feel like a small animal on a lab table under her eyes. He had never really told people about the years with the Dursleys, too afraid of how he would be treated if he did. The admiration he got because of being the Boy Who Lived was burden enough, he did not think that he would be able to stand pity. "It wasn't that bad, really", he finally muttered quietly. "I don't care about them anyway."
The blonde's expression wasn't changing though. "Families are a curious thing", she remarked cryptically, finally tearing her eyes away from him. For one moment she stared into nothing, then she continued in a seemingly unconnected thread, "Do you know that I am the only Slytherin of my family? My parents and my elder sister were all in Gryffindor."
"Really?"
"Yes." A strange little smile appeared on her lips. "Of course they told me that they did not mind my sorting, but somehow I knew right from the beginning that it would not be that easy. I've always been different from them, even before I was sorted into Slytherin, you know." She laughed shortly, but it was a sound without any pleasure in it. "Strange little Morrigan with her fiery ambition and her wild dreams of success and greatness. I don't think any of them had ever truly understood me."
"You must have felt quite bitter", Harry returned sympathetically, knowing just too well how it felt to be outcasted by the own family.
"That, my dear Harry Potter, is about the understatement of the year." In spite of her cheerful tone, her eyes suddenly seemed wary. "I still remember how jealous I used to be of my sister. I was the smarter and prettier of us both, I was more successful than she could have been in her wildest dreams and nevertheless Mona was everybody's favourite. Never me. No matter how hard I tried, everybody would always prefer her. Mona McGregor, the perfect little Gryffindor whom everybody loved."
Harry nodded slowly. "I know what you mean", he returned quietly, remembering the long lonely years at the Dursleys. There had been a time when he had thought that he could win their affection if he just became perfect, if he just did everything they wished. He had been desperately disappointed. "Are you still in contact with your family?" he eventually asked, trying to force the memories back.
She didn't look up. "My father died six years ago, my mother two years after him."
"Oh." Not knowing how to react to this, he asked the first question that came to his mind. "And your sister?"
A sudden jolt visibly stabbed through her as though his question had somehow wounded her very being. "Killed by Death Eaters", she replied shortly.
Harry felt like being hit by a ton of bricks. Oh, he idiot! He thrice-cursed idiot, he had completely forgotten about that! Staring helplessly into the beautiful, now completely empty blue eyes, he desperately searched for words to make up for this unforgivable mistake. "I'm sorry," he finally whispered. "Really, I'm so sorry."
"Don't be", she returned softly as a look of great fatigue settled briefly on her face before she shook it off again. "Well, thank you for helping me with the books anyway."
"No problem." Hesitantly, Harry stood up, still angry about himself. "Do you want me to leave now?"
A soulless little smile appeared on her lips. "You feel everything way too deeply, Harry", she told him softly. Then she stood up abruptly. "Don't close the door, I come with you."
"Oh." Again the boy hesitated, not sure how to act with these constant changes of mood. "Have you forgotten something in the library?" he finally asked. "I could get it for you if you like to!"
"No, nothing like that." The eerie smile widened. "I just thought that I would want to have a word with Severus."
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Standing on the Astronomy tower, Severus Snape felt the first bands of pressure gathering behind his eyes, the sure sign of a buggeringly nasty headache on its way as he tried to drown out the shrieks of a group of first years that had remained at Hogwarts over the holidays. It had not been a good day, not by any means. First, he had corrected the test papers of his sixth year Hufflepuffs, learning that not one of these brain scattered morons had listened to anything he had tried to teach them for the last five years (not that this had come as a great surprise), after that he had run into Trelawney who had told him once more some foolish nonsense about his soon-to-come painful death (no surprise there either) and now as a culmination this unnecessary headache. Oh, and not to forget the ever-present concern about Potter, always stealing his peace lately. He just wondered what would come next.
"So you still come up here."
He tried not to froze too visibly as the familiar feeling of anger of being caught tickled down his spine. "Morrigan", he greeted her blankly.
The blonde chuckled quietly as she walked gracefully to his side. "I live for your enthusiastic greetings, Sev."
Snape's lips thinned as he mustered the woman beside him. In times past he could have discriminated her arrival through the inferno of riots and the stink of death, but it had been too long, and he had become too weak, and he had... forgotten. And there was always a price for the forgetting.
A little smile began to play around the corner of her mouth as she noticed his sour mood. "I somehow thought that I might find you here. Back in school, you and Lil always used to hang around up here", she explained in a light tone that clearly betrayed the cold, merciless calculation in her eyes. Playing with a strand of her gleaming hair, she eyed him openly, the deceitfully sweet smile still on her lips. "Do you remember the time when you..."
"Get to the point or leave me in peace", he interrupted her roughly, unused to words that meant absolutely nothing, and too tired to play this game of wits she was so talented at. These days he was tired of almost everything.
The smile became more honest, but still she stubbornly refused to leave him to his silence. "I don't think that you know what you want," she finally returned, using the words like a weapon as she gently caressed them lovingly to her own cause. That had always been her strategy, and she was the best when it came to games like these. Following his gaze down to the students beneath them, she sighed softly. "Innocent mankind playing in the Garden Eden", she observed in the same light tone as before. "Sheltered and guarded by a loving Godfather, also known as Albus Dumbledore."
He couldn't help but smirk at the comment as he finally turned towards her, taking a momentary risk that went against all of his instincts and immediately regretting it when he looked into her eyes. "And where does this leave us?" he asked, unable to keep his voice under the strict constraints of coldness.
Her smile widened while her eyes remained frightening blank. "Us? To the never quite appreciated roles of Judas Iscariot and the Whore of Babylon, I would think." Eventually she tore her gaze away from the students and stared intently at him, searching for a flicker of the man she once knew in the depths of his eyes. "They are so young", she whispered. "Oh, Severus, were we ever like this? Were we ever this heart-wrenching innocent?"
"We lived in a different time", the dark-haired man replied softly, despite himself feeling the old connection to her, the damn sympathy that had once nearly destroyed his life. "These children...they will never understand what greatness is, not like we did, and frankly I consider it better this way."
"Do you?" The blonde laughed a little, her ocean like eyes fixed on some distant point on the horizon only she could see. Then she sighed deeply. "Ah, Severus, do you recall those days? Lucius, you and me, we were the greatest thing this school ever knew. We had it all, power, reputation, glory and fear."
"Yeah, we had it all", he replied bitterly. "All the fame, all the power and all the despair."
Her smile was bittersweet and somehow melancholic. "Anything has it's price. The friendship with Lily meant peace, sure, but that was not the choice we made."
Severus shook his head, something missing from in the depths of his black eyes, a light that had been there before and was now conspicuously absent. "Was there a choosing?" His voice sounded tired even to him, but the remark was biting, holding a deeply hidden enmity. He hated her; oh how he hated her, this pale butterfly like beauty with whom he now spend his days. But then he loved her also, loved the person that she once had been and even that she was now; his love was as unconditional as hers. "Was there a time when we decided which path to take? I can't remember."
This time her smile was warmer. "Speak for yourself, Sev" she teased him, her voice somewhat softened. It almost seemed a return to the way things were, to the light and incense of childhood. But then she shook her head again, her eyes as distant as before. "I certainly made my choice. Wrong or right, I choose and I never felt regret."
He didn't answer to this but followed her gaze once more to the wide expanse of the garden which now laid in perfect silence before them. Everything was quiet, and at peace, but in the same time Snape couldn't help but feeling tortured.
What could be more of a purgatory than silence when within the silence you were prey to all the demons of your past, the regrets of your present and the uncertainty of your future?
Unwillingly he shook his head, feeling how the sudden movement increased his pain. "Dammit."
"Headache?" she asked softly. "Why the hell don't you take a potion against it?"
"Mind your own business, Morrigan!" he snapped, feeling the magic of the moment vanishing. Eying her angrily, he finally regained his composure. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
Still she smiled. "Obviously I wanted to see you."
"I didn't mean the Astronomy Tower", he shot back, annoyed at her calmness. Shaking his head angrily, he snorted loudly. "But then you probably don't know yourself why you have taken the Defence Against the Dark Arts Job. As I know you, you have probably seen the advertisement in the Daily Prophet and spontaneously decided to make my life a living hell by coming here to torture me!"
She arched an eyebrow, obviously amused at this statement. "Could be right", she admitted. The words are punctuated with a wink and a sparkling grin, the gesture tinged with the love and hatred that had remained of their shared life. "But then I am getting a good idea of what I am doing here."
His black eyes laid with frightening intensity on her, before he suddenly sighed heavily. "Why, Morrigan?" he asked tiredly. "Why this all?" He swept a hand out in an all-encompassing gesture, indicating the world, them, heaven, hell. Life and death.
She paused, caught off guard, and for a moment he believed to see a softening in her countenance that hadn't been there before. "I could ask you the same, you know", she said after a while, her voice tired, but at peace. As much at peace as she could be, anyway. Resting a weary head on his shoulder, she looked down at the gardens beneath them. "But even if we would tell each other our deep dark secrets, what sense would it make? Truth, after all, is a rather biased thing."
He smirked sadly, letting his fingers trailing through the golden silk of her hair, admiring the way it gleamed in the sun. "Of course it is. How else could we bring ourselves to believe it?"
Caressingly she touched his fingers. "I've missed you, Sev."
He hesitated for one moment. Then he gave in. "I've missed you, too."
Standing there in her warm embrace, Severus realized resigned that she hadn't answered his question but he knew that he would not push her further. It has always been this way with them. There were rules that both observed, boundaries they did not cross. Even in the face of death.
Her smile was less burdened than before, but now carried regret as she trailed a light kiss on his mouth. "I think you are a hypocrite, Sev", she informed him in a carefree tone, watching him for a reaction almost curiously. "You admit that you missed me and in the same time you refuse to acknowledge the past we once shared. The persons we were and still are."
Despite the wariness within him, the Potions Master still managed to summon the energy to glare at her. "You are the one to speak, Morrigan!" he snarled sarcastically, freeing himself out of her arms. "Always playing the sweet little girl so that mummy and daddy won't be disappointed in you. Isn't this role becoming fucking boring with the years?"
"I'll have you know that it is a hell of a lot more productive than holing up here and brooding like an overgrown bat over the past", she shot back in sudden fury like always refusing to see the things which did not suit her.
As they tried to stare each other down with exactly the same hateful expression in their equally cold eyes now, their dislike of one another was naked for one moment, invitingly so, for they both knew that they were at last honest to each other.
* Lily, you know how much Morrigan means to me, but please understand that you cannot trust her completely. She would carelessly cut you and laugh while you're bleeding when she's in the mood for it and I'm not joking *
The blonde was the first to regain her composure. "My poor Severus", she said softly. "So broken, so lost. Love must have been a Slytherin, don't you think?"
With these words she turned around and left him alone, never looking back.
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Heading back to the familiar comfort of his dungeons, Snape let himself sink in old memories of the days he had spent together with Morrigan in this place what seemed a lifetime ago. How the blonde had worn her beauty like armour. Daughter of fire and flames behind the face of heaven's most innocent angel. Even after all the years he could still recall the few times they had been together as if it were yesterday, could still recall the way he had felt almost clumsy next to her self-assured need. Grave soil and bits of crisp, broken flowers on the ground where they had laid down, taste of salt and desire on their skin. But loneliness, he added wistfully, loneliness had never been assuaged in their embrace. In the contrary, it had been doubled, multiplied with every moan, every stolen graze of fingertip on flesh.
Perhaps, he admitted to himself, perhaps it could have been different, could have been - his face twisted - comfort, if only he had been a bit less self-absorbed, less self-destructive and not so scandalously bitter. If only she had tried not to act like a cunning manipulative bitch but like the friend she had once truly been to him before all this madness started. Instead they had used each other; Snape because he had needed someone to fill the void Lily had left in his life and Morrigan because using people was what she did best. But as it had turned out, being lonely with someone else was even worse than being lonely by oneself.
And then Voldemort had stepped into his life. Voldemort who had chosen him for his weaknesses as much as his strengths, because he had foolishly assumed that they would make him easier to control. And for a while, it had been that way. Snape had been ruled by his need and his hunger, and in the name of sating that fierce desire, he had been quite...
He shook his head in rough denial, feeling how the movement increased the ache. For one moment he shut his eyes, then he continued his path.
Morrigan was right of course he could just brew himself a pain numbing solution - he was Hogwarts´ Potion Master for Merlin's sake! - but somehow he had stopped to mind the pain a long time ago; he had learned to accept it, to deal with it, to enjoy it, even, sometimes - admittedly in a sick sort of way. Suffering and desire, the best teachers one could have wished for had taught him that there was no difference; Voldemort, Lucius, Morrigan and least but not last Lily Evans.
Oh Lily, can you see us from wherever you are now? Can you see us tumbling on this blood-stained way, hoping that it will lead to salvation while at the same time fearing that we head towards hell?
He could still remember Lucius smiling wistfully, saying, "Nothing quite as attractive as pain" in a tone as if he were telling the world some sort of fucking revelation. How Morrigan had laughed at these words. "That's what it is all about", she had said after regaining posture. "We are not in love with each other. We are in love with the pain."
And she had been right like always.
Lucius. Morrigan. Himself.
He knew now that the bond between them had nothing to do with embraces, chaste or lust-filled. It had neither been about life nor soul. It had not been about love or friendship. It had been about pain.
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Author's Notes:
I have to admit that I'm rather nervous about what you think about the conversation between Snape and Morrigan. It was kind of hard to write it because I didn't want to give to many hints about the soon-to-come end of the story and now I really need some back-up. Please!
About my comparison with Judas and the Whore of Babylon; I just thought that Judas as the prototype of the spy and traitor would suit Snape. Concerning the whore...well, it seemed appropriate. Let me know what you think about it!