Chapter Twenty Three
"Miss D'Souza!" snapped the insistent voice of Professor Sinistra, "kindly pay attention!"
Eleanora jerked her head up off the desk and rubbed her bleary eyes hard. The darkened room swam into focus and she found herself staring up into the luminous violet eyes of her unusually irate astronomy teacher.
"Sorry," she muttered, and busied herself with her pile of open books and scribbled star-charts. The figures and diagrams danced erratically before her tired gaze and she squinted vainly at them, attempting to make some sense of the seemingly random configurations.
Glancing over at Ron's star-chart she realised with a dull jolt that her own was placed upside down. She quickly turned it the right way up, looking around to see whether anyone had noticed her inane error, and continued her study of the unwieldy parchment, her brow furrowed with concentration.
However, try as she might to absorb herself in the secondary lunar cycle of Ganymede, her mind drifted indolently this way and that, bringing certain things that she would rather forget into a painfully sharp focus
Such as the duelling lesson of the previous night.
Her stomach constricted uncomfortably at the mere memory of Snape's expression as he had shaken her, his long fingers digging painfully into her shoulders in wrath. His eyes had burned with a freezing fire; their fathomless depths ablaze with consuming anger, and the deep baritone of his voice had reverberated loudly around the gallery, its usual mellifluous tones replaced with the harsh timbre of long fermented bitterness and deep loathing.
She had shuddered with a strange mixture of fear and exhilaration, her skin prickling at his nearness, so close that his hot breath burned upon her cheeks and she was enveloped in that bewitching, heady scent that seemed to emanate from the black, liquid depths of his robes. Something of this strange delight must have shown in her eyes, because he had thrown her roughly away from him, relinquishing his grip as if she had burnt him.
Sleep had eluded her for much of the night, her restless mind snatching any vestige of rest from her clammy grasp, leaving her tossing hotly under the heavy blankets, the frigid light of the moon half illuminating her troubled face as it slanted across her disordered pillows.
She closed her smarting eyes, trying to cool their feverish itch, and passed a cool hand over her blazing forehead. Her head reeled with a seditious commotion of thoughts and she hardly heard Hermione's concerned voice at her side.
"Eleanora?" she whispered softly. "Are you alright?"
She nodded, opening her eyes a fraction. Hermione leaned over her, her own completed star chart clutched under her arm, wearing a look of maternal anxiety.
"I'm fine," she reassured her, blinking hard.
"You look exhausted," Hermione said sympathetically.
Eleanora managed a weak grin.
"What do you expect when they drag us up here for lessons at two in the morning?" she groused, checking her wrist watch.
"But you can only see Ganymede at certain times of the night," Hermione protested, wide-eyed. "And you wouldn't want to miss it, would you?"
She was met with a stony silence as Eleanora stared at her sceptically.
"Frankly 'Mione," she replied wearily, heavily crossing out her untidy scrawls, "For all I care bloody Ganymede could be parading round the common room wearing George's lucky Quidditch pants.
Hermione sighed, and glanced around the candle-lit room. Leaning further over the tired girl, she whispered in censorious tones,
"Just this once."
Unfurling her own neatly drawn chart, she laid it out on the desk in front of Eleanora.
Grinning up at her friend, Eleanora mouthed her gratitude.
"Thanks 'Mione. I owe you one."
Hermione smiled tightly.
"Two, actually," she sighed. "The Numerology homework last week, remember?"
Eleanora stifled a snigger. "Oh yeah – good job you're keeping track."
For the next few minutes she immersed herself quickly copying down Hermione's painstaking notes and figures onto her own parchment, which she noted with a scowl was criss-crossed with her own untidy scrawls and ink-blots. Taking out her wand, she performed a simple removal charm, vanishing the ink stains and her numerable errors.
A sudden clap of Professor Sinistra's hands signified the end of the lesson and Eleanora hastily packed up her books and deposited her completed parchment into the professor's waiting hands. Flanked by a loudly yawning Ron and Hermione, she made her way out of the classroom, and trod heavily down the dark staircase, clutching at the walls for support, as her fatigued legs felt likely to buckle under her at any moment. She was too tired even to offer up some sly remark as Ron chivalrously helped Hermione down the stairs, his hand lingering on the small of her back.
"Night," he mumbled, his eyes already half closed in sleep, as they parted at the staircase that led to their respective dormitories.
"Morning, more like," corrected Eleanora grumpily, as she followed Hermione to their beds, flinging her books and robes carelessly to the floor, ignoring Lavender's aggravated grunts as she was woken by the clamour.
Not even bothering to undress, she collapsed clumsily onto her bed, swinging her booted feet up and muttering,
"Divestio."
The boots instantly disappeared from her aching feet and appeared neatly placed at the foot of the bed. Many years of apathy when it came to the orderliness of her surroundings had resulted in her being able to cast a near perfect wandless divesting charm, originally borne out of her mother's insistence that the very reluctant nine year old Eleanora should tidy her room before being allowed to play with her broomstick.
Her cheek rubbed against the starched pillow as she struggled to find a comfortable position. She winced as she inadvertently leaned on her wrist, sharp lances of pain leaping up her arm. Despite her best efforts with a simple healing charm, the fracture had refused to mend itself and whilst the bruising was minimal the residual pain was certainly not. Having initially disobeyed Snape's orders to go to the infirmary, she would be damned if she was going to acquiesce now and would rather endure the constant ache than explain herself to the staid Madame Pomfrey and admit that she had once again been felled by the irascible potions master.
As the hushed darkness, punctuated only by Sally-Anne's light snores, lulled her into a restless slumber, images of Snape's sneering visage seeped into her exhausted mind, echoes of his angry tirade resounding in the silence of the night.
* * * * * * * * * * *
The flickering flames danced riotously in the fireplace, throwing bright shapes out into the darkened room, illuminating a seated figure, sat stiffly in a high backed leather armchair. The sombre figure stared ahead into the crackling blaze, motionless except for the incessant drumming of lengthy, pale fingers upon the arm of the chair.
Severus Snape was troubled, his discontent manifesting itself in the deep crease that furrowed his pallid forehead, and the cadaverous look that had settled over his gaunt features like a translucent shroud. He lifted one trembling hand to a bottle that stood on a nearby table and grasped it roughly by its neck. The amber liquid within glowed in the firelight as he poured a generous measure into a stout glass tumbler, setting the bottle back down with a clatter.
Raising the glass, he paused, an acrimonious sneer playing upon his lips. He held the tumbler in a silent, bitter toast, staring down accusingly at his left forearm. The pale skin shone in the gloom, heavily marked by an ugly black stain, which seemed to radiate malignity. A snake slid menacingly from the empty eye socket of a bleached white skull, its fleshless jaw contorted into a hideous leer. The serpent rose, its forked tongue lashing, its eyes glinting malevolently.
Snape stared down at the brand, his eyes narrowing with abhorrence. With a sudden tumult of movement he angrily hurled his untouched tumbler into the leaping flames, the glass shattering, spilling its tawny contents into the blaze, which spat furiously, licking hungrily at the surrounding stone.
Exhausted by his frenzied eruption of emotion, he sank back down into the depths of the well-worn chair; his head slumping wearily into his hands, which felt uncomfortably searing against his clammy forehead.
Yet another night spent in the intoxicating company of ole' Ogden's, he thought with a sardonic smile. Leaning back, he relished the sensation of the amber liquid coursing throughout his veins, thawing the glacial chill that gripped his body and dulling the powerful ache that pervaded his every waking moment.
Sleep had cruelly evaded him for a second night, and not even his usual cocktail of Dreamless Sleep potion and a hearty measure of Ogden's could sooth his overwrought mind, teeming with clamouring thoughts and shrill, relentless voices.
His eyes stung with fatigue, yet to close them was unthinkable. Their cool relief of unblemished blackness was always quickly dispersed, replaced by the laughing visage of a young woman, eyes gleaming with joy, head thrown back in mirth.
Her voice rang melodiously in his head, and in his light-headed inebriation he almost fancied that he could hear her whisper to him, her lips delicately caressing the soft shell-like curve of his ear, the balmy zephyr of her breath warming the sensitive skin at the nape of his neck.
Shuddering, at the absurdity of his imaginings, he hauled himself gauchely out of his chair, weaving slightly as he walked slowly across the room. The pale stretch of dawn sky that hung outside the one enchanted window elicited a deep frown, and he turned unsteadily on his bare heel, his boots having been discarded many hours before.
The door to his private stores clicked softly as he opened it with an unsteady hand. In the near darkness, he groped about the numerous shelves, locating the desired bottles and jars as if by touch alone. Vivid red Pepper-Up potion, to return the strength to his weary body, Madame Breezy's Awake-Easy, a commercially brewed tincture, but effective nevertheless and a small jar of what looked like gaudily coloured sherbet, bearing the neatly scribed instructions, "Imbibe after excess consumption of Ogden's Firewhiskey."
Snape threw back his head and let a generous amount of the bright red potion flow into his mouth. The taste was evidently unpleasant as he nearly gagged, wiping his mouth roughly with the sleeve of his creased robes. Madame Breezy's offering was clearly more palatable, though he scowled disdainfully at the ridiculously flamboyant pink bottle. Summoning a glass of water from the adjacent room, he mixed into it the vibrant powder, and then downed the shimmering solution in one gulp, slamming the glass back down onto the table, a grimace etched upon his face, by now regaining its usual sallow hue.
Though, he thought darkly, as he entered his bed chamber, slamming the door behind him, I doubt the entire contents of the stores would properly equip me for the undoubted horrors of a double OWL lesson with Slytherin and Gryffindor first thing in the morning.
Whilst he made no attempts to hide his deep enmity to Gryffindor house, he doubted whether anyone could see past his blatantly affected favouritism to his brood of Slytherins to see that he despised them with the same, if not deeper, antipathy. He scorned the rash gallantry of Hogwart's golden house, and never missed an opportunity to belittle an unfortunate student's attempts to exhibit such foolhardy behaviour, but whilst the Gryffindor failing may be a largely selfless one, the root of Slytherin's many short-comings were entirely egocentric, nowhere better illustrated than in that insufferable upstart, Malfoy.
As far as he could see, the millennia of supposedly good pedigree in the Malfoy family had resulted in nothing but extraordinary levels of in-breeding, an overdeveloped sense of self-importance and a distasteful, though long running affiliation with the Crabbes and the Goyles of the wizarding world.
Snape shrugged off his crumpled robes, directing them with a swift flick of the hand to a large ebony chest that stood in the corner of his bed chamber. Standing in only his underclothes, he traced a finger down a deep groove in the dark wood panelling that lined the oppressive room. Suddenly a narrow chasm opened up in the wall, revealing a pristine bathroom, resplendent in deepest black marble and porcelain. Snape stepped inside, closing the rift with another feather-light touch. A large gothic mirror dominated one wall of the room, thunderous snores emanating from its overwhelming form.
Snape pointed an idle finger at the mirror, muttering under his breath. The snoring stopped short, giving way to a roaring voice which echoed throughout the cavernous room.
"Selinius, m'boy!" it boomed in rousing greeting, the vast frame trembling with its force.
Snape made no reply. The last thing he needed right now was a conversation with a senile enchanted mirror, let alone a vociferous one.
"What time do you call this?" the mirror persisted, its tone amusedly reproachful.
Snape stepped out of his underclothes and turned his attention to a vast selection of dials and taps that decorated the wall of the immense shower. Powerful jets of steaming water issued forth as if from nowhere, drenching the tired man in soothing heat.
The mirror bellowed even louder, but its voice was lost amidst the torrent of surging water.
"Been on a bit of a bender have we Selinius, old boy?" it chortled. "That's the spirit – enjoy it while you still can!"
Under the steady deluge of the shower, all Snape could hear was the rhythmic pounding of the hot water upon his aching body, drowning out the voices that demanded to be heard. He ran his hands through his hair which hung in wet strands over his face and neck, just long enough to brush his broad shoulders.
Murmuring a simple cleaning charm, a rich lather appeared, foaming under his hands which roughly kneaded his scalp. He knew that it would do no good though, and that after a lesson spent leaning over the torrid fumes of a cauldron, his hair would once again be reduced to the customary limp tendrils. Still, he mused sardonically, most of the school would be shocked beyond belief to discover that he even knew what shampoo was, let alone allow it near his hair.
His hair rinsed clean, he charmed his hands, soaping his taut body free of the sour odour that a night spent in a cold sweat had afforded him. Calloused hands ran over pale skin, long fingers cautiously avoiding the chaos of angry red scars that ran amok over his back, carving across the ashen expanse like a black canvas for the brutal illustration of his enslavement.
He closed his eyes against the water as he tipped back his head, stretching out his body like a taut spring.
His lithe limbs ached not only with the exhaustion of a sleepless night but with a suppressed longing, which he had long struggled to keep under restraint, which threatened at any moment to overtake his fraught mind and make his body the instrument of it's reckless will.
Severus Snape was after many years of largely enforced loneliness, a solitary individual, whose irascible persona won him few friends and brusquely pushed away those rare few who infiltrated his enduring smokescreen of intimidation and terrorisation. It had been many long years since he had craved the company of another, his innate desire for companionship eroded by the distrust and cynicism instilled in him by the clandestine nature of his work.
Yet now he found himself unconsciously longing for the conversation, company and even the loving touch of another. Try as he might to quash this disconcerting yearning, he found that the more violently he tried to deny it, the more forceful the craving became, as if it fed off his refutation, growing in intensity and power at his every attempt to quell it.
It had crept up on him slowly, silently shadowing him, tittering behind his back like a teasing schoolgirl, whispering tauntingly in his ear, then pulling his well-trodden rug of repression from under his feet, laughing wildly as he struggled upon the floor, trying to regain his balance and then lock up the irritating feeling, imprison it and deny its existence.
She was just a girl for Merlin's sakes.
Admittedly, not just any girl, but that made little odds when considered in terms of black and white. She was a mere girl, as yet untainted by the filth of living in the shadow of the Dark Lord, and he was a man, polluted and aged by forever acting the pawn in the game between his two masters, standing on opposite sides of the chequered board. He was darkness, she was light; he was sullied, she was pure; he was hopelessly bewitched by her, she was undoubtedly appalled by him.
He had vainly tried to survey his feelings for the girl, but had been foiled at every twist and turn he made in his exploration of the dark, neglected corners of his mind that had been long reserved for this sort of feeling, yet had lain empty, dormant for many years. She had reignited a flame within him that had been extinguished when he was little older than she, its tender glow doused in the icy waters of accountability and illicit deeds.
That night in the Duelling Gallery, he had felt the sudden surge of long absent desire scream though his body, awakening every dulled nerve and blazing in his fingertips, pressing hard into her rigid shoulders. Fighting back the urge to swoop down and envelop her mouth with his, stemming her angry harangue, he had violently pushed her away, burying his trembling hands in his pockets, and averting his gaze, lest she see the smouldering embers of lust that burned within.
As he moved his hands over his lean body removing every trace of soap, he found himself wishing, willing his hands to be hers, his heart beat quickening at the thought of those slim, ink-stained fingers caressing the wiry plains of his body, and running through his hair as he had often seen her absently stroke that wayward mane of hers.
He closed his eyes, a low, guttural moan escaping his lips. Glancing down, he became aware of his growing arousal, and the dull pang of longing that pulled insistently at his groin. Feeling nothing but a growing sense of shame at the prospect of another pleasureless discharge, Snape leaned resignedly against the slick marble wall, one hand turning up the pummelling pressure of the hot shower, the other giving release to the unappeasable force of his desire.
Outside the roar of the steaming shower, the mirror stridently held court over the empty bathroom.
"You need to find yourself a girl, Selinius, old chap!"