I promised more Snape in this one, so it shall be done. The first part of this is boring, sorry, but I had to put it in. It contributes to the plot. Also, thanks for reviewing, you guys really made my day!
Chapter 2
Snape stood very quickly from the table after Viola left, tossing his napkin onto his plate and hurriedly checking his watch. With a habitual glance along the Slytherin table at his students, he exited the Great Hall in a flurry of black robes.
The Entrance Hall of the school was deserted, save for a few first years, lucklessly trying to get directions from a suit of armour.
He made his way up the many flights of stairs and down even more torch lit hallways, before coming finally to the rather ugly stone gargoyle which marked the entrance to the Headmaster's office.
Dejectedly, he gave the password and stepped onto the moving staircase, dreading the meeting to come. Regaining his composure at the door, his unhappy visage firmly in place, he knocked politely on the heavy wooden door.
"Severus?" the Headmaster's cheery voice was already grating the Potions Master's nerves, but nonetheless he pushed open the door and greeted Dumbledore with a rather tense handshake.
"I've hardly spoken to you since the end of last term, Severus." Dumbledore commented, as the two men took seats across from each other. Fawkes fluttered weakly over to Snape and perched on the arm of his chair, losing a few red feathers in the process.
"He'll be burning soon," the older man said benignly, as if trying to avoid the real point to the meeting.
"I have a class soon, headmaster." Snape's voice was cold, but not rude. He simply made it quite clear that he would much rather not discuss his absence over the summer. He shuddered at the memories, which were flooding back into his mind under the calm gaze of the old man.
"Where were you, Severus?" Dumbledore looked concerned now, but Snape pushed his scowl up to it's fullest degree of severity, which could bring a young student to tears. Dumbledore, though, knew him, and knew how to get around him. Start with something simple . . . Dumbledore told himself. He had many years of practice in getting through to Snape.
"How is Viola faring in Slytherin?" He asked, much to Snape's surprise. The simple question worked though, and he visibly relaxed.
"She will be alright soon enough." he assured him. When it was obvious that he wasn't going to elaborate, Dumbledore advanced again with another question.
"Are the other students treating her alright?" he meant, of course, the other Slytherins. Severus could already see where the conversation was heading, and like a cunning game of chess, Dumbledore continued to corner him.
"I don't think they'll accept her too readily, Albus." he stated briefly, unwilling to expand his explanation. Dumbledore sat silently across from him, his hands steepled under his chin, deep in thought.
"Since she's in your house now, I think you should keep an eye on her. The hat wouldn't have switched her for no reason, and I think she may need some assistance before long."
"Of course, I am responsible for all my students." Severus shot back, and Dumbledore had to rethink his next question. The last thing he needed was Severus to get defensive.
"Don't do this, Severus." there was iron in his voice, the evasive pleasantness vanished completely.
"Then can we please get to the point so I can get to my class?" Severus asked, equally firm.
"Where were you all summer?" Dumbledore exploded, standing from his chair and pacing the office. "I was worried sick about you! No one knew where you had gone, I thought they had killed you!"
"I was where you told me to go." he reasoned coldly. "I was abroad, contacting various Death Eaters, also other members of our cause."
"Do you have any idea how much danger you could have put yourself in?" Dumbledore asked incredulously, his paternal nature showing through his ire.
"I can do no less, Albus." And there it was, the crack that showed through to the deep rooted despair. Severus hung his head momentarily, then straitened and stood up, no evidence whatsoever that he had said anything meaningful showed on his face. Dumbledore, however, was not about to just let him leave.
"Severus, listen to me." the kind voice brought the repellent man years into the past, when he had been a student, troubled and in pain. The headmaster sought his eye contact, and spoke slowly and deliberately.
"You have paid your debts, Severus. You've paid a hundredfold."
Self consciously, Severus seized his left forearm with his right hand, as if it had suddenly pained him. "I'll never stop paying." he said, black eyes burned into blue ones, and with a sweep of his long robes he exited the office, leaving Dumbledore quite ill at ease.
What had started as a strange tingling sensation had escalated into mind shattering pain as the Potions's Master ran down the hallway, desperate to apparate so he could be rid of the agony that the Dark Mark was spilling into his veins. It was a long way to the school gates, though, and by the time he got there he had lost all ability to move his arm.
As soon as he passed the gates he was mercifully whisked away to face his greatest fear.
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The end of the day found Viola in her Dormitory, hidden by the curtains of her bed, confronting her own dark side.
She leaned back against the headboard in some travesty of relaxation and calm, but in reality she felt as if her entire body was one tightly coiled muscle, shaking uncontrollably. Her right arm lay spiritless in her lap, numb and bloody. She used her left arm to drag a small razor blade across her skin, ignoring the pain and watching the thin lines fill with blood and overflow to soak her robes.
She thought back to dinner and almost started crying again. Why do they hate me so much? She wondered to herself, giving the razor a painful little twist. She had just been sitting there, really, she wasn't bothering anyone. Just eating her dinner. Brandon walked by the place where she was sitting, followed by his unpleasant looking friends. He reached out and ruffled her short hair as he passed, smirking cutely as she whirled around to face him.
"See you later." he said. She smiled at him and nodded, turning back to her meal, thinking maybe Slytherin wouldn't be too bad after all. How could it, with someone as gorgeous as Brandon Carter who seemed to like her?
She was ripped out of her daydream by a group of girls sitting near her, giggling furiously. They kept looking at her, so Viola ventured to ask what was so funny.
I should have just kept my mouth shut, she reflected, flexing her stiff fingers and mopping up some of the blood with a wad of Kleenex.
The girls looked at her like she was some nasty piece of garbage. Normally Viola would have glared right back, but she was feeling greatly humbled by the Slytherins since she had become one, and she quailed under their contemptible gaze. These were the girls that had to share a room with her, so she knew they hated her. Despite herself, she was rather afraid.
The door to the room swung open, and she heard the other girls come in. They were laughing at something, and she stayed as still as possible, worried that any sound of movement would betray her presence. She clenched her fists around the Kleenex, the sudden exertion causing more blood to seep out over her pale skin. She could hear them moving around the room, talking and giggling, oblivious to Viola who was curled up in the fetal position, she tense that her nails were digging into the flesh of her palms.
At dinner, they had scared her.
"You got eyes for Brandon?" a girl named Dannica asked, her almond shaped eyes glittered wretchedly. Viola frowned, shrinking back from them and nervously shredding her napkin. She didn't answer them, since no witty remark had yet come to her.
"Listen, you filthy mudblood, 'cause I'll tell you once." Dannica continued, leaning forward aggressively. "You are not a Slytherin, you are a muggle. You don't deserve to be anywhere near Brandon."
"But if all goes well," interjected another girl, also leaning forward and crossing her arms across her ample chest. "Soon you won't even have the option." she smiled like she had said something obscure and meaningful. The gist of her comment was lost on Viola, though, who merely stood and left the Hall, choking on the sobs lodged in her throat.
She didn't even notice what she was doing until the blood started to pour. It was uncontrollable, a damaging habit she could not give up. Sometimes the smallest insignificant things could trigger a near death experience, and Viola was more afraid every time. The swirling fog enveloped her brain, bent on seeing blood. The slam of the door, signalling the departure of the other girls, was enough to clear the red mist from her eyes, and her entire body relaxed, giving way to exhaustion. Viola wrapped the duvet about herself and fell into a feverish sleep.
While Viola was holed up in her dorm, Brandon Carter was in the common room with his friends. They were in high good humour, sprawled on armchairs in the heat of the fire, flipping through magazines.
"This is gonna be a great year," said a rotund lad named Miles, who was reading the Daily Prophet.
'What makes you say that?" Brandon asked, turning his magazine sideways and flipping out the centerfold, not really paying attention to the answer.
"My dad says some things are gonna happen . . ." Miles explained, his grey eyes wide with rather fierce excitement. "There is gonna be some huge changes around here." he turned the page of the newspaper, skimming through a critical article about the school's stability.
"Anything good in there?" Said the fifth year Draco Malfoy, who had just entered the common room and took a seat on the floor by Miles and glanced at the paper.
"Sure, bit about your dad, actually." he indicated the front page, which had a glowering photo of Lucius Malfoy. "Word's got out that the Dark Lord is back, and your daddy's being questioned." he sneered at the younger boy.
"Father's been questioned before." Malfoy sneered right back, but his voice lost it's arrogant drawl for a second. "Besides, your acting like your parents have nothing to do with Voldemort."
"I'll bet they'll interrogate all of our parents eventually," Brandon said.
"Everyone who was on trial before." Malfoy insisted. "Not just my father."
"They'll probably be much more . . . strict with the trials this time . . . no more of that bullshit, like if you give enough names you go free. They'll lock them all up right away." Miles looked nervous.
"That's what my parents are saying." Brandon said thoughtfully. He turned to a girl named Alison Nott, a small sort of person, left nervous and bent from years of hard beatings by her father. Her eyes never seemed to leave the floor, and lank hair hung over very intelligent eyes, which twitched every now and then. "Isn't your mum a school governor?" he asked her.
"Y-yes." she replied slowly. Her stutter seemed to get worse every year. "She s-s-said s-s-security has been t-tight-tightened around the s-school." she smirked evilly, "To p-protect the l-little mudbl-blood bastards who dared to c-c-come back."
"Ah, fuck the mudbloods." Malfoy said vehemently, tossing his newspaper into the fire, scattering sparks all over Alison who made no move to brush them off.
"Th-they'll b-b-be gone s-soon, M-Miles." Alison said, watching the last spark go out in her lap. Her evil smile returned. In the fireplace, the discarded Daily Prophet curled up on itself in burned, the moving picture of Lucius Malfoy on the front page looking a bit distressed as the flame approached.
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Viola woke in a cold sweat, stifling a terrified moan as she bolted upright in bed. The nightmarish images continued to plague her thoughts, and, afraid to fall asleep again, she left the dormitory.
The fire had burned low in the common room, casting dark, flickering shadows around chairs and tables. The ornate clock over the hearth told her that it was two in the morning. The large, foreboding room was empty, and Viola felt safe.
She sank herself into a chair as close to the fire as she could get, but the warmth threatened to put her back to sleep, so she was forced to distance herself from the comfort of the glowing embers. She attempted to flex the fingers of her right hand, but they were stiff and didn't want to move. She would have to heal them somehow.
She decided on a quick walk to the Potions classroom. It would be an ideal place for her to brew a simple healing draught, and even a dreamless sleep potion so she could go back to bed. No one would interrupt her at this time of night, she was sure, and so she left the common room with that destination in mind.
The dark, hooded figure made his way silently through the hallways of the castle dungeons quietly. He was weary and dispirited, slightly drunk and in desperate need of sleep.
There would be no sleep for Severus Snape, though, not after what he had just seen. He brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes, shocked when his hand came back bloody. The meeting at the Malfoy Manor had been brief, but brutal. His body ached with dark bruises and lingering soreness from cruciatus. He resolved to talk to Dumbledore about altering rules for disaparating in the school grounds. He could not afford to be late for another congregation.
A wave of intense nasua overtook him as he rounded a corner and he almost retched, leaning heavily on the wall. The complaint passed, though, and he was able to continue towards his private quarters.
On his way passed, he noticed that there was alight burning in his classroom, and the door was slightly ajar. He could faintly hear a cauldron simmering inside. Annoyance surged through him. The last thing he wanted to deal with was a student out of bed past curfew. He hesitated at the door, and peered inside.
Viola Rienne was inside, two cauldrons bubbling merrily as she prepared and hastily added ingredients to each in turn. Her short hair was sticking up in all directions, and she was still wearing her uniform robe. Her face was drawn and pale, and she looked drowsy. One of the cauldrons was spewing out purple smoke in the way that only a dreamless sleep potion can, and he was briefly reminded of Dumbledore's earlier statement, that she might be in some trouble.
Also, he noticed, she was doing things one handed for the most part. Her left hand worked deftly while the right just hung at her side, and when she did use it, it was clumsy. Only when she dropped a vial of some unidentified ingredient did he enter the classroom.
She gasped and shrunk back against the work table, afraid of the hooded figure that entered the room. Quickly, he removed the hood and she appeared even more frightened of his deeply lacerated face. Blushing crimson, she crouched down to clean up the mess of the spilled bottle.
"Do you know what time it is?" he asked her, suddenly very angry to see her in his classroom. Her eyes turned to her cauldrons, one of which was starting to boil over. "Sleep potion? Healing draught? What the hell is this all about?" She backed away from him a few steps, cowering under his rage. He made to knock the cauldrons off the table, but thought better of it. His rage deflating, he grabbed a coffee mug off his desk and dipped it into the healing potion.
Her eyes widened as he threw his head back and drank it all in one gulp. She watched, fascinated, as the cuts shrank and disappeared, leaving only stray streaks of dried blood, which he wiped off on his sleeve. For a second she was pleased that the Potions Master of Hogwarts trusted her work enough to actually drink it. He placed the empty mug on the worktable, close to her as if daring her to follow suit. Bravely, she reached out and placed her hand on the mug.
Faster than her eyes could follow, his hand had lashed out and had her wrist in a vicelike grip. The dim light from the cauldron fire threw his face into sharp relief as he stared searchingly at her. Impulsively she tried to pull away, but he held her tight, so close he could hear her heart pounding in her chest.
"Your potion worked well . . ." he murmured, so quietly she almost didn't hear him. "The physical pain is completely gone." She vaguely suspected that he was mocking her, but thoughts were fleeting. His hand felt so warm on the bare flesh of her wrist, and at the close proximity to the taller man she could almost feel his words gliding over her. He pulled her closer to him, his mouth now quite close to hers. His eyes burrowed into hers, and her legs almost gave out.
He turned his head to whisper in her ear. "But what's hurting you, Viola?" Her first name rolled off his tongue and his words were smooth, almost sensual, but strait to the point. She realized that he was slurring slightly, and she could faintly smell vodka on him. Never breaking eye contact with him, she wrenched her arm out of his hand and grabbed the mud, filling it hurriedly and drinking it down. He stared coldly at her, backing away just a step.
The potion went down easily and sweet tasting, spreading a pleasant feeling throughout her entire body. Feeling returned to her right arm and she clenched and unclenched the fingers behind her back to get circulation back into the deadened appendage.
Surprisingly, Snape's face broke into a grin, but Viola would have much preferred his usual scowl. It was an evil type of smile, that came with a crafty arched eyebrow. Gwendolen was so right, Viola thought to herself, almost melting under his gaze, her stomach twisting into nervous knots.
He leaned back against the work table, crossing his arms over his chest and flicking some hair out of his eyes with a deft toss of his head. "That takes care of the physical pain, then, doesn't it?" his voice was hard as diamonds, and cut through her defences similarly. A lonely tear rolled down her cheek, glittering in the dim light from the cauldron. She continued to stare levelly at him, refusing to say anything, in case her mouth betrayed her mind.
His gaze travelled smoothly from her eyes to the sleeping potion, which appeared to be ready.
"But pain is rarely just physical, isn't it?" he asked rhetorically, dipping the mug into the second cauldron and handing it to her, eyes narrowed now. He looked as if he was going to say more, but instead he turned away and started to clean up the mess she had made of the classroom.
"I'll do that," she offered, stepping toward him hesitantly, and she almost screamed when he whirled around on her, suddenly quite furious.
"Go to bed." he said through gritted teeth, and she knew he meant it. Slowly, she backed out of the classroom, not turning her back on him until she was in the hallway. She ran back to her dorm, her mind reeling from the persistent effects of his closeness. There was something so delightfully sinister about him, prominent the way his lips brushed her earlobe as he whispered her name in his velvety voice. She drank the potion in her dorm and fell onto her bed, the feeling of his strong hand on her wrist still caressing the back of her mind as she fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.
True to his prior assumption, Severus Snape would not be sleeping that night. He continued to clean the classroom, carefully rearranging his shelves and store cupboards. Keep moving, he told himself. Keep moving and don't think. Thoughts were bad things at a time like this, after meeting Voldemort. Thoughts always turned dark.
His eyes kept straying to the sleeping potion, enticing him until he was forced to pour it down the drain. He had used it far too much lately, and he was starting to develop a mild dependancy on the stuff. Throughout the remainder of the night, one thought kept slipping back into his troubled mind. Viola.
Her soft skin under his hands, the smell of her hair while he whispered in her ear, such strength when she pulled away from him. Keep moving . . .
Don't think.
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that was rather odd, but fun to visualize. . . man I love Snape . . .