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CLAWS
OF A RAVEN
by Tyde
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Chapter Twenty Three
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He was sitting on the straw strewn floor of his cell with a far away look in his eyes. Old tears had stained his cheeks and made little rivers through the dirt that was smudged into his pale skin. He looked lonely and in pain. The rattle of Dementors outside the door caused fresh tears to fall as the memories he'd hope to forget came back with a vengeance. No sound came from his mouth, weeks of imprisonment at Azkaban will do that to a man. During the day your voice is absent, but it is nighttime when the screams come out.
The heavy wooden door creaked open on it's rusted hinges as someone was permitted entry. He didn't even turn his head to acknowledge the entrance of his sister. The pent up fury at her brother had not let her become affected by the Dementors. If it hadn't, she would have been no use to anybody, curled up in a corner and shaking like a leaf.
Sorora charged right up to him, bent down and slapped him across the face, slicing his cheek open with the sharp edge of her engagement ring. Blood came to the surface and formed a line, the start of which met with his ear. Droplets of blood dripped from his ear onto the collar of his robes and the dank air of the cell stung his open wound.
"You SODDING BASTARD! After all those years that I tried to HELP YOU! This, THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?!"
Her voice echoed loudly off the scum covered walls and it seemed to shake him a little from his semi-conscious state, if only for a few moments.
His eyes travelled slowly up her robes and settled on her charcoal eyes that matched his own.
"Hello Sorora"
He seemed to have trouble focusing and looked away again. His head wobbled slightly like voices in his head were fighting with each other for supremacy.
"HELLO?? Are you insane??!! You don't hello someone whose husband you killed!"
Snape looked up at her again. "Why would I kill your husband?" he slurred. He didn't look puzzled...he looked like a nurse had medicated him up to the eyeballs and he was trying desperately to grasp onto reality.
"Because you do that. That's what you do. You're a Death Eater and you never did change back to our side. You hate me and you go out of your way to make me hate you"
"You've flipped haven't you?" It was almost jovial the way he spoke and it was incensing her. "What has Albus been spiking your drink with?"
"Don't you talk about Albus!" she screamed pointing a finger at him. "You betrayed him just as much as you did me, even more so. He stood up for you over this whole Butterbeer thing but he shouldn't have. He told me to trust you, that you'd never be in league with You Know Who again. What else have you been doing over the years to people at Hogwarts?" She started pacing back and forth resisting the urge to begin pounding him with her fists. It was too soon, she wanted to verbally abuse him before she started beating him. "Two students and a house elf died because of you"
His eyebrow rose up and he shook his head a little. "Students? What are you talking about? How?" He struggled to his feet and swayed slightly.
"The poison killed two Hufflepuffs. They must have been in so much agony those few days as they lay in the hospital wing just waiting to die. That's what you made it for, right? You didn't care who it was though, did you? As long as it was a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff or a Ravenclaw that was wiped out, not your precious Slytherin. Oh no, that would just be SUCH a tragedy. But kill someone from another house, that'll be fine, that'll fit with His plan. Well I hope you're happy. They closed down Hogwarts because of you. Albus refuses to leave and I won't leave either" She looked down at the ground then, emotions hitting her at the exact wrong moment. "Because Julian came back to me there," she whispered.
"I thought you said he was dead"
A resounding crack sounded as she slapped him across the face and he stumbled slightly, a hand raising to his cheek and a surly look coming over his eyes.
"SHUT UP!"
She ran her hands through her hair and breathed through her nostrils loudly. "He's a...a ghost. You killed him! He told me. He said you tortured him. And I know what that feels like. Your friend Lucius Malfoy showed me plenty of that. Is he sitting in his stupid manor now laughing at me? Did you two have it all planned from the beginning? Your pathetic attempt at trying to make me believe that he looked down on you. Where did you think that would get you?"
She was clenching and unclenching her fists as she spoke and her fingers itched to grab him around the throat and not let go until his heart stopped beating. The guards at the entrance to Azkaban had taken her wand and all she had were her hands as weapons. As she'd said to Julian earlier, that suited her just fine.
"But I'm not here for me, I'm here for Julian. He came back to me because he needed his vengeance and I can do it for him"
Snape looked at her in surprise as his head started to clear. This was his little sister, the one that had always been pushed around at school, the one that cowered in front of bullies. The one that had meddled in his life and had blown his cover effectively sentencing him to death all those years ago. She'd been light-weight, fluffy almost, and now here she stood with her hair wild and her eyes filled with death.
With a snarl she leapt at her brother and knocked him to the floor. He cracked his head painfully on the stone floor and cried out. She was laying into him with a punch here and a kick there. Sorora held him down by a heel to his chest as she reached into her robes for something. She produced and sprinkled some dust over his body while chanting an incantation Cesso agitatio. It was messier and a little more trouble than a Body Bind curse but it had the same effect.
She sat down on his chest and calmly wrapped her hands around his throat. Then she started to squeeze.
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Author's note: Sorry for the short chapter *cough*hehehe*cough*
jasmin flower – I'd have a few words to say to myself too hehe. Do you honestly think I'd kill our darling Severus, just to further the plot? :o) hehehe
